ONE of the SNP’s big donors has switched his financial support to the Conservatives over Brexit and the economy, the Herald can reveal.
Businessman Bill Samuel, who has given the SNP £60,000 over the past decade and who publicly backed a Yes vote in 2014, has now handed £10,000 to the Tories.
Mr Samuel, 74, said he switched allegiance because he feared Nicola Sturgeon’s government did not understand the way the economy worked and he also wanted Brexit to go well.
He said the SNP appeared to have passed its “apogee”, or highest point, adding: “It’s very sad in a way. What an opportunity that was, what an opportunity. It’s just so sad.”
LOL, £6K a year and given the SNP has millions a year, like you Scott these guys are not good with numbers. One old fart giving pennies will make little difference.
Low levels of home ownership among the under 40s is easily the biggest threat to the Tory party. It's why I've always been so against private renting.
I have never quite followed this arguement. House prices are high because more people want houses, than there are houses available (within a given locale). Stopping private renting doesnt increase the supply of houses. At best you have the same number of houses with the same number of people chasing them, they are just all owners this time, which the less well off being squeezed out to cheaper areas.
If you are a 25 year old in the South East on 25k a year you wont be able to get an mortgage on anything, so you rent (probably with friends) or live at home. If all the rents are stopped and a lot of rental properties go on the market the prices will drop a bit, but not for long given the demand in the South East, and the price drop wont put them in reach of the 25 year old in anycase, so now they have to live at home if they can, or move out the area to somewhere cheaper, which wont make them very happy.
Surely that answer is to build a (lot) more houses, or reduce the demand, which practically means stopping enough people to fill a city the size of Sheffield arriving every couple of years.
Not really, there's no shortage of housing stock, there is a shortage of housing available for sale. A transfer of ownership from landlords to owner occupiers is what we need in this country. A value tax on second property ownership is a very simple fix that will chase landlords out and lower prices enough to make a difference. It shouldn't be necessary for someone or a household to earn six figures to buy a house in London.
Low levels of home ownership among the under 40s is easily the biggest threat to the Tory party. It's why I've always been so against private renting.
Osborne did at least take some steps to discourage more investment money going in to buy-to-let, but I think more needs to be done to turn the situation around.
Having just watched Corbyn in his interview with Andrew Neil on catch-up I suspect what will eventually sink him will be a continued lack of traction amongst the over 50's however much Theresa May tries to shoot herself in the foot over social care etc. Contrary to some slightly rose-tinted reports on here I think he came across really quite badly. With 1800 dead the IRA weren't exactly some cuddlier version of Islamic State and the man was happily fraternising with their spokesmen. Too many recall bombing outrages like the one in Deal in 1989 which "was carried out on a ceremonial military band whose only military training was geared towards saving lives. The public were also shocked by the ages of those killed, as many were new recruits to the School and most of those injured were teenagers."
Low levels of home ownership among the under 40s is easily the biggest threat to the Tory party. It's why I've always been so against private renting.
Osborne did at least take some steps to discourage more investment money going in to buy-to-let, but I think more needs to be done to turn the situation around.
Yes, the private landlords need to get hammered again and again until they give up.
As I posted yesterday, all three of my kids are Corbynistas - much to their Dad's distress. My daughter even tried to put a Labour poster up in our front window. They feel - quite rightly - that things are not working right now, that well-paid jobs and leaving home, let alone owning their own places, are a pipedream. They see Brexit as the old messing things up for the young. The political establishment has let them down big time. And Corbyn is definitely not the political establishment. They will vote for him.
Why is a well paid job a pipe dream for your children? Or why do they think it is?
Indeed. We have full employment and I was talking to a friend who works in the railway infrastructure rolling stock maintenance business and they are desperate to find suitable staff. Huge amount of competition pushing up wages. He quoted one 21 year old girl earning £40k per year with bonuses etc added in. Everyone there at the time was amazed - but that is the real world
ie she is young and well paid and there are more jobs like it. In other words, SO and his children are talking bollocks
But then again all socialists just want money on a plate so they can piss it up the wall.
This anecdote is not representative. You don't understand the problem. Of course, some industries are an exception. I earned £31 k in my first year out of uni. Lots of my colleagues then, a decade later are on 100k plus. But of all my contemporaries at my (Russell group, redbrick) university, I am a minority. Many are on £20 - £30k, if they got around to getting a proper job. But that isn't enough to get a house in most parts of the South East, so in reality they are effectively excluded from society and have no underlying stability in their lives. This is the basis for Corbyn's popularity, people feel that they have nothing to lose, and that something has to change, the whole establishment has to be turned upside down. We may be the winners, but we are also a minority, so there is a lot to be scared of whatever happens in this election. I was talking to a colleague, he is in his twenties, multilingual and we have many of the same interests. He is on an apprentice contract earning a third of what I am earning, and he knows that it is going to end in October, with no certain future. You can turn your nose up at people like this if you want, but I think that would be quite foolish.
How will Corbyn help these people?
And - slightly different q - how precisely do these young voters think that Corbyn will help them? What's the logic?
Maybe we need a shambolic disaster of a left wing government every few decades just to stop it happening again until we all forget
Momentun talked about trying to influence the betting markets with a deluge of money placed on Corbyn to become next PM.
I've mentioned this before, but nobody has given a satisfactory answer to these questions -
Is it possible for pollsters to be gamed? Could tens of thousands of people sign up to YouGov (or anyone else) and influence the polls to favour one party? Is it possible with phone pollsters? Do the pollsters have systems and checks to stop this happening?
Everyone keeps saying Labour have signed up hundreds of thousands of new members because of Corbyn, we all know they are pretty fanatical in their support of him, and I guess would do just about anything at all to see him become PM. So is it beyond the realms of possibilty that they could have signed up in recent weeks, which would partially explain the eye watering narrowing of the polls over such a short period of time?
Or are the public ready to embrace a completely different economic model that has been in place for the best part of 40 years?
I don't know, genuinely. Does anyone?
I have no doubt whatever that momentum will have considered gaming the polls.
For online polling, getting into the sample doesn't even require gaming: you just sign up. That puts you in the subset of the population from which the subsubset actually polled in any given poll is drawn. It also violates the first law of statistics, which is that your sample must be random. The only answer to that is that your subset is large enough and representative enough that your subsubset is almost as good as a random sample.
As to whether the subset is representative: why should it be? It is not just skewed to, but consists exclusively of, the sort of people who sign up to online polls; even if they aren't gamers they are quite likely as a class to differ in other ways from the norm.
As to size, I have seen a figure of approaching 1m for one online pollster. That looks big, but how many are active? I was a member once and found after a couple of goes that I have better things to do than answer questions about my likelihood of recommending Burger King to my friends. I don't think I resigned, I just stopped responding to emails, which I think have now stopped coming, but for a long time I was making the active membership look bigger than it actually was. The other point is that my impression is that the active PB commentariat tends to say "I have just done an online poll" more frequently than would happen if pollees were randomly selected from 1m. Of course giving "my impression" is a terrible way to do statistics.
No polling companies were named in the making of this post.
1: Most prior polls have had Others on 1% and so that is a rounding error away from 0%. 2: There are no "others" nowadays. UKIP, SNP and Greens are no longer considered Others on that list anymore when they used to be. There's only Plaid Cymru of the proper British parties that are left in the Others category and they're not going to get 1%
I'd expect other others to get 1.5%, individuals, English Democrats, women's equality etc ought to cobble together 1.5% of the overall vote.
Low levels of home ownership among the under 40s is easily the biggest threat to the Tory party. It's why I've always been so against private renting.
Osborne did at least take some steps to discourage more investment money going in to buy-to-let, but I think more needs to be done to turn the situation around.
Yes, the private landlords need to get hammered again and again until they give up.
It's an interesting thread and could be significant if indicative of wider thought on the far left. What he says about Labour centrists is particularly notable, given that just a few weeks back he was in the deselect them all camp.
He senses a shot at power, and Downing Street is "worth a mass".
I failed to predict Brexit or Trump, and I am now amazed by the Corbyn surge.
I think it's one part the kids facing a hopeless future in rentals and on zero hour contracts; one part a revivified hard left; and one part good old fashioned British love of the underdog.
And as the kids in the office would say, Corbyn clearly gives no shits, and that is invigorating compared with May's robo-speak. "Strong and stable" indeed! -- from the party that brought you Brexit, a collapse in the pound, multiple climb-downs and U-turns, government by Daily Mail headline, and BoJo in the Foreign Office.
May is playing us for fools, and Corbyn is right place, right message, right time.
Still completely expecting a safe Tory majority, though.
Theresa May is a very poor leader at a time when we need a very good one. The scary part is that Corbyn would be worse. Bring back Dave!
I agree with this whole heartedly. May is awful, and Corbyn is deranged. I am actually starting to worry a little even if the Tories hold on. May's not the PM I thought she would be, and Corbyn's apparent surge is proof of that.
I can't believe for one second Cameron and Osborne would have allowed that ludicrous Labour manifesto to have gone more or less completely unscrutinised. There wouldn't have been the social care fiasco either. And Cameron didn't even have to seriously try to eviscerate Corbyn at PMQs.
