I'm not saying that purely contributory system is necessarily desirable. I was just trying to understand whether this is fundamentally an EU issue or as much an issue with the structure of our benefits system. I do think that a government should be able to prioritise its own citizens over those of others.
It seems to me to be at the heart of what it means to be a nation state.
Being British means something more than simply living in the British Isles.
But that is a very fundamental difference with the whole thrust of the EU which is to eliminate those distinctions.
My main concern with this is that if we do permit discrimination on the grounds of nationality in one area how do we prevent the eurozone discriminating against us on the same basis in areas such as financial services, where the consequences of such discrimination could be very damaging indeed?
So make it non-discriminatory. Say that no EU citizen is entitled to claim benefit in any EU state until they have been there for four years. It would obviously apply as much to Brits in Germany as it does to Romanians in the UK.
All ethnic minority groups in England are now, on average, more likely to go to university than their White British peers. This is the case even amongst groups who were previously under-represented in higher education, such as those of Black Caribbean ethnic origin, a relatively recent change.
These differences also vary by socio-economic background, and in some cases are very large indeed. For example, Chinese pupils in the lowest socio-economic quintile group are, on average, more than 10 percentage points more likely to go to university than White British pupils in the highest socio-economic quintile group. By contrast, White British pupils in the lowest socio-economic quintile group have participation rates that are more than 10 percentage points lower than those observed for any other ethnic group.
These are amongst the findings of research undertaken by IFS researchers, funded by the Departments of Education and Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), and published by BIS.
Curiously, white British pupils do better, in terms of test scores than black, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi pupils, but are still less likely to go to university. Does that mean they're less likely to see any real benefit from university (my understanding is that a growing number of people in some professions now take the equivalent of university qualifications while training, which avoids getting into debt)?
Correct me, please, if I am wrong but couldn't the migrant benefits issue be cured at a stroke if our benefits system was made exclusively contributory? I.e. you only get benefits - including working benefits - if you have contributed for a minimum number of years. So a migrant coming here would get nothing in the same way that an English person would get nothing until they had both contributed.
If that's right, then it's entirely within our own hands to solve the issue Cameron is making such a centrepiece of his negotiations by altering the basis of our benefits system.
Otherwise what Cameron seems to be asking for is the right to discriminate between UK nationals and non-UK nationals and I think this is one hell of an ask from other EU countries and almost certainly not in our interests. If it can be done for migrants then it could be done for companies and could allow the Eurozone, for instance, to discriminate against those outside it.
I've argued that no benefits should be payable to anyone at all without three to five years NI contributions.
I suspect we'd have very little migration because Brits would have all the jobs under this system,
The trouble is this kind of scheme falls down because you would end up with the young, or long term unemployed who have never managed to do 3 years work, basically utterly destitute and begging on the streets. I'm all in favour of a more contributory element, but I don't see how it can be exclusively contributory in a modern society.
Isn't that the case in other countries, though? The young stay with their families and their families are expected to provide for them?
I'd be interested to know what other European countries give, by way of benefits, if anything, to the NEETS, the young who have just left school, the severely disabled etc who have not contributed.
So, having read Cameron's letter my gut feelings are:
- it's longer than the bland plenty of wriggle room statement of principles I expected - it contains some real, important, substantive demands - I like the broad thrust of the letter and its tone - most of it actually seems achievable (and in truth has probably already been agreed in the dialogue already), and the biggest fight is clearly going to be on the last one - immigration. But can any other EU leader REALLY object to an end, across the whole EU, to welfare tourism by introducing the 4 year rule (which presumably would apply across the piece not just as a special derogation or opt out for the UK?)
As the PM says. the devil is in the detail - but if we get all of this, it really could address some fundamental concerns of broadly pro-EU but "not as it currently is" people like me.
Significantly, if you tot up every single point made in the letter, there must be 20 odd particular demands. So the PM really is setting himself up for a difficult time if he only manages to achieve half of this. I wasn't expecting that - so credit for that.
Will it be enough though?
If he achieved all of that it still wouldn't convince me as it doesn't include limits on EU powers on justice, social and employment legislation and reform of the CAP/CFP. It would have to be a very substantive increase in subsidiarity and the role of national parliaments, including an emergency brake and limits/caps on EU migration, to convince me to stay.
However, it'd probably be enough for Cameron to win the referendum.
I am substantially more concerned about
a) The ECJ riding a coach and horses through any agreement that isn't an iron clad treaty.
b) That when it comes to "ever closer union", words are wind, the ECJ and the Commission will continue to take ACTIONS for ever closer union regardless of the wording since that is explicitly their remit.
c) The other EU countries just deciding to ignore bits of the agreement they don't like. See the Dublin Agreement, and attempts to use the EU emergency fund to sort out Greece to name but two.
All ethnic minority groups in England are now, on average, more likely to go to university than their White British peers. This is the case even amongst groups who were previously under-represented in higher education, such as those of Black Caribbean ethnic origin, a relatively recent change.
These differences also vary by socio-economic background, and in some cases are very large indeed. For example, Chinese pupils in the lowest socio-economic quintile group are, on average, more than 10 percentage points more likely to go to university than White British pupils in the highest socio-economic quintile group. By contrast, White British pupils in the lowest socio-economic quintile group have participation rates that are more than 10 percentage points lower than those observed for any other ethnic group.
These are amongst the findings of research undertaken by IFS researchers, funded by the Departments of Education and Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), and published by BIS.
Curiously, white British pupils do better, in terms of test scores than black, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi pupils, but are still less likely to go to university. Does that mean they're less likely to see any real benefit from university?
