Urgh. Just switched on the tv to find some Labour woman stating categorically that Europe has only been at peace in the past 70 years out of the last 1000, and the reason for that (supposed) peace is "largely down to the European Union".
Had to immediately switch off.
1. Europe has NOT been at peace in the past 70 years. There have been numerous wars, invasions, conflicts, etc. There are have also been some other periods of European history with a largely peaceful background (that is, not outright war between the major powers).
2. Let's get this straight. The EU is a *product* of any peace and not the *cause* of such peace (though I accept it might help cement peace, albeit by bluntly eradicating nation states).
I've reflected a while. I can't blame Cameron for setting out the economic argument, though it seems like poor judgement to me, in the sense it's poor medium term politicking. I assume he thinks that Corbyn is unelectable and he essentially has a captive base.
Someone asked if there's any level of shock that would change Leavers' minds. Personally, yes, of course. I'd hope that I'm post-partisan or -tribal politics. I think it would be difficult to vote for Remain, but I could just enjoy the summer's day and hike Cat's Back Ridge or something (assuming I'm able to!).
Why do I think it's poor judgement? Well, not because I want to preserve the triple lock - I think it's ridiculous that a lot of wealthy boomers are eligible for pensioner benefits - that's consistent with previous posts made by me over several years.
It's because Osborne has kicked the deficit reduction can down the road for so many years (while handing out tax breaks and ring fencing things like overseas aid), to the point where this administration has borrowed knocking on for £700 billion since 2010.
Debt interest payments have increased from £45 billion in 2010 to £68 billion this year, an increase of £23 billion (which is in the ballpark range of the IFS estimates for the 'black hole' in UK finances by 2020. Somehow, this £23 billion fiscal 'shock' is different and nothing to worry about.
I was told I was treading a fine line between sang-froid and complacency last week (I assume I was actually being accused of complacency), because I pointed out all the trials and tribulations that anyone born in the 60s has lived through. At this point I hope remain win, simply because that will apparently stop any future recessions and remove the uncertainties of life. That's a price worth paying, I just hope it works.
I remember David (forgotten full username, lives in Dundee) giving honest feedback that they expected Yes to win narrowly in his city, which they did in the end.
Yes won 57-43 in Dundee. If that's winning narrowly..
DavidL lives in the area but doubt it is in Dundee, it is in the leafy suburbs somewhere. He talked of going to Dundee to campaign.
HurstLama that resonates. Andrew Selous, our MP, was stood on his own at the Railway station in the rain handing out ConservativeIN leaflets. On his own! There really is very little support for Remain amongst Conservative activists (doubtless not a suprise to anyone!) I do really hope careerist MPs who backed Remain despite everything they have previously said about the EU (Lancaster, Mak, Dineage et al) get their just deserts. The Tory party has not really gone in for deselections before but who can tell?
Activists are physically and emotionaly tired by this point in any campaign. Momentum on delivering and canvassing can drop off very rapidly if people scent defeat in the air. Had Remain been comfortably ahead in the polls, our activists would have been drifting off by now. The opposite is happening. I dont know how things amongst Remain activists? The Ed Milliband photo yesterday didnt look like a campaign firing on all cylinders.
That is an interesting point. My local MP was out campaigning/canvassing in the village High Street yesterday, accompanied by one chap handing out leaflets. Just one person and no stall, no banners, no signs. Was that because he felt the place was already so pro-remain that he didn't need to do much and was just going through the motions or was it because the local Conservative Party could not get anyone else to support him?
That was an interesting anecdote of yours.
IIRC Nick Herbert described immigrants as 'new citizens'.
Which rather correlates with my suggestion that the 'elite' would willingly swap the British people for a randomly drawn selection from around the world.
Yep. That is clearly apparent since c. 1950s though only really got off the mark in the 1990s.
Perhaps Labour are pinning their hopes on a close "Leave" vote, leading to negotiations that don't produce anything like what Leave are suggesting, leading to a General Election and Labour coming in with a mandate to put the final terms to another referendum.
My feeling is the most likely result now is a close leave result followed by total grid lock in parliament as no one is able to get enough votes to pass any sort of bill certainly related to the EU, possibly on any subject, as the public looks on getting more and more furious with politicians generally as they try and blame each other. Its going to need some very fancy footwork from all players not to be the one without the chair when the music stops and the public wants someone's arse.
Is it just me, or has the press changed their tune over the last week. Fox and Priti on Sky had their tales up and the questioning didn't seem half as dismissive/hostile.
Both sides seemed to enjoy talking, rather than enduring each other.
I've decided that the pollsters haven't really got a clue how to poll this referendum. They are changing their methodology with each poll, making it impossible to track like for like changes poll to poll. Instead, they are herding around TCTC. The run up to May 2015 writ large again.
Instead, I'm relying on informed anecdote. One northern Labour MP saying that in some places the vote is running 70:30 to Leave is worth a dozen 50:50 polls. City-centre stalls with Leave greatly enthused and handing out leaflets to willing recipients, contrasted with Remain trying to sell the benefits of scrofula. Worth another dozen polls. Tories apparently nip and tuck, Remain:Leave - where??? The AB's coming to Remain's aid. Really??? That doesn't remotely jive with my personal anecdotes. Where is the urban Remain groundswell to counter the Shire Leavers?
So guys, keep those anecdotes coming. There's a real world out that the pollsters aren't reaching. Again.
I suspect you have a point. One word of caution, though: you sound very like some of the Yes people during the 2014 Scottish referendum.
I remember David (forgotten full username, lives in Dundee) giving honest feedback that they expected Yes to win narrowly in his city, which they did in the end. He never said it was anything like 70:30 either way. I canvassed in the Borders, and in a mixed area I think we were ahead something like 55:45 (villages were overwhelmingly No).
We are now seeing reports of 60%, 70%, even 80% for Leave in Northern towns and London boroughs. Are there really enough people in Hampstead to outweigh them?
Casino, will you do any canvassing? Would be good to get an idea of opinion in rural England. Perhaps they are less concerned by immigration, and hence more inclined to Remain than those living nearer large cities?
We always knew we were behind in Dundee and we're going to lose but it was important that we maximised the Unionist vote and lost by as little as possible. That is the key difference between a referendum and an election. There are no safe seats. A vote anywhere is worth the same as a vote everywhere.
That is why I am so surprised that Scotland is pretty much not taking part in this campaign. It is as strong (apparently) for Remain as London but there seems almost no effort to get out the voters, harvest the postal votes etc. If Scotland has a low turnout as I expect remain will have missed an important trick.
David, I have surmised you do not live in Dundee but surrounding area, am I correct. I imagine you in a baronial pile out in the sticks.
Perhaps Labour are pinning their hopes on a close "Leave" vote, leading to negotiations that don't produce anything like what Leave are suggesting, leading to a General Election and Labour coming in with a mandate to put the final terms to another referendum.
What do you think Labour should do?
Corbyn can hardly expand on his present position (lukewarm Remain) without having his entire political record quoted back at him.
That would be incredibly dangerous for Corbyn. His strength is his authenticity. He may not be polished, but he is honest & straightforward. He says what he believes in.
To come out strongly for Remain will now make him look duplicitous.
