The top 8 really do demonstrate the following to my mind.
Top 3 - Anti-SNP tactical voting.
Gordon, Edi West, E Dunbartonshire
4th - Huppert tactical Tories/personal vote
5th - Anti-SNP tactical voting Argyll
6th - David Ward personal vote
7th - Farron personal vote.
8th - Thurso personal/Anti-SNP tactical vote.
These were all tipped up by PBers as decent bets - but the national vote wav was just too strong in most cases.
Heading down you can clearly see more tactical/incumbent voting patterns where the national picture is outperformed. And I think it blows apart the myth of any sort of Carmichael PV - he got in because O&S is the last redoubt of the Lib Dems in Scotland !
Of course to survive the earthquake you need a decent start % too.
John Pugh looks very fortunate to have survived based on this list.
Antifrank's conclusion is too bleak. Yes, the figures are bad. LibDems are at their nadir. But, a few years of quiet opposition, a continued luke-warm, at best, reception to Labour under Burnham or Cooper, and a deeply unpopular mid-term government will do wonders I suspect. Ashdown bought the party back, post-89, from tiny opinion poll numbers.
The Lib Dems may not yet be at their nadir. This election saw them still have major incumbency bonuses that will unwind next time in 49 seats. If they lose major party status in the media (and the BBC already seem to be treating them less seriously as a major party) then its possible that the last five years could be looked back at as an easier time for the party. Uniquely major party status putting the LDs in the same category as Labour and the Conservatives for media time, rather than in the same category as UKIP and the Greens which they enjoyed in the past seems impossible to justify ever happening again.
The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
The tragedy for the LibDems is they had the courage to make a momentous decision in 2010, they followed it through for almost the full parliament and with one or two notable exceptions did well. They then chose to distance themselves from the good work they had done. Madness. There was then only one outcome really.
Yes but within 6 months of going into coalition their ministers started bad mouthing and attacking their partner. Just kept reinforcing their image as untrustworthy and stopped them getting credit for common good work. But it made the LDs feel better at the time.
It was a coalition they were never always going to agree. Most said the coalition wouldn't last 6 months let along allowing any criticism to start internally. The fact remains it lasted the full term. They brought the country from the standard wreckage of the end of a Labour government to not a bad point where things could only get better. It madness for them not to seem to want to take some credit for that. They earned it so they should have taken it. Instead they let the very thing they always craved, a place in government by coalition, PR or AV whatever it took to consume them. They paid the price at the ballot box.
Heading down you can clearly see more tactical/incumbent voting patterns where the national picture is outperformed. And I think it blows apart the myth of any sort of Carmichael PV - he got in because O&S is the last redoubt of the Lib Dems in Scotland !
It's been suggested that Carmichael didn't even win Shetland.
'Orkney and Shetland, the long time redoubt of liberalism in Scotland, held this time by the skin of his teeth by the then Scottish Secretary, Alastair Carmichael, is not what it was. For Argyll has had communications and information from troubled Orcadian Liberals since election night. The story is that Shetland voted SNP and it was only the greater weight of the Liberal Democrat majority in Orkney that produced the overall Lib Dem majority – reduced to 817.'
I wonder if the LDs can keep the colour yellow as theirs or if the SNP will claim it.
I've seen the colour orange used for the Liberal Democrats in manyplaces, and it's a colour they use on their "winning here" signs. By trying to be all colours to all people they have surrendered any claim to yellow, and will have to be content with orange I think.
Kinda confused why the SNP don't use the blue from the St Andrew's cross... ;-)
According to the BBC, the government proposes to create an offence of businesses and recruitment agencies hiring workers abroad without first advertising in the UK. This may be a bonkers and authoritarian idea, but it behoves the government and/or the BBC to be accurate about it. Unless the proposal is in fact to prohibit "hiring abroad without first advertising in the European Union", it is a non-starter, since it is incompatible with EU law. Accurate description of policies such as this will become crucial in the run up to the referendum.
According to the BBC, the government proposes to create an offence of businesses and recruitment agencies hiring workers abroad without first advertising in the UK. This may be a bonkers and authoritarian idea, but it behoves the government and/or the BBC to be accurate about it. Unless the proposal is in fact to prohibit "hiring abroad without first advertising in the European Union", it is a non-starter, since it is incompatible with EU law. Accurate description of policies such as this will become crucial in the run up to the referendum.
Wondering if posting a job on LinkedIn is breaking the law.
The strongest message from Tim smiths is that incumbency is a negative factor in the sense that there is big drop in LD vote share when an MP stands down. I think Tim smith is rather option by election gains for the Lib Dems.The situation in the 1970 -74 parliament was very different than today.The Libs were the sole party of protest then.Now UKIP and the Greens are also around as a repository of the protest vote in by elections. However the Lib Dems have a much larger bridgehead of 50 winnable seats at the 2020 GE. 8 are held,16 are winnable on a 0- 5% swing,12 on a 5-7.5% swing,and 14 on 7.5- 10% swing. In terms of other party performance in 2020 the SNP is unlikely to retain the huge vote share of 2015,UKIP assuming the referendum votes stay in would be busted flush,the Cons after 5 years in power are likely to get some backlash ,Labour not sure. What is important is that as many of the 49 seats just lost keep the previous LD MP as candidate. Finally the results in Scotland were not bad given the huge SNP tsunami.it would help the Lib Dems had a well known leader for the Scottish Lib dems-Charles Kennedy comes to mind.
On the train down to London. England is looking stunning. Sun through cloud, green grass glistening; breeze on budding trees. What a beautiful country.
antifrank said: http://newstonoone.blogspot.com/2015/05/2020-lib-dems-sifting-through-wreckage.html "7 May 2015 was a disastrous day for the Lib Dems. But it seems to me that the extent of the disaster has yet to be fully understood. It is entirely possible that it was the day that ended the Lib Dems as a significant force in British politics." I agree. The Lib Dems seem to think that all they need to do is campaign a bit harder. The reality is that they could even fall further at GE2020. But choosing Tim Farron will be a comfort blanket although it will finish off hopes of attracting back 2015 Conservatives. Just wait for more of Tim's "evil tories" speeches.
The tragedy for the LibDems is they had the courage to make a momentous decision in 2010, they followed it through for almost the full parliament and with one or two notable exceptions did well. They then chose to distance themselves from the good work they had done. Madness. There was then only one outcome really.
Antifrank's conclusion is too bleak. Yes, the figures are bad. LibDems are at their nadir. But, a few years of quiet opposition, a continued luke-warm, at best, reception to Labour under Burnham or Cooper, and a deeply unpopular mid-term government will do wonders I suspect. Ashdown bought the party back, post-89, from tiny opinion poll numbers.
