This canard comes up all the time. You can win in the centre but only if you can hang on to your wing as well. Cameron has pushed into the centre about as far as possible, and scraped a majority by the skin of his teeth against an incompetent buffoon like Ed Miliband, because he lost 15% of his right wing to UKIP. Blair moved to the centre and won, until the left wing got pissed off over Iraq (and him being a Tory, allegedly) then he lost as well. If sitting in the centre worked the Lib Dems would be the permanent party of government.
(Also as soon as Labour come to their senses you have to fight for every vote in the centre, and still only get a third of them, the votes on the right are more or less there for the taking)
Just on a point of order, Blair didn't lose. He quit while he was ahead. I suspect he'd have won in 2010 too, if he'd stayed on - there wasn't much in it.
It's the classic problem of where the ice-cream vendor situates himself or herself on the beach when expecting competition. If the is no or only one competitor, the centre point is ideal. If there are two others, the centre is the worst spot. [If the beach is from -50 to +50 and the centre is at 0, the right place themselves at +1 and have everything to the right = 49% as their catchment area, the left place themselves at -1 and have everything to the left = 49% as their catchment area, leaving the centre party with only 2%. At least that is how the theory goes and US politics was pretty much like that until Bush Jr.]
I'd agree that Cameron has gone further to the centre than is wise for 2020. We now have a 3.5 party system (Con, Lab, UKIP, the half being the LibDems until they find a purpose). That puts the Cons in the middle and fit to be squeezed once Labour dump Corbyn and realize what a perfect opportunity they have to win 2020. They have all the left to themselves, so moving to the centre should give them closer to 50% of the electorate (provided they don't move so far to the centre right, a la Blair, that they alienate the far left). The Tories' ceiling would then be around the 30-33% mark in my reckoning.
Incidentally Mervyn King doesn't share Carney's apocalyptic views
That's because he isn't in the same group think circle. Doesn't make him right, after all group thinkers can be (perhaps often are) but there are other views.
On a side note, the BoEs predictions were caveated sufficiently that he has sufficient get out.
Incidentally Mervyn King doesn't share Carney's apocalyptic views
That's because he isn't in the same group think circle. Doesn't make him right, after all group thinkers can be (perhaps often are) but there are other views.
On a side note, the BoEs predictions were caveated sufficiently that he has sufficient get out.
Hah, Mervyn King was part of the group think circle of 364 economists that wrote that letter to Sir Geoffrey Howe telling him he was wrong.
I'd agree that Cameron has gone further to the centre than is wise for 2020. We now have a 3.5 party system (Con, Lab, UKIP, the half being the LibDems until they find a purpose). That puts the Cons in the middle and fit to be squeezed once Labour dump Corbyn and realize what a perfect opportunity they have to win 2020. They have all the left to themselves, so moving to the centre should give them closer to 50% of the electorate (provided they don't move so far to the centre right, a la Blair, that they alienate the far left). The Tories' ceiling would then be around the 30-33% mark in my reckoning.
As others have said, I don't think there's a left-right axis alone any more, though it's certainly helpful to appeal to voters who think of themselves as centrist. There are two other axes as well: competent/incompetent and establishment/challenger. Thus Cameron is mid-right/mid-competent/very establishment. To win you probably need to be any two of the three (e.g. Trump is running as a competent challenger, Clinton as a comptent centrist), and a competent centrist challenger candidate would absolutely clean up. But it's not easy to be both a challenger and perceived as centrist and competent...
Incidentally Mervyn King doesn't share Carney's apocalyptic views
That's because he isn't in the same group think circle. Doesn't make him right, after all group thinkers can be (perhaps often are) but there are other views.
On a side note, the BoEs predictions were caveated sufficiently that he has sufficient get out.
Hah, Mervyn King was part of the group think circle of 364 economists that wrote that letter to Sir Geoffrey Howe telling him he was wrong.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Yes. Whilst the IMF was part of the same circle that said we should be in the Euro.
I'd agree that Cameron has gone further to the centre than is wise for 2020. We now have a 3.5 party system (Con, Lab, UKIP, the half being the LibDems until they find a purpose). That puts the Cons in the middle and fit to be squeezed once Labour dump Corbyn and realize what a perfect opportunity they have to win 2020. They have all the left to themselves, so moving to the centre should give them closer to 50% of the electorate (provided they don't move so far to the centre right, a la Blair, that they alienate the far left). The Tories' ceiling would then be around the 30-33% mark in my reckoning.
As others have said, I don't think there's a left-right axis alone any more, though it's certainly helpful to appeal to voters who think of themselves as centrist. There are two other axes as well: competent/incompetent and establishment/challenger. Thus Cameron is mid-right/mid-competent/very establishment. To win you probably need to be any two of the three (e.g. Trump is running as a competent challenger, Clinton as a comptent centrist), and a competent centrist challenger candidate would absolutely clean up. But it's not easy to be both a challenger and perceived as centrist and competent...
Hillary is generally perceived to be an incompetent establishment self-centrist.
Incidentally Mervyn King doesn't share Carney's apocalyptic views
That's because he isn't in the same group think circle. Doesn't make him right, after all group thinkers can be (perhaps often are) but there are other views.
On a side note, the BoEs predictions were caveated sufficiently that he has sufficient get out.
Hah, Mervyn King was part of the group think circle of 364 economists that wrote that letter to Sir Geoffrey Howe telling him he was wrong.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Yes. Whilst the IMF was part of the same circle that said we should be in the Euro.
I'd agree that Cameron has gone further to the centre than is wise for 2020. We now have a 3.5 party system (Con, Lab, UKIP, the half being the LibDems until they find a purpose). That puts the Cons in the middle and fit to be squeezed once Labour dump Corbyn and realize what a perfect opportunity they have to win 2020. They have all the left to themselves, so moving to the centre should give them closer to 50% of the electorate (provided they don't move so far to the centre right, a la Blair, that they alienate the far left). The Tories' ceiling would then be around the 30-33% mark in my reckoning.
As others have said, I don't think there's a left-right axis alone any more, though it's certainly helpful to appeal to voters who think of themselves as centrist. There are two other axes as well: competent/incompetent and establishment/challenger. Thus Cameron is mid-right/mid-competent/very establishment. To win you probably need to be any two of the three (e.g. Trump is running as a competent challenger, Clinton as a comptent centrist), and a competent centrist challenger candidate would absolutely clean up. But it's not easy to be both a challenger and perceived as centrist and competent...
Nick, I agree entirely that the left-right axis approach is inadequate. I was responding to the idea of sitting in the centre as a viable strategy. It is not, as the GOP primary process has shown in spades.
He has two different models I've seen so far: 1. Hieararchical to Egalitarian vs Communitarian to Individualist 2. Social risk aversion vs Deviancy risk aversion
I find the latter more convincing for analysis of US politics:
High social risk, low deviancy risk = Bernie (white liberals - US meaning of liberal) High social risk, high deviancy risk = Hillary (religious blacks and Latinos) Low social risk, low deviancy risk = The Donald (angry white males) Low social risk, high deviancy risk = Cruz (white Christian conservatives)
I'd agree that Cameron has gone further to the centre than is wise for 2020. We now have a 3.5 party system (Con, Lab, UKIP, the half being the LibDems until they find a purpose). That puts the Cons in the middle and fit to be squeezed once Labour dump Corbyn and realize what a perfect opportunity they have to win 2020. They have all the left to themselves, so moving to the centre should give them closer to 50% of the electorate (provided they don't move so far to the centre right, a la Blair, that they alienate the far left). The Tories' ceiling would then be around the 30-33% mark in my reckoning.
As others have said, I don't think there's a left-right axis alone any more, though it's certainly helpful to appeal to voters who think of themselves as centrist. There are two other axes as well: competent/incompetent and establishment/challenger. Thus Cameron is mid-right/mid-competent/very establishment. To win you probably need to be any two of the three (e.g. Trump is running as a competent challenger, Clinton as a comptent centrist), and a competent centrist challenger candidate would absolutely clean up. But it's not easy to be both a challenger and perceived as centrist and competent...
Hillary is generally perceived to be an incompetent establishment self-centrist.
I'd agree that Cameron has gone further to the centre than is wise for 2020. We now have a 3.5 party system (Con, Lab, UKIP, the half being the LibDems until they find a purpose). That puts the Cons in the middle and fit to be squeezed once Labour dump Corbyn and realize what a perfect opportunity they have to win 2020. They have all the left to themselves, so moving to the centre should give them closer to 50% of the electorate (provided they don't move so far to the centre right, a la Blair, that they alienate the far left). The Tories' ceiling would then be around the 30-33% mark in my reckoning.
As others have said, I don't think there's a left-right axis alone any more, though it's certainly helpful to appeal to voters who think of themselves as centrist. There are two other axes as well: competent/incompetent and establishment/challenger. Thus Cameron is mid-right/mid-competent/very establishment. To win you probably need to be any two of the three (e.g. Trump is running as a competent challenger, Clinton as a comptent centrist), and a competent centrist challenger candidate would absolutely clean up. But it's not easy to be both a challenger and perceived as centrist and competent...
Charisma is even more important otherwise how else did George W Bush beat Al Gore or Obama Romney or Boris become Mayor?
I'd agree that Cameron has gone further to the centre than is wise for 2020. We now have a 3.5 party system (Con, Lab, UKIP, the half being the LibDems until they find a purpose). That puts the Cons in the middle and fit to be squeezed once Labour dump Corbyn and realize what a perfect opportunity they have to win 2020. They have all the left to themselves, so moving to the centre should give them closer to 50% of the electorate (provided they don't move so far to the centre right, a la Blair, that they alienate the far left). The Tories' ceiling would then be around the 30-33% mark in my reckoning.
As others have said, I don't think there's a left-right axis alone any more, though it's certainly helpful to appeal to voters who think of themselves as centrist. There are two other axes as well: competent/incompetent and establishment/challenger. Thus Cameron is mid-right/mid-competent/very establishment. To win you probably need to be any two of the three (e.g. Trump is running as a competent challenger, Clinton as a comptent centrist), and a competent centrist challenger candidate would absolutely clean up. But it's not easy to be both a challenger and perceived as centrist and competent...
The Labour Party was always a combination of Methodists and Marxists. The former were strongly for family values and fairness, while the latter wanted social revolution. The former went along with the latter because the system was for a long time inherently unfair aqnd a social revolution was necessary to get sloser to what was perceived as social justice. Whether my committed Labour grandfather .... S. Wales miner turned co-op insurance man ..... would recognise much of the current Labour party I doubt. To be fair, I’m not sure my other grandfather, a prosperous Home Counties tenant farmer, would recognise “his” Conservative party either. A devout Christian, I think he’d have some problems.
