politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » UK pollsters should follow the firm that created the indust

System

politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » UK pollsters should follow the firm that created the industry and move on from party vote shares

The screen grab above is from the Election 2016 page of Gallup – the firm that created modern political polling in the 1930s. Its busy with lots of data, analysis and often excellent insights but one thing that you won’t find are voting intention polls.

Read the full story here

TheScreamingEagles

Interesting

Scott_P

The result of the next General Election, right here...

@FelicityHannah: My husband showed our 4-yr-old pictures of Hitler and Corbyn and asked which had the nicest face. He picked Corbyn, so that was nice.

@FelicityHannah: Sadly he then picked Cameron out as having a nicer face than Corbyn. If you need more vital political analysis like this, just let me know.

MaxPB

Leadership ratings were a much better guide to both 2010 and 2015. I guess as we move to a more presidential style of government where the PM plays a much more prominent role than ordinary Ministers it is inevitable that the leader ratings have become more important than the headline share.

Cyclefree

MaxPB said:

Leadership ratings were a much better guide to both 2010 and 2015. I guess as we move to a more presidential style of government where the PM plays a much more prominent role than ordinary Ministers it is inevitable that the leader ratings have become more important than the headline share.

Which means that who the Tories pick as leader, assuming Cameron does resign during this term, is key.

(Edited): Which also means that relying on Corbyn being crap and being seen by the voters as crap will not be enough. Too risky and too hubristic.

Pulpstar

If you had a box of 30,000,000 different coloured balls, and picked out 1000 at random then you could estimate quite accurately the split of balls in the box. But if the blue balls stick a coat on and don't want to be taken out the box...

Plato_Says

Jon
We're 2 minutes into Treasury Questions and the Long Term Economic Plan has been mentioned 3 times. #EverydayImLTEPing

Charles

Scott_P said:

The result of the next General Election, right here...

@FelicityHannah: My husband showed our 4-yr-old pictures of Hitler and Corbyn and asked which had the nicest face. He picked Corbyn, so that was nice.

@FelicityHannah: Sadly he then picked Cameron out as having a nicer face than Corbyn. If you need more vital political analysis like this, just let me know.

Why "sadly"?

Scott_P

Cyclefree said:

Which also means that relying on Corbyn being crap and being seen by the voters as crap will not be enough. Too risky and too hubristic.

Except that Corbyn has managed to exceed expectation of crapness at every turn.

Who could have predicted he would go in live telly at the weekend and propose nuclear submarines without nukes?

david_herdson

Fair point but I'm not sure how well it works in a multi-party system.

In the US, most elections are actually or effectively binary; there are few meaningful third-party interventions, so comparing favourability ratings is a good proxy indicator and perhaps even a better one than stated VI.

In the UK, how do we translate ratings into seats? We know roughly how to do it with vote shares but was does Cameron -6 / Corbyn -38 look like when translated to the Commons?

It's been said that there's no magic bullet to the industry's problem and I'd agree with that. There needs to be a range of data used and I'd agree with Mike that approval / likability ratings have a strong predictive element but are still something of a blunt tool.

malcolmg

FPT
Theuniondivvie said:

Or someone predicting the destruction of the SNP after losing the referendum?

I don't recall any such predictions, but it is interesting to watch the growing dissent in the Zoomer ranks.

The whole WheeshtForIndy campaign is hilarious.

Ha Ha Ha , at least there are enough SNP people to have a discussion over policy. Do you ever hear your Tory policies ( LOL ) being discussed by Tories on Tory blogs. Come the surge we will have a great laugh.

TheScreamingEagles

@bbclaurak: Junior docs strike suspended as talks continue

david_herdson

Scott_P said:

The result of the next General Election, right here...

@FelicityHannah: My husband showed our 4-yr-old pictures of Hitler and Corbyn and asked which had the nicest face. He picked Corbyn, so that was nice.

@FelicityHannah: Sadly he then picked Cameron out as having a nicer face than Corbyn. If you need more vital political analysis like this, just let me know.

Oh God. Justin Bieber is going to win the election on that basis.

Plato_Says

Well I never

Gabrielle Nash
Next week's #JuniorDoctorsStrike has been suspended

Scott_P

Charles said:

Why "sadly"?

She's not a Tory, as far as I can tell

Richard_Nabavi

MaxPB said:

Leadership ratings were a much better guide to both 2010 and 2015. I guess as we move to a more presidential style of government where the PM plays a much more prominent role than ordinary Ministers it is inevitable that the leader ratings have become more important than the headline share.

I don't think it's just that. I think the leadership rating is to an extent a proxy for whether the party is a credible party of government, whereas the voting intention question is mixed up with whether the voters identifies with the party brand.

In other words, voters might have said they wanted to vote Labour, but didn't really believe in a Miliband government, and were less likely therefore to actually vote for one.

To the extent that I'm right, you'd of course expect the effect to be very much bigger when an election is not imminent. There's no risk in telling a pollster that you support Labour in January 2016. It will be another matter voting for Jeremy Corbyn in 2020. Hence I think that Labour's already poor polling is misleadingly generous to them.

Scott_P

malcolmg said:

at least there are enough SNP people to have a discussion over policy.

They are not discussing policy

They are discussing censoring dissent from the Party line.

It's all a bit "ein volk ein reich ein führer"...

Wanderer

Doctors and Government talking again. Must be likely they settle now?

MaxPB

Voting intention - past vote recall, turnout weightings on a scale of 1-20 and multiple attempts to contact people. Those are the changes that could make a difference I think. Giving people a 1-10 scale on turnout makes it too easy to just say "definitely" scaling it up to 20 would make the 10% of people who say they will definitely vote "10" say something like 15/20 instead.

TheScreamingEagles

So where now for political pollsters?

Discussing the report on the Today programme, Ipsos MORI chief executive Ben Page made it clear that political polling didn’t bring in much cash compared to the work done for corporate clients - and he even went as far as suggesting that pollsters might just call it a day with election surveys.

“What you have to remember is out of the 1500 people I employ in London, only three of them are doing election polling. This is something that the industry does, to be honest, at relatively low budgets. The money that is available to pay for election polling is miniscule compared to the vast majority of what the industry is doing.

“And there are some really interesting questions about whether we should stop doing it altogether.”

But it's not quite all over yet. The alternative to scrapping election polls, suggested Page, was that broadcasters invest "seriously" in the work. As was the case with the (much more accurate) 2015 exit poll, when the media chucked in a cool £200,000….

Over to you, BBC, Sky and ITV...

http://goo.gl/RJo4qQ

CarlottaVance

malcolmg said:

Ha Ha Ha , at least there are enough SNP people to have a discussion over policy..

In case you missed it (not a lot of policy - run out of ideas for other Middle Class Tax Cuts?):

https://weegingerdug.wordpress.com/2016/01/19/the-great-scottish-blog-war/

I’ve been keeping out the Great Scottish Blog Wars. In case you haven’t noticed, which is another way of saying in case you’re a sane person who doesn’t care about arguments on social media because you have a real life, battle lines have been drawn over the question of list votes, and the best way to maximise the number of pro-independence MSPs in the next Scottish parliament. The merits and demerits of voting for RISE or the Greens in the list instead of voting twice for the SNP have been debated, dissected, and screamed at from trenches.

Some have accused other people of trying to silence them and shut down the debate, only they’ve been making the accusation on blogs and on Twitter where there really is very little sign that anyone is being gagged. In fact the ones who are claiming to have been censored and closed down seem to be the ones who are speaking the most.

