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The trend is clear, Labour’s share of the vote has been falling slightly month by month since February, and their lead has fallen month by month (bar May, when the Conservative share of the vote fell even further, due to the afterglow of the UKIP performance in the local elections)
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Will Syria change anything?
Even if the "true" lead remains at the current average of 5.68% then wouldn't we expect one poll in 100 polls to give a Con lead? It only requires Lab 3% below average and Con 3% above average (to nearest whole numbers).
And that is before allowing for any possibility that the average lead will narrow at any point.
Lots of very partisan posts on PB tonight - because lots of PBers are very passionate about the subject. But I would be amazed if 1 in 1,000 people change their vote based on who drafted what resolution / who changed their mind and when etc for the debate in the House of Commons.
All that 99% of people will remember in a couple of weeks time is what actually happened and was the UK involved.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23874519
ie 95% confidence Lab is 38.5% +/- 3% and 95% confidence Con is 33% +/- 3%.
Bearing in mind if Lab gets reported as 3% below average then there is a good chance that Con will be above average (as total must be 100) then it's only somewhat less than 1 in 20. Far, far more chance than 1 in 200.
Ben Smith @BuzzFeedBen
Wow RT @EvanMcSan: Obama suggests Syrian chemical weapons "could be directed at us" if use goes unchecked buzzfeed.com/evanmcsan/obam…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-29/election-live-august-29/4920440
Assuming a sample of circa 1000, the MOE of the lead is around 5% in this case (long-term correlation between Con and Lab shares is around -0.85)
Taking this poll in isolation (a pretty dumb thing to do) the chance the Tories are in the lead is around 12%, and the chance they lead by >1% is around 6%.
Anyhow, that's me for tonight.
"New figures showed there were 407,000 non-UK nationals receiving the hand-outs last year, a rise of more than 118,000 since 2008, with the total bill running to hundreds of millions of pounds a year. Data from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), released under the Freedom of Information Act, showed a sharp rise in the number of claims by immigrants from eastern European countries.
Just 12,600 were claiming work benefits in 2008 but this increased nearly fourfold to just under 50,000 last year, when people from Poland and seven other eastern European countries which joined the EU in 2004 gained full access to the benefits system.
Disclosure of the government figures comes amid growing concern that Britain will face a new wave of eastern European immigration with the relaxation of border controls on Romanian and Bulgarian workers on January 1.
And also, if one moves to Eire can one claim an Irish pension?
" Private Harry Lincoln had an important message for his “Dearest Clara” as he faced the prospect of his own imminent death. It was six days after Britain had declared war on Germany and the young father was preparing to head towards the battlefields the following morning.
His heartbreaking note has been discovered almost a century later along with thousands of other final letters to loved ones that were prevented from being delivered by military censors.Historians have been stunned by the discovery of the previously unknown letters in files containing the wills of 230,000 servicemen killed in the First World War. They were found as archivists opened the files for the first time since the war so that they could be digitally scanned. They can be seen online from today. > http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article3854727.ece
Having screwed up on budgets and costs if it was not for the ABC pitching hard for Labor and avoiding asking for a 2007 or 2010 comparison then things might be even worse.
2 navy ships being brought forward, attempting to save Victorian seats which are leaving in droves, all sounds a bit Gordon Brown-like?
"While the talk at home was of the war being over by Christmas, Private Lincoln confided in his lover: “[It] is going to be worse than I thought ... some say it will last three years.”
Turning to his own fate, he wrote: “If I never come home again I leave the boy in your charge and I know you will do the best by him ... if I get killed in active service there will be a medal for me somewhere and I hope you will try and get it and keep it for the boy to wear when he grows up.”
Clara never saw the now yellowing pages. As the couple appear to have been unmarried, perhaps Clara never knew how much she meant to her lover in his final days, or that he wanted their son to have his medal. Private Lincoln was killed aged 26 on Hill 60, southeast of Ypres, on May 5, 1915, during a gas and artillery attack. There is no known grave.