So depressing that someone as obscure and as mad as Corbyn could become our PM.
Indeed. And yet the LibDems can't get a look in. So add Farron to the line-up of let-downs and lunatics.
This is surely the lowest grade election ever. The choices are all poor at best, millions of people will be voting for the least bad option
Corbyn campaigning in that crucial marginal Hackney South. Brave.
But getting coverage nationwide.
Kicking a football about whilst the PM chairs emergency meetings about our security, whilst he is probed about blaming us for it all.
She would not be chairing emergency meetings if she had been doing her job for the last seven years.
That's one view. Of course Corbyn himself says that terror attacks will always get through and you can't prevent them all, although we apparently are to withdraw from the world and accept the murder of children as a consequence of how beastly everything is. And that it's our own fault anyway. He's a scumbag facilitator and he knows it.
She should have been getting on with the day job rather than scheming behind the scenes. .
C. Ruth Davidson.
Yes, if only she'd phoned the GM police and asked them for an update on that terrible Abedi person.
ONE of the SNP’s big donors has switched his financial support to the Conservatives over Brexit and the economy, the Herald can reveal.
Businessman Bill Samuel, who has given the SNP £60,000 over the past decade and who publicly backed a Yes vote in 2014, has now handed £10,000 to the Tories.
Mr Samuel, 74, said he switched allegiance because he feared Nicola Sturgeon’s government did not understand the way the economy worked and he also wanted Brexit to go well.
He said the SNP appeared to have passed its “apogee”, or highest point, adding: “It’s very sad in a way. What an opportunity that was, what an opportunity. It’s just so sad.”
LOL, £6K a year and given the SNP has millions a year, like you Scott these guys are not good with numbers. One old fart giving pennies will make little difference.
£ 6K a year as opposed to the £ 0.00 exiting your seldom seen wallet.
On Islam vs Islamism - I think it's a waste of time trying to create a firewall. How is moderate Islam to be described? Normative lslam? There are only different strands of Islam - one of which believes in the use of terrorist violence to change the modern world. If a fundamentalist christian was to blow up an abortion clinic in the US would people desist from calling them a christian? I wouldn't. It's absurd to think that violent actions can only come from a 'phoney' form of a religion. Throughout history violence and religious belief have often gone hand in hand. It's also absurd for non-believers to start lecturing others on what the true form of Christianity or Islam is. As an atheist by definition I don't believe there is such a thing.
As another atheist I suggest we have to face the world as it is, whilst working meanwhile for a better one. Trying to tar millions of innocent people with a very broad brush achieves nothing good and the downsides are obvious.
Despite Manchester we all recognise how much better our own security services have done than in France and Belgium, where the muslim communities are more marginalised and deprived than are ours. Two muslims previously phoned in to report Abedi as a potential risk; we need to make this sort of cross-community co-operation more rather than less likely.
It's not tarring them with a very broad brush. It's just absurd for people like us to be telling them that they are the true adherents of Islam because their version is more palatable to us. We should be encouraging Muslims not to see Islam a black and white and that critiquing strands of it is not to demonise them personally.
It's an interesting thread and could be significant if indicative of wider thought on the far left. What he says about Labour centrists is particularly notable, given that just a few weeks back he was in the deselect them all camp.
He senses a shot at power, and Downing Street is "worth a mass".
I failed to predict Brexit or Trump, and I am now amazed by the Corbyn surge.
I think it's one part the kids facing a hopeless future in rentals and on zero hour contracts; one part a revivified hard left; and one part good old fashioned British love of the underdog.
And as the kids in the office would say, Corbyn clearly gives no shits, and that is invigorating compared with May's robo-speak. "Strong and stable" indeed! -- from the party that brought you Brexit, a collapse in the pound, multiple climb-downs and U-turns, government by Daily Mail headline, and BoJo in the Foreign Office.
May is playing us for fools, and Corbyn is right place, right message, right time.
Still completely expecting a safe Tory majority, though.
Theresa May is a very poor leader at a time when we need a very good one. The scary part is that Corbyn would be worse. Bring back Dave!
I agree with this whole heartedly. May is awful, and Corbyn is deranged. I am actually starting to worry a little even if the Tories hold on. May's not the PM I thought she would be, and Corbyn's apparent surge is proof of that.
I can't believe for one second Cameron and Osborne would have allowed that ludicrous Labour manifesto to have gone more or less completely unscrutinised. There wouldn't have been the social care fiasco either. And Cameron didn't even have to seriously try to eviscerate Corbyn at PMQs.
So depressing that someone as obscure and as mad as Corbyn could become our PM.
Not doing the debates is starting to look like a major mistake. She could have countered some of Corbyn's proposals.
Low levels of home ownership among the under 40s is easily the biggest threat to the Tory party. It's why I've always been so against private renting.
Osborne did at least take some steps to discourage more investment money going in to buy-to-let, but I think more needs to be done to turn the situation around.
Yes, the private landlords need to get hammered again and again until they give up.
House prices are high because more people want houses, than there are houses available (within a given locale).
No, house prices are sky-high because the banks have been allowed to lend at such high levels. That's where the demand comes from. (There are other reasons for the very top bracket.)
On Islam vs Islamism - I think it's a waste of time trying to create a firewall. How is moderate Islam to be described? Normative lslam? There are only different strands of Islam - one of which believes in the use of terrorist violence to change the modern world. If a fundamentalist christian was to blow up an abortion clinic in the US would people desist from calling them a christian? I wouldn't. It's absurd to think that violent actions can only come from a 'phoney' form of a religion. Throughout history violence and religious belief have often gone hand in hand. It's also absurd for non-believers to start lecturing others on what the true form of Christianity or Islam is. As an atheist by definition I don't believe there is such a thing.
Except people/media do make a distinction between the religion and the person for other religions.
But now the middle aged are also deserting the Tories because even if the dementia tax is u turned on, the message can't be taken back: the Tories think the house you were expecting to inherit is fair gain.
Isn't that currently the case... unless you house is worth less than £23,250 ?
As I posted yesterday, all three of my kids are Corbynistas - much to their Dad's distress. My daughter even tried to put a Labour poster up in our front window. They feel - quite rightly - that things are not working right now, that well-paid jobs and leaving home, let alone owning their own places, are a pipedream. They see Brexit as the old messing things up for the young. The political establishment has let them down big time. And Corbyn is definitely not the political establishment. They will vote for him.
Why is a well paid job a pipe dream for your children? Or why do they think it is?
Indeed. We have full employment and I was talking to a friend who works in the railway infrastructure rolling stock maintenance business and they are desperate to find suitable staff. Huge amount of competition pushing up wages. He quoted one 21 year old girl earning £40k per year with bonuses etc added in. Everyone there at the time was amazed - but that is the real world
ie she is young and well paid and there are more jobs like it. In other words, SO and his children are talking bollocks
But then again all socialists just want money on a plate so they can piss it up the wall.
This anecdote is not representative. You don't understand the problem. Of course, some industries are an exception. I earned £31 k in my first year out of uni. Lots of my colleagues then, a decade later are on 100k plus. whole establishment has to be turned upside down. We may be the winners, but we are also a minority, so there is a lot to be scared of whatever happens in this election. I was talking to a colleague, he is in his twenties, multilingual and we have many of the same interests. He is on an apprentice contract earning a third of what I am earning, and he knows that it is going to end in October, with no certain future. You can turn your nose up at people like this if you want, but I think that would be quite foolish.
How will Corbyn help these people?
And - slightly different q - how precisely do these young voters think that Corbyn will help them? What's the logic?
Maybe we need a shambolic disaster of a left wing government every few decades just to stop it happening again until we all forget
It's just like a vote for Brexit. If you feel like you have nothing to lose, why not?
House prices are high because more people want houses, than there are houses available (within a given locale).
No, house prices are sky-high because the banks have been allowed to lend at such high levels. That's where the demand comes from. (There are other reasons for the very top bracket.)
And QE, and low interest rates, and our openness to overseas investors(/criminals), the very favourable financial and regulatory environment we allow landlords to operate within, and the relative unattractiveness of other investments.
It's an interesting thread and could be significant if indicative of wider thought on the far left. What he says about Labour centrists is particularly notable, given that just a few weeks back he was in the deselect them all camp.
He senses a shot at power, and Downing Street is "worth a mass".
I failed to predict Brexit or Trump, and I am now amazed by the Corbyn surge.
I think it's one part the kids facing a hopeless future in rentals and on zero hour contracts; one part a revivified hard left; and one part good old fashioned British love of the underdog.
And as the kids in the office would say, Corbyn clearly gives no shits, and that is invigorating compared with May's robo-speak. "Strong and stable" indeed! -- from the party that brought you Brexit, a collapse in the pound, multiple climb-downs and U-turns, government by Daily Mail headline, and BoJo in the Foreign Office.
May is playing us for fools, and Corbyn is right place, right message, right time.
Still completely expecting a safe Tory majority, though.
Theresa May is a very poor leader at a time when we need a very good one. The scary part is that Corbyn would be worse. Bring back Dave!