Scott_P

@PickardJE: -Labour is polling at its worst level for 70 years.
-But we don't trust the polls any more.
-Because they are too generous to Labour.
-Oh.

Scott_P

CarlottaVance said:

Some have accused other people of trying to silence them and shut down the debate

It's the logical extension of the SNP requirement for candidates to sign "gagging orders"

malcolmg

Scott_P said:

malcolmg said:

at least there are enough SNP people to have a discussion over policy.

They are not discussing policy

They are discussing censoring dissent from the Party line.

It's all a bit "ein volk ein reich ein führer"...

Your arse, they are debating the finer points of the Holyrood voting system, something the Tories will never need worry about, their only concern is whether they will get a handful of consolation seats for being losers in the constituency vote.
Tories trying to get people not to use their second vote for the SNP is seriously pathetic.

David_Evershed

Scott_P said:

The result of the next General Election, right here...

@FelicityHannah: My husband showed our 4-yr-old pictures of Hitler and Corbyn and asked which had the nicest face. He picked Corbyn, so that was nice.

@FelicityHannah: Sadly he then picked Cameron out as having a nicer face than Corbyn. If you need more vital political analysis like this, just let me know.

Try Corbyn versus Osborne, May and Johnson.

Wanderer

TheScreamingEagles said:

So where now for political pollsters?

Discussing the report on the Today programme, Ipsos MORI chief executive Ben Page made it clear that political polling didn’t bring in much cash compared to the work done for corporate clients - and he even went as far as suggesting that pollsters might just call it a day with election surveys.

“What you have to remember is out of the 1500 people I employ in London, only three of them are doing election polling. This is something that the industry does, to be honest, at relatively low budgets. The money that is available to pay for election polling is miniscule compared to the vast majority of what the industry is doing.

“And there are some really interesting questions about whether we should stop doing it altogether.”

But it's not quite all over yet. The alternative to scrapping election polls, suggested Page, was that broadcasters invest "seriously" in the work. As was the case with the (much more accurate) 2015 exit poll, when the media chucked in a cool £200,000….

Over to you, BBC, Sky and ITV...

http://goo.gl/RJo4qQ

I think that is the answer tbh.

In the last Parliament we had an absurd number of low-quality, cheap polls. They made low-quality, cheap news items that one skimmed over in half a second. YouGov... yawn.

We are not, realistically, going to have no polling. Less frequent, (hopefully) better polls will automatically be much more newsworthy. There will be money for them.

TOPPING

TheScreamingEagles said:

So where now for political pollsters?

Discussing the report on the Today programme, Ipsos MORI chief executive Ben Page made it clear that political polling didn’t bring in much cash compared to the work done for corporate clients - and he even went as far as suggesting that pollsters might just call it a day with election surveys.

“What you have to remember is out of the 1500 people I employ in London, only three of them are doing election polling. This is something that the industry does, to be honest, at relatively low budgets. The money that is available to pay for election polling is miniscule compared to the vast majority of what the industry is doing.

“And there are some really interesting questions about whether we should stop doing it altogether.”

But it's not quite all over yet. The alternative to scrapping election polls, suggested Page, was that broadcasters invest "seriously" in the work. As was the case with the (much more accurate) 2015 exit poll, when the media chucked in a cool £200,000….

Over to you, BBC, Sky and ITV...

http://goo.gl/RJo4qQ

It's like Yahoo buying that kid's software company for $20m. A drop in the ocean compared with what the subsequent media coverage would have cost.

Polling companies' logos all over the news is well worth the handful of employees' wages. Unless they are all on work experience and c*ck it up, as they seemed to have last May.

Richard_Nabavi

david_herdson said:

In the UK, how do we translate ratings into seats? We know roughly how to do it with vote shares but was does Cameron -6 / Corbyn -38 look like when translated to the Commons?

I'd suggest using them as a guide for mentally adjusting the headline voting intention figures.

Cyclefree

Scott_P said:

Cyclefree said:

Which also means that relying on Corbyn being crap and being seen by the voters as crap will not be enough. Too risky and too hubristic.

Except that Corbyn has managed to exceed expectation of crapness at every turn.

Who could have predicted he would go in live telly at the weekend and propose nuclear submarines without nukes?

True but nonetheless Oldham showed us that having a crap leader - even a monumentally stupid and dangerous one - may not be enough. Plus there are other factors which could come into play: time for a change, sympathy for the underdog, a recession, some colossal Tory mistake etc etc.

The Tories should prepare for the worst case (from their perspective) i.e. that Labour get a better leader or, despite their existing leader, make a case which is sufficiently attractive to wipe out the Tory majority which, after all, is not large.

Hubris is never attractive. Choose the wrong leader and the Tories could handicap themselves just as much as Labour have done. They would be wise to remember that.

Plato_Says

I can't believe most pollsters will abandon political polling. It gets their name front and centre on prime time TV. Having crap accuracy issues is another matter.

malcolmg

CarlottaVance said:

malcolmg said:

Ha Ha Ha , at least there are enough SNP people to have a discussion over policy..

In case you missed it (not a lot of policy - run out of ideas for other Middle Class Tax Cuts?):

https://weegingerdug.wordpress.com/2016/01/19/the-great-scottish-blog-war/

I’ve been keeping out the Great Scottish Blog Wars. In case you haven’t noticed, which is another way of saying in case you’re a sane person who doesn’t care about arguments on social media because you have a real life, battle lines have been drawn over the question of list votes, and the best way to maximise the number of pro-independence MSPs in the next Scottish parliament. The merits and demerits of voting for RISE or the Greens in the list instead of voting twice for the SNP have been debated, dissected, and screamed at from trenches.

Some have accused other people of trying to silence them and shut down the debate, only they’ve been making the accusation on blogs and on Twitter where there really is very little sign that anyone is being gagged. In fact the ones who are claiming to have been censored and closed down seem to be the ones who are speaking the most.

Exactly a few half daft ultra left wing socialists talking mince to promote their ego's in new party that will get less than 1000 votes.
Every vote first and second should be for THE SNP , no-one else will promote Scotland or Independence, it is simple really and seems only halfwits and Tories do not get it.

TheScreamingEagles

TOPPING said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

So where now for political pollsters?

Discussing the report on the Today programme, Ipsos MORI chief executive Ben Page made it clear that political polling didn’t bring in much cash compared to the work done for corporate clients - and he even went as far as suggesting that pollsters might just call it a day with election surveys.

“What you have to remember is out of the 1500 people I employ in London, only three of them are doing election polling. This is something that the industry does, to be honest, at relatively low budgets. The money that is available to pay for election polling is miniscule compared to the vast majority of what the industry is doing.

“And there are some really interesting questions about whether we should stop doing it altogether.”

But it's not quite all over yet. The alternative to scrapping election polls, suggested Page, was that broadcasters invest "seriously" in the work. As was the case with the (much more accurate) 2015 exit poll, when the media chucked in a cool £200,000….

Over to you, BBC, Sky and ITV...

http://goo.gl/RJo4qQ

It's like Yahoo buying that kid's software company for $20m. A drop in the ocean compared with what the subsequent media coverage would have cost.

Polling companies' logos all over the news is well worth the handful of employees' wages. Unless they are all on work experience and c*ck it up, as they seemed to have last May.

That's the problem for the problem for the pollsters, they cock it up, their non political clients start to doubt the accuracy of their other work.

Scott_P

Cyclefree said:

True but nonetheless Oldham showed us that having a crap leader - even a monumentally stupid and dangerous one - may not be enough.

