We need a total re-write of polling methods and the BPC need an urgent independent enquiry. Make no mistake, this is an unmitigated polling cock up.
From memory the BBC poll of polls was showing something like: Tory 34, Lab 33, UKIP 13. LD 8 and the actual looks like Tory 36, Lab 31, UKIP 13, LD 8 which is within MoE. It's FPTP which makes the seats results such a lottery.
You think "within MoE" is a legitimate thing to say about an average of a large number of polls?
And yet you understand Ther Science on AGW better than all the rest of us. Well done.
We need a total re-write of polling methods and the BPC need an urgent independent enquiry. Make no mistake, this is an unmitigated polling cock up.
From memory the BBC poll of polls was showing something like: Tory 34, Lab 33, UKIP 13. LD 8 and the actual looks like Tory 36, Lab 31, UKIP 13, LD 8 which is within MoE. It's FPTP which makes the seats results such a lottery.
That's MoE but at the end all the polls were showing basically the same thing. That can't all be MoE - either they were systemically wrong, or the voters moved the goalposts after the last interviews or both.
What is true is that any single given pollster (except YouGov because they polled so much) may have been MoE - for example, ICM was mainly showing something closer to the result, except that very last poll, so maybe they just got unlucky despite a basically sound methodology.
So 2015 is the new 1992. Cameron's challenge is to make sure 2020 is not the new 1997. With a big split on Europe coming up, things look difficult
I think this is more like 1955 than 1992.
1992 was all about the Tories just about hanging on, but people forget they lost a LOT of seat's that they won in the 83 and 87 landslides.
This election is about the Conservative not just hanging on, but entrenching and in many cases improving their position while Labour has fallen back further.
Those that criticised the Tory campaign (and I include myself) have to give credit for something truly incredible here. Cameron went on the attack looking for the seats that he needed for the majority. I criticised him for it yesterday morning bemoaning the fact that he spent so long in Lib Dem seats instead of seeking to protect the seats he was going to lose to Labour.
He was absolutely spot on. Incredibly so. Just an amazing result. This eclipses Major's result in 1992. Cameron has done something almost everyone, including me, thought was impossible.
Someone needs to explain how the Tories won.
If they won by creating an English Nationalism where hatred of Scotland is the priority, then perhaps that might not be what you want./
That's the response of a bitter loser - just like Labour speakers. It's much easier for them to do that than consider what they did wrong.
Scotland won. 56 out of 59 MPs. Tories lost, Labour lost, Lib Dems need to be removed from being a "Major Party". UKIP need to be removed from being a "Major Party". Greens did on. SNP won the election.
There has been a significant change off circumstances.
How have we lost? We're up in MPs and have an overall majority. Take your head out of your arse and stop inspecting the Scottish navel - your MPs aren't relevant. Your "progressive alliance" lost.
The SNP got exactly the result it wanted in both Scotland and the UK.
The SNP is very clearly panicked by the Tory victory. They are in danger of becoming the Aunt Sallies of Scottish politics.
If Labour had held onto every one of their 41 Scottish seats, they still would have lost this election, and there'd still be a Tory maj/close to a Tory maj.
Astonishing.
Hasnt stopped the Labouristas pretending its all Scotland's fault.
When its not David Cameron's fault for stirring up the Nats.....
How are there seats in the middle of England that havent declared at 9am while all of Northern Ireland and the Western Isles have declared and WI was one of the earliest declarations and Orkney and Zetland with like 150 islands with people declared at 4am?
The left divide, the Tories win. We learnt that in the 80s. Shame we have to learn that lesson the hard way all over again.
ScotRef and the Coalition. Two more potent means to divide the left it is impossible to imagine.
What shite! The right is divided. Imagine the truly crushing result that we would have had without UKIP. The left in England is only Labour really. They are not divided. They are simply incoherent.
How are there seats in the middle of England that havent declared at 9am while all of Northern Ireland and the Western Isles havent declared and WI was one of the earliest declarations and Orkney and Zetland with like 150 islands with people declared at 4am?
Cheap councils not paying to have them counted on the night. Sickening.
Its an ill wind My boss last night at 5pm wanted to put a bet on aTory win. So opened an account for him at W Hill (he doesn't use computers!)- put £100 at 12-1 on seats 326-350.
Those that criticised the Tory campaign (and I include myself) have to give credit for something truly incredible here. Cameron went on the attack looking for the seats that he needed for the majority. I criticised him for it yesterday morning bemoaning the fact that he spent so long in Lib Dem seats instead of seeking to protect the seats he was going to lose to Labour.
He was absolutely spot on. Incredibly so. Just an amazing result. This eclipses Major's result in 1992. Cameron has done something almost everyone, including me, thought was impossible.
Someone needs to explain how the Tories won.
