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  • The morning thread is about the changes in the polling over the last 12 months, and I've got vastly different figures to AndyJS
  • BobajobBobajob Posts: 1,536

    A meta analysis should narrow the confidence interval and MOE, provided the mic of polls and their methodology was unchanged.

    Still enough to put the Eds into Downing St, despite the slide though.


    Bobajob said:

    AndyJS said:

    Average of polls published during November 2012:

    Lab: 42%
    Con: 33%
    LD: 9%
    UKIP: 8%
    Others: 8%

    Average of polls published during November 2013:

    Lab: 39%
    Con: 32%
    LD: 10%
    UKIP: 12%
    Others: 8%

    Changes:

    Lab: -3%
    Con: -1%
    LD: +1%
    UKIP: +4%
    Others: nc

    Inside MOE for both big parties in a year. Remarkably stable polling.
    You can't reduce the MOE just by averaging out polls. I wasn't actually making a political/partisan point - I think Andy may have taken it like that. Merely pointing out that Labour and the Tories have been bumping around the same level for a year (or more). Very little happening out there.

  • foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548
    Soft as kittens yesterday, having watched theit team get thrashed by the mighty Foxes.

    They went out singing their "No one likes us, we don't care" song, but peacable as lambs to the slaughter.

    We left after the third pitch invasion. And people ask why I despise football. The glorious game? Not on your nelly...

    Millwall did used to have a certain reputation.

  • AndyJS said:

    It would be interesting to know how many Londoners have never ventured outside the M25. Whether this would be a sign of parochialism or sophistication might be an interesting discussion point.

    I go down to Cornwall regularly and spend a bit of time in the village pub. You would be amazed at how many Cornishmen are proud of the fact they have never crossed the Tamar.
  • SeanT said:


    Central London exists in a parallel universe to the rest of the UK.

    True but half the people in your parliamentary constituency live in council flats.

    Inner London is an area of extremes.

    Some people don't mind that (generally those at the successful/wealthy extreme) but others do.

    What is a potential problem though is that the more London becomes unlike the rest of Britain and the more that political, economic and cultural power is concentrated there the greater the likelihood that the influences upon the application of this power are not in the interests of the country as a whole.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,916
    Bobajob/Sunil Administratively and on the outer reaches of postcode yes, but most of the residents of the outer London suburbs will have moved out of central London and they have more in common with the Home Counties and Essex than Kensington and Chelsea, the City and Westminster, Islington, Hackney and the real heart of London!
  • BobajobBobajob Posts: 1,536
    SeanT said:

    The important thing to remember is that these people, my stupidly wealthy Delancey St neighbours, are the neighbours of ALL our party leaders: these are the people that Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg, Dave Cameron meet on the street - because the party leaders all live in central London.

    Sure they will meet some poor people who just got lucky, some old people who bought in the 1960s, some council tenants, but the party leaders won't converse with these plebs sincerely, they will patronise them, then move on to the interesting young couple who just spent £4m cash, three doors down.

    This MUST warp perspectives. Affluence comes to seem normal, an income of £50k a year feels like "middle Britain", when it is in fact the top 10%.

    Fact: Justine Thornton, Ed Miliband's wife, earns £200,000 a year, and is best friends with Chancellor of the Exchequer Geo Osborne's wife, the Honourable Frances Victoria Howell.

    In a way, that's all you need to know about British politics.

    Great fact about Justine and Frances - I didn't know that. I assume it is true?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,916
    SeanT Which is why the likes of Farage, Salmond and Galloway etc who do not all look and sound like the central London metropolitan elite are able to win votes!
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,568
    edited December 2013

    Bobajob said:

    AndyJS said:

    It would be interesting to know how many Londoners have never ventured outside the M25. Whether this would be a sign of parochialism or sophistication might be an interesting discussion point.

    I saw a documentary about an East London school a few years back where not a single classmate had ever seen a cow. This was utterly depressing. I can understand not wanting to live outside London (I wouldn't want to) but the English countryside should be experienced by all.
    Heh. That's the second part of the story I mentioned below. After going to Alton Towers, my mate wanted to see a local football stadium in Stoke. So I drove him there. On the way, we saw a distant herd of Holstein cows. He asked me what they were. Rather surprised, I replied: "badgers"

    At breakfast the next morning, he expressed his surprise to my parents that badgers were so large. He had always thought of them as being small creatures. He had a good degree (in computing, not biology).

    We are no longer friends ...

