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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Alastair Meeks compares his predictions for 2015 with what
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Alastair Meeks compares his predictions for 2015 with what actually happened
Every year I sit down at Christmas and try to work out what will happen in the following twelve months. I do this not because I have any great confidence in my predictive power – as you’re about to see, that would be an illustration of the Dunning-Kruger effect – but because it is useful to have a record of what I thought might be going to happen and to see where I have gone wrong in th…
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Edit:- Damn somebody beat me to it.
An interesting thread Mr Meeks, thank you. ‘making predictions is chastening’ it certainly can be, but also very brave Gunga Din.
Other places England existed before 1999: In places, the 1972 Local Government Act quite clearly refers to 'England' only, without also referring to Wales at the same time.
The book Superforecasters reports that in experiments with large panels making geopolitical predictions, the best performers frequently revise their forecasts. (Contrarily, the best-known and best paid pundits did not, as punditry requires the illusion of certainty.)
Like plenty of others you don't like Farage but it's a tough one for me, by his own admission he's like marmite but it remains to be seen what happens when he steps down, whenever that may be. He almost singlehandedly dragged UKIP to where it is, filling his boots will be a tough call.
When did we start naming the UK weather? At this rate we’ll be through the alphabet by Feb.
Female hurricanes cause approximately 3 times as many fatalities as male hurricanes.
Weather folks looked at every factor they could possibly think of, controlling for everything and couldn't understand why.
So they asked a behavioural scientist. Apparently it's very simple: men don't feel the need to seek shelter from female hurricanes (they don't think that Hurricane Doris is a threat, but Hurricane Butch sounds dangerous) - and hence there are significantly higher casualties.
Humans, eh!
“[Our] model suggests that changing a severe hurricane’s name from Charley … to Eloise … could nearly triple its death toll,” the study says.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/06/02/female-named-hurricanes-kill-more-than-male-because-people-dont-respect-them-study-finds/
You know who you are, let's see you start a campaign to have Letwin removed, if a kipper had aired these views you'd be foaming at the mouth.
What Antifrank shows though is how far conventional wisdom can be from the truth. None of his predictions were outlandish.
We should not write off either Mr Corbyn or the Republicans just yet. Or Leicester City for that matter!
If you can accurately predict the future, then you are not looking far enough ahead.
In which case please name a single example of where Tories have "foamed at the mouth" about comments made 30 years earlier by a Kipper which have subsequently been apologised for. Comments made yesterday which haven't been apologised for are not comparable.
Can't remember what I guessed would happen, but my instinct would be that we'd end up with a hung Parliament. Many thought that.
Many underestimated the crapness of Ed Miliband.
Miss Plato, I agree. It's ridiculous self-involved claptrap from the media/weather folk. They aren't bloody hurricanes.
Brilliantly, the storm names are based on wind speed. So, high rainfall but relatively low wind speeds don't get a name. But flooding's a bigger problem in the UK (as has been noticed...) than high wind speeds.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/35195256
Horner does actually have a point. But it's a point soaked in hypocrisy. Bleating for rule changes wasn't something he did when Red Bull and Vettel got 8 titles in 4 years, as well as racking up a ridiculous joint-record of on-the-bounce wins (about 11, I think).
It'll also be interesting to see how well Ferrari does next year.
Here are my political, geopolitical and economic forecasts for 2016:
1. Commodity prices will stay in the toilet. Yes, I know this isn't exactly an outrageous claim, but most of the forward curves expect a rapid bounce back, particularly for the oil price.
2. Which will lead to severe problems in some commodity exporters. Putin to fall in 2016? It seems almost inconceivable given his 80%+ approval ratings. But 80% of Russian exports are of raw materials, and the Russian economy has shrunk something like 40% in US dollar terms. If unemployment continues to rise, then that popularity may not last long.
3. The Chinese economy will hit several road bumps in 2016 as it transitions to being more consumer led. China at the beginning of a historic re-balancing process, and "consumer spending" needs to increase dramatically as a percentage of GDP, while Fixed Capital Formation needs to come down. This is going to be a difficult transition, although I'm sure they'll make successfully it in the end.
4. I genuinely have no idea who the Republican nominee will be. With that said, I think Rubio would hammer Hillary; Cruz would be hammered by Hillary; and Trump... I think it would be extremely close. (Betting strategy: Buy Cruz for nominee, Sell for President; and the reverse for Rubio.
5. I have no idea who will win the London mayoral race. I'd make Khan the narrow favourite (IP 55-60%), but have no great desire to waste my money right now.
6. Immigration to the UK from the EU will slow markedly in 2016. Why? Because the gap between GDP growth in the UK and the Eurozone has already narrowed markedly. Economic migrants are economically rational: if the relative job prospects gap has narrowed, and the cost of living in the UK has increased markedly (both are clearly true) then the incentive to come here will be lower. It's notable that the migration flows from Spain and Ireland to the UK have now gone into reverse and more people are going to those countries, than the other way.
7. The LibDems will win a by-election. Admittedly, it will only be a parish council one, but hey, you've got to start somewhere.
If he was pitching to be leader of the Tory Party...but there's no chance of that
Would Scots take more or less action in the face of Storm Maggie? Would Tory voters evacuate faster at the prospect of Storm Corbyn?
On Letwin, in response to EPG's classically tendentious question on the previous thread, my answer is this: few people intend to bring up their children to be criminals. But too many fail to bring up their children in a way which reduces the chances of them becoming criminals. We do them and the children no favours by not pointing this out.
Two points: (a) if you want your children to know the difference between right and wrong and to try and choose right over wrong, if you want them to take responsibility for their own actions not blame others for what they do, you have to teach them that and show them that, day in, day out for 20 years and even then it's bloody hard. If you don't even bloody try then it's near impossible; and (2) it is very difficult - not impossible but harder than it might be, especially when you get to the teenage years - to bring up boys well without a father being present.