On the subject of CW, it's a bad idea all round, since accidents can and will happen...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari#The_1943_chemical_warfare_disaster
'Through a tragic coincidence intended by neither of the opposing sides in World War II, Bari gained the unwelcome distinction of being the only European city to experience chemical warfare in the course of that war...'
http://www.wrmea.org/wrmea-archives/198-washington-report-archives-1994-1999/december-1998/2999-crash-of-cargo-plane-in-holland-revealed-existence-of-israeli-chemical-and-biological-weapons-plant.html
'For years following the crash, however, residents of the surrounding neighborhoods displayed a uniquely high number of unusual ailments. But when they took to the media their inquiries as to whether the plane’s cargo could have contained health hazards, both the residents and the media were brushed off. Even though Dutch authorities knew what was on that plane, they preferred to lie to their own citizens rather than confront Israel. Finally, on Oct. 1 of this year, the Dutch daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad reported it had obtained documents confirming that when the El Al flight crashed six years ago it had on board 190 liters of dimethyl methyl phosphonate (DMMP), a chemical used to produce Sarin.'
http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/bgh0mj4e5b/YG-Archive-Pol-Sun-results-280813.pdf
Best PM:
DC: 35(+2)
EM: 18(-1)
NC: 6(-1)
DK: 40 (-1)
THE 2010 voters is interesting for best PM;
Cons: 74/3/1/23 (DC/EM/NC/DK)
LAB: 11/45/2/42
LD: 23/14/20/43
The 2010 LD VI is
Con: 14
LAB: 26
LD:43
UKIP:10
Green: 3
SNP/PC; 3
BNP:1
Others: 2
This contrasts with the Best PM above
" W****r of mass destruction http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article3853940.ece
Lynton Crosby may be a cunning and mysterious political strategist, but his business partner Mark Textor is less of an enigma, it seems, and has branded Tony Blair a “w****r” over his article in The Times endorsing military intervention in Syria.
Textor, an Australian pollster and campaign strategist whose company Crosby-Textor has been hired by the Conservative Party, suggested that Blair had no right to lecture after his role in Iraq and tweeted: “Morality lessons from Blair. The ‘fake dossier’ pack leader for WMD b/s. What a w****r.” He also compared war interdictions with one-night stands, explaining: “Everyone likes the f***ing, but coalitions are never around after the accidental birth.”
Which is the sort of delicately-phrased political commentary that you might expect from a man who calls people “muppets” on Twitter and refers to Kevin Rudd, the Australian Prime Minister, as “angry little Kev”.
So the contractor repaired the leaks and signed a document to say it was leak-proof for gas, which was chlorine. So the plant was started up instead of another water pressure test being done. A process operator was near the top of the plant to take some measurements from the gauges and he suffered a gas leak and slumped over - so the plant operation was stopped. I being the nearest quickly climbed the plant to bring him down and also inhaled some of the gas which was coming though a leak as it was still under pressure. We both survived but to this day if I enter an indoor swimming pool I start coughing after a short while, after all those years since that incident.
All very amusing in a grim way. We just coughed ourselves inside out for a few hours. No parents complained. How things have changed since just the 80s.
I had a wind-dispersed (and fortunately diluted) chlorine-based chemical go into my eyes once. We were dismantling an 18-inch diameter pipe above a road in a factory that was supposed to have been flushed. Sadly it had not, and when we cut off the fourth or fifth bolt a gap opened. I was standing almost underneath, and the remnants of the chemical was dispersed by the wind. I was wearing safety glasses (not goggles) and the droplets got behind them.
Within a couple of minutes I could hardly see.
Cur four people being taken to the medical centre to have our eyes washed out and some tests done. Even the JCB driver had to have treatment. The worst case was one of the guys on the scaffolding who operated the oxy-propane torch; he had to be treated on the scaffolding and then helped down.
Motto: never believe the form stating that pipelines have been washed out ...
They, and Cameron in particular, have been made to look a little ridiculous. With his back against the wall and the risk of being mocked by Ed Miliband there must be a tremendous temptation to come out swinging, accusing Labour of being irresponsible, playing politics with the national interest etc.
But that would be, err, playing politics with the national interest. Hague is pointing the way forward of trying to get a national consensus that allows action.
But the anger will be bubbling below the surface. I have no doubt that Cameron will feel well shafted by Labour's changing of position yesterday. Will that anger bubble out or will he control himself? Tough one to call.