I'd agree that Cameron has gone further to the centre than is wise for 2020. We now have a 3.5 party system (Con, Lab, UKIP, the half being the LibDems until they find a purpose). That puts the Cons in the middle and fit to be squeezed once Labour dump Corbyn and realize what a perfect opportunity they have to win 2020. They have all the left to themselves, so moving to the centre should give them closer to 50% of the electorate (provided they don't move so far to the centre right, a la Blair, that they alienate the far left). The Tories' ceiling would then be around the 30-33% mark in my reckoning.
As others have said, I don't think there's a left-right axis alone any more, though it's certainly helpful to appeal to voters who think of themselves as centrist. There are two other axes as well: competent/incompetent and establishment/challenger. Thus Cameron is mid-right/mid-competent/very establishment. To win you probably need to be any two of the three (e.g. Trump is running as a competent challenger, Clinton as a comptent centrist), and a competent centrist challenger candidate would absolutely clean up. But it's not easy to be both a challenger and perceived as centrist and competent...
Charisma is even more important otherwise how else did George W Bush beat Al Gore or Obama Romney or Boris become Mayor?
I think in US politics, at least in races that actually rise to the level of getting popular attention, the "Who would you rather have dinner with?" is as useful a political analytical question as any other.
I'd agree that Cameron has gone further to the centre than is wise for 2020. We now have a 3.5 party system (Con, Lab, UKIP, the half being the LibDems until they find a purpose). That puts the Cons in the middle and fit to be squeezed once Labour dump Corbyn and realize what a perfect opportunity they have to win 2020. They have all the left to themselves, so moving to the centre should give them closer to 50% of the electorate (provided they don't move so far to the centre right, a la Blair, that they alienate the far left). The Tories' ceiling would then be around the 30-33% mark in my reckoning.
As others have said, I don't think there's a left-right axis alone any more, though it's certainly helpful to appeal to voters who think of themselves as centrist. There are two other axes as well: competent/incompetent and establishment/challenger. Thus Cameron is mid-right/mid-competent/very establishment. To win you probably need to be any two of the three (e.g. Trump is running as a competent challenger, Clinton as a comptent centrist), and a competent centrist challenger candidate would absolutely clean up. But it's not easy to be both a challenger and perceived as centrist and competent...
Charisma is even more important otherwise how else did George W Bush beat Al Gore or Obama Romney or Boris become Mayor?
GWB didn’t beat Gore; the Supreme Court did. And Gore was too honourable (should that be honorable?) a man to argue.
I'd agree that Cameron has gone further to the centre than is wise for 2020. We now have a 3.5 party system (Con, Lab, UKIP, the half being the LibDems until they find a purpose). That puts the Cons in the middle and fit to be squeezed once Labour dump Corbyn and realize what a perfect opportunity they have to win 2020. They have all the left to themselves, so moving to the centre should give them closer to 50% of the electorate (provided they don't move so far to the centre right, a la Blair, that they alienate the far left). The Tories' ceiling would then be around the 30-33% mark in my reckoning.
As others have said, I don't think there's a left-right axis alone any more, though it's certainly helpful to appeal to voters who think of themselves as centrist. There are two other axes as well: competent/incompetent and establishment/challenger. Thus Cameron is mid-right/mid-competent/very establishment. To win you probably need to be any two of the three (e.g. Trump is running as a competent challenger, Clinton as a comptent centrist), and a competent centrist challenger candidate would absolutely clean up. But it's not easy to be both a challenger and perceived as centrist and competent...
Hillary is generally perceived to be an incompetent establishment self-centrist.
I'd agree that Cameron has gone further to the centre than is wise for 2020. We now have a 3.5 party system (Con, Lab, UKIP, the half being the LibDems until they find a purpose). That puts the Cons in the middle and fit to be squeezed once Labour dump Corbyn and realize what a perfect opportunity they have to win 2020. They have all the left to themselves, so moving to the centre should give them closer to 50% of the electorate (provided they don't move so far to the centre right, a la Blair, that they alienate the far left). The Tories' ceiling would then be around the 30-33% mark in my reckoning.
As others have said, I don't think there's a left-right axis alone any more, though it's certainly helpful to appeal to voters who think of themselves as centrist. There are two other axes as well: competent/incompetent and establishment/challenger. Thus Cameron is mid-right/mid-competent/very establishment. To win you probably need to be any two of the three (e.g. Trump is running as a competent challenger, Clinton as a comptent centrist), and a competent centrist challenger candidate would absolutely clean up. But it's not easy to be both a challenger and perceived as centrist and competent...
Charisma is even more important otherwise how else did George W Bush beat Al Gore or Obama Romney or Boris become Mayor?
I think in US politics, at least in races that actually rise to the level of getting popular attention, the "Who would you rather have dinner with?" is as useful a political analytical question as any other.
His thesis is that every entity in the universe has been seconded by the Remain campaign. I see his point - at times support for Remain does seem truly universal - but he does risk the danger of imbuing Remain with an almost God-like omnipotence. We're not that good.
Time to just shut down the shit show that is FIFA and start again.
No, you can't do that!
Gibraltar was just admitted yesterday (as the 211st member - straight after Kosovo) It's taken us bloody years to get in and it's really upset the dagos. Leave FIFA alone!
Benedict Arnold was a top top bloke. Like me he put the interests of The United Kingdom ahead of the interests of a bunch of narrow little nationalists.
I'm honoured to be spoken in the same breath as Benedict Arnold.
Benny from Total Recall?
More like Benny from Crossroads
Ah- but I was referring to the Benny character in Total Recall, a Mutant who initially helps out Arnie, but turns traitor near the end.
Benedict Arnold was a top top bloke. Like me he put the interests of The United Kingdom ahead of the interests of a bunch of narrow little nationalists.
I'm honoured to be spoken in the same breath as Benedict Arnold.
Benedict Arnold was a pretty effective officer, initially for the American Continental army, and was decorated. He switched sides later on to the British. He then became a British officer.
He did not sell out his side out of fear he swapped from the Americans to the Brits at a point where the British were losing. Maybe not a wise decision, but not an opportunist move.
Boris Johnson has been accused by the grandson of Winston Churchill – the Tory MP Nicholas Soames – of “fundamentally dishonest gymnastics” for criticising a planned multibillion pound EU-US trade deal which he previously lauded as “Churchillian” for its brilliance.
Soames, the MP for mid-Sussex, said Johnson’s spectacular about-turn on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) was yet more evidence of his “complete lack of credibility and coherence” in arguing the economic case for Brexit.
Incidentally Mervyn King doesn't share Carney's apocalyptic views
That's because he isn't in the same group think circle. Doesn't make him right, after all group thinkers can be (perhaps often are) but there are other views.
On a side note, the BoEs predictions were caveated sufficiently that he has sufficient get out.
Hah, Mervyn King was part of the group think circle of 364 economists that wrote that letter to Sir Geoffrey Howe telling him he was wrong.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Yes. Whilst the IMF was part of the same circle that said we should be in the Euro.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Do you have a link for that?
No. The IMF has so many documents on it's site that mention the UK and Euro it would take a week to find.
GWB didn’t beat Gore; the Supreme Court did. And Gore was too honourable (should that be honorable?) a man to argue.
But that is not exactly true, is it? Depending on the way the votes could have been counted, Bush would have won in most scenarios and Gore in only a few. In fact, Gore lost on his own preferred method of counting:
"After the election, recounts conducted by various United States news media organizations indicated that Bush would have won if certain recounting methods had been used (including the one favored by Gore at the time of the Supreme Court decision) but that Gore might have won under other scenarios.
"USA Today, The Miami Herald, and Knight Ridder commissioned accounting firm BDO Seidman to count undervotes: ballots that did not register any vote when counted by machine. BDO Seidman's results, reported in USA Today, show that under the strictest standard, where only a cleanly punched ballot with a fully removed chad was counted, Gore won by three votes.[38] Under all other standards, Bush won, with Bush's margin increasing as looser standards were used. The standards considered by BDO Seidman were:
Lenient standard. Any alteration in a chad, ranging from a dimple to a full punch, counts as a vote. By this standard, Bush won by 1,665 votes.
Palm Beach standard. A dimple is counted as a vote if other races on the same ballot show dimples as well. By this standard, Bush won by 884 votes.
Two-corner standard. A chad with two or more corners removed is counted as a vote. This is the most common standard in use. By this standard, Bush won by 363 votes.
Strict standard. Only a fully removed chad counts as a vote. By this standard, Gore won by 3 votes."
Benedict Arnold was a top top bloke. Like me he put the interests of The United Kingdom ahead of the interests of a bunch of narrow little nationalists.
I'm honoured to be spoken in the same breath as Benedict Arnold.
Benedict Arnold was a pretty effective officer, initially for the American Continental army, and was decorated. He switched sides later on to the British. He then became a British officer.
He did not sell out his side out of fear he swapped from the Americans to the Brits at a point where the British were losing. Maybe not a wise decision, but not an opportunist move.
He swapped sides because he was frustrated at his lack of promotion and worried about the repeated charges of corruption/malfeasance.
It was entirely out of self-interest that he switched: he had no future with the US and might have had with the UK
"A larger consortium of news organizations, including USA Today, The Miami Herald, Knight Ridder, The Tampa Tribune, and five other newspapers next conducted a full recount of all ballots, including both undervotes and overvotes. According to their results, Bush won under stricter standards and Gore won under looser standards. A Gore win was impossible without a recount of overvotes, which he did not request"
I'd agree that Cameron has gone further to the centre than is wise for 2020. We now have a 3.5 party system (Con, Lab, UKIP, the half being the LibDems until they find a purpose). That puts the Cons in the middle and fit to be squeezed once Labour dump Corbyn and realize what a perfect opportunity they have to win 2020. They have all the left to themselves, so moving to the centre should give them closer to 50% of the electorate (provided they don't move so far to the centre right, a la Blair, that they alienate the far left). The Tories' ceiling would then be around the 30-33% mark in my reckoning.
As others have said, I don't think there's a left-right axis alone any more, though it's certainly helpful to appeal to voters who think of themselves as centrist. There are two other axes as well: competent/incompetent and establishment/challenger. Thus Cameron is mid-right/mid-competent/very establishment. To win you probably need to be any two of the three (e.g. Trump is running as a competent challenger, Clinton as a comptent centrist), and a competent centrist challenger candidate would absolutely clean up. But it's not easy to be both a challenger and perceived as centrist and competent...