In any case, there are big advantages to a Leave vote for Corbyn, viz, 1) the Blairites who are the most Europhile people left in the UK, are vanquished again and shown to be highly marginal, 2) a Leave vote will decrease the threat from UKIP to the WWC vote, 3) a Leave vote will probably usher in a more right-wing Tory government, which will be less electorally appealing than Cameron (who will be destroyed) and 4) radical change (which Corbyn wants) is more likely in a time of change than one in which the status quo prevails.
If I was Corbyn, I would be doing just what Corbyn is doing -- which seems to be saying Remain so ineffectually that he is actually encouraging Leave.
Activists are physically and emotionaly tired by this point in any campaign. Momentum on delivering and canvassing can drop off very rapidly if people scent defeat in the air. Had Remain been comfortably ahead in the polls, our activists would have been drifting off by now. The opposite is happening. I dont know how things amongst Remain activists? The Ed Milliband photo yesterday didnt look like a campaign firing on all cylinders.
That is an interesting point. My local MP was out campaigning/canvassing in the village High Street yesterday, accompanied by one chap handing out leaflets. Just one person and no stall, no banners, no signs. Was that because he felt the place was already so pro-remain that he didn't need to do much and was just going through the motions or was it because the local Conservative Party could not get anyone else to support him?
Just to be clear, was your MP standing for REMAIN?
Oh, yes, Mr. Betting. Nick Herbert is solid for the EU.
What sort of mandate would a new conservative government have when they'd just deposed the PM who won an election for them a year ago? With a tiny majority. I can't envisage Thatcher mark II.
Looking at the "par" local authority spreadsheet (a fabulous piece of work) for a clear Leave win, I'd expect to see Leave carry places like Southampton, Nottingham, Leicester, North Tyneside, Bridgend, and Sheffield.
I will be looking very carefully to see if Leave are campaigning hard here in the final few days.
Activists are physically and emotionaly tired by this point in any campaign. Momentum on delivering and canvassing can drop off very rapidly if people scent defeat in the air. Had Remain been comfortably ahead in the polls, our activists would have been drifting off by now. The opposite is happening. I dont know how things amongst Remain activists? The Ed Milliband photo yesterday didnt look like a campaign firing on all cylinders.
That is an interesting point. My local MP was out campaigning/canvassing in the village High Street yesterday, accompanied by one chap handing out leaflets. Just one person and no stall, no banners, no signs. Was that because he felt the place was already so pro-remain that he didn't need to do much and was just going through the motions or was it because the local Conservative Party could not get anyone else to support him?
Just to be clear, was your MP standing for REMAIN?
Oh, yes, Mr. Betting. Nick Herbert is solid for the EU.
Which way do you reckon
a. his constituency will vote ? b. his constituency party members will vote ?
How does Article 50 actually get triggered? Is it done via Royal Prerogative, or does there need to be some sort of vote in Parliament? If the latter one could easily see Parliament coming up with an argument to delay until there was some better idea of how negotiations were progressing.
If either Russia or Ukraine win their group they could end up playing each other in the next round. Hope for the best.
Far more likely if Ukraine win their group and Russia finish third as there is only one combination (out of 15) of third place teams qualifying that would lead to the winner of B playing the third place team in C (compared with 9/15 for the winner of C playing the third place team in B ) .
I actually think there's a good chance that Russia will be knocked out, but you never know. It's hard to see Ukraine winning Group C. Poland, however, could knick it from the Germans and four years ago there was trouble when they played Russia in the group stage.
I am campaigning in Edinburgh for Leave, and since people have commented on this thread about Scotland, I though I would add my limited weight to the debate. By the way, I voted Yes in 2014.
The first thing that you notice is just how fed-up people in Scotland are with politics in general. We had the IndyRef, the General Election, then the Scottish elections, and now this. People are fed up. There are hardly any posters up in people's windows, with mine being the only Leave poster that I have seen. I have not seen any Remain posters, anywhere.
Over the past month that I have been helping to man a Leave stall in Edinburgh, I have noticed that Leavers are very committed and will come up to the stall, and literally demand that we give them lapel badges, posters, leaflets and the like. However, the bulk of the population who pass by on their shopping trips just ignore us.
That changed yesterday, Saturday, when we saw a marked upturn in enthusiasm, so much so that we almost ran out of window posters. People who had already voted came up to us and asked for leaflets to give to their friends. A young woman barely out of her teens arrived with her baby and told me that she was voting Leave for his sake, and I then met the liberal candidate who ran against Harold Wilson in Liverpool Huyton in 1974, who is also a Leaver. (Funnily enough, a mate of mine who is a Lib-Dem in Putney, London, is now a committed Leaver as well. Make of that what you will.)
The Remainers - or Federasts as I like to call them - are nowhere to be seen. The SNP tried to dragoon its members into campaigning for remain, but they just ignored the edict. Then a compromise was arranged whereby SNP stalls were set up with some remain stuff on them, and the bulk of the activists just went along to try and recruit new members to the party. Yesterday even that failed as no SNP stalls were out anywhere that I could see. As for pure Federast stalls, I hear rumours of them... Someone spoke to someone who said he had seen one, somewhere.
On the other hand, we have not been able to mount a canvass anywhere in Scotland. We can run street stalls, but canvassing is beyond us due to lack of numbers. However, we have managed to leaflet large parts of the country, and the other side cannot even manage any of those things.
I suppose you want a rousing conclusion? Sorry, but I don't have one. I blog at www.kenbell.info so please wander along if you want to trawl back through the postings on this campaign. I have also written two pamphlets, both of which can be grabbed at Amazon. They are Brexit: For a New Country and Why Scotland Should Leave The EU.
From canvassing and extrapolating (caveats apply ofc!),a few of my Labour sources say it's about 55/45 for Remain in London.
Fair play to you for sharing. Is that Greater London or the Labour strongholds in inner London?
Tooting by-election next Thursday! Wonder what inferences can/will be drawn from that?
Low Turnout is vaguely more favourable for Leave I'd guess (disenchantment with the establishment). Any massive UKIP vote would clearly be interesting - don't think that'll happen though.
The changing demographics of Tooting may just make it an actual contest.
Is it just me, or has the press changed their tune over the last week. Fox and Priti on Sky had their tales up and the questioning didn't seem half as dismissive/hostile.
Both sides seemed to enjoy talking, rather than enduring each other.
We have a whole generation of politicians who basically have avoided talking to the press about any more than a soundbite and have effectively no experience of a long format interview. I think we are now far enough into this campaign that these greenhorns are starting to hit their stride a bit and feel less uncomfortable in interviews. If there was 2-3 more shows like Brillo and government and opposition ministers appears regularly they would be up to speed by the time a campaign was called, as in the old days of Dimbleby, Robin Day, Walden etc
Looking at the "par" local authority spreadsheet (a fabulous piece of work) for a clear Leave win, I'd expect to see Leave carry places like Southampton, Nottingham, Leicester, North Tyneside, Bridgend, and Sheffield.
I will be looking very carefully to see if Leave are campaigning hard here in the final few days.
So far, I'm not seeing it.
