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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The British Election Study suggests that differential turnout the most likely cause of the GE2015 polling failure
The report by Jon Mellon and Chris Prosser does not give much credence to the “late swing”, “don’t knows” and “shy Tory” theories and argues that differential turnout was most to blame. Those over-stating their likelihood to vote were more likely to be those saying LAB.
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https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/13/the-berlin-bulldozer-and-the-sack-of-athens-greece-eurozone/
Fix by changing weighting
Underlying reality drifts
Rinse and repeat.
Broxtowe should have been a nailed on win for Labour by several thousand according to the polls.
Yet somehow it became a Conservative hold with a majority of 8% and 4,000.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/constituencies/E14000607
and the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1jas4z5_B8
However, it is a little more complicated than he makes out in that article. Whatever bail out there is for Greece has to be approved by eurozone national parliaments. Substantial debt relief, after the Greek government had failed to deliver on its previous promises, was unrealistic.
Because once you have given debt relief, you cannot ungive it. Governments, can and do, go back on promises to creditors. (See Greece in period since 2012.) The Irish and the Portuguese both completed the reforms asked of them, including in the case of Ireland, more spending cuts than have been executed by the Greeks.
Ultimately, the Finns and the Germans get a say too. The Greeks cannot democratically decide that the Germans should subsidise them.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3162980/Good-luck-Hungarian-soldiers-continue-construction-work-new-border-fence-hope-stop-unprecedented-flow-migrants-Serbia.html?ito=social-twitter_mailonline
It looks like something they'd put up at Glastonbury.
1. Demographic change of voters, we are getting older, fewer workers are in the public sector.
2. Boundary changes, probably a net 15 seat loss to Labour (of 600).
3. Facing the potential of a Welsh meltdown after years of a Labour governing party, which has disguised many years of declining vote share.
4. Northern strongholds being undermined by UKIP.
5. Loss of Union funding and Union support in call centres etc if these legal changes happen before 2018.
Now these do not guarantee a Labour loss at GE2020 due to events, EC referendum etc. But, the trends and known changes are reducing Labour to a party struggling to get 1/3 of the seats.
So, there'd be no need to adjust their main political and policy positions, and tacitly accept that the centre-ground of the debate has been shifted by the Tories.
Just rinse, repeat, and next time make sure everyone does vote*
(*Of course, that'd be a disaster, but this is a party that's still in denial and is looking for any excuse not to change)
If the Tories can win election after election, sooner or later there will be another 1997.
Makes me wonder how the liberal party of Japan stays in power for something like all but 1.5 years of the last 60.
"So you'll be voting for Ed Miliband as Prime Minister?"
"What, that geeky twat who can't eat a sarnie? No way..."
Polls *always* overstate intention to vote. Even at the Scottish referendum they did so, indicating a turnout of 90%+ (some of this may be down to technical reasons like people being registered in two places and therefore only able to achieve a maximum 'personal' turnout of 50%) but I doubt that is the main explanation.
We knew well before the election that the quite a large section of Labour's nominal support viewed Miliband poorly and Labour as of questionable trust on the economy. There was always a dissonance there, particularly given the 'evil Tories' meme that was spouted out time and again. People don't like saying 'I can't be arsed'. Some will say 'I won't vote on principle' but those who simply aren't enthused will, in a poll, be likely to say they'd vote for the ones they dislike least. Come polling day, on the other hand, they don't bother.
And the same was true in reverse for the Tories. There was no wave of enthusiasm for Cameron but there was a recognition that an SNP-supported Miliband government posed a threat to England beyond the simple threat that a Miliband-Balls government already posed. And also a recognition that given the hand dealt, Cameron and Osborne hadn't done that bad a job. For many, it wasn't worth shouting about but it was worth voting for.
Oh ... of course, I'm being anti-Welsh, criticising the Welsh Labour Party.
Oh ... of course, I'm being anti-Welsh, criticising the Welsh Labour Party.
And the point is those attack lines -- which may well have played a part in the best Conservative result in Wales for decades -- are in danger of being undermined by an ill-considered seat reduction (planned at the nadir of Conservative representation) that can be cast as anti-Welsh.
Edit: Look what happened in Scotland, first to the Tories, then to Labour, when those parties became seen as anti-Scots.
Labour just brought too much baggage. Ed Miliband. The economic crash. Ed Balls. Iraq. Tony Blair. The National Strike. The Jarrow March. The Tolpuddle Martyrs. Colourful trade union banners. A whole bunch of stuff that just doesn't connect now with the guy working in a dull job in a call centre in Swindon.
Edit: Look what happened in Scotland, first to the Tories, then to Labour, when those parties became seen as anti-Scots.
I think the attempt to portray Wales as an embryo Scotland is flawed. What is happening there I suspect is as much demographic trend as anything else. Lots of retirees and the decline of the mining influence - and of course the appaling record of Labour run assembly.
"The most important deviation is the oldest age group, where younger (less Conservative leaning) respondents are overrepresented whilst older (more Conservative leaning) respondents are underrepresented. The net effect of this difference is to dampen the Conservative lead. This problem is even greater for the oldest respondents in the sample –those over age 80 make up 5.1% of the population, but only 0.5% of the BES. This evidence suggests there is some pro-Labour bias due to the age groupings used."
