BT’s chief executive, Philip Jansen, told the BBC Labour’s plans were “very, very ambitious ideas” and challenged the party’s figures.
“It needs funding, it is very big numbers, so we are talking £30bn-£40bn … and if you are giving it away over an eight-year timeframe it is a another £30bn or £40bn. You are not short of £100bn,” he said.
That's only five times what Labour claim, which sounds about right for a typical Labour initiative.
In any case, the question applies just as well if it's £20bn.
So 30+30 is not short of 100? And these people get taken seriously. You are right, we need more education spending.
Well the CEO does have to get his fat salary and perks doesn't he? My experience of BT Openreach is that it's so inefficient that the work could be done by 20-25% as many people.
Think of 'the unions' c.1970. Thatcher decimated some of them - she went much too far, where she could - but she didn't touch ASLEF or the NUR and apparently not the GPO workforce or what became BT.
I recently had a total of five telephone engineers turn up on three occasions to repair a line fault - total about 15 person-hours? The first one didn't do his job and said the fault was with my equipment, leading to a bill for £120 which was later withdrawn.
Two people on one visit could have done it, i.e. about 4 person-hours. So whatever BT quotes, I'd divide by four or more.
But one has to assume that Labour would realise that the system is vastly overmanned and inefficient. I don't think they do. TBH I'd rather have the Lib.Dems and Greens in charge of it. Lib.Dems probably have more MPs who've run a 'lean' small business.
Statis. Tories don't seem to be benefiting from drop in BXP vote.
2017: Con lead 2.4%, 317 seats 2015: Con lead 6.5%, 330 seats
You have an extremely bizarre model that a 10.6% lead brings a Hung Parliament and fewer seats than either 2015 or 2017. Why do you think when the Tories are polling up on 2015 and Labour down on 2015 would the Tories be down in seats?
The 10.6% lead is the lead over Labour. The Tories lose seats to the LDs and SNP. The average lead is a poor indicator because of the variation of the lead by constituency. FPTP does sometimes lead to bizarre results.
There is no spin in my model. I've given my assumptions on swing (90% arithmetical, 10% multiplicative) with reasonable tactical voting assumptions and the latest leave and remain alliances. I don't make allowances for local soft factors because I don't know enough about them. Make your own allowances for those.
"reasonable tactical voting assumptions" certainly can be spin and on that link you have BXP gaining a significant percentage in many seats they're not even standing in.
If its possible I'd be curious to see how many seats are awarded to each party purely on swing assumptions and then how many are different due to your 'tactical voting assumptions'.
Can you point to seats that have a BXP % where they are not standing? I'll correct them. In those cases I assume 50% of BXP votes transfer to the Tories and none to Labour. I can easily vary that assumption to see its sensitivity.
The Tories get 13 seats less than swing due to tactical voting. Labour gain (or retain) 6 by LD and Green tactical voting, and the LDs gain 7 by Labour and Green tactical voting.
So you're saying under swing alone the Tories would have a 10.6% lead in the vote and have 329 seats?
You're saying under swing alone the Tories would have a higher share of the vote than 2015, Labour a lower share of the vote than 2015 and the Tory lead would be 4.1% more than 2015 but they will have fewer seats than 2015?
Something seems wrong with those maths.
Regarding BXP I was looking at the MRP model numbers sorry.
In reality - Its supported by 62% of voters cant remember Dementia Tax being that popular. Funny lot these PB Tories.
Learned nothing from 2017.
Get some fookin policies of your own
It's an attractive policy, bigjohn.
The only thing is, if there's a £100bn knocking about, why is it a higher priority to spend it on providing people like me in rural areas with free fibre broadband rather than spending it on the NHS, or welfare, or education?
£15bn extra borrowing. Rest is funded by tech tax.
The reason why its so important is some countries have it available in 99% of their nation we are sat at 7%. Our Businesses need it we all need it.
Its like saying why provide Electricity its because its an essential for a modern country.
Anyway my point is the Tories need some Policies of their own otherwise its 2017 all over again.
Why is it so difficult to understand?
Because the first claim is clearly bollocks, so the rest makes no sense either?
Labour's free broadband is dominating the national conservation. This is dangerous for Boris - gives the impression that Labour is fizzing with ideas while the Tories are still wringing their hands over a messy Brexit. Smart of Jezza though. He obviously released that his opaque Brexit position was a hindrance, so gets everyone talking about something else. A variation of the dead-cat strategy I think.
No, a dead cat would be a prominent Labour politician saying something like Boris lied to his wife, so why wouldn't he lie to the country about no deal brexit. Dead cats are invariably personal in nature, look at the one about Ed stabbing his brother in the back.
I wouldn't underestimate the effect of this policy.
It's got people talking about something that isn't Brexit. Huge bonus for Corbyn.
It's dominated an entire cycle of news. No such thing as bad publicity and all that. It crowds out whatever the Tories are trying to say.
Most people hate telecoms companies. The average joe can't understand why they have to pay £25 for "landline rental" when they only use their mobile. Most of us have been stung with high connection or disconnection charges. I remember being genuinely shocked at having to pay nigh on a hundred quid to disconnect my service when I moved house. Yes, I know the old nationalised system was crap with a 6 week wait to rent a phone. Most people don't.
People cost it in personal terms. They don't think "100bn to buy BT" or "crikey, this will tank my pension", they think "well, it's only thirty quid a month Corbyn is promising us all. Surely the economy can afford that." The figure seems small even when it's actually big.
Finally, it's a simple policy and - on the surface - hard to disagree with. "Free internet!" - who doesn't want that. It makes Corbyn look like Santa while Boris is the grinch.
It is a rather popular policy. I want my free owl first though.
Labour's free broadband is dominating the national conservation. This is dangerous for Boris - gives the impression that Labour is fizzing with ideas while the Tories are still wringing their hands over a messy Brexit. Smart of Jezza though. He obviously released that his opaque Brexit position was a hindrance, so gets everyone talking about something else. A variation of the dead-cat strategy I think.
No, a dead cat would be a prominent Labour politician saying something like Boris lied to his wife, so why wouldn't he lie to the country about no deal brexit. Dead cats are invariably personal in nature, look at the one about Ed stabbing his brother in the back.
I wouldn't underestimate the effect of this policy.
It's got people talking about something that isn't Brexit. Huge bonus for Corbyn.
It's dominated an entire cycle of news. No such thing as bad publicity and all that. It crowds out whatever the Tories are trying to say.
Most people hate telecoms companies. The average joe can't understand why they have to pay £25 for "landline rental" when they only use their mobile. Most of us have been stung with high connection or disconnection charges. I remember being genuinely shocked at having to pay nigh on a hundred quid to disconnect my service when I moved house. Yes, I know the old nationalised system was crap with a 6 week wait to rent a phone. Most people don't.
People cost it in personal terms. They don't think "100bn to buy BT" or "crikey, this will tank my pension", they think "well, it's only thirty quid a month Corbyn is promising us all. Surely the economy can afford that." The figure seems small even when it's actually big.
Finally, it's a simple policy and - on the surface - hard to disagree with. "Free internet!" - who doesn't want that. It makes Corbyn look like Santa while Boris is the grinch.
It is a rather popular policy. I want my free owl first though.
Labour-held Dewsbury is a largish constituency I know well, comprising the town of Dewsbury itself which itself is a somewhat down at heel West Yorkshire former mill town with an exceedingly high first and second generation Asian population. Taking Dewsbury on its own, this would surely be an overwhelmingly safe seat for Labour, but it rates as being a marginal on account of the constituency including a number of prosperous middle class rural villages located between Dewsbury and Huddersfield. Electoral Calculus currently has Labour winning 40.0% of the vote with the Tories comfortably behind on 34.7%. On this basis, Baxter gives Labour a 58% chance of retaining this seat with the Tories on 39%. Based on these numbers, one might expect Labour to be the odds-on favourite with the Tories trailing well behind in the betting but in fact the opposite is the case ... the Tories are 1/2 odds-on favourite with both Betfair Sportsbook and its sister company Paddy Power, with Labour available on offer at 6/4 with both firms. I've filled my boots, although the maximum stake I was allowed was somewhat restricted in each case.
You must have placed a monster bet because PP has moved in to 6/5.
I think the demographics are with you on this constituency, and the BXP may well attract some of the 6000 2015 Kippers who presumably voted tory in 2017. Plus shouty Paula is quite popular.
I consider neighboring Wakefield to be a similarly likely lab hold at similar odds,
Maybe I'm naive, but I consider there might be a Batley effect in Dewsbury - Kirklees isn't a very heavily Brexit borough, compared with Wakefield or Barnsley - so I'm currently predicting a Labour hold.
Putting the Seats Con 319 (NC) Lab 224 (NC) LD 34 (NC)
Statis. Tories don't seem to be benefiting from drop in BXP vote.
Not to mention the analysis on the impact of the BP withdrawl - the only way you make it a draw is to include loads of polls from before it happened.
The BXP withdrawal from Tory seats does not affect Labour seats at all, and does not increase the number of Tory seats. What it does on the margin is avoid the Tories losing a couple of seats to the LibDems. Otherwise it is a wash.
