"NZ, as always, leading the world on social issues..."
OK, but that same NZ has in recent days just tightened its immigration rules to make it harder for local companies to recruit from overseas and to try to encourage them to recruit, and if necessary train, a Kiwi instead.
Corbyn won't quit, because Tory expectations have been set so high, that when the tories win a majority of only 60 or so, instead of 150, he will be able to claim that as a moral victory and an indication that the country is on the road to socialism.
Corbyn will do better than polls suggest simply because he is so incredible as PM, and the tories monstering of him so aggressive, that many 2015 labour voter waverers will vote Labour out of fear that the party will get annihilated.
Yes, I could see this happening. Tories will be happy to have a majority of 60-80 of course, but the fear from some Labourites and dreams of some Tories so strong, it will galvanise some Labour and save them fro , the worst.
On Cooper, she is not hugely impressive, but she seems competent, sensible, reasonably authoritative. She'd do fine.
NZ, as always, leading the world on social issues. But extraordinary that the UK has 3 of the top 11. Rather disproves the notion of post-Brexit Brits as bigots.
Interesting how the Tories are the only right-leaving party on the list. [Although I have no clue about either Dutch party!!]
PVda are the Dutch Labour Party, VVD centre-right, sort of orange book and within the euro liberal grouping.
NZ, as always, leading the world on social issues. But extraordinary that the UK has 3 of the top 11. Rather disproves the notion of post-Brexit Brits as bigots.
Interesting how the Tories are the only right-leaving party on the list. [Although I have no clue about either Dutch party!!]
Corbyn won't quit, because Tory expectations have been set so high, that when the tories win a majority of only 60 or so, instead of 150, he will be able to claim that as a moral victory and an indication that the country is on the road to socialism.
Corbyn will do better than polls suggest simply because he is so incredible as PM, and the tories monstering of him so aggressive, that many 2015 labour voter waverers will vote Labour out of fear that the party will get annihilated.
Yes, I could see this happening. Tories will be happy to have a majority of 60-80 of course, but the fear from some Labourites and dreams of some Tories so strong, it will galvanise some Labour and save them fro , the worst.
On Cooper, she is not hugely impressive, but she seems competent, sensible, reasonably authoritative. She'd do fine.
Someone who will only "do fine" would be the worst outcome both for them and the country. They either need to find the person who will turn them around, or die quickly and get out of the space for others.
37% is a reasonable turnout for a by election but not exceptionally high . The result last time was slightly distorted by the Ind Lab Group candidates who took 15% of the vote ( perhaps default UKIP as no UKIP candidates ) . On balance I would say Conservative vote up taking votes from Labour and UKIP . No idea if the LD campaign was purely paper in a parliamentary seat where they managed just 2.1% in 2015
NZ, as always, leading the world on social issues. But extraordinary that the UK has 3 of the top 11. Rather disproves the notion of post-Brexit Brits as bigots.
Interesting how the Tories are the only right-leaving party on the list. [Although I have no clue about either Dutch party!!]
PvD = centre left, VVD = centre right
NB The Liberal Party in Australia is the main party of the right there.
But extraordinary that the UK has 3 of the top 11. Rather disproves the notion of post-Brexit Brits as bigots.
It just shows that gays and bisexuals are hugely overrepresented among the Labour, Tory and SNP parliamentary parties in comparison to their share of the overall British population, which according to surveys undertaken by the Office of National Statistics was 1.5% in 2010 and rose to 1.7% in 2015.
This was "which three or four would you consider voting for" so it's quite hard to interpret. However, there are more big moderate names (Cooper, Benn, Ummuna, Starmer, Jarvis) than big Corbynite names. I suspect it was more a reflection of name recognition, mixed in with a slight pro-moderate advantage.
FWIW, I think the moderates are in a slightly stronger position than some imagine. There is a tendency to read Corbyn's win over Smith as a 60/40 endorsement of a hard left Labour Party. But a lot of Labour members (I hear) made three points:
1. Owen Smith was a crap candidate. If the point is "we must get someone electable", why on earth offer us someone at least as unelectable as JC but in a different way?
2. May 2016 wasn't actually as awful as predicted, and June 2016 was basically Cameron's muck up being used as a pretext.
3. Corbyn deserves a chance at a General Election and MPs just need to make the best of it.
Those points may be wrong (I think 2 and 3 are egregiously wrong) but they don't make the 60% swivel-eyed, Kool-Aid guzzling, Momentum loons. Some were, but a lot weren't. The 40%, meanwhile, overwhelmingly would not vote for Corbyn's hand-picked successor - they are ABC people.
Nate is very good at US elections (He got the last one spot on), but his UK record is not so great.
His basic argument seems to be that UK polls at 50 days and final week have been out by on average 5 or 6% and therefore the margin of error at this point could be high (as high as +- 15 points if I have understood correctly).
Mr. Rabbit, agree on David Miliband, but Umunna could be the next leader.
I don't believe he has resolved the fundamental issues that led to him withdrawing.
There were no fundamental issues that major otherwise he would no longer be an MP it was just an excuse to avoid standing in a leadership contest too early
Re Harrow - was the increase in conservative vote share drawn from both labour and UKIP and why little move to the Lib Dems.