Theresa May's 'Best PM' ratings are better than Cameron's were.
It still doesn't mean she's good at the job. She's bungled the easiest election in post war history.
Well, technically, she's bungled the polls. We can't judge if she's bungled the election till it happens.
Even then, she hasn't really done that (yet) - typical shares of 41-42% before she called it are 43-44% now. Pending tonight's results, of course.
House prices are high because more people want houses, than there are houses available (within a given locale).
No, house prices are sky-high because the banks have been allowed to lend at such high levels. That's where the demand comes from. (There are other reasons for the very top bracket.)
I agree. I was a mortgage underwriter in years leading up to the crash and the amounts we were being permitted to lend were obscene. There will be an enormous crisis when interest rates rise.
Low levels of home ownership among the under 40s is easily the biggest threat to the Tory party. It's why I've always been so against private renting.
Its clearly hurting the Conservatives in London and to a lesser extent in other urban areas and in other parts of the south-east.
I don't think Cameron and Osborne ever understood this - they saw gentrification in Notting Hill and flash new apartment blocks (pre-sold to foreign investors) as the change in London.
But I don't think they knew (or were interested in) that the once Conservative voting home owning streets in middle suburbia were turning into BTL shitholes.
Influencing YouGov would have to be very well organised ahead of time. You'd have to get people to sign up progressively across a period of time, taking the trouble to fill in a fair few surveys about television viewing and petfood buying in order to establish a track record as reliable panel members, and when asked be sure to report your past voting behaviour as something other than Labour. Then they all wait patiently for an election to come along and for the instruction to change current voting intention to Labour.
Could it be done? Yes. Has it been done? Unlikely. And, besides, the effect would solely be to put Yougov out of line with other pollsters. Even of the online pollsters, Yougov is the only one that is relatively easy to sign up to.
I think we'll know this evening. If they're all out of line with YG, then YG has a problem. If not, fine.
House prices are high because more people want houses, than there are houses available (within a given locale).
No, house prices are sky-high because the banks have been allowed to lend at such high levels. That's where the demand comes from. (There are other reasons for the very top bracket.)
Cheap money + housing in certain metros becoming global asset class + planning legislation that has supported a oligopolistic house building industry + collapse in social housing + immigration.
But now the middle aged are also deserting the Tories because even if the dementia tax is u turned on, the message can't be taken back: the Tories think the house you were expecting to inherit is fair gain.
Isn't that currently the case... unless you house is worth less than £23,250 ?
And does anyone seriously think that a Corbyn government wouldn't tax inheritance to the hilt?
Corbyn campaigning in that crucial marginal Hackney South. Brave.
But getting coverage nationwide.
Kicking a football about whilst the PM chairs emergency meetings about our security, whilst he is probed about blaming us for it all.
She would not be chairing emergency meetings if she had been doing her job for the last seven years.
That's one view. Of course Corbyn himself says that terror attacks will always get through and you can't prevent them all, although we apparently are to withdraw from the world and accept the murder of children as a consequence of how beastly everything is. And that it's our own fault anyway. He's a scumbag facilitator and he knows it.
She should have been getting on with the day job rather than scheming behind the scenes. .
C. Ruth Davidson.
Yes, if only she'd phoned the GM police and asked them for an update on that terrible Abedi person.
Low levels of home ownership among the under 40s is easily the biggest threat to the Tory party. It's why I've always been so against private renting.
I have never quite followed this arguement. House prices are high because more people want houses, than there are houses available (within a given locale). Stopping private renting doesnt increase the supply of houses. At best you have the same number of houses with the same number of people chasing them, they are just all owners this time, which the less well off being squeezed out to cheaper areas.
If you are a 25 year old in the South East on 25k a year you wont be able to get an mortgage on anything, so you rent (probably with friends) or live at home. If all the rents are stopped and a lot of rental properties go on the market the prices will drop a bit, but not for long given the demand in the South East, and the price drop wont put them in reach of the 25 year old in anycase, so now they have to live at home if they can, or move out the area to somewhere cheaper, which wont make them very happy.
Surely that answer is to build a (lot) more houses, or reduce the demand, which practically means stopping enough people to fill a city the size of Sheffield arriving every couple of years.
Not really, there's no shortage of housing stock, there is a shortage of housing available for sale. A transfer of ownership from landlords to owner occupiers is what we need in this country. A value tax on second property ownership is a very simple fix that will chase landlords out and lower prices enough to make a difference. It shouldn't be necessary for someone or a household to earn six figures to buy a house in London.
Won't the landlords just put the rent up?
Here's the dilemma you have to solve: my wife and I rent a house and have never been in rent arrears. We can afford the amount we're spending on it. The mortgage on it, were we to buy it, would be less than we are paying in rent. But no bank will give us a mortgage to buy it.
Influencing YouGov would have to be very well organised ahead of time. You'd have to get people to sign up progressively across a period of time, taking the trouble to fill in a fair few surveys about television viewing and petfood buying in order to establish a track record as reliable panel members, and when asked be sure to report your past voting behaviour as something other than Labour. Then they all wait patiently for an election to come along and for the instruction to change current voting intention to Labour.
Could it be done? Yes. Has it been done? Unlikely. And, besides, the effect would solely be to put Yougov out of line with other pollsters. Even of the online pollsters, Yougov is the only one that is relatively easy to sign up to.
I think we'll know this evening. If they're all out of line with YG, then YG has a problem. If not, fine.
What does your nose tell you Nick? 8%, lower or rising?
Corbyn campaigning in that crucial marginal Hackney South. Brave.
But getting coverage nationwide.
Kicking a football about whilst the PM chairs emergency meetings about our security, whilst he is probed about blaming us for it all.
She would not be chairing emergency meetings if she had been doing her job for the last seven years.
That's one view. Of course Corbyn himself says that terror attacks will always get through and you can't prevent them all, although we apparently are to withdraw from the world and accept the murder of children as a consequence of how beastly everything is. And that it's our own fault anyway. He's a scumbag facilitator and he knows it.
She should have been getting on with the day job rather than scheming behind the scenes. .
C. Ruth Davidson.
Yes, if only she'd phoned the GM police and asked them for an update on that terrible Abedi person.
A lot less GM police than there were 7 years ago.
A horrendous post. It's "fewer" not "less"
That is bad, but surely the whole idea of genetically modified policemen is even worse?
It's an interesting thread and could be significant if indicative of wider thought on the far left. What he says about Labour centrists is particularly notable, given that just a few weeks back he was in the deselect them all camp.
He senses a shot at power, and Downing Street is "worth a mass".
I failed to predict Brexit or Trump, and I am now amazed by the Corbyn surge.
I think it's one part the kids facing a hopeless future in rentals and on zero hour contracts; one part a revivified hard left; and one part good old fashioned British love of the underdog.
And as the kids in the office would say, Corbyn clearly gives no shits, and that is invigorating compared with May's robo-speak. "Strong and stable" indeed! -- from the party that brought you Brexit, a collapse in the pound, multiple climb-downs and U-turns, government by Daily Mail headline, and BoJo in the Foreign Office.
May is playing us for fools, and Corbyn is right place, right message, right time.
Still completely expecting a safe Tory majority, though.
Theresa May is a very poor leader at a time when we need a very good one. The scary part is that Corbyn would be worse. Bring back Dave!
Theresa May's 'Best PM' ratings are better than Cameron's were.
It still doesn't mean she's good at the job. She's bungled the easiest election in post war history.
Well, technically, she's bungled the polls. We can't judge if she's bungled the election till it happens.
Even then, she hasn't really done that (yet) - typical shares of 41-42% before she called it are 43-44% now. Pending tonight's results, of course.
She's the Grey Woman. She'll do better than currently expected against Corbyn ( 1992 scenario ) but it's essential that she's removed before she can lead her party to a 1997-like disaster.
Low levels of home ownership among the under 40s is easily the biggest threat to the Tory party. It's why I've always been so against private renting.
Its clearly hurting the Conservatives in London and to a lesser extent in other urban areas and in other parts of the south-east.
I don't think Cameron and Osborne ever understood this - they saw gentrification in Notting Hill and flash new apartment blocks (pre-sold to foreign investors) as the change in London.
But I don't think they knew (or were interested in) that the once Conservative voting home owning streets in middle suburbia were turning into BTL shitholes.
A high proportion of the BTLs in London are ex-council houses. We now have this ridiculous situation:
House prices are high because more people want houses, than there are houses available (within a given locale).
No, house prices are sky-high because the banks have been allowed to lend at such high levels. That's where the demand comes from. (There are other reasons for the very top bracket.)
I agree. I was a mortgage underwriter in years leading up to the crash and the amounts we were being permitted to lend were obscene. There will be an enormous crisis when interest rates rise.
It's an interesting thread and could be significant if indicative of wider thought on the far left. What he says about Labour centrists is particularly notable, given that just a few weeks back he was in the deselect them all camp.
Theresa May is a very poor leader at a time when we need a very good one. The scary part is that Corbyn would be worse. Bring back Dave!
