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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The first sign that Boris Johnson is going to repeat Theresa M

SystemSystem Posts: 11,016
edited November 2019 in General

imagepoliticalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The first sign that Boris Johnson is going to repeat Theresa May’s dire campaign performance at GE2017?

If these @DeltapollUK ratings are replicated with @IpsosMORI then Boris Johnson is about to repeat Theresa May's cratering of her ratings at GE2017. pic.twitter.com/fJQxWO6Hkx

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    asjohnstoneasjohnstone Posts: 1,276
    Would need to see sone regional subsamples before reading too much into this
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    IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Trump himself is not a danger; nobody takes him seriously and he'll be 4 weeks deeper into the impeachment shit. What could be profoundly damaging is the perception of a cackhanded attempt by the Tories to profit from his presence. I don't think team Boris are stupid enough to make that mistake.
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    kle4kle4 Posts: 91,721

    BigRich said:

    I think theses changes where announced in the John Magear years, giving everybody affected at least 20 years to prepare.

    This is an article from the time. It says that there was a plan to equalise the pension age at 65 by April 2020, but then the Coalition government brought that forward to November 2018.

    I am not disputing the policy of equalisation, but I think the changing of the dates at which it was to be achieved was bad governance.
    Its still loads of notice. The implication is government shouldnt have been allowed to bring it forward since nothing they could do would be enough. Its nonsense. Governments cannot accelerate things as thats bad governance, even when it's something long mooted? Bollocks.

    I get really irritated at policy positions which are really transparently bribes for certain demographics, young or old, from whomever offers them or even if just being oandered to by media, and this issue is definitely that, pretending its some horrible tragedy.

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    kle4kle4 Posts: 91,721
    I think this is Corbyn's best bet. Hes just not that off putting in campaign style reporting where its soundbites and promised giveaways, looking passionate and serious. But he does need his offering to be somewhat plausible to make the most of it, which he may have overshot, and he needs Boris to do things which will push Corbyn's score up from people put off by boris.

    Tough ask, and id think reasonable to weigh up both leadership rating and voting intention since last time Corbyn improved both in the campaign all the way through.
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    alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    kle4 said:

    BigRich said:

    I think theses changes where announced in the John Magear years, giving everybody affected at least 20 years to prepare.

    This is an article from the time. It says that there was a plan to equalise the pension age at 65 by April 2020, but then the Coalition government brought that forward to November 2018.

    I am not disputing the policy of equalisation, but I think the changing of the dates at which it was to be achieved was bad governance.
    Its still loads of notice. The implication is government shouldnt have been allowed to bring it forward since nothing they could do would be enough. Its nonsense. Governments cannot accelerate things as thats bad governance, even when it's something long mooted? Bollocks.

    I get really irritated at policy positions which are really transparently bribes for certain demographics, young or old, from whomever offers them or even if just being oandered to by media, and this issue is definitely that, pretending its some horrible tragedy.

    It would also set an enormous precedent. There are all sorts of changes made to pension schemes all the time which have changed entitlements at the same or shorter notice than this one.

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    kle4kle4 Posts: 91,721
    So not much movement on last time it's looking like. But loads of marginals in Scotland so even small changes could mean plenty of seat changes.
    alex_ said:

    kle4 said:

    BigRich said:

    I think theses changes where announced in the John Magear years, giving everybody affected at least 20 years to prepare.

    This is an article from the time. It says that there was a plan to equalise the pension age at 65 by April 2020, but then the Coalition government brought that forward to November 2018.

    I am not disputing the policy of equalisation, but I think the changing of the dates at which it was to be achieved was bad governance.
    Its still loads of notice. The implication is government shouldnt have been allowed to bring it forward since nothing they could do would be enough. Its nonsense. Governments cannot accelerate things as thats bad governance, even when it's something long mooted? Bollocks.

    I get really irritated at policy positions which are really transparently bribes for certain demographics, young or old, from whomever offers them or even if just being oandered to by media, and this issue is definitely that, pretending its some horrible tragedy.

    It would also set an enormous precedent. There are all sorts of changes made to pension schemes all the time which have changed entitlements at the same or shorter notice than this one.

    Honestly, maybe it's because I've been unable to sleep so I'm getting cranky, but this policy is really angering me. An overblown series of protests and challenges is being treated like a horrible injustice, when frankly given it still have years of notice even calling it bad governance seems unfair. We see loads of bad governance, and this doesn't seem to be it - it's the decision that's the source of contention, the bad governance is an excuse.
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    kle4kle4 Posts: 91,721
    edited November 2019

    Equalisation was announced a long, long time in advance. But then the Coalition government sped up the timetable. It's possible that Brown had also cranked up the timetable earlier too (as doing so is worth a lot of money to the Treasury).

    I don't think the WASPI's have a leg to stand on when it comes to the equalisation principle, but I think that the way in which the timetable for equalisation was changed was suboptimal, at best. I think that gave people a lot less time to prepare for a change to the change.

    I've never understood this argument. What did they need to prepare for. They'd not retired yet so were still working now they just need to continue working.

    What preparations are necessary for that?
    Well they might have been in the happy position of being able to make preparations so that they could still afford to retire at the earlier age, but not if they then have to bridge a longer gap before their state pension started.
    There's no divine right to retire many years early.
    No, but there's a reason these changes have normally been announced many years in advance.
    There’s a balance isn’t there? You shouldn’t change the retirement age effective tomorrow, but people should also engage brain a bit. I’m now late 30s; there’s nothing in writing but I don’t expect to retire much before I’m 75. I have some accrued rights that kick in from 60, and I’d hope they’d let me reduce hours. I’d expect most my age to think similarly.
    Yes, that's basically what I said. There was a plan to equalise the ages, which was announced well in advance. Where I think they have some grounds for complaint is that the original timetable was sped-up, much later in the process, by the Coalition.

    I don't think it is desirable for a timetable to be announced, and then for it to be compressed at a later stage.
    Not being desirable doesnt make it unfair or unreasonable as a policy decision. Not liking it doesnt make it unfair or unreasonable as a policy decision.

    Seriously, we are actually saying speeding things up is in itself unreasonable? Never mind how much time there was before and how much time there still was afterwards?
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    kle4kle4 Posts: 91,721
    Anyone fancy a superlong article on cryptocurrency fraud? It's very depressing.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-50435014
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    DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 24,341
    edited November 2019
    I wonder if the fall is partly a reaction to stunts by CCHQ like factcheckUK and the fake Labour website. @FrancisUrquhart has previously suggested these are ill-conceived, especially given our demographics. They might be seen as not playing the game; an impression which can resonate with Boris's own reputation for unreliability.
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    kle4 said:

    So the move back to the SCons is starting to show. We know that the polls in Scotland tend to overstate the SNP and understate the SCons so perhaps the actual numbers are more like 35 SNP/30SCons. SLAB and SLib numbers not in the game if these numbers are anything like correct.





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    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,103
    kle4 said:

    So not much movement on last time it's looking like. But loads of marginals in Scotland so even small changes could mean plenty of seat changes.
    alex_ said:

    kle4 said:

    BigRich said:

    I think theses changes where announced in the John Magear years, giving everybody affected at least 20 years to prepare.

    This is an article from the time. It says that there was a plan to equalise the pension age at 65 by April 2020, but then the Coalition government brought that forward to November 2018.

    I am not disputing the policy of equalisation, but I think the changing of the dates at which it was to be achieved was bad governance.
    Its still loads of notice. The implication is government shouldnt have been allowed to bring it forward since nothing they could do would be enough. Its nonsense. Governments cannot accelerate things as thats bad governance, even when it's something long mooted? Bollocks.

    I get really irritated at policy positions which are really transparently bribes for certain demographics, young or old, from whomever offers them or even if just being oandered to by media, and this issue is definitely that, pretending its some horrible tragedy.

    It would also set an enormous precedent. There are all sorts of changes made to pension schemes all the time which have changed entitlements at the same or shorter notice than this one.

    Honestly, maybe it's because I've been unable to sleep so I'm getting cranky, but this policy is really angering me. An overblown series of protests and challenges is being treated like a horrible injustice, when frankly given it still have years of notice even calling it bad governance seems unfair. We see loads of bad governance, and this doesn't seem to be it - it's the decision that's the source of contention, the bad governance is an excuse.
    If we want to flag down an outrage bus, where is the desire by Labour to make reparations for the historic injustice done to men? Forced to work 5 years later for decades, when Governments had the statistics that we died earlier than women? Condemned by Govt. to work five years longer, we had far less time on our allotments to enjoy our pensions before we dropped down dead. Oh, the inhumanity.

    Labour - listen up. Our sex were used and abused as workers, for half a decade more than women. All men should be given a chunk of money, as compensation for this outrage done to us. Or we aren't voting for you.

    Or something.
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    ICYMI Have I Got News For You (available at all good iPlayers) included an amusing segment on guest Rory the no-longer Tory's spying allegations.
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    SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,877
    kle4 said:

    Anyone fancy a superlong article on cryptocurrency fraud? It's very depressing.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-50435014

    Ah yes, OneCoin, the pyramid scheme to end all pyramid schemes.

    Wherever Ruja Ignatova is hiding, she'd better have really good security. There's many people looking for her who have lost a *lot* of money.
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    SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,877

    I wonder if the fall is partly a reaction to stunts by CCHQ like factcheckUK and the fake Labour website. @FrancisUrquhart has previously suggested these are ill-conceived, especially given our demographics. They might be seen as not playing the game; an impression which can resonate with Boris's own reputation for unreliability.

    The problem is that everyone is playing games with silly stunts. Labour allegedly got a staffer into the QT audience asking a loaded question for Corbyn to retweet.

    https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1198295608781627395
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    I wonder if the fall is partly a reaction to stunts by CCHQ like factcheckUK and the fake Labour website. @FrancisUrquhart has previously suggested these are ill-conceived, especially given our demographics. They might be seen as not playing the game; an impression which can resonate with Boris's own reputation for unreliability.

    The Deltapoll findings are perhaps consistent with the YouGov ratings of the ITV party leaders' debate, where although Boris was adjudged the narrow winner, Corbyn was rated more trustworthy even though Boris was more likeable. See the bar charts in this pb header:
    http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2019/11/19/and-the-big-verdict-most-voters-found-the-debate-frutrating/

    Voters like Boris; they don't trust him, and the CCHQ stunts remind people of that, to draw these two comments together.
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    eggegg Posts: 1,749
    At one point Opinium were not asking who would you like to win, or who are you voting for, they thought it produced more accurate pointer by asking who do you think is going to win. Obviously they junked that, in a situation like this most the non Tory universe will say Tory even without an inkling of voting for them. But what are they asking or doing that puts Tory lead higher than their rivals. 🤔

    They could be spot on after all. Boris is likeable, charismatic, and popular whilst the stalinists running labour have turned the party into the communist party, and the voters, particularly long standing labour ones are clearly upset and angry about that to hand Boris 50 safe labour seats for the first time in generations, and after all the austerity and chaos of the last few years too it takes very very special labour leaders to screw up such an open goal and handover a party 130 seats from even a tiny majority.

