I think these next three days are crucial, including switchers on the day.
My view is that we're currently on about +10-20, and we could still get either a heavier Tory maj than that, or a hung parliament.
That is exactly where I am. Worth bearing in mind that both in 1992 and 2017 (and indeed in every election in my lifetime) the leader satisfaction ratings correctly called the result, and in 2019 those point to a Tory lead of 6-7pp, on the cusp of a hung parliament.
The respective leader ratings point to a bigger lead than that.
No they don't. Have you run the regression? The prediction for 2019 based on 10 data points from 1979 to 2017 is 6.5pp. If you want to run the regression yourself, the Mori positive leader satisfaction ratings differential (PM Vs LOTO) for the 10 elections plus 2019 are: -3 29 20 7 -19 19 3 -10 11 4 12 The GB vote share lead for the govt in those 10 elections are: -7.2 15.2 11.7 7.6 -12.8 9.4 2.9 -7.2 6.5 2.4 Regression coefficients are y=-0.88214+0.611826x. R^2=0.9373.
That's a very strong correlation.
But when was the last time a party led by a PM with no previous GE wins and no previous majority gained a majority in a GE, however popular or unpopular he may have been relative to the LOTO?
On the Jonathan Ashworth story, I seem to remember Laura Pidcock getting stick on here for saying she'd never be friends with a Tory. Perhaps Ashworth would have been better off following the same policy?
Not at all, he just needs better friends.
Though friendships are bound to be tested when there are fears of threats to national security.
I have tried some canvassing this election both door step and telephone and the response rate for both is incredibly low. The only demographic I got much feedback from was the elderly. Perhaps everyone here already knows that but how the polling firms can draw accurate predictions given the difficulty in actually contacting abroad swathe of the population is beyond me. There must come a time mathematically where the signal to noise ratio is so low that not even the most sophisticated model can give an accurate answer. What that means for politics I do not know.
Low in the sense of willingness to disclose, or simply not there at all? I find about 40% are out at any given time, but people are more than usually willing to discuss what many of them see as a difficult dilemma. Because we've got so many people this time, we've been given the reverse of the usual instructions (which are "get their intention and move on") - this time, we've been asked to engage in discussions and persuasion with anyone who seems to be genuinely wavering.
It's a lot more fun, and at the micro level it does pay off - I suppose I've swung a couple of dozen, which is trivial in itself but if replicated, becomes worthwhile.Of course, you can get trapped - on Sunday I found a Tory who'd managed to entrap the whole of my canvass team into an argument about educational opportunity, grrr.
What I meant were out or don't answer the phone. Perhaps I am trying at the wrong time!
So you can't tell us where the 'ten years of shocking austerity' is even though you continually talk about it.
At some point the UK will have to live within its means - at that point people will be looking back fondly on the era of 'austerity' and realise that in fact they never had it so good.
I suggest taking a look at the increasing rough sleeping problem nationwide, which I see a little worse each Christmas. Cuts to multiple wings of services and cuts to benefits are without doubt a key contributor.
And do you really think rough sleepers are in any way indicative of 99% of people in this country ?
We've had this discussion extensively here, and I'm not feeling too inclined to rehash it now. There are key missing elements in services and benefits, and benefit waiting times, that explain some of the recent rise. These changes were marketed under the brand "tightening our belts", so they can reasonably be ascribed to something named austerity.
You might be able to argue that they are cuts but cuts are not the same as 'austerity'.
And this typifies all the claims about 'austerity' - a failure to see the wood for the trees ie lots of comments about rough sleepers or food banks or zero hour contracts or some specific cut in government spending.
While ignoring that during the last decade the government has borrowed over a trillion quid and the UK has been in continuous trade deficit.
But for a long period, particularly before George Osborne changed course, it embarked on a particularly broad-based programme of cuts that were justified on the basis not only of economics, but a protestant ethic - belt-tightening. In particular areas like benefits the cuts continued most strongly after this reduction in the rate of cuts and partial change of course ; hence food banks and higher rough sleepers.
You're arguing about the extent to which ratios of government spending and borrowing indicate austerity, but what happened in the first three or four years of the Cameron goverment particularly is something rather different - a series of cuts justified on the basis of an abstract ethic, not a concrete figure related to gdp.
So there were cuts in some areas and spending increases in others or in other words a political driven choice in government spending.
But there was no austerity.
If we ever get austerity - which will involve the UK living within its means rather than in the manner it thinks it deserves - then you'll be looking back at the last decade and wondering what the fuss was all about.
Comments
But when was the last time a party led by a PM with no previous GE wins and no previous majority gained a majority in a GE, however popular or unpopular he may have been relative to the LOTO?
Though friendships are bound to be tested when there are fears of threats to national security.
Get your local NUS involved if you want it stopped.
Or go as Jezza, complete with cast iron bicycle and chimpanzee tea-party suit :-o .
But there was no austerity.
If we ever get austerity - which will involve the UK living within its means rather than in the manner it thinks it deserves - then you'll be looking back at the last decade and wondering what the fuss was all about.