If they won by creating an English Nationalism where hatred of Scotland is the priority, then perhaps that might not be what you want./
That's the response of a bitter loser - just like Labour speakers. It's much easier for them to do that than consider what they did wrong.
Scotland won. 56 out of 59 MPs. Tories lost, Labour lost, Lib Dems need to be removed from being a "Major Party". UKIP need to be removed from being a "Major Party". Greens did on. SNP won the election.
There has been a significant change off circumstances.
How have we lost? We're up in MPs and have an overall majority. Take your head out of your arse and stop inspecting the Scottish navel - your MPs aren't relevant. Your "progressive alliance" lost.
It gives the SNP a Significant change of circumstances.
It does, and I think it's to be welcomed. But denying the Tories' victory is simply silly, and accusing them of winning of the back of demonising the SNP is absurdly hyppocritical considering your party has been doing the reverse ever since its creation.
If Labour had held onto every one of their 41 Scottish seats, they still would have lost this election, and there'd still be a Tory maj/close to a Tory maj.
Astonishing.
Hasnt stopped the Labouristas pretending its all Scotland's fault.
Grasping for the easy answer is to be expected at this early stage I guess. It will be interesting to see if that changes.
We need a total re-write of polling methods and the BPC need an urgent independent enquiry. Make no mistake, this is an unmitigated polling cock up.
From memory the BBC poll of polls was showing something like: Tory 34, Lab 33, UKIP 13. LD 8 and the actual looks like Tory 36, Lab 31, UKIP 13, LD 8 which is within MoE. It's FPTP which makes the seats results such a lottery.
But a result at the extreme of the MOE should only have a 5% chance of occurring. Given every polling company predicted a similar result, the odds are miniscule (0.05)^8
you have that the wrong way round, its 0.95^8 for it to not happen.
How are there seats in the middle of England that havent declared at 9am while all of Northern Ireland and the Western Isles havent declared and WI was one of the earliest declarations and Orkney and Zetland with like 150 islands with people declared at 4am?
Cheap councils not paying to have them counted on the night. Sickening.
Surely it's one of the sensible "efficiency savings" that councils are being told they must do?
The left divide, the Tories win. We learnt that in the 80s. Shame we have to learn that lesson the hard way all over again.
ScotRef and the Coalition. Two more potent means to divide the left it is impossible to imagine.
In what way did the left divide? If you added up SNP + Labour you wouldn't have any extra impact.
The failure was that labour didn't work in middle england...at all.
There was quite sophisticated distribution of vote in England between the LDs and Labour in England that maximised seats. The coalition destroyed that.
ScotRef pushed Labour into Better Together, campaign side by side with the SNP. Creating the SNP question that Labour simply could not answer. This had implications in England and Scotland. I would say losing key members of the shadow cabinet as a loss of impact.
@Greg_Callus: Next LibDem leader must be nominated by 10% MPs. That's now a single MP: Clegg, Farron, Pugh, Mulholland, Williams, Lamb, Carmichael, Brake
The left divide, the Tories win. We learnt that in the 80s. Shame we have to learn that lesson the hard way all over again.
ScotRef and the Coalition. Two more potent means to divide the left it is impossible to imagine.
In what way did the left divide? If you added up SNP + Labour you wouldn't have any extra impact.
The failure was that labour didn't work in middle england...at all.
There was quite sophisticated distribution of vote in England between the LDs and Labour in England that maximised seats. The coalition destroyed that.
ScotRef pushed Labour into Better Together, campaign side by side with the SNP. Creating the SNP question that Labour simply could not answer. This had implications in England and Scotland. I would say losing key members of the shadow cabinet as a loss of impact.
So we have to start all over again.
Labour activists seemed to spend about 4:1 of their time castigating the traitor Lib Dems compared to the Tories. So they got their wish, and the Tories won all those Lib Dem seats. Well done Labour, you earned it.
How are there seats in the middle of England that havent declared at 9am while all of Northern Ireland and the Western Isles havent declared and WI was one of the earliest declarations and Orkney and Zetland with like 150 islands with people declared at 4am?
Cheap councils not paying to have them counted on the night. Sickening.
Surely it's one of the sensible "efficiency savings" that councils are being told they must do?
The difference in cost between counting on the night and the day after is probably minimal.
So 2015 is the new 1992. Cameron's challenge is to make sure 2020 is not the new 1997. With a big split on Europe coming up, things look difficult
I think this is more like 1955 than 1992.
1992 was all about the Tories just about hanging on, but people forget they lost a LOT of seat's that they won in the 83 and 87 landslides.
This election is about the Conservative not just hanging on, but entrenching and in many cases improving their position while Labour has fallen back further.
That's more like 1955, IMO.
Well hopefully Cameron will have lost his appetite for warmongering if we don't want a Suez equivalent.