    The likes of red Len wont be able to lash out at the moderate wing of the party, they are keeping dutifully quiet and the impression of a united party. Hilary Benn even had a go at trying to sell red lens insane BT nationalisation.
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    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,103
    Sandpit said:

    I wonder if the fall is partly a reaction to stunts by CCHQ like factcheckUK and the fake Labour website. @FrancisUrquhart has previously suggested these are ill-conceived, especially given our demographics. They might be seen as not playing the game; an impression which can resonate with Boris's own reputation for unreliability.

    The problem is that everyone is playing games with silly stunts. Labour allegedly got a staffer into the QT audience asking a loaded question for Corbyn to retweet.

    https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1198295608781627395
    He was so far up Corbyn's rectum, he was obviously a Labour insider! The BBC might want to think on how he so easily exploited the system to get himself on the show, asking a question. And how many more did he plant?

    What did the BBC know - and when did they know it? The Governors should look into their processes behind that programme. Boris got out alive, but you can look at that format and wonder - to what extent was it crafted with an intent to hurt one or more of the leaders? I look forward to the House Select Committee inviting the programme's producers in for a discussion on their methods for selecting the audience.

    The debates have become an integral part of the election campaign. Try to avoid them - and ask Theresa May what happens. All aspects need to be as transparent as voting for my MP.
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    Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    Oh God. Yes, it's 2017*, isn't it? Here we go again...

    (*well, more like a reverse 1992 - VI says majority, leader ratings will portend a Hung Parliament)
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    felixfelix Posts: 15,124
    The Scotland poll is seriously encouraging for the Tories. Within the range where they could keep most of their seats and even challenge in a couple of marginals. We begane 3 weeks ago when they were expected to lose all but 2/3.
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    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,103

    I wonder if the fall is partly a reaction to stunts by CCHQ like factcheckUK and the fake Labour website. @FrancisUrquhart has previously suggested these are ill-conceived, especially given our demographics. They might be seen as not playing the game; an impression which can resonate with Boris's own reputation for unreliability.

    I doubt more than 3% of the public have any idea about "stunts by CCHQ". And most of those - the politically aware - are people whose view on Boris is not going to change one jot.
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    McDonnells 58 billion overnight bung to the waspi generation is more than the defence budget and is a last throw of the dice for a once great party being destroyed by it's leadership.

    As far as the Scots poll is concerned Nicola Sturgeon has made an error by calling it a vote for independence when it was far easier just to keep it to stopping brexit

    She has given the conservatives the boost of not only the 38% who voted leave (and of course TBP are not standing ) but a greater number who reject independence

    I have no idea how this GE pans out but it does seem unlikely that Boris will fail to achieve a majority of some sort, bribes or otherwise from labour
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    StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    edited November 2019
    No bones about it: that is absolutely outstanding for the Scottish Conservatives. It truly puts to bed all the guff over the last decade about Ruth Davidson being some kind of electoral sorcerer. She wasn’t. In fact, she was mediocre. It’s just that she was the best Unionist politician by miles, so the BBC and the rest of the Establishment were forced to hype her.

    The only worry now for the leaderless Blue Team is: vote distribution. There is a possibility, a strong possibility, that SCons are building up support in the Central Belt, but losing just enough unwind to the SLDs to narrowly lose some seats outwith the Central Belt. East Renfrewshire might see a thumping SCon increased majority whereas we could easily see a shock loss in a seat with a significant SCon Maj in 2017.

    Ayr looks vulnerable due to loss of the incumbent.

    Good for SLab too: only down 7 points from 2017. They’re not deid yet!

    Horrific for the SLDs.

    Disappointing for the SNP.

    (Edit: split long post.)
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    DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 24,341
    edited November 2019

    I wonder if the fall is partly a reaction to stunts by CCHQ like factcheckUK and the fake Labour website. @FrancisUrquhart has previously suggested these are ill-conceived, especially given our demographics. They might be seen as not playing the game; an impression which can resonate with Boris's own reputation for unreliability.

    I doubt more than 3% of the public have any idea about "stunts by CCHQ". And most of those - the politically aware - are people whose view on Boris is not going to change one jot.
    Those two stunts were splashed all over the news. Probably there are others that stayed below the radar. The problem with micro-targeted campaigning is that by definition, most of the population, including both the media and political opponents, does not even see it.
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    fitalass said:

    I think the Libdem leaflet distribution in the weeks up to and after the GE was called UK wide was totally chaotic, and its looks as if they totally tore up their strategy grid the moment the GE was called and binned the Presidential style campaign appeal. From my own anecdotal evidence, it looks like they started out with the idea of running a Presidential campaign focussed around Jo Swinson in the month before the GE was officially called and the plan was to target some of their key old formerly safe seats, especially in Remain areas across the whole UK, and then they gave up?!

    I live in West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, we got three leaflets focussing on Jo Swinson in the month before the GE was called, then nothing since. But a Libdem voter in Danny Alexander's old seat has not had anything before or after the GE was called. Up here in Scotland, you would expect someone who was going to try to use their Leadership as a plus to then run a high profile campaign in key Remain target seats in the way both Nicola Sturgeon and Ruth Davidson have successfully done in the past. But Jo Swinson has been invisible in Scotland during this GE campaign, and I suspect the same is true of other key Remain target areas outside London down South. So its been no surprise to me that the Libdems have fallen back in the polls and their expectations. If you make your campaign London centric the rest of the country will ignore you.

    I find your focus on the SLD 3rd and 4th place candidates in the NE and Highlands very telling. They are indeed the SCons main worry, not the SNP.

    Even a small SCon to SLD tactical unwind could make for a very unpleasant election for your team.
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    No bones about it: that is absolutely outstanding for the Scottish Conservatives. It truly puts to bed all the guff over the last decade about Ruth Davidson being some kind of electoral sorcerer. She wasn’t. In fact, she was mediocre. It’s just that she was the best Unionist politician by miles, so the BBC and the rest of the Establishment were forced to hype her.

    The only worry now for the leaderless Blue Team is: vote distribution. There is a possibility, a strong possibility, that SCons are building up support in the Central Belt, but losing just enough unwind to the SLDs to narrowly lose some seats outwith the Central Belt. East Renfrewshire might see a thumping SCon increased majority whereas we could easily see a shock loss in a seat with a significant SCon Maj in 2017.

    Ayr looks vulnerable due to loss of the incumbent.

    Good for SLab too: only down 7 points from 2017. They’re not deid yet!

    Horrific for the SLDs.

    Disappointing for the SNP.

    (Edit: split long post.)
    A very fair post and I am sure you agree that Nicola made a mistake by making the election about independence thereby firing up the union vote rather than just concentrating on brexit
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    Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    McDonnells 58 billion overnight bung to the waspi generation is more than the defence budget and is a last throw of the dice for a once great party being destroyed by it's leadership.

    As far as the Scots poll is concerned Nicola Sturgeon has made an error by calling it a vote for independence when it was far easier just to keep it to stopping brexit

    She has given the conservatives the boost of not only the 38% who voted leave (and of course TBP are not standing ) but a greater number who reject independence

    I have no idea how this GE pans out but it does seem unlikely that Boris will fail to achieve a majority of some sort, bribes or otherwise from labour

    I hope you're right - then again, the robots, the robots...

    One frequently fears that Labour could say it would do literally anything - however preposterous, unbelievable, horrifying, whatever - and a third (or more?) of the entire electorate would back them reflexively.

    Not good, not good at all.
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    alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    Labour’s WASPI “correction of historic wrong” could actually be the thin end of the wedge. There are lots of other “historic wrongs” which you can tell Corbyn is just itching to rectify. Mostly to do with the British empire. And reading between the lines there are also strong indications about how he would like to attempt to pay for most of them (except where he apparently doesn’t because “the Govt could lose a court case anyway”). He will try to pay for it by basically going after the wealth of those who to this day still retain the benefits of the imperial past. In the same way as he will tax energy companies on their “historic contribution to the climate crisis”, attempt to renationalise things at the “knockdown” prices they were sold off for in the first place etc etc. Expect Crown Estates to be sold off, Oxford/Cambridge college endowment funds to be raided, Public schools an obvious target, Duke of Westminster’s properties will secure a tidy sum...

    And it’ll all probably be wildly popular - just needs to get it through the courts...
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    Sandpit said:

    I wonder if the fall is partly a reaction to stunts by CCHQ like factcheckUK and the fake Labour website. @FrancisUrquhart has previously suggested these are ill-conceived, especially given our demographics. They might be seen as not playing the game; an impression which can resonate with Boris's own reputation for unreliability.

    The problem is that everyone is playing games with silly stunts. Labour allegedly got a staffer into the QT audience asking a loaded question for Corbyn to retweet.

    https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1198295608781627395
    He was so far up Corbyn's rectum, he was obviously a Labour insider! The BBC might want to think on how he so easily exploited the system to get himself on the show, asking a question. And how many more did he plant?

    What did the BBC know - and when did they know it? The Governors should look into their processes behind that programme. Boris got out alive, but you can look at that format and wonder - to what extent was it crafted with an intent to hurt one or more of the leaders? I look forward to the House Select Committee inviting the programme's producers in for a discussion on their methods for selecting the audience.

    The debates have become an integral part of the election campaign. Try to avoid them - and ask Theresa May what happens. All aspects need to be as transparent as voting for my MP.
    I think that it's always been standard practise for the television companies to encourage members of the political parties to come on these programmes. Even limiting the numbers to match the level of support of each party, particularly number of MPs - hence Jo Swinson's hostile questioning.
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    rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,955

    No bones about it: that is absolutely outstanding for the Scottish Conservatives. It truly puts to bed all the guff over the last decade about Ruth Davidson being some kind of electoral sorcerer. She wasn’t. In fact, she was mediocre. It’s just that she was the best Unionist politician by miles, so the BBC and the rest of the Establishment were forced to hype her.

    The only worry now for the leaderless Blue Team is: vote distribution. There is a possibility, a strong possibility, that SCons are building up support in the Central Belt, but losing just enough unwind to the SLDs to narrowly lose some seats outwith the Central Belt. East Renfrewshire might see a thumping SCon increased majority whereas we could easily see a shock loss in a seat with a significant SCon Maj in 2017.

    Ayr looks vulnerable due to loss of the incumbent.

    Good for SLab too: only down 7 points from 2017. They’re not deid yet!

    Horrific for the SLDs.

    Disappointing for the SNP.

    (Edit: split long post.)
    Hang on... aren't the SLDs still up 4% from '17 on this poll? (And the SNP up 3%.)

