It may all end in tears but for now the diverse team of Corbyn fans and old media sweats who make the Leader of the Opposition comms team can pride themselves on helping the party and their leader to narrow the yawning gap in the polls since Theresa May called the snap election the best part of a month ago.
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We know to approach Mr Brind's in-campaign reports with appropriate caution.
If Angela Rayner is the answer I would worry about the question.
I think a lot more young voters will vote this time round, even tho abolition of tuition fees won't happen as Labour cannot win with Corbyn Abbott and McDonnell. Its like asking sensible voters to eat a sarni with their three most disliked fillings all in the same sarni..
Don, what will this week's lottery numbers be?
What is clear is that Corbyn has had a good war - tribal loyalty, freebies, and carefully targeted giveaways are popular. Who'd have thought? Not a realistic programme for government, of course, but enough to haul in s bushel of votes
I think the real explanation is going to be;
Lots of young people didn't want brexit, but never quite got around to voting remain. The result was so close, the consequences so severe. They're angry at brexit, when they should have been angry at themselves.
This time, they will vote.
Either at our were at uni they are affected
May will win a landslide on June 8th, partly because she's the only trustworthy leader and partly because the Conservatives have the best record on the economy. High levels of taxation do not produce wealth, but having to demolish the arguments of Marxists such as Don Brind is like entering a 1970's timewarp.
This will get more pronounced in the coming months. WC families are already feeling the pinch. The falling pound undoubtedly helped exports [ great for my firm ] but it is also increasing input costs and ultimately prices in the shops.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/bulletins/consumerpriceinflation/apr2017
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/08/uk-pay-growth-inflation-bank-of-england-economy-brexit
Labour needs to get the discussion back to the question "Who wants 5 more years of austerity and cuts?" and away from foreign and security policy.
I am seeing a fair bit from LDs on Amber Rudds internet censorship, I think that will be there theme. It may well work on the net, but the telly audience is different. Older and less tech savvy viewers may well swallow Rudd's nonsense.
Incidentally, if inflation does get about 3% the BoE might actually have to grow a pair and put up interest rates.
Most of the time, pollsters get a similar sample. The question is what they do with it.
The samples, for whatever reason, are Labour biased. The different pollsters do different adjustments.
The crucial one is to decide "Likelihood to vote" vs "Previous election vote"
All have made changes in their methodology. Some more than others. In Martin Boon's own words that is the difference between Yougov's 5% and ICM's 14%
Mind boggles.
Vote for us and we'll give you £30k
The other reason is that May offers nothing but a future of misery for young people. There is no hope or vision in the Tory manifesto or front bench. Corbynism may be unrealistic and poorly thought through, but has some ambition for a better society.
I'm not entirely sure who the middle class are anymore but they're savvy enough to smell a rat. Teenagers aren't but they can't be bothered to vote.
Maybe, that is why May called the election. The window is not so good for the next 18 months [ on top of any Brexit surprises to come ]. Most economies have been lucky for the last 8 years with zero or very low inflation and as such have got away with low wage rises.
That is coming to an end in the UK, at least.
One of the main reasons Labour lost the election in 2015 is because they failed to address immigration, ditto why Remain lost. If ten people apply for a barista's job the cafe owner can keep wages low. Its unarguable.
In line with this retail sales have started to fall quite quickly as part of consumers tightening their belts.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2017/apr/21/french-markets-in-focus-as-weekend-election-looms-business-live
But don't worry, if Labour can't put up Abbot or McDonnell, because their past in quotes comes back to haunt them, I'm sure they have strength in depth amongst Corbyn's Numpties...
Despite brexit?
Personally I think the best utility is looking at the unweighted samples and their shifts and trends over time.
My guess FWIW is that the Tory lead is about 10%ish.
Its why doctors get paid more than labourers.
What is more even if turnout for the young went from 43% to voting at te same rate of 78% for oldies (nope!) it will increase the lab vote by 1% and decrease the Tory vote by 1%, this is before you take into vote prefrence since 2015.
The young are also concentrated in the big cities where Labour already have MP's. The polls that are showing 18-34 year olds liklihood to vote at 63% up from 43% in 2015 might be right but how likely is a 20% in young turnout surge in one GE ? Not very I would suggest. and as I've explained it would barely make a difference if it went to 78%, (which it wont).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39965925
F1: post-race ramble up here, with added cantankerousness:
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/monaco-post-race-analysis-2017.html
Trying to work out how Canada will go. First couple of sectors are tight and twist which will suit Ferrari, but Mercedes will be very quick on the straights in sector three.
On-topic: the Con vote share hasn't changed much. If it stays as is, May wins. That said, the manifesto was an abject lesson in hubris.
But that is not good news for companies. Ultimately that also will push up inflation. The outlook for the next couple of years is not so good whichever way you look.
Whether Labour has the ability to articulate this is another matter. Just stereotypically lambasting Tories will not do it.
Unfortunately, the biggest victim of this is the WC, who we are being told are not happy with Labour. However, recent subsets tend to show that, Labour voters are returning home, in the North, Wales and West Midlands compared to a month back.
More and more people will be not bothering with a landline.
What difference this makes I am not sure but surely increases probability of errors.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/banking
Overdue in many ways as levels of debt are high. Student loans are going to be anincreasing drag on the economy as they take money out of the pockets of younger consumers, depressing demand.
In EVERY case the market always wins, the minimum wage and population increase has compressed wages. It might be unpalatable to some but its a fact.
But have the oldies turned against May? The Dementia Tax was a disaster for the Tories in that respect. Many of them will have been using their postal votes just a day or two after the manifesto screw-up.
This effect has been offset to some extent by the fact that the National Living Wage is still rising faster than inflation. Those at the bottom, with a greater propensity to spend, are not being squeezed. There will be a considerable bounce back in spending from Q1 this quarter. I think growth this quarter may well be back to 0.7%. The figures will be too late for the election of course.
Don't expect them to like it, and do expect them to vote against it. People who feel no stake in a society can be a difficult and rebellious electorate.
My guess would be that that they have swung even further anti-Labour.
' For Tracy Strassburg, a mother of two boys from Nunhead in south-east London, the sums just don't add up.
Her freelance job as a yoga teacher provides her with £640 a month.
Yet the rent on her small two-bedroom flat is £1,400. Even with housing benefit of £946 a month, she is still left borrowing £300 a month from her mother, as well as using credit cards. '
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39974177
Lets do some maths here.
This self-employment brings in £7,680 pa - so she'll be paying very little income tax and NI.
She gets housing benefit of £11,352 pa.
Can anyone explain why:
1) Taxpayers from outside London are paying for her to live in London
2) She isn't told to get a proper job and/or relocate somewhere she can afford
1) her u-turn on Brexit
2) her u-turn on national insurance
3) her u-turn on calling the election
4) her u-turn on the dementia tax
Not my argument, btw, but one from a recent Spectator podcast.
The one thing you cannot say under this Govt (and the Coalition before) is that unemployment is a tool used by the bosses to keep the workers subjugated - and the other such bullshit that the Left used to spout about how Tories = mass unemployment.
"Unemployment" only gets mentioned in political conversations in the context of Labour economic policy threatening it.
The Tories should go hard on this in the last week - you might get your tuition fees paid by Labour, but you won't have a job at the end of your course....
https://twitter.com/afneil/status/868997223132135424
I expect the Labour vote in Sheffield Central to be massive.
Driving around my consituency yesterday (Warwick and Leamington) the only posters in windows and on. boards you could see were Labour ones. But the Tories are going to increase their majority here by many thousands.