i) Despite the "Disaster at Salzburg" there has been little shift in perception over whether anyone else could do better - if anything a slight drift away from the notion - (diff vs early Sept)
May getting good deal: 3 (-) May bad deal, other leader better: 25 (-2) May bad deal other leader no different: 45 (+3)
ii) Somewhat surprisingly, there is not the level of party political polarisation you might expect to see:
May good/May bad, other leader better/May bad, other leader no different:
OA: 3 / 25 / 45 Con: 5 / 23 / 50 Lab: 1 / 30 / 46
iii) Similarly, while more Leave voters than Remain voters think someone else could do better a plurality still think no one else could:
May good/May bad, other leader better/May bad, other leader no different:
The one thing that's clear from that is that no one is going to be happy with any deal that's got. Brexit is going to start with zero legitimacy for the actual deal struck.
Are you really suggesting that May wouldn't have thrown the Unionists under the bus if she had a working majority ? I'm not apportioning blame (if anything, it's May's fault for holding her snap election), but the parliamentary arithmetic undoubtedly means that MPs who might otherwise have been brushed aside have more than a little influence.
Unfortunately it's a negative influence, with different groups wanting to wreck things in mutually-exclusive ways. It really couldn't be a worse basis on which to carry out an extremely difficult negotiation.
i) Despite the "Disaster at Salzburg" there has been little shift in perception over whether anyone else could do better - if anything a slight drift away from the notion - (diff vs early Sept)
May getting good deal: 3 (-) May bad deal, other leader better: 25 (-2) May bad deal other leader no different: 45 (+3)
ii) Somewhat surprisingly, there is not the level of party political polarisation you might expect to see:
May good/May bad, other leader better/May bad, other leader no different:
OA: 3 / 25 / 45 Con: 5 / 23 / 50 Lab: 1 / 30 / 46
iii) Similarly, while more Leave voters than Remain voters think someone else could do better a plurality still think no one else could:
May good/May bad, other leader better/May bad, other leader no different:
The one thing that's clear from that is that no one is going to be happy with any deal that's got. Brexit is going to start with zero legitimacy for the actual deal struck.
If a deal is struck and it passes the HOC it will be legitimate
However, that will not be the end of this sad saga
"The real strength of her position at the moment is that there’s little conviction amongst voters that any other leader could make a better job of dealing with the Brexit negotiations."
Among voters perhaps, but among cabinet members and also Conservative MPs there surely are some ideas.
Surprising that in the next Con leader markets there's no mention of Geoffrey Cox on Oddschecker, though Ladbrokes have him at 100.
A delicious comment this morning from Guy Verhofstadt, European Parliament's Brexit Co-ordinator, refuting La May's contention that Brexit negotiations were 95% settled, saying "Britain has always had difficulties with the metric system".
A delicious comment this morning from Guy Verhofstadt, European Parliament's Brexit Co-ordinator, refuting La May's contention that Brexit negotiations were 95% settled, saying "Britain has always had difficulties with the metric system".
But there again he's not quite the full shilling...
The one thing that's clear from that is that no one is going to be happy with any deal that's got. Brexit is going to start with zero legitimacy for the actual deal struck.
Not sure about that. Once there's a deal agreed (assuming there is), I think it will be widely if grudgingly supported.
A delicious comment this morning from Guy Verhofstadt, European Parliament's Brexit Co-ordinator, refuting La May's contention that Brexit negotiations were 95% settled, saying "Britain has always had difficulties with the metric system".
They do not help themselves
These sort of casually xenophobic remarks are very disappointing from a liberal - from his perspective lovebombing the British would be a better idea - but just like Varadkar and Tusk the underlying dislike of the decision to leave pops out in unhelpful, bitter language - makes remainers like me despair as it’s so stupid
Could somebody please post-some betting tips for a change?
I'll start the ball rolling. Republicans to hold the House at 7/4 on Ladbrokes.
RCP showing the Dems with only a 5 seat lead (205-200) in the House and polling of the swing seats looking more favourable to the Republicans in recent days. Plus should be some positive economic data just before the election.
I'll take 538 over RCP
Even after 2016 ?
Thanks for all the tips, will take a look at the May and Castro ones, although I think Trump will win in 2020...
538 predicted that Clinton had a 71% chance of winning. Punters and commentators thought it was much higher than that.
Could somebody please post-some betting tips for a change?
I'll start the ball rolling. Republicans to hold the House at 7/4 on Ladbrokes.
RCP showing the Dems with only a 5 seat lead (205-200) in the House and polling of the swing seats looking more favourable to the Republicans in recent days. Plus should be some positive economic data just before the election.
I'll take 538 over RCP
Even after 2016 ?
Thanks for all the tips, will take a look at the May and Castro ones, although I think Trump will win in 2020...
538 predicted that Clinton had a 71% chance of winning. Punters and commentators thought it was much higher than that.
There is no way one could ever have made Trump favourite in that race. Clinton was ahead, and did win the popular vote. In addition the rust belt polling was amongst the worst I've ever seen.
Could somebody please post-some betting tips for a change?
I'll start the ball rolling. Republicans to hold the House at 7/4 on Ladbrokes.
RCP showing the Dems with only a 5 seat lead (205-200) in the House and polling of the swing seats looking more favourable to the Republicans in recent days. Plus should be some positive economic data just before the election.
I'll take 538 over RCP
Even after 2016 ?
Thanks for all the tips, will take a look at the May and Castro ones, although I think Trump will win in 2020...
538 predicted that Clinton had a 71% chance of winning. Punters and commentators thought it was much higher than that.
There were some humdingers in the failure: for example, union leaders had picked up that Wisconsin might be a problem, and had arranged to bus in activists to help get the vote out. The Clinton campaign heard about this and countermanded it, saying that Wisconsin was safe.
Are you really suggesting that May wouldn't have thrown the Unionists under the bus if she had a working majority ? I'm not apportioning blame (if anything, it's May's fault for holding her snap election), but the parliamentary arithmetic undoubtedly means that MPs who might otherwise have been brushed aside have more than a little influence.
Unfortunately it's a negative influence, with different groups wanting to wreck things in mutually-exclusive ways. It really couldn't be a worse basis on which to carry out an extremely difficult negotiation.
Voters wanted chaos: they got what they wanted.
If only they'd voted remain and then Tory as you suggested
I've said it before, but it needs repeating. Brexit has driven all of you absolutely batshit insane. Any site that routinely has posters calling others xenophobes, racists, traitors, quislings and the like is on a downwards spiral. It's a strange day indeed when I think I'm the sanest person in the room.
I share your view and have long since called out the unnecessary use of language and as well as your examples, liars, fools, and idiots are also self defeating.
