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A new ComRes survey of 159 MPs reveals that 30% of MPs overall, including 35% of Labour MPs and one in four Tories (25%), would support a ban on the publication of opinion polls in the run-up to General Elections.
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No.
The problem with a ban is not that it is not going to work, it is that it is an infringement on a free press.
(Which makes it horrifying that over 30% of "Liberal" Democrat MPs support a ban. Extremely small sample size mind.)
Given their current political crisis, ought anybody to be imitating French politics right now? National Front vs Hollande (BNP vs Michael Foot) is like choosing between different categories of Dante's hell.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/10/hollande-warns-rise-nationalists-europe-elections
A ban on opinion polls would certainly make the campaign more interesting.
On topic, no, bonkers - in any case I suspect politicians over estimate the impact of polls on voters - and small base size noted, interesting to see who is most in favour of bans.....
The former Home Secretary said Labour’s 2004 decision to hand immediate working rights to Poles and migrants from other new EU states was a ‘well-intentioned policy we messed up’.
His comments emerged on the same day as his successor as Home Secretary, David Blunkett, warned that the influx of Roma migrants into Britain risked causing riots.
Mr Blunkett’s comments reinforced the significance of Mr Straw’s admission about Labour’s failure to anticipate the scale of migration when eight former Soviet bloc nations became EU members, and Britain – almost alone in Europe – allowed the free movement of workers between countries.
At the time, the Government predicted up to 13,000 migrants would come to Britain each year. The actual total over nearly a decade was more than a million.
Virtually every other EU state, apart from Ireland and Sweden, kept their jobs markets closed for the seven years permitted.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2504398/A-spectacular-mistake-immigration-Straw-finally-admits-Labour-messed-letting-million-East-Europeans.html#ixzz2kVJyqIrY
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That the French did this, Ipso Facto makes it a terrible idea.
The former Prime Minister, who is said to have amassed a £50 million fortune since leaving office, was paid the staggering sum for conducting two 30-minute events in Dubai.
His fee for talking about global affairs in the fabulously wealthy Gulf state worked out at £2,602 per minute.
His work as a Middle East ‘peace envoy’ is unpaid but his latest trip to the region was as guest of honour of Arabian Business magazine, which is presided over by its chairman, journalist and BBC broadcaster Andrew Neil.
Mr Blair, who was accompanied by his wife Cherie, gave a 30-minute speech on Monday on global and economic affairs to 600 of the Gulf region’s key business leaders at the newly-opened JW Marriott Marquis hotel in Dubai, the world’s tallest hotel.
His appearance was arranged to mark the magazine’s business achievement awards.
That was followed yesterday by another 30-minute engagement on stage with Mr Neil at the annual Arabian Business forum, also in the JW Marriott.
A source said he was being paid a $250,000 fee - equal to £156,124. In addition, a source said his team of eight was being put up in the finest Dubai hotels and entertained with no expense spared by their Middle Eastern hosts.
Mr Blair was offered accommodation in the £7,140-a-night penthouse suite of the JW Marriott but demanded to be moved, according to sources.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2504757/Blair-speech-earns-2-600-minute-Former-PM-earns-astonishing-150-000-half-hour-speaking-events.html#ixzz2kVLrnZvZ
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Agree it would be unenforceable given today’s on-line presence, but how should a surfeit of spurious polls on twitter be regarded? - Unreliable at best I’d imagine.
As far as I’m aware there are currently no restrictions on the publication of pre-election surveys in the UK, although the publication of exit polls taken before voting closes is prohibited by the Representation of the People Act (Amendment), 2000 ?. – I don’t think there are any changes to that state being proposed by anyone, nor do I see it changing anytime soon.
What`s George going to pull out of his hat come December 5? Help to rent perhaps!
http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/7zv34u8cef/YG-Archive-Pol-Sun-results-121113.pdf
Lab pick up among 2010 Lib Dem voters - now 37% say Lab vs 30% Lib Dem.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nick-clegg-to-take-on-ed-miliband-over-cost-of-living-crisis-8935738.html
High Court judge Mr Justice Mostyn said the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights appeared to apply in the UK, despite the last Labour government supposedly negotiating a watertight ‘opt out’.
The judge said a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) meant that the Charter, which contains a ‘host of new rights’, was valid in British courts. He said: ‘The constitutional significance of this can hardly be overstated.’
Last night, Mr Grayling said: ‘Labour duped us when it signed the Lisbon Treaty and promised this kind of ruling wouldn’t happen. We cannot go on seeing crucial decisions about our society and our system of justice and government being taken by unaccountable European courts.
‘That’s why we need to renegotiate our membership of the EU and have a proper in-out referendum.’