That Oldham by-election back in December may turn out to be the most important by-election in British political history. Up to now, East Fulham in 1933 took the laurels, because a dramatic Labour gain was said to have postponed rearmament. But that is a doubtful claim, whereas there is no doubt that the Oldham result has postponed the rearming of the Labour moderates, sine die. If, as was expected, Labour had done badly, Mr Corbyn would have been under pressure. If, as had not been deemed impossible, Labour had lost, the party’s moderate mice would surely have recovered their manhood. But a swing to Labour? Like Ben Stokes after he had smashed his way past his first fifty, Jeremy Corbyn is not stopping.

http://capx.co/where-next-for-labour-moderates/

Pulpstar

TheScreamingEagles said:

TOPPING said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

So where now for political pollsters?

Discussing the report on the Today programme, Ipsos MORI chief executive Ben Page made it clear that political polling didn’t bring in much cash compared to the work done for corporate clients - and he even went as far as suggesting that pollsters might just call it a day with election surveys.

“What you have to remember is out of the 1500 people I employ in London, only three of them are doing election polling. This is something that the industry does, to be honest, at relatively low budgets. The money that is available to pay for election polling is miniscule compared to the vast majority of what the industry is doing.

“And there are some really interesting questions about whether we should stop doing it altogether.”

But it's not quite all over yet. The alternative to scrapping election polls, suggested Page, was that broadcasters invest "seriously" in the work. As was the case with the (much more accurate) 2015 exit poll, when the media chucked in a cool £200,000….

Over to you, BBC, Sky and ITV...

http://goo.gl/RJo4qQ

It's like Yahoo buying that kid's software company for $20m. A drop in the ocean compared with what the subsequent media coverage would have cost.

Polling companies' logos all over the news is well worth the handful of employees' wages. Unless they are all on work experience and c*ck it up, as they seemed to have last May.

That's the problem for the problem for the pollsters, they cock it up, their non political clients start to doubt the accuracy of their other work.

I just start clicking any old boxes in the Yougov to get through to the end of the survey sometimes.

Tissue_Price

Paddy Power have Boris next PM at 13/2 for some reason.

TheScreamingEagles

Pulpstar said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

TOPPING said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

So where now for political pollsters?

Discussing the report on the Today programme, Ipsos MORI chief executive Ben Page made it clear that political polling didn’t bring in much cash compared to the work done for corporate clients - and he even went as far as suggesting that pollsters might just call it a day with election surveys.

“What you have to remember is out of the 1500 people I employ in London, only three of them are doing election polling. This is something that the industry does, to be honest, at relatively low budgets. The money that is available to pay for election polling is miniscule compared to the vast majority of what the industry is doing.

“And there are some really interesting questions about whether we should stop doing it altogether.”

But it's not quite all over yet. The alternative to scrapping election polls, suggested Page, was that broadcasters invest "seriously" in the work. As was the case with the (much more accurate) 2015 exit poll, when the media chucked in a cool £200,000….

Over to you, BBC, Sky and ITV...

http://goo.gl/RJo4qQ

It's like Yahoo buying that kid's software company for $20m. A drop in the ocean compared with what the subsequent media coverage would have cost.

Polling companies' logos all over the news is well worth the handful of employees' wages. Unless they are all on work experience and c*ck it up, as they seemed to have last May.

That's the problem for the problem for the pollsters, they cock it up, their non political clients start to doubt the accuracy of their other work.

I just start clicking any old boxes in the Yougov to get through to the end of the survey sometimes.

Is why I prefer Populus, I get the £50 for doing about a third of the polls YouGov would need me to do to get the £50

CarlottaVance

malcolmg said:

CarlottaVance said:

malcolmg said:

Ha Ha Ha , at least there are enough SNP people to have a discussion over policy..

In case you missed it (not a lot of policy - run out of ideas for other Middle Class Tax Cuts?):

https://weegingerdug.wordpress.com/2016/01/19/the-great-scottish-blog-war/

I’ve been keeping out the Great Scottish Blog Wars. In case you haven’t noticed, which is another way of saying in case you’re a sane person who doesn’t care about arguments on social media because you have a real life, battle lines have been drawn over the question of list votes, and the best way to maximise the number of pro-independence MSPs in the next Scottish parliament. The merits and demerits of voting for RISE or the Greens in the list instead of voting twice for the SNP have been debated, dissected, and screamed at from trenches.

Some have accused other people of trying to silence them and shut down the debate, only they’ve been making the accusation on blogs and on Twitter where there really is very little sign that anyone is being gagged. In fact the ones who are claiming to have been censored and closed down seem to be the ones who are speaking the most.

Every vote first and second should be for THE SNP

There's a slogan in there somewhere....eine.....how does it go?

TheScreamingEagles

Tissue_Price said:

Paddy Power have Boris next PM at 13/2 for some reason.

Time to leg it to the Paddy Power shop in Piccadilly Gardens

david_herdson

TheScreamingEagles said:

So where now for political pollsters?

Discussing the report on the Today programme, Ipsos MORI chief executive Ben Page made it clear that political polling didn’t bring in much cash compared to the work done for corporate clients - and he even went as far as suggesting that pollsters might just call it a day with election surveys.

“What you have to remember is out of the 1500 people I employ in London, only three of them are doing election polling. This is something that the industry does, to be honest, at relatively low budgets. The money that is available to pay for election polling is miniscule compared to the vast majority of what the industry is doing.

“And there are some really interesting questions about whether we should stop doing it altogether.”

Except that political polling is by far the most visible work that they do: it's advertising their brand to no small extent rather than revenue-raising. You'd think they might recognise that.

Sean_F

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/95euxfgway/InternalResults_160118_BritishEmpire_Website.pdf

The Rhodes Must Fall campaign doesn't even enjoy much support among 18-24 year olds.

SouthamObserver

MaxPB said:

Leadership ratings were a much better guide to both 2010 and 2015. I guess as we move to a more presidential style of government where the PM plays a much more prominent role than ordinary Ministers it is inevitable that the leader ratings have become more important than the headline share.

Clegg's ratings were very good in 2010, weren't they? But the LDs lost seats (even though they gained votes). EdM's ratings were dire, but Labour gained votes even though it lost seats.

Richard_Nabavi

TheScreamingEagles said:

Tissue_Price said:

Paddy Power have Boris next PM at 13/2 for some reason.

Time to leg it to the Paddy Power shop in Piccadilly Gardens

Too late - 4/1

MaxPB

TheScreamingEagles said:

So where now for political pollsters?

Discussing the report on the Today programme, Ipsos MORI chief executive Ben Page made it clear that political polling didn’t bring in much cash compared to the work done for corporate clients - and he even went as far as suggesting that pollsters might just call it a day with election surveys.

“What you have to remember is out of the 1500 people I employ in London, only three of them are doing election polling. This is something that the industry does, to be honest, at relatively low budgets. The money that is available to pay for election polling is miniscule compared to the vast majority of what the industry is doing.

“And there are some really interesting questions about whether we should stop doing it altogether.”

But it's not quite all over yet. The alternative to scrapping election polls, suggested Page, was that broadcasters invest "seriously" in the work. As was the case with the (much more accurate) 2015 exit poll, when the media chucked in a cool £200,000….

Over to you, BBC, Sky and ITV...

http://goo.gl/RJo4qQ

That's also why private party polling was much better with Crosby and Messina predicting 315 seats for the Tories a week before the election. The money factor is very important, what I find hard to understand is where ICM went so badly wrong. The Guardian don't pay small sums for the phone poll and yet ICM got it as badly wrong as the cheap as chips YouGov.

