I'm going to disagree with you again. 32% is actually below the previous Labour polling average figure of 33%. So this poll will pull their average down slightly.
Is this a joke post? +4 is great but context matters. +2 for a poll they are already within 7 of the tories would be more significant than +4 which still leaves them way back.
I'm happy to defer to those who have listened to the better quality audio.
Listen to it here
It is unusual (but not gramatically wrong) to say "people of talent" rather than "talented people".
No it isn't. In fact it's a far more common phrase than 'people of colour', a recent import from the US and mostly used by the Guardian-reading classes.
I agree that people of colour sounds horrible, but do you really say "people of talent" on a regular basis?
I'm going to disagree with you again. 32% is actually below the previous Labour polling average figure of 33%. So this poll will pull their average down slightly.
I have updated my England only seats model based on 2017 party vote splits for Leave and Remain to allow for more extensive Remain tactical voting than hitherto, based on the evidence from constituency polling that Conservative voters in Remain leaning seats seem willing to switch to the LDs in contests where Labour is clearly out of contention. It also allows for more limited TV between Lab and LD Remainers. It now generates exactly the same number of Con seats (336) as the YouGov MRP for the same polling numbers (11.1% Con lead).
Key TV assumptions (calibrated to reconcile to the GB averages used in the YouGov MRP) in seats where the LDs are standing: 2017 Con Remainer vote: Seats where LDs not Labour are challenging split 47 Con, 41 LD, in other seats 70 Con 18 Lab. (GB average 67 Con, 21 LD). 2017 Lab Remainer vote: Seats where LDs not Labour are challenging or where Con and Lab are more than 10k apart without TV split Lab 70 LD 21, in other seats Lab 86 LD 4. (GB average Lab 77 LD 13). 2017 LD Remainer vote: Seats where LDs were 1st/2nd or close to Lab without TV split LD 83 Lab 7, other seats LD 63 Lab 27. (GB average LD 73 Lab 17).
In addition to the above, in seats where the Greens are expected to poll 2,500+ without TV and which are not Con-Lab marginals (in many of which the LDs are standing down): 2017 Lab Remainer vote: add 10% to Green from Lab, otherwise add 1.5% to Lab from Green. 2017 Green Remainer vote: add 10% to Green from Lab, otherwise add 4.2% to Lab from Green.
Results: Using YouGov MRP poll share (42.9/31.8/13.6/3.1BXP/3.2G) Con 336 (+39), Lab 184(-43), LD 12(+4), G 1.
Scaling proportionately to 2/3 Dec YouGov share (42/33/12/4/4) Con 314, Lab 211, LD 7, G 1. (Note that the "other seats" TV adjustment has to be varied slightly to maintain the same national vote shares.)
The critical figure needed to give the Conservatives an overall majority of 326 is in the region of 308, depending on assumptions made for Scotland/Wales.
Edit: "2017 Con Remainer vote: Seats where LDs not Labour are challenging split 47 Con, 41 LD, in other seats 70 Con 18 Lab....." should read "70 Con 18 LD".
Isn't that 47/41 split potentially very bad for Con in the sense it would imply LD are at least within touching distance in a lot of Con / LD marginals - in turn implying they might well win quite a few.
Problem is there are only 13 seats where a 10% swing from the Conservatives would deliver the seat to the LDs.
Looks like Workington at 1pm could be the 1st key seat to watch.
1pm Thursday or Friday?
The first NE seats will be interesting as they will give a feel of how well Labours vote is holding up.
Although in the locals this year the early northern rests were decent for the Tories but it didn't portend well for their horror show in the south. Apples and pears, I know, but I think even a good tory result on Sunderland will keep people nervous until the swing seats come through.
I'm happy to defer to those who have listened to the better quality audio.
Listen to it here
It is unusual (but not gramatically wrong) to say "people of talent" rather than "talented people".
No it isn't. In fact it's a far more common phrase than 'people of colour', a recent import from the US and mostly used by the Guardian-reading classes.
I agree that people of colour sounds horrible, but do you really say "people of talent" on a regular basis?
No, but politicians say it all the time in this context (and of course in this particular case it's the standard wording Boris uses). It's also used in the context of recruitment: "We need to attract people of talent".
Note that Boris Johnson is by far the lowest ranked of all the higher of the pairs. There are huge numbers of voters hostile to both. How they resolve their distaste for both is going to decide this election.
Assuming the Conservatives win, I expect the next round of local elections will be torrid.
2019 will be the election the Conservatives wish they'd never won. There will be a recession in the next five years, and (rightly or wrongly) their handling of Brexit will get the blame.
We will also see house prices down meaningfully (15-20%) in nominal terms. The young won't thank the Conservatives, and the old will be livid.
Johnson will turn out to be just the man you don't want in charge for this. But having remodeled the Conservative Party in his own image, he'll prove difficult to shift.
If the Labour Party have chosen a moderate as their leader, this won't matter too much. But if they manage to pick Corbyn 2.0 (younger, fitter, less economically sane), then the country will lurch to the hard Left in 2024, and it will all be pretty horrible.
It's a good thing I don't own any overpriced London real estate... oh wait...
That's what people said about 2010 & 2015! Labour shrewdly getting the lot by "losing"
Looks like Workington at 1pm could be the 1st key seat to watch.
At 1-1.30am there are a number of Northern seats that should give some good indication if the Tory strategy has cut through. Wigan, Middlesbrough, Darlington.
Not saying Tories are going to be winning them, more are they really cutting through in these traditional Labour seats that voted for Brexit.
I got bored and have coded up ability to scrape a load of data from the t'interweb, so now can automatically create spreadsheets containing constituency timings, brexit %, vote tallies at last GE. I also have demographic data from the census broken down for each seat.
I currently have a filtered output with Lab held seats that voted for Brexit, ordered by when they will announce so people can follow along. Thinking being if the Tories are going to win a majority we should be seeing them doing well in those constituency, especially Northern / Midland ones.
If people have any thoughts / ideas of what else would be useful, let me know and I will see if I can host them somewhere for election night. Or if somebody wants to put in some excel formulas so it will show swings etc (as I don't really do excel).
What I think would be extremely useful would be to start from the predictions of the YouGov MRP model, and then, as the first results start coming in, compare the YouGov predicted vote shares for each constituency against the actuals. You could then use that to calculate a live update to the YouGov prediction (with error bars).
I've been thinking about the statistics involved in this - obviously you'd have to build some kind of measure as to whether the deviations from the model's predicted vote shares in the early results were statistically significant, but if for example you had the first 10 results and in all of them Labour were doing a couple of percent better than YouGov expected, then you could probably predict with some degree of confidence that the final result would be better for Labour than the starting prediction, and estimate the delta.
As a refinement you could take account of the region and other characteristics of the seat - for example, your first ten seats might be mainly northern safe Labour seats which wouldn't be typical, so ideally you'd want to increase your level of uncertainty accordingly.
We have some expert statisticians here who I'm sure could advise, but I think this might be a very good way to get an early take on any deviation between the exit poll and the final tallies.
Edit: I see @Andy_JS has already suggested something similar.
It's a good idea. As I said before, if the first 20 or 30 results are in line with the MRP forecast it's very likely that it'll be accurate for the others as long as the first 30 results aren't all from the same region.