    On these numbers, you'd expect the Tories to lose a couple of seats to the SNP, the Labour Party to lose all but one or two of their seats, while the LDs might (or might not) pick up Fife NE. (And while they probably deserve to lose Edinburgh West, they probably won't.)
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    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,103
    That Scottish poll comes back to an issue I've alluded to before, where I have no local knowledge: to what extent are the SCons going to hoover up that intersect of those for Unionism and those for Leave? I would imagine the great bulk of their vote is those who are for both. To what extent do they also appeal to Unionist Remainers and (less likely I guess) pro-independence Brexiteers?

    The great hope of Remainers was the Tories getting a thrashing in Scotland. But the SCons seats overlapped with the most pro-leave parts of Scotland. They might benefit from their vote concentrating exactly where they need it and thereby keeping losses to a minimum. Incredibly good new for Boris if so - not only for a majority, but also for saying that his majority has has some (although a lessened) legitimacy in Scotland to proceed with Brexit.
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    Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,814
    FWIW Yougov has approval numbers of -4% and -42%.
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    rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,955

    That Scottish poll comes back to an issue I've alluded to before, where I have no local knowledge: to what extent are the SCons going to hoover up that intersect of those for Unionism and those for Leave? I would imagine the great bulk of their vote is those who are for both. To what extent do they also appeal to Unionist Remainers and (less likely I guess) pro-independence Brexiteers?

    The great hope of Remainers was the Tories getting a thrashing in Scotland. But the SCons seats overlapped with the most pro-leave parts of Scotland. They might benefit from their vote concentrating exactly where they need it and thereby keeping losses to a minimum. Incredibly good new for Boris if so - not only for a majority, but also for saying that his majority has has some (although a lessened) legitimacy in Scotland to proceed with Brexit.

    Well, isn't the split:

    Unionist + Leave = Con
    Unionist + Remain = LD
    Seperatist + [] = SNP
    Unionist + ? = Labour

    The interesting thing about Scotland in 2019 is changing tactical vote assumptions.
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    SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,877

    Sandpit said:

    I wonder if the fall is partly a reaction to stunts by CCHQ like factcheckUK and the fake Labour website. @FrancisUrquhart has previously suggested these are ill-conceived, especially given our demographics. They might be seen as not playing the game; an impression which can resonate with Boris's own reputation for unreliability.

    The problem is that everyone is playing games with silly stunts. Labour allegedly got a staffer into the QT audience asking a loaded question for Corbyn to retweet.

    https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1198295608781627395
    He was so far up Corbyn's rectum, he was obviously a Labour insider! The BBC might want to think on how he so easily exploited the system to get himself on the show, asking a question. And how many more did he plant?

    What did the BBC know - and when did they know it? The Governors should look into their processes behind that programme. Boris got out alive, but you can look at that format and wonder - to what extent was it crafted with an intent to hurt one or more of the leaders? I look forward to the House Select Committee inviting the programme's producers in for a discussion on their methods for selecting the audience.

    The debates have become an integral part of the election campaign. Try to avoid them - and ask Theresa May what happens. All aspects need to be as transparent as voting for my MP.
    I think that it's always been standard practise for the television companies to encourage members of the political parties to come on these programmes. Even limiting the numbers to match the level of support of each party, particularly number of MPs - hence Jo Swinson's hostile questioning.
    And that situation is leading to a lack of trust among the general public of these programmes.

    If there’s going to be an audience, then being a member of a political party should be a bar to attendance.
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    Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    No bones about it: that is absolutely outstanding for the Scottish Conservatives. It truly puts to bed all the guff over the last decade about Ruth Davidson being some kind of electoral sorcerer. She wasn’t. In fact, she was mediocre. It’s just that she was the best Unionist politician by miles, so the BBC and the rest of the Establishment were forced to hype her.

    The only worry now for the leaderless Blue Team is: vote distribution. There is a possibility, a strong possibility, that SCons are building up support in the Central Belt, but losing just enough unwind to the SLDs to narrowly lose some seats outwith the Central Belt. East Renfrewshire might see a thumping SCon increased majority whereas we could easily see a shock loss in a seat with a significant SCon Maj in 2017.

    Ayr looks vulnerable due to loss of the incumbent.

    Good for SLab too: only down 7 points from 2017. They’re not deid yet!

    Horrific for the SLDs.

    Disappointing for the SNP.

    (Edit: split long post.)
    Baxterising those figures wipes out SLAB (Murray excepted,) but otherwise results in very little change (Stirling goes SNP, Fife NE goes LD.) But, of course, like everywhere else in the country we're uncertain as to how useful a tool UNS is this time - and Scotland's particularly complicated because you've got the cumulative effects of independence and Brexit to map onto a contest between Con and Lab, taking place in a country with a devolved settlement where the main battle is effectively between SNP and Con. It's all extremely tricky.

    If the poll is accurate then the Tories aren't going to be crushed back down to one or two seats, but @StuartDickson is obviously right: everything depends on where the churn in these figures is taking place. 8 of the 13 SCon seats are available to the SNP on less than a 5% swing, and you could make a case for their holding or losing all of them.
  • Options
    rcs1000 said:

    No bones about it: that is absolutely outstanding for the Scottish Conservatives. It truly puts to bed all the guff over the last decade about Ruth Davidson being some kind of electoral sorcerer. She wasn’t. In fact, she was mediocre. It’s just that she was the best Unionist politician by miles, so the BBC and the rest of the Establishment were forced to hype her.

    The only worry now for the leaderless Blue Team is: vote distribution. There is a possibility, a strong possibility, that SCons are building up support in the Central Belt, but losing just enough unwind to the SLDs to narrowly lose some seats outwith the Central Belt. East Renfrewshire might see a thumping SCon increased majority whereas we could easily see a shock loss in a seat with a significant SCon Maj in 2017.

    Ayr looks vulnerable due to loss of the incumbent.

    Good for SLab too: only down 7 points from 2017. They’re not deid yet!

    Horrific for the SLDs.

    Disappointing for the SNP.

    (Edit: split long post.)
    Hang on... aren't the SLDs still up 4% from '17 on this poll? (And the SNP up 3%.)

    On these numbers, you'd expect the Tories to lose a couple of seats to the SNP, the Labour Party to lose all but one or two of their seats, while the LDs might (or might not) pick up Fife NE. (And while they probably deserve to lose Edinburgh West, they probably won't.)
    Fair play to Stuart for acknowledging the SCons are as I have been saying for weeks, likely to be in the 11-16 range. The SLIbs are shitting bricks because their leader is going down like a bag of sick in Scotland, especially with women old enough to be her mother! SLAB vote is evaporating. Potential for SLAB lost deposits in seats they were in contention for in 2010!
  • Options
    In Scotland the election is all about IndyRef2 and Brexit in spite of Richard Leonard making promises which even if SLAB won all 59 seats and all 632 GB seats they cant deliver because his promises involve devolved issues.

    there are only 3 relevant parties in Scotland in this election

    SCon = keep UK and honour Brexit
    SLib = keep UK and bollocks to Brexit
    SNP = bollocks to UK and EU please let us back in.

    Anything else is a wasted vote including and especially SLAB.
  • Options
    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,103
    rcs1000 said:

    That Scottish poll comes back to an issue I've alluded to before, where I have no local knowledge: to what extent are the SCons going to hoover up that intersect of those for Unionism and those for Leave? I would imagine the great bulk of their vote is those who are for both. To what extent do they also appeal to Unionist Remainers and (less likely I guess) pro-independence Brexiteers?

    The great hope of Remainers was the Tories getting a thrashing in Scotland. But the SCons seats overlapped with the most pro-leave parts of Scotland. They might benefit from their vote concentrating exactly where they need it and thereby keeping losses to a minimum. Incredibly good new for Boris if so - not only for a majority, but also for saying that his majority has has some (although a lessened) legitimacy in Scotland to proceed with Brexit.

    Well, isn't the split:

    Unionist + Leave = Con
    Unionist + Remain = LD
    Seperatist + [] = SNP
    Unionist + ? = Labour

    The interesting thing about Scotland in 2019 is changing tactical vote assumptions.
    On that basis, you can see why Labour is getting squeezed.... There is a ready alternative home for their vote, whichever way they went on Brexit.
  • Options
    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,103

    No bones about it: that is absolutely outstanding for the Scottish Conservatives. It truly puts to bed all the guff over the last decade about Ruth Davidson being some kind of electoral sorcerer. She wasn’t. In fact, she was mediocre. It’s just that she was the best Unionist politician by miles, so the BBC and the rest of the Establishment were forced to hype her.

    The only worry now for the leaderless Blue Team is: vote distribution. There is a possibility, a strong possibility, that SCons are building up support in the Central Belt, but losing just enough unwind to the SLDs to narrowly lose some seats outwith the Central Belt. East Renfrewshire might see a thumping SCon increased majority whereas we could easily see a shock loss in a seat with a significant SCon Maj in 2017.

    Ayr looks vulnerable due to loss of the incumbent.

    Good for SLab too: only down 7 points from 2017. They’re not deid yet!

    Horrific for the SLDs.

    Disappointing for the SNP.

    (Edit: split long post.)
    Baxterising those figures wipes out SLAB (Murray excepted,) but otherwise results in very little change (Stirling goes SNP, Fife NE goes LD.) But, of course, like everywhere else in the country we're uncertain as to how useful a tool UNS is this time - and Scotland's particularly complicated because you've got the cumulative effects of independence and Brexit to map onto a contest between Con and Lab, taking place in a country with a devolved settlement where the main battle is effectively between SNP and Con. It's all extremely tricky.

    If the poll is accurate then the Tories aren't going to be crushed back down to one or two seats, but @StuartDickson is obviously right: everything depends on where the churn in these figures is taking place. 8 of the 13 SCon seats are available to the SNP on less than a 5% swing, and you could make a case for their holding or losing all of them.
    The Brexit Party not standing in SCon-held seats is very helpful indeed - their projected vote was often greater than the margin of an SNP gain from the SCons.
  • Options
    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,103

    Fair play to Stuart for acknowledging the SCons are as I have been saying for weeks, likely to be in the 11-16 range. The SLIbs are shitting bricks because their leader is going down like a bag of sick in Scotland, especially with women old enough to be her mother! SLAB vote is evaporating. Potential for SLAB lost deposits in seats they were in contention for in 2010!

    We had a friend over for dinner last night, a lovely warm-hearted generous lady, taught French in a state school. Ne'er a bad word to say about anybody.

    But unprompted and unprovoked, she just went off on one about Jo Swinson. "Who does she think she is? "Prime Minister"...? Revoking Brexit? Pah!"