Vigorous debate is an essential ingredient of this forum but the use of intemperate, almost bullying language, often defeats the essence of the user's actual arguments that at times are very well made
Thanks Andrew. I think he did take Comey into account - two weeks out, he had Clinton with a 86% chance of winning. It only came into his final figure because of Comey.
His swing state performance was pretty mixed as well - he got several right (AZ, NV, OH, IA) but he was off in NC and FL, and completely missed the Rust Belt Trump performance (he had Clinton at 84% of winning WI). As somebody on CNN said on the night, the idea you have WWC voting for Trump in OH and IA should have set alarm bells ringing off for places like WI.
Are you really suggesting that May wouldn't have thrown the Unionists under the bus if she had a working majority ? I'm not apportioning blame (if anything, it's May's fault for holding her snap election), but the parliamentary arithmetic undoubtedly means that MPs who might otherwise have been brushed aside have more than a little influence.
Unfortunately it's a negative influence, with different groups wanting to wreck things in mutually-exclusive ways. It really couldn't be a worse basis on which to carry out an extremely difficult negotiation.
Voters wanted chaos: they got what they wanted.
If only they'd voted remain and then Tory as you suggested
Mr. (Miss?) Blue, I think you'll it's Brexit Brexit Brexit Brexit Classical Mythology Quiz.
Speaking of which, I've just thought of a delightfully, obnoxiously obscure mythological/historical question: what name links Heracles and Cassander (son of Antipater, and a leading Successor to Alexander the Great)?
Could somebody please post-some betting tips for a change?
I'll start the ball rolling. Republicans to hold the House at 7/4 on Ladbrokes.
RCP showing the Dems with only a 5 seat lead (205-200) in the House and polling of the swing seats looking more favourable to the Republicans in recent days. Plus should be some positive economic data just before the election.
I'll take 538 over RCP
Even after 2016 ?
Thanks for all the tips, will take a look at the May and Castro ones, although I think Trump will win in 2020...
538 predicted that Clinton had a 71% chance of winning. Punters and commentators thought it was much higher than that.
Are you really suggesting that May wouldn't have thrown the Unionists under the bus if she had a working majority ? I'm not apportioning blame (if anything, it's May's fault for holding her snap election), but the parliamentary arithmetic undoubtedly means that MPs who might otherwise have been brushed aside have more than a little influence.
Unfortunately it's a negative influence, with different groups wanting to wreck things in mutually-exclusive ways. It really couldn't be a worse basis on which to carry out an extremely difficult negotiation.
Voters wanted chaos: they got what they wanted.
That's unfair on the voters. They decided that they didn't want the hard Brexit offered by May. They also decided that there wasn't a better alternative offered to them.
Chaos has resulted because May decided to ignore as much as possible the election result, instead of rethinking her approach.
One thing about the campaign, a friend asked me (genuinely undecided) which way she should vote. I couldn't give a recommendation either way. A couple of days later I looked properly back at the leaflets (Before the EU's negotiation pour encourage les autres strategy had started) remain and leave had delivered, and almost everything on the remain leaflet was true pretty much. Just how awful was the remain campaign that a complete political anorak like me couldn't recommend a remain vote to a friend near the end ?
That's unfair on the voters. They decided that they didn't want the hard Brexit offered by May. They also decided that there wasn't a better alternative offered to them.
Chaos has resulted because May decided to ignore as much as possible the election result, instead of rethinking her approach.
What hard Brexit? She has been absolutely clear from the start that she wanted to negotiate a deal which respected the result but protected the economy as much as possible. By declining to give her the mandate she asked for, voters have made this near-impossible, as she can't trade concessions in any direction with the EU. The result is that we might even crash out with no deal.
Mr. (Miss?) Blue, I think you'll it's Brexit Brexit Brexit Brexit Classical Mythology Quiz.
Speaking of which, I've just thought of a delightfully, obnoxiously obscure mythological/historical question: what name links Heracles and Cassander (son of Antipater, and a leading Successor to Alexander the Great)?
That Cassander had Heracles of Macedon (reputed illegitimate child of Alexander) killed?
Could somebody please post-some betting tips for a change?
I'll start the ball rolling. Republicans to hold the House at 7/4 on Ladbrokes.
RCP showing the Dems with only a 5 seat lead (205-200) in the House and polling of the swing seats looking more favourable to the Republicans in recent days. Plus should be some positive economic data just before the election.
I'll take 538 over RCP
Even after 2016 ?
Thanks for all the tips, will take a look at the May and Castro ones, although I think Trump will win in 2020...
538 predicted that Clinton had a 71% chance of winning. Punters and commentators thought it was much higher than that.
There were some humdingers in the failure: for example, union leaders had picked up that Wisconsin might be a problem, and had arranged to bus in activists to help get the vote out. The Clinton campaign heard about this and countermanded it, saying that Wisconsin was safe.
She lost Wisconsin by 0.77%.
Her husband warned her something didn't feel right about the Rust Belt and needed to get out there with a new message.
He was overruled by aides who just looked at micro-polling data all day long.
Well given No 10 have supposedly given Brady decoy letters in order to revoke them should the 48 be reached anything is possible...
These are crazy times!
Don't believe all you read in the papers or on twitter.
I think that may have been a bluff to smoke out the true number of letters perhaps in.
Good point made on Sky.
If TM is replaced how does anyone else do any better.
Same issues, same contraditions, same parliamentary arithmetic, same factions, same logjams
More trust from MPs, better comms, no secret deals behind cabinets back, no signing up to Irish sea borders peeving the DUP... etc etc etc,
May decided to out-Brexit the Brexiteers from the outset, which, given she was a Remainer, might have made sense in a tactical fashion, but has served her poorly subsequently.
Just as only Labour can tackle the NHS and only the Tories can gib Defence, only a true blue Brexiteer can row the Tory ship back to a more sensible position. Alternatively, if things really do turn to shit, rally the troops to face down Johnny Foreigner.
There's nothing in that Standard poll to make you think that Brexit day is going to be seen as a glad confident morning. The country is spiralling down - at least the public are recognising that:
His swing state performance was pretty mixed as well - he got several right (AZ, NV, OH, IA) but he was off in NC and FL, and completely missed the Rust Belt Trump performance (he had Clinton at 84% of winning WI)....
That's not a failure in itself. It would only be a failure if outcomes he rated at a 84% probability went the other way significantly more often (or of course significantly less often) than 16% of the time. In other words, an 84% probability should give a surprise result about one in six times.
Mr. Cooke, that's a brilliant answer, but not actually the one I was thinking of (I'd forgotten about it until you reminded me). The name is neither Heracles nor Cassander.
Well given No 10 have supposedly given Brady decoy letters in order to revoke them should the 48 be reached anything is possible...
These are crazy times!