Your original post claimed the Tories didn't seem to be benefiting, and now you're explaining why they couldn't possibly benefit in any case. The latter makes me rather question the honesty of the former comment.
Combined with your 'interesting' seat projection, I'm not sure how well the attempt at looking unbiased is going.
It is against my political interests to promote the possibility of a hung parliament. As a LibDem I should be spinning why the Tories are going to get a large majority to encourage Tory Remainers to vote LibDem without fear of Corbyn.
But I'm not spinning. I'm trying to get the best objective handle on what is happening. And I'm sharing it here. But you can ignore it if you want. If you are super confident of a large Tory majority. That's fine.
Barnesian
Would it be possible for you to do a sensitivity table showing the impact on seat totals of a incremental change in Tory% and Lab % ?
My gut feeling is that your model is pretty close, and that the spreads markets (where you can sell Tory seats at 336 and buy Labour at 208) are quite a bit off. What would the polling need to be using your model for the seats spreads to make sense (recognising that the seats spreads reflect asymetry of outcomes rather than a median)
If I increase the Tory share from 38.6% to 40.6% and reduce the Labour share from 28.1% to 26.1% then the seats are Con 341, Lab 204, LD 32. This is fairly close to the spreads market.
14.5% gives a narrow majority.
I mean really, does this not suggest that you might want to sense check? Your model seems remarkably impervious to votes.
It gives a majority of 32. A 2% change in share results in a difference of 44 in majority from -12 to +32. It is not insensitive.
You might be over fixated on lead over Labour and ignoring all the other effects.
In reality - Its supported by 62% of voters cant remember Dementia Tax being that popular. Funny lot these PB Tories.
Learned nothing from 2017.
Get some fookin policies of your own
It's an attractive policy, bigjohn.
The only thing is, if there's a £100bn knocking about, why is it a higher priority to spend it on providing people like me in rural areas with free fibre broadband rather than spending it on the NHS, or welfare, or education?
The internet is now a vital part of accessing welfare in particular but also education and good health. If the poor cant afford it and the rural communities dont have access to it, then this policy would also aid NHS, welfare and education objectives.
Yeah, high speed porn for all. .......
Ah, I begin to see how this could be a vote-winner.
Labour's free broadband is dominating the national conservation. This is dangerous for Boris - gives the impression that Labour is fizzing with ideas while the Tories are still wringing their hands over a messy Brexit. Smart of Jezza though. He obviously released that his opaque Brexit position was a hindrance, so gets everyone talking about something else. A variation of the dead-cat strategy I think.
No, a dead cat would be a prominent Labour politician saying something like Boris lied to his wife, so why wouldn't he lie to the country about no deal brexit. Dead cats are invariably personal in nature, look at the one about Ed stabbing his brother in the back.
I wouldn't underestimate the effect of this policy.
It's got people talking about something that isn't Brexit. Huge bonus for Corbyn.
It's dominated an entire cycle of news. No such thing as bad publicity and all that. It crowds out whatever the Tories are trying to say.
Most people hate telecoms companies. The average joe can't understand why they have to pay £25 for "landline rental" when they only use their mobile. Most of us have been stung with high connection or disconnection charges. I remember being genuinely shocked at having to pay nigh on a hundred quid to disconnect my service when I moved house. Yes, I know the old nationalised system was crap with a 6 week wait to rent a phone. Most people don't.
People cost it in personal terms. They don't think "100bn to buy BT" or "crikey, this will tank my pension", they think "well, it's only thirty quid a month Corbyn is promising us all. Surely the economy can afford that." The figure seems small even when it's actually big.
Finally, it's a simple policy and - on the surface - hard to disagree with. "Free internet!" - who doesn't want that. It makes Corbyn look like Santa while Boris is the grinch.
It is a rather popular policy. I want my free owl first though.
Statis. Tories don't seem to be benefiting from drop in BXP vote.
2017: Con lead 2.4%, 317 seats 2015: Con lead 6.5%, 330 seats
You have an extremely bizarre model that a 10.6% lead brings a Hung Parliament and fewer seats than either 2015 or 2017. Why do you think when the Tories are polling up on 2015 and Labour down on 2015 would the Tories be down in seats?
"reasonable tactical voting assumptions" certainly can be spin and on that link you have BXP gaining a significant percentage in many seats they're not even standing in.
If its possible I'd be curious to see how many seats are awarded to each party purely on swing assumptions and then how many are different due to your 'tactical voting assumptions'.
Can you point to seats that have a BXP % where they are not standing? I'll correct them. In those cases I assume 50% of BXP votes transfer to the Tories and none to Labour. I can easily vary that assumption to see its sensitivity.
The Tories get 13 seats less than swing due to tactical voting. Labour gain (or retain) 6 by LD and Green tactical voting, and the LDs gain 7 by Labour and Green tactical voting.
So you're saying under swing alone the Tories would have a 10.6% lead in the vote and have 329 seats?
You're saying under swing alone the Tories would have a higher share of the vote than 2015, Labour a lower share of the vote than 2015 and the Tory lead would be 4.1% more than 2015 but they will have fewer seats than 2015?
Something seems wrong with those maths.
Regarding BXP I was looking at the MRP model numbers sorry.
It's so outlandish a prediction that it's really hard to believe the model wasn't built with an outcome in mind. If it said that out of the box after a neutral attempt, you'd check your workings until you could explain such a weird prediction without just pointing to the model you built.
Sorry, everyone else has probably seen this already but I'm just catching up.
Curtice is much more positive about the Conservatives' chances than I am. Given my Corbophobia, easily the best - or, at any rate, least dismal - thing I've heard about this election so far.
Labour's free broadband is dominating the national conservation. This is dangerous for Boris - gives the impression that Labour is fizzing with ideas while the Tories are still wringing their hands over a messy Brexit. Smart of Jezza though. He obviously released that his opaque Brexit position was a hindrance, so gets everyone talking about something else. A variation of the dead-cat strategy I think.
No, a dead cat would be a prominent Labour politician saying something like Boris lied to his wife, so why wouldn't he lie to the country about no deal brexit. Dead cats are invariably personal in nature, look at the one about Ed stabbing his brother in the back.
I wouldn't underestimate the effect of this policy.
It's got people talking about something that isn't Brexit. Huge bonus for Corbyn.
It's dominated an entire cycle of news. No such thing as bad publicity and all that. It crowds out whatever the Tories are trying to say.
Most people hate telecoms companies. The average joe can't understand why they have to pay £25 for "landline rental" when they only use their mobile. Most of us have been stung with high connection or disconnection charges. I remember being genuinely shocked at having to pay nigh on a hundred quid to disconnect my service when I moved house. Yes, I know the old nationalised system was crap with a 6 week wait to rent a phone. Most people don't.
People cost it in personal terms. They don't think "100bn to buy BT" or "crikey, this will tank my pension", they think "well, it's only thirty quid a month Corbyn is promising us all. Surely the economy can afford that." The figure seems small even when it's actually big.
Finally, it's a simple policy and - on the surface - hard to disagree with. "Free internet!" - who doesn't want that. It makes Corbyn look like Santa while Boris is the grinch.
It is a rather popular policy. I want my free owl first though.
Labour's free broadband is dominating the national conservation. This is dangerous for Boris - gives the impression that Labour is fizzing with ideas while the Tories are still wringing their hands over a messy Brexit. Smart of Jezza though. He obviously released that his opaque Brexit position was a hindrance, so gets everyone talking about something else. A variation of the dead-cat strategy I think.
No, a dead cat would be a prominent Labour politician saying something like Boris lied to his wife, so why wouldn't he lie to the country about no deal brexit. Dead cats are invariably personal in nature, look at the one about Ed stabbing his brother in the back.
I wouldn't underestimate the effect of this policy.
It's got people talking about something that isn't Brexit. Huge bonus for Corbyn.
It's dominated an entire cycle of news. No such thing as bad publicity and all that. It crowds out whatever the Tories are trying to say.
Most people hate telecoms companies. The average joe can't understand why they have to pay £25 for "landline rental" when they only use their mobile. Most of us have been stung with high connection or disconnection charges. I remember being genuinely shocked at having to pay nigh on a hundred quid to disconnect my service when I moved house. Yes, I know the old nationalised system was crap with a 6 week wait to rent a phone. Most people don't.
People cost it in personal terms. They don't think "100bn to buy BT" or "crikey, this will tank my pension", they think "well, it's only thirty quid a month Corbyn is promising us all. Surely the economy can afford that." The figure seems small even when it's actually big.
Finally, it's a simple policy and - on the surface - hard to disagree with. "Free internet!" - who doesn't want that. It makes Corbyn look like Santa while Boris is the grinch.
It is a rather popular policy. I want my free owl first though.
TBH, if we’re going back to the 40’s it was the Commies who helped us win the war against the anti-democratic Fascists, who wanted a docile majority to get ‘XXXX’ done! When I were a lad, as the saying goes, the Commies were still our allies.
Reading Beevor’s ‘Berlin’ about the last days of the European War I got the distinct impression that the Soviets did not hold us in anything like the same regard at the time, and the idea that Stalin did not want a docile population...
