politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The PM’s attack on Khan, EURef polling & betting, and the latest on WH2016 – the latest PB/Polling Matters TV Show
This week we welcomed back the Oxford Academic and Labour peer, Lord Stewart Wood, to look at what’s been going on in the big political stories on both sided of the Atlantic.
Read the full story here
Comments
Note this show was filmed before the YouGov poll was published.
Cameron and Osborne are heading for one heck of a fall. Time to give them both a kicking.
If Cameron had actually done what he said he would and secured a decent deal, with the threat of recommending we Leave if he didn't get it, then we'd be in a far better position.
I see Obama is set to interfere in our internal political matters again. Always wondered, given his opinions on Europe set out in his book
Mein KampfDreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, whether he sees the current deluge of immigrants following his interventions in Syria and Libya as failing or a success? Perhaps one of his fanboys on here can tell me.http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/london-mayoral-election-zac-goldsmith-has-mountain-to-climb-as-sadiq-khan-stretches-poll-lead-a3230406.html
"Respect’s George Galloway is hardly troubling the scorer."
"back in 2003, the Treasury stated that UK trade could increase by 50 per cent over the next 30 years if we joined the euro"
That is a useful bullet if LEAVE are up to using it.
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For the benefit of readers here is a link to that old Treasury study on EMU and UK trade.
It's actually a much more balanced piece of work than the recent assessment, with the estimates of trade gains between 5% and 50%.
That range in turn comes from the Treasury's assessment of a range of academic studies, some of which have even more extreme numbers (see the table on p.58 where EMU related trade gains of up to 200% (!!!) are posited).
Needless to say, nothing remotely like that has actually happened in the actual EMU countries in the last 15 years.
Importantly, the methodology used to generate those very big numbers is the one the Treasury has used in its recent exercise on the EU.
So this again shows how cynical the recent Treasury exercise was - relying on a dubious methodology which they knew perfectly well would produce 'big' (but worthless) numbers.
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20080107205404/http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/adsuf03_456.pdf
What really stuck in my craw was his response to the ScotRef and the EU.
In Scotref, the country was crying out for someone to bring us together. Instead he talked about EV4EL, which was party political and deliberately provocative.
The reason that the EU ref campaign has been so odd, is that it was purely a tactical device to disarm UKIP in GE2015.
His legacy is going to be quite poor. Our politics is in a far worse state than when he started.
The Assembly vote is Lab. 45%, Con 29%, UKIP 9%, Lib Dem 8%, Green 7%.
http://www.gloucestercitizen.co.uk/Cider-single-Gloucester-cheese-old-spot-sausages/story-29151399-detail/story.html
If Remain is the result you and many other reluctant Remainers are going to be extremely disappointed within a few years.
Just wanted to say that yet again it was an excellent contribution from Roger. He has the ability in his articles to be both informative and scrupulously neutral. A pleasure to read even if uncomfortable for those of us backing Leave.
'His legacy is going to be quite poor. Our politics is in a far worse state than when he started.'
But we hasn't left a million people dead in Iraq or the economy on the brink of collapse.
The reaction of Labour MPs would back that that up.
Did you assume I was describing this week’s Tory attack on Sadiq Khan for having repeatedly attended events alongside people who made repulsive anti-Semitic or homophobic comments, or are linked to terrorist sympathisers?
Wrong. The quotes are from Labour’s former shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, speaking last August about her party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s almost identical record of sharing platforms with Islamist extremists such as Raed Salah, the so-called “blood libel cleric”.
“We have a responsibility not to give them legitimacy” warned Ms Cooper.
Curiously, she has suddenly changed her tune now that her friend Mr Khan is coming under the same criticism of his own record from Tory mayoral rival Zac Goldsmith and David Cameron.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/mayor/why-sadiq-khan-cannot-escape-questions-about-extremists-a3230486.html
In this particular case, I think it was an error for Labour to cry 'Racist!', as it gave Zac an opportunity (which he used very well) to respond that it's not racist to be concerned about extremism. But responding vigorously to the extremist-link attack was probably sensible on Labour's part.
It probably doesn't matter much anyway. PBers will be collecting their 33/1s, I think.
It would save billions but be met with howls of 'social cleansing' by Corbyn and co.
Haven't seen the London Mayoral poll detail but very poor for Goldsmith if true. He has the Standard behind him but not much else.