    I had picked up on it on the doorsteps very early on - and posted that on here. I still can't quite process quite why she riles people quite so much. It's a bit odd. There's no obvious basis for the strength of feeling against her. But it is there.
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    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    rcs1000 said:

    That Scottish poll comes back to an issue I've alluded to before, where I have no local knowledge: to what extent are the SCons going to hoover up that intersect of those for Unionism and those for Leave? I would imagine the great bulk of their vote is those who are for both. To what extent do they also appeal to Unionist Remainers and (less likely I guess) pro-independence Brexiteers?

    The great hope of Remainers was the Tories getting a thrashing in Scotland. But the SCons seats overlapped with the most pro-leave parts of Scotland. They might benefit from their vote concentrating exactly where they need it and thereby keeping losses to a minimum. Incredibly good new for Boris if so - not only for a majority, but also for saying that his majority has has some (although a lessened) legitimacy in Scotland to proceed with Brexit.

    Well, isn't the split:

    Unionist + Leave = Con
    Unionist + Remain = LD
    Seperatist + [] = SNP
    Unionist + ? = Labour

    The interesting thing about Scotland in 2019 is changing tactical vote assumptions.
    SLab got a bunch of left wing independence supporters trying a hit of Corbynism in 2017.

    Now, who those collapsing Lab voters are is vital to working out what happens. If it is left wing Lab voters going back to the SNP then even those scant few percentage points of SNP rise are vital as that's pure swing which could get the SNP challenging a bunch of SCon seats.

    But it's a stonking poll for the SCons. The Brexit Party standing down is huge. I am off to reconfigure my betting position as Unionist tactical voting will totally keep seats I thought were goners.
  • Options
    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    No bones about it: that is absolutely outstanding for the Scottish Conservatives. It truly puts to bed all the guff over the last decade about Ruth Davidson being some kind of electoral sorcerer. She wasn’t. In fact, she was mediocre. It’s just that she was the best Unionist politician by miles, so the BBC and the rest of the Establishment were forced to hype her.

    The only worry now for the leaderless Blue Team is: vote distribution. There is a possibility, a strong possibility, that SCons are building up support in the Central Belt, but losing just enough unwind to the SLDs to narrowly lose some seats outwith the Central Belt. East Renfrewshire might see a thumping SCon increased majority whereas we could easily see a shock loss in a seat with a significant SCon Maj in 2017.

    Ayr looks vulnerable due to loss of the incumbent.

    Good for SLab too: only down 7 points from 2017. They’re not deid yet!

    Horrific for the SLDs.

    Disappointing for the SNP.

    (Edit: split long post.)
    Baxterising those figures wipes out SLAB (Murray excepted,) but otherwise results in very little change (Stirling goes SNP, Fife NE goes LD.) But, of course, like everywhere else in the country we're uncertain as to how useful a tool UNS is this time - and Scotland's particularly complicated because you've got the cumulative effects of independence and Brexit to map onto a contest between Con and Lab, taking place in a country with a devolved settlement where the main battle is effectively between SNP and Con. It's all extremely tricky.

    If the poll is accurate then the Tories aren't going to be crushed back down to one or two seats, but @StuartDickson is obviously right: everything depends on where the churn in these figures is taking place. 8 of the 13 SCon seats are available to the SNP on less than a 5% swing, and you could make a case for their holding or losing all of them.
    The Brexit Party not standing in SCon-held seats is very helpful indeed - their projected vote was often greater than the margin of an SNP gain from the SCons.
    Yes, I thought it had the potential to be massive and it turns out to be absolutely Massive.
  • Options
    Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    rcs1000 said:

    That Scottish poll comes back to an issue I've alluded to before, where I have no local knowledge: to what extent are the SCons going to hoover up that intersect of those for Unionism and those for Leave? I would imagine the great bulk of their vote is those who are for both. To what extent do they also appeal to Unionist Remainers and (less likely I guess) pro-independence Brexiteers?

    The great hope of Remainers was the Tories getting a thrashing in Scotland. But the SCons seats overlapped with the most pro-leave parts of Scotland. They might benefit from their vote concentrating exactly where they need it and thereby keeping losses to a minimum. Incredibly good new for Boris if so - not only for a majority, but also for saying that his majority has has some (although a lessened) legitimacy in Scotland to proceed with Brexit.

    Well, isn't the split:

    Unionist + Leave = Con
    Unionist + Remain = LD
    Seperatist + [] = SNP
    Unionist + ? = Labour

    The interesting thing about Scotland in 2019 is changing tactical vote assumptions.
    Labour has a remarkably healthy vote share for a party with a leadership that's equivocal about both the UK and European Unions. I can only ascribe this to the following:

    1. Even though it has been supplanted by the SNP, it still has a large residuum of tribal loyalty voters
    2. There's a huge pool of voters for it to fish in, because Scotland cleaves substantially to the Left of England (SNP+Lab+LD = 70%)

    The latter point is one of the best arguments for independence. It's a win-win for everybody. Not only does Scotland get a sovereign Government so it can go off and do its own thing. England gets to see Labour's walking stick - for the SNP controls a large bloc of valuable seats that can be used to prop up Corbyn and his successors - kicked away.

    If the Marxist project is going to take over then the least we can expect is that it should catch on in the leafy suburbs as well as the old coalfields and the urban cores. The argument about 'Governments we didn't vote for' cuts both ways.
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    squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,340
    What were Boris's approval ratings in the pols prior to the one cited, Its not from an outlier is it?
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    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    In my simplistic model the difference between SCons in high twenties and low twenties is the difference between 11 seats and 3 seats.
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    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Also the historical SNP polling overstatement is crucial here.

    In 2017 they got 37% of the vote.
    During the 2017 election campaign they had a poll range of 39%-43%
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    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    I wonder if the fall is partly a reaction to stunts by CCHQ like factcheckUK and the fake Labour website. @FrancisUrquhart has previously suggested these are ill-conceived, especially given our demographics. They might be seen as not playing the game; an impression which can resonate with Boris's own reputation for unreliability.

    The problem is that everyone is playing games with silly stunts. Labour allegedly got a staffer into the QT audience asking a loaded question for Corbyn to retweet.

    https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1198295608781627395
    He was so far up Corbyn's rectum, he was obviously a Labour insider! The BBC might want to think on how he so easily exploited the system to get himself on the show, asking a question. And how many more did he plant?

    What did the BBC know - and when did they know it? The Governors should look into their processes behind that programme. Boris got out alive, but you can look at that format and wonder - to what extent was it crafted with an intent to hurt one or more of the leaders? I look forward to the House Select Committee inviting the programme's producers in for a discussion on their methods for selecting the audience.

    The debates have become an integral part of the election campaign. Try to avoid them - and ask Theresa May what happens. All aspects need to be as transparent as voting for my MP.
    I think that it's always been standard practise for the television companies to encourage members of the political parties to come on these programmes. Even limiting the numbers to match the level of support of each party, particularly number of MPs - hence Jo Swinson's hostile questioning.
    And that situation is leading to a lack of trust among the general public of these programmes.

    If there’s going to be an audience, then being a member of a political party should be a bar to attendance.
    Indeed. How did someone from Lewisham even get past the 1st stage of audience selection when the event was in Sheffield?
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    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,261
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    I wonder if the fall is partly a reaction to stunts by CCHQ like factcheckUK and the fake Labour website. @FrancisUrquhart has previously suggested these are ill-conceived, especially given our demographics. They might be seen as not playing the game; an impression which can resonate with Boris's own reputation for unreliability.

    The problem is that everyone is playing games with silly stunts. Labour allegedly got a staffer into the QT audience asking a loaded question for Corbyn to retweet.

    https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1198295608781627395
    He was so far up Corbyn's rectum, he was obviously a Labour insider! The BBC might want to think on how he so easily exploited the system to get himself on the show, asking a question. And how many more did he plant?

    What did the BBC know - and when did they know it? The Governors should look into their processes behind that programme. Boris got out alive, but you can look at that format and wonder - to what extent was it crafted with an intent to hurt one or more of the leaders? I look forward to the House Select Committee inviting the programme's producers in for a discussion on their methods for selecting the audience.

    The debates have become an integral part of the election campaign. Try to avoid them - and ask Theresa May what happens. All aspects need to be as transparent as voting for my MP.
    I think that it's always been standard practise for the television companies to encourage members of the political parties to come on these programmes. Even limiting the numbers to match the level of support of each party, particularly number of MPs - hence Jo Swinson's hostile questioning.
    And that situation is leading to a lack of trust among the general public of these programmes.

    If there’s going to be an audience, then being a member of a political party should be a bar to attendance.
    In a randomly selected audience of a hundred, you’d expect one Labour member.

    As I have said before, the real problem is that ordinary non-political people don’t want the hassle of going.
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    squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,340
    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    I wonder if the fall is partly a reaction to stunts by CCHQ like factcheckUK and the fake Labour website. @FrancisUrquhart has previously suggested these are ill-conceived, especially given our demographics. They might be seen as not playing the game; an impression which can resonate with Boris's own reputation for unreliability.

    The problem is that everyone is playing games with silly stunts. Labour allegedly got a staffer into the QT audience asking a loaded question for Corbyn to retweet.

    https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1198295608781627395
    He was so far up Corbyn's rectum, he was obviously a Labour insider! The BBC might want to think on how he so easily exploited the system to get himself on the show, asking a question. And how many more did he plant?

    What did the BBC know - and when did they know it? The Governors should look into their processes behind that programme. Boris got out alive, but you can look at that format and wonder - to what extent was it crafted with an intent to hurt one or more of the leaders? I look forward to the House Select Committee inviting the programme's producers in for a discussion on their methods for selecting the audience.

    The debates have become an integral part of the election campaign. Try to avoid them - and ask Theresa May what happens. All aspects need to be as transparent as voting for my MP.
    I think that it's always been standard practise for the television companies to encourage members of the political parties to come on these programmes. Even limiting the numbers to match the level of support of each party, particularly number of MPs - hence Jo Swinson's hostile questioning.
    And that situation is leading to a lack of trust among the general public of these programmes.

    If there’s going to be an audience, then being a member of a political party should be a bar to attendance.
    In a randomly selected audience of a hundred, you’d expect one Labour member.

    As I have said before, the real problem is that ordinary non-political people don’t want the hassle of going.
    The answer is to get rid of the audience.
  • Options
    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,261

    No bones about it: that is absolutely outstanding for the Scottish Conservatives. It truly puts to bed all the guff over the last decade about Ruth Davidson being some kind of electoral sorcerer. She wasn’t. In fact, she was mediocre. It’s just that she was the best Unionist politician by miles, so the BBC and the rest of the Establishment were forced to hype her.

    The only worry now for the leaderless Blue Team is: vote distribution. There is a possibility, a strong possibility, that SCons are building up support in the Central Belt, but losing just enough unwind to the SLDs to narrowly lose some seats outwith the Central Belt. East Renfrewshire might see a thumping SCon increased majority whereas we could easily see a shock loss in a seat with a significant SCon Maj in 2017.