This is going to sound horribly elitist and snobbish, but I think it was a mistake for successive governments to set a target of 50% of school kids should go to university (and turn so many polytechnics into universities)
@paulwaugh: LibDem leader @timfarron seizes on pro-EU tone of Cameron speech: "In places I thought Ken Clarke had become Prime Minister" Gift for Farage
''how do we prevent the eurozone discriminating against us on the same basis in areas such as financial services, where the consequences of such discrimination could be very damaging indeed?''
We can't. They are going to do it anyway. So we either stay in and face the certainty of the City being destroyed, or come out, and save a good deal of it. The City will still be a massive draw to Chinese and Russian money, maybe more so if we are out.
All ethnic minority groups in England are now, on average, more likely to go to university than their White British peers. This is the case even amongst groups who were previously under-represented in higher education, such as those of Black Caribbean ethnic origin, a relatively recent change.
These differences also vary by socio-economic background, and in some cases are very large indeed. For example, Chinese pupils in the lowest socio-economic quintile group are, on average, more than 10 percentage points more likely to go to university than White British pupils in the highest socio-economic quintile group. By contrast, White British pupils in the lowest socio-economic quintile group have participation rates that are more than 10 percentage points lower than those observed for any other ethnic group.
These are amongst the findings of research undertaken by IFS researchers, funded by the Departments of Education and Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), and published by BIS.
Curiously, white British pupils do better, in terms of test scores than black, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi pupils, but are still less likely to go to university. Does that mean they're less likely to see any real benefit from university?
This is going to sound horribly elitist and snobbish, but I think it was a mistake for successive governments to set a target of 50% of school kids should go to university (and turn so many polytechnics into universities)
I think some students have seen through that.
There's nothing snobbish and elitist about it. I think some of the new universities aren't good, and their degrees aren't rated at all by employers. So, you incur a debt of £27,000 getting a degree that's not worth the paper its written on.
If I were 18 today, I'd seriously be wondering if it was worth getting a degree at all.
I'm sat on the train opposite two women who briefly discussed the referendum. The one reading the Express is a Leaver, the other is on the fence and "needs more information".
End of anecdote.
Conclusion: Vote Leave need to hand out free copies of the Express!
The Express is the one and only national paper that I don't get. I see that everything from The Star to the Sun, from The Mail to The Guardian has a USP and an audience. But who buys the Express? And why?
it does have a good cryptic crossword
And the astrology section is good for a laugh
Many years ago I met someone who claimed to know about astrology etc. She told me that she had been given a job writing the astrology column for some (quite substantial) magazine. She said that she’d thought "she'd better do this scientifically so used her Tarot cards", then was most miffed to discover on publication that the somewhere along the line the predictions had been attached to the wrong months!
I did, IIRC manage to keep a straight face and sympathise!
A friend of mine had a student job on a regional newspaper, and managed to lose the horoscopes. So she made them up.
I'm not saying that purely contributory system is necessarily desirable. I was just trying to understand whether this is fundamentally an EU issue or as much an issue with the structure of our benefits system. I do think that a government should be able to prioritise its own citizens over those of others.
It seems to me to be at the heart of what it means to be a nation state.
Being British means something more than simply living in the British Isles.
But that is a very fundamental difference with the whole thrust of the EU which is to eliminate those distinctions.
My main concern with this is that if we do permit discrimination on the grounds of nationality in one area how do we prevent the eurozone discriminating against us on the same basis in areas such as financial services, where the consequences of such discrimination could be very damaging indeed?
So make it non-discriminatory. Say that no EU citizen is entitled to claim benefit in any EU state until they have been there for four years. It would obviously apply as much to Brits in Germany as it does to Romanians in the UK.
It would also need to apply to British people here to be non-discriminatory. We could do it - in theory - but it would be a big change to our current welfare system (which would make the tax credit cuts seem like a walk in the park) - and you would still need to think about the safety net angle, as DavidL has pointed out.
Possibly one way of doing that would be to say that if you have left school or are severely disabled, you are not free to travel to other countries to take up benefits there i.e. you can have help for such groups within Britain but similar groups in other countries can only use the equivalent schemes in their home countries and, if there aren't any, tough.
Personally I think this is the wrong issue to highlight in the negotiations but that's another matter.
@allanholloway: Cameron's effort at EU renegotiation reminiscent of Cardinal Wolsey's attempt to gain divorce for Henry VIII - verbally dexterous but futile
Correct me, please, if I am wrong but couldn't the migrant benefits issue be cured at a stroke if our benefits system was made exclusively contributory? I.e. you only get benefits - including working benefits - if you have contributed for a minimum number of years. So a migrant coming here would get nothing in the same way that an English person would get nothing until they had both contributed.
If that's right, then it's entirely within our own hands to solve the issue Cameron is making such a centrepiece of his negotiations by altering the basis of our benefits system.
Otherwise what Cameron seems to be asking for is the right to discriminate between UK nationals and non-UK nationals and I think this is one hell of an ask from other EU countries and almost certainly not in our interests. If it can be done for migrants then it could be done for companies and could allow the Eurozone, for instance, to discriminate against those outside it.
So no money for NEETs then, no help for those just coming out of education and no help for the severely disabled, no help for those newly started work but needing help with housing (other hardship examples are available)?
Contributory systems have much to commend them but they need a safety net for those not covered. And how do we stop the safety net being used by EU citizens? I think the government looked at this quite seriously (remember that nonsense about no one getting benefits until they were 23 or 24?) but have wisely decided that is not the way to address it.
I think you are right that this will not be easy. If, for example, the criteria was 4 years residence in the UK then it could theoretically apply to practically everyone but that is probably indirectly discriminatory.