I don't get this argument, which has been made before. Every vote is, literally, worth the same. It's not about deciding where the marginal seats will be and heavily targeting those. If anything you want to target your strong areas to maximise turnout assured that it will benefit you.
Looking at the "par" local authority spreadsheet (a fabulous piece of work) for a clear Leave win, I'd expect to see Leave carry places like Southampton, Nottingham, Leicester, North Tyneside, Bridgend, and Sheffield.
I will be looking very carefully to see if Leave are campaigning hard here in the final few days.
So far, I'm not seeing it.
Nottingham? Don't think so. Nottinghamshire outside the conurbation, quite possibly.
Looking at the "par" local authority spreadsheet (a fabulous piece of work) for a clear Leave win, I'd expect to see Leave carry places like Southampton, Nottingham, Leicester, North Tyneside, Bridgend, and Sheffield.
I will be looking very carefully to see if Leave are campaigning hard here in the final few days.
So far, I'm not seeing it.
I don't get this argument, which has been made before. Every vote is, literally, worth the same. It's not about deciding where the marginal seats will be and heavily targeting those. If anything you want to target your strong areas to maximise turnout assured that it will benefit you.
Indeed. And Leave will want to keep turnout low in places that are "naturally" Remain.
Looking at the "par" local authority spreadsheet (a fabulous piece of work) for a clear Leave win, I'd expect to see Leave carry places like Southampton, Nottingham, Leicester, North Tyneside, Bridgend, and Sheffield.
I will be looking very carefully to see if Leave are campaigning hard here in the final few days.
So far, I'm not seeing it.
What counts as clear?
I think you're overestimating the ability of either campaign to redeploy activists. This is a referendum, there are no marginal seats, so all areas are worth campaigning in.
I'd be surprised if there's no Leave activity in those towns already. People in Southampton particularly have reason to dislike the EU, after it subsidised the transfer of Ford jobs from Southampton to Turkey.
HurstLama that resonates. Andrew Selous, our MP, was stood on his own at the Railway station in the rain handing out ConservativeIN leaflets. On his own! There really is very little support for Remain amongst Conservative activists (doubtless not a suprise to anyone!) I do really hope careerist MPs who backed Remain despite everything they have previously said about the EU (Lancaster, Mak, Dineage et al) get their just deserts. The Tory party has not really gone in for deselections before but who can tell?
On his own?!! Golly, that's grim.
Indeed, Miss P. An MP out campaigning on his own is unheard of in my experience. They always have supporters, helpers, flunkeys, whatever. An MP with no friends handing out leaflets in the rain is rather sad, and speaks volumes.
That said I think Mr. Concanvasser goes too far when he suggests that deselections might be on the cards.
Looking at the "par" local authority spreadsheet (a fabulous piece of work) for a clear Leave win, I'd expect to see Leave carry places like Southampton, Nottingham, Leicester, North Tyneside, Bridgend, and Sheffield.
I will be looking very carefully to see if Leave are campaigning hard here in the final few days.
So far, I'm not seeing it.
Nottingham? Don't think so. Nottinghamshire outside the conurbation, quite possibly.
I think rottenborough was campaigning for Remain in the Nottingham suburbs yesterday and posted a bleakish assessment.
Mr. Shadsy, interesting market. Turnout's key, of course, for percentages.
Dr. Prasannan, that's a very good question, although bloody complicated to try and answer this far out. [Even explaining Seleucus' role in history would probably take a few hundred words].
I think Farage might be Ptolemy. He's got a comfortable, secure base, but can't get far beyond it.
If that were so, Seleucus could be Carswell, but it's unlikely he'll go back. Otherwise, a hitherto unknown sceptic. Leadsom, I'd guess.
HurstLama that resonates. Andrew Selous, our MP, was stood on his own at the Railway station in the rain handing out ConservativeIN leaflets. On his own! There really is very little support for Remain amongst Conservative activists (doubtless not a suprise to anyone!) I do really hope careerist MPs who backed Remain despite everything they have previously said about the EU (Lancaster, Mak, Dineage et al) get their just deserts. The Tory party has not really gone in for deselections before but who can tell?
On his own?!! Golly, that's grim.
No, it's part of the job. I was often out on my own canvassing for hours outside the scheduled sessions during the 13 years in Parliament - you can expect volunteers to come out for 2-3 hours, but not to keep going all day until the final sprint. Although it makes you look isolated, you also get brownie points for it - people are more impressed to have a lone MP calling on them on a rainy evening than a team of six.
Interesting Casino. I have no experience of any of those areas. Royston Smith MP for Southampton is ofcourse strongly for Leave, so assume he will be campaiging hard.
Looking at the "par" local authority spreadsheet (a fabulous piece of work) for a clear Leave win, I'd expect to see Leave carry places like Southampton, Nottingham, Leicester, North Tyneside, Bridgend, and Sheffield.
I will be looking very carefully to see if Leave are campaigning hard here in the final few days.
So far, I'm not seeing it.
Nottingham? Don't think so. Nottinghamshire outside the conurbation, quite possibly.
Nottingham at "par" is forecast to be 45.1% to 40.6% to Remain.
How does Article 50 actually get triggered? Is it done via Royal Prerogative, or does there need to be some sort of vote in Parliament? If the latter one could easily see Parliament coming up with an argument to delay until there was some better idea of how negotiations were progressing.
Pretty sure it's an executive power (which derives from the Royal prerogative) - Cameron I think said he'd trigger it at the soonest Council meeting, which is the week after the referendum...?
Parliament of course would need to ratify any actual legislative requirements/changes.
Looking at the "par" local authority spreadsheet (a fabulous piece of work) for a clear Leave win, I'd expect to see Leave carry places like Southampton, Nottingham, Leicester, North Tyneside, Bridgend, and Sheffield.
I will be looking very carefully to see if Leave are campaigning hard here in the final few days.
So far, I'm not seeing it.
What counts as clear?
I think you're overestimating the ability of either campaign to redeploy activists. This is a referendum, there are no marginal seats, so all areas are worth campaigning in.
I'd be surprised if there's no Leave activity in those towns already. People in Southampton particularly have reason to dislike the EU, after it subsidised the transfer of Ford jobs from Southampton to Turkey.
There are swing areas, however. I'd expect a campaign to move its resources from core areas, to more marginal areas, as it grows confident of its vote.
Matthew Elliot will know this. The question is whether he has the resources to do something about it.
Perhaps Labour are pinning their hopes on a close "Leave" vote, leading to negotiations that don't produce anything like what Leave are suggesting, leading to a General Election and Labour coming in with a mandate to put the final terms to another referendum.
My feeling is the most likely result now is a close leave result followed by total grid lock in parliament as no one is able to get enough votes to pass any sort of bill certainly related to the EU, possibly on any subject, as the public looks on getting more and more furious with politicians generally as they try and blame each other. Its going to need some very fancy footwork from all players not to be the one without the chair when the music stops and the public wants someone's arse.
If Leave wins even by 1 vote then it is all over. Tory members will have voted by a clear margin and it will be suicide for any MP to try and reverse that.
It will be like a Labour MPs inability to overthrow Corbyn except multiplied by if the whole nation had elected Corbyn too.