    Ayr looks vulnerable due to loss of the incumbent.

    Good for SLab too: only down 7 points from 2017. They’re not deid yet!

    Horrific for the SLDs.

    Disappointing for the SNP.

    (Edit: split long post.)
    Baxterising those figures wipes out SLAB (Murray excepted,) but otherwise results in very little change (Stirling goes SNP, Fife NE goes LD.) But, of course, like everywhere else in the country we're uncertain as to how useful a tool UNS is this time - and Scotland's particularly complicated because you've got the cumulative effects of independence and Brexit to map onto a contest between Con and Lab, taking place in a country with a devolved settlement where the main battle is effectively between SNP and Con. It's all extremely tricky.

    If the poll is accurate then the Tories aren't going to be crushed back down to one or two seats, but @StuartDickson is obviously right: everything depends on where the churn in these figures is taking place. 8 of the 13 SCon seats are available to the SNP on less than a 5% swing, and you could make a case for their holding or losing all of them.

    Amid all the poor figures for the LDs, the one hopeful sign from the MRP is that, as has been suspected, the recovery in the party’s vote is geographically concentrated.
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    As hardly any voter, % wise, uses twitter, less alone knows what a Twitter header or hashtag is, I doubt social media has had much effect.

    What could be impacting is the tv media's relentless pushing of the Labour line questioning Boris's trustworthiness.

    Compare and contrast to how they report on Labour's blatant NHS lies that "it's for sale" & drug costs will go up £500m a week after any US trade deal.
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    ydoethurydoethur Posts: 67,181
    Alistair said:

    Also the historical SNP polling overstatement is crucial here.

    In 2017 they got 37% of the vote.
    During the 2017 election campaign they had a poll range of 39%-43%

    That’s an interesting point. Do you think they might go down to 35% in the election?

    I would have thought the problem last time was people said they will vote SNP because it’s fashionable and then fail to vote at all. So perhaps their vote will have firmed up by now.
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    Sean_F said:

    FWIW Yougov has approval numbers of -4% and -42%.

    Sean - Just to be clear, are you saying that YouGov are showing a net difference of 38% (i.e. 42%-4%) in the disapproval ratings between Johnson and Corbyn, obviously in Johnson's favour, which compares with a net 24% (i.e. 34% - 10%) as shown in the chart at the top of this thread? If so that's one hell of a difference between the two pollsters.
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    Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,990
    IanB2 said:



    As I have said before, the real problem is that ordinary non-political people don’t want the hassle of going.

    You'd have to be completely fucked in the head to decide to spend an evening of the only life you'll ever have as a QT audience member. So it's not surprising you get a greater proportion of the truly invested.
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    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    Also the historical SNP polling overstatement is crucial here.

    In 2017 they got 37% of the vote.
    During the 2017 election campaign they had a poll range of 39%-43%

    That’s an interesting point. Do you think they might go down to 35% in the election?

    I would have thought the problem last time was people said they will vote SNP because it’s fashionable and then fail to vote at all. So perhaps their vote will have firmed up by now.
    The two questions are:
    Will the SNP's changed focus from Brexit to Indy get them the turnout of 'lazy' indy supporters? (in 2015 and 2017 if you plot SNP vote by constituency turnout you.get a very clear and obvious trend of lower turnout = higher SNP vote)
    Have the pollsters adjusted for the SNP polling overstatement?

    From speaking to someone who's partner works for Ipsos Mori I know they are grappling with question 2.
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    SunnyJimSunnyJim Posts: 1,106


    The answer is to get rid of the audience.

    Agreed.

    They add a level of farce to proceedings which is at best pantomime and at worst renders the format unwatchable.

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    Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    What were Boris's approval ratings in the pols prior to the one cited, Its not from an outlier is it?

    Not sure. I thought your question interesting so I had a look at the ComRes published yesterday, which also contains the most favourable headline VI for Labour (32%, +1 on last time.)

    It doesn't contain a similar approval question, but it does ask a series of Johnson vs Corbyn questions (prompting those surveyed about the Tuesday debate first.) The results are as follows:

    Is more likely to sort Brexit: BJ 53%, JC 20%
    Is more trustworthy: 35-33
    Is more Prime Ministerial: 46-25
    Can be more trusted with the economy: 45-25
    Can be more trusted with the NHS: 32-41
    Can be more trusted on issues of national security: 48-22
    Is more likely to keep the UK together: 40-29

    On the central question of the economy Johnson is 20pts ahead, which is close to the net approval lead shown by Deltapoll. Whether this is correlation or coincidence I leave for others to judge, but personally I'm nervous.

    Then again, I was nervous before and I'll continue to be nervous until this is all over.
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    Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,814
    edited November 2019

    Sean_F said:

    FWIW Yougov has approval numbers of -4% and -42%.

    Sean - Just to be clear, are you saying that YouGov are showing a net difference of 38% (i.e. 42%-4%) in the disapproval ratings between Johnson and Corbyn, obviously in Johnson's favour, which compares with a net 24% (i.e. 34% - 10%) as shown in the chart at the top of this thread? If so that's one hell of a difference between the two pollsters.
    Yes, that's correct.

    It's hard to follow Opinium's tables, but I think their numbers are 0% and -28%.
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    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,103
    Dura_Ace said:

    IanB2 said:



    As I have said before, the real problem is that ordinary non-political people don’t want the hassle of going.

    You'd have to be completely fucked in the head to decide to spend an evening of the only life you'll ever have as a QT audience member. So it's not surprising you get a greater proportion of the truly invested.
    Maybe their audience is comprised of those who believe in reincarnation?
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    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,103
    SunnyJim said:


    The answer is to get rid of the audience.

    Agreed.

    They add a level of farce to proceedings which is at best pantomime and at worst renders the format unwatchable.

    US debate audiences manage to be present, but respectful. Unlike that twat here on Friday who needed to be told eight times to STFU.
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    Banterman said:

    As hardly any voter, % wise, uses twitter, less alone knows what a Twitter header or hashtag is, I doubt social media has had much effect.

    What could be impacting is the tv media's relentless pushing of the Labour line questioning Boris's trustworthiness.

    Compare and contrast to how they report on Labour's blatant NHS lies that "it's for sale" & drug costs will go up £500m a week after any US trade deal.

    There are strict neutrality rules on broadcasters, especially during an election campaign, so if the "tv media" were relentlessly pushing Labour lines and lies, as you have it, doubtless CCHQ would have been on the phone.
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    Sean_F said:

    FWIW Yougov has approval numbers of -4% and -42%.

    It's something Boris has to watch.

    He needs to perform well in all the remaining debates.
  • Options
    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,261

    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    I wonder if the fall is partly a reaction to stunts by CCHQ like factcheckUK and the fake Labour website. @FrancisUrquhart has previously suggested these are ill-conceived, especially given our demographics. They might be seen as not playing the game; an impression which can resonate with Boris's own reputation for unreliability.

    The problem is that everyone is playing games with silly stunts. Labour allegedly got a staffer into the QT audience asking a loaded question for Corbyn to retweet.

    https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1198295608781627395
    He was so far up Corbyn's rectum, he was obviously a Labour insider! The BBC might want to think on how he so easily exploited the system to get himself on the show, asking a question. And how many more did he plant?

    What did the BBC know - and when did they know it? The Governors should look into their processes behind that programme. Boris got out alive, but you can look at that format and wonder - to what extent was it crafted with an intent to hurt one or more of the leaders? I look forward to the House Select Committee inviting the programme's producers in for a discussion on their methods for selecting the audience.

    The debates have become an integral part of the election campaign. Try to avoid them - and ask Theresa May what happens. All aspects need to be as transparent as voting for my MP.
    I think that it's always been standard practise for the television companies to encourage members of the political parties to come on these programmes. Even limiting the numbers to match the level of support of each party, particularly number of MPs - hence Jo Swinson's hostile questioning.
    And that situation is leading to a lack of trust among the general public of these programmes.

    If there’s going to be an audience, then being a member of a political party should be a bar to attendance.
    In a randomly selected audience of a hundred, you’d expect one Labour member.

    As I have said before, the real problem is that ordinary non-political people don’t want the hassle of going.
    The answer is to get rid of the audience.
    Yet, notwithstanding the few shouty Labour activists, it was the audience that made the show, providing tough questions and challenges to all four leaders.
  • Options
    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    FWIW Yougov has approval numbers of -4% and -42%.

    Sean - Just to be clear, are you saying that YouGov are showing a net difference of 38% (i.e. 42%-4%) in the disapproval ratings between Johnson and Corbyn, obviously in Johnson's favour, which compares with a net 24% (i.e. 34% - 10%) as shown in the chart at the top of this thread? If so that's one hell of a difference between the two pollsters.
    Yes, that's correct.

    It's hard to follow Opinium's tables, but I think their numbers are 0% and -28%.
    I imagine it's a few Labour waverers firming up behind Corbyn.
  • Options
    squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,340
    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    I wonder if the fall is partly a reaction to stunts by CCHQ like factcheckUK and the fake Labour website. @FrancisUrquhart has previously suggested these are ill-conceived, especially given our demographics. They might be seen as not playing the game; an impression which can resonate with Boris's own reputation for unreliability.

    The problem is that everyone is playing games with silly stunts. Labour allegedly got a staffer into the QT audience asking a loaded question for Corbyn to retweet.

    https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1198295608781627395
    He was so far up Corbyn's rectum, he was obviously a Labour insider! The BBC might want to think on how he so easily exploited the system to get himself on the show, asking a question. And how many more did he plant?

    What did the BBC know - and when did they know it? The Governors should look into their processes behind that programme. Boris got out alive, but you can look at that format and wonder - to what extent was it crafted with an intent to hurt one or more of the leaders? I look forward to the House Select Committee inviting the programme's producers in for a discussion on their methods for selecting the audience.

    The debates have become an integral part of the election campaign. Try to avoid them - and ask Theresa May what happens. All aspects need to be as transparent as voting for my MP.
    I think that it's always been standard practise for the television companies to encourage members of the political parties to come on these programmes. Even limiting the numbers to match the level of support of each party, particularly number of MPs - hence Jo Swinson's hostile questioning.
    And that situation is leading to a lack of trust among the general public of these programmes.

    If there’s going to be an audience, then being a member of a political party should be a bar to attendance.
    In a randomly selected audience of a hundred, you’d expect one Labour member.

    As I have said before, the real problem is that ordinary non-political people don’t want the hassle of going.
    The answer is to get rid of the audience.
    Yet, notwithstanding the few shouty Labour activists, it was the audience that made the show, providing tough questions and challenges to all four leaders.
    Those questions can be sent in and selected by a moderator, no need for shouty audience members. Frankly I never watch the debates. I have better things to do with my life,.
  • Options
    Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    IanB2 said:

    In a randomly selected audience of a hundred, you’d expect one Labour member.