I agree with this whole heartedly. May is awful, and Corbyn is deranged. I am actually starting to worry a little even if the Tories hold on. May's not the PM I thought she would be, and Corbyn's apparent surge is proof of that.
I can't believe for one second Cameron and Osborne would have allowed that ludicrous Labour manifesto to have gone more or less completely unscrutinised. There wouldn't have been the social care fiasco either. And Cameron didn't even have to seriously try to eviscerate Corbyn at PMQs.
So depressing that someone as obscure and as mad as Corbyn could become our PM.
Indeed. And yet the LibDems can't get a look in. So add Farron to the line-up of let-downs and lunatics.
Farron is actually the worst of all of them. He'd make a worse PM than Corbyn, and I did not ever think that could be possible.
But here's where I am now - I have to, with great reluctance, concede that this poll surge is real. Corbyn on 38% with a respected polling organisation. That's 3% more than what Blair got in 2005, more than what Cameron got in both 2010 and 2015, and just 2% behind - yes, 2% - what Blair got in the 2001 landlside.
It's a perfect storm for May and the Tories. The social care fiasco. A dull, mind numbing manifesto that gives nothing and takes plenty. Massive publicity (mainly positive) for Labour's fantasy manifesto - over a whole week. Corbyn's past associations don't seem to be hurting him (and they should be).
Corbyn now has a real and viable chance of being our PM, not in a majority, but most seats in a hung parliament, with Nicola as deputy PM.
That's where we are, it makes me sick to say it, but I cannot ignore what the polls have been saying (all of them) - a remarkable and sustained narrowing of the polls. And no, not a meltdown, an acceptance of what the reailty could very well be on June 9th.
House prices are high because more people want houses, than there are houses available (within a given locale).
No, house prices are sky-high because the banks have been allowed to lend at such high levels. That's where the demand comes from. (There are other reasons for the very top bracket.)
I agree. I was a mortgage underwriter in years leading up to the crash and the amounts we were being permitted to lend were obscene. There will be an enormous crisis when interest rates rise.
Which will be followed by people blaming the government and demanding compensation.
Influencing YouGov would have to be very well organised ahead of time. You'd have to get people to sign up progressively across a period of time, taking the trouble to fill in a fair few surveys about television viewing and petfood buying in order to establish a track record as reliable panel members, and when asked be sure to report your past voting behaviour as something other than Labour. Then they all wait patiently for an election to come along and for the instruction to change current voting intention to Labour.
Could it be done? Yes. Has it been done? Unlikely. And, besides, the effect would solely be to put Yougov out of line with other pollsters. Even of the online pollsters, Yougov is the only one that is relatively easy to sign up to.
I think we'll know this evening. If they're all out of line with YG, then YG has a problem. If not, fine.
It's not necessarily a YouGov 'problem' either - properly conducted polls should have one duff one every twenty or so, according to Nate Silver - its when they're all 'fine' you should start to worry.....
House prices are high because more people want houses, than there are houses available (within a given locale).
No, house prices are sky-high because the banks have been allowed to lend at such high levels. That's where the demand comes from. (There are other reasons for the very top bracket.)
I agree. I was a mortgage underwriter in years leading up to the crash and the amounts we were being permitted to lend were obscene. There will be an enormous crisis when interest rates rise.
Which is why the won't rise perhaps?
Indeed I anticipate the opposite - inflation rising above interest rates such that real rates become negative. How else is the debt crisis going to be resolved without another collapse?
House prices are high because more people want houses, than there are houses available (within a given locale).
No, house prices are sky-high because the banks have been allowed to lend at such high levels. That's where the demand comes from. (There are other reasons for the very top bracket.)
I agree. I was a mortgage underwriter in years leading up to the crash and the amounts we were being permitted to lend were obscene. There will be an enormous crisis when interest rates rise.
Which is why the won't rise perhaps?
Which itself causes strain on the economy and is a weakening dam holding back the flood waters, It's a mess
Having just watched Corbyn in his interview with Andrew Neil on catch-up I suspect what will eventually sink him will be a continued lack of traction amongst the over 50's however much Theresa May tries to shoot herself in the foot over social care etc. Contrary to some slightly rose-tinted reports on here I think he came across really quite badly. With 1800 dead the IRA weren't exactly some cuddlier version of Islamic State and the man was happily fraternising with their spokesmen. Too many recall bombing outrages like the one in Deal in 1989 which "was carried out on a ceremonial military band whose only military training was geared towards saving lives. The public were also shocked by the ages of those killed, as many were new recruits to the School and most of those injured were teenagers."
Just spent the morning bundling the latest leaflets with a group of LibDems. All of them had watched the Andrew Neil interview. None of them like Corbyn but all of them felt that Andrew Neil really helped Corbyn yesterday with his bullying manner and Corbyn's calmness under fire. My wife, who hates Corbyn with a passion for some reason, reacted in the same way as she watched the interview last evening.
The rose-tinted reports you refer to may be from those that thought he came across really quite badly. Just saying.
Low levels of home ownership among the under 40s is easily the biggest threat to the Tory party. It's why I've always been so against private renting.
Its clearly hurting the Conservatives in London and to a lesser extent in other urban areas and in other parts of the south-east.
I don't think Cameron and Osborne ever understood this - they saw gentrification in Notting Hill and flash new apartment blocks (pre-sold to foreign investors) as the change in London.
But I don't think they knew (or were interested in) that the once Conservative voting home owning streets in middle suburbia were turning into BTL shitholes.
A high proportion of the BTLs in London are ex-council houses. We now have this ridiculous situation:
I can't get that one but I was very struck by an FT piece from a month back about local councils turning themselves into property investors in order to deal with spending cuts. The whole thing felt alarming and rather sad.
As I posted yesterday, all three of my kids are Corbynistas - much to their Dad's distress. My daughter even tried to put a Labour poster up in our front window. They feel - quite rightly - that things are not working right now, that well-paid jobs and leaving home, let alone owning their own places, are a pipedream. They see Brexit as the old messing things up for the young. The political establishment has let them down big time. And Corbyn is definitely not the political establishment. They will vote for him.
Why is a well paid job a pipe dream for your children? Or why do they think it is?
A well-pad job that puts them on the property ladder or even gives them the freedom to rent and save a bit of money at the same time. There are not many of them around. I earned more at his age in the early 90s (£15,000 pa) than he does now (£12,000 pa). If there are loads of opportunities, they just don't see them. I have told all three of mine that they are better off working for themselves and building something, and that is what my eldest is now trying to do. But it involves doing a lot of stuff for free in his spare time and trying to create a brand. It'll pay off and he will be fine, but when you are doing it on top of a poorly paid, boring job, and having to live at home with a mountain of debt on your head things do not always look great. The young lack experience and context, as we all know; but from where I sit it seems to me that I had it a whole lot easier than my three do now.
Hmm. It is and has always been difficult. Bright children of bright parents should be able to target a good job.
I don't want to dwell on your children but there are plenty of professions that will put well educated people on six figure salaries after five or ten years if they work hard.
My kids will be fine. They just don't know that yet.
You've probably already thought of this but don't you have any connections?
Low levels of home ownership among the under 40s is easily the biggest threat to the Tory party. It's why I've always been so against private renting.
Its clearly hurting the Conservatives in London and to a lesser extent in other urban areas and in other parts of the south-east.
I don't think Cameron and Osborne ever understood this - they saw gentrification in Notting Hill and flash new apartment blocks (pre-sold to foreign investors) as the change in London.
But I don't think they knew (or were interested in) that the once Conservative voting home owning streets in middle suburbia were turning into BTL shitholes.
A high proportion of the BTLs in London are ex-council houses. We now have this ridiculous situation:
But now the middle aged are also deserting the Tories because even if the dementia tax is u turned on, the message can't be taken back: the Tories think the house you were expecting to inherit is fair gain.
Isn't that currently the case... unless you house is worth less than £23,250 ?
And does anyone seriously think that a Corbyn government wouldn't tax inheritance to the hilt?
The big difference from today's situation to the new one, is that your house will be classed as an asset to be considered when you have social care in your own home as well. Currently, it only happens when you go into residential care.
The issue for May is that she has awakened people to the current situation. They were oblivious in the main. And then she has added an additional worry. Many, many elderly need some level of social care at home, they will now all be running an account on their houses as soon as they call the social services in.
The final twist is that there were rumours that this would all be managed as some kind of equity release scheme by private insurers and banks.
If you tell people they are going to lose control of their home, you better make sure you have prepared your case very, very well and in soften people up in advance.
It was a omnishambles of a policy launch that makes Osborne look like Bismark.
1: Most prior polls have had Others on 1% and so that is a rounding error away from 0%. 2: There are no "others" nowadays. UKIP, SNP and Greens are no longer considered Others on that list anymore when they used to be. There's only Plaid Cymru of the proper British parties that are left in the Others category and they're not going to get 1%
I'd expect other others to get 1.5%, individuals, English Democrats, women's equality etc ought to cobble together 1.5% of the overall vote.
1.4% last time, I believe. Do YG, when they ask by specific candidates in the appropriate seat, treat Bercow as an Other? He'll be over 0.1% on his own (0.115% last time).
