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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Populus responds to some of the points about its new online poll
Instead of sticking with its traditional past vote weighting approach the firm had adopted party ID weightings based back to what was recorded in British Social Attitudes Survey of 2010, when, of course, UKIP support was much lower than it is today. The effect is quite marked as this Tweet observes.
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Let's see how ruthless Ed can be when needed.
Remember when Ed said the NHS would be David Cameron's poll-tax.
We've a statement on a huge issue now in the HoC - news value?
What the public wants is a simple explanation of a complex problem.
The "13,000 deaths" may be neither academically nor clinically sound but it will resonate with families grieving the unnecessary or premature loss of their loved ones.
temperatures in central London must be soaring as Burnham's career goes up in flames.
I hope they also learn that endlessly repeating well prepared and focused mantras is effective. Going on and on and on about the result for patients, parents, users of public transport, etc from having the unions run the place is an easy win.
He is shrill, red-faced and desperate.
And I don't usually care about the rabble at Westminster.
I don't know whether people's party ID will be stable in the way that Populus require for their weighting to work.
"Since ICM started doing polls for the Guardian in 1984, only once has an opposition actually improved on its share of the vote at this point in the electoral cycle, and that was from such a subterranean level during William Hague’s leadership that there really was only one way for the Tory vote to go. The simple fact is that, whatever Labour’s relative CM poll rating is today, it is virtually certain to be lower – and probably much lower – in two years time..." http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100226633/of-course-labours-numbers-are-down-the-public-dont-trust-ed-and-ukip-is-collapsing-2015-is-camerons-to-lose/
After yesterday's surprise poll from ICM Ed Miliband needs to get thinking. It's about time Labour swallowed its tribal instincts and recognised that they may need to work with the Lib Dems. Nick Clegg might be despised but the very same factors that have made it difficult for the Lib Dems to make a breakthrough in past elections will be in their favour in 2015. They could well still manage to get 40 MPs at the next election. I suggest Ed wite an apologetic letter to Lib Dems that reads something like this,
Dear Lib Dems,
The relationship between our parties hasn't always been easy. I know you feel resentful about the way we behaved arrogantly towards you in government and continued to support a silly electoral system even when we got an indefensible majority of 66 with a 35% share of the vote. Like you I believe such an electoral system is now holed below the water-line. We could have done with listening to you more on issues like Iraq and your Party was quite right to oppose what turned out to be the worst British foreign policy disaster since the 2nd World War. You also stood up for civil liberties at a time when the Labour government was becoming too authoritarian. I'm sorry we didn't listen to you more.
At the 2010 election campaign your party stood on an exciting platform promising to re-balance the British economy, putting fairness at the heart of everything you do, committed to supporting students, dealing with the mess in the banking system and being open-minded about the future of the UK's nuclear deterrant whilst maintaining a moderate stance on balancing deficit reduction with the need to maintain demand in the economy. With the sure-footed Vince Cable speaking on the economy and a new leader in Nick Clegg promising to 'do things differently' I can well understand why many progressive voters would have seen the Lib Dems as a more attractive option than a government that had been in power for 13 years and overseen the first British banking collapse in over a century.
I'm well aware that a Lib/Lab pact was never a serious option after the election given the numbers in Parliament and that Gordon Brown would not have been an ideal leader of a coalition government. In the end your party chose to enter into a formal coalition with the Conservatives. Whilst the decision surprised many I can understand why you chose to do what you did. David Cameron had described himself as a 'liberal conservative' been supportive of gay rights and seemed to have moved his Party onto the centre-ground as the only way to defeat new Labour. Eric Pickles as Tory Chairman had talked about 'love-bombing' the Lib Dems, a somewhat terrifying thought but the intent was clear. This was a modern Conservative Party that could work with the Lib Dems. I put it to you that after three years of experience in government your decision has been proved wrong. The Tories had not changed as much as you thought and David Cameron was not the 'good egg' Nick Clegg naively assumed him to be. After three years of poor economic performance all the Conservative-dominated government appears to offer us is another credit fuelled housing bubble and more punitive measures for those on benefits. Surely you realise that these measures are at best ineffectual and at worst seriously detrimental to our country's long-term economic prospects as well as inflicting real hardship on the nation's poorest and most vulnerable people. This does not seem to rest easy with the social conscience your leader made much of at the last election. With all the evidence of the last three years, surely you do not believe that the fiscal programme the coalition embarked upon was a better policy than your own proposals at the election, which were quite similar to Labour's?
yours sincerely,
Edward Miliband
We all want to live to spend our winnings, Oblitus.
It's like discussing electoral reform on Budget Day.
