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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Alastair Meeks on predicting politics better
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Alastair Meeks on predicting politics better
“How could I have known?” is the cry of palookas at the card tables everywhere. It’s a cry that’s been heard much in political circles in the last few years. In short order, David Cameron won an overall majority in 2015, Leave won the EU referendum in June 2016, Donald Trump won the presidential election in November 2016 and Theresa May lost her overall majority in June last year. None of these events had been expected by the pundits.
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Thanks, Alastair.
Successful political leaders are even better fabulists - or to be generous, constructors of persuasive narratives. There is nothing so persuasive as a good story.
You claimed a well deserved third.
Did it really all happen, or am I, like SeanT, going to wake up in a drugged stupour on some South American hillside ...
The recent Oprah story is a goodish example. I didn't really believe it, but I believed it possible enough to have a dabble just in time to get in and out, before the narrative started including the friend of cranks bit...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1EN9ozkOzU
There was a convincing winner in the UK General Election 2017. Not Jeremy. Not Theresa. The only real winner was the YouGov MRP model, which convincingly predicted the result.
Hamiltonian Monte Carlo implemented on Stan predicted that Kensington and Portsmouth South and Canterbury would fall. It predicted that the Tories would fail to get an overall majority.
The predictions were greeted with derision. The predictions came to pass.
The convincing thing is not that the overall result was right -- it is that the detailed seat predictions were also right.
I think mostly that the best political bets to place here and now are almost non-existent. There has never been a better time to sit on your hands, to steal the financial market's phrase.
Last ten year years still happened though.
EDIT: The best you can hope for is that you don't wake up with SeanT....
No second referendum. Brexit happens.
Theresa May hangs around several more years.
Jeremy Corbyn doesn't ever become Prime Minister.
Trump serves a full term.
I saw something somewhere about a Ministry of Magic, but that can not be right?
Is this a new Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle? The more certain we think we know what is going to happen, the more uncertain it becomes?
https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/constructionindustry/datasets/outputintheconstructionindustry
Now that's not surprising from a personal experience or other people's annecdotal basis but it is surprising that this has not received more media attention.
Hopefully this will soon result in home ownership levels rising again.
The betting markets were taken completely by surprise in 1536 when Anne Boleyn, the cause of Hexit was suddenly executed.
Princess Mary and the Remoaners wanted to reverse Hexit, but the betting markets believed that she would never rule England. After all, no woman had ever ruled England. But they got it wrong again. in 1553 Mary not only became queen, but she also reversed Hexit, returning England to Rome and to European Catholic control burning anyone who believed in Hexit.
The betting markets now announced that Hexit had been defeated and that England would stay in Catholic Europe. Surely they would get it right this time round?
well, no. Because Mary died, Elizabeth became Queen and Hexit happened all over again -permanently.
The betting markets are nearly always wrong -nothing changes.
I often disagree with you on conclusions, but I always enjoy your articles. Thank you for the effort involved, it's much appreciated.
It will be like Berwick upon Tweed still being at war with Russia, after the Treaty of Paris
The future has always been unknowable, and the credulous have always believed that seers, scryers, prophets, sibyls and most recently, experts, are exceptions to this exception-free rule.
55% Remain, 45% Leave.
43% want a second referendum, but 51% do not.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/5-things-weve-learned-mirrors-11837123
64% of Labour voters want a second referendum. What’s Corbyn going to do?
I made money on Brexit as the polls had it pretty much a coin toss, but the odds were for Remain, therefore the value was Leave. I thought the same too in the POTUS so did well on betting Trump in the so called Blue Firewall, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania for example.
All too often people are not willing to believe the polling. @Chris_from_Paris made me about £800 betting on Macron. There were decent odds even when he was clearly leading as pundits waffled on about shy Le Pen voters (like Kippers, they never seem shy to me!).