Charisma is even more important otherwise how else did George W Bush beat Al Gore or Obama Romney or Boris become Mayor?
I think in US politics, at least in races that actually rise to the level of getting popular attention, the "Who would you rather have dinner with?" is as useful a political analytical question as any other.
PS On that basis, I suspect Hillary is f8cked
Indeed, in almost every election since WW2 the more charismatic candidate won except for 1968 when Nixon beat Humphrey and as Hillary is basically Nixon the Sequel that may encourage her. The U.S. also tends not to vote for extremists see Goldwater and McGovern so it depends if Trump is seen in that light or not
Boris Johnson has been accused by the grandson of Winston Churchill – the Tory MP Nicholas Soames – of “fundamentally dishonest gymnastics” for criticising a planned multibillion pound EU-US trade deal which he previously lauded as “Churchillian” for its brilliance.
Soames, the MP for mid-Sussex, said Johnson’s spectacular about-turn on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) was yet more evidence of his “complete lack of credibility and coherence” in arguing the economic case for Brexit.
Benedict Arnold was a top top bloke. Like me he put the interests of The United Kingdom ahead of the interests of a bunch of narrow little nationalists.
I'm honoured to be spoken in the same breath as Benedict Arnold.
Benedict Arnold was a pretty effective officer, initially for the American Continental army, and was decorated. He switched sides later on to the British. He then became a British officer.
He did not sell out his side out of fear he swapped from the Americans to the Brits at a point where the British were losing. Maybe not a wise decision, but not an opportunist move.
He swapped sides because he was frustrated at his lack of promotion and worried about the repeated charges of corruption/malfeasance.
It was entirely out of self-interest that he switched: he had no future with the US and might have had with the UK
I'd agree that Cameron has gone further to the centre than is wise for 2020. We now have a 3.5 party system (Con, Lab, UKIP, the half being the LibDems until they find a purpose). That puts the Cons in the middle and fit to be squeezed once Labour dump Corbyn and realize what a perfect opportunity they have to win 2020. They have all the left to themselves, so moving to the centre should give them closer to 50% of the electorate (provided they don't move so far to the centre right, a la Blair, that they alienate the far left). The Tories' ceiling would then be around the 30-33% mark in my reckoning.
As others have said, I don't think there's a left-right axis alone any more, though it's certainly helpful to appeal to voters who think of themselves as centrist. There are two other axes as well: competent/incompetent and establishment/challenger. Thus Cameron is mid-right/mid-competent/very establishment. To win you probably need to be any two of the three (e.g. Trump is running as a competent challenger, Clinton as a comptent centrist), and a competent centrist challenger candidate would absolutely clean up. But it's not easy to be both a challenger and perceived as centrist and competent...
Charisma is even more important otherwise how else did George W Bush beat Al Gore or Obama Romney or Boris become Mayor?
GWB didn’t beat Gore; the Supreme Court did. And Gore was too honourable (should that be honorable?) a man to argue.
The fact George W even got close to beating a sitting Vice President with huge experience in government and with a strong economy let alone won the electoral college proves the point, on paper Gore should have won a landslide
His thesis is that every entity in the universe has been seconded by the Remain campaign. I see his point - at times support for Remain does seem truly universal - but he does risk the danger of imbuing Remain with an almost God-like omnipotence. We're not that good.
We? Constantly on the blower to you for your input are they?
Benedict Arnold was a top top bloke. Like me he put the interests of The United Kingdom ahead of the interests of a bunch of narrow little nationalists.
I'm honoured to be spoken in the same breath as Benedict Arnold.
Benedict Arnold was a pretty effective officer, initially for the American Continental army, and was decorated. He switched sides later on to the British. He then became a British officer.
He did not sell out his side out of fear he swapped from the Americans to the Brits at a point where the British were losing. Maybe not a wise decision, but not an opportunist move.
He swapped sides because he was frustrated at his lack of promotion and worried about the repeated charges of corruption/malfeasance.
It was entirely out of self-interest that he switched: he had no future with the US and might have had with the UK
He did not change out of fear though.
I didn't say he did - the reference was the urban dictionary definition of "pulling a Benedict Arnold" which may not be historically accurate!
(although - arguably - an acute sense of self-preservation is a form of fear)
Indeed, in almost every election since WW2 the more charismatic candidate won except for 1968 when Nixon beat Humphrey and as Hillary is basically Nixon the Sequel that may encourage her. The U.S. also tends not to vote for extremists see Goldwater and McGovern so it depends if Trump is seen in that light or not
There are undoubtedly some who see Trump as an extremist but they are mostly from the liberal left. Some on the right, myself included, see him as potentially dangerous. But most would see him as a self-promoting, egotistical opportunist.
Where his support comes form is that, despite that, he is seen as someone who says things that are offensive but should be allowed to be said and that his supporters are fed up with being made to feel bad about thinking, let alone saying out loud.
His strongest voter appeal points are this anti-PC stance, and the perception that he is the opposite of Obama on the international front. He is a proud American to the perception that Obama is all to quick to blame the US for world problems; he will be aggressively pro-American in all international disputes and negotiations, to the perception that Obama never stands tall and firm; he will be the equal to Putin, instead of being his little sock puppet.
Boris Johnson has been accused by the grandson of Winston Churchill – the Tory MP Nicholas Soames – of “fundamentally dishonest gymnastics” for criticising a planned multibillion pound EU-US trade deal which he previously lauded as “Churchillian” for its brilliance.
Soames, the MP for mid-Sussex, said Johnson’s spectacular about-turn on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) was yet more evidence of his “complete lack of credibility and coherence” in arguing the economic case for Brexit.
My God. That could prove absolutely ruinous for Boris. The degree of contradiction is spectacular, virtually supernova. Boris's only excuse - and its a pretty limp one - is that he'd forgotten what he'd written.
GWB didn’t beat Gore; the Supreme Court did. And Gore was too honourable (should that be honorable?) a man to argue.
But that is not exactly true, is it? Depending on the way the votes could have been counted, Bush would have won in most scenarios and Gore in only a few. In fact, Gore lost on his own preferred method of counting:
"After the election, recounts conducted by various United States news media organizations indicated that Bush would have won if certain recounting methods had been used (including the one favored by Gore at the time of the Supreme Court decision) but that Gore might have won under other scenarios.
"USA Today, The Miami Herald, and Knight Ridder commissioned accounting firm BDO Seidman to count undervotes: ballots that did not register any vote when counted by machine. BDO Seidman's results, reported in USA Today, show that under the strictest standard, where only a cleanly punched ballot with a fully removed chad was counted, Gore won by three votes.[38] Under all other standards, Bush won, with Bush's margin increasing as looser standards were used. The standards considered by BDO Seidman were:
Lenient standard. Any alteration in a chad, ranging from a dimple to a full punch, counts as a vote. By this standard, Bush won by 1,665 votes.
Palm Beach standard. A dimple is counted as a vote if other races on the same ballot show dimples as well. By this standard, Bush won by 884 votes.
Two-corner standard. A chad with two or more corners removed is counted as a vote. This is the most common standard in use. By this standard, Bush won by 363 votes.
Strict standard. Only a fully removed chad counts as a vote. By this standard, Gore won by 3 votes."
“Kinell. Thwere’s a lot to be said for paper and pencil.
Boris Johnson has been accused by the grandson of Winston Churchill – the Tory MP Nicholas Soames – of “fundamentally dishonest gymnastics” for criticising a planned multibillion pound EU-US trade deal which he previously lauded as “Churchillian” for its brilliance.
Soames, the MP for mid-Sussex, said Johnson’s spectacular about-turn on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) was yet more evidence of his “complete lack of credibility and coherence” in arguing the economic case for Brexit.
Incidentally Mervyn King doesn't share Carney's apocalyptic views
That's because he isn't in the same group think circle. Doesn't make him right, after all group thinkers can be (perhaps often are) but there are other views.
On a side note, the BoEs predictions were caveated sufficiently that he has sufficient get out.
Hah, Mervyn King was part of the group think circle of 364 economists that wrote that letter to Sir Geoffrey Howe telling him he was wrong.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Yes. Whilst the IMF was part of the same circle that said we should be in the Euro.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Do you have a link for that?
No. The IMF has so many documents on it's site that mention the UK and Euro it would take a week to find.
Got an original copy of that letter?
See, I found this straight away (from 1999)
The IMF maps out obstacles to Britain joining the euro
Boris Johnson has been accused by the grandson of Winston Churchill – the Tory MP Nicholas Soames – of “fundamentally dishonest gymnastics” for criticising a planned multibillion pound EU-US trade deal which he previously lauded as “Churchillian” for its brilliance.
Soames, the MP for mid-Sussex, said Johnson’s spectacular about-turn on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) was yet more evidence of his “complete lack of credibility and coherence” in arguing the economic case for Brexit.
My God. That could prove absolutely ruinous for Boris. The degree of contradiction is spectacular, virtually supernova. Boris's only excuse - and its a pretty limp one - is that he'd forgotten what he'd written.
Johnson criticizes Greece delaying the deal because of a quibble about feta cheese. There's no contradiction.
Boris Johnson has been accused by the grandson of Winston Churchill – the Tory MP Nicholas Soames – of “fundamentally dishonest gymnastics” for criticising a planned multibillion pound EU-US trade deal which he previously lauded as “Churchillian” for its brilliance.
Soames, the MP for mid-Sussex, said Johnson’s spectacular about-turn on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) was yet more evidence of his “complete lack of credibility and coherence” in arguing the economic case for Brexit.
My God. That could prove absolutely ruinous for Boris. The degree of contradiction is spectacular, virtually supernova. Boris's only excuse - and its a pretty limp one - is that he'd forgotten what he'd written.
Crikey and cripes!
Who was the last person to make such a volte face?
Cameron who said we'd be fine if we left the EU and now says it would bring war pestilence and plague? Or perhaps Churchill who left the Conservatives, became a Liberal and then ratted back?
I could go on... this happens so often... but I will not.
Sometimes people don't change their minds and look ridiculous as a result. Some still think it would be a good idea to join the Euro despite all the evidence.
Boris Johnson has been accused by the grandson of Winston Churchill – the Tory MP Nicholas Soames – of “fundamentally dishonest gymnastics” for criticising a planned multibillion pound EU-US trade deal which he previously lauded as “Churchillian” for its brilliance.
Soames, the MP for mid-Sussex, said Johnson’s spectacular about-turn on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) was yet more evidence of his “complete lack of credibility and coherence” in arguing the economic case for Brexit.
My God. That could prove absolutely ruinous for Boris. The degree of contradiction is spectacular, virtually supernova. Boris's only excuse - and its a pretty limp one - is that he'd forgotten what he'd written.