Bringing expenses-related or other personal issues into it is beneath you.
Spinning your way out of it or smearing someone else is about as undignified as it is possible to get get. Trying to blame someone else for something that happened when Labour were in power is equally undignified.
Quoting the Mirror is rarely a good idea re credibility points .
Prescott will rise from his lunch table at tea time and blame Murdoch.
I'm disappointed that BenM hasn't tried to pin it on Thatcher.
1/10 for a response - there's no coherence, no theme or consistency just lots of We Love NHS Staff.
http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/bruce-keogh-review/Documents/outcomes/keogh-review-final-report.pdf
There have been loads of big news days over the last couple of years, and how many of them have had a sustained impact? In political betting terms today's events in the Commons are almost as off-topic as discussion of Test cricket.
Discussion of the minutiae of polling methodology is almost the reason this site exists. On another day perhaps Mike would have run a thread with some of the recent polling results on the NHS to tie in with today's Commons statement, but leading with remarks from Populus is not remarkable.
Dear Ed,
Thank you for your letter - you are sensible to use Politicalbetting rather than the post which if it comes at all often doesn't arrive until late in the afternoon.
It would have been easier to continue with spending money on bureaucracy and welfare, as Labour seems to be suggesting - it would even have made the economy look as if it was growing. However if we had done that then we would have been faced with unemployment levels similar to Spain and high interest rates coupled with a massive devaluation of sterling which would have caused painful price inflation, which really would have hurt working people.
Joining a coalition with the Conservative wasn't easy - and we haven't got everything we wanted, and in some cases -student fees for example, did not press hard enough. However we really did put the country and economy before party and need the full five years to show that the economy is rebalanced from an over reliance on the public sector and the city.
The voting system sucks but it is all we have. We need to wait until we see the result of the General Election but it may be sensible to form a small group -two from each side to lay the foundations of possible future cooperation. I should warn you that we have learnt a lot working with the Conservatives, we wont be pushed around!
Best wishes
The Liberal Democrats
(all of us - we all* voted for the Coalition)
*except about 12 members at the NEC meeting.
Re Barbara Young, H of CQC and Labour peer "the HMG hated the idea that the regulator would criticise it, I think we were under more pressure when Andy Burnham became minister from the politics..."
Watch it on BBC24 http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/tv/bbc_parliament/watchlive
There are clearly issues for both parties here: (1) Labour - who appear not to accept any responsibility for what happened when they were in charge and who give the impression that NHS staff should never be criticised on principle. This is silly and bad politics. Far better to admit to mistakes and learn from them. (2) the Coalition - they have been in charge for 3 years now. Even if they weren't the cause of the problems - and they weren't, can they give a coherent story about how their policies are going to resolve the problems which have been identified?
The shrieking about Burnham and statistics is rather beside the point though it does show that - on this occasion - Labour appear to have been comprehensively outgunned in the black arts. People may rightly complain that "13000 needless deaths" is not correct but it will be as fruitless as IDs saying that the "bedroom tax" is not a tax.
"Know your privilege !"
Hello Jack, I do not believe I have the knowledge to confirm your position , but it would not be impossible and given the way labour are copies of the Tories nowadays , there is a good chance.
Would be very nice but only likely if a NO vote in referendum which I believe will not be the case and so would expect a very strange vote in 2015 as the country prepares for independence.
Irresponsible rightwing rag.
I haven't followed the 13,000 deaths saga save to say that there was some Professor bloke on the telly using those very numbers. If we could somehow get Charles' succinct explanation of what he really meant emailed to every voter I'm sure this would become a non-issue.
Thing is, at the moment, the big red banner headline on eg. BBC News, Sky News, etc is "Hospital Scandal" and my guess is this will slowly percolate into people's perceptions (slowly, I admit with the NHS/Labour).
You usually smell out the critical elements of any story. In this case, your antennae have failed you.
Keogh is plainly covering himself: the terms "clinically meaningless" and "reckless academically" are themselves utterly meaningless. He isn't saying unreliable, or wrong, or not robust, because the findings are in fact robust and reliable. Why publish them otherwise?
When things go wrong, what's needed is a sober assessment of why and what needs to be put right, how and over what time period not hysteria.
Still, Labour have been very good at manufacturing stories to make some political point at the Tories' expense so they're just getting back what they dish out.
Maybe when Labour have apologised for doing this twice as hard every day for 13 years and more.
Let's have a PB competition: Who can think of the most egregious and deliberately misleading or outright nasty Labour smears when they were in power? The names Draper, Watson, Balls, Brown, Campbell, Mandelson, Blair, Hodges, Harman, Abbott, Byers, and all the rest may provoke a few unpleasant memories to get the list rolling!