    As I have said before, the real problem is that ordinary non-political people don’t want the hassle of going.

    The answer is to get rid of the audience.
    Quite. I made the same point myself about QT the other day. A panel discussion program, without the audience and involving in-depth discussion of just two or three questions submitted by viewers at home, might be far more revealing that a shouting match in front of a partisan crowd.

    There's already a radio phone-in show after QT anyway. If it's really essential that we also be subjected to random members of the public emoting then that strikes me as entirely sufficient.
  • Options
    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,261

    rcs1000 said:

    That Scottish poll comes back to an issue I've alluded to before, where I have no local knowledge: to what extent are the SCons going to hoover up that intersect of those for Unionism and those for Leave? I would imagine the great bulk of their vote is those who are for both. To what extent do they also appeal to Unionist Remainers and (less likely I guess) pro-independence Brexiteers?

    The great hope of Remainers was the Tories getting a thrashing in Scotland. But the SCons seats overlapped with the most pro-leave parts of Scotland. They might benefit from their vote concentrating exactly where they need it and thereby keeping losses to a minimum. Incredibly good new for Boris if so - not only for a majority, but also for saying that his majority has has some (although a lessened) legitimacy in Scotland to proceed with Brexit.

    Well, isn't the split:

    Unionist + Leave = Con
    Unionist + Remain = LD
    Seperatist + [] = SNP
    Unionist + ? = Labour

    The interesting thing about Scotland in 2019 is changing tactical vote assumptions.
    Labour has a remarkably healthy vote share for a party with a leadership that's equivocal about both the UK and European Unions. I can only ascribe this to the following:

    1. Even though it has been supplanted by the SNP, it still has a large residuum of tribal loyalty voters
    2. There's a huge pool of voters for it to fish in, because Scotland cleaves substantially to the Left of England (SNP+Lab+LD = 70%)

    The latter point is one of the best arguments for independence. It's a win-win for everybody. Not only does Scotland get a sovereign Government so it can go off and do its own thing. England gets to see Labour's walking stick - for the SNP controls a large bloc of valuable seats that can be used to prop up Corbyn and his successors - kicked away.

    If the Marxist project is going to take over then the least we can expect is that it should catch on in the leafy suburbs as well as the old coalfields and the urban cores. The argument about 'Governments we didn't vote for' cuts both ways.

    Or we could just introduce a fair voting system, like most other democracies.
  • Options
    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Run through POSSOM that Scotland poll gives a seat range (depending on turnout)

    Con = 11-12
    Lab = 1-3
    LD = 4
    SNP = 41-43
  • Options
    SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,877
    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    I wonder if the fall is partly a reaction to stunts by CCHQ like factcheckUK and the fake Labour website. @FrancisUrquhart has previously suggested these are ill-conceived, especially given our demographics. They might be seen as not playing the game; an impression which can resonate with Boris's own reputation for unreliability.

    The problem is that everyone is playing games with silly stunts. Labour allegedly got a staffer into the QT audience asking a loaded question for Corbyn to retweet.

    https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1198295608781627395
    He was so far up Corbyn's rectum, he was obviously a Labour insider! The BBC might want to think on how he so easily exploited the system to get himself on the show, asking a question. And how many more did he plant?

    What did the BBC know - and when did they know it? The Governors should look into their processes behind that programme. Boris got out alive, but you can look at that format and wonder - to what extent was it crafted with an intent to hurt one or more of the leaders? I look forward to the House Select Committee inviting the programme's producers in for a discussion on their methods for selecting the audience.

    The debates have become an integral part of the election campaign. Try to avoid them - and ask Theresa May what happens. All aspects need to be as transparent as voting for my MP.
    I think that it's always been standard practise for the television companies to encourage members of the political parties to come on these programmes. Even limiting the numbers to match the level of support of each party, particularly number of MPs - hence Jo Swinson's hostile questioning.
    And that situation is leading to a lack of trust among the general public of these programmes.

    If there’s going to be an audience, then being a member of a political party should be a bar to attendance.
    In a randomly selected audience of a hundred, you’d expect one Labour member.

    As I have said before, the real problem is that ordinary non-political people don’t want the hassle of going.
    Which is why you don’t randomly select them. You have someone like YouGov send out a couple of hundred invites to those it knows are floating voters and not politically active.
  • Options
    OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,974

    Dura_Ace said:

    IanB2 said:



    As I have said before, the real problem is that ordinary non-political people don’t want the hassle of going.

    You'd have to be completely fucked in the head to decide to spend an evening of the only life you'll ever have as a QT audience member. So it's not surprising you get a greater proportion of the truly invested.
    Maybe their audience is comprised of those who believe in reincarnation?
    Just seen a Facebook allegation that a Tory activist has managed to be on QT three times. Noisily!
  • Options
    ydoethurydoethur Posts: 67,181
    edited November 2019
    Blimey. Whoever this SNP spokesman is he’s embarrassing. He’s waffling like Johnson and as vacuous as Corbyn.

    Everything at Westminster needs an SNP vote to change it, while everything devolved to Scotland going wrong is not the SNP’s fault.

    Edit - it was David Linden, MP for Glasgow NE.
  • Options
    Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    Sean_F said:

    FWIW Yougov has approval numbers of -4% and -42%.

    It's something Boris has to watch.

    He needs to perform well in all the remaining debates.
    Too early to tell whether this is correction or trend, but yes. It may be that the campaign is making no difference and that the only significant events will turn out to have been a Lib Dem squeeze at the outset and the Brexit Party collapse - or it may be that these events are influencing at least some crucial voters. We don't know.

    Anyway, how many set pieces like that are there left to go? I know that there's at least one seven-way slanging match coming up, but I am given to understand that Con and Lab are both sending understudies to that one (unless Labour plan to try to score a PR win against Johnson by subbing Corbyn back in again five minutes before it goes on air.)

    Then there's another Johnson-Corbyn head-to-head shortly before polling day.

    Anything else I'm missing?
  • Options
    squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,340
    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    That Scottish poll comes back to an issue I've alluded to before, where I have no local knowledge: to what extent are the SCons going to hoover up that intersect of those for Unionism and those for Leave? I would imagine the great bulk of their vote is those who are for both. To what extent do they also appeal to Unionist Remainers and (less likely I guess) pro-independence Brexiteers?

    The great hope of Remainers was the Tories getting a thrashing in Scotland. But the SCons seats overlapped with the most pro-leave parts of Scotland. They might benefit from their vote concentrating exactly where they need it and thereby keeping losses to a minimum. Incredibly good new for Boris if so - not only for a majority, but also for saying that his majority has has some (although a lessened) legitimacy in Scotland to proceed with Brexit.

    Well, isn't the split:

    Unionist + Leave = Con
    Unionist + Remain = LD
    Seperatist + [] = SNP
    Unionist + ? = Labour

    The interesting thing about Scotland in 2019 is changing tactical vote assumptions.
    Labour has a remarkably healthy vote share for a party with a leadership that's equivocal about both the UK and European Unions. I can only ascribe this to the following:

    1. Even though it has been supplanted by the SNP, it still has a large residuum of tribal loyalty voters
    2. There's a huge pool of voters for it to fish in, because Scotland cleaves substantially to the Left of England (SNP+Lab+LD = 70%)

    The latter point is one of the best arguments for independence. It's a win-win for everybody. Not only does Scotland get a sovereign Government so it can go off and do its own thing. England gets to see Labour's walking stick - for the SNP controls a large bloc of valuable seats that can be used to prop up Corbyn and his successors - kicked away.

    If the Marxist project is going to take over then the least we can expect is that it should catch on in the leafy suburbs as well as the old coalfields and the urban cores. The argument about 'Governments we didn't vote for' cuts both ways.

    Or we could just introduce a fair voting system, like most other democracies.
    I think you need to get more people to agree with your version of fair. every party has an equal chance in every seat, that's fair to me.
  • Options
    FishingFishing Posts: 4,561

    IanB2 said:

    In a randomly selected audience of a hundred, you’d expect one Labour member.

    As I have said before, the real problem is that ordinary non-political people don’t want the hassle of going.

    The answer is to get rid of the audience.
    Quite. I made the same point myself about QT the other day. A panel discussion program, without the audience and involving in-depth discussion of just two or three questions submitted by viewers at home, might be far more revealing that a shouting match in front of a partisan crowd.

    There's already a radio phone-in show after QT anyway. If it's really essential that we also be subjected to random members of the public emoting then that strikes me as entirely sufficient.
    They also need to stop politicians interrupting each other. If they did that, the programme would become watchable again.
  • Options
    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,261
    Banterman said:

    As hardly any voter, % wise, uses twitter, less alone knows what a Twitter header or hashtag is, I doubt social media has had much effect.

    What could be impacting is the tv media's relentless pushing of the Labour line questioning Boris's trustworthiness.

    Compare and contrast to how they report on Labour's blatant NHS lies that "it's for sale" & drug costs will go up £500m a week after any US trade deal.

    Boris IS untrustworthy. The list of promises he has broken is already a mile long. As defending PM he is going to get scrutiny and challenge, much as he doesn't like it.
  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,592
    edited November 2019
    Sandpit said:

    I wonder if the fall is partly a reaction to stunts by CCHQ like factcheckUK and the fake Labour website. @FrancisUrquhart has previously suggested these are ill-conceived, especially given our demographics. They might be seen as not playing the game; an impression which can resonate with Boris's own reputation for unreliability.

    The problem is that everyone is playing games with silly stunts. Labour allegedly got a staffer into the QT audience asking a loaded question for Corbyn to retweet.

    //twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1198295608781627395
    It wasn't just Labour though, the question to Jezza on misogyny and Smeeth came from a Tory plant, who has appeared on QT 4 times.

    https://twitter.com/RickBlagger/status/1198200080580382720?s=19
  • Options
    squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,340
    IanB2 said:

    Banterman said:

    As hardly any voter, % wise, uses twitter, less alone knows what a Twitter header or hashtag is, I doubt social media has had much effect.

    What could be impacting is the tv media's relentless pushing of the Labour line questioning Boris's trustworthiness.

    Compare and contrast to how they report on Labour's blatant NHS lies that "it's for sale" & drug costs will go up £500m a week after any US trade deal.

    Boris IS untrustworthy. The list of promises he has broken is already a mile long. As defending PM he is going to get scrutiny and challenge, much as he doesn't like it.
    People trusted Blair to begin with and then look what happened.
  • Options
    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,103

    Sean_F said:

    FWIW Yougov has approval numbers of -4% and -42%.

    It's something Boris has to watch.

    He needs to perform well in all the remaining debates.
    Too early to tell whether this is correction or trend, but yes. It may be that the campaign is making no difference and that the only significant events will turn out to have been a Lib Dem squeeze at the outset and the Brexit Party collapse - or it may be that these events are influencing at least some crucial voters. We don't know.