I got bored and have coded up ability to scrape a load of data from the t'interweb, so now can automatically create spreadsheets containing constituency timings, brexit %, vote tallies at last GE. I also have demographic data from the census broken down for each seat.
I currently have a filtered output with Lab held seats that voted for Brexit, ordered by when they will announce so people can follow along. Thinking being if the Tories are going to win a majority we should be seeing them doing well in those constituency, especially Northern / Midland ones.
If people have any thoughts / ideas of what else would be useful, let me know and I will see if I can host them somewhere for election night. Or if somebody wants to put in some excel formulas so it will show swings etc (as I don't really do excel).
What I think would be extremely useful would be to start from the predictions of the YouGov MRP model, and then, as the first results start coming in, compare the YouGov predicted vote shares for each constituency against the actuals. You could then use that to calculate a live update to the YouGov prediction (with error bars).
I've been thinking about the statistics involved in this - obviously you'd have to build some kind of measure as to whether the deviations from the model's predicted vote shares in the early results were statistically significant, but if for example you had the first 10 results and in all of them Labour were doing a couple of percent better than YouGov expected, then you could probably predict with some degree of confidence that the final result would be better for Labour than the starting prediction, and estimate the delta.
As a refinement you could take account of the region and other characteristics of the seat - for example, your first ten seats might be mainly northern safe Labour seats which wouldn't be typical, so ideally you'd want to increase your level of uncertainty accordingly.
We have some expert statisticians here who I'm sure could advise, but I think this might be a very good way to get an early take on any deviation between the exit poll and the final tallies.
Edit: I see @Andy_JS has already suggested something similar.
It's a good idea. As I said before, if the first 20 or 30 results are in line with the MRP forecast it's very likely that it'll be accurate for the others as long as the first 30 results aren't all from the same region.
Looks like Workington at 1pm could be the 1st key seat to watch.
1pm Thursday or Friday?
The first NE seats will be interesting as they will give a feel of how well Labours vote is holding up.
Although in the locals this year the early northern rests were decent for the Tories but it didn't portend well for their horror show in the south.
If they have to count the votes of those early seats instead of weigh them, it's going to set the evening up for great viewing. Are there many signal seats for the south that will set the night up in those regions?
It's a good idea. As I said before, if the first 20 or 30 results are in line with the MRP forecast it's very likely that it'll be accurate for the others as long as the first 30 results aren't all from the same region.
The early ones do tend to be safe (or formerly safe!) Labour seats from the north-east, but by about 1am we should get a bit more variety (Basildon & Billericay, Broxbourne etc)
Note that Boris Johnson is by far the lowest ranked of all the higher of the pairs. There are huge numbers of voters hostile to both. How they resolve their distaste for both is going to decide this election.
Assuming the Conservatives win, I expect the next round of local elections will be torrid.
2019 will be the election the Conservatives wish they'd never won. There will be a recession in the next five years, and (rightly or wrongly) their handling of Brexit will get the blame.
We will also see house prices down meaningfully (15-20%) in nominal terms. The young won't thank the Conservatives, and the old will be livid.
Johnson will turn out to be just the man you don't want in charge for this. But having remodeled the Conservative Party in his own image, he'll prove difficult to shift.
If the Labour Party have chosen a moderate as their leader, this won't matter too much. But if they manage to pick Corbyn 2.0 (younger, fitter, less economically sane), then the country will lurch to the hard Left in 2024, and it will all be pretty horrible.
It's a good thing I don't own any overpriced London real estate... oh wait...
That's what people said about 2010 & 2015! Labour shrewdly getting the lot by "losing"
People do say this every election. In 2010 the LDs would probably say they wish they hadnt "won" their place in coalition. And in 2015 Cameron, with hindsight, may well have preferred if he had no outright majority and had to stay in a coalition instead.
Theory: more women tend to want to spend squillions and squillions of quid on public services, benefits and just about everything else. More men tend to worry about where all the money is meant to come from.
This is view on society that died out in the 80's. I'm guessing you are in the second of your two categories.
You may be right. I'm speculating. Could always be that women are breaking against Johnson so much more heavily because a lot of them (the younger ones especially) quite simply regard him as a sexist pig?
In which case, if the Tories had been able to find a leader with at least some presentational flair, yet without Johnson's baggage, Lord alone knows how far ahead they would be by now.
At the danger of straining the cross breaks too much, what is the age profile of the gender disparities? My finger in the air uninformed guess would be: 18-25, large gender difference - gamer boys rebelling against identity politics and most targeted by Russian trolling, younger girls not so much; 25-50, smallest gender difference; 50+, still the disparity in women becoming carers and being more exposed to the underbelly of government spending areas that have had a rough time in the past 10 years.
Note that Boris Johnson is by far the lowest ranked of all the higher of the pairs. There are huge numbers of voters hostile to both. How they resolve their distaste for both is going to decide this election.
Assuming the Conservatives win, I expect the next round of local elections will be torrid.
2019 will be the election the Conservatives wish they'd never won. There will be a recession in the next five years, and (rightly or wrongly) their handling of Brexit will get the blame.
We will also see house prices down meaningfully (15-20%) in nominal terms. The young won't thank the Conservatives, and the old will be livid.
Johnson will turn out to be just the man you don't want in charge for this. But having remodeled the Conservative Party in his own image, he'll prove difficult to shift.
If the Labour Party have chosen a moderate as their leader, this won't matter too much. But if they manage to pick Corbyn 2.0 (younger, fitter, less economically sane), then the country will lurch to the hard Left in 2024, and it will all be pretty horrible.
It's a good thing I don't own any overpriced London real estate... oh wait...
You might be right. However, even assuming a Conservative victory, 2024 is so far away, and so much can happen between now and then, that speculation is fairly pointless.
After all, five years ago the Coalition was in power, we were given to understand that the Scottish independence question had been settled for a generation, the EU referendum wasn't even a thing, Boris Johnson was the Mayor of London and Jeremy Corbyn was an obscure socialist backbencher.
It's a good idea. As I said before, if the first 20 or 30 results are in line with the MRP forecast it's very likely that it'll be accurate for the others as long as the first 30 results aren't all from the same region.
The early ones do tend to be safe (or formerly safe!) Labour seats from the north-east, but by about 1am we should get a bit more variety (Basildon & Billericay, Broxbourne etc)
Looking at my code, by 2am we should have had about 1/3 of the Labour held Brexity seats. I think we should have a very good idea if the Tories have cut through in the North / Midlands by then.
I doubt Conservatives would regret winning 2019. If they don't win, the party will be totally destroyed and potentially the country alongside it.
Or they win and the country is destroyed by Boris's botched Brexit...
Personally I'd take the moderate chance of a botched Brexit under Boris versus the near-certainty of destruction associated with a Corbyn government (or another hung parliament).
Interesting. I think this will actually resonate more with older Tory remainers than most younger voters, as he's largely unknown to them except as someone carrying the heft of the ex-prime ministership.
On the other hand, there is a recent trend for the old to appeal to the young, and Heseltine, Major and Clarke have all become iconic for the most committed young remainers.
Not surprised to see that one of the worst Prime Ministers in living memory is following the route of a previous Eurofanatic PM into a decades long ill tempered sulk.
Note that Boris Johnson is by far the lowest ranked of all the higher of the pairs. There are huge numbers of voters hostile to both. How they resolve their distaste for both is going to decide this election.