It's incredible and frankly lame that the coalition has only just, after 3 years in power, started having a go at Labour and one day into this process Labour, whose whole approach to politics is founded upon denial and smears, are getting upset. Suck it up there's more to come.
It was precisely because Labour preferred to quote meaningless NHS Satisfaction Survey results rather than take action on independent clinical studies and whistleblower reports that the problems identified by Keogh exist today.
Less self advertisement and more outcome driven management should have been Labour's main priority.
Instead we got the Danny Boyle Olympics Opening ceremony promoting a utopian vision of dancing bed ridden children and their nurses.
Pure sentimental deception in place of effective management. Burnham paid more attention to political polls than he did to mortality rates.
He deserves everything coming to him.
Continual bad and negative news and scare stories about people dying from dental fillings would probably save the taxpayer a fortune on health costs, and allow governments - of all colours - to lower taxes and spend money on more joyful things.
Just a thought.
"Decades" BenM - during which both parties were in power.
Both were more interested in the reputation of their organization ahead of the protection of children and the interest of patients.
The point which Labour supporters don't or won't understand is that this sort of report could have been undertaken earlier, if the previous government had heeded the statistical warning signs rather than burying them or ignoring them. Therefore, improvements could have been made earlier, which in turn might well have saved a significant number of lives, even if you can't identify specifically which ones.
Unlike you to be so coy but I understand.
Smiles ....
I do expect the YES vote to cause a very strange vote, as well as panic in labour ranks.
I feel for you. I really do.
If the rate of improvement in the 14 hospitals under review has been similar to the rest of the NHS, that means the 14 have been underpeforming for a decade.
That would be a very serious failing by the government of the day - and ultimately the responsible minister - unless there is a damn good reason why.
'Stewart Jackson MP @SJacksonMP 31m
Shocking yobbish behaviour by Labour MPs in Commons unwilling to face up to their NHS failings'
It's just clinically meaningless and reckless academically to apply the formula (mortality rate X - mortality rate y) * no of patients = no of excess deaths
I'd have thought it was more evidence that Labour are rattled, but heigh-ho.
The DGH in Eastbourne is going to have a higher mortality rate than the one in Brighton. Not because it's a worse hospital, but because Eastbourne has more old people.
Sometimes the best surgeons have the highest mortality rates, and the worst the lowest. Why? Because the most difficult cases get sent to the best surgeons, while the weakest (usually least experienced) get the most routine cases.
These are only two of the two-hundred odd things that make taking raw mortality statistics meaningless.
Who's that bloke with the big black cape and scythe who keeps following him around ?
Tell that to the victims.
Never seen the timariat as rattled as this. They whine for years about the unreliability of PB tory anecdotes, you show them an incredibly rigorous academic study and they don't like that either.
As you rightly pointed out, the Tories banging on about Europe only strengthened UKIP's presence and political offer.
The same will now apply in reverse.
The more Burnham and Labour bang on about the NHS the more the public will be aware of its problems and the measures being taken by Hunt to solve them.
That would be a very serious failing by the government of the day - and ultimately the responsible minister - unless there is a damn good reason why.
I would not totally agree that it would be a very serious failing in that scenario . If you are comparing something to an average then must always be some of the individual data in the series below that average and some above that average .
In the subject of this discussion the object should be to analyse why certain hospitals are " under performing " whether the under performance although there is serious .
What should not happen is Plato and others shrieking hysterically about 13,000 deaths .
In the subject of this discussion the object should be to analyse why certain hospitals are " under performing " whether the under performance although there is serious .
What should not happen is Plato and others shrieking hysterically about 13,000 deaths .
so you prefer the alternative of denying there are any deaths at all ?
No , I prefer finding out the truth .
In the subject of this discussion the object should be to analyse why certain hospitals are " under performing " whether the under performance although there is serious .
What should not happen is Plato and others shrieking hysterically about 13,000 deaths .
Shrieking hysterically about 13,000 deaths is a hell of a lot more healthy than quoting NHS Satisfaction Survey results as jusification for ignoring real problems.
Today marks a massive change in the politics of the NHS. Today, the NHS lost its immunity from political criticism.
There are problems. They need solving.
It doesn't matter how you identify the problems. You can take Robert S.'s informed and academic approach or you can speak the language of the abused patients and their bereaved families. Either approach will do.