    Anyway, how many set pieces like that are there left to go? I know that there's at least one seven-way slanging match coming up, but I am given to understand that Con and Lab are both sending understudies to that one (unless Labour plan to try to score a PR win against Johnson by subbing Corbyn back in again five minutes before it goes on air.)

    Then there's another Johnson-Corbyn head-to-head shortly before polling day.

    Anything else I'm missing?
    That and the Tory manifesto launch are about the only programmed elements that could go off half-cocked. Then it is down to "The War of Jennifer's Ear" type derailing.
  • Options
    JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901

    SunnyJim said:


    The answer is to get rid of the audience.

    Agreed.

    They add a level of farce to proceedings which is at best pantomime and at worst renders the format unwatchable.

    US debate audiences manage to be present, but respectful. Unlike that twat here on Friday who needed to be told eight times to STFU.
    To be fair, he seemed to care about his point and was annoyed that the PM was allowed to dodge it.
  • Options
    SunnyJimSunnyJim Posts: 1,106
    If the Tory manifesto gets away without too much of a mauling for being lightweight and Boris can scrape a draw in the final debate then the major obstacles will have been navigated.

    I wouldn't bet against something unexpected cropping up in the final week though.
  • Options
    eristdooferistdoof Posts: 4,889

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    That Scottish poll comes back to an issue I've alluded to before, where I have no local knowledge: to what extent are the SCons going to hoover up that intersect of those for Unionism and those for Leave? I would imagine the great bulk of their vote is those who are for both. To what extent do they also appeal to Unionist Remainers and (less likely I guess) pro-independence Brexiteers?

    The great hope of Remainers was the Tories getting a thrashing in Scotland. But the SCons seats overlapped with the most pro-leave parts of Scotland. They might benefit from their vote concentrating exactly where they need it and thereby keeping losses to a minimum. Incredibly good new for Boris if so - not only for a majority, but also for saying that his majority has has some (although a lessened) legitimacy in Scotland to proceed with Brexit.

    Well, isn't the split:

    Unionist + Leave = Con
    Unionist + Remain = LD
    Seperatist + [] = SNP
    Unionist + ? = Labour

    The interesting thing about Scotland in 2019 is changing tactical vote assumptions.
    Labour has a remarkably healthy vote share for a party with a leadership that's equivocal about both the UK and European Unions. I can only ascribe this to the following:

    1. Even though it has been supplanted by the SNP, it still has a large residuum of tribal loyalty voters
    2. There's a huge pool of voters for it to fish in, because Scotland cleaves substantially to the Left of England (SNP+Lab+LD = 70%)

    The latter point is one of the best arguments for independence. It's a win-win for everybody. Not only does Scotland get a sovereign Government so it can go off and do its own thing. England gets to see Labour's walking stick - for the SNP controls a large bloc of valuable seats that can be used to prop up Corbyn and his successors - kicked away.

    If the Marxist project is going to take over then the least we can expect is that it should catch on in the leafy suburbs as well as the old coalfields and the urban cores. The argument about 'Governments we didn't vote for' cuts both ways.

    Or we could just introduce a fair voting system, like most other democracies.
    I think you need to get more people to agree with your version of fair. every party has an equal chance in every seat, that's fair to me.
    Your doctor tells you you have kidney failure, but in your area there no dialysis units. You do have a choice of treatment but only between chemotherapy or a hip replacement. Is that fair?


    It is blatantly not true that every party has an equal chance in every seat.
  • Options
    nunu2nunu2 Posts: 1,453
    SunnyJim said:

    If the Tory manifesto gets away without too much of a mauling for being lightweight and Boris can scrape a draw in the final debate then the major obstacles will have been navigated.

    I wouldn't bet against something unexpected cropping up in the final week though.

    Its a bit bare bones
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,527
    Very interesting article on Biden’s stutter:
    https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/01/joe-biden-stutter-profile/602401/

    Which goes some way to explain his circumlocutions and malapropisms.
  • Options
    eristdooferistdoof Posts: 4,889

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    FWIW Yougov has approval numbers of -4% and -42%.

    Sean - Just to be clear, are you saying that YouGov are showing a net difference of 38% (i.e. 42%-4%) in the disapproval ratings between Johnson and Corbyn, obviously in Johnson's favour, which compares with a net 24% (i.e. 34% - 10%) as shown in the chart at the top of this thread? If so that's one hell of a difference between the two pollsters.
    Yes, that's correct.

    It's hard to follow Opinium's tables, but I think their numbers are 0% and -28%.
    I imagine it's a few Labour waverers firming up behind Corbyn.
    Or the don't knows realising they have no alternative in their constituency.
  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,592
    Fishing said:

    IanB2 said:

    In a randomly selected audience of a hundred, you’d expect one Labour member.

    As I have said before, the real problem is that ordinary non-political people don’t want the hassle of going.

    The answer is to get rid of the audience.
    Quite. I made the same point myself about QT the other day. A panel discussion program, without the audience and involving in-depth discussion of just two or three questions submitted by viewers at home, might be far more revealing that a shouting match in front of a partisan crowd.

    There's already a radio phone-in show after QT anyway. If it's really essential that we also be subjected to random members of the public emoting then that strikes me as entirely sufficient.
    They also need to stop politicians interrupting each other. If they did that, the programme would become watchable again.
    Compare with the level of intelligent debate in this clip from the 1975 referendum. No audience, no interuptions, intelligent discussion of real issues and no soundbites.

    https://twitter.com/redhistorian/status/1197092768268652545?s=19

    18 million people watched it. Back then people had fewer channels, no social media, but as a result much better attention spans.
  • Options

    Fair play to Stuart for acknowledging the SCons are as I have been saying for weeks, likely to be in the 11-16 range. The SLIbs are shitting bricks because their leader is going down like a bag of sick in Scotland, especially with women old enough to be her mother! SLAB vote is evaporating. Potential for SLAB lost deposits in seats they were in contention for in 2010!

    We had a friend over for dinner last night, a lovely warm-hearted generous lady, taught French in a state school. Ne'er a bad word to say about anybody.

    But unprompted and unprovoked, she just went off on one about Jo Swinson. "Who does she think she is? "Prime Minister"...? Revoking Brexit? Pah!"

    I had picked up on it on the doorsteps very early on - and posted that on here. I still can't quite process quite why she riles people quite so much. It's a bit odd. There's no obvious basis for the strength of feeling against her. But it is there.
    Sadly she evokes Violet Elizabeth Bott - surely the most monstrous creation in comfortable middle class English children's literature. At his best Boris evokes William himself the defective but good hearted and well meaning hero. I suppose to take the analogy further Corbyn is the generalised enemy, varying from chapter to chapter never seriously emerging from the background. Meanwhile Violet Elizabeth is there, all the time, shouting and screaming pointlessly so everyone, William, the Outlaws and the Reader just wants to make her shut up.
  • Options
    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,261
    Foxy said:

    Sandpit said:

    I wonder if the fall is partly a reaction to stunts by CCHQ like factcheckUK and the fake Labour website. @FrancisUrquhart has previously suggested these are ill-conceived, especially given our demographics. They might be seen as not playing the game; an impression which can resonate with Boris's own reputation for unreliability.

    The problem is that everyone is playing games with silly stunts. Labour allegedly got a staffer into the QT audience asking a loaded question for Corbyn to retweet.

    //twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1198295608781627395
    It wasn't just Labour though, the question to Jezza on misogyny and Smeeth came from a Tory plant, who has appeared on QT 4 times.

    https://twitter.com/RickBlagger/status/1198200080580382720?s=19
    I believe it was an online application process where political allegiance was self-declared.

    My guess is that both the major parties got straight on the case and got numbers of their activists to submit applications. Whether they were all honest about their allegiance, who can say?

    The LibDems don't appear to have played that game (at least with any success), to their disadvantage.

    The BBC needs to do better.
  • Options

    Fair play to Stuart for acknowledging the SCons are as I have been saying for weeks, likely to be in the 11-16 range. The SLIbs are shitting bricks because their leader is going down like a bag of sick in Scotland, especially with women old enough to be her mother! SLAB vote is evaporating. Potential for SLAB lost deposits in seats they were in contention for in 2010!

    We had a friend over for dinner last night, a lovely warm-hearted generous lady, taught French in a state school. Ne'er a bad word to say about anybody.

    But unprompted and unprovoked, she just went off on one about Jo Swinson. "Who does she think she is? "Prime Minister"...? Revoking Brexit? Pah!"

    I had picked up on it on the doorsteps very early on - and posted that on here. I still can't quite process quite why she riles people quite so much. It's a bit odd. There's no obvious basis for the strength of feeling against her. But it is there.
    Sadly she evokes Violet Elizabeth Bott - surely the most monstrous creation in comfortable middle class English children's literature. At his best Boris evokes William himself the defective but good hearted and well meaning hero. I suppose to take the analogy further Corbyn is the generalised enemy, varying from chapter to chapter never seriously emerging from the background. Meanwhile Violet Elizabeth is there, all the time, shouting and screaming pointlessly so everyone, William, the Outlaws and the Reader just wants to make her shut up.
    I think unfortunately she has become the representation of the tricksy obstructionist parliamentarians who have created all the chaos of the past few months. This is a tad unfair, given the LDs had fairly small numbers in the last parliament, but the “vote me to revoke” has I think identified her most closely with this mindset. Corbyn could also have got it but people have bigger perceptions on him than just Brexit: Swinson is exclusively defined by her pro-EU stance.
  • Options
    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,261
    Foxy said:

    Fishing said:

    IanB2 said:

    In a randomly selected audience of a hundred, you’d expect one Labour member.

    As I have said before, the real problem is that ordinary non-political people don’t want the hassle of going.

    The answer is to get rid of the audience.
    Quite. I made the same point myself about QT the other day. A panel discussion program, without the audience and involving in-depth discussion of just two or three questions submitted by viewers at home, might be far more revealing that a shouting match in front of a partisan crowd.

    There's already a radio phone-in show after QT anyway. If it's really essential that we also be subjected to random members of the public emoting then that strikes me as entirely sufficient.
    They also need to stop politicians interrupting each other. If they did that, the programme would become watchable again.
    Compare with the level of intelligent debate in this clip from the 1975 referendum. No audience, no interuptions, intelligent discussion of real issues and no soundbites.

    https://twitter.com/redhistorian/status/1197092768268652545?s=19

    18 million people watched it. Back then people had fewer channels, no social media, but as a result much better attention spans.
    Indeed. Forty years ago we'd all be waiting for Weekend World, with a twenty minute summary of a key issue of the day (usually excellently done) followed by a forty minute interview with Brian Walden probing a leading politician one-on-one. Only Andrew Neil comes anywhere close, nowadays, and Neil is too often looking for the cheap point rather than viewer enlightenment.
  • Options
    SunnyJimSunnyJim Posts: 1,106
    Seems Labour are pretty much giving up on their leave seats this morning.