Well for the most part he seemed to want a dead population, which I suppose amounts to the same thing.
Sorry, everyone else has probably seen this already but I'm just catching up.
Curtice is much more positive about the Conservatives' chances than I am. Given my Corbophobia, easily the best - or, at any rate, least dismal - thing I've heard about this election so far.
Corbynophobes are in real danger of winning the battle and losing the war. Tying your faith in a Johnson led Tory majority that has overpromised different, almost opposite visions, to different leave voters is doomed to fail, and could spark a swing to the hard left down the line.
Sorry, everyone else has probably seen this already but I'm just catching up.
Curtice is much more positive about the Conservatives' chances than I am. Given my Corbophobia, easily the best - or, at any rate, least dismal - thing I've heard about this election so far.
Well he rates the chances of a majority higher than I would, but he's definitely not wrong about the fundamental outcomes, and that it is about Tory majority or not, Labour winning does not matter.
The tories are going to win so everyone can vote for who they want because corbyn is going nowhere they will try and scare you back in the fold but we are looking at labour 180 at best. It will serve them right and the sooner corbyn and co are despatched the better.
Labour's free broadband is dominating the national conservation. This is dangerous for Boris - gives the impression that Labour is fizzing with ideas while the Tories are still wringing their hands over a messy Brexit. Smart of Jezza though. He obviously released that his opaque Brexit position was a hindrance, so gets everyone talking about something else. A variation of the dead-cat strategy I think.
No, a dead cat would be a prominent Labour politician saying something like Boris lied to his wife, so why wouldn't he lie to the country about no deal brexit. Dead cats are invariably personal in nature, look at the one about Ed stabbing his brother in the back.
I wouldn't underestimate the effect of this policy.
It's got people talking about something that isn't Brexit. Huge bonus for Corbyn.
It's dominated an entire cycle of news. No such thing as bad publicity and all that. It crowds out whatever the Tories are trying to say.
Most people hate telecoms companies. The average joe can't understand why they have to pay £25 for "landline rental" when they only use their mobile. Most of us have been stung with high connection or disconnection charges. I remember being genuinely shocked at having to pay nigh on a hundred quid to disconnect my service when I moved house. Yes, I know the old nationalised system was crap with a 6 week wait to rent a phone. Most people don't.
People cost it in personal terms. They don't think "100bn to buy BT" or "crikey, this will tank my pension", they think "well, it's only thirty quid a month Corbyn is promising us all. Surely the economy can afford that." The figure seems small even when it's actually big.
Finally, it's a simple policy and - on the surface - hard to disagree with. "Free internet!" - who doesn't want that. It makes Corbyn look like Santa while Boris is the grinch.
It is a rather popular policy. I want my free owl first though.
It is not going to do Labour any harm. It isnt a majority winning type policy, but could well be a holding onto existing seats type policy.
Some PB Tory said it was "Labours Dementia Tax"
LOL
No, it may be the opposite. The “Dementia Tax” was an attempt to deal with what is going to be an increasingly hard problem in as fair a way as possible. It might have ended up failing but it was done to give cover to the needed tax rise. It was successfully caricatured into a laughing stock.
Sorry, everyone else has probably seen this already but I'm just catching up.
Curtice is much more positive about the Conservatives' chances than I am. Given my Corbophobia, easily the best - or, at any rate, least dismal - thing I've heard about this election so far.
Well he rates the chances of a majority higher than I would, but he's definitely not wrong about the fundamental outcomes, and that it is about Tory majority or not, Labour winning does not matter.
Given the number of voters whose first preference may be hung parliament and last preference a Corbyn majority govt, it is bad for the Tories if everyone assumes Labour are out of the picture.
Statis. Tories don't seem to be benefiting from drop in BXP vote.
The 10.6% lead is the lead over Labour. The Tories lose seats to the LDs and SNP. The average lead is a poor indicator because of the variation of the lead by constituency. FPTP does sometimes lead to bizarre results.
There is no spin in my model. I've given my assumptions on swing (90% arithmetical, 10% multiplicative) with reasonable tactical voting assumptions and the latest leave and remain alliances. I don't make allowances for local soft factors because I don't know enough about them. Make your own allowances for those.
"reasonable tactical voting assumptions" certainly can be spin and on that link you have BXP gaining a significant percentage in many seats they're not even standing in.
If its possible I'd be curious to see how many seats are awarded to each party purely on swing assumptions and then how many are different due to your 'tactical voting assumptions'.
Can you point to seats that have a BXP % where they are not standing? I'll correct them. In those cases I assume 50% of BXP votes transfer to the Tories and none to Labour. I can easily vary that assumption to see its sensitivity.
The Tories get 13 seats less than swing due to tactical voting. Labour gain (or retain) 6 by LD and Green tactical voting, and the LDs gain 7 by Labour and Green tactical voting.
So you're saying under swing alone the Tories would have a 10.6% lead in the vote and have 329 seats?
You're saying under swing alone the Tories would have a higher share of the vote than 2015, Labour a lower share of the vote than 2015 and the Tory lead would be 4.1% more than 2015 but they will have fewer seats than 2015?
Something seems wrong with those maths.
Regarding BXP I was looking at the MRP model numbers sorry.
I think you are just looking at the Tory lead over Labour and ignoring all the other effects. You really need to model it at constituency level and then step back to see the overall picture. I understand where you are coming from. But intuition may not be enough.
As a sanity check, if you look at the detail of my predictions by constituency, do any of them seem really stupid?
In reality - Its supported by 62% of voters cant remember Dementia Tax being that popular. Funny lot these PB Tories.
Learned nothing from 2017.
Get some fookin policies of your own
It's an attractive policy, bigjohn.
The only thing is, if there's a £100bn knocking about, why is it a higher priority to spend it on providing people like me in rural areas with free fibre broadband rather than spending it on the NHS, or welfare, or education?
The internet is now a vital part of accessing welfare in particular but also education and good health. If the poor cant afford it and the rural communities dont have access to it, then this policy would also aid NHS, welfare and education objectives.
Yeah, high speed porn for all. .......
Ah, I begin to see how this could be a vote-winner.
I'm sure on a R4 program a few weeks back they said a lot of internet live cam business is based in Romania because of their v good broadband availablility. not sure those are the jobs labour is keen to promote though.
TBH, if we’re going back to the 40’s it was the Commies who helped us win the war against the anti-democratic Fascists, who wanted a docile majority to get ‘XXXX’ done! When I were a lad, as the saying goes, the Commies were still our allies.
Reading Beevor’s ‘Berlin’ about the last days of the European War I got the distinct impression that the Soviets did not hold us in anything like the same regard at the time, and the idea that Stalin did not want a docile population...
Well for the most part he seemed to want a dead population, which I suppose amounts to the same thing.
Not all, but he didn’t mind wading though as much blood as required to fulfil his goals.
A perhaps timely reminder that for all it’s faults, our electoral system still does much better than the US one: - actual spending limits which do get enforced; - Constituency boundaries set by an independent commission; - No electronic voting; - No political ads on TV.
Their primary system may be better, but I’m not sure there is much else we can learn.
Sorry, everyone else has probably seen this already but I'm just catching up.
Curtice is much more positive about the Conservatives' chances than I am. Given my Corbophobia, easily the best - or, at any rate, least dismal - thing I've heard about this election so far.
Curtice isn't doing a mental 'Spurs bet' on the result.
A Liberal Democrat government would spend £100bn tackling the effects of climate change and protecting the environment, the party's deputy leader has announced.
Only 100bn...go on make it 200...why not. Every other party is just making up crazy numbers.
A perhaps timely reminder that for all it’s faults, our electoral system still does much better than the US one: - actual spending limits which do get enforced; - Constituency boundaries set by an independent commission; - No electronic voting; - No political ads on TV.
Their primary system may be better, but I’m not sure there is much else we can learn.
A Liberal Democrat government would spend £100bn tackling the effects of climate change and protecting the environment, the party's deputy leader has announced.
Only 100bn...go on make it 200...why not. Every other party is just making up crazy numbers.
Which fiscal Conservative Nation are you going to?
The tories are going to win so everyone can vote for who they want because corbyn is going nowhere they will try and scare you back in the fold but we are looking at labour 180 at best. It will serve them right and the sooner corbyn and co are despatched the better.
Still time for the PIDCOCK POLL BOOST which could see a late swing to LAB!
Labour-held Dewsbury is a largish constituency I know well, comprising the town of Dewsbury itself which itself is a somewhat down at heel West Yorkshire former mill town with an exceedingly high first and second generation Asian population. Taking Dewsbury on its own, this would surely be an overwhelmingly safe seat for Labour, but it rates as being a marginal on account of the constituency including a number of prosperous middle class rural villages located between Dewsbury and Huddersfield. Electoral Calculus currently has Labour winning 40.0% of the vote with the Tories comfortably behind on 34.7%. On this basis, Baxter gives Labour a 58% chance of retaining this seat with the Tories on 39%. Based on these numbers, one might expect Labour to be the odds-on favourite with the Tories trailing well behind in the betting but in fact the opposite is the case ... the Tories are 1/2 odds-on favourite with both Betfair Sportsbook and its sister company Paddy Power, with Labour available on offer at 6/4 with both firms. I've filled my boots, although the maximum stake I was allowed was somewhat restricted in each case.