On the other hand the economy is in far worse relative shape than it was in the 1950s.
@Greg_Callus: Next LibDem leader must be nominated by 10% MPs. That's now a single MP: Clegg, Farron, Pugh, Mulholland, Williams, Lamb, Carmichael, Brake
We need a total re-write of polling methods and the BPC need an urgent independent enquiry. Make no mistake, this is an unmitigated polling cock up.
From memory the BBC poll of polls was showing something like: Tory 34, Lab 33, UKIP 13. LD 8 and the actual looks like Tory 36, Lab 31, UKIP 13, LD 8 which is within MoE. It's FPTP which makes the seats results such a lottery.
But a result at the extreme of the MOE should only have a 5% chance of occurring. Given every polling company predicted a similar result, the odds are miniscule (0.05)^8
you have that the wrong way round, its 0.95^8 for it to not happen.
edit: sorry misunderstood what you were saying.
No, he's right. The odds of none of them producing a rogue are 0.95^8. The odds on all of them doing so are 0.05^8.
If Dave puts into the FCO someone less Eurosceptic before the in/out referendum the Eurosceptics well you know, act stupid.
This result has increased the power of the Tory backwoodsmen quite dramatically. Cameron won't know what has hit him.
I'll be intrigued to hear what Portillo thinks about this result. I suspect he, like other Tories, would have preferred the Tories to be short of a majority and relying upon the Lib Dems as before.
I'm happy that the Tories look like winning a majority. No more excuses.
@MrHarryCole: No doubt the Tories won the air war and 12 hours ago Labour were still saying their ground war would save them. Guess they lost that too.
@paulmasonnews: Whole Labour inner circle knows problem: if New Lab stage coup Unite leaves and you get an English Syriza, possibly with more money than Lab
That pretty much sums it up - though I suspect a centre left party shorn of Unite would attract a fair few hefty donations from sources that currently keep their wallets shut.
Your problem is that Labour is now fully associated with magic money tree spending.
It wont gain extra votes until it loses that association and if it loses that association it will lose the votes who want magic money tree spending.
Of course the Conservatives also believe in magic money tree spending but they're not associated with it - so Conservative magic money tree spending is called 'austerity' or 'sound economic management' etc.
Tories nearly 6% ahead now in the national vote share. Pollsters looking very very stupid.
That pro-Labour swing in the opinion polls this week has totally f'cked the polling companies credibility.
I am though a little baffled as to how a level headed man like PtP thought his canvassing experiences in Broxtowe were much better for Labour than those in 2010.
Wait for some more detail on what happened (especially exit poll detail). It may have just been a swing on the day - you only need 3% of all voters to switch to turn Con 33.5 - Lab 33.5 into Con 36.5 - Lab 30.5.
Anecdotally, we've had Nick Palmer here reporting people who'd said they'd support Lab changing their minds, and Jack Straw was saying something similar on Sky earlier.
Labour middle-class activists thinking nice WWC people would never lie to them about voting Labour when they were actually supporting UKIP
Serves them right for demonising anybody who expresses their real view if its different from theirs. I think one big learning emerging from this GE is the whole 'shy Tory / shy Kipper' thing. The 'middle ground' of public discourse is pushed to the left by the BBC, bien-pensant types. It is not actually the middle at all. The pollsters failed to spot this. Maybe they should read PB!
We need a total re-write of polling methods and the BPC need an urgent independent enquiry. Make no mistake, this is an unmitigated polling cock up.
From memory the BBC poll of polls was showing something like: Tory 34, Lab 33, UKIP 13. LD 8 and the actual looks like Tory 36, Lab 31, UKIP 13, LD 8 which is within MoE. It's FPTP which makes the seats results such a lottery.
You think "within MoE" is a legitimate thing to say about an average of a large number of polls?
And yet you understand Ther Science on AGW better than all the rest of us. Well done.
Are you seriously saying that the polls can ever get the result of a general election correct to with a fraction of a percent? I was pointing out that they weren't wildly out and that it was the FPTP system which resulted in an unexpectedly large win for the Tories, do you dispute that? On AGW you and "the rest of us" are in a minority. I go with the majority of the scientists.
David Herdson was campaigning in Morley and Outwood.
David Herdson = PBer of the year
Much as I would like to claim some credit, I did very little campaigning in Morley & Outwood and spent the great majority of my time in Wakefield. I doubt it had a significant impact but the spirited if short campaign we fought may have diluted some of Labour's manpower in M&O. It has certainly kept Wakefield in the game for the next election, particularly as it should now be fought under the revised boundaries in 2020.