House prices are high because more people want houses, than there are houses available (within a given locale).
No, house prices are sky-high because the banks have been allowed to lend at such high levels. That's where the demand comes from. (There are other reasons for the very top bracket.)
I agree. I was a mortgage underwriter in years leading up to the crash and the amounts we were being permitted to lend were obscene. There will be an enormous crisis when interest rates rise.
Which will be followed by people blaming the government and demanding compensation.
Yes. It will be why didn't they stop the bank lending me so much money? It's not my fault I borrowed 6 times my salary to buy a shoe box. It will make PPI look like child's play.
Theresa May is a very poor leader at a time when we need a very good one. The scary part is that Corbyn would be worse. Bring back Dave!
I agree with this whole heartedly. May is awful, and Corbyn is deranged. I am actually starting to worry a little even if the Tories hold on. May's not the PM I thought she would be, and Corbyn's apparent surge is proof of that.
I can't believe for one second Cameron and Osborne would have allowed that ludicrous Labour manifesto to have gone more or less completely unscrutinised. There wouldn't have been the social care fiasco either. And Cameron didn't even have to seriously try to eviscerate Corbyn at PMQs.
So depressing that someone as obscure and as mad as Corbyn could become our PM.
Indeed. And yet the LibDems can't get a look in. So add Farron to the line-up of let-downs and lunatics.
But here's where I am now - I have to, with great reluctance, concede that this poll surge is real. Corbyn on 38% with a respected polling organisation. That's 3% more than what Blair got in 2005, more than what Cameron got in both 2010 and 2015, and just 2% behind - yes, 2% - what Blair got in the 2001 landlside.
It's a perfect storm for May and the Tories. The social care fiasco. A dull, mind numbing manifesto that gives nothing and takes plenty. Massive publicity (mainly positive) for Labour's fantasy manifesto - over a whole week. Corbyn's past associations don't seem to be hurting him (and they should be).
Corbyn now has a real and viable chance of being our PM, not in a majority, but most seats in a hung parliament, with Nicola as deputy PM.
That's where we are, it makes me sick to say it, but I cannot ignore what the polls have been saying (all of them) - a remarkable and sustained narrowing of the polls. And no, not a meltdown, an acceptance of what the reailty could very well be on June 9th.
You are sounding worse than SeanT! Perhaps you are placing too much store on YouGov as a pollster. Given it's recent track record I would say it was drinking in pollsters' last chance saloon.
On Islam vs Islamism - I think it's a waste of time trying to create a firewall. How is moderate Islam to be described? Normative lslam? There are only different strands of Islam - one of which believes in the use of terrorist violence to change the modern world. If a fundamentalist christian was to blow up an abortion clinic in the US would people desist from calling them a christian? I wouldn't. It's absurd to think that violent actions can only come from a 'phoney' form of a religion. Throughout history violence and religious belief have often gone hand in hand. It's also absurd for non-believers to start lecturing others on what the true form of Christianity or Islam is. As an atheist by definition I don't believe there is such a thing.
As another atheist I suggest we have to face the world as it is, whilst working meanwhile for a better one. Trying to tar millions of innocent people with a very broad brush achieves nothing good and the downsides are obvious.
Despite Manchester we all recognise how much better our own security services have done than in France and Belgium, where the muslim communities are more marginalised and deprived than are ours. Two muslims previously phoned in to report Abedi as a potential risk; we need to make this sort of cross-community co-operation more rather than less likely.
I'm an atheist too and think all religion is quite strange and sometimes harmful, but I think we need to make a distinction between things we think are a bit odd/distateful/outdated and actually going out and murdering people. The generalised anti-Muslim agenda promoted by UKIP et al is at best a distraction and at worse promotes the "us and them" mentality that ISIS really wants.
People willing to consider murder are a tiny minority even among the most devoted religious groups. ISIS is dangeous because, like the Nazis, it gives an official structure to encourage murderers, not because they're very Muslim. If a group formally organised fanatical Christians to blow up abortion clinics, that would not be a good reason to crack down on Christianity.
For online polling, getting into the sample doesn't even require gaming: you just sign up. That puts you in the subset of the population from which the subsubset actually polled in any given poll is drawn. It also violates the first law of statistics, which is that your sample must be random. The only answer to that is that your subset is large enough and representative enough that your subsubset is almost as good as a random sample.
I agree with pretty much all you said in this post, except I am a little dubious about the above. In order for your subset to even approach the utility of a random sample it has to be derived from the self-selected sample in a way that makes it something approaching a representative subset.
I am far from convinced that all the magic around past vote weighting and socioeconomic status cuts the mustard, when the sample will be conspiciously distorted along lines (such as political engagement) that cannot be weighted for.
This leaves aside the question of whether people (and especially politically engaged people) tell pollsters the truth, rather than using the poll as a way to send a cost free message to politicians and parties that doesnt risk getting someone they don't want elected.
House prices are high because more people want houses, than there are houses available (within a given locale).
No, house prices are sky-high because the banks have been allowed to lend at such high levels. That's where the demand comes from. (There are other reasons for the very top bracket.)
I agree. I was a mortgage underwriter in years leading up to the crash and the amounts we were being permitted to lend were obscene. There will be an enormous crisis when interest rates rise.
Which will be followed by people blaming the government and demanding compensation.
Yes. It will be why didn't they stop the bank lending me so much money? It's not my fault I borrowed 6 times my salary to buy a shoe box. It will make PPI look like child's play.
And I rather fear they will get compensation.
I really suspect that I made a mistake in being sensible financially instead of following the course of stupidity and profligacy and then receiving compensation.
Interest Only Mortgages will be another "I blame the government and demand compensation."
Farron is actually the worst of all of them. He'd make a worse PM than Corbyn, and I did not ever think that could be possible.
But here's where I am now - I have to, with great reluctance, concede that this poll surge is real. Corbyn on 38% with a respected polling organisation. That's 3% more than what Blair got in 2005, more than what Cameron got in both 2010 and 2015, and just 2% behind - yes, 2% - what Blair got in the 2001 landlside.
It's a perfect storm for May and the Tories. The social care fiasco. A dull, mind numbing manifesto that gives nothing and takes plenty. Massive publicity (mainly positive) for Labour's fantasy manifesto - over a whole week. Corbyn's past associations don't seem to be hurting him (and they should be).
Corbyn now has a real and viable chance of being our PM, not in a majority, but most seats in a hung parliament, with Nicola as deputy PM.
That's where we are, it makes me sick to say it, but I cannot ignore what the polls have been saying (all of them) - a remarkable and sustained narrowing of the polls. And no, not a meltdown, an acceptance of what the reailty could very well be on June 9th.
Calm down, Jason.
Remember Bob Worcester's election mantra:
Look at the share, not the lead. Look at the share, not the lead. Look at the share, not the lead. Look at the share, not the lead.
The giveaway in your panic is you're suggesting somebody who isn't even a candidate at the election might be deputy PM.
Low levels of home ownership among the under 40s is easily the biggest threat to the Tory party. It's why I've always been so against private renting.
Osborne did at least take some steps to discourage more investment money going in to buy-to-let, but I think more needs to be done to turn the situation around.
Yes, the private landlords need to get hammered again and again until they give up.
We need to go much further than that and crash the btl market completely. It is a parasitical entity in our nation.
I think that would be politically "courageous" especially for the Tories, aside from losing the next election they would tie the courts up for years. Better to slowly (but not too slowly) whittle away at it.
As an side, the tourism business would be incandescent, no holiday lets near the seaside would also push places like Clacton even deeper into being "left behind"
Corbyn campaigning in that crucial marginal Hackney South. Brave.
But getting coverage nationwide.
Kicking a football about whilst the PM chairs emergency meetings about our security, whilst he is probed about blaming us for it all.
She would not be chairing emergency meetings if she had been doing her job for the last seven years.
That's one view. Of course Corbyn himself says that terror attacks will always get through and you can't prevent them all, although we apparently are to withdraw from the world and accept the murder of children as a consequence of how beastly everything is. And that it's our own fault anyway. He's a scumbag facilitator and he knows it.
She should have been getting on with the day job rather than scheming behind the scenes. .
C. Ruth Davidson.
Yes, if only she'd phoned the GM police and asked them for an update on that terrible Abedi person.
A lot less GM police than there were 7 years ago.
A horrendous post. It's "fewer" not "less"
Alfred the Great used less rather than fewer so you can stick our grammatical perscriptivisim where the sun don't shine.
It's an interesting thread and could be significant if indicative of wider thought on the far left. What he says about Labour centrists is particularly notable, given that just a few weeks back he was in the deselect them all camp.
Theresa May is a very poor leader at a time when we need a very good one. The scary part is that Corbyn would be worse. Bring back Dave!
I agree with this whole heartedly. May is awful, and Corbyn is deranged. I am actually starting to worry a little even if the Tories hold on. May's not the PM I thought she would be, and Corbyn's apparent surge is proof of that.