It was one of those incidents where if I had stopped to think what to do, or sought extra help or even mentally done a risk assessment then it may have been too late. So thinking about it now, I must have reacted instinctively, knowing that prolonged exposure could be fatal and also that colleague, for whom I was responsible, had a wife and family that I had met.
Of course that instinctive reaction could have been wrong for me as well, but that was the days before formal risk assessments and I know that I would do the same again if put under similar circumstances.
Trackers of Consumer Confidence and Job Security - both on the up.
http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/08/28/positive-economic-signs-continue-job-security-lags/
Also the lingering effect of the horsemeat scandal.
http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/08/28/horsemeat-one-ten-still-dont-eat-affected-produce/
I had a case a couple of years ago when an ex soldier was claiming permanent damage from this. The medical evidence wasn't great and he clearly had other problems.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10271855/Number-of-foreign-nationals-on-benefits-soars-to-400000.html
UKIP also leads on calling for no military action by British forces in regards to Syria.
And of course being the father of a fully fledged yellow perilist must be of actuarial significance !!
Far from a tory/labour crossover this year or next, I see Cammo not recovering from his Syrian fiasco in a hurry, whatever may happen in the future.
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2013/08/cameron-hasnt-solved-his-party-problems-this-summer-as-his-syrian-humiliation-proves.html
So, midterm, the Westminster government has a poll deficit of 3 points behind Labour.
Meanwhile, midterm, the Scottish government has a poll surplus of 18 points ahead of Labour (latest Panelbase/Sunday Times).
Why the difference in midterm fortunes for the two governments?
I propose that the reason can be summarised in one word: competence.
The shadow of Blair's lies will darken the path of any PM for a very long time to come. It is starting to look as if Chilcot will only confirm this posthumously. Hey ho.
Listening carefully to that speech by Blair, it was absolutely obvious that he had no thought about the end game to Iraq2 and if he had it was of no import in his priority.
This morning on Today R4, there was an interview with a civilian living in Damascus, whose main fear is the Al-Qaeda faction who are fighting with the rebels and who would impose an Islamic regime. He said the Al-Qaeda faction are killing both Christian and Alawites. This man, not an Alawite, preferred the Assad regime where all could live in reasonable harmony.
So as usual it take the hand of a firm dictator to keep the peace between dissident factions and that is the problem of the legacy of Iraq2.
Are you happier that Cameron has had a reality check than you are upset that no one is addressing Assad's supposed barbarity?
In the longer term, the narrative will be that, unlike TB, DC submitted himself (the kicking and screaming will be forgotten) to due process.
Mark Steyn writes on diversity and political correctness in the higher echelons of the US military.
http://www.steynonline.com/5763/still-nothing-to-see-here
Could be that if the US did attack Assads Syria, some US soldiers would defect and join one or other sides of the civil war.
Yet today's YougGov (as have many preceding it) shows the Scottish subsample (usual caveats) at Labour:41, SNP 22. Are you saying that the Scots have two different opinions, one for Westminster and one for the Scottish government?
http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/08/28/americans-syria-not-our-responsibility/
Was this Dan Hodges?
It's no bad thing if Cameron heeds the concerns of MPs to change his approach. I wonder how long the poisonous legacy of Iraq will linger.
We all saw Carl's wishes yesterday, and how they will probably not be met for a long time, if ever.
And in the meantime, people continue dying.
I would not wish to be on the receiving end of any poison gas deliberately released at me.
There's a bumper set of results at WPP, the advertising group headed by Sir Martin Sorrell. Revenues are up 7.1pc to £5.3bn, like-for-like revenues are 2.4pc up, and pre-tax profits have jumped 19pc to £427m. The results are good news for all of us since WPP, with clients including Shell, HSBC and Ford, is seen as a bellwether for the economy.
His own hubris has left Cameron diminished, but Ed comes over as a serial ditherer. And when the chance came, the LDs looked away. The only winners were the NOTAs.
Thing is, there are only least awful solutions in Syria. He chose one on a tight spectrum and I do get the "don't do it again" tactic wrt chemical weapons.
But the muscle memory of this will be that he didn't lie, steamroll or sex anything up. He listened (because of course he had to) to his backbenchers and the opposition.