Assuming the Conservatives win, I expect the next round of local elections will be torrid.
2019 will be the election the Conservatives wish they'd never won. There will be a recession in the next five years, and (rightly or wrongly) their handling of Brexit will get the blame.
We will also see house prices down meaningfully (15-20%) in nominal terms. The young won't thank the Conservatives, and the old will be livid.
Johnson will turn out to be just the man you don't want in charge for this. But having remodeled the Conservative Party in his own image, he'll prove difficult to shift.
If the Labour Party have chosen a moderate as their leader, this won't matter too much. But if they manage to pick Corbyn 2.0 (younger, fitter, less economically sane), then the country will lurch to the hard Left in 2024, and it will all be pretty horrible.
It's a good thing I don't own any overpriced London real estate... oh wait...
That's what people said about 2010 & 2015! Labour shrewdly getting the lot by "losing"
It's my forecast, and I'm sticking with it
Just by the law of averages, we will almost certainly see a recession between now and 2024.
Demographics are such that we're at a tipping point where the number of people looking for smaller homes is going to bigger than those looking to expand. Combine that with with reduced net immigration and a large number of new build properties coming on the market, particularly in London, and I think you have a perfect storm for UK property.
It's a good idea. As I said before, if the first 20 or 30 results are in line with the MRP forecast it's very likely that it'll be accurate for the others as long as the first 30 results aren't all from the same region.
The early ones do tend to be safe (or formerly safe!) Labour seats from the north-east, but by about 1am we should get a bit more variety (Basildon & Billericay, Broxbourne etc)
Looking at my code, by 2am we should have had about 1/3 of the Labour held Brexity seats. I think we should have a very good idea if the Tories have cut through in the North / Midlands by then.
The other key point is that we need to track Scotland separately. There are some Scottish seats which declare quite early.
It's a good idea. As I said before, if the first 20 or 30 results are in line with the MRP forecast it's very likely that it'll be accurate for the others as long as the first 30 results aren't all from the same region.
The early ones do tend to be safe (or formerly safe!) Labour seats from the north-east, but by about 1am we should get a bit more variety (Basildon & Billericay, Broxbourne etc)
Sunderland seats usually lead. Big swings in those would suggest that seats like Darlington, Bishop Auckland, Stockton South, have fallen.
I'm happy to defer to those who have listened to the better quality audio.
Listen to it here
It is unusual (but not gramatically wrong) to say "people of talent" rather than "talented people".
No it isn't. In fact it's a far more common phrase than 'people of colour', a recent import from the US and mostly used by the Guardian-reading classes.
I agree that people of colour sounds horrible, but do you really say "people of talent" on a regular basis?
Google turns up innumerable ordinary uses of 'people of talent'. Perhaps Boris took it from the Civil Service Quarterly Blog of 3rd July 2018 which gives a notable dull and unmemorable example. This whole discussion is a disgrace.
I doubt Conservatives would regret winning 2019. If they don't win, the party will be totally destroyed and potentially the country alongside it.
Or they win and the country is destroyed by Boris's botched Brexit...
Personally I'd take the moderate chance of a botched Brexit under Boris versus the near-certainty of destruction associated with a Corbyn government (or another hung parliament).
But the response to a botched Brexit is very likely to be the wwc feeling betrayed and converting to Corbynism. Corbynism could never win a GE under normal circumstances, its only shot is a badly managed Brexit.
It's a good idea. As I said before, if the first 20 or 30 results are in line with the MRP forecast it's very likely that it'll be accurate for the others as long as the first 30 results aren't all from the same region.
The early ones do tend to be safe (or formerly safe!) Labour seats from the north-east, but by about 1am we should get a bit more variety (Basildon & Billericay, Broxbourne etc)
Looking at my code, by 2am we should have had about 1/3 of the Labour held Brexity seats. I think we should have a very good idea if the Tories have cut through in the North / Midlands by then.
The other key point is that we need to track Scotland separately. There are some Scottish seats which declare quite early.
The main output I have been looking at it Lab held seat where the Tories were second in 2017 and it is Brexity. I don't think any Scottish seats fit that criteria.
Obviously other outputs are trivial to create, but in my mind the above seats are the ones the Tories have to flip or be showing that their strategy is gaining them lots of votes. If we aren't seeing them picking up much traction in these types of seats, there is no way they are getting a majority.
Note that Boris Johnson is by far the lowest ranked of all the higher of the pairs. There are huge numbers of voters hostile to both. How they resolve their distaste for both is going to decide this election.
Assuming the Conservatives win, I expect the next round of local elections will be torrid.
2019 will be the election the Conservatives wish they'd never won. There will be a recession in the next five years, and (rightly or wrongly) their handling of Brexit will get the blame.
We will also see house prices down meaningfully (15-20%) in nominal terms. The young won't thank the Conservatives, and the old will be livid.
Johnson will turn out to be just the man you don't want in charge for this. But having remodeled the Conservative Party in his own image, he'll prove difficult to shift.
If the Labour Party have chosen a moderate as their leader, this won't matter too much. But if they manage to pick Corbyn 2.0 (younger, fitter, less economically sane), then the country will lurch to the hard Left in 2024, and it will all be pretty horrible.
It's a good thing I don't own any overpriced London real estate... oh wait...
That's what people said about 2010 & 2015! Labour shrewdly getting the lot by "losing"
It's my forecast, and I'm sticking with it
Just by the law of averages, we will almost certainly see a recession between now and 2024.
Demographics are such that we're at a tipping point where the number of people looking for smaller homes is going to bigger than those looking to expand. Combine that with with reduced net immigration and a large number of new build properties coming on the market, particularly in London, and I think you have a perfect storm for UK property.
Yes but what is the counter-factual for house prices, unemployment, inflation, the pound etc. under a Corbyn government? Who can know? But on a Treasury macro-economic model, I imagine it would be close to the 'worse-case' scenario.
It's a good idea. As I said before, if the first 20 or 30 results are in line with the MRP forecast it's very likely that it'll be accurate for the others as long as the first 30 results aren't all from the same region.
The early ones do tend to be safe (or formerly safe!) Labour seats from the north-east, but by about 1am we should get a bit more variety (Basildon & Billericay, Broxbourne etc)
Swindon normally gives a good hint about the state of the nation I think ?
Wow looks like I missed an entire scandal's life cycle in the space of a lunch break.
Fwiw I just listened to the clip and it's definitely talent, you can hear the t at the end. In any case it's too unsubtle for Boris to say something like that, indeed when I first saw someone quote the phrase I presumed it was said by Pat Mountain or equivalent.
There are multiple clips though. In this one it certainly does sound like talent. In the other one that was posted, it's definitely colour, with no hint of a 't' at the start or end. It's all very strange.
Can't you see that's because the audio quality was much worse on that version? The audio wasn't coming directly from the microphone, and there were lots of sounds from the audience like the sound of cameras.
The quality of the audio in the other clip isn't that bad. I'm not sure what to believe. After the BBC apparently covered up Boris's wreath-laying faux pas, it doesn't seem such a stretch of the imagination to suspect them of a little bit of audio manipulation.
I'm happy to defer to those who have listened to the better quality audio.
Listen to it here
It is unusual (but not gramatically wrong) to say "people of talent" rather than "talented people".
I disagree. Talented people or people with talent. Never people of talent.