Johnson criticizes Greece delaying the deal because a quibble about feta cheese. There's no contradiction.
Incidentally Mervyn King doesn't share Carney's apocalyptic views
That's because he isn't in the same group think circle. Doesn't make him right, after all group thinkers can be (perhaps often are) but there are other views.
On a side note, the BoEs predictions were caveated sufficiently that he has sufficient get out.
Hah, Mervyn King was part of the group think circle of 364 economists that wrote that letter to Sir Geoffrey Howe telling him he was wrong.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Yes. Whilst the IMF was part of the same circle that said we should be in the Euro.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Do you have a link for that?
No. The IMF has so many documents on it's site that mention the UK and Euro it would take a week to find.
Got an original copy of that letter?
See, I found this straight away (from 1999)
The IMF maps out obstacles to Britain joining the euro
Boris Johnson has been accused by the grandson of Winston Churchill – the Tory MP Nicholas Soames – of “fundamentally dishonest gymnastics” for criticising a planned multibillion pound EU-US trade deal which he previously lauded as “Churchillian” for its brilliance.
Soames, the MP for mid-Sussex, said Johnson’s spectacular about-turn on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) was yet more evidence of his “complete lack of credibility and coherence” in arguing the economic case for Brexit.
My God. That could prove absolutely ruinous for Boris. The degree of contradiction is spectacular, virtually supernova. Boris's only excuse - and its a pretty limp one - is that he'd forgotten what he'd written.
Johnson criticizes Greece delaying the deal because a quibble about feta cheese. There's no contradiction.
Just seeing if I can fix that blockquote thing.
Ah. The secret is to remove the blockquote tag just before the web link.
Boris Johnson has been accused by the grandson of Winston Churchill – the Tory MP Nicholas Soames – of “fundamentally dishonest gymnastics” for criticising a planned multibillion pound EU-US trade deal which he previously lauded as “Churchillian” for its brilliance.
Soames, the MP for mid-Sussex, said Johnson’s spectacular about-turn on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) was yet more evidence of his “complete lack of credibility and coherence” in arguing the economic case for Brexit.
My God. That could prove absolutely ruinous for Boris. The degree of contradiction is spectacular, virtually supernova. Boris's only excuse - and its a pretty limp one - is that he'd forgotten what he'd written.
Johnson criticizes Greece delaying the deal because a quibble about feta cheese. There's no contradiction.
Just seeing if I can fix that blockquote thing.
Ah. The secret is to remove the blockquote tag just before the web link.
I think the real secret is to remove the UK from the EU, but you may differ on that.
FPT thank you Roger for an excellent piece, he and I have called each other names but his views through an ad agency's eyes are interesting and informative.
Moving on, I'm now convinced that in the event of Remain the Conservative Party is finished. Read the attitude of the Tory Remainers on here, on June 24th they'll be even more smug, as if their sneering insults were justified. They might win the referendum but their life long love, the Conservative Party, won't forgive that easily.
Interesting that you think so few lefties read these comments that you feel OK about saying that.
The raison d’être of the Conservative Party is surely to see that like minded people (our sort) get elected.As opposed to most political parties, which have a definite philosophical basis. It’s one of the reason, perhaps the main reason, why it hasn’t split in any meaningful way since the 1840’s or thereabouts. So I suspect that after a while there’ll be a somewhat general grudging forgive and forget, although some serious personal animosities will continue.
You're absolutely correct. If Remain triumphs the Tory party will see which way the wind is blowing and will re-establish itself as an essentially pro-European entity. Of course, it has never won an election on anything other than a pro-European prospectus, so it will actually feel more comfortable in itself. It was only when Maggie started losing the plot that Europhobia gained any traction, but I suspect history will record this as something of a blip.
LOL. Methinks you are living in La La land.
That would be a possibility, if most right of centre voters were to vote Remain. But, that seems most unlikely.
If the result were similar to the latest Ipsos MORI poll, 55/45 Remain, you'd still have Conservatives voting 55/45 Leave, and Kippers voting 95/5 Leave, with centre right voters splitting 2:1 for Leave overall. It's very hard to see how the Conservative Party could be pro-EU going forward, unless they wanted to jettison lots of right wing voters, in the hope of securing left wing voters.
Incidentally Mervyn King doesn't share Carney's apocalyptic views
That's because he isn't in the same group think circle. Doesn't make him right, after all group thinkers can be (perhaps often are) but there are other views.
On a side note, the BoEs predictions were caveated sufficiently that he has sufficient get out.
Hah, Mervyn King was part of the group think circle of 364 economists that wrote that letter to Sir Geoffrey Howe telling him he was wrong.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Yes. Whilst the IMF was part of the same circle that said we should be in the Euro.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Do you have a link for that?
No. The IMF has so many documents on it's site that mention the UK and Euro it would take a week to find.
Got an original copy of that letter?
See, I found this straight away (from 1999)
The IMF maps out obstacles to Britain joining the euro
Incidentally Mervyn King doesn't share Carney's apocalyptic views
That's because he isn't in the same group think circle. Doesn't make him right, after all group thinkers can be (perhaps often are) but there are other views.
On a side note, the BoEs predictions were caveated sufficiently that he has sufficient get out.
Hah, Mervyn King was part of the group think circle of 364 economists that wrote that letter to Sir Geoffrey Howe telling him he was wrong.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Yes. Whilst the IMF was part of the same circle that said we should be in the Euro.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Do you have a link for that?
No. The IMF has so many documents on it's site that mention the UK and Euro it would take a week to find.
Got an original copy of that letter?
See, I found this straight away (from 1999)
The IMF maps out obstacles to Britain joining the euro
Your problem here is "thisismoney" is a secondary not primary source and that is one report.
So you can't prove evidence for your assertion, but dismiss my links that back up my assertions.
You have an interesting debating style.
Actually the track record of the IMF is to back whatever the Chancellor of the day wants. It may be because he is a significant reserve rights holder and is represented on the IMF's board
Incidentally Mervyn King doesn't share Carney's apocalyptic views
That's because he isn't in the same group think circle. Doesn't make him right, after all group thinkers can be (perhaps often are) but there are other views.
On a side note, the BoEs predictions were caveated sufficiently that he has sufficient get out.
Hah, Mervyn King was part of the group think circle of 364 economists that wrote that letter to Sir Geoffrey Howe telling him he was wrong.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Yes. Whilst the IMF was part of the same circle that said we should be in the Euro.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Do you have a link for that?
No. The IMF has so many documents on it's site that mention the UK and Euro it would take a week to find.
Got an original copy of that letter?
See, I found this straight away (from 1999)
The IMF maps out obstacles to Britain joining the euro
Your problem here is "thisismoney" is a secondary not primary source and that is one report.
So you can't prove evidence for your assertion, but dismiss my links that back up my assertions.
You have an interesting debating style.
Many thanks!
I think we can agree that the IMF were one of the wise who criticised George Osbourne in 2013, didn't (along with all other "main stream economists") predict the great crash and have also got every growth prediction particularly as regard the EU in general but the dying fringe wrong.
Hasn't anyone noticed the history of Europe and the middle east and all the grand projects to build un natural countries?
I think the countries that work only appear natural in hindsight. The UK is a combination of random parts one of which has its own legal system and considers itself a separate nation, Germany was a collection of fractious statelets that spent much of their time in religious wars with each other, etc etc. If they hadn't worked it would have been easy to find a justification for why they couldn't be proper countries.
Incidentally Mervyn King doesn't share Carney's apocalyptic views
That's because he isn't in the same group think circle. Doesn't make him right, after all group thinkers can be (perhaps often are) but there are other views.
On a side note, the BoEs predictions were caveated sufficiently that he has sufficient get out.
Hah, Mervyn King was part of the group think circle of 364 economists that wrote that letter to Sir Geoffrey Howe telling him he was wrong.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Yes. Whilst the IMF was part of the same circle that said we should be in the Euro.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Do you have a link for that?
No. The IMF has so many documents on it's site that mention the UK and Euro it would take a week to find.
Got an original copy of that letter?
See, I found this straight away (from 1999)
The IMF maps out obstacles to Britain joining the euro
Your problem here is "thisismoney" is a secondary not primary source and that is one report.
So you can't prove evidence for your assertion, but dismiss my links that back up my assertions.
You have an interesting debating style.
Actually the track record of the IMF is to back whatever the Chancellor of the day wants. It may be because he is a significant reserve rights holder and is represented on the IMF's board
The fact George W even got close to beating a sitting Vice President with huge experience in government and with a strong economy let alone won the electoral college proves the point, on paper Gore should have won a landslide
The keys, which are explained in depth in Lichtman’s book “Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House 2016” are:
1.Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
2.Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
3.Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
4.Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
5.Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6.Long-term economy: Real per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
7.Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
8.Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
9.Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
10.Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
11.Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
12.Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
13.Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.
The GOP needs to have at least 6 in their favour to win according to the analysis. The GOP definitely has 1, 3, 6 and 12. The Dem's have 5, 7 and 9.
Indeed, in almost every election since WW2 the more charismatic candidate won except for 1968 when Nixon beat Humphrey and as Hillary is basically Nixon the Sequel that may encourage her. The U.S. also tends not to vote for extremists see Goldwater and McGovern so it depends if Trump is seen in that light or not
There are undoubtedly some who see Trump as an extremist but they are mostly from the liberal left. Some on the right, myself included, see him as potentially dangerous. But most would see him as a self-promoting, egotistical opportunist.
Where his support comes form is that, despite that, he is seen as someone who says things that are offensive but should be allowed to be said and that his supporters are fed up with being made to feel bad about thinking, let alone saying out loud.
His strongest voter appeal points are this anti-PC stance, and the perception that he is the opposite of Obama on the international front. He is a proud American to the perception that Obama is all to quick to blame the US for world problems; he will be aggressively pro-American in all international disputes and negotiations, to the perception that Obama never stands tall and firm; he will be the equal to Putin, instead of being his little sock puppet.
Trump will certainly comfortably win the white vote and the white working class male vote by a landslide but I still think the female vote and the minority vote, particularly Hispanics, will see Hillary home
The British entry this year is less Waterloo and more Portaloo.
This year we realise that "Making Your Mind Up" was not throwaway pop but in fact profound political commentary. By the end of June we'll all need "A Little Peace" but in practice the "Boom Bang-A-Bang" seems likely to continue. Still "What's Another Year"?
I think the track record of the IMF is to say whatever the French want at the time, because by tradition the Europeans control it, and the Americans the World Bank (until multiple scandals forced them to lose control).