One can imagine ways back for the Lib Dems. But one can equally imagine ways in which the Lib Dems become increasingly irrelevant and fold into one of the main parties in the same way that the National Liberals did after the 1940s. One does not seem more likely than the other at present.
According to the BBC, the government proposes to create an offence of businesses and recruitment agencies hiring workers abroad without first advertising in the UK. This may be a bonkers and authoritarian idea, but it behoves the government and/or the BBC to be accurate about it. Unless the proposal is in fact to prohibit "hiring abroad without first advertising in the European Union", it is a non-starter, since it is incompatible with EU law. Accurate description of policies such as this will become crucial in the run up to the referendum.
I guess what they are trying to clamp down on is e.g. agencies looking for farm workers in the UK advertising only in Lithuania or Poland. Definitely a fine line as to how you ban that while keeping within EU law though - maybe say that jobs must be advertised in the English language?
Judging by Andy's chart and some tea leaves, the Lib Dems may well have held 9 seats right now if it wasn't for Lembit's antics in Montgomeryshire in 2010.
According to the BBC, the government proposes to create an offence of businesses and recruitment agencies hiring workers abroad without first advertising in the UK. This may be a bonkers and authoritarian idea, but it behoves the government and/or the BBC to be accurate about it. Unless the proposal is in fact to prohibit "hiring abroad without first advertising in the European Union", it is a non-starter, since it is incompatible with EU law. Accurate description of policies such as this will become crucial in the run up to the referendum.
Wondering if posting a job on LinkedIn is breaking the law.
LinkedIn appears to be accessible from the UK, so I imagine that would satisfy the requirement to advertise here.
Surely it wouldn't flout any EU law to require agencies to advert jobs *simultaneously* in the UK and anywhere else in the EU?
Given that it would typically take less time to find a willing and suitable worker in the UK simply by virtue of travel/accommodation finding - that would give a slight home advantage.
According to the BBC, the government proposes to create an offence of businesses and recruitment agencies hiring workers abroad without first advertising in the UK. This may be a bonkers and authoritarian idea, but it behoves the government and/or the BBC to be accurate about it. Unless the proposal is in fact to prohibit "hiring abroad without first advertising in the European Union", it is a non-starter, since it is incompatible with EU law. Accurate description of policies such as this will become crucial in the run up to the referendum.
I guess what they are trying to clamp down on is e.g. agencies looking for farm workers in the UK advertising only in Lithuania or Poland. Definitely a fine line as to how you ban that while keeping within EU law though - maybe say that jobs must be advertised in the English language?
Judging by Andy's chart and some tea leaves, the Lib Dems may well have held 9 seats right now if it wasn't for Lembit's antics in Montgomeryshire in 2010.
Montgomeryshire seems to be an area with an enduring liberal strand. The Lib Dems did better here in 2015 than in many seats that they held in 2010.
On the train down to London. England is looking stunning. Sun through cloud, green grass glistening; breeze on budding trees. What a beautiful country.
Very well said, I agree entirely.
I said to my wife the other day that rural England is like the garden of Eden. I'm not sure I was exaggerating.
I guess what they are trying to clamp down on is e.g. agencies looking for farm workers in the UK advertising only in Lithuania or Poland. Definitely a fine line as to how you ban that while keeping within EU law though - maybe say that jobs must be advertised in the English language?
You cannot stop a firm advertising English job vacancies in Lithuania in the Lithuanian language. The right of employers to do that is part and parcel of being in the European Union, and is seen not as an abuse by the Court of Justice but the very exercise of their rights.
On the train down to London. England is looking stunning. Sun through cloud, green grass glistening; breeze on budding trees. What a beautiful country.
Very well said, I agree entirely.
I said to my wife the other day that rural England is like the garden of Eden. I'm not sure I was exaggerating.
Won't be much rural left at current immigration rates so enjoy it while you can. Housing estates as far as the eye can see.
On the train down to London. England is looking stunning. Sun through cloud, green grass glistening; breeze on budding trees. What a beautiful country.
Very well said, I agree entirely.
I said to my wife the other day that rural England is like the garden of Eden. I'm not sure I was exaggerating.
It is Arcadia this morning. I cannot imagine anything more tranquilly beautiful. It just looks so content and at ease with itself, if that doesn't sound too stupid a thing to say about a landscape.
Surely it wouldn't flout any EU law to require agencies to advert jobs *simultaneously* in the UK and anywhere else in the EU?
Given that it would typically take less time to find a willing and suitable worker in the UK simply by virtue of travel/accommodation finding - that would give a slight home advantage.
That is precisely the point. Save in respect of jobs in "the public service" (which is interpreted very narrowly), member states cannot implement measures whose object or effect is to give their nationals an advantage in employment vis-à-vis other EU citizens, unless the measure is a proportionate means of pursuing a legitimate aim. It is trite law that economic grounds cannot be relied on as a legitimate aim.
antifrank said: http://newstonoone.blogspot.com/2015/05/2020-lib-dems-sifting-through-wreckage.html "7 May 2015 was a disastrous day for the Lib Dems. But it seems to me that the extent of the disaster has yet to be fully understood. It is entirely possible that it was the day that ended the Lib Dems as a significant force in British politics." I agree. The Lib Dems seem to think that all they need to do is campaign a bit harder. The reality is that they could even fall further at GE2020. But choosing Tim Farron will be a comfort blanket although it will finish off hopes of attracting back 2015 Conservatives. Just wait for more of Tim's "evil tories" speeches.
The tragedy for the LibDems is they had the courage to make a momentous decision in 2010, they followed it through for almost the full parliament and with one or two notable exceptions did well. They then chose to distance themselves from the good work they had done. Madness. There was then only one outcome really.
Antifrank's conclusion is too bleak. Yes, the figures are bad. LibDems are at their nadir. But, a few years of quiet opposition, a continued luke-warm, at best, reception to Labour under Burnham or Cooper, and a deeply unpopular mid-term government will do wonders I suspect. Ashdown bought the party back, post-89, from tiny opinion poll numbers.
Ashdown had the advantage of the long tradition of voting Liberal in the SW and N Scotland. If those have been completely destroyed (and I haven't check councillors, although obvious they are gone from MP perspective) then it will be a lot harder to fight back.
In @TSE's terms it's the difference between a discipline retreat to a prepared defensive position and a rout. The LibDems appear to me to have been routed. The question is whether Farron can successfully raise a new flag and rally the troops.
On the train down to London. England is looking stunning. Sun through cloud, green grass glistening; breeze on budding trees. What a beautiful country.
Very well said, I agree entirely.
I said to my wife the other day that rural England is like the garden of Eden. I'm not sure I was exaggerating.