I don't see EdM anywhere in the legacy, especially with high-profile 70 Tory MPs making their case also.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23876218
Westminster VI in Scotland
(+/- change from UK GE 2010)
SNP 37% (+17)
Lab 35% (-7)
Con 12% (-5)
LD 10% (-9)
UKIP 4% (+3)
Grn 2% (+1)
http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Online-VI-27-08-2013.pdf
You like potato and I like potahto,
You like tomato and I like tomahto,
Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto.
Let's call the whole thing off.
One of the interesting aspects of this "delay" is that is possible at all. To me that suggests that there was never a clear, obvious and urgent military target.
Certainly not a target where the govt were worried about permitting a week of truck loading and unloading.
Now, you haven't answered the question Sean: why the difference in midterm fortunes for the two governments?
For God's sake, we are a small island nation of modest and diminishing importance. Why can't Cameron and his ilk recognise this once and for all?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus#Gaza_War_.282008.E2.80.932009.29
Yes wrt the LotO but unfortunately for EdM one swallow does not a summer make. If his standing had been greater this would have been _yet another_ victory. As is, it is seen as opportunist and lacking in principle.
The White House has reportedly hesitated. Whilst officials say its beyond the point of no return, Obama has been tinkering with what might happen and has reportedly trying to ensure that a new peace initiative miraculously emerges right on cue, no matter what.
In short, faced with the gross uncertainties of a limited military action, it could be the President is trying to build some certainty where he cant get any.
It will be interesting to see what the Russians, Syrians and Iranians do. Its also left those lined up to provide assistance and political cover scratching their heads. A number of building blocks in the global political front were due today (forget about the fun and games in London) so it will be interesting to see whether they occur.
At this juncture a direct action is still likely on the basis of US credibility and principle over chemical weapons usage but the strike-lite option has got yet another younger brother called strike-skinny. Which envelope he picks time will tell.
A Cartegena de las Indias II?
An Iraq III?
An Afghanistan V?
One day they might just get the message.
"...let’s just improve Finkelstein’s analogy with some more relevant info. What if the doc administering the vaccine and proclaiming its virtues had never been medically trained? What if every properly trained medic he had asked for advice had been against the vaccination?
What if we knew the doc had pulled the ‘five saved in every 10,000′ statistic out of his ass? And what if neighbouring hospitals were full to bursting with patients dying in their hundreds of thousands from awful diseases caused by other ‘vaccinations’ given by the same ‘doctor’ and his friends? What would a responsible, logical parent then decide, do you think, Lord Finkelstein?"
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/08/an-improvement-on-lord-finkelsteins-analogy/
http://www.edinburghmuseums.org.uk/Venues/The-People-s-Story/Collections-(1)/Working-Life-In-Edinburgh/Power-to-the-People--The-Co-op
Reminiscent of the fate of Toryism north of the border after the once mighty Unionist Party committed suicide in 1965, by "merging" (ahem) with the English Conservative Party. We all know what happened thereafter. The pandas will have had their tea.
Bad day for the war-wanters on the site though..
Bad guys whacking bad guys..and their kids...what sport.
He might have told his Mother he wanted to be Prime Minister because he'd 'be good at it' but I'm afraid the evidence points the other way. He's shown himself to be the reckless gung ho Bullingdon Boy many suspected he would be and the sooner the nuclear button is prized from his fingers the safer I'll feel.
We are barely half way through the first chapter of Britain's response to the Syrian crisis and yet commentators on here and in the media are racing to write the conclusion to the political drama (or in some cases, Cameron's epitaph). Many will be made to look ridiculous before the day is out. They in turn will be replaced by people commenting on today's events, who will be proven comprehensively wrong within hours. Either may then be redeemed days, weeks or months later. Or not. The only certainty is that in very few cases will being wrong diminish anyone's enthusiasm for responding immediately to minor elements of long processes, or their confidence that they are right.
FWIW I am currently opposed to Britain participating in military action, but am open to persuasion that it is the right course. For me pre-requisites for any action are conclusive evidence that the Syrian government ordered the use of chemical weapons against civillians, a limited battle plan aimed only at military/government assets and with a clear objective, the support of parliament, broad international support (which does not necessarily mean the UNSC), a sufficiently robust opinion on the legality of intervention (these things are not clear cut) and a persuasive argument from the government that the negative consequences of taking the action will not outweigh the benefits. That last test is the hardest to fulfil and I cannot presently see how it will be met, but there are a lot of people with access to better information and more time on their hands to think about it than me, so let's see what they come up with.