Incidentally Mervyn King doesn't share Carney's apocalyptic views
That's because he isn't in the same group think circle. Doesn't make him right, after all group thinkers can be (perhaps often are) but there are other views.
On a side note, the BoEs predictions were caveated sufficiently that he has sufficient get out.
Hah, Mervyn King was part of the group think circle of 364 economists that wrote that letter to Sir Geoffrey Howe telling him he was wrong.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Yes. Whilst the IMF was part of the same circle that said we should be in the Euro.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Do you have a link for that?
No. The IMF has so many documents on it's site that mention the UK and Euro it would take a week to find.
Got an original copy of that letter?
See, I found this straight away (from 1999)
The IMF maps out obstacles to Britain joining the euro
Your problem here is "thisismoney" is a secondary not primary source and that is one report.
So you can't prove evidence for your assertion, but dismiss my links that back up my assertions.
You have an interesting debating style.
Many thanks!
I think we can agree that the IMF were one of the wise who criticised George Osbourne in 2013, didn't (along with all other "main stream economists") predict the great crash and have also got every growth prediction particularly as regard the EU in general but the dying fringe wrong.
#WrongLastYearWrongThisYear.
Yes the IMF have consistently been over optomistic!
So if you do not expect the IMF report to be accurate, what is your preferred source for predicting the economic consequences of Leave winning? Do you anticipate any effect at all?
The fact George W even got close to beating a sitting Vice President with huge experience in government and with a strong economy let alone won the electoral college proves the point, on paper Gore should have won a landslide
The keys, which are explained in depth in Lichtman’s book “Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House 2016” are:
1.Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
2.Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
3.Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
4.Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
5.Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6.Long-term economy: Real per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
7.Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
8.Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
9.Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
10.Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
11.Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
12.Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
13.Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.
The GOP needs to have at least 6 in their favour to win according to the analysis. The GOP definitely has 1, 3, 6 and 12. The Dem's have 5, 7 and 9.
2, 4, 8, 10, 11 and 13 are debatable.
9 Hillary e-mails =/= major scandal? Obamacare fees =/= major scandal?
Benedict Arnold was a top top bloke. Like me he put the interests of The United Kingdom ahead of the interests of a bunch of narrow little nationalists.
I'm honoured to be spoken in the same breath as Benedict Arnold.
Benedict Arnold was a pretty effective officer, initially for the American Continental army, and was decorated. He switched sides later on to the British. He then became a British officer.
He did not sell out his side out of fear he swapped from the Americans to the Brits at a point where the British were losing. Maybe not a wise decision, but not an opportunist move.
He swapped sides because he was frustrated at his lack of promotion and worried about the repeated charges of corruption/malfeasance.
It was entirely out of self-interest that he switched: he had no future with the US and might have had with the UK
Do you realise you are describing Boris Johnson at this point?
Hasn't anyone noticed the history of Europe and the middle east and all the grand projects to build un natural countries?
I think the countries that work only appear natural in hindsight. The UK is a combination of random parts one of which has its own legal system and considers itself a separate nation, Germany was a collection of fractious statelets that spent much of their time in religious wars with each other, etc etc. If they hadn't worked it would have been easy to find a justification for why they couldn't be proper countries.
We can see this one (the EU) is beginning to fail now, before it is a country.
The keys, which are explained in depth in Lichtman’s book “Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House 2016” are:
1.Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
2.Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
3.Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
4.Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
5.Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6.Long-term economy: Real per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
7.Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
8.Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
9.Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
10.Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
11.Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
12.Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
13.Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.
The GOP needs to have at least 6 in their favour to win according to the analysis. The GOP definitely has 1, 3, 6 and 12. The Dem's have 5, 7 and 9.
2, 4, 8, 10, 11 and 13 are debatable.
Some of your 'debatable' category are more debatable than others.
2. Most would say Bernie has given Hillary a serious run for her money. Even if a win never seemed probable, at least it was possible. = GOP
4. So long as Hillary is the Dem candidate, I don't see Bloomberg entering the race and there is not other significant 3rd party/candidacy on the horizon. = GOP
8. What social unrest as has occurred has been in Dem strongholds, which are unlikely to shift to GOP, so mark as Dem.
10/11. The answer to these will be determined by your existing political affiliation, but overall I don't think the country thinks of Obama as having been a successful foreign policy president, and polling shows that the US standing in the world, while perhaps better than under Bush, is hardly back up to historical levels.
13. Trump clearly is charismatic. The question is will it help or hurt on balance.
This would put the GOP on 6, with 3 others that could fall in their favour. All in all, it indicates what my gut tells me - a close race currently that could, it everything goes right for Trump from here on out, turn into a very comfortable win for him at the electoral college.
The fact George W even got close to beating a sitting Vice President with huge experience in government and with a strong economy let alone won the electoral college proves the point, on paper Gore should have won a landslide
The keys, which are explained in depth in Lichtman’s book “Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House 2016” are:
1.Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
2.Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
3.Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
4.Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
5.Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6.Long-term economy: Real per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
7.Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
8.Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
9.Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
10.Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
11.Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
12.Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
13.Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.
The GOP needs to have at least 6 in their favour to win according to the analysis. The GOP definitely has 1, 3, 6 and 12. The Dem's have 5, 7 and 9.
2, 4, 8, 10, 11 and 13 are debatable.
9 Hillary e-mails =/= major scandal? Obamacare fees =/= major scandal?
Yeap, they are not major scandals, they are so far minor scandals. Monica Lewinsky was a major scandal, so was Iran-Contra and Watergate.
The ones that are debatable are of course:
2. Does Sanders count as a major contestant ? 4. Will there be a 3rd party vote ? 8. Are BLM and SJW sustained social unrest ? 10. Is ISIS a major failure ? 11. Is the Iran Deal a major success ? 13. Is Trump charismatic ?
Incidentally Mervyn King doesn't share Carney's apocalyptic views
That's because he isn't in the same group think circle. Doesn't make him right, after all group thinkers can be (perhaps often are) but there are other views.
On a side note, the BoEs predictions were caveated sufficiently that he has sufficient get out.
Hah, Mervyn King was part of the group think circle of 364 economists that wrote that letter to Sir Geoffrey Howe telling him he was wrong.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Yes. Whilst the IMF was part of the same circle that said we should be in the Euro.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Do you have a link for that?
No. The IMF has so many documents on it's site that mention the UK and Euro it would take a week to find.
Got an original copy of that letter?
See, I found this straight away (from 1999)
The IMF maps out obstacles to Britain joining the euro
Your problem here is "thisismoney" is a secondary not primary source and that is one report.
So you can't prove evidence for your assertion, but dismiss my links that back up my assertions.
You have an interesting debating style.
Many thanks!
I think we can agree that the IMF were one of the wise who criticised George Osbourne in 2013, didn't (along with all other "main stream economists") predict the great crash and have also got every growth prediction particularly as regard the EU in general but the dying fringe wrong.
#WrongLastYearWrongThisYear.
Yes the IMF have consistently been over optomistic!
So if you do not expect the IMF report to be accurate, what is your preferred source for predicting the economic consequences of Leave winning? Do you anticipate any effect at all?
Perhaps we should listen to Lord Rose, head of the REMAIN campaign
‘Nothing is going to happen if we come out of Europe in the first five years ... There will be absolutely no change '
Boris Johnson has been accused by the grandson of Winston Churchill – the Tory MP Nicholas Soames – of “fundamentally dishonest gymnastics” for criticising a planned multibillion pound EU-US trade deal which he previously lauded as “Churchillian” for its brilliance.
Soames, the MP for mid-Sussex, said Johnson’s spectacular about-turn on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) was yet more evidence of his “complete lack of credibility and coherence” in arguing the economic case for Brexit.
My God. That could prove absolutely ruinous for Boris. The degree of contradiction is spectacular, virtually supernova. Boris's only excuse - and its a pretty limp one - is that he'd forgotten what he'd written.
I don't think so.
Boris Johnson has let down everybody who ever trusted him, stood back when a man plotted to cripple somebody, has the sexual ethics of a adulterer (and in fact is one), dresses in the dark, holds an entirely undeserved reputation for intelligence and could not carry a vase across a room without dropping it. Yet because he speaks for Leave he is held to be the reincarnation of Newton and Caesar Augustus, stylish as Coco Chanel, the very Napoleon of the age.
Yes the IMF have consistently been over optomistic!
So if you do not expect the IMF report to be accurate, what is your preferred source for predicting the economic consequences of Leave winning? Do you anticipate any effect at all?
You can't predict the future with certainty either way. That has to be clear.
We don't know the economic effects of staying in.
We do know that our non EU trade is growing much faster than our EU trade and we also know that the EU is stuck in a mire of it's own making to which it does not appear to have answers. (If it did then then it would have tried a working one before now).
We know we can't negotiate trade deals with non EU countries whilst in the EU.
The fact George W even got close to beating a sitting Vice President with huge experience in government and with a strong economy let alone won the electoral college proves the point, on paper Gore should have won a landslide
The keys, which are explained in depth in Lichtman’s book “Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House 2016” are:
1.Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
2.Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
3.Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
4.Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
5.Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6.Long-term economy: Real per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
7.Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
8.Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
9.Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
10.Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
11.Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
12.Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
13.Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.
The GOP needs to have at least 6 in their favour to win according to the analysis. The GOP definitely has 1, 3, 6 and 12. The Dem's have 5, 7 and 9.
2, 4, 8, 10, 11 and 13 are debatable.
That looks to be an excellent formula for predicting the past. Has it ever forecast the future?
The fact George W even got close to beating a sitting Vice President with huge experience in government and with a strong economy let alone won the electoral college proves the point, on paper Gore should have won a landslide
The keys, which are explained in depth in Lichtman’s book “Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House 2016” are:
1.Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
2.Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
3.Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
4.Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
5.Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6.Long-term economy: Real per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
7.Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
8.Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
9.Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
10.Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
11.Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
12.Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
13.Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.
The GOP needs to have at least 6 in their favour to win according to the analysis. The GOP definitely has 1, 3, 6 and 12. The Dem's have 5, 7 and 9.
2, 4, 8, 10, 11 and 13 are debatable.
Yes which is why it could be close neither Hillary nor Trump have a key advantage on these keys
Yes the IMF have consistently been over optomistic!
So if you do not expect the IMF report to be accurate, what is your preferred source for predicting the economic consequences of Leave winning? Do you anticipate any effect at all?
You can't predict the future with certainty either way. That has to be clear.
We don't know the economic effects of staying in.
We do know that our non EU trade is growing much faster than our EU trade and we also know that the EU is stuck in a mire of it's own making to which it does not appear to have answers. (If it did then then it would have tried a working one before now).
We know we can't negotiate trade deals with non EU countries whilst in the EU.
So because you cannot predict with certainty then do not bother?