"We need people of talent, whatever their political persuasions, in such public positions and I look forward to people of talent taking them up regularly." PM 17/12/1991
"As he knows, I have a long-standing commitment to supporting the freedom of people of talent to come to this country." PM 25/7/2019
"There are people of talent around now—people such as the late Lord Noon—who could easily serve as executive directors on the board of British Airways or others of that kind." The Vaz 28/10/2015 (& The Vaz used it 2 other times)
"As I said, the First Minister has correctly identified the problem and the fresh talent initiative that he announced is designed to encourage people of talent to come to Scotland and to stay in Scotland." A Darling 25/5/2004
"What is more, it carries the risk—we do not yet know how big it is, because it depends on what other countries do—that people of talent will not come here. It is fashionable now to decry Ireland, but for 25 or 30 years Ireland has had a fantastic success story." David Davis 22/4/2009
"I think all of us wish to be generous to refugees and to invite in people of talent who can make a good contribution to our community" John Redwood13/7/2017
"A great deal is happening there. I know of many people of talent who are returning to Scotland because they are attracted to the buzz, the movement and the excitement of the changes that will follow the constitutional reforms that I hope the House and this Parliament will agree in the next few months." Mr Dewar 4/3/1998
"However, the hon. Lady is absolutely right that, when there is under-representation of people of talent, the whole economy suffers, and that should be corrected." Greg Clark 23/1/2017
I am not sure Mr Cone's Hotline is going to influence many people. Those that want Brexit know he is against it and the more moderate Remainy ones know the other option is Corbyn given the Lib Dem are nowhere. And those that are hard-core Remainers aren't voting Tory anyway.
Electoral calculus revises its forecast down today - now 20 seat majority.
I'm pretty sure that a 9.5% lead would give a majority of more than 20.
In my mind, either the Get Brexit Done is going to break the firewall or flat cap Fred is going to vote Labour in the end in the way his dad and his granddad, great granddad etc did.
Labour are clearly going to rack up votes in urban centres. It is all about if the Tories can convince the Midlands and the North to vote for them.
The main output I have been looking at it Lab held seat where the Tories were second in 2017 and it is Brexity. I don't think any Scottish seats fit that criteria.
Obviously other outputs are trivial to create, but in my mind the above seats are the ones the Tories have to flip or be showing that their strategy is gaining them lots of votes. If we aren't seeing them picking up much traction in these types of seats, there is no way they are getting a majority.
I think Scotland is important because fairly small shifts could make a difference of around ten seats or so.
Neither is exactly admired by any criterion, but the most striking contrast is the Good leader/Bad leader rating:
Boris 36% Good leader, 41% Bad leader Corbyn 16% Good leader, 57% Bad leader
Mmm, but Corbyn is ahead (in the sense of less bad) on most of the other criteria. Classically Tories lead on "competence/leadership" and Labour leaders win on "empathy/understands people like me" (CorbynJohnson -19/-30). I think Johnson does convey an impression of dynamism which Corbyn's judicious replies lack, but people mostly don't actually like what Johnson says.
As in other polls, the gap for gender and age is gigantic - we're used to age correlating with conservatism, but I've never seen an age split quite like it.
We have never had a country where the retired own such a big share of the capital and the workers own so little. So its still just those with capital vote Tory and those without vote Labour seen along age rather than class.
Possibly Japan. A country with such an aging population it tried (and failed?) to develop robot nurses to tend the elderly. It's not perhaps an approach to emulate...
Electoral calculus revises its forecast down today - now 20 seat majority.
I'm pretty sure that a 9.5% lead would give a majority of more than 20.
I think the Conservatives will do better in the North, where there are lots of "not as safe as they used to be" Labour seats, and worse in the South where most of their seats are already very safe.
This suggests to me that they'll meaningfully outperform Electoral Calculus.
I'm happy to defer to those who have listened to the better quality audio.
Listen to it here
It is unusual (but not gramatically wrong) to say "people of talent" rather than "talented people".
I disagree. Talented people or people with talent. Never people of talent.
"We need people of talent, whatever their political persuasions, in such public positions and I look forward to people of talent taking them up regularly." PM 17/12/1991
"As he knows, I have a long-standing commitment to supporting the freedom of people of talent to come to this country." PM 25/7/2019
"There are people of talent around now—people such as the late Lord Noon—who could easily serve as executive directors on the board of British Airways or others of that kind." The Vaz 28/10/2015 (& The Vaz used it 2 other times)
"As I said, the First Minister has correctly identified the problem and the fresh talent initiative that he announced is designed to encourage people of talent to come to Scotland and to stay in Scotland." A Darling 25/5/2004
"What is more, it carries the risk—we do not yet know how big it is, because it depends on what other countries do—that people of talent will not come here. It is fashionable now to decry Ireland, but for 25 or 30 years Ireland has had a fantastic success story." David Davis 22/4/2009
"I think all of us wish to be generous to refugees and to invite in people of talent who can make a good contribution to our community" John Redwood13/7/2017
"A great deal is happening there. I know of many people of talent who are returning to Scotland because they are attracted to the buzz, the movement and the excitement of the changes that will follow the constitutional reforms that I hope the House and this Parliament will agree in the next few months." Mr Dewar 4/3/1998
"However, the hon. Lady is absolutely right that, when there is under-representation of people of talent, the whole economy suffers, and that should be corrected." Greg Clark 23/1/2017
Speaking of polls, three of the major broadcasters have confirmed they will once again combine forces to release the same exit poll once voting ends on election night.
BBC News, ITV News and Sky News have announced they will jointly publish the 2019 poll at 22:00 GMT on Thursday.
Exit polls, based on interviews with people as they come out of polling stations, have in the past successfully predicted the exact outcome of general elections, even correctly working out the number of seats the major parties will win.
It will be the fourth exit poll to be produced by the three broadcasters following similar exercises in 2010, 2015 and 2017."
The main output I have been looking at it Lab held seat where the Tories were second in 2017 and it is Brexity. I don't think any Scottish seats fit that criteria.
Obviously other outputs are trivial to create, but in my mind the above seats are the ones the Tories have to flip or be showing that their strategy is gaining them lots of votes. If we aren't seeing them picking up much traction in these types of seats, there is no way they are getting a majority.
I think Scotland is important because fairly small shifts could make a difference of around ten seats or so.
Fair point. If it is looking close, it will be very important.
As stated above, I have a feeling we are either going to see the firewall break or not. And if it is, we are going to see it pretty quickly. If your Sunderland's, Middlesborough's, Darlington's of this world show big Tory swings, you have to think enough Flat cap Fred's are going to break that habit of a lifetime and the "Get Brexit Done" message has worked.
Note that Boris Johnson is by far the lowest ranked of all the higher of the pairs. There are huge numbers of voters hostile to both. How they resolve their distaste for both is going to decide this election.
Assuming the Conservatives win, I expect the next round of local elections will be torrid.
2019 will be the election the Conservatives wish they'd never won. There will be a recession in the next five years, and (rightly or wrongly) their handling of Brexit will get the blame.
We will also see house prices down meaningfully (15-20%) in nominal terms. The young won't thank the Conservatives, and the old will be livid.
Johnson will turn out to be just the man you don't want in charge for this. But having remodeled the Conservative Party in his own image, he'll prove difficult to shift.