Don't believe all you read in the papers or on twitter.
I think that may have been a bluff to smoke out the true number of letters perhaps in.
Good point made on Sky.
If TM is replaced how does anyone else do any better.
Same issues, same contraditions, same parliamentary arithmetic, same factions, same logjams
More trust from MPs, better comms, no secret deals behind cabinets back, no signing up to Irish sea borders peeving the DUP... etc etc etc,
May decided to out-Brexit the Brexiteers from the outset, which, given she was a Remainer, might have made sense in a tactical fashion, but has served her poorly subsequently.
Just as only Labour can tackle the NHS and only the Tories can gib Defence, only a true blue Brexiteer can row the Tory ship back to a more sensible position. Alternatively, if things really do turn to shit, rally the troops to face down Johnny Foreigner.
The true blue Brexiteers have no desire to row the ship back to a more sensible position. They're all unhinged, foaming about betrayal at the merest hint of any compromise with reality.
Could somebody please post-some betting tips for a change?
I'll start the ball rolling. Republicans to hold the House at 7/4 on Ladbrokes.
RCP showing the Dems with only a 5 seat lead (205-200) in the House and polling of the swing seats looking more favourable to the Republicans in recent days. Plus should be some positive economic data just before the election.
I'll take 538 over RCP
Even after 2016 ?
Thanks for all the tips, will take a look at the May and Castro ones, although I think Trump will win in 2020...
538 predicted that Clinton had a 71% chance of winning. Punters and commentators thought it was much higher than that.
There is no way one could ever have made Trump favourite in that race. Clinton was ahead, and did win the popular vote. In addition the rust belt polling was amongst the worst I've ever seen.
The point about betting on Trump was not that I expected him to win, but that he had a better chance of winning than bookmakers were giving him.
Well given No 10 have supposedly given Brady decoy letters in order to revoke them should the 48 be reached anything is possible...
These are crazy times!
Don't believe all you read in the papers or on twitter.
I think that may have been a bluff to smoke out the true number of letters perhaps in.
Good point made on Sky.
If TM is replaced how does anyone else do any better.
Same issues, same contraditions, same parliamentary arithmetic, same factions, same logjams
More trust from MPs, better comms, no secret deals behind cabinets back, no signing up to Irish sea borders peeving the DUP... etc etc etc,
May decided to out-Brexit the Brexiteers from the outset, which, given she was a Remainer, might have made sense in a tactical fashion, but has served her poorly subsequently.
Just as only Labour can tackle the NHS and only the Tories can gib Defence, only a true blue Brexiteer can row the Tory ship back to a more sensible position. Alternatively, if things really do turn to shit, rally the troops to face down Johnny Foreigner.
The true blue Brexiteers have no desire to row the ship back to a more sensible position. They're all unhinged, foaming about betrayal at the merest hint of any compromise with reality.
I agree that the ultra brexiteers are in a world of their own, but hopefully the more reasonable will win through reducing the damage
i) Despite the "Disaster at Salzburg" there has been little shift in perception over whether anyone else could do better - if anything a slight drift away from the notion - (diff vs early Sept)
May getting good deal: 3 (-) May bad deal, other leader better: 25 (-2) May bad deal other leader no different: 45 (+3)
ii) Somewhat surprisingly, there is not the level of party political polarisation you might expect to see:
May good/May bad, other leader better/May bad, other leader no different:
OA: 3 / 25 / 45 Con: 5 / 23 / 50 Lab: 1 / 30 / 46
iii) Similarly, while more Leave voters than Remain voters think someone else could do better a plurality still think no one else could:
May good/May bad, other leader better/May bad, other leader no different:
The one thing that's clear from that is that no one is going to be happy with any deal that's got. Brexit is going to start with zero legitimacy for the actual deal struck.
Not necessarily. I suspect many just "want it to stop" and having JRM slag off anything that's agree may persuade some that its not so bad after all.
Similarly when, curiously enough, life carries on after March 29 and the more apocalyptic predictions prove (once again) to have been unfounded (empty supermarkets, no planes in the air etc), people may conclude much of it has been a fuss over nothing (or not very much) and get back to worrying about housing, health, education and jobs.
Could somebody please post-some betting tips for a change?
I'll start the ball rolling. Republicans to hold the House at 7/4 on Ladbrokes.
RCP showing the Dems with only a 5 seat lead (205-200) in the House and polling of the swing seats looking more favourable to the Republicans in recent days. Plus should be some positive economic data just before the election.
I'll take 538 over RCP
Even after 2016 ?
Thanks for all the tips, will take a look at the May and Castro ones, although I think Trump will win in 2020...
538 wasn't nearly as bad as perceived in 2016. Well they were when Trump was in the primaries, badly underestimating him. But at the general they treated him like any other candidate and gave him | 25% chance iirc. Given the narrowness of his win and the additional west coast tilt to the Dems (Which doesn't matter for ECVs) they were the best modellers, except a certain former poster here.
Plato may have posted more Trump propaganda than an entire Russian troll farm but she still predicted a Clinton victory.
You do have to wonder sometimes how 538.com does its sums. Turning, for example, to its predictions for this season's English Championship. it currently has Stoke City finishing 7th, despite the fact that after 14 games, i.e. with >30% of the season having been completed, they lie in 17th place with just 4 wins (a ratio of 28.6%) coupled with a negative goal difference to their name. Despite this, 538.com gives the Potters an 18% of gaining promotion this season, equating to betting odds of 9/2. If indeed this represents an accurate assessment, perhaps we should all be rushing off down to the bookies, where any number of them are pleased to offer odds of 8/1 against the same eventuality and still expect to make a handsome profit.
Well given No 10 have supposedly given Brady decoy letters in order to revoke them should the 48 be reached anything is possible...
These are crazy times!
Don't believe all you read in the papers or on twitter.
I think that may have been a bluff to smoke out the true number of letters perhaps in.
Good point made on Sky.
If TM is replaced how does anyone else do any better.
Same issues, same contraditions, same parliamentary arithmetic, same factions, same logjams
More trust from MPs, better comms, no secret deals behind cabinets back, no signing up to Irish sea borders peeving the DUP... etc etc etc,
May decided to out-Brexit the Brexiteers from the outset, which, given she was a Remainer, might have made sense in a tactical fashion, but has served her poorly subsequently.
Just as only Labour can tackle the NHS and only the Tories can gib Defence, only a true blue Brexiteer can row the Tory ship back to a more sensible position. Alternatively, if things really do turn to shit, rally the troops to face down Johnny Foreigner.
The true blue Brexiteers have no desire to row the ship back to a more sensible position. They're all unhinged, foaming about betrayal at the merest hint of any compromise with reality.