Do you expect any economic consequences at all of a Leave vote on stock and currency markets, GDP growth or other economic indicators? I am particularly thinking of the 1-5 year period.
Incidentally Mervyn King doesn't share Carney's apocalyptic views
That's because he isn't in the same group think circle. Doesn't make him right, after all group thinkers can be (perhaps often are) but there are other views.
On a side note, the BoEs predictions were caveated sufficiently that he has sufficient get out.
Hah, Mervyn King was part of the group think circle of 364 economists that wrote that letter to Sir Geoffrey Howe telling him he was wrong.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Yes. Whilst the IMF was part of the same circle that said we should be in the Euro.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Do you have a link for that?
No. The IMF has so many documents on it's site that mention the UK and Euro it would take a week to find.
Got an original copy of that letter?
See, I found this straight away (from 1999)
The IMF maps out obstacles to Britain joining the euro
Your problem here is "thisismoney" is a secondary not primary source and that is one report.
So you can't prove evidence for your assertion, but dismiss my links that back up my assertions.
You have an interesting debating style.
Actually the track record of the IMF is to back whatever the Chancellor of the day wants. It may be because he is a significant reserve rights holder and is represented on the IMF's board
I'm sure Denis Healey would agree with you.
He should as they gave him a loan which stopped the government going bankrupt.
Yes the IMF have consistently been over optomistic!
So if you do not expect the IMF report to be accurate, what is your preferred source for predicting the economic consequences of Leave winning? Do you anticipate any effect at all?
My preference is not to compare two sets of faulty quantitative predictions, but to look at the fundamentally different policy approaches that would happen in the two scenarios and do a more qualitative, rather than quantitative, analysis of which overall approach is better in the medium- to long-term.
Two problems with this approach. 1. We don't know what Leave's policy stance would be as they are competing visions, and there is uncertainty over the future direction of the EU too. 2. The results of the qualitative analysis are bound to be tainted by the analyst's own economic philosophy
But even with these drawbacks, I think this is a more honest and valid approach that the comparing two fatally flawed predictions.
Actually the track record of the IMF is to back whatever the Chancellor of the day wants.
Apart from the last IMF report which contradicted the chancellor of the day.
Oh, I forgot, we don't talk about that one...
There's a difference between the economic forecast team which churns out rubbish that is no better or worse than other similar bodies. Sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong.
As with all international bodies, Lagarde and the IMF will not intervene in a domestic event except with the blessing of the local government
Incidentally Mervyn King doesn't share Carney's apocalyptic views
That's because he isn't in the same group think circle. Doesn't make him right, after all group thinkers can be (perhaps often are) but there are other views.
On a side note, the BoEs predictions were caveated sufficiently that he has sufficient get out.
Hah, Mervyn King was part of the group think circle of 364 economists that wrote that letter to Sir Geoffrey Howe telling him he was wrong.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Yes. Whilst the IMF was part of the same circle that said we should be in the Euro.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Do you have a link for that?
No. The IMF has so many documents on it's site that mention the UK and Euro it would take a week to find.
Got an original copy of that letter?
See, I found this straight away (from 1999)
The IMF maps out obstacles to Britain joining the euro
Your problem here is "thisismoney" is a secondary not primary source and that is one report.
So you can't prove evidence for your assertion, but dismiss my links that back up my assertions.
You have an interesting debating style.
Actually the track record of the IMF is to back whatever the Chancellor of the day wants. It may be because he is a significant reserve rights holder and is represented on the IMF's board
I'm sure Denis Healey would agree with you.
Denis Healey asked for the loan. He negotiated the terms. The IMF backed his reforms.
Some of your 'debatable' category are more debatable than others.
2. Most would say Bernie has given Hillary a serious run for her money. Even if a win never seemed probable, at least it was possible. = GOP
4. So long as Hillary is the Dem candidate, I don't see Bloomberg entering the race and there is not other significant 3rd party/candidacy on the horizon. = GOP
8. What social unrest as has occurred has been in Dem strongholds, which are unlikely to shift to GOP, so mark as Dem.
10/11. The answer to these will be determined by your existing political affiliation, but overall I don't think the country thinks of Obama as having been a successful foreign policy president, and polling shows that the US standing in the world, while perhaps better than under Bush, is hardly back up to historical levels.
13. Trump clearly is charismatic. The question is will it help or hurt on balance.
This would put the GOP on 6, with 3 others that could fall in their favour. All in all, it indicates what my gut tells me - a close race currently that could, it everything goes right for Trump from here on out, turn into a very comfortable win for him at the electoral college.
2. Some might say that Sanders never had a real chance, but I would give you that.
4. So far there seems to be a steady 8-10% in the polls that would even choose fictional Deez Nuts for President, so I can't give that to the Dem's yet (according to the analysis 3rd party candidates usually hit incumbent parties).
8. No idea of how to quantify it, there have been sporadic riots over the years but does that count as social unrest ?
10/11. Obama doesn't seem to have a major foreign policy success or failure, small ones sure.
13. Trump is really the wild card.
So it could be a very close race with Trump's charisma playing as the decisive factor.
Incidentally Mervyn King doesn't share Carney's apocalyptic views
That's because he isn't in the same group think circle. Doesn't make him right, after all group thinkers can be (perhaps often are) but there are other views.
On a side note, the BoEs predictions were caveated sufficiently that he has sufficient get out.
Hah, Mervyn King was part of the group think circle of 364 economists that wrote that letter to Sir Geoffrey Howe telling him he was wrong.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Yes. Whilst the IMF was part of the same circle that said we should be in the Euro.
#WrongThenWrongNow
Do you have a link for that?
No. The IMF has so many documents on it's site that mention the UK and Euro it would take a week to find.
Got an original copy of that letter?
See, I found this straight away (from 1999)
The IMF maps out obstacles to Britain joining the euro
Your problem here is "thisismoney" is a secondary not primary source and that is one report.
So you can't prove evidence for your assertion, but dismiss my links that back up my assertions.
You have an interesting debating style.
Many thanks!
I think we can agree that the IMF were one of the wise who criticised George Osbourne in 2013, didn't (along with all other "main stream economists") predict the great crash and have also got every growth prediction particularly as regard the EU in general but the dying fringe wrong.
#WrongLastYearWrongThisYear.
Yes the IMF have consistently been over optomistic!
So if you do not expect the IMF report to be accurate, what is your preferred source for predicting the economic consequences of Leave winning? Do you anticipate any effect at all?
People with skin in the game.
Ignore the investment banks; look at the buyside research. I like Rathbones (basically the old Jupiter team), but there are others. Rathbones is saying 1-2% near term hit, but long-term it will all be much of a muchness economically
Yeap, they are not major scandals, they are so far minor scandals. Monica Lewinsky was a major scandal, so was Iran-Contra and Watergate.
The ones that are debatable are of course:
2. Does Sanders count as a major contestant ? 4. Will there be a 3rd party vote ? 8. Are BLM and SJW sustained social unrest ? 10. Is ISIS a major failure ? 11. Is the Iran Deal a major success ? 13. Is Trump charismatic ?
Agreed, nothing in the Obama terms that meet the level of Watergate, Iran Contra etc... The only one that could rise to that level is the e-mail server. But, regardless of the lack of major scandal, Hillary has so many issues that there overall effect on her honesty/trustworthiness index has been worse than the impact of major Administration scandals on a ruling party's non-incumbent candidate in the past.
Benedict Arnold was a top top bloke. Like me he put the interests of The United Kingdom ahead of the interests of a bunch of narrow little nationalists.
I'm honoured to be spoken in the same breath as Benedict Arnold.
Benedict Arnold was a pretty effective officer, initially for the American Continental army, and was decorated. He switched sides later on to the British. He then became a British officer.
He did not sell out his side out of fear he swapped from the Americans to the Brits at a point where the British were losing. Maybe not a wise decision, but not an opportunist move.
He swapped sides because he was frustrated at his lack of promotion and worried about the repeated charges of corruption/malfeasance.
It was entirely out of self-interest that he switched: he had no future with the US and might have had with the UK
Do you realise you are describing Boris Johnson at this point?
And I suspect Boris's reputation will be very different depending on whether he has chosen the winning side or not!
FPT thank you Roger for an excellent piece, he and I have called each other names but his views through an ad agency's eyes are interesting and informative.
Moving on, I'm now convinced that in the event of Remain the Conservative Party is finished. Read the attitude of the Tory Remainers on here, on June 24th they'll be even more smug, as if their sneering insults were justified. They might win the referendum but their life long love, the Conservative Party, won't forgive that easily.
Interesting that you think so few lefties read these comments that you feel OK about saying that.
The raison d’être of the Conservative Party is surely to see that like minded people (our sort) get elected.As opposed to most political parties, which have a definite philosophical basis. It’s one of the reason, perhaps the main reason, why it hasn’t split in any meaningful way since the 1840’s or thereabouts. So I suspect that after a while there’ll be a somewhat general grudging forgive and forget, although some serious personal animosities will continue.
You're absolutely correct. If Remain triumphs the Tory party will see which way the wind is blowing and will re-establish itself as an essentially pro-European entity. Of course, it has never won an election on anything other than a pro-European prospectus, so it will actually feel more comfortable in itself. It was only when Maggie started losing the plot that Europhobia gained any traction, but I suspect history will record this as something of a blip.
LOL. Methinks you are living in La La land.
That would be a possibility, if most right of centre voters were to vote Remain. But, that seems most unlikely.
If the result were similar to the latest Ipsos MORI poll, 55/45 Remain, you'd still have Conservatives voting 55/45 Leave, and Kippers voting 95/5 Leave, with centre right voters splitting 2:1 for Leave overall. It's very hard to see how the Conservative Party could be pro-EU going forward, unless they wanted to jettison lots of right wing voters, in the hope of securing left wing voters.
Not to mention that many of the Conservative supporters who do vote Remain will only be doing so because the party leadership told them to do so.
Any future powergrabs by the EU will then swing more blocs of Conservative Remainers to Leave..
Its clear that the centre-right in the UK has been on an EUsceptic trend for a generation - in the 1990s there were about ten Conservative MPs who wished to leave the EU and a Conservative leader (John Major) who didn't oppose Britain joining the Euro.
Benedict Arnold was a top top bloke. Like me he put the interests of The United Kingdom ahead of the interests of a bunch of narrow little nationalists.
I'm honoured to be spoken in the same breath as Benedict Arnold.
Benedict Arnold was a pretty effective officer, initially for the American Continental army, and was decorated. He switched sides later on to the British. He then became a British officer.