I can't believe for one second Cameron and Osborne would have allowed that ludicrous Labour manifesto to have gone more or less completely unscrutinised. There wouldn't have been the social care fiasco either. And Cameron didn't even have to seriously try to eviscerate Corbyn at PMQs.
So depressing that someone as obscure and as mad as Corbyn could become our PM.
Indeed. And yet the LibDems can't get a look in. So add Farron to the line-up of let-downs and lunatics.
Farron is actually the worst of all of them. He'd make a worse PM than Corbyn, and I did not ever think that could be possible.
snip
It's a perfect storm for May and the Tories. The social care fiasco. A dull, mind numbing manifesto that gives nothing and takes plenty. Massive publicity (mainly positive) for Labour's fantasy manifesto - over a whole week. Corbyn's past associations don't seem to be hurting him (and they should be).
Corbyn now has a real and viable chance of being our PM, not in a majority, but most seats in a hung parliament, with Nicola as deputy PM.
That's where we are, it makes me sick to say it, but I cannot ignore what the polls have been saying (all of them) - a remarkable and sustained narrowing of the polls. And no, not a meltdown, an acceptance of what the reailty could very well be on June 9th.
I suggest you follow my example and start hedging with some bets on Labour and NOM.
I would say the reverse side of a certain Tory over-triumphalism and over-confidence leading up to the poll is some of the excessive panic being shown on here. I would say to some Tories not to worry so much, because despite not wanting you to win, I think you will.
Farron is actually the worst of all of them. He'd make a worse PM than Corbyn, and I did not ever think that could be possible.
But here's where I am now - I have to, with great reluctance, concede that this poll surge is real. Corbyn on 38% with a respected polling organisation. That's 3% more than what Blair got in 2005, more than what Cameron got in both 2010 and 2015, and just 2% behind - yes, 2% - what Blair got in the 2001 landlside.
It's a perfect storm for May and the Tories. The social care fiasco. A dull, mind numbing manifesto that gives nothing and takes plenty. Massive publicity (mainly positive) for Labour's fantasy manifesto - over a whole week. Corbyn's past associations don't seem to be hurting him (and they should be).
Corbyn now has a real and viable chance of being our PM, not in a majority, but most seats in a hung parliament, with Nicola as deputy PM.
That's where we are, it makes me sick to say it, but I cannot ignore what the polls have been saying (all of them) - a remarkable and sustained narrowing of the polls. And no, not a meltdown, an acceptance of what the reailty could very well be on June 9th.
Calm down, Jason.
Remember Bob Worcester's election mantra:
Look at the share, not the lead. Look at the share, not the lead. Look at the share, not the lead. Look at the share, not the lead.
The giveaway in your panic is you're suggesting somebody who isn't even a candidate at the election might be deputy PM.
Wouldn't it be possible for Sturgeon to become deputy PM?
By the way, stating 'look at the share, not the lead' four times also implies a whiff of panic.
IDS of all people just gave the first reasonable defence of the social care proposals I've heard. Too late really but they do appear to have their lines on it now.
Has Corbyn fallen into the same trap with security that may did with social care? I,E. Feeling strongly on it but making the point at totally the wrong time electorally?
I would say the reverse side of a certain Tory over-triumphalism and over-confidence leading up to the poll is some of the excessive panic being shown on here. I would say to some Tories not to worry so much, because despite not wanting you to win, I think you will.
At the last GE Dan Hodges tweeted to the effect. The General Election is called. The Tory lead dramatically narrows. The Tories panic. The Tories win. The End.
House prices are high because more people want houses, than there are houses available (within a given locale).
No, house prices are sky-high because the banks have been allowed to lend at such high levels. That's where the demand comes from. (There are other reasons for the very top bracket.)
I agree. I was a mortgage underwriter in years leading up to the crash and the amounts we were being permitted to lend were obscene. There will be an enormous crisis when interest rates rise.
Which is why the won't rise perhaps?
Indeed I anticipate the opposite - inflation rising above interest rates such that real rates become negative. How else is the debt crisis going to be resolved without another collapse?
I think BTL was a long-term unintended consequnce of the modern (since the 80's) obsession with low inflation. This drove down the yield on bonds and then stocks so investors looked elsewhere for higher yielding investments - residential property. and they were happy to invest in this at higher and higher prices until the yields became closer to the that of bonds/stocks etc.
unwinding this in a hurry would be very painful but could be done over a generation maybe.
As I posted yesterday, all three of my kids are Corbynistas - much to their Dad's distress. My daughter even tried to put a Labour poster up in our front window. They feel - quite rightly - that things are not working right now, that well-paid jobs and leaving home, let alone owning their own places, are a pipedream. They see Brexit as the old messing things up for the young. The political establishment has let them down big time. And Corbyn is definitely not the political establishment. They will vote for him.
Why is a well paid job a pipe dream for your children? Or why do they think it is?
Indeed. We have full employment and I was talking to a friend who works in the railway infrastructure rolling stock maintenance business and they are desperate to find suitable staff. Huge amount of competition pushing up wages. He quoted one 21 year old girl earning £40k per year with bonuses etc added in. Everyone there at the time was amazed - but that is the real world
ie she is young and well paid and there are more jobs like it. In other words, SO and his children are talking bollocks
But then again all socialists just want money on a plate so they can piss it up the wall.
This anecdote is not representative. You don't understand the problem. Of course, some industries are an exception. snip You can turn your nose up at people like this if you want, but I think that would be quite foolish.
How will Corbyn help these people?
And - slightly different q - how precisely do these young voters think that Corbyn will help them? What's the logic?
Maybe we need a shambolic disaster of a left wing government every few decades just to stop it happening again until we all forget
It might help them in the short term. As I said before, its what comes next that worries me, inevitably you would get an emboldened right wing opposition pledging to sort out the inevitable hyperinflation and union militancy. But what we had pre Brexit was a situation where government nor opposition wouldn't do anything to help these people, would not intervene in the market due to its entrenched free market dogma. The extent of intervention was to bribe potential tory voters with free money in the form of help to buy. Corbyn and brexit changed all that
On Islam vs Islamism - I think it's a waste of time trying to create a firewall. How is moderate Islam to be described? Normative lslam? There are only different strands of Islam - one of which believes in the use of terrorist violence to change the modern world. If a fundamentalist christian was to blow up an abortion clinic in the US would people desist from calling them a christian? I wouldn't. It's absurd to think that violent actions can only come from a 'phoney' form of a religion. Throughout history violence and religious belief have often gone hand in hand. It's also absurd for non-believers to start lecturing others on what the true form of Christianity or Islam is. As an atheist by definition I don't believe there is such a thing.
As another atheist I suggest we have to face the world as it is, whilst working meanwhile for a better one. Trying to tar millions of innocent people with a very broad brush achieves nothing good and the downsides are obvious.
Despite Manchester we all recognise how much better our own security services have done than in France and Belgium, where the muslim communities are more marginalised and deprived than are ours. Two muslims previously phoned in to report Abedi as a potential risk; we need to make this sort of cross-community co-operation more rather than less likely.
I'm an atheist too and think all religion is quite strange and sometimes harmful, but I think we need to make a distinction between things we think are a bit odd/distateful/outdated and actually going out and murdering people. The generalised anti-Muslim agenda promoted by UKIP et al is at best a distraction and at worse promotes the "us and them" mentality that ISIS really wants.
People willing to consider murder are a tiny minority even among the most devoted religious groups. ISIS is dangeous because, like the Nazis, it gives an official structure to encourage murderers, not because they're very Muslim. If a group formally organised fanatical Christians to blow up abortion clinics, that would not be a good reason to crack down on Christianity.
It must have been tough for you to support that weird Jesus freak Blair in all his murderous adventures.
Farron is actually the worst of all of them. He'd make a worse PM than Corbyn, and I did not ever think that could be possible.
But here's where I am now - I have to, with great reluctance, concede that this poll surge is real. Corbyn on 38% with a respected polling organisation. That's 3% more than what Blair got in 2005, more than what Cameron got in both 2010 and 2015, and just 2% behind - yes, 2% - what Blair got in the 2001 landlside.
It's a perfect storm for May and the Tories. The social care fiasco. A dull, mind numbing manifesto that gives nothing and takes plenty. Massive publicity (mainly positive) for Labour's fantasy manifesto - over a whole week. Corbyn's past associations don't seem to be hurting him (and they should be).
Corbyn now has a real and viable chance of being our PM, not in a majority, but most seats in a hung parliament, with Nicola as deputy PM.
That's where we are, it makes me sick to say it, but I cannot ignore what the polls have been saying (all of them) - a remarkable and sustained narrowing of the polls. And no, not a meltdown, an acceptance of what the reailty could very well be on June 9th.
Calm down, Jason.
Remember Bob Worcester's election mantra:
Look at the share, not the lead. Look at the share, not the lead. Look at the share, not the lead. Look at the share, not the lead.
The giveaway in your panic is you're suggesting somebody who isn't even a candidate at the election might be deputy PM.
Wouldn't it be possible for Sturgeon to become deputy PM?
By the way, stating 'look at the share, not the lead' four times also implies a whiff of panic.
I can't see how, not being in the Commons.