The Charter, which contains a bewildering 54 new ‘rights’, including the right to strike, a ‘right to marry and found a family’, a ‘right to collective bargaining’ and a ‘right to fair working conditions’. It was attached to the EU’s Lisbon Treaty which was signed in 2007 and Tony Blair told MPs that it was ‘absolutely clear that we have an opt-out’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2504832/Dozens-EU-human-rights-smuggled-UK-Grayling-attacks-Brussels-claims-judge.html#ixzz2kVPbeW32
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Banning polls for 48 hours before voting may help to stop rogue polls which intend to influence the election.But in general bans should be avoided if possible.
Given the size of the country and the huge demographic variances in the differing regions of India, to get anything approaching an accurate poll is an achievement.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/
The YG is interesting because the secondaries are quite stable, suggesting that it's not an unusually warped sample. My impression from doorsteps is that we're now seeing a bit of the exasperated switching that you usually see mid-term, mostly from some of the remaining LibDems, who just think the Government is really rubbish. Clegg needs to get on with the differentiation strategy if he wants to avoid a catastrophe.
@Sun_Politics: EXCL: Labour MP Tom Watson's bitter attack on Ed Miliband over Falkirk vote rig scandal - "he got it so wrong". http://t.co/VIDlX8nulk
The Yougov seems to show yet further strengthening of the Labour lead and vote. The tories are back to where they were a year ago with all the progress of 2013 reversed. Ho hum.
My understanding of the fundamental freedoms is that they are not intended to be free standing rights as such but are intended to influence how all the other legislation and provisions are interpreted in the same way that our courts have to interpret UK legislation in a way that is consistent with the ECHR.
Is Mr Grayling seriously arguing that EU legislation was to be interpreted differently in the UK from the rest of the EU? Did he think that despite the terms of the European Communities Act that our courts would not have regard to decisions of the ECJ which would of course have regard to the fundamental freedoms in their interpretation?
This man is Lord Chancellor for goodness sake. I mean I know he is not a lawyer but jeez.
So the issue of whether this idea is a 'bad one' should not be driven by whether or not it's enforceable. Those are two separate issues.
It would offer many more political betting opportunities, too.
better get on his case tim or he'll be saying Labour totally scewed the economy next.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2504398/A-spectacular-mistake-immigration-Straw-finally-admits-Labour-messed-letting-million-East-Europeans.html
My own sense from TV vox pops 'Any Question' audiences 'Question Time' audiences friends my hairdresser Uncle T C..... is that the shift is all to do with the zeitgeist.........
Whereas the likes of Cameron and Osborne might have looked like amiable if over privileged triers they're now looking supercilious. Whereas IDS and Gove might at one time have looked like tough men for tough times now they look bullying.
There's a sense that people are suffering even if it's not them or their immediate circle and they can't understand why the government are taking it out on the vulnerable. It looks particularly inappropriate when prominent members of that government have spent their lives wrapped in cotton wool.
By contrast Millband still looks more geek than PM but a concerned geek and that seems to be where the zeitgeist is pointing.
Labour's opinion poll bounce back is a bit of a surprise given the summer's events. Cost of living is what it's all about. The Tories just have to start delivering; tractor stats - however impressive - will clearly not be enough. Lynton Crosby's skill is the right wing dog whistle, but if the election is not being fought on those terms that £500,000 is going to have to be earned another way. It's worth remembering that his greatest (perceived) successes have been under non-FPTP voting systems.
feeeling unloved ? nobody listening to you ? try some retail therapy, have a facial and buy some new shoes you'll feel better for it.
The good news on inflation yesterday is a nice backdrop and it seems likely that UK inflation will edge down on the back of what looks like ever more widely spread deflation on the continent. That means that the Governor will still be pushing any interest rate increases out beyond the election. I still think he will be proved wrong about that but we will see.
So today should be another day of positive economic headlines for the tories. Labour lead of 14% tomorrow? Maybe polling should just be banned altogther.
"Nick Clegg will today launch a fightback against Ed Miliband’s successful campaign on the “cost of living crisis”, claiming that a Labour government would wreck the economic recovery."
Smart move. Lib Dems down to 6% tomorrow.
If the Labour party opposed it where were the 257 Labour MPs last night?
OT - have you seen Gravity? Does it deserve the rave reviews?
No wonder they are happy to give air-time to someone who can promise the world and shun someone who has to tell it like it is.
So much easier to believe someone telling you that everything's going to be OK.
A ban on publication wouldn't work, but you could ban them being carried out.
Edited extra bit: and I would strongly support this, as well as a limit on the frequency of polls beforehand. YouGov's daily tracker directed opinion more than it reflected it, due to media coverage.
I'm sure he claimed it was bad news for Ed though.....:-)
"A source said he was being paid a $250,000 fee - equal to £156,124. In addition, a source said his team of eight was being put up in the finest Dubai hotels and entertained with no expense spared by their Middle Eastern hosts."