Looking at the "par" local authority spreadsheet (a fabulous piece of work) for a clear Leave win, I'd expect to see Leave carry places like Southampton, Nottingham, Leicester, North Tyneside, Bridgend, and Sheffield.
I will be looking very carefully to see if Leave are campaigning hard here in the final few days.
So far, I'm not seeing it.
Nottingham? Don't think so. Nottinghamshire outside the conurbation, quite possibly.
Nottingham at "par" is forecast to be 45.1% to 40.6% to Remain.
So if it goes Leave, Leave have won.
For what it's worth, my Nottingham Remain contacts are as optimistic as my North Notts Remain contacts are pessimistic. But of course none of us really know!
Looking at the "par" local authority spreadsheet (a fabulous piece of work) for a clear Leave win, I'd expect to see Leave carry places like Southampton, Nottingham, Leicester, North Tyneside, Bridgend, and Sheffield.
I will be looking very carefully to see if Leave are campaigning hard here in the final few days.
So far, I'm not seeing it.
What counts as clear?
I think you're overestimating the ability of either campaign to redeploy activists. This is a referendum, there are no marginal seats, so all areas are worth campaigning in.
I'd be surprised if there's no Leave activity in those towns already. People in Southampton particularly have reason to dislike the EU, after it subsidised the transfer of Ford jobs from Southampton to Turkey.
Also >20,000 EU migrants. But there is a very large student population.
I am campaigning in Edinburgh for Leave, and since people have commented on this thread about Scotland, I though I would add my limited weight to the debate. By the way, I voted Yes in 2014.
The first thing that you notice is just how fed-up people in Scotland are with politics in general. We had the IndyRef, the General Election, then the Scottish elections, and now this. People are fed up. There are hardly any posters up in people's windows, with mine being the only Leave poster that I have seen. I have not seen any Remain posters, anywhere.
Over the past month that I have been helping to man a Leave stall in Edinburgh, I have noticed that Leavers are very committed and will come up to the stall, and literally demand that we give them lapel badges, posters, leaflets and the like. However, the bulk of the population who pass by on their shopping trips just ignore us.
That changed yesterday, Saturday, when we saw a marked upturn in enthusiasm, so much so that we almost ran out of window posters. People who had already voted came up to us and asked for leaflets to give to their friends. A young woman barely out of her teens arrived with her baby and told me that she was voting Leave for his sake, and I then met the liberal candidate who ran against Harold Wilson in Liverpool Huyton in 1974, who is also a Leaver. (Funnily enough, a mate of mine who is a Lib-Dem in Putney, London, is now a committed Leaver as well. Make of that what you will.)
The Remainers - or Federasts as I like to call them - are nowhere to be seen. The SNP tried to dragoon its members into campaigning for remain, but they just ignored the edict. Then a compromise was arranged whereby SNP stalls were set up with some remain stuff on them, and the bulk of the activists just went along to try and recruit new members to the party. Yesterday even that failed as no SNP stalls were out anywhere that I could see. As for pure Federast stalls, I hear rumours of them... Someone spoke to someone who said he had seen one, somewhere.
On the other hand, we have not been able to mount a canvass anywhere in Scotland. We can run street stalls, but canvassing is beyond us due to lack of numbers. However, we have managed to leaflet large parts of the country, and the other side cannot even manage any of those things.
I suppose you want a rousing conclusion? Sorry, but I don't have one. I blog at www.kenbell.info so please wander along if you want to trawl back through the postings on this campaign. I have also written two pamphlets, both of which can be grabbed at Amazon. They are Brexit: For a New Country and Why Scotland Should Leave The EU.
Time to get on with preparing Sunday lunch. My thanks to all for some interesting conversation this morning. Special thanks to Mr. Owl for his excellent piece.
Page 23 of the YouGov poll is why there isn't a positive argument made by the Remain camp.
Quite how a Conservative government has ended up campaigning for remain given those views are held by the public is beyond me. Even if Remain win there is no way the UK will be happy in the EU.
Looking at the "par" local authority spreadsheet (a fabulous piece of work) for a clear Leave win, I'd expect to see Leave carry places like Southampton, Nottingham, Leicester, North Tyneside, Bridgend, and Sheffield.
I will be looking very carefully to see if Leave are campaigning hard here in the final few days.
So far, I'm not seeing it.
I don't get this argument, which has been made before. Every vote is, literally, worth the same. It's not about deciding where the marginal seats will be and heavily targeting those. If anything you want to target your strong areas to maximise turnout assured that it will benefit you.
But we know Remain have largely given up on provincial England and are fighting hard in London, Northern Ireland and, to a lesser extent, Scotland. Their messaging tells us as such.
On the other hand, Leave seem strong across provincial England and parts of Wales, but have yet to move into some of the non-core metropolitan cities.
How does Article 50 actually get triggered? Is it done via Royal Prerogative, or does there need to be some sort of vote in Parliament? If the latter one could easily see Parliament coming up with an argument to delay until there was some better idea of how negotiations were progressing.
I believe it is within the prerogative of the PM to trigger it. My understanding from what I have heard on here and elsewhere is that it does not need a Parliamentary vote.
But I have not checked this specifically so others may have a more definitive answer.
Looking at the "par" local authority spreadsheet (a fabulous piece of work) for a clear Leave win, I'd expect to see Leave carry places like Southampton, Nottingham, Leicester, North Tyneside, Bridgend, and Sheffield.
I will be looking very carefully to see if Leave are campaigning hard here in the final few days.
So far, I'm not seeing it.
What counts as clear?
I think you're overestimating the ability of either campaign to redeploy activists. This is a referendum, there are no marginal seats, so all areas are worth campaigning in.
I'd be surprised if there's no Leave activity in those towns already. People in Southampton particularly have reason to dislike the EU, after it subsidised the transfer of Ford jobs from Southampton to Turkey.
Also >20,000 EU migrants. But there is a very large student population.
The students will have gone home, it's something that people might have to take into account. These students may be registered in their university towns but be in their home towns on the 23rd.
Looking at the "par" local authority spreadsheet (a fabulous piece of work) for a clear Leave win, I'd expect to see Leave carry places like Southampton, Nottingham, Leicester, North Tyneside, Bridgend, and Sheffield.
I will be looking very carefully to see if Leave are campaigning hard here in the final few days.
So far, I'm not seeing it.
Nottingham? Don't think so. Nottinghamshire outside the conurbation, quite possibly.
Nottingham at "par" is forecast to be 45.1% to 40.6% to Remain.
So if it goes Leave, Leave have won.
For what it's worth, my Nottingham Remain contacts are as optimistic as my North Notts Remain contacts are pessimistic. But of course none of us really know!
Looking at the "par" local authority spreadsheet (a fabulous piece of work) for a clear Leave win, I'd expect to see Leave carry places like Southampton, Nottingham, Leicester, North Tyneside, Bridgend, and Sheffield.
I will be looking very carefully to see if Leave are campaigning hard here in the final few days.
So far, I'm not seeing it.
I live in North Tyneside and have had Leave literature but nothing from Remain.
Looking at the "par" local authority spreadsheet (a fabulous piece of work) for a clear Leave win, I'd expect to see Leave carry places like Southampton, Nottingham, Leicester, North Tyneside, Bridgend, and Sheffield.