    Then, a few years ago, there was a kids TV program where the children had to break eggs on their heads; some were boiled, some were raw. One of the kids (and I'd put him at ten or eleven) said he had never seen an egg before ...
    When I was a pre-school kid, my parents engaged a tutor to give me a head start on reading (yes, I know, private tutoring, awful). I was doing OK with the "spell this picture" book until we came to a sheep. I vaguely knew it was a farm animal, so ventured c-o-w. The tutor thought I was winding her up and slammed the book shut indignantly.

    But I was a Londoner aged 4. Why should I know what a sheep looked like? I still feel mildly aggrieved, 59 years later. :-)
  • BobajobBobajob Posts: 1,536

    Soft as kittens yesterday, having watched theit team get thrashed by the mighty Foxes.

    They went out singing their "No one likes us, we don't care" song, but peacable as lambs to the slaughter.

    We left after the third pitch invasion. And people ask why I despise football. The glorious game? Not on your nelly...

    Millwall did used to have a certain reputation.

    You have clearly never been to the Den if you think Millwall are soft. The only place I have had kids as young as eight making cut throat symbols to the away fans, and been given a police escort to and from the station. The end of the earth.
  • Bobajob said:

    Soft as kittens yesterday, having watched theit team get thrashed by the mighty Foxes.

    They went out singing their "No one likes us, we don't care" song, but peacable as lambs to the slaughter.

    We left after the third pitch invasion. And people ask why I despise football. The glorious game? Not on your nelly...

    Millwall did used to have a certain reputation.

    You have clearly never been to the Den if you think Millwall are soft. The only place I have had kids as young as eight making cut throat symbols to the away fans, and been given a police escort to and from the station. The end of the earth.
    Agree the Old Den was a nightmare, been there a few times to see Chelsea and it chaos every time, almost as bad when they came to Stamford Bridge
  • foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548
    The den is notorious, and I know that a few years ago they were banned from having away fans, but yesterday they were in Leicester, and like I said, as soft as kittens.


    Bobajob said:

    Soft as kittens yesterday, having watched theit team get thrashed by the mighty Foxes.

    They went out singing their "No one likes us, we don't care" song, but peacable as lambs to the slaughter.

    We left after the third pitch invasion. And people ask why I despise football. The glorious game? Not on your nelly...

    Millwall did used to have a certain reputation.

    You have clearly never been to the Den if you think Millwall are soft. The only place I have had kids as young as eight making cut throat symbols to the away fans, and been given a police escort to and from the station. The end of the earth.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,568
    edited December 2013
    On topic, I think Boris is a lazy mayor (though to be honest not as vile as I thought he'd be) and would be a laughably awful PM, but I'm not his target voter profile. The speech is, I agree, more interesting than his usual nonsense. I'd guess that his core vote will think it's a fine speech, but there was a YouGov (I think) question on the greed question, asking if people agreed with him on that, and it got a big thumbs down.

    He'll get the Tory leadership when the time comes, but they'll live to regret it.
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395

    The morning thread is about the changes in the polling over the last 12 months, and I've got vastly different figures to AndyJS

    I was using Wikipedia. The article on polling looks accurate and reliable:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#2013

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#2012
  • SeanT said:


    Fact: Justine Thornton, Ed Miliband's wife, earns £200,000 a year, and is best friends with Chancellor of the Exchequer Geo Osborne's wife, the Honourable Frances Victoria Howell.

    In a way, that's all you need to know about British politics.

    Have you only just discovered that Sean ???

    Of course EdM is brother to DM and was also at school with BJ who was later at school with DC and they all did the same degree at the same uni etc etc.

    Someone really needs to create a diagram showing how eveyyone is connected with everyone.

    Its all so inbred.

    And we know what happens when inbreeding takes place.
  • AndyJS said:

    The morning thread is about the changes in the polling over the last 12 months, and I've got vastly different figures to AndyJS

    I was using Wikipedia. The article on polling looks accurate and reliable:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#2013

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#2012
    Have you included all the yougovs in the average?

    I think my methodology is slightly different.
  • foxinsoxukfoxinsoxuk Posts: 23,548
    surely being moderated is nothing unsual anymore?
    SeanT said:

    HYUFD said:

    SeanT Which is why the likes of Farage, Salmond and Galloway etc who do not all look and sound like the central London metropolitan elite are able to win votes!

    Yes, though Alex Salmond is clearly [moderated] and Farage is a public schoolboy (Dulwich). Yet they seem healthily normal compared to the weirdness of posh central London.
  • BobajobBobajob Posts: 1,536

    Bobajob said:

    Soft as kittens yesterday, having watched theit team get thrashed by the mighty Foxes.

    They went out singing their "No one likes us, we don't care" song, but peacable as lambs to the slaughter.