It is Arcadia this morning. I cannot imagine anything more tranquilly beautiful. It just looks so content and at ease with itself, if that doesn't sound too stupid a thing to say about a landscape.
I'm with you. The pink blossom, the sweet smell of the air, the peace, the quiet, the wild flowers, the birds singing beautiful songs, the luxuriant verdant greenery, and absence of anything ugly or polluting to spoil it.
I guess what they are trying to clamp down on is e.g. agencies looking for farm workers in the UK advertising only in Lithuania or Poland. Definitely a fine line as to how you ban that while keeping within EU law though - maybe say that jobs must be advertised in the English language?
You cannot stop a firm advertising English job vacancies in Lithuania in the Lithuanian language. The right of employers to do that is part and parcel of being in the European Union, and is seen not as an abuse by the Court of Justice but the very exercise of their rights.
You may be able to stop them from doing that unless the jobs are also advertised in the UK simultaneously.
NickPalmer a couple of questions if I may. 1. Did your canvassing indicate that you were going to lose? If yes how close to election day was that? If No why was it at fault? 2. Same question for the loss of Broxtowe Labour councillors.
1. No, until the final week. It did suggest that it'd be closer than the national figures - we just weren't picking up the swarms of red Liberals that we expected, and the LibDems, though extremely thin on the ground now, seemed to have scattered evenly all over the place. We still seemed to have an edge, and we had several indications that the Tories thought so too - a Tory in Loughborough was heard saying that they'd had party support switching to them as the party had given up on Broxtowe, and AS herself told a foreign journalist phlegmatically that everyone was expecting her to lose and if she did, well, she could have a nice long holiday. Possibly an elaborate bluff, but I think it was true enough at that point. We had loads more donations and help than last time. Two things then changed. The Tories did a named candidate private poll and shortly afterwards there was a big surge of Tory effort with a vast amount of calling and direct mail. And in the final 48 hours we found repeatedly that people who had said they were Labour just days earlier were now hedging: the SNP thing in particular was finally cutting through. By eleciton day I was fairly sure it was going wrong. Just having masses of helpers doesn't swing it if there is a basic doubt cutting through the electorate.
2. Lots of local factors and some bad luck. Our Beeston (main town) result was very solid but the LibDems were almost annihilated by Tories in the commuter areas and we had a controversial town council in the second town of Kimberley, the controversy over which lost us lots of votes. We lost two seats there and two others, and just missed gaining 5 in the other areas.
It's essentially a Tory-leaning seat - in 1992, the Tories had a majority of 10,000, and the demography isn't much changed. There is a Lab/Lib plurality in good years, but this turned out not to be one. Apologies again to anyone misled by my earlier optimism.
It's essentially a Tory-leaning seat - in 1992, the Tories had a majority of 10,000, and the demography isn't much changed. There is a Lab/Lib plurality in good years, but this turned out not to be one. Apologies again to anyone misled by my earlier optimism.
Thanks for the open and honest answer. Must have been a painful night. Best of luck should you throw your hat in the ring again.
On the train down to London. England is looking stunning. Sun through cloud, green grass glistening; breeze on budding trees. What a beautiful country.
Very well said, I agree entirely.
I said to my wife the other day that rural England is like the garden of Eden. I'm not sure I was exaggerating.
It is Arcadia this morning. I cannot imagine anything more tranquilly beautiful. It just looks so content and at ease with itself, if that doesn't sound too stupid a thing to say about a landscape.
I'm with you. The pink blossom, the sweet smell of the air, the peace, the quiet, the wild flowers, the birds singing beautiful songs, the luxuriant verdant greenery, and absence of anything ugly or polluting to spoil it.
Trinity Mirror is facing a soaring legal bill after dozens more alleged phone-hacking victims, including senior Labour party figures, scores of TV stars and David Beckham’s father, prepare to sue the Daily Mirror publisher.
I guess what they are trying to clamp down on is e.g. agencies looking for farm workers in the UK advertising only in Lithuania or Poland. Definitely a fine line as to how you ban that while keeping within EU law though - maybe say that jobs must be advertised in the English language?
You cannot stop a firm advertising English job vacancies in Lithuania in the Lithuanian language. The right of employers to do that is part and parcel of being in the European Union, and is seen not as an abuse by the Court of Justice but the very exercise of their rights.
You may be able to stop them from doing that unless the jobs are also advertised in the UK simultaneously.
I was in Liverpool at the weekend. The hotel staff were nearly all East European. Excellent care they took of me too, but I cannot help but wonder why it is easier to get off a bus from Warsaw and get a job than it is to get off a bus from another part of Liverpool. The same goes for farm workers in the fens or Nurses in Leicester.
Banning East and Southern European immigration would seem to me to be a way of worsening standards in the hotel business, mean crops go unpicked in Englands green and pleasant land and mean that we cannot staff the NHS in hours let alone extend the working hours.
This polling from Labour's private pollster is devastating for them. They get the headline figures pretty much dead on so little reason to doubt the other groupings.
Tory lead over Labour among various groups.
Men +10 Women +2 18-34 -9 35-54 -2 55+ +23 AB +18 C1 +10 C2 +6 DE -22
This polling from Labour's private pollster is devastating for them. They get the headline figures pretty much dead on so little reason to doubt the other groupings.
Tory lead over Labour among various groups.
Men +10 Women +2 18-34 -9 35-54 -2 55+ +23 AB +18 C1 +10 C2 +6 DE -22
On the train down to London. England is looking stunning. Sun through cloud, green grass glistening; breeze on budding trees. What a beautiful country.
Very well said, I agree entirely.
I said to my wife the other day that rural England is like the garden of Eden. I'm not sure I was exaggerating.
It is Arcadia this morning. I cannot imagine anything more tranquilly beautiful. It just looks so content and at ease with itself, if that doesn't sound too stupid a thing to say about a landscape.
...and absence of anything ugly or polluting to spoil it. ...
This big sell off of state owned stuff....haven't plans to sell most of this stuff off been announced, re-announced, re-reanounced?
Has the Tote even been sold yet? I seemed to remember Gordon Brown banging on about selling that donkeys years ago.
The Tote was sold to Betfred.
So it was, no idea how I missed that...but that rumbled on for years and year though. I can see articles as far back as 2006 talking about running into problems trying to sell it, so it took over 5 years to shift it.
Ashdown had the advantage of the long tradition of voting Liberal in the SW and N Scotland. If those have been completely destroyed (and I haven't check councillors, although obvious they are gone from MP perspective) then it will be a lot harder to fight back.
In @TSE's terms it's the difference between a discipline retreat to a prepared defensive position and a rout. The LibDems appear to me to have been routed. The question is whether Farron can successfully raise a new flag and rally the troops.