Sean_F

david_herdson said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

So where now for political pollsters?

Discussing the report on the Today programme, Ipsos MORI chief executive Ben Page made it clear that political polling didn’t bring in much cash compared to the work done for corporate clients - and he even went as far as suggesting that pollsters might just call it a day with election surveys.

“What you have to remember is out of the 1500 people I employ in London, only three of them are doing election polling. This is something that the industry does, to be honest, at relatively low budgets. The money that is available to pay for election polling is miniscule compared to the vast majority of what the industry is doing.

“And there are some really interesting questions about whether we should stop doing it altogether.”

Except that political polling is by far the most visible work that they do: it's advertising their brand to no small extent rather than revenue-raising. You'd think they might recognise that.

The funny thing is, that the pollsters weren't out by all that much. 34/34 Con/Lab as opposed to 38/31.

But, both the error, and differing vote patterns in Scotland, English and Welsh marginal seats, and Lib Dem constituencies made a huge difference to the outcome.

TheScreamingEagles

SouthamObserver said:

MaxPB said:

Leadership ratings were a much better guide to both 2010 and 2015. I guess as we move to a more presidential style of government where the PM plays a much more prominent role than ordinary Ministers it is inevitable that the leader ratings have become more important than the headline share.

Clegg's ratings were very good in 2010, weren't they? But the LDs lost seats (even though they gained votes). EdM's ratings were dire, but Labour gained votes even though it lost seats.

There's a danger of fighting the last war.

I'm quite confident that the next Tory leader will not have the appeal of David Cameron, so perhaps VI might be the best indicator in 2020.

TheScreamingEagles

MaxPB said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

So where now for political pollsters?

Discussing the report on the Today programme, Ipsos MORI chief executive Ben Page made it clear that political polling didn’t bring in much cash compared to the work done for corporate clients - and he even went as far as suggesting that pollsters might just call it a day with election surveys.

“What you have to remember is out of the 1500 people I employ in London, only three of them are doing election polling. This is something that the industry does, to be honest, at relatively low budgets. The money that is available to pay for election polling is miniscule compared to the vast majority of what the industry is doing.

“And there are some really interesting questions about whether we should stop doing it altogether.”

But it's not quite all over yet. The alternative to scrapping election polls, suggested Page, was that broadcasters invest "seriously" in the work. As was the case with the (much more accurate) 2015 exit poll, when the media chucked in a cool £200,000….

Over to you, BBC, Sky and ITV...

http://goo.gl/RJo4qQ

That's also why private party polling was much better with Crosby and Messina predicting 315 seats for the Tories a week before the election. The money factor is very important, what I find hard to understand is where ICM went so badly wrong. The Guardian don't pay small sums for the phone poll and yet ICM got it as badly wrong as the cheap as chips YouGov.

Their final poll had it Con 330 seats.

AlastairMeeks

david_herdson said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

So where now for political pollsters?

Discussing the report on the Today programme, Ipsos MORI chief executive Ben Page made it clear that political polling didn’t bring in much cash compared to the work done for corporate clients - and he even went as far as suggesting that pollsters might just call it a day with election surveys.

“What you have to remember is out of the 1500 people I employ in London, only three of them are doing election polling. This is something that the industry does, to be honest, at relatively low budgets. The money that is available to pay for election polling is miniscule compared to the vast majority of what the industry is doing.

“And there are some really interesting questions about whether we should stop doing it altogether.”

Except that political polling is by far the most visible work that they do: it's advertising their brand to no small extent rather than revenue-raising. You'd think they might recognise that.

Quite. If only three out of 1500 people in London are doing election polling for Ipsos MORI, they can afford to invest more heavily in their advertising. I certainly don't see why the broadcast media companies should be subsidising their business development.

If opinion polls become less frequent and more accurate as a consequence, that's good news all round I'd have thought.

MyBurningEars

TheScreamingEagles said:

SouthamObserver said:

MaxPB said:

Leadership ratings were a much better guide to both 2010 and 2015. I guess as we move to a more presidential style of government where the PM plays a much more prominent role than ordinary Ministers it is inevitable that the leader ratings have become more important than the headline share.

Clegg's ratings were very good in 2010, weren't they? But the LDs lost seats (even though they gained votes). EdM's ratings were dire, but Labour gained votes even though it lost seats.

There's a danger of fighting the last war.

I'm quite confident that the next Tory leader will not have the appeal of David Cameron, so perhaps VI might be the best indicator in 2020.

This has been my thinking too.

At any rate favourability ratings for party leaders are of limited use now, when we don't know who the next Con leader is and can't be confident that Corbyn will lead Labour to the next GE.

Cyclefree

This - http://tinyurl.com/gmpkeb9 - is, with reference to what we have been discussing this morning, well worth reading.

CarlottaVance

Sean_F said:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/95euxfgway/InternalResults_160118_BritishEmpire_Website.pdf

The Rhodes Must Fall campaign doesn't even enjoy much support among 18-24 year olds.

Interesting the difference in attitudes to Empire between Scotland and the rest of the UK - considering Scots were often beneficiaries of Empire....

Empire good thing (Net): +24 / -4
Britain should be proud of colonial record (net): +23 / -2

Perhaps the Scots with 'get up and go' 'got up and went'......

MaxPB

TheScreamingEagles said:

MaxPB said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

So where now for political pollsters?

Discussing the report on the Today programme, Ipsos MORI chief executive Ben Page made it clear that political polling didn’t bring in much cash compared to the work done for corporate clients - and he even went as far as suggesting that pollsters might just call it a day with election surveys.

“What you have to remember is out of the 1500 people I employ in London, only three of them are doing election polling. This is something that the industry does, to be honest, at relatively low budgets. The money that is available to pay for election polling is miniscule compared to the vast majority of what the industry is doing.

“And there are some really interesting questions about whether we should stop doing it altogether.”

But it's not quite all over yet. The alternative to scrapping election polls, suggested Page, was that broadcasters invest "seriously" in the work. As was the case with the (much more accurate) 2015 exit poll, when the media chucked in a cool £200,000….

Over to you, BBC, Sky and ITV...

http://goo.gl/RJo4qQ

That's also why private party polling was much better with Crosby and Messina predicting 315 seats for the Tories a week before the election. The money factor is very important, what I find hard to understand is where ICM went so badly wrong. The Guardian don't pay small sums for the phone poll and yet ICM got it as badly wrong as the cheap as chips YouGov.

Their final poll had it Con 330 seats.

No it didn't?

http://www.icmunlimited.com/data/media/pdf/2015_final_poll_FINAL.pdf

Con 34
Lab 35

Which was about 290 Con seats.

There was one from a month before which put the Tories on 39 points, but they (stupidly) dismissed it as an outlier and then they herded back to the tie.

Plato_Says

Pithy

Cleveland Miner
Displays the importance Labour now attaches to the muslim voter, guaranteed block votes for pro-islamic stance https://t.co/xongrUHY4o

Today's summary from Labour

"Ban Trump just because we don't like what he says, oh and negotiate with ISIS"

The electorate will LOVE this

TheScreamingEagles

MaxPB said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MaxPB said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

So where now for political pollsters?

Discussing the report on the Today programme, Ipsos MORI chief executive Ben Page made it clear that political polling didn’t bring in much cash compared to the work done for corporate clients - and he even went as far as suggesting that pollsters might just call it a day with election surveys.