He did not sell out his side out of fear he swapped from the Americans to the Brits at a point where the British were losing. Maybe not a wise decision, but not an opportunist move.
He swapped sides because he was frustrated at his lack of promotion and worried about the repeated charges of corruption/malfeasance.
It was entirely out of self-interest that he switched: he had no future with the US and might have had with the UK
Do you realise you are describing Boris Johnson at this point?
And I suspect Boris's reputation will be very different depending on whether he has chosen the winning side or not!
The fact George W even got close to beating a sitting Vice President with huge experience in government and with a strong economy let alone won the electoral college proves the point, on paper Gore should have won a landslide
The keys, which are explained in depth in Lichtman’s book “Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House 2016” are:
1.Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
2.Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
3.Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
4.Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
5.Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6.Long-term economy: Real per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
7.Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
8.Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
9.Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
10.Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
11.Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
12.Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
13.Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.
The GOP needs to have at least 6 in their favour to win according to the analysis. The GOP definitely has 1, 3, 6 and 12. The Dem's have 5, 7 and 9.
2, 4, 8, 10, 11 and 13 are debatable.
That looks to be an excellent formula for predicting the past. Has it ever forecast the future?
We can try to apply it for GE 2020. The Tories have 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 and 10 so far. Labour has 4, 7 and 11.
Yes the IMF have consistently been over optomistic!
So if you do not expect the IMF report to be accurate, what is your preferred source for predicting the economic consequences of Leave winning? Do you anticipate any effect at all?
You can't predict the future with certainty either way. That has to be clear.
We don't know the economic effects of staying in.
We do know that our non EU trade is growing much faster than our EU trade and we also know that the EU is stuck in a mire of it's own making to which it does not appear to have answers. (If it did then then it would have tried a working one before now).
We know we can't negotiate trade deals with non EU countries whilst in the EU.
So because you cannot predict with certainty then do not bother?
Do you expect any economic consequences at all of a Leave vote on stock and currency markets, GDP growth or other economic indicators? I am particularly thinking of the 1-5 year period.
The most long term effects often come from things not predicted and which seemed minor at the time.
For example did anyone foresee in the summer of 1990 that Iraq was about to invade Kuwait and that we would be dealing with the consequences a generation later ?
Yes the IMF have consistently been over optomistic!
So if you do not expect the IMF report to be accurate, what is your preferred source for predicting the economic consequences of Leave winning? Do you anticipate any effect at all?
You can't predict the future with certainty either way. That has to be clear.
We don't know the economic effects of staying in.
We do know that our non EU trade is growing much faster than our EU trade and we also know that the EU is stuck in a mire of it's own making to which it does not appear to have answers. (If it did then then it would have tried a working one before now).
We know we can't negotiate trade deals with non EU countries whilst in the EU.
So because you cannot predict with certainty then do not bother?
Do you expect any economic consequences at all of a Leave vote on stock and currency markets, GDP growth or other economic indicators? I am particularly thinking of the 1-5 year period.
Real effects? No. The stock market will probably bounce around a bit and the pound may do likewise, but most of that will be down to speculators doing their thing not real economic essentials.
That said it is I think impossible to disentangle what will happen anyway from the result of any referendum. For example the PMI indices are currently showing a slowing rate of growth. If that continues then we may be entering a recession early in 2017. Is that anything to do with the referendum? If we vote to stay or to go will that affect it? Who knows and who can tell? I am fairly sure that whatever happens the losing side will blame any bad economic outcome on the victors.
In any event how this country is governed is an issue, I would suggest, that is too important to be decided on short-term economic indicators, or even real short term economic effects. It will probably take five years just to get the withdrawal process over and done with. In casting my vote I am thinking far more about the future my son, nieces and Goddaughters are going to have than anything I am likely to see.
Yes the IMF have consistently been over optomistic!
So if you do not expect the IMF report to be accurate, what is your preferred source for predicting the economic consequences of Leave winning? Do you anticipate any effect at all?
You can't predict the future with certainty either way. That has to be clear.
We don't know the economic effects of staying in.
We do know that our non EU trade is growing much faster than our EU trade and we also know that the EU is stuck in a mire of it's own making to which it does not appear to have answers. (If it did then then it would have tried a working one before now).
We know we can't negotiate trade deals with non EU countries whilst in the EU.
So because you cannot predict with certainty then do not bother?
Do you expect any economic consequences at all of a Leave vote on stock and currency markets, GDP growth or other economic indicators? I am particularly thinking of the 1-5 year period.
The National Institute predicted economic growth of 1.9% in 2017, in the event of Brexit, as opposed to 2.7% in the event of Remain.
The Treasury predicted growth of 30% by 2030, in the event of Brexit, as opposed to 36% in the event of Remain.
Both in the short term, and long term, that's an acceptable level of risk, for me.
Yes the IMF have consistently been over optomistic!
So if you do not expect the IMF report to be accurate, what is your preferred source for predicting the economic consequences of Leave winning? Do you anticipate any effect at all?
You can't predict the future with certainty either way. That has to be clear.
We don't know the economic effects of staying in.
We do know that our non EU trade is growing much faster than our EU trade and we also know that the EU is stuck in a mire of it's own making to which it does not appear to have answers. (If it did then then it would have tried a working one before now).
We know we can't negotiate trade deals with non EU countries whilst in the EU.
So because you cannot predict with certainty then do not bother?
Do you expect any economic consequences at all of a Leave vote on stock and currency markets, GDP growth or other economic indicators? I am particularly thinking of the 1-5 year period.
I am not an economist. They can't predict it so why do you think my answers would be of more use?
I can say Sir Stuart Rose, head of BSE thinks nothing much will happen in that time frame and a shortage of labour would increase wages. I agree with remain on that,
In November 2015 David Cameron thought we would do well outside of the EU and insisted he would recommend leave if he did get what he wanted....
Some of your 'debatable' category are more debatable than others.
2. Most would say Bernie has given Hillary a serious run for her money. Even if a win never seemed probable, at least it was possible. = GOP
4. So long as Hillary is the Dem candidate, I don't see Bloomberg entering the race and there is not other significant 3rd party/candidacy on the horizon. = GOP
8. What social unrest as has occurred has been in Dem strongholds, which are unlikely to shift to GOP, so mark as Dem.
10/11. The answer to these will be determined by your existing political affiliation, but overall I don't think the country thinks of Obama as having been a successful foreign policy president, and polling shows that the US standing in the world, while perhaps better than under Bush, is hardly back up to historical levels.
13. Trump clearly is charismatic. The question is will it help or hurt on balance.
This would put the GOP on 6, with 3 others that could fall in their favour. All in all, it indicates what my gut tells me - a close race currently that could, it everything goes right for Trump from here on out, turn into a very comfortable win for him at the electoral college.
2. Some might say that Sanders never had a real chance, but I would give you that.
4. So far there seems to be a steady 8-10% in the polls that would even choose fictional Deez Nuts for President, so I can't give that to the Dem's yet (according to the analysis 3rd party candidates usually hit incumbent parties).
8. No idea of how to quantify it, there have been sporadic riots over the years but does that count as social unrest ?
10/11. Obama doesn't seem to have a major foreign policy success or failure, small ones sure.
13. Trump is really the wild card.
So it could be a very close race with Trump's charisma playing as the decisive factor.
Trump's charisma though is almost a negative, aggressive charisma, it is not the likeable charisma of an Obama, a Dubya, Bill Clinton, Reagan or JFK
Boris Johnson has been accused by the grandson of Winston Churchill – the Tory MP Nicholas Soames – of “fundamentally dishonest gymnastics” for criticising a planned multibillion pound EU-US trade deal which he previously lauded as “Churchillian” for its brilliance.
Soames, the MP for mid-Sussex, said Johnson’s spectacular about-turn on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) was yet more evidence of his “complete lack of credibility and coherence” in arguing the economic case for Brexit.
My God. That could prove absolutely ruinous for Boris. The degree of contradiction is spectacular, virtually supernova. Boris's only excuse - and its a pretty limp one - is that he'd forgotten what he'd written.
I don't think so.
Boris Johnson has let down everybody who ever trusted him, stood back when a man plotted to cripple somebody, has the sexual ethics of a adulterer (and in fact is one), dresses in the dark, holds an entirely undeserved reputation for intelligence and could not carry a vase across a room without dropping it. Yet because he speaks for Leave he is held to be the reincarnation of Newton and Caesar Augustus, stylish as Coco Chanel, the very Napoleon of the age.
Comments
I'd agree that Cameron has gone further to the centre than is wise for 2020. We now have a 3.5 party system (Con, Lab, UKIP, the half being the LibDems until they find a purpose). That puts the Cons in the middle and fit to be squeezed once Labour dump Corbyn and realize what a perfect opportunity they have to win 2020. They have all the left to themselves, so moving to the centre should give them closer to 50% of the electorate (provided they don't move so far to the centre right, a la Blair, that they alienate the far left). The Tories' ceiling would then be around the 30-33% mark in my reckoning.
On a side note, the BoEs predictions were caveated sufficiently that he has sufficient get out.
PfP - Yes, from Brazil. Always here just not as frequently as before, but never leaving!
#WrongThenWrongNow
#WrongThenWrongNow
You'd find interesting the stuff being done by Kahan at the Cultural Cognition Project at Yale:
http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2013/6/10/what-are-fearless-white-hierarchical-individualist-males-afr.html
He has two different models I've seen so far:
1. Hieararchical to Egalitarian vs Communitarian to Individualist
2. Social risk aversion vs Deviancy risk aversion
I find the latter more convincing for analysis of US politics:
High social risk, low deviancy risk = Bernie (white liberals - US meaning of liberal)
High social risk, high deviancy risk = Hillary (religious blacks and Latinos)
Low social risk, low deviancy risk = The Donald (angry white males)
Low social risk, high deviancy risk = Cruz (white Christian conservatives)
Whether my committed Labour grandfather .... S. Wales miner turned co-op insurance man ..... would recognise much of the current Labour party I doubt.
To be fair, I’m not sure my other grandfather, a prosperous Home Counties tenant farmer, would recognise “his” Conservative party either. A devout Christian, I think he’d have some problems.
PS On that basis, I suspect Hillary is f8cked
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/13/of-course-mark-carney-backs-remain--the-eu-will-always-benefit-p/
His thesis is that every entity in the universe has been seconded by the Remain campaign. I see his point - at times support for Remain does seem truly universal - but he does risk the danger of imbuing Remain with an almost God-like omnipotence. We're not that good.
Gibraltar was just admitted yesterday (as the 211st member - straight after Kosovo)
It's taken us bloody years to get in and it's really upset the dagos. Leave FIFA alone!
http://www.gbc.gi/news/gibraltar-accepted-fifa-32168
He did not sell out his side out of fear he swapped from the Americans to the Brits at a point where the British were losing. Maybe not a wise decision, but not an opportunist move.