The Lib Dems have been losing council by-elections in the Highlands over the last few years but more importantly the Independent tradition is slowly reducing as well, to be replaced primarily with SNP (I think STV has had an impact on this).
As far as Scotland goes, if it is participating in the 2020 GE then I don't see any likely Liberal revival. Just holding Orkney and Zetland will be doing very well for them.
Trinity Mirror is facing a soaring legal bill after dozens more alleged phone-hacking victims, including senior Labour party figures, scores of TV stars and David Beckham’s father, prepare to sue the Daily Mirror publisher.
I wonder if we will see this on the front page of the Guardian for weeks, with Tom Watson asking Urgent Questions and Hugh Grant all over the BBC and calling up the PM....?
Interesting piece, as is Antifrank's (as always). I would also bear in mind the point made by rcs yesterday that there is a potential confusion between cause and effect - to what extent is there an element of candidates going 'I'm clearly toast here, so I'll stand down rather than fight a losing battle' (cf Redcar / Brent Central)
The other thing from the election which would be an interesting thread at some point is 'The dog that didn't bark - the strange underperformance of the non-SNP regionalists'. (Given enough time I might even write it myself if TSE/OGH would be interested)
Trinity Mirror is facing a soaring legal bill after dozens more alleged phone-hacking victims, including senior Labour party figures, scores of TV stars and David Beckham’s father, prepare to sue the Daily Mirror publisher.
I wonder if we will see this on the front page of the Guardian for weeks, with Tom Watson asking Urgent Questions and Hugh Grant all over the BBC and calling up the PM....?
Interesting to note that there are Labour politicians who are lining up to sue them now...what is it with these Labour supporting papers and phone hacking? Going to be hard even for BBC to spin Mirror phone hacking as something to do with Cameron. Maybe, some very very distant relative once did work experience there or something?
...UKIP assuming the referendum votes stay in would be busted flush...
This idea is fundamentally mistaken in my view, which is that support for UKIP is primarily motivated by opposition to immigration.
Provided that UKIP don't suffer from a BNP-style organisational meltdown, further immigration at current rates can only see their support rise. I think people are underestimating UKIP.
Lib Dems have lost councillors in 9 of the last 10 LG election cycles. The only year they gained it was a mere 34 cllrs eight years ago. There is a long term decline underway from their 1996 peak.
In 1996 we had a thoroughly rotten Conservative government. Since then, we have had a Labour government and a Coalition government. Now we have a Tory government again.
And since they are starting to do "proper Tory" things, it won´t take long for the Lib Dems who lent them their votes to avoid the disaster of Miliband given some spine by Sturgeon, to see their mistake.
The Tories, led by Crosby and Messina, can fool the British people once. But I don´t think they can fool them again.
Mr. Anorak, what about chaps who shave their hair off when it starts being overly thin?
On a related note, according to QI Julius Caesar invented the comb-over.
I saw a comb-over just the other day, first I'd seen in a very, very long time. It was performing that hilarious effect of standing vertically in a light breeze.
Shaving the head should only be done when accompianied by a terrifying scalp tattoo.
Yes, it is indeed true that the political situation has developed not necessarily to the LibDems' advantage.
This was predictable to a degree, in that it was obvious that they were not getting the right tone and message across in coalition. They should have been celebrating their role, pushing the advantages of coalition in general (why weren't they continually pushing the line "a government with much more broadly-based support than the majority governments we are used to"?), and trying to cement the idea that a colaition is greater than the sum of its parts. Instead, with a few notable exceptions, they went around dejected, looking thoroughly miserable about being in government and horrified at having got exactly what they'd spent 50 years telling us they wanted. Worse still, for some bizarre reason they thought that the best way to differentiate themselves from the Conservatives was to engage in lurid and personalised attacks on the integrity and motives of their coalition partners - an approach which, inasmuch as it appealed to anyone, simply invited the response 'So why the hell are you keeping them in power if they are so awful?"
It may have been inevitable that they would lose support as the junior member of the coalition, but I do not believe it was at all inevitable that they would be wiped out to the extent that they were. As antifrank's post makes clear, it is going to be a very hard, slow slog for them to inch their way back to electoral relevance at the national level.
Mr. Anorak, alas, I have no tattoo. Nor will I ever get one.
The options are limited: 1) Captain Picard haircut [but requires waiting for most of it to flee the head] 2) The comb-over [the work of Satan] 3) Shave it all off [what I did]
This polling from Labour's private pollster is devastating for them. They get the headline figures pretty much dead on so little reason to doubt the other groupings.
Tory lead over Labour among various groups.
Men +10 Women +2 18-34 -9 35-54 -2 55+ +23 AB +18 C1 +10 C2 +6 DE -22
...UKIP assuming the referendum votes stay in would be busted flush...
This idea is fundamentally mistaken in my view, which is that support for UKIP is primarily motivated by opposition to immigration.
Provided that UKIP don't suffer from a BNP-style organisational meltdown, further immigration at current rates can only see their support rise. I think people are underestimating UKIP.
Quite, it's wishful thinking masquerading as serious analysis. I would expect UKIP to be the serious contender in any by elections and to pick up council seats, Lib Dems not so much.
Mr. Anorak, alas, I have no tattoo. Nor will I ever get one.
The options are limited: 1) Captain Picard haircut [but requires waiting for most of it to flee the head] 2) The comb-over [the work of Satan] 3) Shave it all off [what I did]
Interesting piece, as is Antifrank's (as always). I would also bear in mind the point made by rcs yesterday that there is a potential confusion between cause and effect - to what extent is there an element of candidates going 'I'm clearly toast here, so I'll stand down rather than fight a losing battle' (cf Redcar / Brent Central)
The other thing from the election which would be an interesting thread at some point is 'The dog that didn't bark - the strange underperformance of the non-SNP regionalists'. (Given enough time I might even write it myself if TSE/OGH would be interested)
Plaid Cymru need to change their effing stupid name if they are ever going to get anywhere. How many votes do you think the Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba, the Party of Scotland would have got in Glasgow?
Edit: and the Greens ought to consider having a British leader. There's quirky, then there's quixotic, and then there's mental.
On the train down to London. England is looking stunning. Sun through cloud, green grass glistening; breeze on budding trees. What a beautiful country.
Very well said, I agree entirely.
I said to my wife the other day that rural England is like the garden of Eden. I'm not sure I was exaggerating.
It is Arcadia this morning. I cannot imagine anything more tranquilly beautiful. It just looks so content and at ease with itself, if that doesn't sound too stupid a thing to say about a landscape.
...and absence of anything ugly or polluting to spoil it. ...