You must have placed a monster bet because PP has moved in to 6/5.
I think the demographics are with you on this constituency, and the BXP may well attract some of the 6000 2015 Kippers who presumably voted tory in 2017. Plus shouty Paula is quite popular.
I consider neighboring Wakefield to be a similarly likely lab hold at similar odds,
Camel - yes, your points in support of my bets on Labour holding Dewsbury are all valid, the only contrary point I would make is that the Tory candidate in 2017 was virtually invisible, a bad mistake which is unlikely to be repeated. As regards PP shortening their odds to 6/5 (vs 6/4 previously), Betfair Sportsbook unsurprisingly have reacted similarly. My bets in both instances were modest, i.e low to middle double digit pound stakes. Btw does anyone know what's happened to Ladbrokes' constituency betting markets - they seem to have totally disappeared from their website?
Labour-held Dewsbury is a largish constituency I know well, comprising the town of Dewsbury itself which itself is a somewhat down at heel West Yorkshire former mill town with an exceedingly high first and second generation Asian population. Taking Dewsbury on its own, this would surely be an overwhelmingly safe seat for Labour, but it rates as being a marginal on account of the constituency including a number of prosperous middle class rural villages located between Dewsbury and Huddersfield. Electoral Calculus currently has Labour winning 40.0% of the vote with the Tories comfortably behind on 34.7%. On this basis, Baxter gives Labour a 58% chance of retaining this seat with the Tories on 39%. Based on these numbers, one might expect Labour to be the odds-on favourite with the Tories trailing well behind in the betting but in fact the opposite is the case ... the Tories are 1/2 odds-on favourite with both Betfair Sportsbook and its sister company Paddy Power, with Labour available on offer at 6/4 with both firms. I've filled my boots, although the maximum stake I was allowed was somewhat restricted in each case.
You must have placed a monster bet because PP has moved in to 6/5.
I think the demographics are with you on this constituency, and the BXP may well attract some of the 6000 2015 Kippers who presumably voted tory in 2017. Plus shouty Paula is quite popular.
I consider neighboring Wakefield to be a similarly likely lab hold at similar odds,
Camel - yes, your points in support of my bets on Labour holding Dewsbury are all valid, the only contrary point I would make is that the Tory candidate in 2017 was virtually invisible, a bad mistake which is unlikely to be repeated. As regards PP shortening their odds to 6/5 (vs 6/4 previously), Betfair Sportsbook unsurprisingly have reacted similarly. My bets in both instances were modest, i.e low to middle double digit pound stakes. Btw does anyone know what's happened to Ladbrokes' constituency betting markets - they seem to have totally disappeared from their website?
A Liberal Democrat government would spend £100bn tackling the effects of climate change and protecting the environment, the party's deputy leader has announced.
Only 100bn...go on make it 200...why not. Every other party is just making up crazy numbers.
Why is 20bn a year on environment crazy? Govt spending is likely to average something like 900bn for those years, can we not spend 2-2.5% on the environment?
How can parties and the electorate have a rational conversation if every policy is deemed crazy whilst the govt is demanding we pursue the craziest policy of all as soon as we can.
This is a bit like 2015, where everyone was overwstimating how many seats the libdems would gain/hold from the Tories.
Whilst ignoring UNS and saying "it couldn't possibly that bad for the libdems" turns out it was.
People are now saying it can"t possibly be that good for the tories despite what the polls and UNS show. Yes there will be tactical voting but *most* of that is already factored in since 6.5 million voted tactically in 2017. There might be more a little more, but there is also the Brexit Party squeeze which in the south will benefit the tories. Hardly any of the BXP vote in the southern shires comes from Labour so they will almost all go to the Tories
Libdems will be lucky to gain 5 net seats from the Tories, because of the BXP standing down.
YouGov and Opinium surveys in progress asking voting preference at constituency level. Eccentrically, having discovered I live in SW Surrey, Opinium asked me what I would vote if Plaid Cymru wasn't standing. YouGov asked for second preferences, but only in "optional" extra questions.
‘He put the milk in before taking the teabag out!’, ‘He’s a proper nutcase’, ‘Who’s going to pay me for a four-day week?’ My election focus groups in Stoke, Bolton and West Brom
This week we have visited three Labour-held, Leave-voting seats of the kind the Conservatives are looking to regain in their quest for a majority: Stoke-on-Trent North, Bolton North East, and the seat held until recently by Labour’s deputy leader, West Bromwich East.
I know this is Labour seats, but it doesn't read well for the Tories. A lot of Corbyn policies are bonkers, but ahh f##k it whats the worst that could happen, we aren't going to become a Communist country.
These comments are pretty funny - Corbyn is vanilla and Boris is raspberry ripple! Swinson would spend Friday night in nice restaurant made of recycled paper.
What I think it does show is that if the Tories could come up with something to neutralise the privatise the NHS stuff they might be able to move some people to them. I don’t think for one second that they are planning to privatise it but if they could come up with a charter or commitment to free at the point of use system for all British citizens then it would go alongside their funding announcements. They could even put any questions off for a generation by linking it to the 100th anniversary and putting in strategic goals in that period. Developing 5g health care at scale
The other thing I think they should do is take a greater role is building new social housing and linking right to buy to the age of the property, that is discounts on older housing stock that may need upgrading are higher and new stock less, but still available. Also regional discounts related to demand so if you have social housing in London you will get less of a discount than an area with less housing demand for example Hartlepool.
You can imagine the bus being more popular if it said get Brexit done so we can support the 30 year plan for the NHS, or get Brexit done for the New Right to Buy.
Lol Electorate paying attention
“I think [david gauke] was on breakfast [tv] but I was feeding my dog and putting on my shoe at the same time”
Labour's free broadband is dominating the national conservation. Smart of Jezza though. He obviously released that his opaque Brexit position was a hindrance, so gets everyone talking about something else. A variation of the dead-cat strategy I think.
No, a dead cat would be a prominent Labour politician saying something like Boris lied to his wife, so why wouldn't he lie to the country about no deal brexit. Dead cats are invariably personal in nature, look at the one about Ed stabbing his brother in the back.
I wouldn't underestimate the effect of this policy.
It's got people talking about something that isn't Brexit. Huge bonus for Corbyn.
It's dominated an entire cycle of news. No such thing as bad publicity and all that. It crowds out whatever the Tories are trying to say.
Most people hate telecoms companies. The average joe can't understand why they have to pay £25 for "landline rental" when they only use their mobile. Most of us have been stung with high connection or disconnection charges. I remember being genuinely shocked at having to pay nigh on a hundred quid to disconnect my service when I moved house. Yes, I know the old nationalised system was crap with a 6 week wait to rent a phone. Most people don't.
People cost it in personal terms. They don't think "100bn to buy BT" or "crikey, this will tank my pension", they think "well, it's only thirty quid a month Corbyn is promising us all. Surely the economy can afford that." The figure seems small even when it's actually big.
Finally, it's a simple policy and - on the surface - hard to disagree with. "Free internet!" - who doesn't want that. It makes Corbyn look like Santa while Boris is the grinch.
It is a rather popular policy. I want my free owl first though.
It is not going to do Labour any harm. It isnt a majority winning type policy, but could well be a holding onto existing seats type policy.
Some PB Tory said it was "Labours Dementia Tax"
LOL
No, it may be the opposite. The “Dementia Tax” was an attempt to deal with what is going to be an increasingly hard problem in as fair a way as possible. It might have ended up failing but it was done to give cover to the needed tax rise. It was successfully caricatured into a laughing stock.
… as was the 'Death Tax' previously. The parties need to agree something jointly - or set up a commission and agree to implement the conclusions.
Labour meet at 10am tomortow to finalize the manifesto
That sound your hear is chainsaws hacking away at the money tree plantation....
If it’s more expensive than Tory manifesto, but clearly and honestly costed like last time Whilst Tory manifesto vague on how much borrowing, tax increases and cuts pay for it, that’s extra votes for Labour isn’t it?
Like a policy costed at twenty billion shown to be over 100 billion within 24 hours?
clearly and honestly costed indeed
I’m trying to be balanced here, to help each side, all sides trapped in their bubbles see the error of their ways. Your error is convinced its 100 billion. Whoever BBC spoke to for 6 o'clock told the nation it is 34 billion. But as I said down thread, it’s this policy’s hook on voters where needs the swords hitting it, namely inclusivity “i lived up in the remotes of Spain and it was damn better internet than this town in Norfolk” and Labour waxing lyrical about needing to do this for Global Britain competitiveness and productivity in the future, and this claim/lie at the heart of it “it’s not retro communism merely what everyone else around the world already doing.” Do you at least see these three points that need challenged when only 20% of voters don’t like it?