I will be looking very carefully to see if Leave are campaigning hard here in the final few days.
So far, I'm not seeing it.
Nottingham? Don't think so. Nottinghamshire outside the conurbation, quite possibly.
I think rottenborough was campaigning for Remain in the Nottingham suburbs yesterday and posted a bleakish assessment.
Correct. No hard door-by-door canvass data, but based on severals hours at a street stall. Leaver after Leaver after Leaver. I gave up approaching any male over around 55 as they were universally Leave and usually rude with it. Many older people had already postal voted and said it was 'Out'.
There's hope for Remain in that it could be there are shy Remainers who just kept their heads down and slipped past. Or that young people were still abed. Who knows.
Personally, I am pretty sure Leave are winning and indeed am beginning to worry it could be a minor landslide.
Looking at the "par" local authority spreadsheet (a fabulous piece of work) for a clear Leave win, I'd expect to see Leave carry places like Southampton, Nottingham, Leicester, North Tyneside, Bridgend, and Sheffield.
I will be looking very carefully to see if Leave are campaigning hard here in the final few days.
So far, I'm not seeing it.
I live in North Tyneside and have had Leave literature but nothing from Remain.
Saying that, the local Labour party has been banging out emails to members almost daily, pro-remain.
I have also seen a lot of Remain activity in Newcastle City Centre.
I work in County Durham and a majority of my workplace, a manufacturing company part of an American conglomerate, appear to be pro-Leave. They are mostly Labour voters.
Labour has a problem in their heartlands with this. Although we all already knew this.
Looking at the "par" local authority spreadsheet (a fabulous piece of work) for a clear Leave win, I'd expect to see Leave carry places like Southampton, Nottingham, Leicester, North Tyneside, Bridgend, and Sheffield.
I will be looking very carefully to see if Leave are campaigning hard here in the final few days.
So far, I'm not seeing it.
What counts as clear?
I think you're overestimating the ability of either campaign to redeploy activists. This is a referendum, there are no marginal seats, so all areas are worth campaigning in.
I'd be surprised if there's no Leave activity in those towns already. People in Southampton particularly have reason to dislike the EU, after it subsidised the transfer of Ford jobs from Southampton to Turkey.
Also >20,000 EU migrants. But there is a very large student population.
But most universities have broken up or are in the throes of exam boards. Very few students around on campus.
Isabel Hardman and lady from Economist in agreement that Remain was on backfoot, Osborne couldn't shut down Turkey, and now Cameron was trying instead. The STimes today can't have helped.
Also noted that Cameron was going to have to dial back the rhetoric on Armageddon - or he's going to look really stupid on 24th if Leave wins [if he still cares by this point].
Universal agreement that using bus passes was beyond eye-rolling.
Dave looked like a defeated man on Marr today. I see Sam Cam wrote an article in the MoS asking voters to back Remain. No mention of her father trousering millions from the EU. No major vested interest there....
eee.. how many "MILLIONS" exactly did he trouser? or is it just another load of hyperbolic bullshit.
Apparently £2.7 million since 2001.
FOR WHAT ??? is it a farming subsidy and if so I doubt he made much or any profit, if he's in dairy, he will be losing money most likely.. Trousering money is misleading, if the net result is little or no profit.. Its a typical Daily Mail headline We need to asses the outcome before casting aspersions.,..
He's likely to have made far more money out of land value in the last 15 yrs.
Your objection was to the figure. Now it turns out the figure isn't exaggerated you're getting all shouty because it's a so-called farming subsidy.
'In 2014 alone - the last year for which official figures are available - the Baronet's farming operations received an astonishing £262,442.38 from Brussels.
Of that, £209,965.24 was channeled through Normanby Estate Farms, the company responsible for managing his sprawling 3,000 acre ancestral estate outside Scunthorpe.
A further £38,846.10 was handed over to Normanby Farms Ltd, and £13,631.04 went to the family's overarching parent company, Normanby Estate Holdings Ltd.
Of the total, an overwhelming £232,515.34 was dished out under the 'single area payment scheme' - meaning it was paid to Sir Reginald purely on the basis of how much land he owns.
Page 23 of the YouGov poll is why there isn't a positive argument made by the Remain camp.
Quite how a Conservative government has ended up campaigning for remain given those views are held by the public is beyond me. Even if Remain win there is no way the UK will be happy in the EU.
We don't have a Conservative government. we have an Establishment government.
Dan Hodges proposing assassination of Boris Johnson??!! Doesn't that count as hate speech, incitement to murder etc etc - it would if it was on the other foot.
Looking at the "par" local authority spreadsheet (a fabulous piece of work) for a clear Leave win, I'd expect to see Leave carry places like Southampton, Nottingham, Leicester, North Tyneside, Bridgend, and Sheffield.
I will be looking very carefully to see if Leave are campaigning hard here in the final few days.
So far, I'm not seeing it.
Nottingham? Don't think so. Nottinghamshire outside the conurbation, quite possibly.
I think rottenborough was campaigning for Remain in the Nottingham suburbs yesterday and posted a bleakish assessment.
Correct. No hard door-by-door canvass data, but based on severals hours at a street stall. Leaver after Leaver after Leaver. I gave up approaching any male over around 55 as they were universally Leave and usually rude with it. Many older people had already postal voted and said it was 'Out'.
There's hope for Remain in that it could be there are shy Remainers who just kept their heads down and slipped past. Or that young people were still abed. Who knows.
Personally, I am pretty sure Leave are winning and indeed am beginning to worry it could be a minor landslide.
To what extent Mr RB do the Leavers have any coherent argument? Much of the Leave vote has been based really on a somewhat uninformed view so far. (Remain too). If Leavers start to show evidence of having thought about and researched their view then Leave will win.
Can anyone explain the betting market on this to me?
From all evidence I can see Leave are doing better and Remain worse than expected a month ago. Remain probably still favourites but Leave running them very close.
Yet the betting market has barely budged at all. Why? Do those betting not believe the tightening polls and reports of Labour Leavers? Or did those betting a month ago always expect that so it was already priced in?
The stubborn refusal of Betfair et al to budge despite millions changing hands seems to me the biggest mystery of this campaign.
Dave looked like a defeated man on Marr today. I see Sam Cam wrote an article in the MoS asking voters to back Remain. No mention of her father trousering millions from the EU. No major vested interest there....
eee.. how many "MILLIONS" exactly did he trouser? or is it just another load of hyperbolic bullshit.
Apparently £2.7 million since 2001.
FOR WHAT ??? is it a farming subsidy and if so I doubt he made much or any profit, if he's in dairy, he will be losing money most likely.. Trousering money is misleading, if the net result is little or no profit.. Its a typical Daily Mail headline We need to asses the outcome before casting aspersions.,..
He's likely to have made far more money out of land value in the last 15 yrs.
Looking at the "par" local authority spreadsheet (a fabulous piece of work) for a clear Leave win, I'd expect to see Leave carry places like Southampton, Nottingham, Leicester, North Tyneside, Bridgend, and Sheffield.
I will be looking very carefully to see if Leave are campaigning hard here in the final few days.
So far, I'm not seeing it.