"As Norn was gradually replaced by Scots, Hjaltland became Ȝetland. The initial letter is the Middle Scots letter, "yogh", the pronunciation of which is almost identical to the original Norn sound, "/hj/". When the use of the letter yogh was discontinued, it was often replaced by the similar-looking letter z, hence Zetland, the misspelt form used to describe the pre-1975 county council."
In pronunciation terms my best guess would be that "Yetland" comes closest to accurately representing the old pronunciation in modern English.
On the train down to London. England is looking stunning. Sun through cloud, green grass glistening; breeze on budding trees. What a beautiful country.
Very well said, I agree entirely.
I said to my wife the other day that rural England is like the garden of Eden. I'm not sure I was exaggerating.
It is Arcadia this morning. I cannot imagine anything more tranquilly beautiful. It just looks so content and at ease with itself, if that doesn't sound too stupid a thing to say about a landscape.
...and absence of anything ugly or polluting to spoil it. ...
Surely Basingstoke is in Hampshire?
Oi! Only Ampshire folk can be rude about B'stoke
Southampton and Portsmouth are pretty hideous too...
I was in Liverpool at the weekend. The hotel staff were nearly all East European. Excellent care they took of me too, but I cannot help but wonder why it is easier to get off a bus from Warsaw and get a job than it is to get off a bus from another part of Liverpool. The same goes for farm workers in the fens or Nurses in Leicester.
Banning East and Southern European immigration would seem to me to be a way of worsening standards in the hotel business, mean crops go unpicked in Englands green and pleasant land and mean that we cannot staff the NHS in hours let alone extend the working hours.
There is a compelling case to be made for having a liberal immigration policy, although it is very difficult to justify the egregious discrimination on the ground of nationality between EU citizens and non-EU citizens in the current system. What is galling is the charlatanry of politicians such as Cameron, May, Cooper et al. who pretend you can "control" immigration while being a member of the European Union, or that there is any realistic prospect of a renegotiation of free movement of labour while we remain part of it.
Lib Dems have lost councillors in 9 of the last 10 LG election cycles. The only year they gained it was a mere 34 cllrs eight years ago. There is a long term decline underway from their 1996 peak.
In 1996 we had a thoroughly rotten Conservative government. Since then, we have had a Labour government and a Coalition government. Now we have a Tory government again.
And since they are starting to do "proper Tory" things, it won´t take long for the Lib Dems who lent them their votes to avoid the disaster of Miliband given some spine by Sturgeon, to see their mistake.
The Tories, led by Crosby and Messina, can fool the British people once. But I don´t think they can fool them again.
So we"ve moved on from "the voters are idiots who didn't know what they were voting for" to "the voters were idiots who were lied to by the evul Turies"
Mr. Anorak, I refute your follicle fascism with vigour, sir.
Does your head turn red when you get cross? We used to have a teacher who did that. He was nick-named "the pencil" as he alledgedly looked like one with a red eraser. Being a slim chap also helped cement the image.
Also some very good comments yesterday from @SandyRentool and @SouthamObserver about the Labour election race. For the sake of their party I hope that they are listening to members and supporters like these two - or will they ignore them and choose another leader who's unelectable to the general public? That the Tories are all shouting for Burnham should tell the MPs that he's not the right leader.
Does it matter to MPs that he's the wrong leader? They could surely just as easily see that Brown was the wrong leader. 85% + 1 of them nominated the mad shouting fool anyway. They will likewise clamour to nominate Butcher not because they think he'll win the general election - they're written that off - but because he'll win the leadership election. The Labour party is a suck-up fest or it is nothing.
Butcher cuts a fascinatingly weird figure. If he read English at Cambridge, he'd have read Dickens. Presumably he was appalled by Oliver Twist, where he would have sided not with Oliver, but with Mr. Bumble the Beadle, the producer interest. Likewise he'd have sided against Nicholas Nickleby and with Wackford Squeers, the producer of bad schooling. He would have been utterly disgusted that Dickens was blackening the reputation of Dotheboys Hall in this way.
The producers at whom Dickens took aim are the exact antecedents of the staff of Mid-Staffs: stuffing their own pockets, doing very little, and all the while enjoying and aggressively demanding high public esteem for their selfless supposed good deeds while their charges suffer and die in Dickensian squalor. Dickens was clearly wasting his breath on Butcher, who seems to have come away with the idea that the sick and the orphans were the villains of the piece. Anyone tactless enough to mention that Labour brought back Dickensian workhouses for poor people should, it seem, shut and be grateful to Nanny for their gruel.
This polling from Labour's private pollster is devastating for them. They get the headline figures pretty much dead on so little reason to doubt the other groupings.
Tory lead over Labour among various groups.
Men +10 Women +2 18-34 -9 35-54 -2 55+ +23 AB +18 C1 +10 C2 +6 DE -22
On the train down to London. England is looking stunning. Sun through cloud, green grass glistening; breeze on budding trees. What a beautiful country.
Very well said, I agree entirely.
I said to my wife the other day that rural England is like the garden of Eden. I'm not sure I was exaggerating.
It is Arcadia this morning. I cannot imagine anything more tranquilly beautiful. It just looks so content and at ease with itself, if that doesn't sound too stupid a thing to say about a landscape.
...and absence of anything ugly or polluting to spoil it. ...
Surely Basingstoke is in Hampshire?
Oi! Only Ampshire folk can be rude about B'stoke
Southampton and Portsmouth are pretty hideous too...
We pushed them as far to the edge of the county as we could...
I was in Liverpool at the weekend. The hotel staff were nearly all East European. Excellent care they took of me too, but I cannot help but wonder why it is easier to get off a bus from Warsaw and get a job than it is to get off a bus from another part of Liverpool. The same goes for farm workers in the fens or Nurses in Leicester.
Banning East and Southern European immigration would seem to me to be a way of worsening standards in the hotel business, mean crops go unpicked in Englands green and pleasant land and mean that we cannot staff the NHS in hours let alone extend the working hours.
There is a compelling case to be made for having a liberal immigration policy, although it is very difficult to justify the egregious discrimination on the ground of nationality between EU citizens and non-EU citizens in the current system. What is galling is the charlatanry of politicians such as Cameron, May, Cooper et al. who pretend you can "control" immigration while being a member of the European Union, or that there is any realistic prospect of a renegotiation of free movement of labour while we remain part of it.
It depends how European you feel. I find that I have as much in common culturally with Greeks, Poles and Portuguese as I do with Scots, Welsh and Irish.
On the train down to London. England is looking stunning. Sun through cloud, green grass glistening; breeze on budding trees. What a beautiful country.
Very well said, I agree entirely.