I think you said earlier turnout was 37% - is that high for a local election
The situation is complicated by the 15% or so scored by three independents the last time around. It depends on who they were - if some sort of residents' group then they might have been Tory-leaning voters already.
The turnout is about par for an outer London local by-election. In the set of London elections you'd be looking at nearer 50%.
OK I see the Indys were actually former Labour people. Yes, that's a dreadful result for Labour, especially in London where until recently their vote has been holding up better than rUK
Nate is very good at US elections (He got the last one spot on), but his UK record is not so great.
Nate is sometimes good at US elections. He got 2008 spot on, he was closer than the pack (but did not predict a Trump win) in 2016, and was awful in 2010 and 2014.
The default assumption on here seems to be that post-defeat Labour will suddenly become more moderate?
There's surely an alternative scenario where the surviving MPs are more left-wing (and the mostly moderate MEPs soon lose their jobs anyway), the nomination threshold for a smaller party is lower even without the McDonnell amendment, moderate politicians and members start to drift away.... in which another leader from the left wing is quite possible?
It requires Labour members to "do the math". If the Cons are on 48% and Labour on 24%, the only way Labour is going to be in government is by turning over at least one third of current Conservative supporters, by making a pitch that appeals to those that are happy to vote Tory. Talk of "progressive alliances" is a catastrophic distraction. Corbynistas aren't good at maths.
We're rediscovering that the UK is a small 'c' conservative country and that the leftier your election offering is (leader or policy) the shittier you're going to do.
Not necessarily IMO. Both main parties need to target the same set of centrist voters to be in government. Blair and Mandelson got it and saw Labour in power for more than a decade. Thatcher in her later years, Hague and IDS didn't get it and also saw Labour in power for more than a decade.
Nate is very good at US elections (He got the last one spot on), but his UK record is not so great.
Nate is sometimes good at US elections. He got 2008 spot on, he was closer than the pack (but did not predict a Trump win) in 2016, and was awful in 2010 and 2014.
I don't think Trump should have ever particularly been odds on though ?
There was no way you could have divined that from the polls.
Nate is very good at US elections (He got the last one spot on), but his UK record is not so great.
His basic argument seems to be that UK polls at 50 days and final week have been out by on average 5 or 6% and therefore the margin of error at this point could be high (as high as +- 15 points if I have understood correctly).
Surely it's only a margin of error if people don't change their minds between now and polling day. Probably more accurate to talk about swing over those 50 days.
I live in Kenton (the Tory bit in Brent). Kenton East (Harrow) comprises modest semis with a very high Hindu Asian population. It only goes Tory in very, very good years.
Nate is very good at US elections (He got the last one spot on), but his UK record is not so great.
Nate is sometimes good at US elections. He got 2008 spot on, he was closer than the pack (but did not predict a Trump win) in 2016, and was awful in 2010 and 2014.
I don't think Trump should have ever particularly been odds on though ?
There was no way you could have divined that from the polls.
Precisely my point. Nate, until 2016, was a polls only guy, no correction for non-polls knowledge. So a case of garbage in, garbage out when the polls are off, or when it is too tight to call, or when politics are in flux.
By 2016, Nate had understood the last point, and it was his non-polls knowledge that led him to caution against what his models (and those of others) were predicting (an easy Hillary win). He was brave enough to sound a note of caution against the predictions, despite the belittling critics, and for that he deserves considerable credit, particularly as to rely on intangibles is so against his character and previous MO.
Nate is very good at US elections (He got the last one spot on), but his UK record is not so great.
I think through his modelling he is good at interpreting US opinion polls to relate them to facts on the ground. Ultimately he is working with the same raw material as anyone else.
There was an accusation made against him in the last election that his real focus is on sports results modelling, which is the bread and butter of his business. Basically he was spread too thin to focus on politics.
Full account should be taken of the fact that Irish citizens residing in Northern Ireland will continue to enjoy rights as EU citizens; and existing bilateral agreements and arrangements between Ireland and the United Kingdom, such as the Common Travel Area, which are in conformity with EU law, will be recognised.
I think the end game of the demands for EU law to apply will be a differentiated approach to the territory of the UK, which will open the door to Scotland being able to detach itself.
Nate is very good at US elections (He got the last one spot on), but his UK record is not so great.
His basic argument seems to be that UK polls at 50 days and final week have been out by on average 5 or 6% and therefore the margin of error at this point could be high (as high as +- 15 points if I have understood correctly).
I took him to mean that the average of all the polls was typically six percent out and therefore the margin of error for any single poll could be +/-15%. I am not sure the logic for the latter holds up, however, as a) most of our polls are showing a similar picture right now and b) a single poll might just as easily be nearer.
It's a sloppy piece of work and isn't really saying much more than that our polls have missed the result by a little more than the US polls.
Some suggestions on the Twitters that Danczuk may be standing for Lab in Rochdale. One Tory/LD victory I'd like to see.