Free SuperFast Broadband 1000 Sure Starts £10 wage p/h £26bn NHS Axe NHS Privatisation Axe Bedroom Tax Funding for 2nd Degree Axe Universal Credit Abolish Homelessness Ban Fracking Free Prescriptions Free NHS carparking Gender Pay Act Robin Hood Tax Axe SATs Ban Zero Hours
Tory Policies
None so far but Corbyn is a Commie
Rubbish big John. I’m being balanced here.
I don’t think labour can claim to own all progressive policies in this election.
The libdems have had a splendid week with their emphasis on long overdue reskilling and training. In game of top trumps what are we saying are the big progressive ideas from the Tories? The case law amnesty for all crimes committed in northern Ireland during the troubles is pretty groundbreaking and progressive is it not? They intend to change the human rights act, unless you think courts will interpret it as one law for one another law for the rest then there is only one consequence of that isn’t there? Amnesty for all. Also, in marked contrast from the pasty tax madness of Osborne, Boris and Javids edBallsian willingness to borrow and spend (and borrow for tax cuts) is pretty progressive too isn’t it? Boris’s Trumponomics of borrowing trillions finally sweeping Osbornes austerity madness away. In a positive sense I think this election see’s end to regressive law and economics with everyone progressive now. is it fair to say?
Gratuitous abuse is the new witty repartee, apparently.
So it seems. But seriously, why should anyone want to spend time reading through all this stuff?
One used to be able to glean useful information here. Now it seems to be a refuge for people with nothing better to do with their time than post ridiculously partisan nonsense. One can read that in reams on numberless websites.
Free SuperFast Broadband 1000 Sure Starts £10 wage p/h £26bn NHS Axe NHS Privatisation Axe Bedroom Tax Funding for 2nd Degree Axe Universal Credit Abolish Homelessness Ban Fracking Free Prescriptions Free NHS carparking Gender Pay Act Robin Hood Tax Axe SATs Ban Zero Hours
Tory Policies
None so far but Corbyn is a Commie
And yet, they are in the lead and have a chance to bolster it with a manifesto. I’m not a professional politician but it feels like I’d rather be in their shoes.
Labour meet at 10am tomortow to finalize the manifesto
That sound your hear is chainsaws hacking away at the money tree plantation....
If it’s more expensive than Tory manifesto, but clearly and honestly costed like last time Whilst Tory manifesto vague on how much borrowing, tax increases and cuts pay for it, that’s extra votes for Labour isn’t it?
Like a policy costed at twenty billion shown to be over 100 billion within 24 hours?
clearly and honestly costed indeed
I’m trying to be balanced here, to help each side, all sides trapped in their bubbles see the error of their ways. Your error is convinced its 100 billion. Whoever BBC spoke to for 6 o'clock told the nation it is 34 billion. But as I said down thread, it’s this policy’s hook on voters where needs the swords hitting it, namely inclusivity “i lived up in the remotes of Spain and it was damn better internet than this town in Norfolk” and Labour waxing lyrical about needing to do this for Global Britain competitiveness and productivity in the future, and this claim/lie at the heart of it “it’s not retro communism merely what everyone else around the world already doing.” Do you at least see these three points that need to change when only 20% of voters don’t like it?
He can't hear you. He never will. Anyone without an axe to grind would look at the two figures -- £20bn and £100bn -- and notice that each source had an incentive in making it seem higher or lower than reality. You'd be foolish to rely on either figure. And Floater is habitually foolish.
The tories are going to win so everyone can vote for who they want because corbyn is going nowhere they will try and scare you back in the fold but we are looking at labour 180 at best. It will serve them right and the sooner corbyn and co are despatched the better.
In reality - Its supported by 62% of voters cant remember Dementia Tax being that popular. Funny lot these PB Tories.
Learned nothing from 2017.
Get some fookin policies of your own
It's an attractive policy, bigjohn.
The only thing is, if there's a £100bn knocking about, why is it a higher priority to spend it on providing people like me in rural areas with free fibre broadband rather than spending it on the NHS, or welfare, or education?
The internet is now a vital part of accessing welfare in particular but also education and good health. If the poor cant afford it and the rural communities dont have access to it, then this policy would also aid NHS, welfare and education objectives.
Yeah, high speed porn for all. .......
Ah, I begin to see how this could be a vote-winner.
I think I may have discussed before the theory that greater availability of high-speed porn was the driver behind phones getting screens and phones getting bigger after around 2005.
A perhaps timely reminder that for all it’s faults, our electoral system still does much better than the US one: - actual spending limits which do get enforced; - Constituency boundaries set by an independent commission; - No electronic voting; - No political ads on TV.
Their primary system may be better, but I’m not sure there is much else we can learn.
The Illinois 4th district is not a gerrymander
It is required under the Voting rights Act
Is that one district, or are there others?
I'm not sure. But a few of the Chicago districts have to be drawn funny to be compliant with the voting rights act. The 4th is a protected Hispanic majority district. There are protected black majority districts and I believe a coalition of minorities(minority- Majority), district.
TBH, if we’re going back to the 40’s it was the Commies who helped us win the war against the anti-democratic Fascists, who wanted a docile majority to get ‘XXXX’ done! When I were a lad, as the saying goes, the Commies were still our allies.
Reading Beevor’s ‘Berlin’ about the last days of the European War I got the distinct impression that the Soviets did not hold us in anything like the same regard at the time, and the idea that Stalin did not want a docile population...
I read "Berlin" early last year - after reading Beevor's "Stalingrad", then I read his "Ardennes 1944", and this year I've read "D-day", "Arnhem", "Crete", "Paris" and now I've just started "The Battle for Spain".
You could say I've come down with a clear-cut case of Beevor Fever
Labour meet at 10am tomortow to finalize the manifesto
That sound your hear is chainsaws hacking away at the money tree plantation....
If it’s more expensive than Tory manifesto, but clearly and honestly costed like last time Whilst Tory manifesto vague on how much borrowing, tax increases and cuts pay for it, that’s extra votes for Labour isn’t it?
Like a policy costed at twenty billion shown to be over 100 billion within 24 hours?
clearly and honestly costed indeed
I’m trying to be balanced here, to help each side, all sides trapped in their bubbles see the error of their ways. Your error is convinced its 100 billion. Whoever BBC spoke to for 6 o'clock told the nation it is 34 billion. But as I said down thread, it’s this policy’s hook on voters where needs the swords hitting it, namely inclusivity “i lived up in the remotes of Spain and it was damn better internet than this town in Norfolk” and Labour waxing lyrical about needing to do this for Global Britain competitiveness and productivity in the future, and this claim/lie at the heart of it “it’s not retro communism merely what everyone else around the world already doing.” Do you at least see these three points that need to change when only 20% of voters don’t like it?
He can't hear you. He never will. Anyone without an axe to grind would look at the two figures -- £20bn and £100bn -- and notice that each source had an incentive in making it seem higher or lower than reality. You'd be foolish to rely on either figure. And Floater is habitually foolish.
If I didn't think it would rattle the moderators I would create a new poster "Dle" to join in this conversation.
Gratuitous abuse is the new witty repartee, apparently.
So it seems. But seriously, why should anyone want to spend time reading through all this stuff?
One used to be able to glean useful information here. Now it seems to be a refuge for people with nothing better to do with their time than post ridiculously partisan nonsense. One can read that in reams on numberless websites.
You can collect your refund on the way out
It always goes this overexcited partisan way at election time. Where I would disagree with you Chris are the headers are brilliant. The work put into poll of poll and seat predictions brilliant for a betting site. And some of the spotting Achilles heel of policies and strategies are smarter than you’d get in some other parts of the media.
Newsrooms have PB up permanent today learning from “this stuff” I am sure.
Labour-held Dewsbury is a largish constituency I know well, comprising the town of Dewsbury itself which itself is a somewhat down at heel West Yorkshire former mill town with an exceedingly high first and second generation Asian population. Taking Dewsbury on its own, this would surely be an overwhelmingly safe seat for Labour, but it rates as being a marginal on account of the constituency including a number of prosperous middle class rural villages located between Dewsbury and Huddersfield. Electoral Calculus currently has Labour winning 40.0% of the vote with the Tories comfortably behind on 34.7%. On this basis, Baxter gives Labour a 58% chance of retaining this seat with the Tories on 39%. Based on these numbers, one might expect Labour to be the odds-on favourite with the Tories trailing well behind in the betting but in fact the opposite is the case ... the Tories are 1/2 odds-on favourite with both Betfair Sportsbook and its sister company Paddy Power, with Labour available on offer at 6/4 with both firms. I've filled my boots, although the maximum stake I was allowed was somewhat restricted in each case.
I have Tory and Labour both on 40% in Dewsbury with the Tories just taking it.
Labour-held Dewsbury is a largish constituency I know well, comprising the town of Dewsbury itself which itself is a somewhat down at heel West Yorkshire former mill town with an exceedingly high first and second generation Asian population. Taking Dewsbury on its own, this would surely be an overwhelmingly safe seat for Labour, but it rates as being a marginal on account of the constituency including a number of prosperous middle class rural villages located between Dewsbury and Huddersfield. Electoral Calculus currently has Labour winning 40.0% of the vote with the Tories comfortably behind on 34.7%. On this basis, Baxter gives Labour a 58% chance of retaining this seat with the Tories on 39%. Based on these numbers, one might expect Labour to be the odds-on favourite with the Tories trailing well behind in the betting but in fact the opposite is the case ... the Tories are 1/2 odds-on favourite with both Betfair Sportsbook and its sister company Paddy Power, with Labour available on offer at 6/4 with both firms. I've filled my boots, although the maximum stake I was allowed was somewhat restricted in each case.