If the Labour Party have chosen a moderate as their leader, this won't matter too much. But if they manage to pick Corbyn 2.0 (younger, fitter, less economically sane), then the country will lurch to the hard Left in 2024, and it will all be pretty horrible.
It's a good thing I don't own any overpriced London real estate... oh wait...
That's what people said about 2010 & 2015! Labour shrewdly getting the lot by "losing"
It's my forecast, and I'm sticking with it
Just by the law of averages, we will almost certainly see a recession between now and 2024.
Demographics are such that we're at a tipping point where the number of people looking for smaller homes is going to bigger than those looking to expand. Combine that with with reduced net immigration and a large number of new build properties coming on the market, particularly in London, and I think you have a perfect storm for UK property.
Yes but what is the counter-factual for house prices, unemployment, inflation, the pound etc. under a Corbyn government? Who can know? But on a Treasury macro-economic model, I imagine it would be close to the 'worse-case' scenario.
A far left Corbyn govt is a sub 1% chance at this election, your counter factual should be with a hung parliament, which certainly has its problems as well, including a realistic prospect of a Jan no deal.
I'm happy to defer to those who have listened to the better quality audio.
Listen to it here
It is unusual (but not gramatically wrong) to say "people of talent" rather than "talented people".
No it isn't. In fact it's a far more common phrase than 'people of colour', a recent import from the US and mostly used by the Guardian-reading classes.
I agree that people of colour sounds horrible, but do you really say "people of talent" on a regular basis?
No, but politicians say it all the time in this context (and of course in this particular case it's the standard wording Boris uses). It's also used in the context of recruitment: "We need to attract people of talent".
Just by the law of averages, we will almost certainly see a recession between now and 2024.
Demographics are such that we're at a tipping point where the number of people looking for smaller homes is going to bigger than those looking to expand. Combine that with with reduced net immigration and a large number of new build properties coming on the market, particularly in London, and I think you have a perfect storm for UK property.
I would say a recession is almost baked-in but where I would disagree is on the political impact.
If our recession is less severe than the EU as a whole, or indeed the comparative sized economies, then the Tories will be able to frame the argument as Brexit saving the country from the EU's fate.
As for falling house prices this would be problematic. One possible avenue is to emphasize the positives of affordability for the younger generations...and appeal to the boomers sense of parental guilt to assuage their anger.
Having said all that I believe 2024 will be a 1997 scenario where pretty much any Labour leader could have won which means that if the reds have not returned to the middle then we will likely end up with an extremely left-wing government.
Edit: "2017 Con Remainer vote: Seats where LDs not Labour are challenging split 47 Con, 41 LD, in other seats 70 Con 18 Lab....." should read "70 Con 18 LD".
Isn't that 47/41 split potentially very bad for Con in the sense it would imply LD are at least within touching distance in a lot of Con / LD marginals - in turn implying they might well win quite a few.
Not really. Remember the GB voting share for the LDs stays at whatever the national poll says (i.e. 13.6% in YouGov MRP) whatever adjustment you build in for tactical voting. So to compensate for losing 20% more of the Con 2017 Remainer share to the LDs in those seats where the LDs are in 2nd place or better, the Con share has to go up by 2.6% in all the other seats, including a lot of very tight Labour marginals. There are a lot more Con/Lab marginals than Con/LD marginals so the effects largely cancel out.
e.g. If I increase the LD TV boost from Con to LD tactical voting by another 10% for 2017 Con Remainers to a 37 Con 51 LD split, the LDs total goes up from 12 to 14 but the Con seat count stays unchanged at the 336 in the standard model, as Con get 2 more off Lab to compensate for their 2 losses to the LDs.
The seats I have the LDs winning using YouGov MRP vote shares are: Richmond Park Cheltenham Cheadle Sheffield, Hallam Leeds North West Cambridge Oxford West and Abingdon Westmorland and Lonsdale Kingston and Surbiton Bath Twickenham St Albans
The next closest with Con majorities over the LDs under 5000 are, in order: Winchester (maj 588) North Norfolk Eastbourne Carshalton and Wallington Lewes St Ives Hazel Grove Guildford (maj 4802)
That said, the model can't cater for very exceptional circumstances linked to unusual candidates such as with Berger, Umunna, Grieve or Milton (in Guildford) so it's illustrative only.
You might be right. However, even assuming a Conservative victory, 2024 is so far away, and so much can happen between now and then, that speculation is fairly pointless.
After all, five years ago the Coalition was in power, we were given to understand that the Scottish independence question had been settled for a generation, the EU referendum wasn't even a thing, Boris Johnson was the Mayor of London and Jeremy Corbyn was an obscure socialist backbencher.
Assuming Johnson does win a working majority (which I've always thought certain and I'm still sitting on my buy of Conservative seats of 325 though should cash out), it seems we are going to get plenty of Government to end 2019 and start 2020 with a Queen's Speech and a Budget.
You'd almost think Boris was coming in to Government from Opposition but the big challenge for next year will be the future economic and political relationship with the EU. Boris's line seems to be because we have no tariffs and no quotas now, it will be easy to negotiate a comprehensive FTA within a few months.
Perhaps but I'm far from convinced and those of us who have always suspected Johnson's motives via-a-vis leaving without a Deal will be looking carefully to see what happens if negotiations don't progress as planned.
I'm also concerned today's borrowing becomes tomorrow's largesse which becomes the day after tomorrow's tax rises. Johnson has made so many pledges/commitments/hostages to fortune (delete as appropriate) there will be plenty of ammunition for those seeking proper scrutiny (assuming he doesn't run away from it again in 2024).
Note that Boris Johnson is by far the lowest ranked of all the higher of the pairs. There are huge numbers of voters hostile to both. How they resolve their distaste for both is going to decide this election.
Assuming the Conservatives win, I expect the next round of local elections will be torrid.
2019 will be the election the Conservatives wish they'd never won. There will be a recession in the next five years, and (rightly or wrongly) their handling of Brexit will get the blame.
We will also see house prices down meaningfully (15-20%) in nominal terms. The young won't thank the Conservatives, and the old will be livid.
Johnson will turn out to be just the man you don't want in charge for this. But having remodeled the Conservative Party in his own image, he'll prove difficult to shift.
If the Labour Party have chosen a moderate as their leader, this won't matter too much. But if they manage to pick Corbyn 2.0 (younger, fitter, less economically sane), then the country will lurch to the hard Left in 2024, and it will all be pretty horrible.
It's a good thing I don't own any overpriced London real estate... oh wait...
That's what people said about 2010 & 2015! Labour shrewdly getting the lot by "losing"
It's my forecast, and I'm sticking with it
Just by the law of averages, we will almost certainly see a recession between now and 2024.
Demographics are such that we're at a tipping point where the number of people looking for smaller homes is going to bigger than those looking to expand. Combine that with with reduced net immigration and a large number of new build properties coming on the market, particularly in London, and I think you have a perfect storm for UK property.
Yes but what is the counter-factual for house prices, unemployment, inflation, the pound etc. under a Corbyn government? Who can know? But on a Treasury macro-economic model, I imagine it would be close to the 'worse-case' scenario.
Oh sure.
But if Labour got in now in coalition with the SNP, they'd probably end up only lasting a couple of years and they'd get the blame for the long term structural issues with the UK economy.
Wow looks like I missed an entire scandal's life cycle in the space of a lunch break.