The Labour intention appears to be to 'un-suspend' him for the election and then to suspend him again and resume the investigation after the election. If that isn't an invitation to vote LibDem, I don't know what is? I can only assume Labour took seriously his threat to stand anyway as an independent and concluded the LibDems would win under that scenario.
Full account should be taken of the fact that Irish citizens residing in Northern Ireland will continue to enjoy rights as EU citizens; and existing bilateral agreements and arrangements between Ireland and the United Kingdom, such as the Common Travel Area, which are in conformity with EU law, will be recognised.
I think the end game of the demands for EU law to apply will be a differentiated approach to the territory of the UK, which will open the door to Scotland being able to detach itself.
If the UK leaves the single market that will still lead to duties on Irish goods inevitably and on goods from a hypothetical independent Scotland too not that May will allow any official indyref2 anytime soon
He was brave enough to sound a note of caution against the predictions, despite the belittling critics, and for that he deserves considerable credit, particularly as to rely on intangibles is so against his character and previous MO.
Yep, his probability of Trump winning was almost always greater than the odds implied - which if you are betting properly means you would have been backing Trump. Not as good an analyst as a certain gent from Merseyside was on it though... Sam Wang was the big loser from the 2016 punditry Olympics. A simply horrible model. Hilary @ 95% + or some nonsense.
I imagine quite a few of them will by lying about it to get the nod over less diverse candidates. They're just gay for the stay like long term prisoners or clankies on a Trident boat.
This was "which three or four would you consider voting for" so it's quite hard to interpret. However, there are more big moderate names (Cooper, Benn, Ummuna, Starmer, Jarvis) than big Corbynite names. I suspect it was more a reflection of name recognition, mixed in with a slight pro-moderate advantage.
FWIW, I think the moderates are in a slightly stronger position than some imagine. There is a tendency to read Corbyn's win over Smith as a 60/40 endorsement of a hard left Labour Party. But a lot of Labour members (I hear) made three points:
1. Owen Smith was a crap candidate. If the point is "we must get someone electable", why on earth offer us someone at least as unelectable as JC but in a different way?
2. May 2016 wasn't actually as awful as predicted, and June 2016 was basically Cameron's muck up being used as a pretext.
3. Corbyn deserves a chance at a General Election and MPs just need to make the best of it.
Those points may be wrong (I think 2 and 3 are egregiously wrong) but they don't make the 60% swivel-eyed, Kool-Aid guzzling, Momentum loons. Some were, but a lot weren't. The 40%, meanwhile, overwhelmingly would not vote for Corbyn's hand-picked successor - they are ABC people.
Name recognition or no name recognition those are the likely candidates and almost never does a complete unknown win the Labour leadership, even Corbyn was well known if an outsider. If and when Corbyn goes McDonnell is beatable it seems
He has never done well in Uk elections. In us, he admitted he personally doesn't really spend any time on political anaylsis. 538 money comes from sports and he runs a big operation and he recently bemoaned he spends most of his time now managing others.
Corbyn won't quit, because Tory expectations have been set so high, that when the tories win a majority of only 60 or so, instead of 150, he will be able to claim that as a moral victory and an indication that the country is on the road to socialism.
Corbyn will do better than polls suggest simply because he is so incredible as PM, and the tories monstering of him so aggressive, that many 2015 labour voter waverers will vote Labour out of fear that the party will get annihilated.
Yes, I could see this happening. Tories will be happy to have a majority of 60-80 of course, but the fear from some Labourites and dreams of some Tories so strong, it will galvanise some Labour and save them fro , the worst.
On Cooper, she is not hugely impressive, but she seems competent, sensible, reasonably authoritative. She'd do fine.
Harman would be more inspiring. I haven't had confidence in a Labour leader since Wilson, Callaghan, Smith or Blair. Beckett as acting leader was OK.
(N.B. My faith in Blair vanished by 1998.)
Because of electoral law, for 7 weeks we'll hear as as many minutes from him as we hear from May. Will it help?
I was told that there are some Youtube speeches from him in which he's actually rather good. When I watched them, he's certainly no Harold Wilson with his 'white heat' and 'moral crusade' but he arguably has the edge on Milband for presentation. No doubt the Mail will 'examine' the policies at length.
Some suggestions on the Twitters that Danczuk may be standing for Lab in Rochdale. One Tory/LD victory I'd like to see.
The Labour intention appears to be to 'un-suspend' him for the election and then to suspend him again and resume the investigation after the election. If that isn't an invitation to vote LibDem, I don't know what is? I can only assume Labour took seriously his threat to stand anyway as an independent and concluded the LibDems would win under that scenario.
Looking at Rochdale big UKIP vote and added to conservatives in a big leave area may result in a conservative gain rather than Lib Dem even though it has a tradition of Lib Dems
I've compared the 2014 with the 2017 results. (sample of around 3,000 votes): Labour down in share because of an absolute drop in votes of 274. Tories up in share because of an absolute rise in votes 356. Turnout down from 45% to 37%. So...I think my view on massive differential turnout is absolutely vindicated. The Tories are going to vote en masse and also get much of the Kipper vote. Labour voters will stay at home.
Interesting. If Labour does put up a candidate against Speaker B so should the Tories...