You should see how much a director and a team of eight would charge for shooting a commercial in Dubai. For an ex PM and a team of eight spending two days there that sounds reasonable.
Ed Balls (he's in USA)
Douglas Alexander
Jim Murphy
Umunna (he's in Palestine)
Frank Field
Diane Abbott
David Blunkett
Shawn Woodward
Alan Johnson
Gordon Brown
Tessa Jowell
Useful ammo for PMQs....
OT - have you seen Gravity? Does it deserve the rave reviews?
As I said on here the other day it's an extraordinary film but it wouldn't be in my top 100. The first twenty minutes are magnificent and poetic. It is also perfectly crafted and though my knowledge of special effects is pretty good this one had me baffled.
Add to that the entire film had a cast of two and for half of it just one and you realize why its too intriguing to miss. Having said that the plot and occasional sentimentality let it down.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24899647
"It is therefore essential that we establish an international mechanism on loss and damage here in Warsaw and address this crisis once and for all," she said.
Despite their sympathy for the situation in the Philippines, developed nations are likely to resist a formal, legal basis for future loss and damage claims associated with climate change.
I've not read the Daily Mail, but Jack Straw's mini Mea Culpa on immigration fits in with Ms Thornberry's on QT last week. Labour are now whispering that they got it wrong ten years ago but they know better now so let's move on and forget all about it.
Immigration isn't a big issue for me (not many come to Merseyside), but it could be used to show a severe bout of incompetence by Labour if virtually all the other EC countries took steps to limit it at the time.
I think Labour let rip deliberately. That's fine if they admit it. At least tim is honest - he believes unlimited immigration is good for the UK. Many Labour politicians do too, but they know the polls are against them, so they will deny it.
And they know they will get away with it because the Tories are so frit of Ukip, they daren't mention it themselves.
Politicians being dishonest? Hardly a surprise but then they wonder why no one trusts them.
In the absence of dimwit PB Tory analysis, I'll have a go. 42 is an outlier - and don't look at the lead, look at the share. That's around the 39% level and perhaps solidifying slightly, with daily polling bouncing around on a MoE basis.
As for banning polling, at any time. No. Would mean empirical research would be replaced by Tory/PB Tory anecdote, and that is a dark future indeed.
Expect calls from Ed of "Something must be done!" "Something" left unspecified.....
You used a two-word phrase last night, which soon got edited out. May I suggest that you should reserve the last word of that phrase for yourself?
I have repeatedly asked for your timeline regarding Plebgate. You have yet to provide it. As far as I'm aware, you have also failed to condemn anyone who lied to bring down a cabinet minister. Unless you think what happened was fine?
Yet again, you are using the "look, squirrel" tactics we all know and hate. Cameron was in an no-win position - whatever he did, you would now be criticising.
It is this sort of 'analysis' that makes so many of your posts on here worse than useless. You let your hatred rule your head.
Furthermore, the debates (boo hiss), via the worm (wide open to mob effects or a single zealot/hater substantially altering it), could increase this effect dramatically.
For example: there's a debate in the latter stages of the election campaign. Trident gets mentioned. Clegg reaffirms the traditional Lib Dem stance, which is not broadly popular. The small number of people who get an enormous influence over the worm (which tracks how 'popular' a speaker is at a given moment) give him a big negative. This feeds into the next opinion polls, which see a slump in Lib Dem support. They don't recover because people like backing a winner, and they're constantly told on the news that the Lib Dem support has collapsed (because we get polls every single day).
*for example say there was a time when spending was weighted 50/50 between necessities and discretionary spending and the basket used to calculate inflation at that time was also weighted 50/50 and then the percentage of incomes gradually slid more and more into necessities while necessities inflation increased faster than inflation for all the other stuff then the actual rate of inflation being experienced would get out of whack with the headline figure.
As for the merits of the proposal, it seems like an unwelcome, unnecessary and restrictive import from the Continent that we could do without.
Man up Britain !
http://order-order.com/2013/11/13/watch-paxo-tattoo-tops-dimbleby/#comments
There are other aspects of the saga which I also mention from time to time, as you well know. Sadly, because of the rather drawn-out investigations, the most important half of the story is difficult to talk about.
Your attempt to divert the story to Cameron from evident police corruption is hilarious, especially when you would now be criticising Cameron whatever he had done. ("the CCTV was not his to release, and the fact he released it shows it cannot be trusted" or "it's all a set-up of the police by the tories") and other such nonsense.
Then again, your hatred is so great, you claimed that a man crying at a funeral would set the media narrative...
You have yet to prove he 'sat' on the CCTV evidence, especially for the three months you have repeatedly claimed. It is an allegation. Neither have you said what he should have done given the manufactured media furore. Neither have you said what your reaction would have been to that. One thing can be guaranteed - it would not be positive.