I suspect Mili has overreached himself here. Even tories who are opposed to the war are not going to like this at all. I suspect there will be a closing of ranks and attacks of opportunism gone mad. Should all get quite tasty.
So far as polling is concerned I suspect Cameron's ratings as PM will take a knock, at least in the short term. This has not been his finest hour. Whether Ed will see any improvement has got to be more debatable and may well turn on how the media portray today.
http://www.arrse.co.uk/current-affairs-news-analysis/203240-syria-your-next-tour-merged-syria-threads.html
YouGov back to three (again) and some get very excited. We've been here before a good number of times and of course we had the ICM poll which now looks to have produced an outlier number for the Conservatives.
How often have the Conservatives been above 35% in any poll other than the ICM in the past couple of months ? Labour have certainly fallen back as SeanT rightly points but seem to have settled in the 36-38 range.
I agree it's possible Party Conference might provide a boost but as we all know such boosts are fleeting and more often than not the polling a week after all three Conferences is the same as it was a week before all three. That's not to say the same will happen this year.
My concern for the Coalition is that it still has to get through two winters when things don't always go as well as they do in the height of summer. I'm also keeping an eye on fuel prices and oil prices. As I've argued here before, those who spout the statistics of recovery forget that many people have yet to see their personal economic circumstances become demonstrably better. We can all feel better when it's holiday time and the weather's nice but the reality of a cold autumn and rising petrol prices might cause that euphoria to fray a little.
My personal approval for Camo is at the highest in a while at the moment.
"and whilst the poll can't be considered scientific most who answered blamed Al-Qaeda rebels rather than Assad:"
This compounds Cameron's problems. Even for those who think punishment bombings acceptable (and in my view they're insane) believing he's bombing the wrong side will cause real outrage. Assad is not seen as Saddam was. He's hard to paint as a monster.
Come on those Rebels
This whacking contest could go on for a long time..might even top the ratings.
I'm going to say this once, and once only.
Nick Clegg was seriously impressive on Today this morning defending the government's position on Syria. A tricky gig by any standards, and he handled it superbly - coherent, articulate, balanced, passionate, and without any of the tetchiness he sometimes exhibits. I don't think I've heard a politician give a better interview for many months. Bravo!
Of course this is a separate question from whether one agrees with him or not; on the same programme, Sir Max Hastings argued very persuasively on the opposite side.
Mark Stone @Stone_SkyNews
Copy of page 1 of letter from #Syria parliament speaker to UK MPs and obtained by @skynews attached here: pic.twitter.com/DcUyUeAbCp
Mark Stone @Stone_SkyNews
Key extract of the 4 page letter from #Syria Parliament speaker to UK MPs - passed to @skynews - here: pic.twitter.com/Mh4zZs6ThY
If it is then those responsible must be found and eventually face the ICC with a view to prosecuting them. Anything less will only encourage others to use chemical weapons attacks to force a military response on a regime they want to overthrow thus do precisely the opposite of discouraging their use. All possible uses of chemical weapons in Syria must be investigated and anyone implicated on either side found to have used them must then be held responsible for that use.
If the use of chemical weapons is seen as simply a pretext to enable an attack and the military degradation of one side or another in an intractable civil war then the damage will be immense.
Assad is not a 'white hat'. There are no white hats it seems, just different grades of pretty dark grey.
Whilst I believe it's possible Assad was not behind the chemical attack the regime's forces have committed a large number of vile acts that go beyond the usual horrors of war. But just because he's a monster doesn't mean the other side are saints (saints tend not to decapitate priests or eat the hearts of their enemies).
But today I view the thread and it is literally polluted by "tim" repeating ad nauseum his spin about how bad Cameron is doing on Syria. The action of posting multiple posts repeating the same theme, detracts from the website and must add to the costs - possibly 10% to 20% of the sites costs caused by tim's posts? Now back to work!
As for the politics, wait a few days.
http://rogueadventurer.com/2013/08/29/alleged-cw-munitions-in-syria-fired-from-iranian-falaq-2-type-launchers/
Looks as though Labour may have chosen the wrong side! Again....