I assume it's a oversight.
Interestingly I heard a whisper last night of a Lib Dem candidature in Buckingham. No idea if it's based in fact.
Having said that I've never understood why the convention is in place, it disenfranchises an entire constituency - why don't the voters matter there or deserve a say? The Buckingham friends I was with last night were pretty peed off about it. Either the speaker should stand on their previous party's manifesto, or there should be an additional political MP for the speaker's constituency
Full account should be taken of the fact that Irish citizens residing in Northern Ireland will continue to enjoy rights as EU citizens; and existing bilateral agreements and arrangements between Ireland and the United Kingdom, such as the Common Travel Area, which are in conformity with EU law, will be recognised.
I think the end game of the demands for EU law to apply will be a differentiated approach to the territory of the UK, which will open the door to Scotland being able to detach itself.
I think you are missing the whole point of the word 'negotiation'. It doesn't matter what the EU guidelines say. They apply to the conduct of the EU side not the UK side. If we decide we do not agree with those guidelines then they cannot be imposed. A workaround will have to be reached which is satisfactory to both sides.
I know you believe that the UK should just do everything the EU says but this is the real world where negotiations and compromises go two ways.
Full account should be taken of the fact that Irish citizens residing in Northern Ireland will continue to enjoy rights as EU citizens; and existing bilateral agreements and arrangements between Ireland and the United Kingdom, such as the Common Travel Area, which are in conformity with EU law, will be recognised.
Irish citizens are EU citizens wherever they live, whether in Northern Ireland, the rest of Britain, or anywhere else.
I imagine quite a few of them will by lying about it to get the nod over less diverse candidates. They're just gay for the stay like long term prisoners or clankies on a Trident boat.
Full account should be taken of the fact that Irish citizens residing in Northern Ireland will continue to enjoy rights as EU citizens; and existing bilateral agreements and arrangements between Ireland and the United Kingdom, such as the Common Travel Area, which are in conformity with EU law, will be recognised.
I think the end game of the demands for EU law to apply will be a differentiated approach to the territory of the UK, which will open the door to Scotland being able to detach itself.
A faller in the 2.30 at Plumpton opens the door for independence on planet Nat..
Nate is sometimes good at US elections. He got 2008 spot on, he was closer than the pack (but did not predict a Trump win) in 2016, and was awful in 2010 and 2014.
He did predict a Trump win, with (from memory) about a 25% chance.
Interesting. If Labour does put up a candidate against Speaker B so should the Tories...
I assume it's a oversight.
Interestingly I heard a whisper last night of a Lib Dem candidature in Buckingham. No idea if it's based in fact.
Having said that I've never understood why the convention is in place, it disenfranchises an entire constituency - why don't the voters matter there or deserve a say? The Buckingham friends I was with last night were pretty peed off about it. Either the speaker should stand on their previous party's manifesto, or there should be an additional political MP for the speaker's constituency
Friends of ours are VERY politicall;y aware, but resident in the Bucks consituency. They are quite savage about being, effectively, disenfranchied.
Some suggestions on the Twitters that Danczuk may be standing for Lab in Rochdale. One Tory/LD victory I'd like to see.
The Labour intention appears to be to 'un-suspend' him for the election and then to suspend him again and resume the investigation after the election. If that isn't an invitation to vote LibDem, I don't know what is? I can only assume Labour took seriously his threat to stand anyway as an independent and concluded the LibDems would win under that scenario.
Looking at Rochdale big UKIP vote and added to conservatives in a big leave area may result in a conservative gain rather than Lib Dem even though it has a tradition of Lib Dems
I agree, its a more complex seat since the abolition of Littleborough and Saddleworth, so whilst there is a long tradition of Liberalism in that part of Lancashire, I wouldn't rule out the Tories winning here under current circumstances.
Nate is sometimes good at US elections. He got 2008 spot on, he was closer than the pack (but did not predict a Trump win) in 2016, and was awful in 2010 and 2014.
He did predict a Trump win, with (from memory) about a 25% chance.
In the primaries until the bitter end he still said trump wouldn't he GOP candidate. As I say, his focus is now firmly on managing a company that gets paid a lot of money to do sports analytics.
Some suggestions on the Twitters that Danczuk may be standing for Lab in Rochdale. One Tory/LD victory I'd like to see.
The Labour intention appears to be to 'un-suspend' him for the election and then to suspend him again and resume the investigation after the election. If that isn't an invitation to vote LibDem, I don't know what is? I can only assume Labour took seriously his threat to stand anyway as an independent and concluded the LibDems would win under that scenario.
Looking at Rochdale big UKIP vote and added to conservatives in a big leave area may result in a conservative gain rather than Lib Dem even though it has a tradition of Lib Dems
I agree, its a more complex seat since the abolition of Littleborough and Saddleworth, so whilst there is a long tradition of Liberalism in that part of Lancashire, I wouldn't rule out the Tories winning here under current circumstances.
Redcar looks a possible Con Gain with similiar logic, certainly it is worth a small bite at the 14-1 I got on for.
Nate is very good at US elections (He got the last one spot on), but his UK record is not so great.