I'm repeating the mantra an increasing number of times to try to cut through the panic from PB Tories who can't (or won't) see that a Tory share of 43-44% leads to a comfortable majority in any conceivable set of circumstances.
House prices are high because more people want houses, than there are houses available (within a given locale).
No, house prices are sky-high because the banks have been allowed to lend at such high levels. That's where the demand comes from. (There are other reasons for the very top bracket.)
I agree. I was a mortgage underwriter in years leading up to the crash and the amounts we were being permitted to lend were obscene. There will be an enormous crisis when interest rates rise.
Which will be followed by people blaming the government and demanding compensation.
Yes. It will be why didn't they stop the bank lending me so much money? It's not my fault I borrowed 6 times my salary to buy a shoe box. It will make PPI look like child's play.
And I rather fear they will get compensation.
I really suspect that I made a mistake in being sensible financially instead of following the course of stupidity and profligacy and then receiving compensation.
Interest Only Mortgages will be another "I blame the government and demand compensation."
They will, and the banks will respond by blaming the staff that followed their guidelines and slash numbers once again. My inner Marxist is tingling.
But now the middle aged are also deserting the Tories because even if the dementia tax is u turned on, the message can't be taken back: the Tories think the house you were expecting to inherit is fair gain.
Isn't that currently the case... unless you house is worth less than £23,250 ?
And does anyone seriously think that a Corbyn government wouldn't tax inheritance to the hilt?
The big difference from today's situation to the new one, is that your house will be classed as an asset to be considered when you have social care in your own home as well. Currently, it only happens when you go into residential care.
The issue for May is that she has awakened people to the current situation. They were oblivious in the main. And then she has added an additional worry. Many, many elderly need some level of social care at home, they will now all be running an account on their houses as soon as they call the social services in.
The final twist is that there were rumours that this would all be managed as some kind of equity release scheme by private insurers and banks.
If you tell people they are going to lose control of their home, you better make sure you have prepared your case very, very well and in soften people up in advance.
It was a omnishambles of a policy launch that makes Osborne look like Bismark.
Influencing YouGov would have to be very well organised ahead of time. You'd have to get people to sign up progressively across a period of time, taking the trouble to fill in a fair few surveys about television viewing and petfood buying in order to establish a track record as reliable panel members, and when asked be sure to report your past voting behaviour as something other than Labour. Then they all wait patiently for an election to come along and for the instruction to change current voting intention to Labour.
Could it be done? Yes. Has it been done? Unlikely. And, besides, the effect would solely be to put Yougov out of line with other pollsters. Even of the online pollsters, Yougov is the only one that is relatively easy to sign up to.
I think we'll know this evening. If they're all out of line with YG, then YG has a problem. If not, fine.
What does your nose tell you Nick? 8%, lower or rising?
I'm mentally preparing myself for double-digit Tory leads tonight.
As I posted yesterday, all three of my kids are Corbynistas - much to their Dad's distress. My daughter even tried to put a Labour poster up in our front window. They feel - quite rightly - that things are not working right now, that well-paid jobs and leaving home, let alone owning their own places, are a pipedream. They see Brexit as the old messing things up for the young. The political establishment has let them down big time. And Corbyn is definitely not the political establishment. They will vote for him.
I hope you explained to them that Corbyn was Brexiteer.
We have had our Corbyn conversation. I love my kids and do not want to fall out with them. They are young and they are frustrated, as young people always are.
Young people seem that have this illusion that its terribly hard to work in other places in the world outside the EU. The problem appears to be the entitlement that other countries should welcome you, and put up with you when you don't bring anything to the party. In the last decade or so I have worked in three different countries outside the EU for longish periods with only minimal hassles, and mostly had a lot of fun and done a lot of interesting things, you just need to bring something that they want.
If we really didn't want this old bugger in No 10, was it really a good idea to call an election three years early and give him his chance?
That depends on whether there was less chance of him winning now then there would be in three years time.
The economic cycle says recession by 2020 and 'time for a change' might be running strong.
So the reason for calling the election really was political opportunism, and nothing to do with Brexit then?
More like it was about getting the right manifesto in place before trying to get the various bits of legislation through The Lords, any extra votes would be a bonus.
If we really didn't want this old bugger in No 10, was it really a good idea to call an election three years early and give him his chance?
That depends on whether there was less chance of him winning now then there would be in three years time.
The economic cycle says recession by 2020 and 'time for a change' might be running strong.
So the reason for calling the election really was political opportunism, and nothing to do with Brexit then?
No, the reason was to push the next election campaign two years further away from the A50 negotiations deadline, allowing for a 6 or 12 month extension if needed.
But now the middle aged are also deserting the Tories because even if the dementia tax is u turned on, the message can't be taken back: the Tories think the house you were expecting to inherit is fair gain.
Isn't that currently the case... unless you house is worth less than £23,250 ?
And does anyone seriously think that a Corbyn government wouldn't tax inheritance to the hilt?
The big difference from today's situation to the new one, is that your house will be classed as an asset to be considered when you have social care in your own home as well. Currently, it only happens when you go into residential care.
The issue for May is that she has awakened people to the current situation. They were oblivious in the main. And then she has added an additional worry. Many, many elderly need some level of social care at home, they will now all be running an account on their houses as soon as they call the social services in.
The final twist is that there were rumours that this would all be managed as some kind of equity release scheme by private insurers and banks.
If you tell people they are going to lose control of their home, you better make sure you have prepared your case very, very well and in soften people up in advance.
It was a omnishambles of a policy launch that makes Osborne look like Bismark.
Bismarck did suffer rudder damage from a torpedo so it could do nothing but U-turns at the end.
Amusing to see those who were outraged at Remainers trying to block the noble, sovereign will of the voters are now furious at the idiotic, entitled simpletons who are supporting Corbyn.
Influencing YouGov would have to be very well organised ahead of time. You'd have to get people to sign up progressively across a period of time, taking the trouble to fill in a fair few surveys about television viewing and petfood buying in order to establish a track record as reliable panel members, and when asked be sure to report your past voting behaviour as something other than Labour. Then they all wait patiently for an election to come along and for the instruction to change current voting intention to Labour.
Could it be done? Yes. Has it been done? Unlikely. And, besides, the effect would solely be to put Yougov out of line with other pollsters. Even of the online pollsters, Yougov is the only one that is relatively easy to sign up to.
I think we'll know this evening. If they're all out of line with YG, then YG has a problem. If not, fine.
What does your nose tell you Nick? 8%, lower or rising?
I'm mentally preparing myself for double-digit Tory leads tonight.
We need the thrill of a something for everyone selection. A tory lead in the teens, a 3 or 4 point gap with labour on 39 or 40, a Lib Dem 15 and a subset with the SNP on 60.
Indeed. And yet the LibDems can't get a look in. So add Farron to the line-up of let-downs and lunatics.
But here's where I am now - I have to, with great reluctance, concede that this poll surge is real. Corbyn on 38% with a respected polling organisation. That's 3% more than what Blair got in 2005, more than what Cameron got in both 2010 and 2015, and just 2% behind - yes, 2% - what Blair got in the 2001 landlside.
It's a perfect storm for May and the Tories. The social care fiasco. A dull, mind numbing manifesto that gives nothing and takes plenty. Massive publicity (mainly positive) for Labour's fantasy manifesto - over a whole week. Corbyn's past associations don't seem to be hurting him (and they should be).
Corbyn now has a real and viable chance of being our PM, not in a majority, but most seats in a hung parliament, with Nicola as deputy PM.
That's where we are, it makes me sick to say it, but I cannot ignore what the polls have been saying (all of them) - a remarkable and sustained narrowing of the polls. And no, not a meltdown, an acceptance of what the reailty could very well be on June 9th.
You are sounding worse than SeanT! Perhaps you are placing too much store on YouGov as a pollster. Given it's recent track record I would say it was drinking in pollsters' last chance saloon.
I agree any pollster that has TSE and other pb Conservatives taking part in every poll is clearly going to overstate the Conservatives % level .
House prices are high because more people want houses, than there are houses available (within a given locale).
No, house prices are sky-high because the banks have been allowed to lend at such high levels. That's where the demand comes from. (There are other reasons for the very top bracket.)
I agree. I was a mortgage underwriter in years leading up to the crash and the amounts we were being permitted to lend were obscene. There will be an enormous crisis when interest rates rise.
Which is why the won't rise perhaps?
Indeed I anticipate the opposite - inflation rising above interest rates such that real rates become negative. How else is the debt crisis going to be resolved without another collapse?
I think BTL was a long-term unintended consequnce of the modern (since the 80's) obsession with low inflation. This drove down the yield on bonds and then stocks so investors looked elsewhere for higher yielding investments - residential property. and they were happy to invest in this at higher and higher prices until the yields became closer to the that of bonds/stocks etc.
unwinding this in a hurry would be very painful but could be done over a generation maybe.
Exactly this. Not to mention the large number of middle class couples that looked at interest rates and annuities over the past decade (not to mention continued smash and grabs from chancellors on pension funds), and considered that having a BTL or two was the only safe way to provide for their old age. Any Chancellor meddling with that is either brave, or considering a new career.