I agree that the ultra brexiteers are in a world of their own, but hopefully the more reasonable will win through reducing the damage
I'd like the names of some of these so-called more reasonable Leavers. They have been conspicuous by their absence to date.
Mr. (Miss?) Blue, I think you'll it's Brexit Brexit Brexit Brexit Classical Mythology Quiz.
Speaking of which, I've just thought of a delightfully, obnoxiously obscure mythological/historical question: what name links Heracles and Cassander (son of Antipater, and a leading Successor to Alexander the Great)?
That Cassander had Heracles of Macedon (reputed illegitimate child of Alexander) killed?
I think Temenus might be the link MD is looking for.
That's unfair on the voters. They decided that they didn't want the hard Brexit offered by May. They also decided that there wasn't a better alternative offered to them.
Chaos has resulted because May decided to ignore as much as possible the election result, instead of rethinking her approach.
What hard Brexit? She has been absolutely clear from the start that she wanted to negotiate a deal which respected the result but protected the economy as much as possible. By declining to give her the mandate she asked for, voters have made this near-impossible, as she can't trade concessions in any direction with the EU. The result is that we might even crash out with no deal.
It might not have looked like a hard Brexit to government loyalists, but it did to everyone else.
His swing state performance was pretty mixed as well - he got several right (AZ, NV, OH, IA) but he was off in NC and FL, and completely missed the Rust Belt Trump performance (he had Clinton at 84% of winning WI)....
That's not a failure in itself. It would only be a failure if outcomes he rated at a 84% probability went the other way significantly more often (or of course significantly less often) than 16% of the time. In other words, an 84% probability should give a surprise result about one in six times.
That is true but I think in WI, MI and PA, his average probability for Clinton across all 3 was around 80-81%. So he got wrong all 3 states where he had such a high degree of success.
The problem I suspect is that the data doesn't take into account other factors and / or common sense was not applied. I didn't come up with this but the point has been made that If you think IA and OH are going Republican, as he did, logically you should think about the risks to places like WI given the similar demographics. Given he was weighting such places at 80%+ Clinton probability win, he didn't
I am always surprised at the binary "win / lose" mentality of the referendum.
1) During the campaign a number of prominent Leavers maintained that leaving the EU would not necessarily mean leaving the SM or CU. Indeed, many of them argued if we voted Leave and didn't like it we could have a second referendum. This line of argument could easily have swayed some people who liked some aspects of the EU and not others. So, if even 2% of the vote was swayed by this argument, already a majority for Leave is precarious.
2) Most huge constitutional changes, to get legitimacy, need 66% to pass. This was not the case for the EU ref, but considering the 52/48 margin we should consider why it is the convention. Massive constitutional change takes time, political capital and political will. With a 2/3rds mandate, politicians and institutions know they can make the changes without immediate political fallout and with some sort of claim to popular credibility. With a 52/48 margin, such a weak mandate comes with lack of political will; if the population are fickle you will not reap benefits by listening to 52%.
3) Since the vote roughly a third of Remainers have been in the "get on with it" camp. They "respect the result". But, as time has gone by, nothing has been done to get these people on board with the deal. Talk about No Deal, about Remoaners and traitors alienates this part of the populace.
4) It should also be noted that almost all of the above is due to Tory in fighting. Cameron wanted this to be the end of the EU question for him and his parties sake, not the country at large. So his "only one vote" and "only 50%" stuff was all about keeping sceptics in the party happy whilst being able to scare pro EU people into the importance of the vote. Leavers campaigning on lies felt safe in the knowledge the Remain campaign wouldn't threaten Tory party unity because that was Cameron's job, whereas they could throw any bomb they wanted. May then came on board and catered to the ERG and DUP so she could govern, and instead of tacking to the middle and going for those 3rd of remainers who would happily see the result sorted, went straight to attempts at Iron Lady 2.0. This entire exercise has been scuppered not by remainers, not by the EU, but by the utter fecklessness of the leaders of the Tory party, and the decision by Cameron way back that the Tory party matters more than unity in the country.
Well given No 10 have supposedly given Brady decoy letters in order to revoke them should the 48 be reached anything is possible...
These are crazy times!
Don't believe all you read in the papers or on twitter.
I think that may have been a bluff to smoke out the true number of letters perhaps in.
Good point made on Sky.
If TM is replaced how does anyone else do any better.
Same issues, same contraditions, same parliamentary arithmetic, same factions, same logjams
More trust from MPs, better comms, no secret deals behind cabinets back, no signing up to Irish sea borders peeving the DUP... etc etc etc,
May decided to out-Brexit the Brexiteers from the outset, which, given she was a Remainer, might have made sense in a tactical fashion, but has served her poorly subsequently.
Just as only Labour can tackle the NHS and only the Tories can gib Defence, only a true blue Brexiteer can row the Tory ship back to a more sensible position. Alternatively, if things really do turn to shit, rally the troops to face down Johnny Foreigner.
The true blue Brexiteers have no desire to row the ship back to a more sensible position. They're all unhinged, foaming about betrayal at the merest hint of any compromise with reality.
I agree that the ultra brexiteers are in a world of their own, but hopefully the more reasonable will win through reducing the damage
I'd like the names of some of these so-called more reasonable Leavers. They have been conspicuous by their absence to date.
Reasonable in my context are both reasonable leavers and remainers
MOSCOW (AP) - Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is holding talks with Russian officials on his first trip to Moscow.
Wednesday's negotiations are focusing on expanding economic ties that have been hurt by European Union sanctions against Russia and Moscow's retaliatory moves.
I am always surprised at the binary "win / lose" mentality of the referendum.
1) During the campaign a number of prominent Leavers maintained that leaving the EU would not necessarily mean leaving the SM or CU. Indeed, many of them argued if we voted Leave and didn't like it we could have a second referendum. This line of argument could easily have swayed some people who liked some aspects of the EU and not others. So, if even 2% of the vote was swayed by this argument, already a majority for Leave is precarious.
2) Most huge constitutional changes, to get legitimacy, need 66% to pass. This was not the case for the EU ref, but considering the 52/48 margin we should consider why it is the convention. Massive constitutional change takes time, political capital and political will. With a 2/3rds mandate, politicians and institutions know they can make the changes without immediate political fallout and with some sort of claim to popular credibility. With a 52/48 margin, such a weak mandate comes with lack of political will; if the population are fickle you will not reap benefits by listening to 52%.
3) Since the vote roughly a third of Remainers have been in the "get on with it" camp. They "respect the result". But, as time has gone by, nothing has been done to get these people on board with the deal. Talk about No Deal, about Remoaners and traitors alienates this part of the populace.