Nate is sometimes good at US elections. He got 2008 spot on, he was closer than the pack (but did not predict a Trump win) in 2016, and was awful in 2010 and 2014.
I don't think Trump should have ever particularly been odds on though ?
There was no way you could have divined that from the polls.
Precisely my point. Nate, until 2016, was a polls only guy, no correction for non-polls knowledge. So a case of garbage in, garbage out when the polls are off, or when it is too tight to call, or when politics are in flux.
By 2016, Nate had understood the last point, and it was his non-polls knowledge that led him to caution against what his models (and those of others) were predicting (an easy Hillary win). He was brave enough to sound a note of caution against the predictions, despite the belittling critics, and for that he deserves considerable credit, particularly as to rely on intangibles is so against his character and previous MO.
His trouble when he then comes to the UK is he doesn't have a great feel for the intangibles.
So he is basically saying, "UK polls are relatively unreliable, so could be well out again, and we need to think about a large 'real' margin of error, not just a statistical one in the UK".
That's true to a degree, but ignores the fact that most things back up a very large and robust Tory lead even if the methodology of polls is off. Copeland, local elections, deep divisions in Labour which simply can't be ignored over the campaign, Labour MPs jumping before the electorate push them, etc, are all important intangibles pointing to a ceiling on Labour support and floor on Tory support. So even if the poll methodologies are quite badly wrong, it doesn't make the race wide open, or even ajar.
Nate is sometimes good at US elections. He got 2008 spot on, he was closer than the pack (but did not predict a Trump win) in 2016, and was awful in 2010 and 2014.
He did predict a Trump win, with (from memory) about a 25% chance.
In the primaries until the bitter end he still said trump wouldn't he GOP candidate. As I say, his focus is now firmly on managing a company that gets paid a lot of money to do sports analytics.
He realised his error in the General and simply treated Trump as any other generic GOP candidate (Which was proved correct)
Full account should be taken of the fact that Irish citizens residing in Northern Ireland will continue to enjoy rights as EU citizens; and existing bilateral agreements and arrangements between Ireland and the United Kingdom, such as the Common Travel Area, which are in conformity with EU law, will be recognised.
I think the end game of the demands for EU law to apply will be a differentiated approach to the territory of the UK, which will open the door to Scotland being able to detach itself.
I think you are missing the whole point of the word 'negotiation'. It doesn't matter what the EU guidelines say. They apply to the conduct of the EU side not the UK side. If we decide we do not agree with those guidelines then they cannot be imposed. A workaround will have to be reached which is satisfactory to both sides.
I know you believe that the UK should just do everything the EU says but this is the real world where negotiations and compromises go two ways.
What I suggested is being pushed by the Scottish government, which last time I checked was part of the UK.
Precisely my point. Nate, until 2016, was a polls only guy, no correction for non-polls knowledge. So a case of garbage in, garbage out when the polls are off, or when it is too tight to call, or when politics are in flux.
By 2016, Nate had understood the last point, and it was his non-polls knowledge that led him to caution against what his models (and those of others) were predicting (an easy Hillary win). He was brave enough to sound a note of caution against the predictions, despite the belittling critics, and for that he deserves considerable credit, particularly as to rely on intangibles is so against his character and previous MO.
I don't think it is that case that he applied intangibles to the results of his modelling. His website had a page, which explained how he derived his models, leading to his % probability figure. The main job of his modelling was to fill in the gaps in a country where both the voting and most of the polling was local, but where the voting has national consequences. The expense of polling means patchy data, so for a (completely made up) example the last poll in Minnesota was two months earlier and carried out by an polling firm of uncertain competence. However there was a more recent poll in say Kentucky by a more reputable firm, so his models could extrapolate a trend for Minnesota as well, by applying a demographic filter to the Kentucky results. Silver is concerned that poll aggregation masks real trends, so he took an aggressive approach to variance, both geographical and over time.
NOC @ 5/1 isn't bad value against the over-exuberant Tory factor !
As a Tory I don't really feel over-exuberant about the possibility of 400 seats. More: delighted with the endorsement, and cognisant that some of it is down to Corbyn (not as much as some think). But most of all a [slightly pompous] sense that the next few years will be challenging and we will need to live up to our mandate.
FWIW, I make the 7.8 NOM on Betfair terrible value!
Heath was defeated in '66 and held on. Wilson was beaten in 1970 and held on. Heath expected to remain in office after October '74
It's only a recent innovation that defeat means termination. In the 1970s, when Corbyn's viewed were formed, hanging on was standard practice.
Surely it depends on what exactly happens. If Labour get the disaster that's generally predicted, then he needs to go immediately. If Corbyn beats Miliband's vote share he's got a decent case to remain even if its a loss - he's making progress and its not like its been very long since the last election. If labour more or less hold station he'd probably need to accept that he wasn't going to lead labour in the next election, but could seek to hang on in the hope of changing the leadership election rules.
Interesting. If Labour does put up a candidate against Speaker B so should the Tories...
I assume it's a oversight.
Interestingly I heard a whisper last night of a Lib Dem candidature in Buckingham. No idea if it's based in fact.