Fwiw I just listened to the clip and it's definitely talent, you can hear the t at the end. In any case it's too unsubtle for Boris to say something like that, indeed when I first saw someone quote the phrase I presumed it was said by Pat Mountain or equivalent.
There are multiple clips though. In this one it certainly does sound like talent. In the other one that was posted, it's definitely colour, with no hint of a 't' at the start or end. It's all very strange.
Can't you see that's because the audio quality was much worse on that version? The audio wasn't coming directly from the microphone, and there were lots of sounds from the audience like the sound of cameras.
The quality of the audio in the other clip isn't that bad. I'm not sure what to believe. After the BBC apparently covered up Boris's wreath-laying faux pas, it doesn't seem such a stretch of the imagination to suspect them of a little bit of audio manipulation.
Channel 4 were the people to publicise it in the first place, and they've admitted they got it wrong. Does that convince you?
I'm happy to defer to those who have listened to the better quality audio.
Listen to it here
It is unusual (but not gramatically wrong) to say "people of talent" rather than "talented people".
I disagree. Talented people or people with talent. Never people of talent.
"We need people of talent, whatever their political persuasions, in such public positions and I look forward to people of talent taking them up regularly." PM 17/12/1991
"As he knows, I have a long-standing commitment to supporting the freedom of people of talent to come to this country." PM 25/7/2019
"There are people of talent around now—people such as the late Lord Noon—who could easily serve as executive directors on the board of British Airways or others of that kind." The Vaz 28/10/2015 (& The Vaz used it 2 other times)
"As I said, the First Minister has correctly identified the problem and the fresh talent initiative that he announced is designed to encourage people of talent to come to Scotland and to stay in Scotland." A Darling 25/5/2004
"What is more, it carries the risk—we do not yet know how big it is, because it depends on what other countries do—that people of talent will not come here. It is fashionable now to decry Ireland, but for 25 or 30 years Ireland has had a fantastic success story." David Davis 22/4/2009
"I think all of us wish to be generous to refugees and to invite in people of talent who can make a good contribution to our community" John Redwood13/7/2017
"A great deal is happening there. I know of many people of talent who are returning to Scotland because they are attracted to the buzz, the movement and the excitement of the changes that will follow the constitutional reforms that I hope the House and this Parliament will agree in the next few months." Mr Dewar 4/3/1998
"However, the hon. Lady is absolutely right that, when there is under-representation of people of talent, the whole economy suffers, and that should be corrected." Greg Clark 23/1/2017
I am not sure Mr Cone's Hotline is going to influence many people. Those that want Brexit know he is against it and the more moderate Remainy ones know the other option is Corbyn given the Lib Dem are nowhere. And those that are hard-core Remainers aren't voting Tory anyway.
It’s a complete gift to the LDs in the south of England though, and quite unnecessary from Major.
Glad to see that PB has, in the space of only a couple of hours, gone from every other post containing ‘racist’ and ‘liar’, to discussion of a crowdsourced modelling of the early election results. Well done PB
Wow looks like I missed an entire scandal's life cycle in the space of a lunch break.
Fwiw I just listened to the clip and it's definitely talent, you can hear the t at the end. In any case it's too unsubtle for Boris to say something like that, indeed when I first saw someone quote the phrase I presumed it was said by Pat Mountain or equivalent.
There are multiple clips though. In this one it certainly does sound like talent. In the other one that was posted, it's definitely colour, with no hint of a 't' at the start or end. It's all very strange.
Can't you see that's because the audio quality was much worse on that version? The audio wasn't coming directly from the microphone, and there were lots of sounds from the audience like the sound of cameras.
The quality of the audio in the other clip isn't that bad. I'm not sure what to believe. After the BBC apparently covered up Boris's wreath-laying faux pas, it doesn't seem such a stretch of the imagination to suspect them of a little bit of audio manipulation.
God help these people.
This is the problem now. Once you start faking videos, why do you expect any to be trusted? As the old joke has it: you shag one sheep!
I am not sure Mr Cone's Hotline is going to influence many people. Those that want Brexit know he is against it and the more moderate Remainy ones know the other option is Corbyn given the Lib Dem are nowhere. And those that are hard-core Remainers aren't voting Tory anyway.
It’s a complete gift to the LDs in the south of England though, and quite unnecessary from Major.
Well Brexit has driven him bonkers.....its not about Party anymore. If the Northern strategy hasn't worked, it may well prove another small decisive element, along with AN interview video etc among your Guildford's of this world in denying the Tories a very small majority.
Electoral calculus revises its forecast down today - now 20 seat majority.
I'm pretty sure that a 9.5% lead would give a majority of more than 20.
I think the Conservatives will do better in the North, where there are lots of "not as safe as they used to be" Labour seats, and worse in the South where most of their seats are already very safe.
This suggests to me that they'll meaningfully outperform Electoral Calculus.
That's what I think too. Labour seem set to outperform, once again, in London, where it does not benefit them. No doubt they'll outperform again in university towns, most of which they already hold.
A 9.5% lead would give the Conservatives a majority of at least 60, IMHO.
Neither is exactly admired by any criterion, but the most striking contrast is the Good leader/Bad leader rating:
Boris 36% Good leader, 41% Bad leader Corbyn 16% Good leader, 57% Bad leader
Mmm, but Corbyn is ahead (in the sense of less bad) on most of the other criteria. Classically Tories lead on "competence/leadership" and Labour leaders win on "empathy/understands people like me" (CorbynJohnson -19/-30). I think Johnson does convey an impression of dynamism which Corbyn's judicious replies lack, but people mostly don't actually like what Johnson says.
As in other polls, the gap for gender and age is gigantic - we're used to age correlating with conservatism, but I've never seen an age split quite like it.
We have never had a country where the retired own such a big share of the capital and the workers own so little. So its still just those with capital vote Tory and those without vote Labour seen along age rather than class.
Possibly Japan. A country with such an aging population it tried (and failed?) to develop robot nurses to tend the elderly. It's not perhaps an approach to emulate...
Indeed, we simply need immigration because of our demographics and therefore will have it. All Brexit will have changed is to move the immigration from Europe to Africa and Asia and made immigrants here feel less welcome. Many of those with "talent" will go somewhere else and be replaced with those with fewer options available to them.
Looks like Workington at 1pm could be the 1st key seat to watch.
1pm Thursday or Friday?
The first NE seats will be interesting as they will give a feel of how well Labours vote is holding up.
Although in the locals this year the early northern rests were decent for the Tories but it didn't portend well for their horror show in the south.
If they have to count the votes of those early seats instead of weigh them, it's going to set the evening up for great viewing. Are there many signal seats for the south that will set the night up in those regions?
If Rutherglen declares at 01:00 it could give an early insight into how the SLab vote is (isn't) holding up.
Looks like Workington at 1pm could be the 1st key seat to watch.
1pm Thursday or Friday?
The first NE seats will be interesting as they will give a feel of how well Labours vote is holding up.
Although in the locals this year the early northern rests were decent for the Tories but it didn't portend well for their horror show in the south.
If they have to count the votes of those early seats instead of weigh them, it's going to set the evening up for great viewing. Are there many signal seats for the south that will set the night up in those regions?
If Rutherglen declares at 01:00 it could give an early insight into how the SLab vote is (isn't) holding up.
Wow looks like I missed an entire scandal's life cycle in the space of a lunch break.