“What you have to remember is out of the 1500 people I employ in London, only three of them are doing election polling. This is something that the industry does, to be honest, at relatively low budgets. The money that is available to pay for election polling is miniscule compared to the vast majority of what the industry is doing.

“And there are some really interesting questions about whether we should stop doing it altogether.”

But it's not quite all over yet. The alternative to scrapping election polls, suggested Page, was that broadcasters invest "seriously" in the work. As was the case with the (much more accurate) 2015 exit poll, when the media chucked in a cool £200,000….

Over to you, BBC, Sky and ITV...

http://goo.gl/RJo4qQ

That's also why private party polling was much better with Crosby and Messina predicting 315 seats for the Tories a week before the election. The money factor is very important, what I find hard to understand is where ICM went so badly wrong. The Guardian don't pay small sums for the phone poll and yet ICM got it as badly wrong as the cheap as chips YouGov.

Their final poll had it Con 330 seats.

No it didn't?

http://www.icmunlimited.com/data/media/pdf/2015_final_poll_FINAL.pdf

Con 34
Lab 35

Which was about 290 Con seats.

I was talking about the Crosby/Textor private poll

MyBurningEars

Cyclefree said:

This - http://tinyurl.com/gmpkeb9
- is, with reference to what we have been discussing this morning, well worth reading.

RCS and I (and a couple of others) had a discussion of that at the end of this thread. It's an interesting and well-argued piece even if not agreed with 100%.

Plato_Says

Maomentum
Michael Foot's betrayal of the workers led to @UKlabour's 1983 defeat. https://t.co/A3v6hw38Br

MaxPB

This Survey Monkey poll is closest according to the Wiki table:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JWLYf5LLfLEMlN-_18WF18nSCK0si5Bfal6WyQwrRaI/edit#gid=1061439023

It has some interesting data in there.

Wanderer

Cyclefree said:

The Tories should prepare for the worst case (from their perspective) i.e. that Labour get a better leader or, despite their existing leader, make a case which is sufficiently attractive to wipe out the Tory majority which, after all, is not large.

Yes! Also, they need to remember that they fought a very effective campaign in 2015 and a very ineffective one in 2010. Which Conservative Party will turn up to the 2020 election?

MaxPB

TheScreamingEagles said:

MaxPB said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MaxPB said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

So where now for political pollsters?

Discussing the report on the Today programme, Ipsos MORI chief executive Ben Page made it clear that political polling didn’t bring in much cash compared to the work done for corporate clients - and he even went as far as suggesting that pollsters might just call it a day with election surveys.

“What you have to remember is out of the 1500 people I employ in London, only three of them are doing election polling. This is something that the industry does, to be honest, at relatively low budgets. The money that is available to pay for election polling is miniscule compared to the vast majority of what the industry is doing.

“And there are some really interesting questions about whether we should stop doing it altogether.”

But it's not quite all over yet. The alternative to scrapping election polls, suggested Page, was that broadcasters invest "seriously" in the work. As was the case with the (much more accurate) 2015 exit poll, when the media chucked in a cool £200,000….

Over to you, BBC, Sky and ITV...

http://goo.gl/RJo4qQ

That's also why private party polling was much better with Crosby and Messina predicting 315 seats for the Tories a week before the election. The money factor is very important, what I find hard to understand is where ICM went so badly wrong. The Guardian don't pay small sums for the phone poll and yet ICM got it as badly wrong as the cheap as chips YouGov.

Their final poll had it Con 330 seats.

No it didn't?

http://www.icmunlimited.com/data/media/pdf/2015_final_poll_FINAL.pdf

Con 34
Lab 35

Which was about 290 Con seats.

I was talking about the Crosby/Textor private poll

Yes, well that was my point. What are the Guardian paying for?

TheScreamingEagles

MyBurningEars said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

SouthamObserver said:

MaxPB said:

Leadership ratings were a much better guide to both 2010 and 2015. I guess as we move to a more presidential style of government where the PM plays a much more prominent role than ordinary Ministers it is inevitable that the leader ratings have become more important than the headline share.

Clegg's ratings were very good in 2010, weren't they? But the LDs lost seats (even though they gained votes). EdM's ratings were dire, but Labour gained votes even though it lost seats.

There's a danger of fighting the last war.

I'm quite confident that the next Tory leader will not have the appeal of David Cameron, so perhaps VI might be the best indicator in 2020.

This has been my thinking too.

At any rate favourability ratings for party leaders are of limited use now, when we don't know who the next Con leader is and can't be confident that Corbyn will lead Labour to the next GE.

I'm touching on that this weekend.

Also includes the worst Latin pun in history, which will have you reaching for the mind bleach too.

SouthamObserver

Wanderer said:

Cyclefree said:

The Tories should prepare for the worst case (from their perspective) i.e. that Labour get a better leader or, despite their existing leader, make a case which is sufficiently attractive to wipe out the Tory majority which, after all, is not large.

Yes! Also, they need to remember that they fought a very effective campaign in 2015 and a very ineffective one in 2010. Which Conservative Party will turn up to the 2020 election?

They fought both campaigns with a crossover leader. If Labour gets one of those, the Tories may need to start worrying. Lucky for the Tories that Labour is the stupid party.

Plato_Says

Speaking of Empire

It's like no one is on social media. https://t.co/IClIwJUgo8

Tissue_Price

Richard_Nabavi said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Tissue_Price said:

Paddy Power have Boris next PM at 13/2 for some reason.

Time to leg it to the Paddy Power shop in Piccadilly Gardens

Too late - 4/1

My apologies, the next PM market here at Oddschecker links through to "PM after next GE". I have complained to Oddschecker (though tbh it's probably still value).

Luckyguy1983

Plato_Says said:

Pithy

Cleveland Miner
Displays the importance Labour now attaches to the muslim voter, guaranteed block votes for pro-islamic stance https://t.co/xongrUHY4o

Today's summary from Labour

"Ban Trump just because we don't like what he says, oh and negotiate with ISIS"

The electorate will LOVE this

Sadly some of them will love it, which appears to be the point.

NickPalmer

As someone who has never been anti-Turkish, hostile to Erdogan (his secular predecessors were basically Army front-men) or uncritically enthusiastic about Kurdish separatists, this interview makes sobering reading:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/19/jailed-turkish-editor-can-dundar-slams-eu-deal-with-erdogans-fascist-government

I suppose it's a good thing that he was allowed to give the interview, but still. Josias knows more than most of us about the situation there -any comment on this?

Plato_Says

Glad to see my unfashionable views are pretty popular

Britain Elects
On Britain's history of colonialism:
Be proud it happened: 44%
Regret it happened: 21%
Neither: 23%
(via YouGov / 17 - 18 Jan)

Sean_F

Plato_Says said:

Glad to see my unfashionable views are pretty popular

Britain Elects
On Britain's history of colonialism:
Be proud it happened: 44%
Regret it happened: 21%
Neither: 23%
(via YouGov / 17 - 18 Jan)

There was obviously both good and bad.

david_herdson

And on topic:

http://ourinsight.opinium.co.uk/opinium-blog/corbyn-support-dropping-outside-his-base

Put simply, Labour should win London. And perhaps St Helens.

Sean_F

CarlottaVance said:

Sean_F said:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/95euxfgway/InternalResults_160118_BritishEmpire_Website.pdf

The Rhodes Must Fall campaign doesn't even enjoy much support among 18-24 year olds.

Interesting the difference in attitudes to Empire between Scotland and the rest of the UK - considering Scots were often beneficiaries of Empire....