But the whole point of "free movement" in a single market (and the clue is in the word "market") is "freedom to work". It would be interesting to have a trawl back through the archives to find any statement by anyone involved in negotiating these fundamental Treaty freedoms who ever envisaged it being an absolute free movement of citizens including right to receive whatever benefits are available in that other state.
All ethnic minority groups in England are now, on average, more likely to go to university than their White British peers. This is the case even amongst groups who were previously under-represented in higher education, such as those of Black Caribbean ethnic origin, a relatively recent change.
These differences also vary by socio-economic background, and in some cases are very large indeed. For example, Chinese pupils in the lowest socio-economic quintile group are, on average, more than 10 percentage points more likely to go to university than White British pupils in the highest socio-economic quintile group. By contrast, White British pupils in the lowest socio-economic quintile group have participation rates that are more than 10 percentage points lower than those observed for any other ethnic group.
These are amongst the findings of research undertaken by IFS researchers, funded by the Departments of Education and Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), and published by BIS.
Curiously, white British pupils do better, in terms of test scores than black, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi pupils, but are still less likely to go to university. Does that mean they're less likely to see any real benefit from university?
This is going to sound horribly elitist and snobbish, but I think it was a mistake for successive governments to set a target of 50% of school kids should go to university (and turn so many polytechnics into universities)
I think some students have seen through that.
There's nothing snobbish and elitist about it. I think some of the new universities aren't good, and their degrees aren't rated at all by employers. So, you incur a debt of £27,000 getting a degree that's not worth the paper its written on.
If I were 18 today, I'd seriously be wondering if it was worth getting a degree at all.
I would have no choice! I think one of the reasons so many ethnic minority children are going to university is because their parents insist on it.
That said, I did disappoint my mother by not doing a medical degree.
It isn't the terms that Cameron is asking for that are important here, it is the framing of the debate.
ie unelected officials telling a Prime Minister of a beacon of the free world what he can and can't do in his own country. At a relatively minor level.
All ethnic minority groups in England are now, on average, more likely to go to university than their White British peers. This is the case even amongst groups who were previously under-represented in higher education, such as those of Black Caribbean ethnic origin, a relatively recent change.
These differences also vary by socio-economic background, and in some cases are very large indeed. For example, Chinese pupils in the lowest socio-economic quintile group are, on average, more than 10 percentage points more likely to go to university than White British pupils in the highest socio-economic quintile group. By contrast, White British pupils in the lowest socio-economic quintile group have participation rates that are more than 10 percentage points lower than those observed for any other ethnic group.
These are amongst the findings of research undertaken by IFS researchers, funded by the Departments of Education and Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), and published by BIS.
Curiously, white British pupils do better, in terms of test scores than black, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi pupils, but are still less likely to go to university. Does that mean they're less likely to see any real benefit from university?
This is going to sound horribly elitist and snobbish, but I think it was a mistake for successive governments to set a target of 50% of school kids should go to university (and turn so many polytechnics into universities)
I think some students have seen through that.
It isn't elitist and snobbish - it's common sense. I thought about this last week when watching the antics of some of the student protestors last week - they wouldn't have fees to worry about if we didn't have so many people going to university these days. Wonder how many of the protestors would have been university students back in the 80s when I think around 10% of people went to university?
In any case, "Overall, 58.8% of graduates are in jobs deemed to be non-graduate roles, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
It said the number of graduates had now "significantly outstripped" the creation of high-skilled jobs." The CIPD said the report's findings should be a "a wake-up call".
"The assumption that we will transition to a more productive, higher-value, higher-skilled economy just by increasing the conveyor belt of graduates is proven to be flawed," said Peter Cheese, chief executive of the CIPD, the professional body for human resources managers. "
@paulwaugh: LibDem leader @timfarron seizes on pro-EU tone of Cameron speech: "In places I thought Ken Clarke had become Prime Minister"
Ah, if only...
You never know, when Dave steps down, and the Tories need to appeal to all those Lib Dems in the seats the gained in May, who better to appeal to them than Ken Clarke as leader.
There are some seats which very consistently vote differently at local elections to Parliamentary. There are obviously the areas of local Lib Dem strength. But, there are also some seats like Birmingham Edgbaston, Tooting, Westminster North, where the Conservatives do far better locally.
And yet Electoral Calculus are seeing fit to make it the start point of their 2020 prediction cycle and this kind of ward level work formed the basis of the Crosby strategy. So we're going to see a lot more of this.
I guess for Labour and Conservative, council ward incumbency is a smaller factor on a larger base vote than for the Lib Dems, Greens and Inds. For all the marginals there was a big squeeze on smaller parties, with net transfers to both Labour and Conservative from smaller parties when comparing council to GE, which is as you'd expect.
Looking at Broxtowe, I did the maths now, Labour polled 2468 voters less than Tories in the council elections, so they did outperform the GE margin (4287), even on a Tory district council.
Effectively, understanding the transfers is going to be key to predicting any election on this basis. It looks to me that Grn/Lab (council first) voters could have been signifcant in number (500-600), but heavily outweighed by LD/Con, Ind/Cons and Ind/UKIP voters (totalling around 5000 between them) with much fewer splitting LD/Lab (perhaps low 100s). And there may well still have been a few Lab/Cons and Lab/no vote for good measure.
If that is the case and people did manage to get to the ballot box in sufficient numbers to vote Labour in council elections, it does somewhat diminish the lazy Labour theory in favour of a swing voter theory.
Unfortunately, 2020 will be the next chance to do more exit polls to look specifically at the local/national splits.