Fwiw I just listened to the clip and it's definitely talent, you can hear the t at the end. In any case it's too unsubtle for Boris to say something like that, indeed when I first saw someone quote the phrase I presumed it was said by Pat Mountain or equivalent.
There are multiple clips though. In this one it certainly does sound like talent. In the other one that was posted, it's definitely colour, with no hint of a 't' at the start or end. It's all very strange.
Can't you see that's because the audio quality was much worse on that version? The audio wasn't coming directly from the microphone, and there were lots of sounds from the audience like the sound of cameras.
The quality of the audio in the other clip isn't that bad. I'm not sure what to believe. After the BBC apparently covered up Boris's wreath-laying faux pas, it doesn't seem such a stretch of the imagination to suspect them of a little bit of audio manipulation.
God help these people.
This is the problem now. Once you start faking videos, why do you expect any to be trusted? As the old joke has it: you shag one sheep!
The problem is the error has gone around the world four times before the correction gets issued, the error gets 2 million views and the correction 200.
Looks like Workington at 1pm could be the 1st key seat to watch.
1pm Thursday or Friday?
The first NE seats will be interesting as they will give a feel of how well Labours vote is holding up.
Although in the locals this year the early northern rests were decent for the Tories but it didn't portend well for their horror show in the south.
If they have to count the votes of those early seats instead of weigh them, it's going to set the evening up for great viewing. Are there many signal seats for the south that will set the night up in those regions?
If Rutherglen declares at 01:00 it could give an early insight into how the SLab vote is (isn't) holding up.
Why would anyone in Scotland vote for Labour ?
Especially with such a crap leader. If you are left / left of centre, you might as well vote SNP and at least get a leader that isn't a total moron, not infested with antisemitism / terrorist sympathising and policies that aren't totally bank busting and counter-productive.
Electoral calculus revises its forecast down today - now 20 seat majority.
I'm pretty sure that a 9.5% lead would give a majority of more than 20.
I think the Conservatives will do better in the North, where there are lots of "not as safe as they used to be" Labour seats, and worse in the South where most of their seats are already very safe.
This suggests to me that they'll meaningfully outperform Electoral Calculus.
That's what I think too. Labour seem set to outperform, once again, in London, where it does not benefit them. No doubt they'll outperform again in university towns, most of which they already hold.
A 9.5% lead would give the Conservatives a majority of at least 60, IMHO.
I think they'll be close to 100.
I think the LDs will do slightly better than people expect, getting 15% or very close, and returning to the seat levels they had as the Alliance.
I am not sure Mr Cone's Hotline is going to influence many people. Those that want Brexit know he is against it and the more moderate Remainy ones know the other option is Corbyn given the Lib Dem are nowhere. And those that are hard-core Remainers aren't voting Tory anyway.
It’s a complete gift to the LDs in the south of England though, and quite unnecessary from Major.
Does anyone still take any notice of what he says?
I'm happy to defer to those who have listened to the better quality audio.
Listen to it here
It is unusual (but not gramatically wrong) to say "people of talent" rather than "talented people".
No it isn't. In fact it's a far more common phrase than 'people of colour', a recent import from the US and mostly used by the Guardian-reading classes.
I agree that people of colour sounds horrible, but do you really say "people of talent" on a regular basis?
Google turns up innumerable ordinary uses of 'people of talent'. Perhaps Boris took it from the Civil Service Quarterly Blog of 3rd July 2018 which gives a notable dull and unmemorable example. This whole discussion is a disgrace.
It's been quite educational in terms of observing how people react when they make mistakes based on prejudice, refuse to heed warnings for fear of looking like losing an argument, then turn out to be wrong in the predictable way all along.
Looks like Workington at 1pm could be the 1st key seat to watch.
1pm Thursday or Friday?
The first NE seats will be interesting as they will give a feel of how well Labours vote is holding up.
Although in the locals this year the early northern rests were decent for the Tories but it didn't portend well for their horror show in the south.
If they have to count the votes of those early seats instead of weigh them, it's going to set the evening up for great viewing. Are there many signal seats for the south that will set the night up in those regions?
If Rutherglen declares at 01:00 it could give an early insight into how the SLab vote is (isn't) holding up.
Why would anyone in Scotland vote for Labour ?
Especially with such a crap leader. If you are left / left of centre, you might as well vote SNP and at least get a leader that isn't a total moron.
Union + Brexit = Tory Union + remain = Lib Dem Independence + Remain = SNP
Dad & Grandad always voted = Labour.
I know they're sitting this one out, but maybe Brexit Party should tack to Ind + Brexit.
I'm happy to defer to those who have listened to the better quality audio.
Listen to it here
It is unusual (but not gramatically wrong) to say "people of talent" rather than "talented people".
No it isn't. In fact it's a far more common phrase than 'people of colour', a recent import from the US and mostly used by the Guardian-reading classes.
I agree that people of colour sounds horrible, but do you really say "people of talent" on a regular basis?
Google turns up innumerable ordinary uses of 'people of talent'. Perhaps Boris took it from the Civil Service Quarterly Blog of 3rd July 2018 which gives a notable dull and unmemorable example. This whole discussion is a disgrace.
It's been quite educational in terms of observing how people react when they make mistakes based on prejudice, refuse to heed warnings for fear of looking like losing an argument, then turn out to be wrong in the predictable way all along.
Down the memory hole with the tweets!
There is a very funny errata of an LSE book review.
Amendment: This review was amended on 22 November 2017. The original post contained the line ‘easy for a rich white man to say’. This has been removed and we apologise for this error.
I'm happy to defer to those who have listened to the better quality audio.
Listen to it here
It is unusual (but not gramatically wrong) to say "people of talent" rather than "talented people".
No it isn't. In fact it's a far more common phrase than 'people of colour', a recent import from the US and mostly used by the Guardian-reading classes.
I agree that people of colour sounds horrible, but do you really say "people of talent" on a regular basis?
Google turns up innumerable ordinary uses of 'people of talent'. Perhaps Boris took it from the Civil Service Quarterly Blog of 3rd July 2018 which gives a notable dull and unmemorable example. This whole discussion is a disgrace.
It's been quite educational in terms of observing how people react when they make mistakes based on prejudice, refuse to heed warnings for fear of looking like losing an argument, then turn out to be wrong in the predictable way all along.
Down the memory hole with the tweets!
There is a very funny errata of an LSE book review.
Amendment: This review was amended on 22 November 2017. The original post contained the line ‘easy for a rich white man to say’. This has been removed and we apologise for this error.
Wow looks like I missed an entire scandal's life cycle in the space of a lunch break.
Fwiw I just listened to the clip and it's definitely talent, you can hear the t at the end. In any case it's too unsubtle for Boris to say something like that, indeed when I first saw someone quote the phrase I presumed it was said by Pat Mountain or equivalent.
There are multiple clips though. In this one it certainly does sound like talent. In the other one that was posted, it's definitely colour, with no hint of a 't' at the start or end. It's all very strange.
Can't you see that's because the audio quality was much worse on that version? The audio wasn't coming directly from the microphone, and there were lots of sounds from the audience like the sound of cameras.
The quality of the audio in the other clip isn't that bad. I'm not sure what to believe. After the BBC apparently covered up Boris's wreath-laying faux pas, it doesn't seem such a stretch of the imagination to suspect them of a little bit of audio manipulation.
