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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Clegg’s YouGov ratings were substantially better than Corby
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Clegg’s YouGov ratings were substantially better than Corbyn’s now getting just before the election that saw his party almost wiped out
One of the polling elements that I’ve been highlighting in recent weeks is how leader ratings have proved to be a better pointer to electoral outcomes than voting intention polling.
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December temperatures got well below -18 celsius, particularly with a wind. It is so cold that metal doesn't feel cold, and if you try to open a car door without gloves, it takes the skin off your fingers.
One Christmas Eve, it was so cold the power cables became brittle and broke in the wind. Midnight Mass at the local catholic church was imprisoned as they lost power and the church doors were frozen shut.
I just assumed it was God's way of saying that being Anglican was the way to go
Guardian's take. Down to El Nino, but amplified due to global warming. Not unusual, just a bit more extreme.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/27/uk-floods-and-extreme-global-weather-linked-to-el-nino-and-climate-change
Like the time that the head of R&D at a big global company told me about the time he was suffering frostbitten fingers in a storm in Northern Ontario. So he stripped off the sleeves from his overcoat (Canadian jackets are made with shoulder zips) and plunged both arms past the elbow into a cow's rear end...
Or the time when another explained to me (over supper!) the consequences of standing directly behind a cow with a cough...
As someone suggested on the last thread, I wonder if Dave is having second thoughts about wanting to step down before the election, no PM has ever won three successive elections with increasing majorities.
Speaking of which, another Grandee calls for a free vote and civilised discourse for the referendum, acknowledging that there's more than a few cabinet ministers who will resign rather than be forced into collective responsibility on this one.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/12070992/Give-ministers-a-free-vote-on-EU-or-risk-Tory-chaos-warns-Lord-Howard.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/12070827/London-terror-alert-over-New-Years-Eve-attack-fears.html
The terrorists only have to succeed once.
Lovely today though, 21C at 9am, clear blue sky with a few fluffy cumulus, rising to about 26'in the early afternoon. Like a nice British Summer's day
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/yourbusiness/12068240/Small-business-owners-better-off-on-the-dole-if-proposed-tax-return-changes-go-through.html
If Corbyn had anything about him he'd get plenty of support here, but like the vast majority of politicians he has no idea how small businesses operate.
The reason I never went into the sector is because I couldn't work out how not to be dishonest to someone - quite possibly myself. But larger outfits are no better, really. Your line manager wants you to work for him/her whilst the outfit pays you. There's a word for expecting something for nothing, especially when made (as it all too often was) with a veiled or not-so-veiled threat.
There's no such thing as an honest penny.
As indicated below, this isn't great for Corbyn but what also needs considering are the figures for the new Conservative leader.
That said, the sheep and wolves analogy has worked well so far. That bodes ill for both sides (infighting for the blues, Corbyn for the reds).
This was backed up by an entrepreneur I know, whose first action when setting up a new tech business was to head-hunt a lady who really knew HR regulations well, and a bloke who was a whizz at financials.
Most small companies cannot afford such largesse, and have to try to muddle through the regulations as best they can.
I wonder if we are at a point yet where for a majority of its voters, Labour's public politics no longer match their private politics?
But it's not just large firms. When the state's a competitor then they use their apparatus to squeeze out newcomers.
And I'd say entrepreneurs are ordinary people: they're just a subset of ordinary people.
IME where entrepreneurs differ from the 'average' member of the public is in their capabilities to work hard, take managed risks and focus. Many people (the majority?) do the former; the luck comes in with the second, and the third is perhaps the hardest to achieve.
Most of us have skills that are not common amongst other members of the general public. That does not make us any less ordinary.
There was a photo of Gates and Gerstner (then Chairman of IBM) on the back of Computing magazine years ago, the caption read "One of these man knows how to format a disk, the other wrote the format command"
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2491263,00.asp
Perhaps his biggest decision was to screw IBM over OS/2, turning MS's DOS dominance into the Windows hegemony.
I don't dislike Gates (or Microsoft) at all. I cannot say the same for Jobs and Apple, although I *really* like Woz.
I was working for IBM at during the rise and fall of OS/2, I regret to say it was one of several ways my former employer was failing to wake up an smell the coffee at the time.
The skill is in the positioning.
Gates was a very successful and ruthless businessman, and while his current philanthropy is admirable and extraordinary in its scale, it is perhaps also fire insurance in case St Peter takes a dim view of his early business practices.
Maybe the true story of the computing business is IBM giving stuff away: it allowed not only Microsoft's rise but also Oracle's, for relational databases and SQL came from IBM labs.
Well, IBM and successive British governments, since our desire to play at spies led us to throw away our lead in computers and later in cryptography. Ironically, our spooks were mainly working for Moscow anyway.
He has to drop into the low teens to get wipeout. Unlikely at present, but not impossible if we look at SLAB. There would have to be some sort of breakaway Centrist/soft Left party to do this, hard to see Farron doing it by 2020.
The question for Mike, is why did the LDs stay with Nick Clegg and how can Labour avoid that fate.
By the end the LDs seemed a bit cultish.
Take politics. *Anyone* who has been PM has had luck to get into that position, if only in timing. For instance, if Smith had not died then Blair might never have become PM: the opportunity would have passed. But he had developed skills and networked so that when the opportunity came, he was in prime position.
He didn't make the luck (unless you think he killed Smith).