Having said that I've never understood why the convention is in place, it disenfranchises an entire constituency - why don't the voters matter there or deserve a say? The Buckingham friends I was with last night were pretty peed off about it. Either the speaker should stand on their previous party's manifesto, or there should be an additional political MP for the speaker's constituency
Friends of ours are VERY politicall;y aware, but resident in the Bucks consituency. They are quite savage about being, effectively, disenfranchied.
Any non-Tory voter in North Shropshire, Ludlow, North Herefordshire or Monmouth is disenfranchised! Two of these have been Tory for 100-200 years ... pig with a Blue rosette territory.
Some Labour seats are even safer as the winner's vote gets into the 70s%, not the 50s%.
I've just remembered I have bets on Corbyn's exit year. 8/1 2018 and 12/1 2019.
I've had a Damascene conversion. All of a sudden I'm not implacably opposed to Corbyn hanging on as leader for a year or two after the General Election.
In fact, after mature reflection, I think it would be a rather good idea if the Labour Party just paused for a while after their anticipated General Election defeat and not hastily replace a decent man, who has after all been doing a great job under difficult circumstances!
Interesting lunch with my daughter. She is thrilled by the election (possibly the first person I have found like that). She is also impressed, now, with Mrs May. Her comment: "It's so Frank Underwood, tripping up and crushing your opponents like that." She thinks she underestimated her.
As a member of the Conservative Party in the Wealden constituency, I'd like formally to put on record my view that you should definitely not take the 33/1 which Betfair/Paddy are offering on any of UKIP, Labour, Green or LibDem.
Off topic - I have received my postal ballot for the local elections (remember them?!?)
Choice of the sitting god-squad independent, Con, Lab, Green. No LibDem, in a county ward half of which has a serving LibDem on the district council. If the Greens can manage to stand, why not the LibDems?
Surely it depends on what exactly happens. If Labour get the disaster that's generally predicted, then he needs to go immediately. .
Needs to go and actually will go are two different things. He won't quit, why the fuck would he? The defeat can be blamed on a melange of Blairites, Murdoch, Zionists and false consciousness among the WWC.
I've just remembered I have bets on Corbyn's exit year. 8/1 2018 and 12/1 2019.
I've had a Damascene conversion. All of a sudden I'm not implacably opposed to Corbyn hanging on as leader for a year or two after the General Election.
In fact, after mature reflection, I think it would be a rather good idea if the Labour Party just paused for a while after their anticipated General Election defeat and not hastily replace a decent man, who has after all been doing a great job under difficult circumstances!
Your impartiality does you proud. What is in the national interest? What is in the party's interest? Who gives a...
I've compared the 2014 with the 2017 results. (sample of around 3,000 votes): Labour down in share because of an absolute drop in votes of 274. Tories up in share because of an absolute rise in votes 356. Turnout down from 45% to 37%. So...I think my view on massive differential turnout is absolutely vindicated. The Tories are going to vote en masse and also get much of the Kipper vote. Labour voters will stay at home.
It does risk being the perfect storm for Labour.
I remember how 1997 felt as a Tory. A decent man, John Major still represented a terminally unattractive option. I think I bothered to vote, but if so it was with a heavy heart, for the decent man, but still knowing we were going to get the dockside hooker treatment.
May comes across as down to earth, non-threatening, a breath of fresh air for life-long Labour voters brought up that admitting voting Tory was social death - in a way Tony Blair did for life-long Tories in 1997.
Interesting. If Labour does put up a candidate against Speaker B so should the Tories...
I assume it's a oversight.
Interestingly I heard a whisper last night of a Lib Dem candidature in Buckingham. No idea if it's based in fact.
Having said that I've never understood why the convention is in place, it disenfranchises an entire constituency - why don't the voters matter there or deserve a say? The Buckingham friends I was with last night were pretty peed off about it. Either the speaker should stand on their previous party's manifesto, or there should be an additional political MP for the speaker's constituency
Friends of ours are VERY politicall;y aware, but resident in the Bucks consituency. They are quite savage about being, effectively, disenfranchied.
Any non-Tory voter in North Shropshire, Ludlow, North Herefordshire or Monmouth is disenfranchised! Two of these have been Tory for 100-200 years ... pig with a Blue rosette territory.
Some Labour seats are even safer as the winner's vote gets into the 70s%, not the 50s%.
I do agree with the principle behind that.
But the fact is that people in those constituencies physically get to vote for one or other of the main parties, and the mere act of doing that makes people feel they have had a say (and it all goes to vote totals). Maybe, in the once in a century case, it will make a difference. But even if not, they've done it.
People in the Speaker's constituency don't even get that... and it's a bit archaic and unnecessary. They could introduce a system whereby the Speaker is co-opted as a non-constituency "MP" until he stands down. They could have him stand for his old party ("I'm going to take the high road on negative campaigning because I'm Speaker, but basically I'm still a Tory (or whatever) and if I keep my seat that's one seat Labour doesn't have"). It's not beyond the ingenuity of man.
I've just remembered I have bets on Corbyn's exit year. 8/1 2018 and 12/1 2019.