Successful political betting is about spotting value, and this is easier than the over anyalysed sports markets where little value escapes the bookies*. When markets are pitching a coin toss as nailed on for one side, get on the other. Pundits also overestimate their accuracy. I have made money on some elections by betting on both extremes against the middle. I backed Hillary to win Red States as well as Trump to win Blue.
* I generally lose a little money sport betting. My exception was when Leicester won the PL. I had £1 ew at 3000/1, but topped this up at 20/1 in Dec 15 after we had been top of the League for a month. The successes may have faded, but I thought there was a much better than 5% chance that we would keep winning. I tipped it here.
And if the contest was re-run, 75% of Labour voters would back remain with only 25% for leave. Among Conservative voters 30% would vote remain and 70% leave.
There’s no electoral future for the Tories in being Bluekip.
His council tax suggestion does seem pretty reasonable to me.
The exception is 2017, where with the exception of YouGov pollsters were way out, as was the conventional wisdom. There are a few combinations of plausible reasons why this happened, the first is that pollsters over adjusted for 2015 and down-weighted Labour on the assumption their 2015 undershoot was a permanent phenomena. Several factors meant this was not the case - Momentum's weight of numbers providing a GOTV operation that significantly firmed up the youth vote, revenge remainers who in the past might have voted Tory with their wallet but were so disgusted at Brexit and in particular May's Little England, net curtain twitching version of it that they dropped any misgivings to protest and stymie her, and ex-Labour Brexiteers failing to switch or turn out for the Tories in quite the numbers they did in the referendum. I remember canvassing in 2015 on an estate and meeting voters who were resolutely determined not to vote to show their contempt for all politicians, it seems plausible some of these people treated 2016 as a one-off chance to kick the establishment but weren't going to change their habits permanently. Some did, of course - but not in the numbers liberal voters switched from the Tories to Labour.
The result? These trends were ignored by pollsters and all of us because Corbyn is unthinkably useless, and the lessons of 2015 had been absorbed too enthusiastically.
Betting on the extremes does give the benefit of not being bothered if you lose whereas an odds on bet which loses can be very aggravating and which IMO should only be done when you're happy for it to lose in 'real world' if not betting terms.
1) Because it is the right decision for Britain.
2) Because it annoys the Tories*.
It is why Referendums are a poor way to decide important issues. Voters are pretty fickle, flighty and often irrational. This is not a good base for formulating policy, which is why ours is a representative democracy rather than govern by perpetual plebiscites.
Of course, as the Tories were for Remain in Brexref 16, that was a reason to vote Leave!
That said, we need a more reasoned and consistent approach - creating new bands to take into account higher value properties up to £2 million and recognising the truth that houses have risen in value in most parts of the country by a considerable amount since 1991.
So, the bands need to be redefined and perhaps extended - I'd suggest house prices have roughly doubled since 1991 so the top of the bands would be £700k now so add extra bands for up to £1 million, £1million to £1.5 million and £1.5 million to £2 million
The median level remains Band D with Band E remaining 120% of D, Band F paying 140% of D and so on meaning a new Band I property would pay 200% of Band D.
Do we retain the single person discount ? Yes but what about the Unoccupied property discount ? Arguably no.
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/01/toby-young-once-more-unto-the-breach/
Also punitive increases for those who leave the property empty or are holiday homes (upto 500 % would not be unreasonable)
That is why Williamson went (or so the reports suggest).
Indeed failing to back Brexit would be fatal for the Tories given Yougov today has the biggest movement since the general election from the Tories going to UKIP NOT Labour. Labour meanwhile has seen its biggest movement to the LDs so in a sense the Tories need to become more pro Brexit and Labour more pro Remain (though Labour faces the problem most of its seats voted Leave even if not most of its voters).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/01/11/do-not-want-second-vote-brexit-fellow-leavers-must-ready-fight/
[Pall wall]
Why is that a surprise?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-poll-final-brexit-comres-yougov-opinium-tns-survey-remain-leave-live-result-a7096316.html
And it was just a suggestion. Are things already so dictatorial at the top of Corby’s team that a slip confines you to the outer darkness?