I have Tory and Labour both on 40% in Dewsbury with the Tories just taking it.
Not seeing the value that Peter is in this bet but wish him the best of luck with it.
YouGov and Opinium surveys in progress asking voting preference at constituency level. Eccentrically, having discovered I live in SW Surrey, Opinium asked me what I would vote if Plaid Cymru wasn't standing. YouGov asked for second preferences, but only in "optional" extra questions.
Its amusing watching tories getting annoyed about the magic money tree when they themselves are shaking it to within an inch of its life.
Hand on heart this has been the most entertaining few days on here in a long time. They're in a froth and three quarters of them aren't even able to articulate why beyond screaching "commie!!!1!" Fucking hilarious.
Labour meet at 10am tomortow to finalize the manifesto
That sound your hear is chainsaws hacking away at the money tree plantation....
If it’s more expensive than Tory manifesto, but clearly and honestly costed like last time Whilst Tory manifesto vague on how much borrowing, tax increases and cuts pay for it, that’s extra votes for Labour isn’t it?
Like a policy costed at twenty billion shown to be over 100 billion within 24 hours?
clearly and honestly costed indeed
I’m trying to be balanced here, to help each side, all sides trapped in their bubbles see the error of their ways. Your error is convinced its 100 billion. Whoever BBC spoke to for 6 o'clock told the nation it is 34 billion. But as I said down thread, it’s this policy’s hook on voters where needs the swords hitting it, namely inclusivity “i lived up in the remotes of Spain and it was damn better internet than this town in Norfolk” and Labour waxing lyrical about needing to do this for Global Britain competitiveness and productivity in the future, and this claim/lie at the heart of it “it’s not retro communism merely what everyone else around the world already doing.” Do you at least see these three points that need to change when only 20% of voters don’t like it?
He can't hear you. He never will. Anyone without an axe to grind would look at the two figures -- £20bn and £100bn -- and notice that each source had an incentive in making it seem higher or lower than reality. You'd be foolish to rely on either figure. And Floater is habitually foolish.
If I didn't think it would rattle the moderators I would create a new poster "Dle" to join in this conversation.
I’m not calling anyone foolish. Everyone is in their partisan bubble. That’s fair enough. But my point stands that the key voters are trusting BBC and ITV news With how much it costs (34 billion). But having read Tory attacks on it all day, the 3 Elements the public like about It are largely going unchallenged. see above
Thanks for an interesting header. I remember seeing several Hogarth's in the last year or so. I know the National gallery have some but that wasn't it. Do you know if this exhibition has been travelling?
Anyway back to dirty politics. So far we've had 20,000 police from the Tories. Free Internet from Labour. Oodles of money for the health service from both Labour and the Tories and No Brexit from the Libs.
First prize No Brexit 2nd prize free internet No 3rd prize.
All cinema and TV should be free. The government will nationalise all British film and tv studios and distribute their output to all for free, while paying those working on them a generous multiple of the minimum wage.
All this will be funded by a tax on the big Hollywood producers.
Not a perfect analogy, but can you see any problems with getting major productions made in the UK under those rules?
Isn't that what they did with the Health Service? Seems to have become remarkably popular. I disn't realize our internet provision is slightly worse than Madagascar's
How many productions do you think would happen in the UK if you were paying the technical crew the same wage as the average nurse gets?
The point is you don't. The film business is pretty well nationalised in France and it works well. Look at the BBC. Nationalised and one of our greatest institutions. They also happen to have one of te most professional film making units on the planet considering the relatively limited budgets
Sorry. I’m normally better than this and I should have known better than use that analogy as would know far more about it than me.
It happens all the time in Physics when things get tricky: -Teacher: Think of light as a wave. - Bright pupil: what is it waving in?
Somewhat to my surprise a non-political relative spontaneously raised the broadband plan with me, so it maybe one of the few issues to have cut through at all for some people.
Free SuperFast Broadband 1000 Sure Starts £10 wage p/h £26bn NHS Axe NHS Privatisation Axe Bedroom Tax Funding for 2nd Degree Axe Universal Credit Abolish Homelessness Ban Fracking Free Prescriptions Free NHS carparking Gender Pay Act Robin Hood Tax Axe SATs Ban Zero Hours
Tory Policies
None so far but Corbyn is a Commie
And yet, they are in the lead and have a chance to bolster it with a manifesto. I’m not a professional politician but it feels like I’d rather be in their shoes.
It might be the lack of policies is what is helping keep the lead as it is, and releasing it might do the opposite of bolster it.
If you believe John Curtice (I do) then the Tory odds for a majority should be down around the 1.5 mark on Betfair, and not hovering in the 1.65-1.7 zone.
Gratuitous abuse is the new witty repartee, apparently.
So it seems. But seriously, why should anyone want to spend time reading through all this stuff?
One used to be able to glean useful information here. Now it seems to be a refuge for people with nothing better to do with their time than post ridiculously partisan nonsense. One can read that in reams on numberless websites.
You can collect your refund on the way out
It always goes this overexcited partisan way at election time. Where I would disagree with you Chris are the headers are brilliant. The work put into poll of poll and seat predictions brilliant for a betting site. And some of the spotting Achilles heel of policies and strategies are smarter than you’d get in some other parts of the media.
Newsrooms have PB up permanent today learning from “this stuff” I am sure.
On that last sentence. I posted a few bullets on here in 2010 about the libdem defence policy, Liam Fox read them back word for word on Channel 4 news next day. (Sorry about that Nick, but I didn’t agree with you).
Labour meet at 10am tomortow to finalize the manifesto
That sound your hear is chainsaws hacking away at the money tree plantation....
If it’s more expensive than Tory manifesto, but clearly and honestly costed like last time Whilst Tory manifesto vague on how much borrowing, tax increases and cuts pay for it, that’s extra votes for Labour isn’t it?
Like a policy costed at twenty billion shown to be over 100 billion within 24 hours?
clearly and honestly costed indeed
I’m trying to be balanced here, to help each side, all sides trapped in their bubbles see the error of their ways. Your error is convinced its 100 billion. Whoever BBC spoke to for 6 o'clock told the nation it is 34 billion. But as I said down thread, it’s this policy’s hook on voters where needs the swords hitting it, namely inclusivity “i lived up in the remotes of Spain and it was damn better internet than this town in Norfolk” and Labour waxing lyrical about needing to do this for Global Britain competitiveness and productivity in the future, and this claim/lie at the heart of it “it’s not retro communism merely what everyone else around the world already doing.” Do you at least see these three points that need to change when only 20% of voters don’t like it?
He can't hear you. He never will. Anyone without an axe to grind would look at the two figures -- £20bn and £100bn -- and notice that each source had an incentive in making it seem higher or lower than reality. You'd be foolish to rely on either figure. And Floater is habitually foolish.
If I didn't think it would rattle the moderators I would create a new poster "Dle" to join in this conversation.
I’m not calling anyone foolish. Everyone is in their partisan bubble. That’s fair enough. But my point stands that the key voters are trusting BBC and ITV news With how much it costs (34 billion). But having read Tory attacks on it all day, the 3 Elements the public like about It are largely going unchallenged. see above
That was a purely linguistic point arising from seeing the sequence "egg noo", no criticism intended!
Labour's free broadband is dominating the national conservation. This is dangerous for Boris - gives the impression that Labour is fizzing with ideas while the Tories are still wringing their hands over a messy Brexit. Smart of Jezza though. He obviously released that his opaque Brexit position was a hindrance, so gets everyone talking about something else. A variation of the dead-cat strategy I think.
No, a dead cat would be a prominent Labour politician saying something like Boris lied to his wife, so why wouldn't he lie to the country about no deal brexit. Dead cats are invariably personal in nature, look at the one about Ed stabbing his brother in the back.
I wouldn't underestimate the effect of this policy.
It's got people talking about something that isn't Brexit. Huge bonus for Corbyn.
It's dominated an entire cycle of news. No such thing as bad publicity and all that. It crowds out whatever the Tories are trying to say.
Most people hate telecoms companies. The average joe can't understand why they have to pay £25 for "landline rental" when they only use their mobile. Most of us have been stung with high connection or disconnection charges. I remember being genuinely shocked at having to pay nigh on a hundred quid to disconnect my service when I moved house. Yes, I know the old nationalised system was crap with a 6 week wait to rent a phone. Most people don't.
People cost it in personal terms. They don't think "100bn to buy BT" or "crikey, this will tank my pension", they think "well, it's only thirty quid a month Corbyn is promising us all. Surely the economy can afford that." The figure seems small even when it's actually big.
Finally, it's a simple policy and - on the surface - hard to disagree with. "Free internet!" - who doesn't want that. It makes Corbyn look like Santa while Boris is the grinch.