I've had a Damascene conversion. All of a sudden I'm not implacably opposed to Corbyn hanging on as leader for a year or two after the General Election.
In fact, after mature reflection, I think it would be a rather good idea if the Labour Party just paused for a while after their anticipated General Election defeat and not hastily replace a decent man, who has after all been doing a great job under difficult circumstances!
Your impartiality does you proud. What is in the national interest? What is in the party's interest? Who gives a...
I think Jeremy is much misunderstood and has just had a bad press.
As a member of the Conservative Party in the Wealden constituency, I'd like formally to put on record my view that you should definitely not take the 33/1 which Betfair/Paddy are offering on any of UKIP, Labour, Green or LibDem.
As a member of the Conservative Party in the Wealden constituency, I'd like formally to put on record my view that you should definitely not take the 33/1 which Betfair/Paddy are offering on any of UKIP, Labour, Green or LibDem.
It just shows how standards and expectations have dropped over the decades. A back bencher can be perceived to be effective in asking a question of the PM, and all of a sudden becomes a favourite to be the next party leader. Yvette Cooper just happens to be that person this week. Next week, it could be anyone else.
In fact, are there any Labour MPs who haven't been touted as a potential leader? I find it really bemusing that Labour supporters have no expectations other than non-entities (Jarvis, Umunna, Starmer, Nandy) and has-beens (Cooper, Benn, Balls). Most of these people were on Labour's front bench in 2015, and the elctorate were repulsed by them.
So, true to Labour's tradition of electing the unelectable, why not give them another go?
I've just remembered I have bets on Corbyn's exit year. 8/1 2018 and 12/1 2019.
I've had a Damascene conversion. All of a sudden I'm not implacably opposed to Corbyn hanging on as leader for a year or two after the General Election.
In fact, after mature reflection, I think it would be a rather good idea if the Labour Party just paused for a while after their anticipated General Election defeat and not hastily replace a decent man, who has after all been doing a great job under difficult circumstances!
Your impartiality does you proud. What is in the national interest? What is in the party's interest? Who gives a...
I think Jeremy is much misunderstood and has just had a bad press.
:-)
I agree, on June 9th this piece by me from last summer is going to make me look like a visionary
Comments
OK, but that same NZ has in recent days just tightened its immigration rules to make it harder for local companies to recruit from overseas and to try to encourage them to recruit, and if necessary train, a Kiwi instead.
On Cooper, she is not hugely impressive, but she seems competent, sensible, reasonably authoritative. She'd do fine.
Nate Silver: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-u-k-snap-election-is-riskier-than-it-seems/
Very happy with my own position which ranges from +200 on Cooper to +20 on Starmer and only has reds against Umanna and Miliband D.
On balance I would say Conservative vote up taking votes from Labour and UKIP .
No idea if the LD campaign was purely paper in a parliamentary seat where they managed just 2.1% in 2015
FWIW, I think the moderates are in a slightly stronger position than some imagine. There is a tendency to read Corbyn's win over Smith as a 60/40 endorsement of a hard left Labour Party. But a lot of Labour members (I hear) made three points:
1. Owen Smith was a crap candidate. If the point is "we must get someone electable", why on earth offer us someone at least as unelectable as JC but in a different way?
2. May 2016 wasn't actually as awful as predicted, and June 2016 was basically Cameron's muck up being used as a pretext.
3. Corbyn deserves a chance at a General Election and MPs just need to make the best of it.
Those points may be wrong (I think 2 and 3 are egregiously wrong) but they don't make the 60% swivel-eyed, Kool-Aid guzzling, Momentum loons. Some were, but a lot weren't. The 40%, meanwhile, overwhelmingly would not vote for Corbyn's hand-picked successor - they are ABC people.
Who's staying up with me?
The indication is that the labour group and UKIP virtually all went conservative but why no big move for Lib Dems
There was no way you could have divined that from the polls.
By 2016, Nate had understood the last point, and it was his non-polls knowledge that led him to caution against what his models (and those of others) were predicting (an easy Hillary win). He was brave enough to sound a note of caution against the predictions, despite the belittling critics, and for that he deserves considerable credit, particularly as to rely on intangibles is so against his character and previous MO.
There was an accusation made against him in the last election that his real focus is on sports results modelling, which is the bread and butter of his business. Basically he was spread too thin to focus on politics.
Full account should be taken of the fact that Irish citizens residing in Northern Ireland will continue to enjoy rights as EU citizens; and existing bilateral agreements and arrangements between Ireland and the United Kingdom, such as the Common Travel Area, which are in conformity with EU law, will be recognised.
I think the end game of the demands for EU law to apply will be a differentiated approach to the territory of the UK, which will open the door to Scotland being able to detach itself.
It's a sloppy piece of work and isn't really saying much more than that our polls have missed the result by a little more than the US polls.
Heath was defeated in '66 and held on. Wilson was beaten in 1970 and held on. Heath expected to remain in office after October '74
It's only a recent innovation that defeat means termination. In the 1970s, when Corbyn's viewed were formed, hanging on was standard practice.
Not as good an analyst as a certain gent from Merseyside was on it though...