If we really didn't want this old bugger in No 10, was it really a good idea to call an election three years early and give him his chance?
That depends on whether there was less chance of him winning now then there would be in three years time.
The economic cycle says recession by 2020 and 'time for a change' might be running strong.
So the reason for calling the election really was political opportunism, and nothing to do with Brexit then?
No, the reason was to push the next election campaign two years further away from the A50 negotiations deadline, allowing for a 6 or 12 month extension if needed.
Ah, right. So by 2022, everything is going to be fine, yes?
On Islam vs Islamism - I think it's a waste of time trying to create a firewall. How is moderate Islam to be described? Normative lslam? There are only different strands of Islam - one of which believes in the use of terrorist violence to change the modern world. If a fundamentalist christian was to blow up an abortion clinic in the US would people desist from calling them a christian? I wouldn't. It's absurd to think that violent actions can only come from a 'phoney' form of a religion. Throughout history violence and religious belief have often gone hand in hand. It's also absurd for non-believers to start lecturing others on what the true form of Christianity or Islam is. As an atheist by definition I don't believe there is such a thing.
As another atheist I suggest we have to face the world as it is, whilst working meanwhile for a better one. Trying to tar millions of innocent people with a very broad brush achieves nothing good and the downsides are obvious.
Despite Manchester we all recognise how much better our own security services have done than in France and Belgium, where the muslim communities are more marginalised and deprived than are ours. Two muslims previously phoned in to report Abedi as a potential risk; we need to make this sort of cross-community co-operation more rather than less likely.
I'm an atheist too and think all religion is quite strange and sometimes harmful, but I think we need to make a distinction between things we think are a bit odd/distateful/outdated and actually going out and murdering people. The generalised anti-Muslim agenda promoted by UKIP et al is at best a distraction and at worse promotes the "us and them" mentality that ISIS really wants.
People willing to consider murder are a tiny minority even among the most devoted religious groups. ISIS is dangeous because, like the Nazis, it gives an official structure to encourage murderers, not because they're very Muslim. If a group formally organised fanatical Christians to blow up abortion clinics, that would not be a good reason to crack down on Christianity.
It must have been tough for you to support that weird Jesus freak Blair in all his murderous adventures.
If we really didn't want this old bugger in No 10, was it really a good idea to call an election three years early and give him his chance?
That depends on whether there was less chance of him winning now then there would be in three years time.
The economic cycle says recession by 2020 and 'time for a change' might be running strong.
So the reason for calling the election really was political opportunism, and nothing to do with Brexit then?
No, the reason was to push the next election campaign two years further away from the A50 negotiations deadline, allowing for a 6 or 12 month extension if needed.
Ah, right. So by 2022, everything is going to be fine, yes?
Very reassuring.
Just that if the A50 deal is done close to the deadline but everybody says "ok, we need 6/12 months to ratify it", the A50 period can be extended. With an election in May 2020 it couldn't be.
Lol Abbott has said Corbyn met IRA members in their capacity as Sinn Fein activists. D'oh. That's like saying he had lunch with Harold Shipman in his capacity as a former GP.
Comments
https://twitter.com/Conservatives/status/868217762027536384
And - slightly different q - how precisely do these young voters think that Corbyn will help them? What's the logic?
Maybe we need a shambolic disaster of a left wing government every few decades just to stop it happening again until we all forget
For online polling, getting into the sample doesn't even require gaming: you just sign up. That puts you in the subset of the population from which the subsubset actually polled in any given poll is drawn. It also violates the first law of statistics, which is that your sample must be random. The only answer to that is that your subset is large enough and representative enough that your subsubset is almost as good as a random sample.
As to whether the subset is representative: why should it be? It is not just skewed to, but consists exclusively of, the sort of people who sign up to online polls; even if they aren't gamers they are quite likely as a class to differ in other ways from the norm.
As to size, I have seen a figure of approaching 1m for one online pollster. That looks big, but how many are active? I was a member once and found after a couple of goes that I have better things to do than answer questions about my likelihood of recommending Burger King to my friends. I don't think I resigned, I just stopped responding to emails, which I think have now stopped coming, but for a long time I was making the active membership look bigger than it actually was. The other point is that my impression is that the active PB commentariat tends to say "I have just done an online poll" more frequently than would happen if pollees were randomly selected from 1m. Of course giving "my impression" is a terrible way to do statistics.
No polling companies were named in the making of this post.
It's "fewer" not "less"
I don't think Cameron and Osborne ever understood this - they saw gentrification in Notting Hill and flash new apartment blocks (pre-sold to foreign investors) as the change in London.
But I don't think they knew (or were interested in) that the once Conservative voting home owning streets in middle suburbia were turning into BTL shitholes.
Here's the dilemma you have to solve: my wife and I rent a house and have never been in rent arrears. We can afford the amount we're spending on it. The mortgage on it, were we to buy it, would be less than we are paying in rent. But no bank will give us a mortgage to buy it.
https://www.ft.com/content/e3cdcb00-d161-11e4-98a4-00144feab7de
But here's where I am now - I have to, with great reluctance, concede that this poll surge is real. Corbyn on 38% with a respected polling organisation. That's 3% more than what Blair got in 2005, more than what Cameron got in both 2010 and 2015, and just 2% behind - yes, 2% - what Blair got in the 2001 landlside.
It's a perfect storm for May and the Tories. The social care fiasco. A dull, mind numbing manifesto that gives nothing and takes plenty. Massive publicity (mainly positive) for Labour's fantasy manifesto - over a whole week. Corbyn's past associations don't seem to be hurting him (and they should be).
Corbyn now has a real and viable chance of being our PM, not in a majority, but most seats in a hung parliament, with Nicola as deputy PM.
That's where we are, it makes me sick to say it, but I cannot ignore what the polls have been saying (all of them) - a remarkable and sustained narrowing of the polls. And no, not a meltdown, an acceptance of what the reailty could very well be on June 9th.
It's a mess
The rose-tinted reports you refer to may be from those that thought he came across really quite badly. Just saying.
The economic cycle says recession by 2020 and 'time for a change' might be running strong.
The issue for May is that she has awakened people to the current situation. They were oblivious in the main. And then she has added an additional worry. Many, many elderly need some level of social care at home, they will now all be running an account on their houses as soon as they call the social services in.
The final twist is that there were rumours that this would all be managed as some kind of equity release scheme by private insurers and banks.
If you tell people they are going to lose control of their home, you better make sure you have prepared your case very, very well and in soften people up in advance.
It was a omnishambles of a policy launch that makes Osborne look like Bismark.
I very much suspect it will be very high when/if she manages to scrape a win.
People willing to consider murder are a tiny minority even among the most devoted religious groups. ISIS is dangeous because, like the Nazis, it gives an official structure to encourage murderers, not because they're very Muslim. If a group formally organised fanatical Christians to blow up abortion clinics, that would not be a good reason to crack down on Christianity.
I am far from convinced that all the magic around past vote weighting and socioeconomic status cuts the mustard, when the sample will be conspiciously distorted along lines (such as political engagement) that cannot be weighted for.
This leaves aside the question of whether people (and especially politically engaged people) tell pollsters the truth, rather than using the poll as a way to send a cost free message to politicians and parties that doesnt risk getting someone they don't want elected.
That'll give me some time to come up with a decent headline.
I really suspect that I made a mistake in being sensible financially instead of following the course of stupidity and profligacy and then receiving compensation.
Interest Only Mortgages will be another "I blame the government and demand compensation."
Remember Bob Worcester's election mantra:
Look at the share, not the lead.
Look at the share, not the lead.
Look at the share, not the lead.
Look at the share, not the lead.
The giveaway in your panic is you're suggesting somebody who isn't even a candidate at the election might be deputy PM.
As an side, the tourism business would be incandescent, no holiday lets near the seaside would also push places like Clacton even deeper into being "left behind"
Rich pickings on BF still.
By the way, stating 'look at the share, not the lead' four times also implies a whiff of panic.
He seems in good spirits according to his twitter-feed.
The moment was the second the words "dementia tax" passed McConnell's lips
I,E. Feeling strongly on it but making the point at totally the wrong time electorally?
unwinding this in a hurry would be very painful but could be done over a generation maybe.
But what we had pre Brexit was a situation where government nor opposition wouldn't do anything to help these people, would not intervene in the market due to its entrenched free market dogma. The extent of intervention was to bribe potential tory voters with free money in the form of help to buy. Corbyn and brexit changed all that
I read somehwere that the Cons (unlike other parties) hadn't put out a single tweet to encourage greater voter turnout. Who's sorry now?
I'm repeating the mantra an increasing number of times to try to cut through the panic from PB Tories who can't (or won't) see that a Tory share of 43-44% leads to a comfortable majority in any conceivable set of circumstances.
Half term and sciatica makes for an unhelpful combination to go out campaigning.
But hopefully soon I'll have helped elect another Tory MP.
Very reassuring.
D'oh. That's like saying he had lunch with Harold Shipman in his capacity as a former GP.