It is a rather popular policy. I want my free owl first though.
People like free stuff (though in reality taxes would go up to compensate shareholders etc).
Note though opposition to renationalising BT as Labour proposes is just 1% behind support far lower than support for renationalising the railways for example
Get the odds for the same constituency from Ladbrokes, get £100 from the cashpoint, and stride into your local Laddies Shop and loudly declaim "Sir, I wish to place £100 on the Conservatives to win the Sedgefield Constituency! For I am a man and I wish to wager, by God!". You wuss...
Of course you then have to wait twenty minutes for bloke to ring the office for clearance cos potential winnings are over £250. But no experience is perfect.
Labour-held Dewsbury is a largish constituency I know well, comprising the town of Dewsbury itself which itself is a somewhat down at heel West Yorkshire former mill town with an exceedingly high first and second generation Asian population. Taking Dewsbury on its own, this would surely be an overwhelmingly safe seat for Labour, but it rates as being a marginal on account of the constituency including a number of prosperous middle class rural villages located between Dewsbury and Huddersfield. Electoral Calculus currently has Labour winning 40.0% of the vote with the Tories comfortably behind on 34.7%. On this basis, Baxter gives Labour a 58% chance of retaining this seat with the Tories on 39%. Based on these numbers, one might expect Labour to be the odds-on favourite with the Tories trailing well behind in the betting but in fact the opposite is the case ... the Tories are 1/2 odds-on favourite with both Betfair Sportsbook and its sister company Paddy Power, with Labour available on offer at 6/4 with both firms. I've filled my boots, although the maximum stake I was allowed was somewhat restricted in each case.
You must have placed a monster bet because PP has moved in to 6/5.
I think the demographics are with you on this constituency, and the BXP may well attract some of the 6000 2015 Kippers who presumably voted tory in 2017. Plus shouty Paula is quite popular.
I consider neighboring Wakefield to be a similarly likely lab hold at similar odds,
Camel - yes, your points in support of my bets on Labour holding Dewsbury are all valid, the only contrary point I would make is that the Tory candidate in 2017 was virtually invisible, a bad mistake which is unlikely to be repeated. As regards PP shortening their odds to 6/5 (vs 6/4 previously), Betfair Sportsbook unsurprisingly have reacted similarly. My bets in both instances were modest, i.e low to middle double digit pound stakes. Btw does anyone know what's happened to Ladbrokes' constituency betting markets - they seem to have totally disappeared from their website?
Many thanks PY64 for linking me to Laddies' constituency markets. Although they provide a very long list of such markets which they are covering, at present Dewsbury is not included for whatever reason, but I'll continue to keep a lookout.
More efficient as a team, but happy to go and do an area solo. Never paid. Bacon butties were on offer the other day for dawn raiders/tellers, but my relief never arrived, so they had gone when I did finally get away.
I have had verbal abuse, but never any threat of anything physical. Apart from dogs, lurking behind the letterbox in a silent vigil for fingers....
More efficient as a team, but happy to go and do an area solo. Never paid. Bacon butties were on offer the other day for dawn raiders/tellers, but my relief never arrived, so they had gone when I did finally get away.
I have had verbal abuse, but never any threat of anything physical. Apart from dogs, lurking behind the letterbox in a silent vigil for fingers....
Is this still the conversation about nationalised porn?
TBH, if we’re going back to the 40’s it was the Commies who helped us win the war against the anti-democratic Fascists, who wanted a docile majority to get ‘XXXX’ done! When I were a lad, as the saying goes, the Commies were still our allies.
Reading Beevor’s ‘Berlin’ about the last days of the European War I got the distinct impression that the Soviets did not hold us in anything like the same regard at the time, and the idea that Stalin did not want a docile population...
I read "Berlin" early last year - after reading Beevor's "Stalingrad", then I read his "Ardennes 1944", and this year I've read "D-day", "Arnhem", "Crete", "Paris" and now I've just started "The Battle for Spain".
You could say I've come down with a clear-cut case of Beevor Fever
Is he any good? I've been avoiding Beevoir (I'm not a fan of his style and Max Hastings is still churning them out) but I'm beginning to think that whilst Hastings is his superior for wars, Beevoir might edge it for battles.
He doesn't even mention the hole in the pension fund, potential legal challenges from foreign shareholders (Deutsche Telekom owns about 12 per cent of BT). What happens to those put out of business. Admirable aim - and there's probably a way to do it - but it certainly isn't this way, which looks like it was worked out on the back of a fag packet.
More efficient as a team, but happy to go and do an area solo. Never paid. Bacon butties were on offer the other day for dawn raiders/tellers, but my relief never arrived, so they had gone when I did finally get away.
I have had verbal abuse, but never any threat of anything physical. Apart from dogs, lurking behind the letterbox in a silent vigil for fingers....
Is this still the conversation about nationalised porn?
More efficient as a team, but happy to go and do an area solo. Never paid. Bacon butties were on offer the other day for dawn raiders/tellers, but my relief never arrived, so they had gone when I did finally get away.
I have had verbal abuse, but never any threat of anything physical. Apart from dogs, lurking behind the letterbox in a silent vigil for fingers....
Do you eat bacon? I had assumed given your low cholesterol you did not eat meat? I wish I had low cholesterol!
I have been verbally abused in the past. I have even put a leaflet in a letter box and felt a hand put the leaflet back in mine and push my hand back out!
Labour's free broadband is dominating the national conservation. This is dangerous for Boris - gives the impression that Labour is fizzing with ideas while the Tories are still wringing their hands over a messy Brexit. Smart of Jezza though. He obviously released that his opaque Brexit position was a hindrance, so gets everyone talking about something else. A variation of the dead-cat strategy I think.
No, a dead cat would be a prominent Labour politician saying something like Boris lied to his wife, so why wouldn't he lie to the country about no deal brexit. Dead cats are invariably personal in nature, look at the one about Ed stabbing his brother in the back.
I wouldn't underestimate the effect of this policy.
It's got people talking about something that isn't Brexit. Huge bonus for Corbyn.
It's dominated an entire cycle of news. No such thing as bad publicity and all that. It crowds out whatever the Tories are trying to say.
Most people hate telecoms companies. The average joe can't understand why they have to pay £25 for "landline rental" when they only use their mobile. Most of us have been stung with high connection or disconnection charges. I remember being genuinely shocked at having to pay nigh on a hundred quid to disconnect my service when I moved house. Yes, I know the old nationalised system was crap with a 6 week wait to rent a phone. Most people don't.
People cost it in personal terms. They don't think "100bn to buy BT" or "crikey, this will tank my pension", they think "well, it's only thirty quid a month Corbyn is promising us all. Surely the economy can afford that." The figure seems small even when it's actually big.
Finally, it's a simple policy and - on the surface - hard to disagree with. "Free internet!" - who doesn't want that. It makes Corbyn look like Santa while Boris is the grinch.
It is a rather popular policy. I want my free owl first though.
People like free stuff (though in reality taxes would go up to compensate shareholders etc).
Note though opposition to renationalising BT as Labour proposes is just 1% behind support far lower than support for renationalising the railways for example
Labour's A*'s all round for being able to fill in your name on exam papers is paying off very nicely for them.
More efficient as a team, but happy to go and do an area solo. Never paid. Bacon butties were on offer the other day for dawn raiders/tellers, but my relief never arrived, so they had gone when I did finally get away.
I have had verbal abuse, but never any threat of anything physical. Apart from dogs, lurking behind the letterbox in a silent vigil for fingers....
Is this still the conversation about nationalised porn?
I thought that too. It did add piquancy to his first sentence. I was impressed. A whole area solo? Well done that man. Makes you proud to be British.
I see that the Independent amongst others are reporting that Labour intend for parliament to set the (purchase) price for the nationalisation of Open Reach etal.
I bet there are a few nervous investors out there - or would be if it looked half likely that Labour would get into power.
More efficient as a team, but happy to go and do an area solo. Never paid. Bacon butties were on offer the other day for dawn raiders/tellers, but my relief never arrived, so they had gone when I did finally get away.
I have had verbal abuse, but never any threat of anything physical. Apart from dogs, lurking behind the letterbox in a silent vigil for fingers....
Do you eat bacon? I had assumed given your low cholesterol you did not eat meat? I wish I had low cholesterol!
I have been verbally abused in the past. I have even put a leaflet in a letter box and felt a hand put the leaflet back in mine and push my hand back out!
The dangers of high cholesterol have been grossly and cynically exaggerated by the pharmaceutical industry in my opinion.
He doesn't even mention the hole in the pension fund, potential legal challenges from foreign shareholders (Deutsche Telekom owns about 12 per cent of BT). What happens to those put out of business. Admirable aim - and there's probably a way to do it - but it certainly isn't this way, which looks like it was worked out on the back of a fag packet.
It will be massively more expensive than Labour has admitted. Possibly by an order of magnitude.
More efficient as a team, but happy to go and do an area solo. Never paid. Bacon butties were on offer the other day for dawn raiders/tellers, but my relief never arrived, so they had gone when I did finally get away.