Talking of luck, if after all that is going on - reshuffle to get rid of the few shadow ministers who still have a pair of brain cells to bang together, worse personal ratings than Nick Clegg, the abolition of Christmas but not of Eid, and a continuing inability to reign in his more vicious attack dogs putting a kinder gentler politics into action by mocking, bullying and even threatening to rape people - Corbyn is not removed, it is the national duty of the Conservatives to find a way to bottle their luck and sell it.
Even allowing for all that, please tell me (from a couple of days ago) that it is a joke that Diane Abbott is being considered as Shadow Foreign Secretary.
Procedures are there and have to be complied with but it's just a matter of buying in the right expertise when you need it. Plenty of people out there who can provide the support you need.
I remember El Nino being mentioned by some meteorologist last year, who predicted a "warming" for this year and possibly next. I'll admit, I assumed that the AGW people would seize on it and ignore the current. So I was pleasantly surprised to see some balance at last.
Note I was talking about companies that employ others.
(My dad was also working in the building / demolition sectors, where there are perhaps more regulations than in many sectors).
V1 had too much nerdy arrogance and personal rivalry. Both versions started life in our spare room.
Gennaro is after the patron saint of Naples, St Januarius. A phial of his blood is kept in the Cathedral and is said to liquefy twice a year. If it doesn't, bad luck will be suffered by Naples. In 1944 it did not liquefy and Vesuvius erupted. For those who are interested, you can see a film of the lava slowly descending down the path into a village and stopping just short of the villagers headed by their priest holding up a crucifix. Still, it would not have needed a miracle to foresee the bad luck which faced Neapolitans in 1944.
And "Esposito" means "exposed" for the illegitimate babies left outside, often outside convents.
For anyone interested, "Naples '44" by Norman Lewis, about his time in Naples in this period as an intelligence officer, is one of the best war books there is. Highly recommended.
@Charles: I built a lot of additional shelves for my books a few years ago and have still run out of space. A call to the builders in 2016 is called for.
A glorious day in London today: yesterday I planted my Bengal Crimson rose (a Xmas present) and today a trip to the garden centre is on the cards before work calls tomorrow. Nothing more glorious than getting one's hands dirty and being in the fresh air on a day such as this.
BTW re slavery, I think it was France - under the Revolution - which first abolished slavery in its West Indian domains. Napoleon reintroduced it.
Again: are you sure you've followed all regulations all of the time? As a matter of interest, what sector are you in?
People don't just enter politics to become PM (though there will always be one) and before Smith's death Blair had already climbed the ranks to become not just a Shadow Cabinet Minister, but as Shadow Home Secretary was for his party holding one of the shadow Great Offices of State. While Smith was still alive.
Blair had already achieved more than most politicians do and the odds were very high that Blair would become at least a Cabinet Minister if not PM one day. Why would you ignore all that completely and only take being PM as a success?
For not very much per annum you can pay a subscription to a HR law firm in order to get telephone support so that if you have an HR issue (or need training) it is available on demand. Without having an in-house expert. Many of these companies will provide indemnified advice or other expertise too and come a lot cheaper than hiring an in-house expert. Membership of your local Chamber of Commerce provides this for example.
IF you go down that route, it's easily do-able.
(Runs away)
Now I have a team of 5. I have often thought that we would do better, financially, setting up independently and selling our services. Possibly an idea for the coming year.
Anyway, the point being that the entrepreneurial mindset - finding a gap in the market and selling yourself as the answer to it - is one that all workers, whether employees, freelancers or those running companies - should try and adopt.
Squeeze hard and like soap they popped into the and and went Left . You could argue it's Tory luck - but it was also a situation created by Tory policy.. so to some extent self made luck..
(Whether by accident or design is debatable of course)..
But the issue of the 4 times a year tax return is that it creates extra work and cost to both small businesses and HMRC with no benefits, it is bad legislation and a hindrance to productivity.
That said, I think one should consider that Corbyn is uncharted territory. No mainstream party has ever had so unmainstream a leader. Perhaps he can confound the polls and achieve total annihilation of his party.
What to do? Replace him. OK, can't do that. Drink then.
For businesses it's a quarter of the work done four times as often, not much extra time and good practice to know sooner than later your results anyway.
My argument is that the key thing is developing the skills and contacts to take advantage of the opportunities when they arise (and as many different opportunities as possible). You do not necessarily make those opportunities. But the more skills and contacts you have, the more opportunities you can grasp when they appear.
As an example, if Gary Kildall has not been out when IBM had visited (*), would Microsoft have become the dominant company it did? Yet he was, and Microsoft seized that piece of luck and licensed QDOS to meet IBM's requirements.
(*) There is some argument about exactly what happened: it is clear that Digital Research were unwilling to take IBM's terms.
What price will you give me this legislation never goes through? Osbirne's advisors will read the press and u-turn, no two ways about it.
I'm really keen on tech companies having small Skunkworks groups to develop new products and markets, and of management willing to run with what they develop.
He claims to have called the tory majority and the collapse in oil prices this time last year.
Wasn't it Chris Mullins MP who only claimed expenses for a black and white TV set?
The usual stuff dished out that the DUP will support the Tories needs to be proven. UU will, of course.
I don't see and SNP decline. Can UKIP and LD snare those 2% from the Tories ? Not impossible.
Wasn't it Chris Mullins MP who only claimed expenses for a black and white TV set?
Portraits are often better in black and white. The tonal quality is far superior and colour is often incorrect for flesh tones.