Which I think today is highlighting nobody could be bothered to look at for political reasons for about ten years or so. The good news about the truth though is that it will always come out. We're just getting a small amuse-bouche this afternoon.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/03/if-you-pay-them-money-partisans-will-tell-you-the-truth/?wprss=rss_ezra-klein
The problem, I think, is that they want it both ways: it didn't happen, and the Tories are sick for trying to capitalise on it.
The trouble is that both lines appear ludicrous, and the second requires them anyway to concede the truth of the headline.
Maybe this link will help tim and BenM?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre#Soviet_actions
Labour needs its own Nikolai Burdenko PFQ. Clue - "Andy" Burnham won't do.
Did Sunny Jim ever say "Crisis? What crisis?" Nope. Did the Sun ever apologise for making it up. Nope. Do the Labour party ever stop themselves shroud-waving or smearing if they can see some political benefit? Nope.
Politicians break down complex discussions into useful sound-bites for themselves, not to aid understanding.? Is anyone on their side bothered? Guess?
Hypocrisy knows no bounds today.
GLOUCESTER
O, let me kiss that hand!
KING LEAR
Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality.
A fine bottle of hypocrisy from your cellar.
It's interesting that Labour made Leveson a very, very tory problem, even though a lot of the hacking and News Corp brown nosing happened under them.
Perhaps the tories were determined not to let the same happen in this case....
"The leadership of the Labour on the NHS failings remind me of the Catholic church and child sex abuse.
Both were more interested in the reputation of their organization ahead of the protection of children and the interest of patients."
Yes - this.
The party of the producer interest. Patients not so much.
Burnham did an English degree, has never had a real job, run anything, built anything, created anything or brought about a new job for someone else through his own efforts. He also appears to wear mascara. Despite all this, the fool was put in charge of the NHS and nobody in Labour will admit even today that this was perhaps a foolish decision.
Which is correct?
It is true that there have been successful campaigns based on taking a strength and turning it into a weakness. The classic one was the swift-boat campaign against John Kerry. But even there, heroism in war wasn't associated with the Democrats and the man himself came over as a bit of a doofus, so the attackers were going with the grain of the voters' prejudices, and all they had to deal with were actual facts.
his moods swing between "sneering arrogance" via "desperate spinning" through "cornered and bullshitting" to today's "rattled smearing".
you can disagree with someone's politics but give them the benefit of the doubt as a person because they seem well meaning. Jon Cruddas seems like a decent bloke, for example. As did John Smith.
But in none of his mood swings does our tim ever, ever come across as agreeable or well-meaning.
hell of an indictment really, though not surprising he feels the pain today.
The NHS problems are staff care, effective management and clinical performance.
Are you arguing that the 14 NHS Trust Hospitals reported on by Keogh are under-resourced compared with better performing hospitals?
As for resources, more is being spent on health under the Coalition government than under any previous government as is demonstrated by this table of spend as %GDP. :
But resources are not an end in themselves. It is outcomes by which the NHS should be measured.
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly
As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII
Jack probably remembers an earlier spelling.
'Even the Telegraph headline is saying low staffing levels are to blame for hospital deaths'
And from the same article:
'The scandal at Stafford Hospital occurred after massive staff cutbacks, which meant that on one floor of the hospital, there were just two qualified nurses to care for patients at night.'
So Labour now taking full responsibility for the Stafford hospital deaths?
There is almost certainly more pain to be piled on Burnham by Hunt yet.
Has a poll ever been conducted using a version of AV?
Ask each person their top two choices in order with a percentage of likelihood to vote for either with the option to only nominate one party
It might give a clearer indication and stop so much messing about weighting the sample etc
That'd be nice.
A good way to elicit top notch policy input - offer a prize open to all and collate the submissions.
John Appleby @jappleby123
.@frasernelson @jdportes Hi funding: NHS prod 2000-04: 2.1%; 2004-2009: 2.4%....and lo funding:1995-2000: prod= 0.1% http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171766_289768.pdf …
Productivity rose 2.1% when more cash spent on NHS under Labour
Only 0.1% when starved of cash under Tory and 1st term Labour govts.
Tribal Tory beliefs != Reality.
because the huge mass of the electorate knows who Lynton Crosby is Ben, right ?
or maybe they're now trying to figure out why Bing's son is working in hospital services.
I don't know how widespread this was but my understanding is a lot of nurses quit or went agency over a relatively short space of time over stuff to do with targets (this was quite a few years ago) and the government had to go on an emergency trawl abroad to try and replace them.
The other thing i'd imagine vis a vis staffing levels is places that have been operating at well above the capacity they were designed for e.g. London maternity hospitals, are more likely to have *relatively* low staffing levels, especially fully qualified staff, for the workload they're dealing with and hence are likely to have made more mistakes.