I have had verbal abuse, but never any threat of anything physical. Apart from dogs, lurking behind the letterbox in a silent vigil for fingers....
Do you eat bacon? I had assumed given your low cholesterol you did not eat meat? I wish I had low cholesterol!
I have been verbally abused in the past. I have even put a leaflet in a letter box and felt a hand put the leaflet back in mine and push my hand back out!
1.8 - lowest in the Totnes surgery.
That is probably because my efforts to eat bacon sarnies keep getting thwarted!
TBH, if we’re going back to the 40’s it was the Commies who helped us win the war against the anti-democratic Fascists, who wanted a docile majority to get ‘XXXX’ done! When I were a lad, as the saying goes, the Commies were still our allies.
Reading Beevor’s ‘Berlin’ about the last days of the European War I got the distinct impression that the Soviets did not hold us in anything like the same regard at the time, and the idea that Stalin did not want a docile population...
I read "Berlin" early last year - after reading Beevor's "Stalingrad", then I read his "Ardennes 1944", and this year I've read "D-day", "Arnhem", "Crete", "Paris" and now I've just started "The Battle for Spain".
You could say I've come down with a clear-cut case of Beevor Fever
Is he any good? I've been avoiding Beevor (I'm not a fan of his style and Max Hastings is still churning them out) but I'm beginning to think that whilst Hastings is his superior for wars, Beevor might edge it for battles.
I think he's good, although I've never read Hastings save for brief browses in Waterstones or Smiths.
Max Hastings is mentioned on the back cover of Beevor's "The Battle of Spain":
"Fascination lies in the human drama, superbly captured by Beevor… a vivid chronicle of a dreadful time and place." - Max Hastings, Sunday Times.
TBH, if we’re going back to the 40’s it was the Commies who helped us win the war against the anti-democratic Fascists, who wanted a docile majority to get ‘XXXX’ done! When I were a lad, as the saying goes, the Commies were still our allies.
Reading Beevor’s ‘Berlin’ about the last days of the European War I got the distinct impression that the Soviets did not hold us in anything like the same regard at the time, and the idea that Stalin did not want a docile population...
I read "Berlin" early last year - after reading Beevor's "Stalingrad", then I read his "Ardennes 1944", and this year I've read "D-day", "Arnhem", "Crete", "Paris" and now I've just started "The Battle for Spain".
You could say I've come down with a clear-cut case of Beevor Fever
Is he any good? I've been avoiding Beevor (I'm not a fan of his style and Max Hastings is still churning them out) but I'm beginning to think that whilst Hastings is his superior for wars, Beevor might edge it for battles.
I think he's good, although I've never read Hastings save for brief browses in Waterstones or Smiths.
Max Hastings is mentioned on the back cover of Beevor's "The Battle of Spain":
"Fascination lies in the human drama, superbly captured by Beevor… a vivid chronicle of a dreadful time and place." - Max Hastings, Sunday Times.
I have read both.
They are both good and produce some very interesting reads.
Viewcode - a number of his books are available to listen to on Youtube.
Comments
Think of 'the unions' c.1970. Thatcher decimated some of them - she went much too far, where she could - but she didn't touch ASLEF or the NUR and apparently not the GPO workforce or what became BT.
I recently had a total of five telephone engineers turn up on three occasions to repair a line fault - total about 15 person-hours? The first one didn't do his job and said the fault was with my equipment, leading to a bill for £120 which was later withdrawn.
Two people on one visit could have done it, i.e. about 4 person-hours. So whatever BT quotes, I'd divide by four or more.
But one has to assume that Labour would realise that the system is vastly overmanned and inefficient. I don't think they do. TBH I'd rather have the Lib.Dems and Greens in charge of it. Lib.Dems probably have more MPs who've run a 'lean' small business.
You're saying under swing alone the Tories would have a higher share of the vote than 2015, Labour a lower share of the vote than 2015 and the Tory lead would be 4.1% more than 2015 but they will have fewer seats than 2015?
Something seems wrong with those maths.
Regarding BXP I was looking at the MRP model numbers sorry.
You might be over fixated on lead over Labour and ignoring all the other effects.
LOL
Sorry, everyone else has probably seen this already but I'm just catching up.
Curtice is much more positive about the Conservatives' chances than I am. Given my Corbophobia, easily the best - or, at any rate, least dismal - thing I've heard about this election so far.
I bet if it was free Bolly.....
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/15/election-candidates-told-not-go-canvassing-alone-think-carefully/
As a sanity check, if you look at the detail of my predictions by constituency, do any of them seem really stupid?
It is required under the Voting rights Act
Only 100bn...go on make it 200...why not. Every other party is just making up crazy numbers.
Betfair Sedgefield Conservative 7/1
Btw does anyone know what's happened to Ladbrokes' constituency betting markets - they seem to have totally disappeared from their website?
How can parties and the electorate have a rational conversation if every policy is deemed crazy whilst the govt is demanding we pursue the craziest policy of all as soon as we can.
Whilst ignoring UNS and saying "it couldn't possibly that bad for the libdems" turns out it was.
People are now saying it can"t possibly be that good for the tories despite what the polls and UNS show. Yes there will be tactical voting but *most* of that is already factored in since 6.5 million voted tactically in 2017. There might be more a little more, but there is also the Brexit Party squeeze which in the south will benefit the tories. Hardly any of the BXP vote in the southern shires comes from Labour so they will almost all go to the Tories
Libdems will be lucky to gain 5 net seats from the Tories, because of the BXP standing down.
“I think [david gauke] was on breakfast [tv] but I was feeding my dog and putting on my shoe at the same time”
The parties need to agree something jointly - or set up a commission and agree to implement the conclusions.
Free SuperFast Broadband
1000 Sure Starts
£10 wage p/h
£26bn NHS
Axe NHS Privatisation
Axe Bedroom Tax
Funding for 2nd Degree
Axe Universal Credit
Abolish Homelessness
Ban Fracking
Free Prescriptions
Free NHS carparking
Gender Pay Act
Robin Hood Tax
Axe SATs
Ban Zero Hours
Tory Policies
None so far but Corbyn is a Commie
I don’t think labour can claim to own all progressive policies in this election.
The libdems have had a splendid week with their emphasis on long overdue reskilling and training.
In game of top trumps what are we saying are the big progressive ideas from the Tories? The case law amnesty for all crimes committed in northern Ireland during the troubles is pretty groundbreaking and progressive is it not? They intend to change the human rights act, unless you think courts will interpret it as one law for one another law for the rest then there is only one consequence of that isn’t there? Amnesty for all.
Also, in marked contrast from the pasty tax madness of Osborne, Boris and Javids edBallsian willingness to borrow and spend (and borrow for tax cuts) is pretty progressive too isn’t it? Boris’s Trumponomics of borrowing trillions finally sweeping Osbornes austerity madness away.
In a positive sense I think this election see’s end to regressive law and economics with everyone progressive now. is it fair to say?
https://twitter.com/emmadentcoad/status/1195424118952386562
Anyone without an axe to grind would look at the two figures -- £20bn and £100bn -- and notice that each source had an incentive in making it seem higher or lower than reality. You'd be foolish to rely on either figure. And Floater is habitually foolish.
Well, this Tory ain't buying......
You could say I've come down with a clear-cut case of Beevor Fever
Newsrooms have PB up permanent today learning from “this stuff” I am sure.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-50409211
Sinn Fein might get more than 7 seats on the back of this! I suppose it depends on how they spend the cash.
Nobs.
"And if they don't get the hours - nobody gets the hours...."
So possibly a little bit of value there.
Note though opposition to renationalising BT as Labour proposes is just 1% behind support far lower than support for renationalising the railways for example
Of course you then have to wait twenty minutes for bloke to ring the office for clearance cos potential winnings are over £250. But no experience is perfect.
https://mobile.twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1195430275032985601
I have had verbal abuse, but never any threat of anything physical. Apart from dogs, lurking behind the letterbox in a silent vigil for fingers....
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/11/15/boost-boris-johnson-brexit-party-fields-just-274-candidates/
What weight do you think the full moon will have on voting, HY?
https://imgur.com/HISAOZH
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/11/15/remainer-roland-rudd-quits-peoples-vote-campaign-rows-strategy/
https://twitter.com/cousinsdan/status/1195335657213898755
He doesn't even mention the hole in the pension fund, potential legal challenges from foreign shareholders (Deutsche Telekom owns about 12 per cent of BT). What happens to those put out of business. Admirable aim - and there's probably a way to do it - but it certainly isn't this way, which looks like it was worked out on the back of a fag packet.
I have been verbally abused in the past. I have even put a leaflet in a letter box and felt a hand put the leaflet back in mine and push my hand back out!
I bet there are a few nervous investors out there - or would be if it looked half likely that Labour would get into power.
That is probably because my efforts to eat bacon sarnies keep getting thwarted!
Max Hastings is mentioned on the back cover of Beevor's "The Battle of Spain":
"Fascination lies in the human drama, superbly captured by Beevor… a vivid chronicle of a dreadful time and place." - Max Hastings, Sunday Times.
They are both good and produce some very interesting reads.
Viewcode - a number of his books are available to listen to on Youtube.