Empire good thing (Net): +24 / -4
Britain should be proud of colonial record (net): +23 / -2

Perhaps the Scots with 'get up and go' 'got up and went'......

Whereas London, with its big ethnic minority population, is generally as positive about the Empire as the rest of the country.

RodCrosby

david_herdson said:

Fair point but I'm not sure how well it works in a multi-party system.

In the US, most elections are actually or effectively binary; there are few meaningful third-party interventions, so comparing favourability ratings is a good proxy indicator and perhaps even a better one than stated VI.

In the UK, how do we translate ratings into seats? We know roughly how to do it with vote shares but was does Cameron -6 / Corbyn -38 look like when translated to the Commons?

It's been said that there's no magic bullet to the industry's problem and I'd agree with that. There needs to be a range of data used and I'd agree with Mike that approval / likability ratings have a strong predictive element but are still something of a blunt tool.

Lebo & Norpoth discovered that if the PM approval rating was >50% of the two-party vote, the PM's party (almost) invariably won the election, in terms of the popular vote. It's a little more complicated, since there is also an autoregressive component, meaning the more a party keeps winning, the higher the PM approval required to win again.

Seats are a bit more problematic, although their model was pretty good, until they panicked a bit in 2015, and made ad-hoc adjustments.

Pulpstar

Tissue_Price said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Tissue_Price said:

Paddy Power have Boris next PM at 13/2 for some reason.

Time to leg it to the Paddy Power shop in Piccadilly Gardens

Too late - 4/1

My apologies, the next PM market here at Oddschecker links through to "PM after next GE". I have complained to Oddschecker (though tbh it's probably still value).

Does this tip have anything to do with the errm "interesting" vine of Osborne heading round social media ?

MaxPB

Sean_F said:

Plato_Says said:

Glad to see my unfashionable views are pretty popular

Britain Elects
On Britain's history of colonialism:
Be proud it happened: 44%
Regret it happened: 21%
Neither: 23%
(via YouGov / 17 - 18 Jan)

There was obviously both good and bad.

There are a lot of people in London who are only here because of the Empire. That fact isn't lost on many of them.

Wanderer

SouthamObserver said:

Wanderer said:

Cyclefree said:

The Tories should prepare for the worst case (from their perspective) i.e. that Labour get a better leader or, despite their existing leader, make a case which is sufficiently attractive to wipe out the Tory majority which, after all, is not large.

Yes! Also, they need to remember that they fought a very effective campaign in 2015 and a very ineffective one in 2010. Which Conservative Party will turn up to the 2020 election?

They fought both campaigns with a crossover leader. If Labour gets one of those, the Tories may need to start worrying. Lucky for the Tories that Labour is the stupid party.

A question is whether a Labour leader with crossover appeal can be found on the soft left (ie someone who might actually be the next leader). Or does a crossover Labour leader absolutely have to come from the party's right (in which case we won't see one any time soon)?

Cyclefree

MyBurningEars said:

Cyclefree said:

This - http://tinyurl.com/gmpkeb9
- is, with reference to what we have been discussing this morning, well worth reading.

RCS and I (and a couple of others) had a discussion of that at the end of this thread. It's an interesting and well-argued piece even if not agreed with 100%.

Thank you. I did not see that discussion.

Alistair

CarlottaVance said:

Sean_F said:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/95euxfgway/InternalResults_160118_BritishEmpire_Website.pdf

The Rhodes Must Fall campaign doesn't even enjoy much support among 18-24 year olds.

Interesting the difference in attitudes to Empire between Scotland and the rest of the UK - considering Scots were often beneficiaries of Empire....

Empire good thing (Net): +24 / -4
Britain should be proud of colonial record (net): +23 / -2

Perhaps the Scots with 'get up and go' 'got up and went'......

Over my life time I have perceived a shift in attitude (unscientific, just based on my gut feeling of how people in Scotland talk) to the Scottish contribution to Empire - much as there has been a radical shift in attitude to Bonny Prince Charlie in the last 40 years, he has gone from hero to basically villainous chancer in general Scottish public perception.

With Empire there has been shift of being proud of contributing the engineers to build and the administrators to run the Empire to feeling the Scots rural poor were exploited to provide the soldiers and that the administration was not the prudent, clerical, managerial Scottish stereotype but the 'dirty' work of the oppression of the colonial population.

Richard_Nabavi

What's happened to HenryG's promised piece on next Lab leader?

RodCrosby

RodCrosby said:

david_herdson said:

Fair point but I'm not sure how well it works in a multi-party system.

In the US, most elections are actually or effectively binary; there are few meaningful third-party interventions, so comparing favourability ratings is a good proxy indicator and perhaps even a better one than stated VI.

In the UK, how do we translate ratings into seats? We know roughly how to do it with vote shares but was does Cameron -6 / Corbyn -38 look like when translated to the Commons?

It's been said that there's no magic bullet to the industry's problem and I'd agree with that. There needs to be a range of data used and I'd agree with Mike that approval / likability ratings have a strong predictive element but are still something of a blunt tool.

Lebo & Norpoth discovered that if the PM approval rating was >50% of the two-party vote, the PM's party (almost) invariably won the election, in terms of the popular vote. It's a little more complicated, since there is also an autoregressive component, meaning the more a party keeps winning, the higher the PM approval required to win again.

Seats are a bit more problematic, although their model was pretty good, until they panicked a bit in 2015, and made ad-hoc adjustments.

They also discovered that a full British political cycle takes about 30 years, so ordinarily we might expect Labour (if they're still around) to start winning again circa 2025-2030...

TGOHF

Richard_Nabavi said:

What's happened to HenryG's promised piece on next Lab leader?

He has been sent for "re education".

DecrepitJohnL

OT the most significant court case in the history of significant court cases

Does the BHA have a duty of care to bookmakers, and by extension, punters? (Morris Dancer was asking about this sort of thing the other day.)

Basically, the racecourse stewards declared Spectacular Bid was both a runner and a non-runner, and a bookie has claimed £250 compensation.

The BHA had moved to have the case thrown out, but Judge Charles Harris QC said Banks's case for economic loss due to lack of duty of care and any contractual responsibility by the BHA was too complex to be decided via summary judgement or for him to strike out the claim.

The legal battle will now reconvene on March 9 with a case management hearing.

http://www.racingpost.com/news/live.sd?event_id=14390024&category=0

Jonathan

Richard_Nabavi said:

What's happened to HenryG's promised piece on next Lab leader?

Maybe there isn't one.

Richard_Nabavi

TGOHF said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

What's happened to HenryG's promised piece on next Lab leader?

He has been sent for "re education".

LOL!

Plato_Says

https://next.ft.com/content/4b8bd6f6-bdcf-11e5-9fdb-87b8d15baec2#ixzz3xgku2lxZ

For someone who is quite good at it, David Cameron is not very interested in politics. Britain’s prime minister does not read Robert Caro’s monumental works on American statecraft for fun. He avoids Borgen, the television drama about a Danish government, because it is “too much like work”.

He never talks policy or strategy with friends, most of whom pre-date his career. His Downing Street is not Bill Clinton’s White House: there are no late-night symposia over pizza, no infectious enthusiasm for politics as sport. When he retires, he will retire easily.

All politicians understand Yes, No and Undecided. Only the winners understand Don’t Much Care. Mr Cameron communicates crisply because he knows most people only tune in for a few minutes a day. He does not lose himself in marginalia that no swing voter will ever notice. Rousing a nation through force of personality is something leaders do in films: the real art of politics is accepting apathy and bending it to your purposes.

david_herdson

Richard_Nabavi said:

What's happened to HenryG's promised piece on next Lab leader?