I can’t see why it is a resigning matter.
Owners then just advertise them as holiday lets, claim small business relief, and so pay no Council tax whatsoever.
It happens all over North Wales.
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2016/06/22/two-massive-poll-boosts-for-remain-with-voting-starting-in-less-than-nine-hours/
Tis worth reading the comments below, demonstrating how little most of us were right!
It looked a coin toss, yet Remain was 1/4. The betting value was Leave, based upon polling.
http://metro.co.uk/2017/12/16/new-brexit-poll-shows-people-back-remain-leave-10-points-7165717/
That is more a matter of going rogue. McDonnell is in charge of tax policy, and jealous of his prerogatives.
What’s the big deal, though? It seems an innocuous enough suggestion (after all Big_G supports it).
And it was just a suggestion. Are things already so dictatorial at the top of Corby’s team that a slip confines you to the outer darkness?
I can’t see why it is a resigning matter.
I support the increase in bands and punitive rises for empty property and holiday homes but not the huge increases Williamson proposed on existing bands that could be labour's dementia tax in England
As you should know, it is almost impossible to tax holiday homes.
Owners then just advertise them as holiday lets, claim small business relief, and so pay no Council tax whatsoever.
It happens all over North Wales.
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That is a matter for individual Councils. My Company was involved in the last revaluation of Council Tax in Wales and every domestic home was visited, sometimes by drive past, others by internal inspection and it caused a large number of appeals. But it is the right thing to do
Seeing a lot of blank posts but then if I hover my mouse over the post in the right spot it finds a link that can be clicked through to Twitter.
EDIT: This is happening on both Chrome and Firefox.
Remain could mean Dave's deal, status quo, status quo but losing UK budget rebate, or a "better" Remain deal with some free movement controls, or full-fat euro membership/schengen with zero opt-outs.
Leave could mean WTO/no deal, plain CETA, CETA+, EEA minus, or (as is likely) Theresa's Florence deal with some compromises with the EU.
I suspect present polling is testing the temperature of negotiations that are "mid-way" and, given the trend, influenced by opinion on Theresa May and her Government post the GE2017 disaster as well.
What's on offer in any new vote would be so crucial to the campaign, and how public opinion would develop once they started engaging with the issue again, that current polling simply isn't reliable.
Polling was all over the place in 2015 and 2016, and Leave only decisively moved into the lead in the last 4-5 weeks: I'm very sceptical that the Remain side has learnt any lessons from their defeat in that.
One thing they could try to do, post GE2022, is to scrap the DfIT and any nascent trade deals under negotiation, and go straight back into the Customs Union.
And no employment of people who use tax havens.
If it hadn't been for Henry VIII and the split with Rome, we might that be twice as rich as Switzerland.
Edit to add: I'm not saying we would or wouldn't be richer than Switzerland. Only that alternatives are all counter factuals, and who knows.
Karl Pritchard
@KarlPritch86
5h5 hours ago
Will Jeremy Corbyn become the first Englishman to score a 100 this year he is currently on 97 just 3 away from the magic number. Yes 97 front bench resignations people that is absolutely astonishing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42650193
People like Boris Johnson who hanker for grand projects will understand that it can only be done by embracing our role within the EU.
Henry VIII's daughter, Mary Tudor, turned Britain back into a Catholic country and Phillip of Spain became King.
Britain was also heavily involved in continental Europe in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, importing both Dutch and Germans as head of State.
Neither Hexit nor Brexit were the beginning or the end of Britains Hokey-Cokey with Europe. We will be heavily involved again fairrly shortly.
Not bad. And hard to beat with a Switzerland plus.
I can broadly agree with your last two sentences.
You have been awarded Hon Membership of the Lib Dems with special responsibilities for bar charts.