Having won POTY once, I'd decline any further nominations but I would point out that in my piece last week I did point out that there was a much greater chance than was commonly being assumed of both a disastrous Lib Dem performance and an excellent Tory one (for balance, I also said that there was a chance of a very good Labour one too, though I don't regret that given that the basic proposition that the polls were unreliable was right).
I bet Antony Calvert is wondering what might have been.
Do you know Philip Allott of Halifax ? Four winnable constituencies and four disappointments now.
@paulmasonnews: Whole Labour inner circle knows problem: if New Lab stage coup Unite leaves and you get an English Syriza, possibly with more money than Lab
That pretty much sums it up - though I suspect a centre left party shorn of Unite would attract a fair few hefty donations from sources that currently keep their wallets shut.
Your problem is that Labour is now fully associated with magic money tree spending.
It wont gain extra votes until it loses that association and if it loses that association it will lose the votes who want magic money tree spending.
Of course the Conservatives also believe in magic money tree spending but they're not associated with it - so Conservative magic money tree spending is called 'austerity' or 'sound economic management' etc.
I can't help but think Miliband and Balls refusal to acknowledge the mess they made of the economy has come back to haunt them.
How will Labour excorcise this ghost. Continued denial just leaves the issue hanging there.
Whichever way you look at it, 12.5% and one seat (maybe two), is a shocking way to run politics.
Maybe, but I'm not too upset as a Kipper. Some Tories are gloating, and I don't blame them to a certain extent given they were told that the Tories couldn't win. But Ukip aren't about to go away. Cameron will be expected to be a Conservative PM, and if he doesn't live up to expectations, the voters will reject him at the next election.
Comments
And yet you understand Ther Science on AGW better than all the rest of us. Well done.
The failure was that labour didn't work in middle england...at all.
Tipping Point????
What is true is that any single given pollster (except YouGov because they polled so much) may have been MoE - for example, ICM was mainly showing something closer to the result, except that very last poll, so maybe they just got unlucky despite a basically sound methodology.
1992 was all about the Tories just about hanging on, but people forget they lost a LOT of seat's that they won in the 83 and 87 landslides.
This election is about the Conservative not just hanging on, but entrenching and in many cases improving their position while Labour has fallen back further.
That's more like 1955, IMO.
Will take some time to process how exactly we managed to get a majority (or close to it)
Has anyone been doing a results spreadsheet?
There are 3 polar bears in Scotland, I'm told, at Highland Wildlife Park - so that's one each for Lab, LD and Tory MPs #ge2015 #bearfacts
Dave = Hannibal
I have the impression that the Tories have won more of the narrow ones than they've lost.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/constituencies/E14000662
LD leadership campaign - will it just be first 2 places for each way betting ?
Got to say, when I made that list of emperors for Cameron based on success/failure, I only included a majority emperor for the sake of completeness.
Cameron on course to be Trajan.
Ed Miliband is either Honorius or Valerian [or possibly one of the Angeli].
Simple truth is, he's an Outer.
If Dave puts into the FCO someone less Eurosceptic before the in/out referendum the Eurosceptics well you know, act stupid.
edit: sorry misunderstood what you were saying.
All wasted...
ScotRef pushed Labour into Better Together, campaign side by side with the SNP. Creating the SNP question that Labour simply could not answer. This had implications in England and Scotland. I would say losing key members of the shadow cabinet as a loss of impact.
So we have to start all over again.
On the other hand the economy is in far worse relative shape than it was in the 1950s.
I am not sure that will ever get old
Ok let's now get on immediately with constituency boundary changes and reducing MPs from 650 to 600.
Damn straight.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/constituencies/E14000974
Edit - missed your edit.
3 more potential gains from LD
If no other gains or losses that means:
Con 331 (inc Speaker).
Official Maj 12
Maj (exc SF) 16
Huppert went from 19621 vote to 18047
Labour went from 12829 to 18646
I'm happy that the Tories look like winning a majority. No more excuses.
Are they competing for some sort of award?
@MrHarryCole: No doubt the Tories won the air war and 12 hours ago Labour were still saying their ground war would save them. Guess they lost that too.
It wont gain extra votes until it loses that association and if it loses that association it will lose the votes who want magic money tree spending.
Of course the Conservatives also believe in magic money tree spending but they're not associated with it - so Conservative magic money tree spending is called 'austerity' or 'sound economic management' etc.
Bad night for pollsters - already some saying there will have to be complete re-examination of methods used#ge2015
On AGW you and "the rest of us" are in a minority. I go with the majority of the scientists.
But I'm glad that Balls has gone, and absolutely delighted that the Gallowanker is toast.
I don't envy Cameron his job, though.
Trade union right to vote severely curtailed is worrying.
Each constituency got its choice.
Do you know Philip Allott of Halifax ? Four winnable constituencies and four disappointments now.
How will Labour excorcise this ghost. Continued denial just leaves the issue hanging there.