4) It should also be noted that almost all of the above is due to Tory in fighting. Cameron wanted this to be the end of the EU question for him and his parties sake, not the country at large. So his "only one vote" and "only 50%" stuff was all about keeping sceptics in the party happy whilst being able to scare pro EU people into the importance of the vote. Leavers campaigning on lies felt safe in the knowledge the Remain campaign wouldn't threaten Tory party unity because that was Cameron's job, whereas they could throw any bomb they wanted. May then came on board and catered to the ERG and DUP so she could govern, and instead of tacking to the middle and going for those 3rd of remainers who would happily see the result sorted, went straight to attempts at Iron Lady 2.0. This entire exercise has been scuppered not by remainers, not by the EU, but by the utter fecklessness of the leaders of the Tory party, and the decision by Cameron way back that the Tory party matters more than unity in the country.
That is way to reasonable, but it is, I feel, largely correct.
Our leaders are tossers, but the loyalists on here will back them to the hilt no matter how daft their policies are.
His swing state performance was pretty mixed as well - he got several right (AZ, NV, OH, IA) but he was off in NC and FL, and completely missed the Rust Belt Trump performance (he had Clinton at 84% of winning WI)....
That's not a failure in itself. It would only be a failure if outcomes he rated at a 84% probability went the other way significantly more often (or of course significantly less often) than 16% of the time. In other words, an 84% probability should give a surprise result about one in six times.
That is true but I think in WI, MI and PA, his average probability for Clinton across all 3 was around 80-81%. So he got wrong all 3 states where he had such a high degree of success.
The problem I suspect is that the data doesn't take into account other factors and / or common sense was not applied. I didn't come up with this but the point has been made that If you think IA and OH are going Republican, as he did, logically you should think about the risks to places like WI given the similar demographics. Given he was weighting such places at 80%+ Clinton probability win, he didn't
It's wrong to treat them as separate events. For example, imagine a simplified model which believes there's a 1/10 chance that polls are uniformly underestimating GOP by 5 points. Then all 6 races where GOP are behind by less than 5 points are rated a 10% chance to go GOP. But because this form of error is perfectly correlated, the probability of them ALL going GOP is also 10%, not 0.001%.
Realistically of course you don't have only a single, perfectly correlated source of uncertainty, but there certainly is some correlation as many polls can make the same wrong assumptions, as happened here in 2017
Could somebody please post-some betting tips for a change?
I'll start the ball rolling. Republicans to hold the House at 7/4 on Ladbrokes.
RCP showing the Dems with only a 5 seat lead (205-200) in the House and polling of the swing seats looking more favourable to the Republicans in recent days. Plus should be some positive economic data just before the election.
I'll take 538 over RCP
Even after 2016 ?
Thanks for all the tips, will take a look at the May and Castro ones, although I think Trump will win in 2020...
538 wasn't nearly as bad as perceived in 2016. Well they were when Trump was in the primaries, badly underestimating him. But at the general they treated him like any other candidate and gave him | 25% chance iirc. Given the narrowness of his win and the additional west coast tilt to the Dems (Which doesn't matter for ECVs) they were the best modellers, except a certain former poster here.
Plato may have posted more Trump propaganda than an entire Russian troll farm but she still predicted a Clinton victory.
You do have to wonder sometimes how 538.com does its sums. Turning, for example, to its predictions for this season's English Championship. it currently has Stoke City finishing 7th, despite the fact that after 14 games, i.e. with >30% of the season having been completed, they lie in 17th place with just 4 wins (a ratio of 28.6%) coupled with a negative goal difference to their name. Despite this, 538.com gives the Potters an 18% of gaining promotion this season, equating to betting odds of 9/2. If indeed this represents an accurate assessment, perhaps we should all be rushing off down to the bookies, where any number of them are pleased to offer odds of 8/1 against the same eventuality and still expect to make a handsome profit.
Their team is worth 40 million quid more than anyone else's, 5 quid on the potters it is for me..
That's unfair on the voters. They decided that they didn't want the hard Brexit offered by May. They also decided that there wasn't a better alternative offered to them.
Chaos has resulted because May decided to ignore as much as possible the election result, instead of rethinking her approach.
What hard Brexit? She has been absolutely clear from the start that she wanted to negotiate a deal which respected the result but protected the economy as much as possible. By declining to give her the mandate she asked for, voters have made this near-impossible, as she can't trade concessions in any direction with the EU. The result is that we might even crash out with no deal.
It might not have looked like a hard Brexit to government loyalists, but it did to everyone else.
Further to this, when May called the election she said
The country is coming together but Westminster is not.
She was claiming a national consensus where none existed. It shouldn't have been surprising that the country chose to remind her that it was divided - and that Westminster should reflect that division.
Pretending to yourself that it was a sign of madness on the part of the electorate may be easier for you, but if you don't understand it you can't change it.
This is the same problem that Remain campaigners face, and their failure to shift public opinion is the result.
His swing state performance was pretty mixed as well - he got several right (AZ, NV, OH, IA) but he was off in NC and FL, and completely missed the Rust Belt Trump performance (he had Clinton at 84% of winning WI)....
That's not a failure in itself. It would only be a failure if outcomes he rated at a 84% probability went the other way significantly more often (or of course significantly less often) than 16% of the time. In other words, an 84% probability should give a surprise result about one in six times.
That is true but I think in WI, MI and PA, his average probability for Clinton across all 3 was around 80-81%. So he got wrong all 3 states where he had such a high degree of success.
The problem I suspect is that the data doesn't take into account other factors and / or common sense was not applied. I didn't come up with this but the point has been made that If you think IA and OH are going Republican, as he did, logically you should think about the risks to places like WI given the similar demographics. Given he was weighting such places at 80%+ Clinton probability win, he didn't
That raises the interesting question of the correlation between the different states. My take is that Nate Silver handles this very well, which is why he had what looked at the time like an overly spread-out probability distribution for the ECV totals. (He would have had a much more narrow distribution if they were independent eventualities). Of course we don't get to rerun the election thousands of time to see whether his probabilities are about right, but my impression is that on US elections he's as good as you'll get. He certainly saved my bacon in 2016, because in view of his flattish distribution I'd positioned my bets to be OK in the case of a Trump win, even though I was expecting as my central forecast a fairly clear Clinton win.
Also: his forecasts (in his 'Classic' model) do take into account factors other than polling. He shows this very clearly in the new Senate forecasts for individual states, with a graphic showing the effects of the various factors.
I guess a better question on 538 is "in how many races would you have made money betting against the model", or in other words was the betting market assigning more or less accurate odds than 538?
May will survive and ultimately agree the NI backstop with a vague get out clause that it can be ended once a technical solution is found to the Irish border.
All the evidence is the public see her as no titan but far preferable to Corbynite Socialism or the other extreme of the ERG and No Deal
I am always surprised at the binary "win / lose" mentality of the referendum.