I think you are right that this will not be easy. If, for example, the criteria was 4 years residence in the UK then it could theoretically apply to practically everyone but that is probably indirectly discriminatory.
Perhaps it could be contributory but with educational time attracting a notional contribution?
I'm sure the EU bureaucrats can come up with some such logical somersault. After all, they managed to solve the difficulty of the status of Northern Cyprus by declaring it to be simultaneously in the EU and not in the EU; this should be a doddle in comparison, if the political will is there.
Is there any point in someone arriving, registering, leaving and coming back 4 years later to claim benefits? People migrating from the new EU countries to anywhere is c!early bad in the long term for those very countries. They need to grow themselves and keep their own workers. The figure quoted for migrant benefits for 2013 was £513 million. This is a lot of money and I am not sure it can be reduced to zero, but when set against the whole benefits budget, not least the in work benefits, benefits running into billions and billions, it is not as large as some might be thinking.
I'm sat on the train opposite two women who briefly discussed the referendum. The one reading the Express is a Leaver, the other is on the fence and "needs more information".
End of anecdote.
Conclusion: Vote Leave need to hand out free copies of the Express!
The Express is the one and only national paper that I don't get. I see that everything from The Star to the Sun, from The Mail to The Guardian has a USP and an audience. But who buys the Express? And why?
it does have a good cryptic crossword
And the astrology section is good for a laugh
Many years ago I met someone who claimed to know about astrology etc. She told me that she had been given a job writing the astrology column for some (quite substantial) magazine. She said that she’d thought "she'd better do this scientifically so used her Tarot cards", then was most miffed to discover on publication that the somewhere along the line the predictions had been attached to the wrong months!
I did, IIRC manage to keep a straight face and sympathise!
A friend of mine had a student job on a regional newspaper, and managed to lose the horoscopes. So she made them up.
Nobody noticed.
My brother had a Saturday afternoon job for the local paper "The Football PInk" which came out on Saturday afternoons and included (as its name suggests) football news and the half-time scores. Being something of a lazy so-and-so, he decided it was a bit boring and tedious phoning up wherever it was he had to call to get the half-time scores so they could be included before the paper went to press. So he decided to make them up instead.
All ethnic minority groups in England are now, on average, more likely to go to university than their White British peers. This is the case even amongst groups who were previously under-represented in higher education, such as those of Black Caribbean ethnic origin, a relatively recent change.
These differences also vary by socio-economic background, and in some cases are very large indeed. For example, Chinese pupils in the lowest socio-economic quintile group are, on average, more than 10 percentage points more likely to go to university than White British pupils in the highest socio-economic quintile group. By contrast, White British pupils in the lowest socio-economic quintile group have participation rates that are more than 10 percentage points lower than those observed for any other ethnic group.
These are amongst the findings of research undertaken by IFS researchers, funded by the Departments of Education and Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), and published by BIS.
Curiously, white British pupils do better, in terms of test scores than black, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi pupils, but are still less likely to go to university. Does that mean they're less likely to see any real benefit from university?
This is going to sound horribly elitist and snobbish, but I think it was a mistake for successive governments to set a target of 50% of school kids should go to university (and turn so many polytechnics into universities)
I think some students have seen through that.
It doesn't sound anything of the kind - it's absolutely true. The 'Management' degree at my university (RHUL) could have been delivered in 6 months at a FE college. Total waste of time and resources by all concerned.
''how do we prevent the eurozone discriminating against us on the same basis in areas such as financial services, where the consequences of such discrimination could be very damaging indeed?''
We can't. They are going to do it anyway. So we either stay in and face the certainty of the City being destroyed, or come out, and save a good deal of it. The City will still be a massive draw to Chinese and Russian money, maybe more so if we are out.
As if on cue, from the WSJ, see this -
" The chairman of one of Europe’s biggest banks said on Tuesday that if the UK decided to leave the European Union it probably wouldn’t deal a major blow to London’s status as one of the world’s top financial hubs. Axel Weber, chairman of Switzerland’s UBS, said at a November 10 event hosted by The Wall Street Journal that Britain would probably be able to negotiate a deal giving it access to the EU’s vast single market for goods and services if its citizens vote to leave in a coming referendum. “I don’t think it would completely undermine the financial sector of London,” he said, at a WSJ Pro Central Banking event in London, referring to a British exit from the EU.
Weber acknowledged an exit could throw up challenges for London’s financial centre but said UBS probably wouldn’t immediately seek to move operations out of the capital if Britons voted to leave. If the UK voted in favour of Brexit, “I think there would be two years of heightened uncertainty but pretty much the same rights for market access,” he said. The bank would “wait for the dust to settle” and see what kind of deal the UK was able to negotiate, Weber said. UBS employs roughly 5,000 people in the UK in its investment banking and wealth management businesses. London’s attractions also include its huge pool of talent and position as a global marketplace, he said."
Weber was Bundesbank President and a member of the ECB's Council until 2011 so not uninfluential.
Correct me, please, if I am wrong but couldn't the migrant benefits issue be cured at a stroke if our benefits system was made exclusively contributory? I.e. you only get benefits - including working benefits - if you have contributed for a minimum number of years. So a migrant coming here would get nothing in the same way that an English person would get nothing until they had both contributed.
If that's right, then it's entirely within our own hands to solve the issue Cameron is making such a centrepiece of his negotiations by altering the basis of our benefits system.
Otherwise what Cameron seems to be asking for is the right to discriminate between UK nationals and non-UK nationals and I think this is one hell of an ask from other EU countries and almost certainly not in our interests. If it can be done for migrants then it could be done for companies and could allow the Eurozone, for instance, to discriminate against those outside it.