    Makes you wonder if their internal ambitions don't really extend beyond focusing on holding what they have in London and their other strong remain seats.
  • Options
    eristdoof said:

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:



    Well, isn't the split:

    Unionist + Leave = Con
    Unionist + Remain = LD
    Seperatist + [] = SNP
    Unionist + ? = Labour

    The interesting thing about Scotland in 2019 is changing tactical vote assumptions.

    Labour has a remarkably healthy vote share for a party with a leadership that's equivocal about both the UK and European Unions. I can only ascribe this to the following:

    1. Even though it has been supplanted by the SNP, it still has a large residuum of tribal loyalty voters
    2. There's a huge pool of voters for it to fish in, because Scotland cleaves substantially to the Left of England (SNP+Lab+LD = 70%)

    The latter point is one of the best arguments for independence. It's a win-win for everybody. Not only does Scotland get a sovereign Government so it can go off and do its own thing. England gets to see Labour's walking stick - for the SNP controls a large bloc of valuable seats that can be used to prop up Corbyn and his successors - kicked away.

    If the Marxist project is going to take over then the least we can expect is that it should catch on in the leafy suburbs as well as the old coalfields and the urban cores. The argument about 'Governments we didn't vote for' cuts both ways.

    Or we could just introduce a fair voting system, like most other democracies.
    I think you need to get more people to agree with your version of fair. every party has an equal chance in every seat, that's fair to me.
    Your doctor tells you you have kidney failure, but in your area there no dialysis units. You do have a choice of treatment but only between chemotherapy or a hip replacement. Is that fair?


    It is blatantly not true that every party has an equal chance in every seat.
    Perhaps I have misunderstood your last comment - I hope so. Wherever you live in the UK you will be treated for the condition you have. It might be inconvenient - very inconvenient and that is not right, but you will be treated for the condition you have and the treatment will be pretty good.
  • Options
    SunnyJim said:

    If the Tory manifesto gets away without too much of a mauling for being lightweight and Boris can scrape a draw in the final debate then the major obstacles will have been navigated.

    I wouldn't bet against something unexpected cropping up in the final week though.

    There is a dangerous paradox here, that Boris mindlessly parroting strong and stable Get Brexit Done! risks causing a realignment of Remain voters behind Labour, especially if other posters are not exaggerating Jo Swinson's voter-repellant properties.
  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,592
    Dura_Ace said:

    Fair play to Stuart for acknowledging the SCons are as I have been saying for weeks, likely to be in the 11-16 range. The SLIbs are shitting bricks because their leader is going down like a bag of sick in Scotland, especially with women old enough to be her mother! SLAB vote is evaporating. Potential for SLAB lost deposits in seats they were in contention for in 2010!

    We had a friend over for dinner last night, a lovely warm-hearted generous lady, taught French in a state school. Ne'er a bad word to say about anybody.

    But unprompted and unprovoked, she just went off on one about Jo Swinson. "Who does she think she is? "Prime Minister"...? Revoking Brexit? Pah!"

    I had picked up on it on the doorsteps very early on - and posted that on here. I still can't quite process quite why she riles people quite so much. It's a bit odd. There's no obvious basis for the strength of feeling against her. But it is there.
    Sadly she evokes Violet Elizabeth Bott - surely the most monstrous creation in comfortable middle class English children's literature. At his best Boris evokes William himself the defective but good hearted and well meaning hero. I suppose to take the analogy further Corbyn is the generalised enemy, varying from chapter to chapter never seriously emerging from the background. Meanwhile Violet Elizabeth is there, all the time, shouting and screaming pointlessly so everyone, William, the Outlaws and the Reader just wants to make her shut up.
    CCHQ's crack shitposting cadre have obviously been told to push the Swinson = VEB line hard. We've had it multiple times on here since the start of the campaign from the usual suspects. It's the perfect cultural reference for the tories target demo as very few under the age of 60 will have any fucking clue about it.
    I thought Swinson was overdoing the accusations of misogyny, but when we see this sort of crap from Tory posters then she is clearly right.

    All Lib Dem leaders get attacked from both sides during a campaign, perhaps with the exception of Nick Clegg. I remember Tories clutching their Pearl's over Farron in a similar way.

    Looking at the polls, I don't see much squeeze. 15% is a respectable score, and at a similar level to most of my political life.
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    Good morning, everyone.

    Did statistically improbably poorly with football yesterday. I blame the results.

    Anyway, backed Newcastle to beat Aston Villa, and Sheffield to beat Manchester United. (That's one today and one tomorrow).
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    Mr. B2, I read here the audience composition was based on Parliamentary representation so the Lib Dems only had a handful of audience members allocated to them, reducing the chances of such skulduggery.
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    Dura_Ace said:

    Fair play to Stuart for acknowledging the SCons are as I have been saying for weeks, likely to be in the 11-16 range. The SLIbs are shitting bricks because their leader is going down like a bag of sick in Scotland, especially with women old enough to be her mother! SLAB vote is evaporating. Potential for SLAB lost deposits in seats they were in contention for in 2010!

    We had a friend over for dinner last night, a lovely warm-hearted generous lady, taught French in a state school. Ne'er a bad word to say about anybody.

    But unprompted and unprovoked, she just went off on one about Jo Swinson. "Who does she think she is? "Prime Minister"...? Revoking Brexit? Pah!"

    I had picked up on it on the doorsteps very early on - and posted that on here. I still can't quite process quite why she riles people quite so much. It's a bit odd. There's no obvious basis for the strength of feeling against her. But it is there.
    Sadly she evokes Violet Elizabeth Bott - surely the most monstrous creation in comfortable middle class English children's literature. At his best Boris evokes William himself the defective but good hearted and well meaning hero. I suppose to take the analogy further Corbyn is the generalised enemy, varying from chapter to chapter never seriously emerging from the background. Meanwhile Violet Elizabeth is there, all the time, shouting and screaming pointlessly so everyone, William, the Outlaws and the Reader just wants to make her shut up.
    CCHQ's crack shitposting cadre have obviously been told to push the Swinson = VEB line hard. We've had it multiple times on here since the start of the campaign from the usual suspects. It's the perfect cultural reference for the tories target demo as very few under the age of 60 will have any fucking clue about it.
    I have no idea who they are talking about so I am clearly not the target demographic. Thank fuck.
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    nunu2nunu2 Posts: 1,453
    If the SNP aren't gaining many seats from the Tories and the libdems aren't gaining many seats from the Tories....and the tories gain 30 seats from Labour....then?
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    Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    ydoethur said:

    Blimey. Whoever this SNP spokesman is he’s embarrassing. He’s waffling like Johnson and as vacuous as Corbyn.

    Everything at Westminster needs an SNP vote to change it, while everything devolved to Scotland going wrong is not the SNP’s fault.

    That's Labour's catastrophically botched devolution settlement for you. The Scottish Parliament was given huge administrative and legislative autonomy but virtually no control over supply. The result? In broad brush terms, anything it gets right it takes the credit for, anything it gets wrong can be blamed on lack of cash.

    The excuse that the Scottish Government could've done better if free from the yoke of Tory austerity would've been largely removed if Scotland raised as well as spent revenue in broad proportion to the extent of its responsibilities. If the Scottish Government thought that the rich, or businesses, or everybody ought to pay more tax to provide better public services then it could've charged higher tax rates than those in England, and then justified the choice to its electorate.

    The UK Government requires a revenue stream from Scotland to cover reserved responsibilities, and may also need to send transfer payments back to Scotland under some sensible formula recognising factors such as the relative wealth of the component parts of the UK and the relative cost of providing public services (not the arbitrary Barnett formula - another of Labour's cock-ups was failing to replace that at the outset.) But a powerful devolved settlement should also mean that a substantial fraction of the money spent by the Scottish Government should also be raised by it. The devolution of control over income tax, VAT, corporation tax and property taxes to Scotland would constitute about 60% of tax receipts and be broadly consistent with the percentage of public spending that is now devolved.

    The final piece of the puzzle is a federal system, but that will never happen because the dominant parties at Westminster won't set up an English Parliament, for various reasons I shan't bore on about right now.

    Anyway, this is all moot. Scotland will probably secede in a few years, whatever the circumstances.
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    IanB2 said:

    Foxy said:

    Sandpit said:

    I wonder if the fall is partly a reaction to stunts by CCHQ like factcheckUK and the fake Labour website. @FrancisUrquhart has previously suggested these are ill-conceived, especially given our demographics. They might be seen as not playing the game; an impression which can resonate with Boris's own reputation for unreliability.

    The problem is that everyone is playing games with silly stunts. Labour allegedly got a staffer into the QT audience asking a loaded question for Corbyn to retweet.

    //twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1198295608781627395
    It wasn't just Labour though, the question to Jezza on misogyny and Smeeth came from a Tory plant, who has appeared on QT 4 times.

    https://twitter.com/RickBlagger/status/1198200080580382720?s=19
    I believe it was an online application process where political allegiance was self-declared.

    My guess is that both the major parties got straight on the case and got numbers of their activists to submit applications. Whether they were all honest about their allegiance, who can say?

    The LibDems don't appear to have played that game (at least with any success), to their disadvantage.

    The BBC needs to do better.
    Both? You mean all three of the major parties, judging from the number of Scots accents. Of course, even if there was no conspiracy to stack the audience, it would probably be much the same because of the huge overlap between caring enough about politics to go on QT, and caring enough to join a party.
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    IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Fair play to Stuart for acknowledging the SCons are as I have been saying for weeks, likely to be in the 11-16 range. The SLIbs are shitting bricks because their leader is going down like a bag of sick in Scotland, especially with women old enough to be her mother! SLAB vote is evaporating. Potential for SLAB lost deposits in seats they were in contention for in 2010!

    We had a friend over for dinner last night, a lovely warm-hearted generous lady, taught French in a state school. Ne'er a bad word to say about anybody.

    But unprompted and unprovoked, she just went off on one about Jo Swinson. "Who does she think she is? "Prime Minister"...? Revoking Brexit? Pah!"

    I had picked up on it on the doorsteps very early on - and posted that on here. I still can't quite process quite why she riles people quite so much. It's a bit odd. There's no obvious basis for the strength of feeling against her. But it is there.
    Sadly she evokes Violet Elizabeth Bott - surely the most monstrous creation in comfortable middle class English children's literature. At his best Boris evokes William himself the defective but good hearted and well meaning hero. I suppose to take the analogy further Corbyn is the generalised enemy, varying from chapter to chapter never seriously emerging from the background. Meanwhile Violet Elizabeth is there, all the time, shouting and screaming pointlessly so everyone, William, the Outlaws and the Reader just wants to make her shut up.
    Those Narnia kids are pretty gruesome (including the supposedly nice ones).
This discussion has been closed.