Nottingham? Don't think so. Nottinghamshire outside the conurbation, quite possibly.
I think rottenborough was campaigning for Remain in the Nottingham suburbs yesterday and posted a bleakish assessment.
Correct. No hard door-by-door canvass data, but based on severals hours at a street stall. Leaver after Leaver after Leaver. I gave up approaching any male over around 55 as they were universally Leave and usually rude with it. Many older people had already postal voted and said it was 'Out'.
There's hope for Remain in that it could be there are shy Remainers who just kept their heads down and slipped past. Or that young people were still abed. Who knows.
Personally, I am pretty sure Leave are winning and indeed am beginning to worry it could be a minor landslide.
Yep...West Sussex coast is exactly the same. Hard pushed to find anyone willing to admit being in favour of Remain. Not really surprising as there's a lot of Eastern European immigration and a lot of pensioners though.
Yougov figures slightly different from those of Opinium in terms of party breakdown. Overall Leave lead 51% to 49% excluding don't knows, though don't knows lean Remain by 22% to 17%, by party breakdown the figures are:
Conservative voters back Leave 66% to 34%, Labour voters back Remain 73% to 27%, LDs back Remain 84% to 16%, UKIP voters back Leave 99% to 1%.
From canvassing and extrapolating (caveats apply ofc!),a few of my Labour sources say it's about 55/45 for Remain in London.
Fair play to you for sharing. Is that Greater London or the Labour strongholds in inner London?
Greater London - Sadly I am not privy at how this was calculated but I'm sure there is an element of back of the envelope 'bodging'.
Anyway, not great for Remain.
Very plausible to me. My borough will definitely be for Leave, and by more than than the forecast spreadsheet.
Who's the author by the way? I want to give credit every time I mention it
I can't be too specific as this is kind of confidential - suffice to say it was the same guy who suggested Labour was on course to 255/260 seats at the GE a week before the election.
Remain may be a lot worse for the Conservatives than Leave.
It makes no sense to me.
Say Remain win, what next? I would expect at least one or two of those contentious issues to arise, and presumably given public opinion on such matters the government will go back to saying "how bloody awful the EU is" and digging their heels in. So why are the people who will likely be saying those things the very same people campaigning for us to Remain in an institution that does not have anything more than lukewarm support amongst the public, Conservative voters, or Conservative members.
Politically the whole situation is barmy. The people who actually support this stuff that the government is hell bent on dragging us into fights about are almost entirely found in the 4% of the population that supports the Lib Dems. Why are Tories doing this?
Perhaps Labour are pinning their hopes on a close "Leave" vote, leading to negotiations that don't produce anything like what Leave are suggesting, leading to a General Election and Labour coming in with a mandate to put the final terms to another referendum.
My feeling is the most likely result now is a close leave result followed by total grid lock in parliament as no one is able to get enough votes to pass any sort of bill certainly related to the EU, possibly on any subject, as the public looks on getting more and more furious with politicians generally as they try and blame each other. Its going to need some very fancy footwork from all players not to be the one without the chair when the music stops and the public wants someone's arse.
If Leave wins even by 1 vote then it is all over. Tory members will have voted by a clear margin and it will be suicide for any MP to try and reverse that.
It will be like a Labour MPs inability to overthrow Corbyn except multiplied by if the whole nation had elected Corbyn too.
I didn't say that they would reverse it, just decide that it wasn't their kind of "leave" and the whole thing will get mired in parliament for weeks as MPs argue over exactly what sort of leave they are going to have, and the public yells "Get on with it!" from the sidelines.
Can anyone explain the betting market on this to me?
From all evidence I can see Leave are doing better and Remain worse than expected a month ago. Remain probably still favourites but Leave running them very close.
Yet the betting market has barely budged at all. Why? Do those betting not believe the tightening polls and reports of Labour Leavers? Or did those betting a month ago always expect that so it was already priced in?
The stubborn refusal of Betfair et al to budge despite millions changing hands seems to me the biggest mystery of this campaign.
I think a lot of bettors are thinking this might go the same way as the IndyRef. A few scary polls for the status quo, a potentially shy remain vote vs more enthusiastic and visible leavers, and an expected break in favour of remain from the don't knows.
Perhaps Labour are pinning their hopes on a close "Leave" vote, leading to negotiations that don't produce anything like what Leave are suggesting, leading to a General Election and Labour coming in with a mandate to put the final terms to another referendum.
My feeling is the most likely result now is a close leave result followed by total grid lock in parliament as no one is able to get enough votes to pass any sort of bill certainly related to the EU, possibly on any subject, as the public looks on getting more and more furious with politicians generally as they try and blame each other. Its going to need some very fancy footwork from all players not to be the one without the chair when the music stops and the public wants someone's arse.
If Leave wins even by 1 vote then it is all over. Tory members will have voted by a clear margin and it will be suicide for any MP to try and reverse that.
It will be like a Labour MPs inability to overthrow Corbyn except multiplied by if the whole nation had elected Corbyn too.
I didn't say that they would reverse it, just decide that it wasn't their kind of "leave" and the whole thing will get mired in parliament for weeks as MPs argue over exactly what sort of leave they are going to have, and the public yells "Get on with it!" from the sidelines.
For weeks? We have two years to sort it out.
I expect an outline within months if not weeks and a deal within the two year window. The party will demand a deal has been ratified and is in place prior to the 2020 election
Can anyone explain the betting market on this to me?
From all evidence I can see Leave are doing better and Remain worse than expected a month ago. Remain probably still favourites but Leave running them very close.
Yet the betting market has barely budged at all. Why? Do those betting not believe the tightening polls and reports of Labour Leavers? Or did those betting a month ago always expect that so it was already priced in?
The stubborn refusal of Betfair et al to budge despite millions changing hands seems to me the biggest mystery of this campaign.
I suspect it is some combination of
a) people not believing the polls/expecting a late swing back to the status quo/concluding that saying you're going to vote leave comes more easily than actually doing it (similar to floating voters that tell pollsters they are anti-Government, until the GE arrives), and
b) the type of people who bet on politics may be skewed towards the population groups (AB1 etc) backing Remain. ?
Can anyone explain the betting market on this to me?
From all evidence I can see Leave are doing better and Remain worse than expected a month ago. Remain probably still favourites but Leave running them very close.
Yet the betting market has barely budged at all. Why? Do those betting not believe the tightening polls and reports of Labour Leavers? Or did those betting a month ago always expect that so it was already priced in?
The stubborn refusal of Betfair et al to budge despite millions changing hands seems to me the biggest mystery of this campaign.
There's a combination of what people think is the most likely outcome plus people hedging against what's in their interest.
I'd actually expect the market to be the other way. Every EU trougher and his wife should be backing Leave. Equally Boris should be going big on Remain.
GBP24m turnover on BF is really astonishingly small.
BBCSundayPoliticScot Prof Curtice: people think immigration lower if we leave, but not necessarily convinced economy will be better if we remain (2/2) #bbcsp
Can anyone explain the betting market on this to me?
From all evidence I can see Leave are doing better and Remain worse than expected a month ago. Remain probably still favourites but Leave running them very close.