I said to my wife the other day that rural England is like the garden of Eden. I'm not sure I was exaggerating.
It is Arcadia this morning. I cannot imagine anything more tranquilly beautiful. It just looks so content and at ease with itself, if that doesn't sound too stupid a thing to say about a landscape.
...and absence of anything ugly or polluting to spoil it. ...
This polling from Labour's private pollster is devastating for them. They get the headline figures pretty much dead on so little reason to doubt the other groupings.
Tory lead over Labour among various groups.
Men +10 Women +2 18-34 -9 35-54 -2 55+ +23 AB +18 C1 +10 C2 +6 DE -22
Agree with Millsy that the poll looks accurate. Unless they are using very different assumptions to other polls, that suggests that the late swing theory is correct as far as it goes - i.e. ealier polls weren't wrong, but they missed the late swing. Alternatively, it means that people are more honest with an exit poll than with a prospective voting poll. Or a bit of both - perhaps people like to think they'll vote for someone different, but on the day they sway back towards the status quo? And do we have reliable data on turnout 9and indeed registration) in the different age groups?
At all events, it suggests that radically revising polling assumptions may be a mistake for depicting current opinion - we just have to keep in mind that there are good reasons why the nowcast may not be a forecast.
What is galling is the charlatanry of politicians such as Cameron, May, Cooper et al. who pretend you can "control" immigration while being a member of the European Union, or that there is any realistic prospect of a renegotiation of free movement of labour while we remain part of it.
EU membership is something of a red herring, since Cameron has completely failed to control immigration from outside of the EU, despite his claims to the contrary during the election campaign.
Perhaps a majority Conservative government will be different - otherwise whoever leads the Tories into the next election will have a lot of explaining to do.
Interesting piece, as is Antifrank's (as always). I would also bear in mind the point made by rcs yesterday that there is a potential confusion between cause and effect - to what extent is there an element of candidates going 'I'm clearly toast here, so I'll stand down rather than fight a losing battle' (cf Redcar / Brent Central)
The other thing from the election which would be an interesting thread at some point is 'The dog that didn't bark - the strange underperformance of the non-SNP regionalists'. (Given enough time I might even write it myself if TSE/OGH would be interested)
Plaid Cymru need to change their effing stupid name if they are ever going to get anywhere. How many votes do you think the Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba, the Party of Scotland would have got in Glasgow?
But even outside Cardiff, 1 of their very few target seats had a sitting Lib Dem MP, but not only did they fail to take it, their vote share went *down*. Given how every other party did against the Lib Dems surely that takes a special kind of underperformance...
At all events, it suggests that radically revising polling assumptions may be a mistake for depicting current opinion - we just have to keep in mind that there are good reasons why the nowcast may not be a forecast.
Yes, absolutely right. There's a danger of confusing a measurement (in this case how people say they will vote) with a forecast (based on that measurement and on other inputs, how will they actually vote?). I fear that muddling up these two different things will simply lead to further errors in the future.
This polling from Labour's private pollster is devastating for them. They get the headline figures pretty much dead on so little reason to doubt the other groupings.
Tory lead over Labour among various groups.
Men +10 Women +2 18-34 -9 35-54 -2 55+ +23 AB +18 C1 +10 C2 +6 DE -22
Agree with Millsy that the poll looks accurate. Unless they are using very different assumptions to other polls, that suggests that the late swing theory is correct as far as it goes - i.e. ealier polls weren't wrong, but they missed the late swing. Alternatively, it means that people are more honest with an exit poll than with a prospective voting poll. Or a bit of both - perhaps people like to think they'll vote for someone different, but on the day they sway back towards the status quo? And do we have reliable data on turnout 9and indeed registration) in the different age groups?
At all events, it suggests that radically revising polling assumptions may be a mistake for depicting current opinion - we just have to keep in mind that there are good reasons why the nowcast may not be a forecast.
Have they not simply weighted to the result? I can't download the data tables from this machine, so perhaps someone could take a look?
Edit: duh, just seen this:
The data was further weighted such that voters’ reported vote in the survey matches the real result in the 2015 election.
Southampton and Portsmouth are pretty hideous too...
Agree about Portsmouth (although we chose to get married there!), but not about Southampton. I actually prefer Southampton as a city to Cambridge, albeit whilst living just outside both.
Southampton has a good range of shops, a lively city centre, city walls, the Solent, a good football club, and a life. Within a short drive/ferry you have the superb South Downs, the New Forest, Salisbury Plain and the Isle of Wight. Best of all, you have the sea. Just the journey across Southampton Water to Hythe on the ferry, plus the walk or train along the pier, beats anything Cambridge can offer n a daily basis.
Cambridge has none of that. Cambridge shops in particular are p*ss-poor.
If I had to live inside, or just outside, either city, I would pick Southampton over Cambridge like a shot. Whilst Cambridge is undeniably a more beautiful city, it's not good to live in.
Interesting piece, as is Antifrank's (as always). I would also bear in mind the point made by rcs yesterday that there is a potential confusion between cause and effect - to what extent is there an element of candidates going 'I'm clearly toast here, so I'll stand down rather than fight a losing battle' (cf Redcar / Brent Central)
The other thing from the election which would be an interesting thread at some point is 'The dog that didn't bark - the strange underperformance of the non-SNP regionalists'. (Given enough time I might even write it myself if TSE/OGH would be interested)
Plaid Cymru need to change their effing stupid name if they are ever going to get anywhere. How many votes do you think the Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba, the Party of Scotland would have got in Glasgow?
Edit: and the Greens ought to consider having a British leader. There's quirky, then there's quixotic, and then there's mental.
Plaid have spent almost their entire existence with a basis in Linguistic Nationalism. To think they can actually displace this might be being optimistic. It is pretty clear this is what has always held them back but by the same token it remains part of their raison d'etre. They are not and as far as I am aware, never have been committed to Independence.
However, their window was 40 years ago and they missed it. Instead of becoming an Independence party they became content in rolling out Welsh language in the areas where Welsh has a tenuous historical link and today Welsh language education is found even in Flintshire and Glamorgan. With the expected disastrous results.
On the train down to London. England is looking stunning. Sun through cloud, green grass glistening; breeze on budding trees. What a beautiful country.
Very well said, I agree entirely.
I said to my wife the other day that rural England is like the garden of Eden. I'm not sure I was exaggerating.
It is Arcadia this morning. I cannot imagine anything more tranquilly beautiful. It just looks so content and at ease with itself, if that doesn't sound too stupid a thing to say about a landscape.
...and absence of anything ugly or polluting to spoil it. ...