Rumour has it it's still in the offing. Don't forget that HenryG is a spectral visitor to PB, who has no known form other than good form.

JosiasJessop

NickPalmer said:

As someone who has never been anti-Turkish, hostile to Erdogan (his secular predecessors were basically Army front-men) or uncritically enthusiastic about Kurdish separatists, this interview makes sobering reading:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/19/jailed-turkish-editor-can-dundar-slams-eu-deal-with-erdogans-fascist-government

I suppose it's a good thing that he was allowed to give the interview, but still. Josias knows more than most of us about the situation there -any comment on this?

I have to be careful what I say, and the fact I feel the need to say that should say more than anything I can say.

Having said (or not said) that, any country where government control of the media has progressed as far as it has in Turkey is in deep trouble IMO. And sadly Turkey is hardly alone in that.

As for the predecessor governments pre-Erdogan; someone said to me that Turks could tolerate an incompetent government, or a corrupt one: the problem with the last secular governments was that they were both corrupt and incompetent, and Turks could not stomach that.

Erdogan's governments started off well for a couple of years, but the rot started during the sham trials against the military and judiciary, which were done with Gulen's help. After which the positions of those jailed were filled with the AKP's place men.

Turkey's at a crossroads. IMO it's in our interests to direct them towards progress, not regression.

But others differ.

Tissue_Price

Jonathan said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

What's happened to HenryG's promised piece on next Lab leader?

Maybe there isn't one.

Gallows humour at its finest.

DecrepitJohnL

The FT may be right about Cameron but its contrast with Clinton rather undermines its conclusion.

Plato_Says said:

https://next.ft.com/content/4b8bd6f6-bdcf-11e5-9fdb-87b8d15baec2#ixzz3xgku2lxZ

For someone who is quite good at it, David Cameron is not very interested in politics. Britain’s prime minister does not read Robert Caro’s monumental works on American statecraft for fun. He avoids Borgen, the television drama about a Danish government, because it is “too much like work”.

He never talks policy or strategy with friends, most of whom pre-date his career. His Downing Street is not Bill Clinton’s White House: there are no late-night symposia over pizza, no infectious enthusiasm for politics as sport. When he retires, he will retire easily.

All politicians understand Yes, No and Undecided. Only the winners understand Don’t Much Care. Mr Cameron communicates crisply because he knows most people only tune in for a few minutes a day. He does not lose himself in marginalia that no swing voter will ever notice. Rousing a nation through force of personality is something leaders do in films: the real art of politics is accepting apathy and bending it to your purposes.

Wanderer

RodCrosby said:

david_herdson said:

Fair point but I'm not sure how well it works in a multi-party system.

In the US, most elections are actually or effectively binary; there are few meaningful third-party interventions, so comparing favourability ratings is a good proxy indicator and perhaps even a better one than stated VI.

In the UK, how do we translate ratings into seats? We know roughly how to do it with vote shares but was does Cameron -6 / Corbyn -38 look like when translated to the Commons?

It's been said that there's no magic bullet to the industry's problem and I'd agree with that. There needs to be a range of data used and I'd agree with Mike that approval / likability ratings have a strong predictive element but are still something of a blunt tool.

Lebo & Norpoth discovered that if the PM approval rating was >50% of the two-party vote, the PM's party (almost) invariably won the election, in terms of the popular vote. It's a little more complicated, since there is also an autoregressive component, meaning the more a party keeps winning, the higher the PM approval required to win again.

Seats are a bit more problematic, although their model was pretty good, until they panicked a bit in 2015, and made ad-hoc adjustments.

That makes intuitive sense. Did they find that the same also applied to LOTOs?

Tissue_Price

Plato_Says said:

https://next.ft.com/content/4b8bd6f6-bdcf-11e5-9fdb-87b8d15baec2#ixzz3xgku2lxZ

Rousing a nation through force of personality is something leaders do in films: the real art of politics is accepting apathy and bending it to your purposes.

Janan is consistently the best writer on politics as it is, not as it sees itself. Imho, of course.

david_herdson

NickPalmer said:

As someone who has never been anti-Turkish, hostile to Erdogan (his secular predecessors were basically Army front-men) or uncritically enthusiastic about Kurdish separatists, this interview makes sobering reading:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/19/jailed-turkish-editor-can-dundar-slams-eu-deal-with-erdogans-fascist-government

I suppose it's a good thing that he was allowed to give the interview, but still. Josias knows more than most of us about the situation there -any comment on this?

Given what's happened in Egypt, Iraq and Syria, army front-men or secular strong men are very probably the least-worst option in that part of the world. It would be a catastrophe if Turkey were to go the same way.

Plato_Says

Stephen Shakespeare
It was our fault, not the methodology: we lumped all older people together, should have split under&over-70s. Didn't keep up with the times

Wanderer

Jonathan said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

What's happened to HenryG's promised piece on next Lab leader?

Maybe there isn't one.

Nicely ambiguous

RodCrosby

Wanderer said:

RodCrosby said:

david_herdson said:

Fair point but I'm not sure how well it works in a multi-party system.

In the US, most elections are actually or effectively binary; there are few meaningful third-party interventions, so comparing favourability ratings is a good proxy indicator and perhaps even a better one than stated VI.

In the UK, how do we translate ratings into seats? We know roughly how to do it with vote shares but was does Cameron -6 / Corbyn -38 look like when translated to the Commons?

It's been said that there's no magic bullet to the industry's problem and I'd agree with that. There needs to be a range of data used and I'd agree with Mike that approval / likability ratings have a strong predictive element but are still something of a blunt tool.

Lebo & Norpoth discovered that if the PM approval rating was >50% of the two-party vote, the PM's party (almost) invariably won the election, in terms of the popular vote. It's a little more complicated, since there is also an autoregressive component, meaning the more a party keeps winning, the higher the PM approval required to win again.

Seats are a bit more problematic, although their model was pretty good, until they panicked a bit in 2015, and made ad-hoc adjustments.

That makes intuitive sense. Did they find that the same also applied to LOTOs?

They found that LOTO ratings didn't significantly improve the model, and weren't worth the added complexity.

SouthamObserver

Alistair said:

CarlottaVance said:

Sean_F said:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/95euxfgway/InternalResults_160118_BritishEmpire_Website.pdf

The Rhodes Must Fall campaign doesn't even enjoy much support among 18-24 year olds.

Interesting the difference in attitudes to Empire between Scotland and the rest of the UK - considering Scots were often beneficiaries of Empire....

Empire good thing (Net): +24 / -4
Britain should be proud of colonial record (net): +23 / -2

Perhaps the Scots with 'get up and go' 'got up and went'......

Over my life time I have perceived a shift in attitude (unscientific, just based on my gut feeling of how people in Scotland talk) to the Scottish contribution to Empire - much as there has been a radical shift in attitude to Bonny Prince Charlie in the last 40 years, he has gone from hero to basically villainous chancer in general Scottish public perception.

With Empire there has been shift of being proud of contributing the engineers to build and the administrators to run the Empire to feeling the Scots rural poor were exploited to provide the soldiers and that the administration was not the prudent, clerical, managerial Scottish stereotype but the 'dirty' work of the oppression of the colonial population.

People across the UK - Irish, English, Scottish and Welsh - all benefited hugely from the Empire, in very different ways. Scotland, for example, would not have developed the industry it did, Glasgow would not be the city it is, without the access to the global markets that the Empire provided. But what we all lack on these islands is a rounded view of what the Empire did and did not do - good and bad - both for the home countries and for the colonised/conquered/created ones. Understandably, it's far too politicised for that.