Your trolling is distinctly third-class. The occasional gem of political insight you give us on here is overwhelmed by thousands of posts based on nothing but hate.
Sort your life out, mate.
(*) I think I've commented on individual polls twice here on PB.
Why no PMQs today?
@Morris
Debates are excellent, removing them would be absolutely barmy. You worried that Cameron will try to chicken out?
Fine.
Cam is paralysed by toff-dom. Being seen as out of touch is most damaging of all to him and hence his sensitivity. Not how I would play it but fair enough. So suppose he had (wanted to) wade in and a different recording had confirmed the DPG's version? The tape wasn't like an episode of Midsomer Murders. There was plenty of room for doubt. And the intervention blows 5% in the polls for him that instant. The risk was too high.
But you know that.
The PB Tories just excel themselves, day after day.
Are they ever there? Ridiculous
Should reduce the numbers attending by 20%.
Oh and charge a tenner or £50 if you are 3 times over the drink drive limit - that won't hurt either.
UK unemployment data 7. 6% lowest since April 2009 great numbers #EdBallsSuicideWatch
"gushing blood"!!!! - must be one of the perils of cat-napping
Particularly surprised by Frank Field's absence.....
Largest fall in claimant count since 1997, down 41,700 in October. 177,000 more people in work - very strong numbers these.
40k drop in claimant count.
Terrible work George...
You and Milband got Plebgate wrong.
Only you have admitted that.
Not sure that should fill Labour supporter's hearts with joy.
"Unless you think what happened was fine?"
This story has taken on a life of it's own. The reason he was fired was because he swore at the poilce in temper and his boss thought that inappropriate behaviour for a Cabinet Minister.
Whether F*** C*** rather than 'pleb' makes it less likely Cameron would have fired him is something only Cameron can answer. Everything else is waffle.
For me the most unedifying spectacle was Keith Vaz hectoring the policeman whether he ought to apologize to Mitchell. It was supposed to be an inquiry into what happened not an elaborate version of 'I'm A Celebrity...'
How is your "man cries at funeral" story going?
Haven't heard much about it recently......
David Freeman also tells the News Channel that there's been a rise in the number of workers aged 65 and over - that's up by about 30,000 to just over 1.04 million, he says. That is the highest level recorded for that age group.
BBC News Channel
Youth unemployment - a hot political issue - has fallen slightly this month. It's gone down by 9,000 in the quarter among people aged 16-24, says David Freeman from the Office for National Statistics. He adds that youth employment is up by 50,000 in the quarter.
It's fair to say polling can have a considerable impact - the first inkling Michael Portillo supposedly had that he might lose in 1997 came from an Observer poll of marginal seats the Sunday before the GE.
That said, I suspect the overwhelming majority of people take little interest in the daily nuances of YouGov and the monthly prevarications of ICM, Populus et al. I can appreciate from a betting standpoint the less information there is the harder it is to find the betting advantage in terms of seat number, turnout and swing markets and the inference that such information is restricted opens the door to potential manipulation of these markets.
Is a complete ban on all polling advocated or simply a ban on specific constituency, regional or highly specific (marginal) polling ? As we know, national VI numbers can hide a multitude of regional sins but a specific constituency poll commissioned by a local newspaper could, I suppose, be a way of changing local perceptions and intentions even if the methodology of that poll wasn';t perhaps as robust as the polling purists would prefer ?
Imagine the differing impact of two polls in the same marginal seat where one shows the incumbent well ahead while the other shows the race too close to call and how that might be used by the parties as a campaigning tool.
I'm sure for them that is the important thing - we know you don't care about the low paid - you only care if a poll number changes.
An all topics the only thing that matters to you is Labour polling - you care not about the method or the outcomes - chilling.
The debates will remain, but they should not. The worm is the greatest problem, that should definitely be axed. Again, it won't.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BY8T5FvCQAEgvRm.png
But let's be clear - Mitchell swung because of the DPG.
Private sector wages up 1.1% before tax adjustments. Inflation down to 2.2%
Getting closer.
Once Osborne starts hacking away at green taxes on fuel bills the gap will fall more.
Has Osborne learned from his last two budgets? In 2012, he trod timidly along the steady as you go line - and got battered. In 2013 he was bolder and it is yielding economic results and political ones. Cutting the basic rate of income tax must be in his sights.
Today's Yougov is at the top end of the range of leads that fluctuate between 4 and 10. The central number is about 7. Much lower than March.
anyhoo, what's your current reading of the polls ? To me this still looks like a HP with everybody suddenly agreeing with Nick again.
Went into Costa Coffee the other day and got Ritz level service from some bilingual spanish graduate happy to be working at all.
Best course of action in this sort of situation is to take a day's holiday thus avoiding both side's hassle ?
Tom Watson also resigned. Anyone know why?