1) During the campaign a number of prominent Leavers maintained that leaving the EU would not necessarily mean leaving the SM or CU. Indeed, many of them argued if we voted Leave and didn't like it we could have a second referendum. This line of argument could easily have swayed some people who liked some aspects of the EU and not others. So, if even 2% of the vote was swayed by this argument, already a majority for Leave is precarious.
2) Most huge constitutional changes, to get legitimacy, need 66% to pass. This was not the case for the EU ref, but considering the 52/48 margin we should consider why it is the convention. Massive constitutional change takes time, political capital and political will. With a 2/3rds mandate, politicians and institutions know they can make the changes without immediate political fallout and with some sort of claim to popular credibility. With a 52/48 margin, such a weak mandate comes with lack of political will; if the population are fickle you will not reap benefits by listening to 52%.
3) Since the vote roughly a third of Remainers have been in the "get on with it" camp. They "respect the result". But, as time has gone by, nothing has been done to get these people on board with the deal. Talk about No Deal, about Remoaners and traitors alienates this part of the populace.
4) It should also be noted that almost all of the above is due to Tory in fighting. Cameron wanted this to be the end of the EU question for him and his parties sake, not the country at large. So his "only one vote" and "only 50%" stuff was all about keeping sceptics in the party happy whilst being able to scare pro EU people into the importance of the vote. Leavers campaigning on lies felt safe in the knowledge the Remain campaign wouldn't threaten Tory party unity because that was Cameron's job, whereas they could throw any bomb they wanted. May then came on board and catered to the ERG and DUP so she could govern, and instead of tacking to the middle and going for those 3rd of remainers who would happily see the result sorted, went straight to attempts at Iron Lady 2.0. This entire exercise has been scuppered not by remainers, not by the EU, but by the utter fecklessness of the leaders of the Tory party, and the decision by Cameron way back that the Tory party matters more than unity in the country.
The median position of the average voter is now to Leave the EU but only with a Deal
Could somebody please post-some betting tips for a change?
I'll start the ball rolling. Republicans to hold the House at 7/4 on Ladbrokes.
RCP showing the Dems with only a 5 seat lead (205-200) in the House and polling of the swing seats looking more favourable to the Republicans in recent days. Plus should be some positive economic data just before the election.
I'll take 538 over RCP
Even after 2016 ?
Thanks for all the tips, will take a look at the May and Castro ones, although I think Trump will win in 2020...
Nate Silver was pretty clear throughout the runup to 2016 on 538 that there was a path for a Trump victory, and indeed had a big spat with another outlet (Huff Post?) about that.
Sam Wang (Princeton model) really shit the bed in 2016, giving Clinton 99% chance or something. 538 was fine.
Wang trusted the polls too much. 538 allowed for systematic polling error.
That's why I'm no longer betting on the result of 2018 mid terms. I think systematic polling error is in play due to turnout.
I am always surprised at the binary "win / lose" mentality of the referendum.
1) During the campaign a number of prominent Leavers maintained that leaving the EU would not necessarily mean leaving the SM or CU. Indeed, many of them argued if we voted Leave and didn't like it we could have a second referendum. This line of argument could easily have swayed some people who liked some aspects of the EU and not others. So, if even 2% of the vote was swayed by this argument, already a majority for Leave is precarious.
2) Most huge constitutional changes, to get legitimacy, need 66% to pass. This was not the case for the EU ref, but considering the 52/48 margin we should consider why it is the convention. Massive constitutional change takes time, political capital and political will. With a 2/3rds mandate, politicians and institutions know they can make the changes without immediate political fallout and with some sort of claim to popular credibility. With a 52/48 margin, such a weak mandate comes with lack of political will; if the population are fickle you will not reap benefits by listening to 52%.
3) Since the vote roughly a third of Remainers have been in the "get on with it" camp. They "respect the result". But, as time has gone by, nothing has been done to get these people on board with the deal. Talk about No Deal, about Remoaners and traitors alienates this part of the populace.
4) It should also be noted that almost all of the above is due to Tory in fighting. Cameron wanted this to be the end of the EU question for him and his parties sake, not the country at large. So his "only one vote" and "only 50%" stuff was all about keeping sceptics in the party happy whilst being able to scare pro EU people into the importance of the vote. Leavers campaigning on lies felt safe in the knowledge the Remain campaign wouldn't threaten Tory party unity because that was Cameron's job, whereas they could throw any bomb they wanted. May then came on board and catered to the ERG and DUP so she could govern, and instead of tacking to the middle and going for those 3rd of remainers who would happily see the result sorted, went straight to attempts at Iron Lady 2.0. This entire exercise has been scuppered not by remainers, not by the EU, but by the utter fecklessness of the leaders of the Tory party, and the decision by Cameron way back that the Tory party matters more than unity in the country.
Precisley. Both May and Cameron have put the party before the country over many years. Which is why May's recent attempts to appeal for support from opposition MPs on the basis of the national interest are hollow and unconvincing.
Could somebody please post-some betting tips for a change?
I'll start the ball rolling. Republicans to hold the House at 7/4 on Ladbrokes.
RCP showing the Dems with only a 5 seat lead (205-200) in the House and polling of the swing seats looking more favourable to the Republicans in recent days. Plus should be some positive economic data just before the election.
I'll take 538 over RCP
Even after 2016 ?
Thanks for all the tips, will take a look at the May and Castro ones, although I think Trump will win in 2020...
Ironically if the Republicans hold the House narrowly it may hurt Trump's chances of winning re election.
The last President to lose after only one term of his party in the White House, Carter in 1978, saw his party narrowly hold the House in 1978. George W Bush won the narrowest re election of any President for 50 years in 2004 after his party held the House in 1978.
By contrast Obama, Clinton and IKE all saw their parties lose the House in their first midterms and all were comfortably re elected.
That's unfair on the voters. They decided that they didn't want the hard Brexit offered by May. They also decided that there wasn't a better alternative offered to them.
Chaos has resulted because May decided to ignore as much as possible the election result, instead of rethinking her approach.
What hard Brexit? She has been absolutely clear from the start that she wanted to negotiate a deal which respected the result but protected the economy as much as possible. By declining to give her the mandate she asked for, voters have made this near-impossible, as she can't trade concessions in any direction with the EU. The result is that we might even crash out with no deal.
Not true.
Had May won a landslide Tory majority of over 100 with lots of new ERG linked Tory MPs the Commons may now have had a majority of ultra hard, no deal Brexit.
As it is the fact we have a hung parliament and the Tories lost their majority means the key swing votes are 40 to 50 Tory MPs who back a soft Brexit and are sympathetic to the single market and customs union and prefer EUref2 to No Deal
I am always surprised at the binary "win / lose" mentality of the referendum.