Got an original copy of that letter?
"After the election, recounts conducted by various United States news media organizations indicated that Bush would have won if certain recounting methods had been used (including the one favored by Gore at the time of the Supreme Court decision) but that Gore might have won under other scenarios.
"USA Today, The Miami Herald, and Knight Ridder commissioned accounting firm BDO Seidman to count undervotes: ballots that did not register any vote when counted by machine. BDO Seidman's results, reported in USA Today, show that under the strictest standard, where only a cleanly punched ballot with a fully removed chad was counted, Gore won by three votes.[38] Under all other standards, Bush won, with Bush's margin increasing as looser standards were used. The standards considered by BDO Seidman were:
Lenient standard. Any alteration in a chad, ranging from a dimple to a full punch, counts as a vote. By this standard, Bush won by 1,665 votes.
Palm Beach standard. A dimple is counted as a vote if other races on the same ballot show dimples as well. By this standard, Bush won by 884 votes.
Two-corner standard. A chad with two or more corners removed is counted as a vote. This is the most common standard in use. By this standard, Bush won by 363 votes.
Strict standard. Only a fully removed chad counts as a vote. By this standard, Gore won by 3 votes."
It was entirely out of self-interest that he switched: he had no future with the US and might have had with the UK
"A larger consortium of news organizations, including USA Today, The Miami Herald, Knight Ridder, The Tampa Tribune, and five other newspapers next conducted a full recount of all ballots, including both undervotes and overvotes. According to their results, Bush won under stricter standards and Gore won under looser standards. A Gore win was impossible without a recount of overvotes, which he did not request"
Thanks for this, I was dying to know what rentagob's latest shards of wisdom of the Brexit debate were.
(although - arguably - an acute sense of self-preservation is a form of fear)
Where his support comes form is that, despite that, he is seen as someone who says things that are offensive but should be allowed to be said and that his supporters are fed up with being made to feel bad about thinking, let alone saying out loud.
His strongest voter appeal points are this anti-PC stance, and the perception that he is the opposite of Obama on the international front. He is a proud American to the perception that Obama is all to quick to blame the US for world problems; he will be aggressively pro-American in all international disputes and negotiations, to the perception that Obama never stands tall and firm; he will be the equal to Putin, instead of being his little sock puppet.
My God. That could prove absolutely ruinous for Boris. The degree of contradiction is spectacular, virtually supernova. Boris's only excuse - and its a pretty limp one - is that he'd forgotten what he'd written.
Thanks for the explanation, though.
The problems here are that:
Quite a lot of people don't like TTIP (they know little of its actual contents but that is deliberate)
Churchill was quite good at what his opponents would describe as fundamentally dishonest gymnastics”
In fact he not only ratted, he double ratted.
Interesting qualifying result. Ferrari disappointing, Williams poor. Red Bull rather tasty.
The IMF maps out obstacles to Britain joining the euro
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-1580477/The-IMF-maps-out-obstacles-to-Britain-joining-the-euro.html
Re the 364 letter, I believe the letter is buried in this report
http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/upldbook310pdf.pdf
Johnson criticizes Greece delaying the deal because of a quibble about feta cheese. There's no contradiction.
Crikey and cripes!
Who was the last person to make such a volte face?
Cameron who said we'd be fine if we left the EU and now says it would bring war pestilence and plague? Or perhaps Churchill who left the Conservatives, became a Liberal and then ratted back?
I could go on... this happens so often... but I will not.
Sometimes people don't change their minds and look ridiculous as a result. Some still think it would be a good idea to join the Euro despite all the evidence.
If the result were similar to the latest Ipsos MORI poll, 55/45 Remain, you'd still have Conservatives voting 55/45 Leave, and Kippers voting 95/5 Leave, with centre right voters splitting 2:1 for Leave overall. It's very hard to see how the Conservative Party could be pro-EU going forward, unless they wanted to jettison lots of right wing voters, in the hope of securing left wing voters.
You have an interesting debating style.
I think we can agree that the IMF were one of the wise who criticised George Osbourne in 2013, didn't (along with all other "main stream economists") predict the great crash and have also got every growth prediction particularly as regard the EU in general but the dying fringe wrong.
#WrongLastYearWrongThisYear.
Oh, I forgot, we don't talk about that one...
I'll get my coat.
I provided you with analysis more detailed than any contained in the movie
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/05/12/this-professor-has-predicted-every-presidential-election-since-1984-hes-still-trying-to-figure-out-2016/
The keys, which are explained in depth in Lichtman’s book “Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House 2016” are:
1.Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
2.Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
3.Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
4.Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
5.Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6.Long-term economy: Real per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
7.Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
8.Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
9.Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
10.Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
11.Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
12.Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
13.Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.
The GOP needs to have at least 6 in their favour to win according to the analysis.
The GOP definitely has 1, 3, 6 and 12.
The Dem's have 5, 7 and 9.
2, 4, 8, 10, 11 and 13 are debatable.
This year we realise that "Making Your Mind Up" was not throwaway pop but in fact profound political commentary. By the end of June we'll all need "A Little Peace" but in practice the "Boom Bang-A-Bang" seems likely to continue. Still "What's Another Year"?
So if you do not expect the IMF report to be accurate, what is your preferred source for predicting the economic consequences of Leave winning? Do you anticipate any effect at all?
2. Most would say Bernie has given Hillary a serious run for her money. Even if a win never seemed probable, at least it was possible. = GOP
4. So long as Hillary is the Dem candidate, I don't see Bloomberg entering the race and there is not other significant 3rd party/candidacy on the horizon. = GOP
8. What social unrest as has occurred has been in Dem strongholds, which are unlikely to shift to GOP, so mark as Dem.
10/11. The answer to these will be determined by your existing political affiliation, but overall I don't think the country thinks of Obama as having been a successful foreign policy president, and polling shows that the US standing in the world, while perhaps better than under Bush, is hardly back up to historical levels.
13. Trump clearly is charismatic. The question is will it help or hurt on balance.
This would put the GOP on 6, with 3 others that could fall in their favour. All in all, it indicates what my gut tells me - a close race currently that could, it everything goes right for Trump from here on out, turn into a very comfortable win for him at the electoral college.
Monica Lewinsky was a major scandal, so was Iran-Contra and Watergate.
The ones that are debatable are of course:
2. Does Sanders count as a major contestant ?
4. Will there be a 3rd party vote ?
8. Are BLM and SJW sustained social unrest ?
10. Is ISIS a major failure ?
11. Is the Iran Deal a major success ?
13. Is Trump charismatic ?
‘Nothing is going to happen if we come out of Europe in the first five years ... There will be absolutely no change '
Boris Johnson has let down everybody who ever trusted him, stood back when a man plotted to cripple somebody, has the sexual ethics of a adulterer (and in fact is one), dresses in the dark, holds an entirely undeserved reputation for intelligence and could not carry a vase across a room without dropping it. Yet because he speaks for Leave he is held to be the reincarnation of Newton and Caesar Augustus, stylish as Coco Chanel, the very Napoleon of the age.
Nobody is using their brain to think here.
[EDIT: Unfuck tag]
We don't know the economic effects of staying in.
We do know that our non EU trade is growing much faster than our EU trade and we also know that the EU is stuck in a mire of it's own making to which it does not appear to have answers. (If it did then then it would have tried a working one before now).
We know we can't negotiate trade deals with non EU countries whilst in the EU.
Do you expect any economic consequences at all of a Leave vote on stock and currency markets, GDP growth or other economic indicators? I am particularly thinking of the 1-5 year period.
Two problems with this approach.
1. We don't know what Leave's policy stance would be as they are competing visions, and there is uncertainty over the future direction of the EU too.
2. The results of the qualitative analysis are bound to be tainted by the analyst's own economic philosophy
But even with these drawbacks, I think this is a more honest and valid approach that the comparing two fatally flawed predictions.
As with all international bodies, Lagarde and the IMF will not intervene in a domestic event except with the blessing of the local government
One workable definition of statistics is "to define the uncertainty of predictions".
[EDIT: insert phrase "you need to predict with certainty", otherwise post is self-contradictory]
Your point?
4. So far there seems to be a steady 8-10% in the polls that would even choose fictional Deez Nuts for President, so I can't give that to the Dem's yet (according to the analysis 3rd party candidates usually hit incumbent parties).
8. No idea of how to quantify it, there have been sporadic riots over the years but does that count as social unrest ?
10/11. Obama doesn't seem to have a major foreign policy success or failure, small ones sure.
13. Trump is really the wild card.
So it could be a very close race with Trump's charisma playing as the decisive factor.
Ignore the investment banks; look at the buyside research. I like Rathbones (basically the old Jupiter team), but there are others. Rathbones is saying 1-2% near term hit, but long-term it will all be much of a muchness economically
Any future powergrabs by the EU will then swing more blocs of Conservative Remainers to Leave..
Its clear that the centre-right in the UK has been on an EUsceptic trend for a generation - in the 1990s there were about ten Conservative MPs who wished to leave the EU and a Conservative leader (John Major) who didn't oppose Britain joining the Euro.
The Tories have 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 and 10 so far.
Labour has 4, 7 and 11.
9, 12 and 13 are debatable.
Of course things can change in the next 4 years.
For example did anyone foresee in the summer of 1990 that Iraq was about to invade Kuwait and that we would be dealing with the consequences a generation later ?
That said it is I think impossible to disentangle what will happen anyway from the result of any referendum. For example the PMI indices are currently showing a slowing rate of growth. If that continues then we may be entering a recession early in 2017. Is that anything to do with the referendum? If we vote to stay or to go will that affect it? Who knows and who can tell? I am fairly sure that whatever happens the losing side will blame any bad economic outcome on the victors.
In any event how this country is governed is an issue, I would suggest, that is too important to be decided on short-term economic indicators, or even real short term economic effects. It will probably take five years just to get the withdrawal process over and done with. In casting my vote I am thinking far more about the future my son, nieces and Goddaughters are going to have than anything I am likely to see.
Too busy writing rosy reports for stockholders.
The Treasury predicted growth of 30% by 2030, in the event of Brexit, as opposed to 36% in the event of Remain.
Both in the short term, and long term, that's an acceptable level of risk, for me.
I can say Sir Stuart Rose, head of BSE thinks nothing much will happen in that time frame and a shortage of labour would increase wages. I agree with remain on that,
In November 2015 David Cameron thought we would do well outside of the EU and insisted he would recommend leave if he did get what he wanted....