"As Norn was gradually replaced by Scots, Hjaltland became Ȝetland. The initial letter is the Middle Scots letter, "yogh", the pronunciation of which is almost identical to the original Norn sound, "/hj/". When the use of the letter yogh was discontinued, it was often replaced by the similar-looking letter z, hence Zetland, the misspelt form used to describe the pre-1975 county council."
In pronunciation terms my best guess would be that "Yetland" comes closest to accurately representing the old pronunciation in modern English.
It's just one of those stupid things you end up doing when young and rash and ends up being habitual. Zog is still used in some Scottish placenames - such as Culzean and Dalziel
EU membership is something of a red herring, since Cameron has completely failed to control immigration from outside of the EU, despite his claims to the contrary during the election campaign.
Perhaps a majority Conservative government will be different - otherwise whoever leads the Tories into the next election will have a lot of explaining to do.
Of those who came here in the last year, 268,000 were European Union Citizens, and 290,000 were non-EU citizens. Given that many non-EU citizens' right of abode derives from EU law as well, it is absurd to claim EU membership is "something of a red herring".
Plaid have spent almost their entire existence with a basis in Linguistic Nationalism. To think they can actually displace this might be being optimistic.
I'm not expecting them to take my advice! And, as Lennon says, the Ceredigion result was disastrous despite there not being a language barrier there. Any local intell on that? - was it purely a bad candidate?
With all the focus on SLAB leadership, Rennie has remained in position even though he lost 10 out of 11 seats.
Rennie was given the sort of coverage on Scotland Tonight last night that the TV companies need to stop giving the Liberals. Rennie looks like he's doped up, nothing else can explain his level of chipper in the face of such circumstances.
The BBC Trust and OFCOM need to get off their arses and catch up with the current situation.
Nick's comment about the lack of red Liberals is interesting. It seems to me this is one of the major unanswered questions of the election. I was rock-sure of Broxtowe because there were 9,000 LibDem votes up for grabs. What happened to them? Didn't vote? Voted Tory? Voted Labour, but this switch was overwhelmed by Lab to Tory switchers terrified of SNP?
NickPalmer a couple of questions if I may. 1. Did your canvassing indicate that you were going to lose? If yes how close to election day was that? If No why was it at fault? 2. Same question for the loss of Broxtowe Labour councillors.
1. No, until the final week. It did suggest that it'd be closer than the national figures - we just weren't picking up the swarms of red Liberals that we expected, and the LibDems, though extremely thin on the ground now, seemed to have scattered evenly all over the place. We still seemed to have an edge, and we had several indications that the Tories thought so too - a Tory in Loughborough was heard saying that they'd had party support switching to them as the party had given up on Broxtowe, and AS herself told a foreign journalist phlegmatically that everyone was expecting her to lose and if she did, well, she could have a nice long holiday. Possibly an elaborate bluff, but I think it was true enough at that point. We had loads more donations and help than last time. Two things then changed. The Tories did a named candidate private poll and shortly afterwards there was a big surge of Tory effort with a vast amount of calling and direct mail. And in the final 48 hours we found repeatedly that people who had said they were Labour just days earlier were now hedging: the SNP thing in particular was finally cutting through. By eleciton day I was fairly sure it was going wrong. Just having masses of helpers doesn't swing it if there is a basic doubt cutting through the electorate.
2. Lots of local factors and some bad luck. Our Beeston (main town) result was very solid but the LibDems were almost annihilated by Tories in the commuter areas and we had a controversial town council in the second town of Kimberley, the controversy over which lost us lots of votes. We lost two seats there and two others, and just missed gaining 5 in the other areas.
It's essentially a Tory-leaning seat - in 1992, the Tories had a majority of 10,000, and the demography isn't much changed. There is a Lab/Lib plurality in good years, but this turned out not to be one. Apologies again to anyone misled by my earlier optimism.
Comments
'Really hate the way people have started being called retreads.'
Deferred successes instead ?
Top 3 - Anti-SNP tactical voting.
Gordon, Edi West, E Dunbartonshire
4th - Huppert tactical Tories/personal vote
5th - Anti-SNP tactical voting Argyll
6th - David Ward personal vote
7th - Farron personal vote.
8th - Thurso personal/Anti-SNP tactical vote.
These were all tipped up by PBers as decent bets - but the national vote wav was just too strong in most cases.
Heading down you can clearly see more tactical/incumbent voting patterns where the national picture is outperformed. And I think it blows apart the myth of any sort of Carmichael PV - he got in because O&S is the last redoubt of the Lib Dems in Scotland !
Of course to survive the earthquake you need a decent start % too.
John Pugh looks very fortunate to have survived based on this list.
The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
Kinda confused why the SNP don't use the blue from the St Andrew's cross... ;-)
I think Tim smith is rather option by election gains for the Lib Dems.The situation in the 1970 -74 parliament was very different than today.The Libs were the sole party of protest then.Now UKIP and the Greens are also around as a repository of the protest vote in by elections.
However the Lib Dems have a much larger bridgehead of 50 winnable seats at the 2020 GE.
8 are held,16 are winnable on a 0- 5% swing,12 on a 5-7.5% swing,and 14 on 7.5- 10% swing.
In terms of other party performance in 2020 the SNP is unlikely to retain the huge vote share of 2015,UKIP assuming the referendum votes stay in would be busted flush,the Cons after 5 years in power are likely to get some backlash ,Labour not sure.
What is important is that as many of the 49 seats just lost keep the previous LD MP as candidate.
Finally the results in Scotland were not bad given the huge SNP tsunami.it would help the Lib Dems had a well known leader for the Scottish Lib dems-Charles Kennedy comes to mind.
Given that it would typically take less time to find a willing and suitable worker in the UK simply by virtue of travel/accommodation finding - that would give a slight home advantage.
I said to my wife the other day that rural England is like the garden of Eden. I'm not sure I was exaggerating.
Lib Dems 1929 59 seats -> 2001 52 seats
No UKIP or SNP around either back then.
In @TSE's terms it's the difference between a discipline retreat to a prepared defensive position and a rout. The LibDems appear to me to have been routed. The question is whether Farron can successfully raise a new flag and rally the troops.
Sheer bliss.
Two things then changed. The Tories did a named candidate private poll and shortly afterwards there was a big surge of Tory effort with a vast amount of calling and direct mail. And in the final 48 hours we found repeatedly that people who had said they were Labour just days earlier were now hedging: the SNP thing in particular was finally cutting through. By eleciton day I was fairly sure it was going wrong. Just having masses of helpers doesn't swing it if there is a basic doubt cutting through the electorate.
2. Lots of local factors and some bad luck. Our Beeston (main town) result was very solid but the LibDems were almost annihilated by Tories in the commuter areas and we had a controversial town council in the second town of Kimberley, the controversy over which lost us lots of votes. We lost two seats there and two others, and just missed gaining 5 in the other areas.