The survey does not appear to know what happened to those who said they would vote Labour and did not vote. Did they in the end just not vote or did they switch to another party?
When I used to plan large corp events - we used to operate on a 30% drop out rate even for confirmed attendees. Something always came up that was more interesting/pressing than attending. This was pretty true regardless of the subject matter unless it was a 5* VIP event when it'd fall by 15-20%.
I find it hard to believe that pollsters are getting this wrong after so many elections over the decades. Other industries call it yield management...
I believe that Wales escaped a seat reduction (on a population basis) the last time there was a boundary review. So even if the HoC was kept at 650, Wales would lose about 6-7 seats due to a cluster of low population seats - many of which are Labour held. Also the current HoC constituencies matches the constituencies for the Welsh Assembly. This match is unlikely to endure after 2016.
The major discrepancy was in the Con-Lab percentages. This surely was the leadership issue, as within the parliamentary constituency elections there is a quasi-presidential election. The choice between an unloved David Cameron and a laughing stock Ed Miliband (with Sturgeon pulling the strings) was enough to swing enough voters, particularly those in the critical marginals.
Are these Labour 'voters' the same pillocks that respond to small ads in the paper or their electronic equivalent and then don't show up when they say they will.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3981823.stm
However, it is a little more complicated than he makes out in that article. Whatever bail out there is for Greece has to be approved by eurozone national parliaments. Substantial debt relief, after the Greek government had failed to deliver on its previous promises, was unrealistic.
Because once you have given debt relief, you cannot ungive it. Governments, can and do, go back on promises to creditors. (See Greece in period since 2012.) The Irish and the Portuguese both completed the reforms asked of them, including in the case of Ireland, more spending cuts than have been executed by the Greeks.
Ultimately, the Finns and the Germans get a say too. The Greeks cannot democratically decide that the Germans should subsidise them.
But the Greeks can democratically decide to refuse to accede to a new bailout, which is what the public voted to do. If the ramifications of that are that the Greeks default, then we can argue about whether that is positive or negative for them, but they did vote for not accepting the new deal, and then the government went and did the opposite.
The lack of debt relief is far more unrealistic, as even the IMF makes out. What you are arguing is that the politics of northern nations should trump economics, even while the economics should trump Greek referenda.
As I have remarked before, people view Greek from the perspective of a modern first world free market(-ish) economy like the UK, and don't account for the reality on the ground. Sitting here in East Asia a lot of what is happening in Greece has a familiar ring about it, and passing laws about corruption is going to make very little difference. Most of the SEA countries have passed laws against corruption, and yet "under the table payments" are business as usual in almost all of them. Changing that sort of culture takes decades.
Since Labour had such a massive ground game, there must be more to it than laziness.
Lot of honking from doctors in The Times saying it's unnecessary/they all do it already blah blah. Well if that's the case, there's nothing to worry them...
My preferred solution is for the Greeks to implement the reforms and for the creditors to extend the terms of the debt at a reduced rate of interest. The problem is largely one of affordability, if the debt is at way below market rates it is in effect a transfer subsidy.
The Baltics and Slovakia, where percapita GNP is half of Greece, may well want a more formal transfer mechanism, and who can blame them?
The eurozone remains utterly crazy.
And the bridging loan is little more than theft from the UK.
However France and German (and Greece) were also desperate to keep Greece in the Euro, so everyone was guilty of wanting to have their cake and eat it. The French and Germans wanted Greece to stay in the Euro but not have to pay for it, and funnily enough the Greeks wanted exactly the same thing.
Any objective look at the facts without idiotic euro-idealism would see immediately that Greece had the leave the euro and gets its house in order for a decade of more and then reapply for admission.
The whole debacle isn't helped by idealists writing treaties that give no wriggle room if things go wrong, and treat the euro like a full currency union when it patently is nothing of the sort.
I think the anti-German sentiment whipped up by the Greeks and others is pretty unpleasant. Germany is not the only country taking a hard-line here and whatever the Euro is it clearly has no future without the imposition of a level of financial discipline upon its members. France is another back-slider here which partly explains their support for the Greeks. the latter are clearly suffering but there are plenty of others who have and plenty whose citizens are considerably poorer within the eurozone. Of course the debts will never be repaid and the crisis will stumble along but it is essential that the Greeks tackle the corruption and restrictive practices which is the real underlying problem with their economy.
But is not all about discipline is it, its also about helping out other parts of the union when they hit hard times. The decades the the UK has been pouring money into say Liverpool prior to its recent modest recovery. If the EU is going to have a proper common currency, rather than a tortuous and unpopular fixed currency peg, which wont survive any larger country getting to trouble (France/Italy we are looking at you) then it needs to have a transfer union. That is going to be politically untenable for the foreseeable future, so the Euro is going to remain unpleasant and fractious for the foreseeable future.