1) During the campaign a number of prominent Leavers maintained that leaving the EU would not necessarily mean leaving the SM or CU. Indeed, many of them argued if we voted Leave and didn't like it we could have a second referendum. This line of argument could easily have swayed some people who liked some aspects of the EU and not others. So, if even 2% of the vote was swayed by this argument, already a majority for Leave is precarious.
2) Most huge constitutional changes, to get legitimacy, need 66% to pass. This was not the case for the EU ref, but considering the 52/48 margin we should consider why it is the convention. Massive constitutional change takes time, political capital and political will. With a 2/3rds mandate, politicians and institutions know they can make the changes without immediate political fallout and with some sort of claim to popular credibility. With a 52/48 margin, such a weak mandate comes with lack of political will; if the population are fickle you will not reap benefits by listening to 52%.
3) Since the vote roughly a third of Remainers have been in the "get on with it" camp. They "respect the result". But, as time has gone by, nothing has been done to get these people on board with the deal. Talk about No Deal, about Remoaners and traitors alienates this part of the populace.
4) It should also be noted that almost all of the above is due to Tory in fighting. Cameron wanted this to be the end of the EU question for him and his parties sake, not the country at large. So his "only one vote" and "only 50%" stuff was all about keeping sceptics in the party happy whilst being able to scare pro EU people into the importance of the vote. Leavers campaigning on lies felt safe in the knowledge the Remain campaign wouldn't threaten Tory party unity because that was Cameron's job, whereas they could throw any bomb they wanted. May then came on board and catered to the ERG and DUP so she could govern, and instead of tacking to the middle and going for those 3rd of remainers who would happily see the result sorted, went straight to attempts at Iron Lady 2.0. This entire exercise has been scuppered not by remainers, not by the EU, but by the utter fecklessness of the leaders of the Tory party, and the decision by Cameron way back that the Tory party matters more than unity in the country.
The median position of the average voter is now to Leave the EU but only with a Deal
How do you find a median between several non-ordinal options?
I guess a better question on 538 is "in how many races would you have made money betting against the model", or in other words was the betting market assigning more or less accurate odds than 538?
Personally, I made money on backing Brexit and Trump, both at 6/1 on the day, but lost on the General Election ex-Scotland. I don't know what 538 said for the last one, but I would have lost money
His swing state performance was pretty mixed as well - he got several right (AZ, NV, OH, IA) but he was off in NC and FL, and completely missed the Rust Belt Trump performance (he had Clinton at 84% of winning WI)....
That's not a failure in itself. It would only be a failure if outcomes he rated at a 84% probability went the other way significantly more often (or of course significantly less often) than 16% of the time. In other words, an 84% probability should give a surprise result about one in six times.
That is true but I think in WI, MI and PA, his average probability for Clinton across all 3 was around 80-81%. So he got wrong all 3 states where he had such a high degree of success.
The problem I suspect is that the data doesn't take into account other factors and / or common sense was not applied. I didn't come up with this but the point has been made that If you think IA and OH are going Republican, as he did, logically you should think about the risks to places like WI given the similar demographics. Given he was weighting such places at 80%+ Clinton probability win, he didn't
That raises the interesting question of the correlation between the different states. My take is that Nate Silver handles this very well, which is why he had what looked at the time like an overly spread-out probability distribution for the ECV totals. (He would have had a much more narrow distribution if they were independent eventualities). Of course we don't get to rerun the election thousands of time to see whether his probabilities are about right, but my impression is that on US elections he's as good as you'll get. He certainly saved my bacon in 2016, because in view of his flattish distribution I'd positioned my bets to be OK in the case of a Trump win, even though I was expecting as my central forecast a fairly clear Clinton win.
Also: his forecasts (in his 'Classic' model) do take into account factors other than polling. He shows this very clearly in the new Senate forecasts for individual states, with a graphic showing the effects of the various factors.
Wasn't it the USC/LA Times that got it right about Trump winning in 2016?
Did May say anything that might enrage the backbenches though ?
No I don't think so. They didn't discuss Brexit.
It was all about austerity - police officers, nurse bursaries, Universal credit etc. Corbyn asked detailed questions pointing out inconsistencies in the government position. She answered in boiler plate guff. She added that the last Labour manifesto costing didn't add up. Corbyn replied that the Tories manifesto wasn't even costed.
A clear win for Corbyn but she didn't enrage her backbenches. She didn't enthuse them either.
Did May say anything that might enrage the backbenches though ?
No I don't think so. They didn't discuss Brexit.
It was all about austerity - police officers, nurse bursaries, Universal credit etc. Corbyn asked detailed questions pointing out inconsistencies in the government position. She answered in boiler plate guff. She added that the last Labour manifesto costing didn't add up. Corbyn replied that the Tories manifesto wasn't even costed.
A clear win for Corbyn but she didn't enrage her backbenches. She didn't enthuse them either.
I think you may be biased. It was dreary and soon forgotten
Comments
Voters wanted chaos: they got what they wanted.
However, that will not be the end of this sad saga
Among voters perhaps, but among cabinet members and also Conservative MPs there surely are some ideas.
Surprising that in the next Con leader markets there's no mention of Geoffrey Cox on Oddschecker, though Ladbrokes have him at 100.
https://twitter.com/mattwardman/status/1055040048696098819
https://www.abitleftandabitlost.com/posts/are-we-closer-to-a-brexit-deal-or-theresa-mays-political-demise
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/
I don't think 538 failed. Clinton failed.
There were some humdingers in the failure: for example, union leaders had picked up that Wisconsin might be a problem, and had arranged to bus in activists to help get the vote out. The Clinton campaign heard about this and countermanded it, saying that Wisconsin was safe.
She lost Wisconsin by 0.77%.
His swing state performance was pretty mixed as well - he got several right (AZ, NV, OH, IA) but he was off in NC and FL, and completely missed the Rust Belt Trump performance (he had Clinton at 84% of winning WI). As somebody on CNN said on the night, the idea you have WWC voting for Trump in OH and IA should have set alarm bells ringing off for places like WI.
Speaking of which, I've just thought of a delightfully, obnoxiously obscure mythological/historical question: what name links Heracles and Cassander (son of Antipater, and a leading Successor to Alexander the Great)?
Chaos has resulted because May decided to ignore as much as possible the election result, instead of rethinking her approach.
A couple of days later I looked properly back at the leaflets (Before the EU's negotiation pour encourage les autres strategy had started) remain and leave had delivered, and almost everything on the remain leaflet was true pretty much.
Just how awful was the remain campaign that a complete political anorak like me couldn't recommend a remain vote to a friend near the end ?
https://twitter.com/nick_gutteridge/status/1055004659721613312?s=21
He was overruled by aides who just looked at micro-polling data all day long.