Sam Wang was the big loser from the 2016 punditry Olympics. A simply horrible model. Hilary @ 95% + or some nonsense.
https://twitter.com/election_data/status/854948690489987072
(N.B. My faith in Blair vanished by 1998.)
Because of electoral law, for 7 weeks we'll hear as as many minutes from him as we hear from May. Will it help?
I was told that there are some Youtube speeches from him in which he's actually rather good. When I watched them, he's certainly no Harold Wilson with his 'white heat' and 'moral crusade' but he arguably has the edge on Milband for presentation. No doubt the Mail will 'examine' the policies at length.
Labour down in share because of an absolute drop in votes of 274.
Tories up in share because of an absolute rise in votes 356.
Turnout down from 45% to 37%.
So...I think my view on massive differential turnout is absolutely vindicated.
The Tories are going to vote en masse and also get much of the Kipper vote. Labour voters will stay at home.
Having said that I've never understood why the convention is in place, it disenfranchises an entire constituency - why don't the voters matter there or deserve a say? The Buckingham friends I was with last night were pretty peed off about it. Either the speaker should stand on their previous party's manifesto, or there should be an additional political MP for the speaker's constituency
I know you believe that the UK should just do everything the EU says but this is the real world where negotiations and compromises go two ways.
And anyone with an Irish grandparent is entitled to Irish citizenship. There are probably more than 7 million Brits who are entitled to Irish passports and haven't already got one. That's more people than live in Ireland.
I'm sure the Momentumites would love to have a leader called Che.
Well maybe that is a step too far, but we could have a leader called Chi.
- Woman
- BAME
- Engineer
- Geordie
What's not to like?
So he is basically saying, "UK polls are relatively unreliable, so could be well out again, and we need to think about a large 'real' margin of error, not just a statistical one in the UK".
That's true to a degree, but ignores the fact that most things back up a very large and robust Tory lead even if the methodology of polls is off. Copeland, local elections, deep divisions in Labour which simply can't be ignored over the campaign, Labour MPs jumping before the electorate push them, etc, are all important intangibles pointing to a ceiling on Labour support and floor on Tory support. So even if the poll methodologies are quite badly wrong, it doesn't make the race wide open, or even ajar.
Go down well where most of the refugee's and migrants get dumped in mainly labour supporting seats.
FWIW, I make the 7.8 NOM on Betfair terrible value!
Some Labour seats are even safer as the winner's vote gets into the 70s%, not the 50s%.
It started shortly before the attack on the Champs Elysées. The candidates who got watched by most people were Macron, Le Pen, Hamon, and Poutou.
Le Pen dangled a key to emphasise her promise to "give French people back the keys to their house". Smart girl.
I've had a Damascene conversion. All of a sudden I'm not implacably opposed to Corbyn hanging on as leader for a year or two after the General Election.
In fact, after mature reflection, I think it would be a rather good idea if the Labour Party just paused for a while after their anticipated General Election defeat and not hastily replace a decent man, who has after all been doing a great job under difficult circumstances!
PS Note to Casino: Yes, Nus is standing again.
Choice of the sitting god-squad independent, Con, Lab, Green. No LibDem, in a county ward half of which has a serving LibDem on the district council. If the Greens can manage to stand, why not the LibDems?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDXCATj74F4
She's doing very well here. She's learnt from the crap way she did the graph thing in the previous debate.
Every candidate had to bring an object. Poutou brought a green and yellow flag with a red star in the middle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHyovqXHi0Q
Mélenchon brought a clock (oops!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXDCdM6xvKk
I remember how 1997 felt as a Tory. A decent man, John Major still represented a terminally unattractive option. I think I bothered to vote, but if so it was with a heavy heart, for the decent man, but still knowing we were going to get the dockside hooker treatment.
May comes across as down to earth, non-threatening, a breath of fresh air for life-long Labour voters brought up that admitting voting Tory was social death - in a way Tony Blair did for life-long Tories in 1997.
But the fact is that people in those constituencies physically get to vote for one or other of the main parties, and the mere act of doing that makes people feel they have had a say (and it all goes to vote totals). Maybe, in the once in a century case, it will make a difference. But even if not, they've done it.
People in the Speaker's constituency don't even get that... and it's a bit archaic and unnecessary. They could introduce a system whereby the Speaker is co-opted as a non-constituency "MP" until he stands down. They could have him stand for his old party ("I'm going to take the high road on negative campaigning because I'm Speaker, but basically I'm still a Tory (or whatever) and if I keep my seat that's one seat Labour doesn't have"). It's not beyond the ingenuity of man.
:-)
In fact, are there any Labour MPs who haven't been touted as a potential leader? I find it really bemusing that Labour supporters have no expectations other than non-entities (Jarvis, Umunna, Starmer, Nandy) and has-beens (Cooper, Benn, Balls). Most of these people were on Labour's front bench in 2015, and the elctorate were repulsed by them.
So, true to Labour's tradition of electing the unelectable, why not give them another go?
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2016/08/30/in-praise-of-jeremy-corbyn/
https://twitter.com/robmurphyitv/status/855394671320866817