Create or turn a blind eye or be indifferent to the growth of fatherless communities and don't be surprised if the consequences are borne by the children and if those children grow up to be adults who make less than ideal moral choices.
And in the Broadwater Farm riots a number of individuals did make very bad moral choices indeed, including the brutal murder of a policeman, a husband and a father, and no-one has yet been convicted for his murder nor have any of those who might have helped by coming forward with evidence to help convict his murder done so. The murderer or murderers and those who have turned a blind eye or helped the murderers are not just victims, if they are victims. They are moral actors and they have made - in their actions and non-actions - the wrong moral choices. Apparently, we can't say such things in public life or we get idiots like Umunna criticising us - but public life is the poorer for this.
Oh - and for EPG's benefit, I don't think people bring up their children to be "leeches on PB's taxes" (as you put it). I was volunteering to help the youngsters in North Ken in the 1980's. What were you doing?
Edited extra bit: apparently 4-5" of rain expected for Cumbria.
I have some Irish ancestry ... should I ask myself to apologise to me for the Famine?
I wonder if the next idée fixe we will be transfixed by is the idea that a Corbyn-led Labour Party cannot win a majority............
Gulp!
Letwin probably was reflecting a wider feeling that was held at the time. I genuinely don't think that it exists anymore and I think he is genuinely mortified that he held such views. He has rightly apologised unreservedly and that is that. We have moved on.
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2015/05/07/the-exit-poll-is-great-news-for-the-tories/
There is an element going on here of Caliban raging at himself in the mirror.......
These comments were made public after being protected for thirty-years. Letwin was overall correct in his assessment; his delivery is what he has apologised for....
:more-beer:
Resolution for 2016: be less flippant.
DuckTrump, next year looks set to be even weirder!Very few of us will not have changed our views on some things over 30 years - unless we're Corbyn of course. It's the mark of an adult.
On Letwin: I know David Lammy has a poor reputation on here, but he has a good handle on the the problems facing inner-city black kids. his book "Out of the Ashes" is a bit of a mess, but he defines the problems well, even if I don't agree with all of his proposed solutions.
In fact, some of Lammy's comments are not a million miles away from Letwin's, even if they were made over twenty years later.
I'm thinking a lot about the proposition that what happens in the first year of a Parliament has more influence over the next election than anything that happens later. This is clearly not always true. In particular, it probably doesn't hold if one of the main parties changes leader after that point. Still, there may be less scope for change than one thinks. People say "Events dear boy" but *most* events change nothing.
It also strikes me that there was a tendency to underestimate the stability of the last Government. "The coalition won't last until 2015" seemed like a truism back in 2011. These days I wonder if I overestimate the likelihood of a post-referendum Tory split.
The miscreants are given a hard dose of reality for their behaviour and selfish irresponsibility - and a hand up if they want to change their ways, get treatment or mend broken relationships.
Rare guests with jobs earn rounds of applause - and entitled youngsters on the dole, doped on cannabis, spawning kids - loudly booed. Absent parents - little sympathy for their excuse making and the harm they've done.
No wonder his show has been running for 10yrs. When I first saw it - I was WTF. This was a foreign land to me - failure in education, morality/responsibility, socialisation and expectations. Now it's one of my favourite shows because it's so straight. And of course the entertainment value of regular meltdowns as cheaters, thieves and liars are exposed/shamed.
I remain amazed at how many still think that they won't be caught by the lie detector and paternity tests. Almost all of them fess up within 10mins of claiming outraged innocence.
http://thaddeusthesixth.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/the-polygraph-work-of-science-fiction.html
I did like this from the Herald report:
The 'initial impressions' of the poverty advisor were expressed in a briefing note to Ms Sturgeon ahead of a meeting in late August. SNP ministers initially tried to keep the document secret, refusing to release it under Freedom of Information laws, but relented after the decision was appealed.
Is Tottenham worse than Wembley or Harlesden or Colindale? The latter I endured for very short periods and wouldn't wish them on anyone.
"Wen I was a child ... as St Paul said.
But I don't think, for instance, that Ken Livingstone should have apologised to Kevan Jones. He felt annoyed with him and meant to insult him. He meant to cause offence.
He succeeded.
Pretending to apologise "for causing offence" is then illogical.
Apologising for having opinions which were mainstream thirty years ago, is even sillier.
Should I apologise now for this comment if in thirty years time, someone finds it offensive?
Have I just fallen down a rabbit hole?
Proof that insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result, I'm putting my 2016 predictions together now.
* some kind of Corbyn-led minority Government or, just possibly, coalition.
* Labour minority Government following a change of leader. Sure, it would be another Corbynite.
How about this: Nick Palmer wins a by-election, next Labour leader, Prime Minister in 2020?
As a race of super-intelligent rabbits, transmitting this message from the future and temporarily taking over this account, we would like to complain about your comment.
But we won't bother, as we won the human-rabbit wars. LOL.
Given paedophiles are perhaps second only to psychopaths when it comes to lying, this is a shockingly stupid approach to take.
I'm loath to ban things, but I do think the polygraph should be treated with contempt.
When a dumb idea gets cut-through like that...
Thirty years ago, I was a mainstream Labour voter and my opinions were a little different. There's no right or wrong because opinions are always subjective, as is the perceived truth.
In1980, I might have thought Jimmy Saville was a good chap (I didn't as it happens, but that's not relevant). Now my opinions are different, so should I apologise for being wrong? And if in thirty years time, we discover he was a good chap after all, should I re-apologise.
And even without any of that the accuracy is scarcely over 50%. The very existence of the polygraph is a masterclass in PR bullshit over science.