Just as only Labour can tackle the NHS and only the Tories can gib Defence, only a true blue Brexiteer can row the Tory ship back to a more sensible position. Alternatively, if things really do turn to shit, rally the troops to face down Johnny Foreigner.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/theresa-mays-brexit-will-make-people-worse-off-damning-poll-reveals-a3970186.html
As an aside, what a weasel Polyperchon was.
Similarly when, curiously enough, life carries on after March 29 and the more apocalyptic predictions prove (once again) to have been unfounded (empty supermarkets, no planes in the air etc), people may conclude much of it has been a fuss over nothing (or not very much) and get back to worrying about housing, health, education and jobs.
Turning, for example, to its predictions for this season's English Championship. it currently has Stoke City finishing 7th, despite the fact that after 14 games, i.e. with >30% of the season having been completed, they lie in 17th place with just 4 wins (a ratio of 28.6%) coupled with a negative goal difference to their name.
Despite this, 538.com gives the Potters an 18% of gaining promotion this season, equating to betting odds of 9/2. If indeed this represents an accurate assessment, perhaps we should all be rushing off down to the bookies, where any number of them are pleased to offer odds of 8/1 against the same eventuality and still expect to make a handsome profit.
And why would they do that? Might there not be consequences for them too?
Businesses can do their best to prepare but they need to know what they're preparing for.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/wi/wisconsin_trump_vs_clinton-5659.html#polls
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/mn/minnesota_trump_vs_clinton-5591.html
Simply note the polling after the 4th November (All two of them) was very favourable to Trump:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/oh/ohio_trump_vs_clinton-5634.html#polls
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/mi/michigan_trump_vs_clinton-5533.html#polls
It's incredibly difficult to call Ohio a fairly safe GOP win, MI; WI;MN coinflips off the back of all that polling though.
True No Deal is undoubtably chaortic. In reality it needs mini deals, and a cheque.
The problem I suspect is that the data doesn't take into account other factors and / or common sense was not applied. I didn't come up with this but the point has been made that If you think IA and OH are going Republican, as he did, logically you should think about the risks to places like WI given the similar demographics. Given he was weighting such places at 80%+ Clinton probability win, he didn't
1) During the campaign a number of prominent Leavers maintained that leaving the EU would not necessarily mean leaving the SM or CU. Indeed, many of them argued if we voted Leave and didn't like it we could have a second referendum. This line of argument could easily have swayed some people who liked some aspects of the EU and not others. So, if even 2% of the vote was swayed by this argument, already a majority for Leave is precarious.
2) Most huge constitutional changes, to get legitimacy, need 66% to pass. This was not the case for the EU ref, but considering the 52/48 margin we should consider why it is the convention. Massive constitutional change takes time, political capital and political will. With a 2/3rds mandate, politicians and institutions know they can make the changes without immediate political fallout and with some sort of claim to popular credibility. With a 52/48 margin, such a weak mandate comes with lack of political will; if the population are fickle you will not reap benefits by listening to 52%.
3) Since the vote roughly a third of Remainers have been in the "get on with it" camp. They "respect the result". But, as time has gone by, nothing has been done to get these people on board with the deal. Talk about No Deal, about Remoaners and traitors alienates this part of the populace.
4) It should also be noted that almost all of the above is due to Tory in fighting. Cameron wanted this to be the end of the EU question for him and his parties sake, not the country at large. So his "only one vote" and "only 50%" stuff was all about keeping sceptics in the party happy whilst being able to scare pro EU people into the importance of the vote. Leavers campaigning on lies felt safe in the knowledge the Remain campaign wouldn't threaten Tory party unity because that was Cameron's job, whereas they could throw any bomb they wanted. May then came on board and catered to the ERG and DUP so she could govern, and instead of tacking to the middle and going for those 3rd of remainers who would happily see the result sorted, went straight to attempts at Iron Lady 2.0. This entire exercise has been scuppered not by remainers, not by the EU, but by the utter fecklessness of the leaders of the Tory party, and the decision by Cameron way back that the Tory party matters more than unity in the country.
MOSCOW (AP) - Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is holding talks with Russian officials on his first trip to Moscow.
Wednesday's negotiations are focusing on expanding economic ties that have been hurt by European Union sanctions against Russia and Moscow's retaliatory moves.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-6311233/Italys-prime-minister-Russia-talks-focusing-trade.html
Our leaders are tossers, but the loyalists on here will back them to the hilt no matter how daft their policies are.
Realistically of course you don't have only a single, perfectly correlated source of uncertainty, but there certainly is some correlation as many polls can make the same wrong assumptions, as happened here in 2017
Pretending to yourself that it was a sign of madness on the part of the electorate may be easier for you, but if you don't understand it you can't change it.
This is the same problem that Remain campaigners face, and their failure to shift public opinion is the result.
Also: his forecasts (in his 'Classic' model) do take into account factors other than polling. He shows this very clearly in the new Senate forecasts for individual states, with a graphic showing the effects of the various factors.
All the evidence is the public see her as no titan but far preferable to Corbynite Socialism or the other extreme of the ERG and No Deal
He was the younger brother of Cassander, thought, almost certainly wrongly, by some to have poisoned Alexander the Great.
The same name applies to a relative of Heracles who helped him out during the Labours.
That's why I'm no longer betting on the result of 2018 mid terms. I think systematic polling error is in play due to turnout.
The last President to lose after only one term of his party in the White House, Carter in 1978, saw his party narrowly hold the House in 1978. George W Bush won the narrowest re election of any President for 50 years in 2004 after his party held the House in 1978.
By contrast Obama, Clinton and IKE all saw their parties lose the House in their first midterms and all were comfortably re elected.
Americans like divided government
Makes sense to somebody, I suppose...
Had May won a landslide Tory majority of over 100 with lots of new ERG linked Tory MPs the Commons may now have had a majority of ultra hard, no deal Brexit.
As it is the fact we have a hung parliament and the Tories lost their majority means the key swing votes are 40 to 50 Tory MPs who back a soft Brexit and are sympathetic to the single market and customs union and prefer EUref2 to No Deal
It was all about austerity - police officers, nurse bursaries, Universal credit etc. Corbyn asked detailed questions pointing out inconsistencies in the government position. She answered in boiler plate guff. She added that the last Labour manifesto costing didn't add up. Corbyn replied that the Tories manifesto wasn't even costed.
A clear win for Corbyn but she didn't enrage her backbenches. She didn't enthuse them either.
https://twitter.com/bmj_latest/status/1055057579204902912
The BMJ have picked up on the way a lot of placards related to the harm Brexit is doing to the NHS, and made a newsbite out of it.
It is more powerful than a simple press release because it highlights that it is a view with a lot of popular support.