As I have remarked before, people view Greek from the perspective of a modern first world free market(-ish) economy like the UK, and don't account for the reality on the ground. Sitting here in East Asia a lot of what is happening in Greece has a familiar ring about it, and passing laws about corruption is going to make very little difference. Most of the SEA countries have passed laws against corruption, and yet "under the table payments" are business as usual in almost all of them. Changing that sort of culture takes decades.
Well yes but it's also not all about Greece. There have been huge sacrifices in Ireland, Spain and Portugal. What about Latvia and Slovakia who also have to stump up cash for Greece. I was in Greece a few weeks ago - and both on the islands and in Athens the appearance was considerably more prosperous than nearby Turkey and had all the appearance of similarity to Italy which I also visited and the not very wealthy south-east Spain where I live. Greece is a mess but it is not third world, nor did they just join the EU or just join the Euro.
I think sticking Mr Corbyn on the ballot was an accident waiting to happen - and I said as much when he was lent nominations. It was inevitable that those who are most militant/feel most aggrieved & neutered by New Labour/Ed Labour would be galvanised to *get their Party back*.
And lo, it came to pass.
Is it any surprise that the party of Bliar, McBride and Dennis McShane has a greater share of fibbers amongst its supporters? The fish rots from the head down and all that ...
There is no more money to fund this 7/5 expansion in rotas for non-emergency work. If we rota some of my staff to work weekends then we have a 2 day gap in the week.
You try contacting any other professional at the weekend out of hours: lawyers, teachers, accountants, stockbrokers, bankers etc and tell me how you get on!
Bit of a difference there.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/33479911
The only thing in their favour might be regulation changes coming sooner than expected.
I surmise that more Tories feel it is a duty, and, on this occasion, fewer Labour supporters felt that would get personal satisfaction from it.
Even if the government has it's implied way and tears up the European regulations concerning hours of work, you still have to get trained staff and pay them.
It seems to me that the BES have identified well known and well recognised problems but they have not explained why they were so much more of a problem in 2015 than, say, 2010.
I must say that I am astonished that more than 5% of our population is now over 80. At the risk of overgeneralising internet pollsters are going to have a particular problem with them. But that is just an extreme case of the more general problem. Normal people don't want to talk to pollsters at all and with caller ID etc it is easier to avoid it. Those that do want to talk to pollsters or fill in their online questionnaires are increasingly less representative of the rest.
In my experience, virtually everyone in every sector thinks they get a raw deal. People just like to complain.
http://www.kraxon.com/zodiac-eclipse-naxos/
It's a free sci-fi serial [written by me], with 12 episodes of 1,000 words or so each, released monthly this year. List of episodes [oldest at the bottom] is here:
http://www.kraxon.com/category/zodiac-eclipse/
What the government is talking about is NON-emergency work. Is it not unreasonable to expect someone troubled by bunnions to wait until a weekday? Or to have their annual diabetes review? Or to get a new hearing aid fitted?
THE NHS forgot what service was about a long time ago.
HBNCBN
For example when asked about weekend working he replied "90% of doctors do work at weekends". Now what he did not say is that such working was at their discretion and some of it was in private practice and not for the NHS.... Later on he did admit that very few hospital doctors did NHS scheduled weekend work.
The BMA man also kept saying that they wanted to discuss "the wider context and issues of weekend working". It sounded reasonable but when pushed he then went on about the need for supporting services to be provided. It as if the BMA wants to insiste that all the support services are in place to their satisfaction/veto and then they will discuss agreeing to scheduled weekend working in a new contract. Why should the BMA have such a right of veto over how the rest of a hospital operates? Of course by demanding the undeliverable it just kicks the can down the road a few more years. Ooops we have to over look tens of thousands dying because of the delay....
The sort of people that will log on to eventually get £50.
Who aren't obviously those who will leave the sofa to vote.
Polling firms should have had a massive recruitment drive for their polling banks - outside polling stations in May.
We should get cheap replacements in from Poland.
Funding's a serious issue, though. None of the potential answers are entirely fair. We could just tax more, we could tax specifically (or potentially) unhealthy things more (although we then have contentious issues, like rock climbing, which can cause accidents but is generally good for fitness), or charge people if their problem is their own damned fault (but then, if they're too poor to pay do they get refused treatment?).
This wasn't because I needed to be there that long - it was because by the time I'd sat in A&E [with a note from my GP saying it was urgent I was seen], every consultant bar a handful had gone home. So I took up a bed and twiddled my thumbs. A consultant appeared on Sat morning with his gaggle and moved on. Nothing much happened until Monday rounds when it was decided that I could be discharged and given an outpatient appt to return.
This happened so often that it became clear it was typical. A complete inconvenience to the patients, a waste of resources in putting me up/taking my blood pressure 20x for the sake of it, and much expensive equipment sitting idle.
I really can't support any position that says this is acceptable in a hard pressed sector like healthcare.
@Indigo ><
And I may have missed it, but since the majority of the costs in the NHS is in wages, increasing the costs of all the required changes by up to 40% means that the money has to come from somewhere.
Who is going to pay it? Anyone looked in a mirror recently?
HBNCBN