So no money for NEETs then, no help for those just coming out of education and no help for the severely disabled, no help for those newly started work but needing help with housing (other hardship examples are available)?
Contributory systems have much to commend them but they need a safety net for those not covered. And how do we stop the safety net being used by EU citizens? I think the government looked at this quite seriously (remember that nonsense about no one getting benefits until they were 23 or 24?) but have wisely decided that is not the way to address it.
I think you are right that this will not be easy. If, for example, the criteria was 4 years residence in the UK then it could theoretically apply to practically everyone but that is probably indirectly discriminatory.
The key phrase in your post is "safety net". Our in working benefits system is not a safety net, it is a way of life for many people, including EU immigrants. If it was truly a safety net and the more generous elements were on a contributory basis then that would also work.
So let's see. Europe's big political guns have instantly lined up to torpedo demands that many in the UK would regard as inadequate in the first place.
I guess for Labour and Conservative, council ward incumbency is a smaller factor on a larger base vote than for the Lib Dems, Greens and Inds. For all the marginals there was a big squeeze on smaller parties, with net transfers to both Labour and Conservative from smaller parties when comparing council to GE, which is as you'd expect.
Looking at Broxtowe, I did the maths now, Labour polled 2468 voters less than Tories in the council elections, so they did outperform the GE margin (4287), even on a Tory district council.
Effectively, understanding the transfers is going to be key to predicting any election on this basis. It looks to me that Grn/Lab (council first) voters could have been signifcant in number (500-600), but heavily outweighed by LD/Con, Ind/Cons and Ind/UKIP voters (totalling around 5000 between them) with much fewer splitting LD/Lab (perhaps low 100s). And there may well still have been a few Lab/Cons and Lab/no vote for good measure.
If that is the case and people did manage to get to the ballot box in sufficient numbers to vote Labour in council elections, it does somewhat diminish the lazy Labour theory in favour of a swing voter theory.
Unfortunately, 2020 will be the next chance to do more exit polls to look specifically at the local/national splits.
I think that's largely right, though in the specific case of Broxtowe the constituency excludes four Broxtowe wards with an overall Labour-Tory lead. But my personal vote had largely dispersed by 2015, while several Labour councillors have big personal votes that don't all transfer, and the Greens didn't stand in many council wards but took over 1500 GE votes. Another significant thing was that a lot more people than we expected voted LD locally but Tory in the GE.
Been playing a little with the new Electoral Calculus results. Not yet looked whether this is typical, but Labour won the council wards comprising Morley & Outwood by a total of 3261 votes in May, on a slightly lower number of returned papers than for the GE ballot boxes next door.
Ah, less interesting than I thought. Strong independents in Tory leaning wards.
And not atypical. At council elections 2015:
Labour won Derby North wards by 1868 Labour won Bedford wards by around 5000* Labour won Bolton West by around 1450* Tories won Plymouth Moor View by 460, though Electoral Calaculus turnout weighting suggests a very narrow Labour consituency win on these raw numbers.
Nuneaton sadly didn't have a 2015 council election across the whole constituency and alas alas Broxtowe has too many multi seat wards to get my head around (EC suggests Tory majority under 2k).
Given Electoral Calculus have turned away from modelling against polls and towards modelling council elections to get over the mistakes of last times, the fact that they still have to do some pretty serious weighting in even the simple marginals to get anything like a prediction must be a worry.
* some manipulation done around council wards electing multiple councillors or only partly in the constiuency.
There are some seats which very consistently vote differently at local elections to Parliamentary. There are obviously the areas of local Lib Dem strength. But, there are also some seats like Birmingham Edgbaston, Tooting, Westminster North, where the Conservatives do far better locally.
Am I right in thinking UKIP won the Thanet Council elections in May, and but didn't win either Thanet South or Thanet North at Westminster level?
Yes, but I think the council boundaries are somewhat different from the constituencies (the council takes in part of Dover).
Not quite right, Dover District Council takes in part of Thanet South ie Sandwich
"David Cameron told four-year halt to migrant benefits 'illegal' - live Within minutes of David Cameron setting out his EU reform demands, European Parliament president says plan is illegal.
Martin Schulz, the hugely powerful president of the European Parliament, says he thinks David Cameron's plan to restrict migrant benefits is illegal."
Will this be the "fake row" that has been forecast?
It probably is illegal at the moment because it discriminates against EU citizens to the betterment of UK citizens. That is what Cameron is trying to change.
What I meant was, has he already got some sort of agreement to this, which he can present as a great achievement? From last year: "The European court of justice (ECJ) has ruled that Germany can refuse welfare benefits to EU migrants if they have never held a job in the country.
All ethnic minority groups in England are now, on average, more likely to go to university than their White British peers. This is the case even amongst groups who were previously under-represented in higher education, such as those of Black Caribbean ethnic origin, a relatively recent change.
These differences also vary by socio-economic background, and in some cases are very large indeed. For example, Chinese pupils in the lowest socio-economic quintile group are, on average, more than 10 percentage points more likely to go to university than White British pupils in the highest socio-economic quintile group. By contrast, White British pupils in the lowest socio-economic quintile group have participation rates that are more than 10 percentage points lower than those observed for any other ethnic group.
These are amongst the findings of research undertaken by IFS researchers, funded by the Departments of Education and Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), and published by BIS.
Curiously, white British pupils do better, in terms of test scores than black, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi pupils, but are still less likely to go to university. Does that mean they're less likely to see any real benefit from university?