Yet the betting market has barely budged at all. Why? Do those betting not believe the tightening polls and reports of Labour Leavers? Or did those betting a month ago always expect that so it was already priced in?
The stubborn refusal of Betfair et al to budge despite millions changing hands seems to me the biggest mystery of this campaign.
I think part of the problem is there are very fewer Remainers on pb.com. Simply, the anecdotes we hear are almost entirely from people out campaigning for Leave. We hear from Sean and Max and Casino and Yossarians child.
But we don't hear from the Remain campaigners. And, living in north west London I get a skewed view, I see ten times as many Remain campaigners as Leave ones. I've seen a single shunned lady in St Johns Wood, and a UKIP 'battle bus' on the Strand. And that's it from Leave.
That shouldn't be surprising: Hampstead and environs are going to be as pro-Remain as they come. But I suspect we're only seeing one side of the campaign on this site.
Can anyone explain the betting market on this to me?
From all evidence I can see Leave are doing better and Remain worse than expected a month ago. Remain probably still favourites but Leave running them very close.
Yet the betting market has barely budged at all. Why? Do those betting not believe the tightening polls and reports of Labour Leavers? Or did those betting a month ago always expect that so it was already priced in?
The stubborn refusal of Betfair et al to budge despite millions changing hands seems to me the biggest mystery of this campaign.
I posted this yesterday. I think is some kind of strange groupthink. The unthinkabe just can't happen can it? CAN IT?????
It's rather like GE2015 - poll after poll showed the LibDems well down in single figures yet the odds favoured a seat haul > 25. Ditto SLAB and SNP. People just refused to believe such wipeouts could really occur despite objective evidence to the contrary. In hindsight it was all obvious.
Comments
Had to immediately switch off.
1. Europe has NOT been at peace in the past 70 years. There have been numerous wars, invasions, conflicts, etc. There are have also been some other periods of European history with a largely peaceful background (that is, not outright war between the major powers).
2. Let's get this straight. The EU is a *product* of any peace and not the *cause* of such peace (though I accept it might help cement peace, albeit by bluntly eradicating nation states).
I've reflected a while. I can't blame Cameron for setting out the economic argument, though it seems like poor judgement to me, in the sense it's poor medium term politicking. I assume he thinks that Corbyn is unelectable and he essentially has a captive base.
Someone asked if there's any level of shock that would change Leavers' minds. Personally, yes, of course. I'd hope that I'm post-partisan or -tribal politics. I think it would be difficult to vote for Remain, but I could just enjoy the summer's day and hike Cat's Back Ridge or something (assuming I'm able to!).
Why do I think it's poor judgement? Well, not because I want to preserve the triple lock - I think it's ridiculous that a lot of wealthy boomers are eligible for pensioner benefits - that's consistent with previous posts made by me over several years.
It's because Osborne has kicked the deficit reduction can down the road for so many years (while handing out tax breaks and ring fencing things like overseas aid), to the point where this administration has borrowed knocking on for £700 billion since 2010.
Debt interest payments have increased from £45 billion in 2010 to £68 billion this year, an increase of £23 billion (which is in the ballpark range of the IFS estimates for the 'black hole' in UK finances by 2020. Somehow, this £23 billion fiscal 'shock' is different and nothing to worry about.
I was told I was treading a fine line between sang-froid and complacency last week (I assume I was actually being accused of complacency), because I pointed out all the trials and tribulations that anyone born in the 60s has lived through. At this point I hope remain win, simply because that will apparently stop any future recessions and remove the uncertainties of life. That's a price worth paying, I just hope it works.
Ahem...
One does get the feeling that in a few weeks the Conservatives will resemble the Macedonians after Alexander died.
Edit
Both sides seemed to enjoy talking, rather than enduring each other.
Corbyn can hardly expand on his present position (lukewarm Remain) without having his entire political record quoted back at him.
That would be incredibly dangerous for Corbyn. His strength is his authenticity. He may not be polished, but he is honest & straightforward. He says what he believes in.
To come out strongly for Remain will now make him look duplicitous.
In any case, there are big advantages to a Leave vote for Corbyn, viz, 1) the Blairites who are the most Europhile people left in the UK, are vanquished again and shown to be highly marginal, 2) a Leave vote will decrease the threat from UKIP to the WWC vote, 3) a Leave vote will probably usher in a more right-wing Tory government, which will be less electorally appealing than Cameron (who will be destroyed) and 4) radical change (which Corbyn wants) is more likely in a time of change than one in which the status quo prevails.
If I was Corbyn, I would be doing just what Corbyn is doing -- which seems to be saying Remain so ineffectually that he is actually encouraging Leave.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYOlBsls-C0
I will be looking very carefully to see if Leave are campaigning hard here in the final few days.
So far, I'm not seeing it.
a. his constituency will vote ?
b. his constituency party members will vote ?
I actually think there's a good chance that Russia will be knocked out, but you never know. It's hard to see Ukraine winning Group C. Poland, however, could knick it from the Germans and four years ago there was trouble when they played Russia in the group stage.
Top Remain Area
Which of the following will have the top Remain percentage?
Applies to these counting areas only.
2/1 Edinburgh
4/1 Cambridge
4/1 Oxford
6/1 Islington
6/1 Hackney
7/1 Southwark
16/1 Brighton & Hove
25/1 Cardiff
50/1 Manchester
The first thing that you notice is just how fed-up people in Scotland are with politics in general. We had the IndyRef, the General Election, then the Scottish elections, and now this. People are fed up. There are hardly any posters up in people's windows, with mine being the only Leave poster that I have seen. I have not seen any Remain posters, anywhere.
Over the past month that I have been helping to man a Leave stall in Edinburgh, I have noticed that Leavers are very committed and will come up to the stall, and literally demand that we give them lapel badges, posters, leaflets and the like. However, the bulk of the population who pass by on their shopping trips just ignore us.
That changed yesterday, Saturday, when we saw a marked upturn in enthusiasm, so much so that we almost ran out of window posters. People who had already voted came up to us and asked for leaflets to give to their friends. A young woman barely out of her teens arrived with her baby and told me that she was voting Leave for his sake, and I then met the liberal candidate who ran against Harold Wilson in Liverpool Huyton in 1974, who is also a Leaver. (Funnily enough, a mate of mine who is a Lib-Dem in Putney, London, is now a committed Leaver as well. Make of that what you will.)
The Remainers - or Federasts as I like to call them - are nowhere to be seen. The SNP tried to dragoon its members into campaigning for remain, but they just ignored the edict. Then a compromise was arranged whereby SNP stalls were set up with some remain stuff on them, and the bulk of the activists just went along to try and recruit new members to the party. Yesterday even that failed as no SNP stalls were out anywhere that I could see. As for pure Federast stalls, I hear rumours of them... Someone spoke to someone who said he had seen one, somewhere.
On the other hand, we have not been able to mount a canvass anywhere in Scotland. We can run street stalls, but canvassing is beyond us due to lack of numbers. However, we have managed to leaflet large parts of the country, and the other side cannot even manage any of those things.
I suppose you want a rousing conclusion? Sorry, but I don't have one. I blog at www.kenbell.info so please wander along if you want to trawl back through the postings on this campaign. I have also written two pamphlets, both of which can be grabbed at Amazon. They are Brexit: For a New Country and Why Scotland Should Leave The EU.