It's very difficult to win a majority on the GLA under the voting system. The question is how many constituencies Labour will pick up from the Conservatives.
"Zac stands up for the bengali/chinese/gujurati etc etc community. Oh and Sadiq will tax your jewellery". A poor show, and not one that was ever really going to play well in soft left London.
I won't be displeased when Sadiq wins (I'm reasonably even on the betting)
With the Second Preferences Khan wins 60-40. Goldsmith has barely broken out of the Conservative suburban heartland on these numbers.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/04/21/deficit-figures-an-embarrassment-for-george-osborne-as-he-misses/
Osborne needs all the political capital he can get right now.
Good job he hasn't been going around p-ing off his natural supporters.
Oh, wait.
Tories polling marginally higher than they did in 2015 in some recent polls.
Just saying.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36099387
Seems to be a spate of mergers amongst the Bookmakers.
Even if it's 50.1% Remain, the 49.9% will be utterly ignored by Brussels and the Europeans Project will push ahead full tilt with the UK deemed to have fully signed up to it.
Eurocrats are not big on listening to the people...
I have justifiable suspicions
And even if you think that guarantees a 2020 blue win, then complacency and arrogance will still hollow out the party and make the likelihood of 2025 resembling 1997 all the higher.
"You have tin-foil hat conspiracy theories
I have justifiable suspicions"
He is a resident of an insane asylum
This is what was in the June 2010 budget:
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Underlying current budget deficit should be "in balance" by 2015/16.
Public sector net borrowing will be £149bn this year, £116bn next year, £89bn in 2012-13 and £60bn in 2013-14.
By 2014-15 borrowing to reach £37bn, falling to £20bn in 2015-16.
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What's the borrowing in 2015-16 ? £72.2 bn.
They need to hire these people: http://www.ries.com/
And once a strategy is established, they need in-house people who understand it to run it day to day. I think they need a former or current newspaper man (Patrick O'Flynn?), and someone with a bit of a cheeky headline-grabbing instinct. Could they have sent a courier to No. 11 Downing Street with a pocket calculator and a crystal ball addressed to George Osborne after the 'study' was released? The best and most effective responses to it were those that ridiculed it.
It's unacceptable that one of the most prominent people in Leave gives a keynote speech, and the only take-away from it is 'he made a nice speech'.
They also, and I have said this from the beginning, need to unite the campaigns under a single banner (perhaps keeping GO as a seperate 'brand' but supporting them), and have a single campaign HQ. At the moment their are talents, experience, and resources being wasted, and soundings off from various people being used to tarr everyone. And Vote Leave have been as guilty as Leave.EU on this.
Zac & Khan why can't they both lose? The positive aspect of this campaign is that Galloway is sinking almost without trace.
All the polls showed that Birnam wood would NEVER come to Dunsinane, and yet....
Take people for granted and they either don't turn out or move to other groups (cf Mr. Fear et al).
*(Probably 2025, assuming Labour stops being mad when it comes to leaders).
Just remember all those voters Cameron pissed off by introducing same sex marriage, ultimately helped him win over more net voters
Vote early and vote often.
Edit: I reckon it was the 2012 Manchester Central by election
I'm afraid this is the way politics is going though i.e. increasingly on ethnic/cultural lines. If Khan wins I wonder if the current London government arrangements will survive.
https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/723113455956439040
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36102835
A cynic might be forgiven for thinking there's a Referendum, and Local Elections coming up. Perhaps The Treasury could refer to this as 'Operation Byers'.
Maybe with the fact these were OBR numbers not Osborne's.
Or that the difference is a rounding error.
Or that it is very likely that the figure will be revised back below the target in due course anyway.
Or that the budget forecast (also OBR but at least announced by Osborne) was £73.5bn.
I completely get that the way Osborne's behaving in relation to the referendum is ticking some Conservative supporters off. But rubbishing what is a very good economic record to try and reduce the weight of his contribution in that debate is stupid. In the last year we have tax revenues up over 4%, we have government spending up all of 0.2% and we have a fall in the deficit of £17.7 bn.
Just rejoice at that news, as one Tory once said.
Can't find the datasets and am interested to see whether they have moved from their standard fortnightly polling cycle.
That wasn't because Tory members are homophobes. It's because they were treated with insufficient respect, and not a few in CCHQ and elsewhere wanted to triangulate the party brand at their expense, throwing in a few insults along the way.