This is going to sound horribly elitist and snobbish, but I think it was a mistake for successive governments to set a target of 50% of school kids should go to university (and turn so many polytechnics into universities)
I think some students have seen through that.
It's not snobbish at all, it was a most cynical piece of political chicanery. Take youngsters off the unemployed list and charge them for a worthless degree.
If that's right, then it's entirely within our own hands to solve the issue Cameron is making such a centrepiece of his negotiations by altering the basis of our benefits system.
Otherwise what Cameron seems to be asking for is the right to discriminate between UK nationals and non-UK nationals and I think this is one hell of an ask from other EU countries and almost certainly not in our interests. If it can be done for migrants then it could be done for companies and could allow the Eurozone, for instance, to discriminate against those outside it.
So no money for NEETs then, no help for those just coming out of education and no help for the severely disabled, no help for those newly started work but needing help with housing (other hardship examples are available)?
Contributory systems have much to commend them but they need a safety net for those not covered. And how do we stop the safety net being used by EU citizens? I think the government looked at this quite seriously (remember that nonsense about no one getting benefits until they were 23 or 24?) but have wisely decided that is not the way to address it.
I think you are right that this will not be easy. If, for example, the criteria was 4 years residence in the UK then it could theoretically apply to practically everyone but that is probably indirectly discriminatory.
But the whole point of "free movement" in a single market (and the clue is in the word "market") is "freedom to work". It would be interesting to have a trawl back through the archives to find any statement by anyone involved in negotiating these fundamental Treaty freedoms who ever envisaged it being an absolute free movement of citizens including right to receive whatever benefits are available in that other state.
Probably at the time welfare systems were fairly basic and much more contributory so there was no particular incentive to do so and therefore no reason to think that this might become a problem. The issue has become more of an issue as welfare systems have grown and become more generous and as peoples sense of entitlement has grown with it.
The fundamental issue is that the EU thinks there should be no difference between how a state treats its own nationals and foreign nationals in every possible respect. In effect, it wants to abolish the concept of nationality within the EU. The people and governments do not - necessarily - share that view. Reconciling the two is not a matter of clever words or some new laws. They are fundamentally different world views and we - and the rest of the EU - are going to have to choose.
I'd like to see a market on whether the Lib Dems can save their deposit. A turnout market would be good too.
Only just seen this, but by a spooky co-incidence, Ladbrokes now have both of those things.
Lib Dems 5/6 Over 5% 5/6 Under 5%
Turnout 5/6 Over 44.5% 5/6 under 44.5%
Under 44.5% looks a good bet to me!
Given Ukip's since the election I wouldn't expect too high a turnout. Their own supporters might not be so enthusiastic and that won't help Labour's GOTV either. Still think 90% on Labour looks a bit high. I'd have thought nearer 75%.
So let's see. Europe's big political guns have instantly lined up to torpedo demands that many in the UK would regard as inadequate in the first place.
IN faces a big challenge.
Colour me cynical, but this has all the authenticity of a WWF bout. Cameron has to appear to be fighting the good fight, and Juncker, Schulz et al are obliging. It really is a storm in a teacup.
My brother had a Saturday afternoon job for the local paper "The Football PInk" which came out on Saturday afternoons and included (as its name suggests) football news and the half-time scores. Being something of a lazy so-and-so, he decided it was a bit boring and tedious phoning up wherever it was he had to call to get the half-time scores so they could be included before the paper went to press. So he decided to make them up instead.
People noticed.
A friend on an East of England paper which was mainly an advertising rag was asked to do a football column including short match reports. For no reason that I could understand except that he couldn't be arsed to go to any matches and saw the job as a short-term filler, he invented an entire league with fictional rival teams and reported their matches in low-key terms, calculated to avoid stirring interest. He got away with it - presumably those readers who noticed the column at all merely concluded it was some outfits they weren't interested in, and skipped on to the used car ads.
So let's see. Europe's big political guns have instantly lined up to torpedo demands that many in the UK would regard as inadequate in the first place.
IN faces a big challenge.
Colour me cynical, but this has all the authenticity of a WWF bout. Cameron has to appear to be fighting the good fight, and Juncker, Schulz et al are obliging. It really is a storm in a teacup.
Tough guy Dave won't take no for an answer. Which is easy enough when you don't ask any questions.
2003 and 2004 were the critical dates in the mess that now confronts us on EU immigration and the bloated 'in work', non-contributory, welfare bill.
Yes. Good old Labour. Very poor decision not to take up the transition period. The transition arrangements themselves were not good enough, but they were a nod in the direction of recognising the problem of economies operating at different speeds.
"David Cameron told four-year halt to migrant benefits 'illegal' - live Within minutes of David Cameron setting out his EU reform demands, European Parliament president says plan is illegal.
Martin Schulz, the hugely powerful president of the European Parliament, says he thinks David Cameron's plan to restrict migrant benefits is illegal."
Will this be the "fake row" that has been forecast?
It probably is illegal at the moment because it discriminates against EU citizens to the betterment of UK citizens. That is what Cameron is trying to change.
What I meant was, has he already got some sort of agreement to this, which he can present as a great achievement? From last year: "The European court of justice (ECJ) has ruled that Germany can refuse welfare benefits to EU migrants if they have never held a job in the country.
As I said the other day, no way does Cameron want to be arguing for out so no way is he imposing conditions that he is not confident that he can get some movement on.
I'm not saying that purely contributory system is necessarily desirable. I was just trying to understand whether this is fundamentally an EU issue or as much an issue with the structure of our benefits system. I do think that a government should be able to prioritise its own citizens over those of others.
It seems to me to be at the heart of what it means to be a nation state.