DecrepitJohnL

Leadership ratings -- what are they measuring? Surely two separate questions are conflated. Did Labour lose GE2015 because voters thought Ed Miliband was a bit of a dork, or was it because Miliband forgot to organise an actual campaign?

In other words, can we separate someone who is incompetent at leading their party from someone who is disliked, or vice versa? Will Osborne or Boris test this in GE2020?

Wanderer

Sean_F said:

Plato_Says said:

Glad to see my unfashionable views are pretty popular

Britain Elects
On Britain's history of colonialism:
Be proud it happened: 44%
Regret it happened: 21%
Neither: 23%
(via YouGov / 17 - 18 Jan)

There was obviously both good and bad.

The question of pride isn't necessarily an ethical one. It's always better to be the Who than the Whom.

MaxPB

david_herdson said:

NickPalmer said:

As someone who has never been anti-Turkish, hostile to Erdogan (his secular predecessors were basically Army front-men) or uncritically enthusiastic about Kurdish separatists, this interview makes sobering reading:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/19/jailed-turkish-editor-can-dundar-slams-eu-deal-with-erdogans-fascist-government

I suppose it's a good thing that he was allowed to give the interview, but still. Josias knows more than most of us about the situation there -any comment on this?

Given what's happened in Egypt, Iraq and Syria, army front-men or secular strong men are very probably the least-worst option in that part of the world. It would be a catastrophe if Turkey were to go the same way.

What does giving him a €3bn bung achieve? Surely it legitimises him further and hurts his internal opponents. Erdogan is more like the Saudi leadership than he is like al-Sisi or Mubarak. He is a detestable person who seeks Sunni dominion over his neighbouring countries which is why he allows trucks of ISIS oil and cash to cross his borders openly.

Luckyguy1983

Alistair said:

CarlottaVance said:

Sean_F said:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/95euxfgway/InternalResults_160118_BritishEmpire_Website.pdf

The Rhodes Must Fall campaign doesn't even enjoy much support among 18-24 year olds.

Interesting the difference in attitudes to Empire between Scotland and the rest of the UK - considering Scots were often beneficiaries of Empire....

Empire good thing (Net): +24 / -4
Britain should be proud of colonial record (net): +23 / -2

Perhaps the Scots with 'get up and go' 'got up and went'......

Over my life time I have perceived a shift in attitude (unscientific, just based on my gut feeling of how people in Scotland talk) to the Scottish contribution to Empire - much as there has been a radical shift in attitude to Bonny Prince Charlie in the last 40 years, he has gone from hero to basically villainous chancer in general Scottish public perception.

With Empire there has been shift of being proud of contributing the engineers to build and the administrators to run the Empire to feeling the Scots rural poor were exploited to provide the soldiers and that the administration was not the prudent, clerical, managerial Scottish stereotype but the 'dirty' work of the oppression of the colonial population.

I feel (again not scientific) many have developed amnesia (it isn't in living memory but you know what I mean) and have transitioned from seeing Scotland as a contributor to and beneficiary of the Empire, to seeing Scotland as a downtrodden outpost of it. Easily disproved historically, but we're dealing with emotions not fact.

DecrepitJohnL

Alistair said:

CarlottaVance said:

Sean_F said:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/95euxfgway/InternalResults_160118_BritishEmpire_Website.pdf

The Rhodes Must Fall campaign doesn't even enjoy much support among 18-24 year olds.

Interesting the difference in attitudes to Empire between Scotland and the rest of the UK - considering Scots were often beneficiaries of Empire....

Empire good thing (Net): +24 / -4
Britain should be proud of colonial record (net): +23 / -2

Perhaps the Scots with 'get up and go' 'got up and went'......

Over my life time I have perceived a shift in attitude (unscientific, just based on my gut feeling of how people in Scotland talk) to the Scottish contribution to Empire - much as there has been a radical shift in attitude to Bonny Prince Charlie in the last 40 years, he has gone from hero to basically villainous chancer in general Scottish public perception.

With Empire there has been shift of being proud of contributing the engineers to build and the administrators to run the Empire to feeling the Scots rural poor were exploited to provide the soldiers and that the administration was not the prudent, clerical, managerial Scottish stereotype but the 'dirty' work of the oppression of the colonial population.

The next problem might come from research, whether legal or historical, into alleged human rights abuses in the final days of empire. Were Scottish regiments involved?

Wanderer

RodCrosby said:

Wanderer said:

RodCrosby said:

david_herdson said:

Fair point but I'm not sure how well it works in a multi-party system.

In the US, most elections are actually or effectively binary; there are few meaningful third-party interventions, so comparing favourability ratings is a good proxy indicator and perhaps even a better one than stated VI.

In the UK, how do we translate ratings into seats? We know roughly how to do it with vote shares but was does Cameron -6 / Corbyn -38 look like when translated to the Commons?

It's been said that there's no magic bullet to the industry's problem and I'd agree with that. There needs to be a range of data used and I'd agree with Mike that approval / likability ratings have a strong predictive element but are still something of a blunt tool.

Lebo & Norpoth discovered that if the PM approval rating was >50% of the two-party vote, the PM's party (almost) invariably won the election, in terms of the popular vote. It's a little more complicated, since there is also an autoregressive component, meaning the more a party keeps winning, the higher the PM approval required to win again.

Seats are a bit more problematic, although their model was pretty good, until they panicked a bit in 2015, and made ad-hoc adjustments.

That makes intuitive sense. Did they find that the same also applied to LOTOs?

They found that LOTO ratings didn't significantly improve the model, and weren't worth the added complexity.

On the face of it that could be taken to mean that Labour don't need to worry about Corbyn. It's only Cameron's replacement's approval rating that will matter.

However there may be some connection between the two ratings - ie, when asked if they approve of the PM people may compare him/her to the LOTO.

Jonathan

Anecdote alert. Every Labour supporter (non member) that I personally know is now anti Corbyn.

And some Labour members I know are beginning tentatively to voice doubts in public (hitherto expressed in private).

Neither was the case last Autumn. The latter change is quite significant as it means standing up to the ultras as an unbeliever.

JosiasJessop

MaxPB said:

david_herdson said:

NickPalmer said:

As someone who has never been anti-Turkish, hostile to Erdogan (his secular predecessors were basically Army front-men) or uncritically enthusiastic about Kurdish separatists, this interview makes sobering reading:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/19/jailed-turkish-editor-can-dundar-slams-eu-deal-with-erdogans-fascist-government

I suppose it's a good thing that he was allowed to give the interview, but still. Josias knows more than most of us about the situation there -any comment on this?

Given what's happened in Egypt, Iraq and Syria, army front-men or secular strong men are very probably the least-worst option in that part of the world. It would be a catastrophe if Turkey were to go the same way.

What does giving him a €3bn bung achieve? Surely it legitimises him further and hurts his internal opponents. Erdogan is more like the Saudi leadership than he is like al-Sisi or Mubarak. He is a detestable person who seeks Sunni dominion over his neighbouring countries which is why he allows trucks of ISIS oil and cash to cross his borders openly.

What rubbish. That's just stupid, bigoted rubbish. I'm far from being a fan of Erdogan, but your stupid posts sadly make me have to defend him. And that peeves me somewhat...

dr_spyn

A mistake.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35351456

Internships, below the minimum wage, below the 'living' wage, another foolish MP caught out.