The changing demographics of Tooting may just make it an actual contest.
I have a fiver on the Tories at 10/1
I've just read your piece. Well done.
Thinking of political car crash interviews I just had to remind people of this classic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnHIeXQCfog
If Britain were to remain in the European Union, would you support or oppose the following in the future?A common European Army?
Support 20
Oppose 55
The same tax rates across the whole of the European Union?
Support 22
Oppose 53
The same welfare benefits across the whole of the European Union?
Support 33
Oppose 44
A directly elected President of Europe?
Support 18
Oppose 60
Britain joining the European single currency?
Support 7
Oppose 77
I think you're overestimating the ability of either campaign to redeploy activists. This is a referendum, there are no marginal seats, so all areas are worth campaigning in.
I'd be surprised if there's no Leave activity in those towns already. People in Southampton particularly have reason to dislike the EU, after it subsidised the transfer of Ford jobs from Southampton to Turkey.
That said I think Mr. Concanvasser goes too far when he suggests that deselections might be on the cards.
Dr. Prasannan, that's a very good question, although bloody complicated to try and answer this far out. [Even explaining Seleucus' role in history would probably take a few hundred words].
I think Farage might be Ptolemy. He's got a comfortable, secure base, but can't get far beyond it.
If that were so, Seleucus could be Carswell, but it's unlikely he'll go back. Otherwise, a hitherto unknown sceptic. Leadsom, I'd guess.
So if it goes Leave, Leave have won.
Parliament of course would need to ratify any actual legislative requirements/changes.
Matthew Elliot will know this. The question is whether he has the resources to do something about it.
It will be like a Labour MPs inability to overthrow Corbyn except multiplied by if the whole nation had elected Corbyn too.
Play nicely all
On the other hand, Leave seem strong across provincial England and parts of Wales, but have yet to move into some of the non-core metropolitan cities.
There are a lot of votes there.
Anyway, not great for Remain.
But I have not checked this specifically so others may have a more definitive answer.
Remain may be a lot worse for the Conservatives than Leave.
(innocent face)
There's hope for Remain in that it could be there are shy Remainers who just kept their heads down and slipped past. Or that young people were still abed. Who knows.
Personally, I am pretty sure Leave are winning and indeed am beginning to worry it could be a minor landslide.
I have also seen a lot of Remain activity in Newcastle City Centre.
I work in County Durham and a majority of my workplace, a manufacturing company part of an American conglomerate, appear to be pro-Leave. They are mostly Labour voters.
Labour has a problem in their heartlands with this. Although we all already knew this.
That definitely wouldn't have happened in Britain. What a mess.
Who's the author by the way? I want to give credit every time I mention it
Also noted that Cameron was going to have to dial back the rhetoric on Armageddon - or he's going to look really stupid on 24th if Leave wins [if he still cares by this point].
Universal agreement that using bus passes was beyond eye-rolling.
I feel heartened by that. He should be deployed a lot more often.
'In 2014 alone - the last year for which official figures are available - the Baronet's farming operations received an astonishing £262,442.38 from Brussels.
Of that, £209,965.24 was channeled through Normanby Estate Farms, the company responsible for managing his sprawling 3,000 acre ancestral estate outside Scunthorpe.
A further £38,846.10 was handed over to Normanby Farms Ltd, and £13,631.04 went to the family's overarching parent company, Normanby Estate Holdings Ltd.
Of the total, an overwhelming £232,515.34 was dished out under the 'single area payment scheme' - meaning it was paid to Sir Reginald purely on the basis of how much land he owns.
The rest of the cash was disbursed to help fund various environmentally friendly schemes the aristocrat, who is thought to be worth £20m, has agreed to carry out on his land.'
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/670181/saantha-cameron-father-david-reginald-sheffield-millions-eu-subsidies
Hardly sounds like he's up with the lark furiously milking his herds for a pittance to me.
From all evidence I can see Leave are doing better and Remain worse than expected a month ago. Remain probably still favourites but Leave running them very close.
Yet the betting market has barely budged at all. Why? Do those betting not believe the tightening polls and reports of Labour Leavers? Or did those betting a month ago always expect that so it was already priced in?
The stubborn refusal of Betfair et al to budge despite millions changing hands seems to me the biggest mystery of this campaign.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/brexit-debate-in-cornwall-anti-eu-sentiment-despite-eu-subsidies-a-1097012.html
Overall Leave lead 51% to 49% excluding don't knows, though don't knows lean Remain by 22% to 17%, by party breakdown the figures are:
Conservative voters back Leave 66% to 34%, Labour voters back Remain 73% to 27%, LDs back Remain 84% to 16%, UKIP voters back Leave 99% to 1%.
By region London backs Remain 63% to 37%, the South backs Leave 55% to 45%, the Midlands and Wales back Leave 59% to 41%, the North backs Leave 53% to 47%, Scotland backs Remain 69% to 31%
http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/qi3olqsp2n/SundayTimesResults_160610_EUReferendum.pdf
"Mothers will all be wondering where the jobs will come from for their children" if we Brexit.
Good point Gordo let's follow the Spanish and Italians in youth employment hey?
Oh wait...
Someone I trust a lot.
Say Remain win, what next? I would expect at least one or two of those contentious issues to arise, and presumably given public opinion on such matters the government will go back to saying "how bloody awful the EU is" and digging their heels in. So why are the people who will likely be saying those things the very same people campaigning for us to Remain in an institution that does not have anything more than lukewarm support amongst the public, Conservative voters, or Conservative members.
Politically the whole situation is barmy. The people who actually support this stuff that the government is hell bent on dragging us into fights about are almost entirely found in the 4% of the population that supports the Lib Dems. Why are Tories doing this?
I expect an outline within months if not weeks and a deal within the two year window. The party will demand a deal has been ratified and is in place prior to the 2020 election
a) people not believing the polls/expecting a late swing back to the status quo/concluding that saying you're going to vote leave comes more easily than actually doing it (similar to floating voters that tell pollsters they are anti-Government, until the GE arrives), and
b) the type of people who bet on politics may be skewed towards the population groups (AB1 etc) backing Remain. ?
I'd actually expect the market to be the other way. Every EU trougher and his wife should be backing Leave. Equally Boris should be going big on Remain.
GBP24m turnover on BF is really astonishingly small.
Prof Curtice: people think immigration lower if we leave, but not necessarily convinced economy will be better if we remain (2/2) #bbcsp
But we don't hear from the Remain campaigners. And, living in north west London I get a skewed view, I see ten times as many Remain campaigners as Leave ones. I've seen a single shunned lady in St Johns Wood, and a UKIP 'battle bus' on the Strand. And that's it from Leave.
That shouldn't be surprising: Hampstead and environs are going to be as pro-Remain as they come. But I suspect we're only seeing one side of the campaign on this site.
It's rather like GE2015 - poll after poll showed the LibDems well down in single figures yet the odds favoured a seat haul > 25. Ditto SLAB and SNP. People just refused to believe such wipeouts could really occur despite objective evidence to the contrary. In hindsight it was all obvious.