Being British means something more than simply living in the British Isles.
But that is a very fundamental difference with the whole thrust of the EU which is to eliminate those distinctions.
My main concern with this is that if we do permit discrimination on the grounds of nationality in one area how do we prevent the eurozone discriminating against us on the same basis in areas such as financial services, where the consequences of such discrimination could be very damaging indeed?
I think the answer to that is in paragraph 58 of the case that is referred to in the article that Lucy helpfully linked to: "As the Court has held on numerous occasions, the status of citizen of the Union is destined to be the fundamental status of nationals of the Member States, enabling those among such nationals who find themselves in the same situation to enjoy within the scope ratione materiae of the FEU Treaty the same treatment in law irrespective of their nationality, subject to such exceptions as are expressly provided for in that regard (judgments in Grzelczyk, C‑184/99, EU:C:2001:458, paragraph 31; D’Hoop, C‑224/98, EU:C:2002:432, paragraph 28; and N., EU:C:2013:9725, paragraph 27)."
In short we are all equal except to the extent that the Treaties say otherwise. As we have a veto on Treaty change we can stop a change along the lines that you are suggesting. (If we remain in the EU of course, outside in the EEA we would have no right to veto any such change).
Looking at Broxtowe, Labour polled 2468 voters less than Tories in the council elections, so they did outperform the GE margin (4287).
Effectively, understanding the transfers is going to be key to predicting any election on this basis. It looks to me that Grn/Lab (council first) voters could have been signifcant in number (500-600), but heavily outweighed by LD/Con, Ind/Cons and Ind/UKIP voters (totalling around 5000 between them) with much fewer splitting LD/Lab (perhaps low 100s). And there may well still have been a few Lab/Cons and Lab/no vote for good measure.
If that is the case and people did manage to get to the ballot box in sufficient numbers to vote Labour in council elections, it does somewhat diminish the lazy Labour theory in favour of a swing voter theory.
Unfortunately, 2020 will be the next chance to do more exit polls to look specifically at the local/national splits.
I think that's largely right, though in the specific case of Broxtowe the constituency excludes four Broxtowe wards with an overall Labour-Tory lead. But my personal vote had largely dispersed by 2015, while several Labour councillors have big personal votes that don't all transfer, and the Greens didn't stand in many council wards but took over 1500 GE votes. Another significant thing was that a lot more people than we expected voted LD locally but Tory in the GE.
I took the ward listings from Electoral Calculus, so the correct wards are accounted for and looked to me to lie fully within the constituency, so just took a raw party vote / number of party candidates for each ward.
Although they only fielded in 9/16 wards, the Greens perform better in the local elections than they did in GE (at least 2k depending on the divisor), but much of that is driven by fielding single candidates in multi-seat wards. So a lot of the transfers won't be simply Grn->Lab &c, they will be Lab/Lab/Grn -> Lab, LD/LD/Grn -> Lab or Con or Con/Ind -> Con, and a fraction of a voter will be transferring. And you always have to account a few Lab/Lab/Lab -> Grn or no vote -> Grn in wards where they did not stand.
At the moment, EC have just blasted a load of 'transfer numbers' at the problem for every individual constiuency, be nice if they can model how those different transfer numbers relate to parties not standing, single vs multi-seat wards, make some sense of them and reduce down the number of different parameters they feed in by hand. Not even considering that the transfer numbers in 2020 will look very different from those in 2015.
Applaud them for trying, but modelling at this level any better than the polls managed in 2015 seems like a big job even with modern big data analytics.
Still the pattern seems consistent that the Tories picked up many many more of these split voters across a variety of English marginals.
McMahon lives in Failsworth which was part of Oldham West until very recently and has now been dumped into Ashton Under Lyne. It is still part of Oldham MCB, so MacMahon can claim to be the local man.
Comments
Match bets
Vote %
Betting without Labour
I'd be interested to know what other European countries give, by way of benefits, if anything, to the NEETS, the young who have just left school, the severely disabled etc who have not contributed.
a) The ECJ riding a coach and horses through any agreement that isn't an iron clad treaty.
b) That when it comes to "ever closer union", words are wind, the ECJ and the Commission will continue to take ACTIONS for ever closer union regardless of the wording since that is explicitly their remit.
c) The other EU countries just deciding to ignore bits of the agreement they don't like. See the Dublin Agreement, and attempts to use the EU emergency fund to sort out Greece to name but two.
I think some students have seen through that.
@paulwaugh: LibDem leader @timfarron seizes on pro-EU tone of Cameron speech: "In places I thought Ken Clarke had become Prime Minister" Gift for Farage
We can't. They are going to do it anyway. So we either stay in and face the certainty of the City being destroyed, or come out, and save a good deal of it. The City will still be a massive draw to Chinese and Russian money, maybe more so if we are out.
If I were 18 today, I'd seriously be wondering if it was worth getting a degree at all.
Nobody noticed.
Possibly one way of doing that would be to say that if you have left school or are severely disabled, you are not free to travel to other countries to take up benefits there i.e. you can have help for such groups within Britain but similar groups in other countries can only use the equivalent schemes in their home countries and, if there aren't any, tough.
Personally I think this is the wrong issue to highlight in the negotiations but that's another matter.
That said, I did disappoint my mother by not doing a medical degree.
ie unelected officials telling a Prime Minister of a beacon of the free world what he can and can't do in his own country. At a relatively minor level.
That is what people will see.
In any case, "Overall, 58.8% of graduates are in jobs deemed to be non-graduate roles, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
It said the number of graduates had now "significantly outstripped" the creation of high-skilled jobs."