It's essentially a Tory-leaning seat - in 1992, the Tories had a majority of 10,000, and the demography isn't much changed. There is a Lab/Lib plurality in good years, but this turned out not to be one. Apologies again to anyone misled by my earlier optimism. Not really bothered by the word - I know it has a certain second-class connotation from tyres, but it seems mildly funny.
Has the Tote even been sold yet? I seemed to remember Gordon Brown banging on about selling that donkeys years ago.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/20/scores-of-alleged-phone-hacking-victims-pepare-to-sue-mirror-publisher
Earth calling BBC, earth calling BBC....
Banning East and Southern European immigration would seem to me to be a way of worsening standards in the hotel business, mean crops go unpicked in Englands green and pleasant land and mean that we cannot staff the NHS in hours let alone extend the working hours.
Tory lead over Labour among various groups.
Men +10
Women +2
18-34 -9
35-54 -2
55+ +23
AB +18
C1 +10
C2 +6
DE -22
http://www.gqrr.com/uk-post-election-1
Mr. Anorak, what about chaps who shave their hair off when it starts being overly thin?
On a related note, according to QI Julius Caesar invented the comb-over.
As far as Scotland goes, if it is participating in the 2020 GE then I don't see any likely Liberal revival. Just holding Orkney and Zetland will be doing very well for them.
The other thing from the election which would be an interesting thread at some point is 'The dog that didn't bark - the strange underperformance of the non-SNP regionalists'. (Given enough time I might even write it myself if TSE/OGH would be interested)
Provided that UKIP don't suffer from a BNP-style organisational meltdown, further immigration at current rates can only see their support rise. I think people are underestimating UKIP.
And since they are starting to do "proper Tory" things, it won´t take long for the Lib Dems who lent them their votes to avoid the disaster of Miliband given some spine by Sturgeon, to see their mistake.
The Tories, led by Crosby and Messina, can fool the British people once. But I don´t think they can fool them again.
Shaving the head should only be done when accompianied by a terrifying scalp tattoo.
This was predictable to a degree, in that it was obvious that they were not getting the right tone and message across in coalition. They should have been celebrating their role, pushing the advantages of coalition in general (why weren't they continually pushing the line "a government with much more broadly-based support than the majority governments we are used to"?), and trying to cement the idea that a colaition is greater than the sum of its parts. Instead, with a few notable exceptions, they went around dejected, looking thoroughly miserable about being in government and horrified at having got exactly what they'd spent 50 years telling us they wanted. Worse still, for some bizarre reason they thought that the best way to differentiate themselves from the Conservatives was to engage in lurid and personalised attacks on the integrity and motives of their coalition partners - an approach which, inasmuch as it appealed to anyone, simply invited the response 'So why the hell are you keeping them in power if they are so awful?"
It may have been inevitable that they would lose support as the junior member of the coalition, but I do not believe it was at all inevitable that they would be wiped out to the extent that they were. As antifrank's post makes clear, it is going to be a very hard, slow slog for them to inch their way back to electoral relevance at the national level.
The options are limited:
1) Captain Picard haircut [but requires waiting for most of it to flee the head]
2) The comb-over [the work of Satan]
3) Shave it all off [what I did]
Edit: and the Greens ought to consider having a British leader. There's quirky, then there's quixotic, and then there's mental.
Wikipedia has this:
"As Norn was gradually replaced by Scots, Hjaltland became Ȝetland. The initial letter is the Middle Scots letter, "yogh", the pronunciation of which is almost identical to the original Norn sound, "/hj/". When the use of the letter yogh was discontinued, it was often replaced by the similar-looking letter z, hence Zetland, the misspelt form used to describe the pre-1975 county council."
In pronunciation terms my best guess would be that "Yetland" comes closest to accurately representing the old pronunciation in modern English.
I guess that's progress of a sort...
[I'll stop now]
Butcher cuts a fascinatingly weird figure. If he read English at Cambridge, he'd have read Dickens. Presumably he was appalled by Oliver Twist, where he would have sided not with Oliver, but with Mr. Bumble the Beadle, the producer interest. Likewise he'd have sided against Nicholas Nickleby and with Wackford Squeers, the producer of bad schooling. He would have been utterly disgusted that Dickens was blackening the reputation of Dotheboys Hall in this way.
The producers at whom Dickens took aim are the exact antecedents of the staff of Mid-Staffs: stuffing their own pockets, doing very little, and all the while enjoying and aggressively demanding high public esteem for their selfless supposed good deeds while their charges suffer and die in Dickensian squalor. Dickens was clearly wasting his breath on Butcher, who seems to have come away with the idea that the sick and the orphans were the villains of the piece. Anyone tactless enough to mention that Labour brought back Dickensian workhouses for poor people should, it seem, shut and be grateful to Nanny for their gruel.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/former-lib-dem-mps-could-try-holyrood-rennie-1-3779309
With all the focus on SLAB leadership, Rennie has remained in position even though he lost 10 out of 11 seats.
Thank you for the full response.
At all events, it suggests that radically revising polling assumptions may be a mistake for depicting current opinion - we just have to keep in mind that there are good reasons why the nowcast may not be a forecast.
You've also done the same for Winchester - we'd gladly swap you it for Swindon.
Perhaps a majority Conservative government will be different - otherwise whoever leads the Tories into the next election will have a lot of explaining to do.
I forgive you. Hope you enjoy it [not least because there are more in that series coming].
Edit: duh, just seen this:
The data was further weighted such that voters’ reported vote in the survey matches the real result in the 2015 election.
Southampton has a good range of shops, a lively city centre, city walls, the Solent, a good football club, and a life. Within a short drive/ferry you have the superb South Downs, the New Forest, Salisbury Plain and the Isle of Wight. Best of all, you have the sea. Just the journey across Southampton Water to Hythe on the ferry, plus the walk or train along the pier, beats anything Cambridge can offer n a daily basis.
Cambridge has none of that. Cambridge shops in particular are p*ss-poor.
If I had to live inside, or just outside, either city, I would pick Southampton over Cambridge like a shot. Whilst Cambridge is undeniably a more beautiful city, it's not good to live in.
Whilst Pompey is just hideous.
However, their window was 40 years ago and they missed it. Instead of becoming an Independence party they became content in rolling out Welsh language in the areas where Welsh has a tenuous historical link and today Welsh language education is found even in Flintshire and Glamorgan. With the expected disastrous results.
Tried to lay Captain Cook for England most runs at 6.4 but some cheeky sod scooped the entire market !
The BBC Trust and OFCOM need to get off their arses and catch up with the current situation.