God help these people.
This is the problem now. Once you start faking videos, why do you expect any to be trusted? As the old joke has it: you shag one sheep!
The problem is the error has gone around the world four times before the correction gets issued, the error gets 2 million views and the correction 200.
Yes but the parties are complicit in this. That is the problem. The reason there has been no action on troll farms and twitter bots and even faked videos is the main parties use these techniques. CCHQ faked a video of Keir Starmer a couple of weeks ago and now is clutching its pearls because people misheard what Boris said.
Comments
http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/liberal-democrat
Not saying Tories are going to be winning them, more are they really cutting through in these traditional Labour seats that voted for Brexit.
Newcastle 5°, wet
Nottingham 7°, showers
Norwich 8°, showers
Are there many signal seats for the south that will set the night up in those regions?
Diddums
After all, five years ago the Coalition was in power, we were given to understand that the Scottish independence question had been settled for a generation, the EU referendum wasn't even a thing, Boris Johnson was the Mayor of London and Jeremy Corbyn was an obscure socialist backbencher.
Just by the law of averages, we will almost certainly see a recession between now and 2024.
Demographics are such that we're at a tipping point where the number of people looking for smaller homes is going to bigger than those looking to expand. Combine that with with reduced net immigration and a large number of new build properties coming on the market, particularly in London, and I think you have a perfect storm for UK property.
Obviously other outputs are trivial to create, but in my mind the above seats are the ones the Tories have to flip or be showing that their strategy is gaining them lots of votes. If we aren't seeing them picking up much traction in these types of seats, there is no way they are getting a majority.
"As he knows, I have a long-standing commitment to supporting the freedom of people of talent to come to this country." PM 25/7/2019
"There are people of talent around now—people such as the late Lord Noon—who could easily serve as executive directors on the board of British Airways or others of that kind." The Vaz 28/10/2015 (& The Vaz used it 2 other times)
"As I said, the First Minister has correctly identified the problem and the fresh talent initiative that he announced is designed to encourage people of talent to come to Scotland and to stay in Scotland." A Darling 25/5/2004
"What is more, it carries the risk—we do not yet know how big it is, because it depends on what other countries do—that people of talent will not come here. It is fashionable now to decry Ireland, but for 25 or 30 years Ireland has had a fantastic success story." David Davis 22/4/2009
"I think all of us wish to be generous to refugees and to invite in people of talent who can make a good contribution to our community" John Redwood13/7/2017
"A great deal is happening there. I know of many people of talent who are returning to Scotland because they are attracted to the buzz, the movement and the excitement of the changes that will follow the constitutional reforms that I hope the House and this Parliament will agree in the next few months." Mr Dewar 4/3/1998
"However, the hon. Lady is absolutely right that, when there is under-representation of people of talent, the whole economy suffers, and that should be corrected." Greg Clark 23/1/2017
Never people of talent.
Labour are clearly going to rack up votes in urban centres. It is all about if the Tories can convince the Midlands and the North to vote for them.
This suggests to me that they'll meaningfully outperform Electoral Calculus.
Speaking of polls, three of the major broadcasters have confirmed they will once again combine forces to release the same exit poll once voting ends on election night.
BBC News, ITV News and Sky News have announced they will jointly publish the 2019 poll at 22:00 GMT on Thursday.
Exit polls, based on interviews with people as they come out of polling stations, have in the past successfully predicted the exact outcome of general elections, even correctly working out the number of seats the major parties will win.
It will be the fourth exit poll to be produced by the three broadcasters following similar exercises in 2010, 2015 and 2017."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/election-2019-50683887
As stated above, I have a feeling we are either going to see the firewall break or not. And if it is, we are going to see it pretty quickly. If your Sunderland's, Middlesborough's, Darlington's of this world show big Tory swings, you have to think enough Flat cap Fred's are going to break that habit of a lifetime and the "Get Brexit Done" message has worked.
If not, well then it will be an all night jobbie.
(IANAP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talent,_Oregon
If our recession is less severe than the EU as a whole, or indeed the comparative sized economies, then the Tories will be able to frame the argument as Brexit saving the country from the EU's fate.
As for falling house prices this would be problematic. One possible avenue is to emphasize the positives of affordability for the younger generations...and appeal to the boomers sense of parental guilt to assuage their anger.
Having said all that I believe 2024 will be a 1997 scenario where pretty much any Labour leader could have won which means that if the reds have not returned to the middle then we will likely end up with an extremely left-wing government.
I will be making retirement plans accordingly.
e.g. If I increase the LD TV boost from Con to LD tactical voting by another 10% for 2017 Con Remainers to a 37 Con 51 LD split, the LDs total goes up from 12 to 14 but the Con seat count stays unchanged at the 336 in the standard model, as Con get 2 more off Lab to compensate for their 2 losses to the LDs.
The seats I have the LDs winning using YouGov MRP vote shares are:
Richmond Park
Cheltenham
Cheadle
Sheffield, Hallam
Leeds North West
Cambridge
Oxford West and Abingdon
Westmorland and Lonsdale
Kingston and Surbiton
Bath
Twickenham
St Albans
The next closest with Con majorities over the LDs under 5000 are, in order:
Winchester (maj 588)
North Norfolk
Eastbourne
Carshalton and Wallington
Lewes
St Ives
Hazel Grove
Guildford (maj 4802)
That said, the model can't cater for very exceptional circumstances linked to unusual candidates such as with Berger, Umunna, Grieve or Milton (in Guildford) so it's illustrative only.
You'd almost think Boris was coming in to Government from Opposition but the big challenge for next year will be the future economic and political relationship with the EU. Boris's line seems to be because we have no tariffs and no quotas now, it will be easy to negotiate a comprehensive FTA within a few months.
Perhaps but I'm far from convinced and those of us who have always suspected Johnson's motives via-a-vis leaving without a Deal will be looking carefully to see what happens if negotiations don't progress as planned.
I'm also concerned today's borrowing becomes tomorrow's largesse which becomes the day after tomorrow's tax rises. Johnson has made so many pledges/commitments/hostages to fortune (delete as appropriate) there will be plenty of ammunition for those seeking proper scrutiny (assuming he doesn't run away from it again in 2024).
But if Labour got in now in coalition with the SNP, they'd probably end up only lasting a couple of years and they'd get the blame for the long term structural issues with the UK economy.
A 9.5% lead would give the Conservatives a majority of at least 60, IMHO.
'There's plenty of talent on the Tory front bench' has a whole different meaning, and one we could debate after a few pints.
How can you love an artificial institution so much? It is as creepy as it is baffling.
I think the LDs will do slightly better than people expect, getting 15% or very close, and returning to the seat levels they had as the Alliance.
Down the memory hole with the tweets!
Union + remain = Lib Dem
Independence + Remain = SNP
Dad & Grandad always voted = Labour.
I know they're sitting this one out, but maybe Brexit Party should tack to Ind + Brexit.
Some awful revelation about Boris?
Scrapping tuition fees and refunding those who have paid?
I can't think of many other things that will turn the dial enough.
Amendment: This review was amended on 22 November 2017. The original post contained the line ‘easy for a rich white man to say’. This has been removed and we apologise for this error.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2012/05/26/book-review-intellectuals-and-society-by-thomas-sowell/
Sowell is a well known person of errrh talent....