The CIPD said the report's findings should be a "a wake-up call".
"The assumption that we will transition to a more productive, higher-value, higher-skilled economy just by increasing the conveyor belt of graduates is proven to be flawed," said Peter Cheese, chief executive of the CIPD, the professional body for human resources managers. "
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-33983048
(Well a boy can dream)
I guess for Labour and Conservative, council ward incumbency is a smaller factor on a larger base vote than for the Lib Dems, Greens and Inds. For all the marginals there was a big squeeze on smaller parties, with net transfers to both Labour and Conservative from smaller parties when comparing council to GE, which is as you'd expect.
Looking at Broxtowe, I did the maths now, Labour polled 2468 voters less than Tories in the council elections, so they did outperform the GE margin (4287), even on a Tory district council.
Effectively, understanding the transfers is going to be key to predicting any election on this basis. It looks to me that Grn/Lab (council first) voters could have been signifcant in number (500-600), but heavily outweighed by LD/Con, Ind/Cons and Ind/UKIP voters (totalling around 5000 between them) with much fewer splitting LD/Lab (perhaps low 100s). And there may well still have been a few Lab/Cons and Lab/no vote for good measure.
If that is the case and people did manage to get to the ballot box in sufficient numbers to vote Labour in council elections, it does somewhat diminish the lazy Labour theory in favour of a swing voter theory.
Unfortunately, 2020 will be the next chance to do more exit polls to look specifically at the local/national splits.
People migrating from the new EU countries to anywhere is c!early bad in the long term for those very countries. They need to grow themselves and keep their own workers.
The figure quoted for migrant benefits for 2013 was £513 million. This is a lot of money and I am not sure it can be reduced to zero, but when set against the whole benefits budget, not least the in work benefits, benefits running into billions and billions, it is not as large as some might be thinking.
People noticed.
" The chairman of one of Europe’s biggest banks said on Tuesday that if the UK decided to leave the European Union it probably wouldn’t deal a major blow to London’s status as one of the world’s top financial hubs. Axel Weber, chairman of Switzerland’s UBS, said at a November 10 event hosted by The Wall Street Journal that Britain would probably be able to negotiate a deal giving it access to the EU’s vast single market for goods and services if its citizens vote to leave in a coming referendum. “I don’t think it would completely undermine the financial sector of London,” he said, at a WSJ Pro Central Banking event in London, referring to a British exit from the EU.
Weber acknowledged an exit could throw up challenges for London’s financial centre but said UBS probably wouldn’t immediately seek to move operations out of the capital if Britons voted to leave. If the UK voted in favour of Brexit, “I think there would be two years of heightened uncertainty but pretty much the same rights for market access,” he said. The bank would “wait for the dust to settle” and see what kind of deal the UK was able to negotiate, Weber said. UBS employs roughly 5,000 people in the UK in its investment banking and wealth management businesses. London’s attractions also include its huge pool of talent and position as a global marketplace, he said."
Weber was Bundesbank President and a member of the ECB's Council until 2011 so not uninfluential.
So let's see. Europe's big political guns have instantly lined up to torpedo demands that many in the UK would regard as inadequate in the first place.
IN faces a big challenge.
Lib Dems
5/6 Over 5%
5/6 Under 5%
Turnout
5/6 Over 44.5%
5/6 under 44.5%
Whole idea is to make Harold Wilson's renegotiation look respectable.
The fundamental issue is that the EU thinks there should be no difference between how a state treats its own nationals and foreign nationals in every possible respect. In effect, it wants to abolish the concept of nationality within the EU. The people and governments do not - necessarily - share that view. Reconciling the two is not a matter of clever words or some new laws. They are fundamentally different world views and we - and the rest of the EU - are going to have to choose.
Under 44.5 too.
2 ponies in total.
New Thread New Thread
"As the Court has held on numerous occasions, the status of citizen of the Union is destined to be the fundamental status of nationals of the Member States, enabling those among such nationals who find themselves in the same situation to enjoy within the scope ratione materiae of the FEU Treaty the same treatment in law irrespective of their nationality, subject to such exceptions as are expressly provided for in that regard (judgments in Grzelczyk, C‑184/99, EU:C:2001:458, paragraph 31; D’Hoop, C‑224/98, EU:C:2002:432, paragraph 28; and N., EU:C:2013:9725, paragraph 27)."
In short we are all equal except to the extent that the Treaties say otherwise. As we have a veto on Treaty change we can stop a change along the lines that you are suggesting. (If we remain in the EU of course, outside in the EEA we would have no right to veto any such change).
Although they only fielded in 9/16 wards, the Greens perform better in the local elections than they did in GE (at least 2k depending on the divisor), but much of that is driven by fielding single candidates in multi-seat wards. So a lot of the transfers won't be simply Grn->Lab &c, they will be Lab/Lab/Grn -> Lab, LD/LD/Grn -> Lab or Con or Con/Ind -> Con, and a fraction of a voter will be transferring. And you always have to account a few Lab/Lab/Lab -> Grn or no vote -> Grn in wards where they did not stand.
At the moment, EC have just blasted a load of 'transfer numbers' at the problem for every individual constiuency, be nice if they can model how those different transfer numbers relate to parties not standing, single vs multi-seat wards, make some sense of them and reduce down the number of different parameters they feed in by hand. Not even considering that the transfer numbers in 2020 will look very different from those in 2015.
Applaud them for trying, but modelling at this level any better than the polls managed in 2015 seems like a big job even with modern big data analytics.
Still the pattern seems consistent that the Tories picked up many many more of these split voters across a variety of English marginals.