    We left after the third pitch invasion. And people ask why I despise football. The glorious game? Not on your nelly...

    Millwall did used to have a certain reputation.

    You have clearly never been to the Den if you think Millwall are soft. The only place I have had kids as young as eight making cut throat symbols to the away fans, and been given a police escort to and from the station. The end of the earth.
    Agree the Old Den was a nightmare, been there a few times to see Chelsea and it chaos every time, almost as bad when they came to Stamford Bridge
    I'm talking about the New Den. I can't imagine what the old place was like for travelling supporters
  • R0bertsR0berts Posts: 391
    SeanT said:

    The important thing to remember is that these people, my stupidly wealthy Delancey St neighbours, are the neighbours of ALL our party leaders: these are the people that Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg, Dave Cameron meet on the street - because the party leaders all live in central London.

    Sure they will meet some poor people who just got lucky, some old people who bought in the 1960s, some council tenants, but the party leaders won't converse with these plebs sincerely, they will patronise them, then move on to the interesting young couple who just spent £4m cash, three doors down.

    This MUST warp perspectives. Affluence comes to seem normal, an income of £50k a year feels like "middle Britain", when it is in fact the top 10%.

    Fact: Justine Thornton, Ed Miliband's wife, earns £200,000 a year, and is best friends with Chancellor of the Exchequer Geo Osborne's wife, the Honourable Frances Victoria Howell.

    In a way, that's all you need to know about British politics.

    I couldn't agree more. The elitism in British politics is corrosive. From Nigel Farage to Nick Clegg, they're all too star-struck by wealth, power and prestige.

    A bit more boldness to take on wealthy and powerful vested interests like big business, banks, media moguls, and embrace real grassroots movements like Trade Unions is long overdue.

    50 grand, middle income, haha.
  • SeanT said:

    SeanT said:


    Central London exists in a parallel universe to the rest of the UK.

    True but half the people in your parliamentary constituency live in council flats.

    Inner London is an area of extremes.

    Some people don't mind that (generally those at the successful/wealthy extreme) but others do.

    What is a potential problem though is that the more London becomes unlike the rest of Britain and the more that political, economic and cultural power is concentrated there the greater the likelihood that the influences upon the application of this power are not in the interests of the country as a whole.
    The benefits cap is fast purging these people from inner London. It really is happening.

    e.g. right next door to me is a development which was approved as "affordable housing"; but the value of property in this area has risen so far, so fast, in the last three years, it now looks like there will be a fudge, and the flats will be sold to yuppies, with just a couple reserved for nurses (if that).

    Arlington Road will remain a dump, though.


    Wouldn't the benefit cap affect primarily those in privately rented property and not those in council property ?
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    edited December 2013
    UKPollingReport gives pretty much the same picture as Wikipedia:

    Current polling average:

    Lab 38%
    Con 32%
    LD 10%

    Polling average from 6th Dec 2012 (1st Dec isn't available on WayBackMachine):

    Lab 42%
    Con 32%
    LD 10%

    http://web.archive.org/web/20121206031328/http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/

    The UKPR polling average is weighted in favour of the most recent polls which obviously an average for the whole month isn't.

    So both of them show Labour down 3 to 4%, Con down 1 to 0%, LD up 1 to 0%.
  • Bobajob said:

    Bobajob said:

    Soft as kittens yesterday, having watched theit team get thrashed by the mighty Foxes.

    They went out singing their "No one likes us, we don't care" song, but peacable as lambs to the slaughter.

    We left after the third pitch invasion. And people ask why I despise football. The glorious game? Not on your nelly...

    Millwall did used to have a certain reputation.

    You have clearly never been to the Den if you think Millwall are soft. The only place I have had kids as young as eight making cut throat symbols to the away fans, and been given a police escort to and from the station. The end of the earth.
    Agree the Old Den was a nightmare, been there a few times to see Chelsea and it chaos every time, almost as bad when they came to Stamford Bridge
    I'm talking about the New Den. I can't imagine what the old place was like for travelling supporters
    They didn't call it Cold Blow Lane for nothing!

    I went their with Chelsea in 1976 and the fighting was ferocious, the scariest place I've been to. A night game in 1984 was almost as bad.
  • They do a better class of basement build in Dartmouth Park. Three or four doors up from Ed someone had a two storey one put in. But not 200 yards away in two different directions there are some pretty large council estates. That's the way it is. If your kids go to the local school, they'll meet all sorts. But the parents self select. It's extraordinary how things have changed over the last 30 years in places like N1, N7, N19, NW1 and NW5. My family on both sides has been in that part of London since at least the mid-19th century. Now only my Mum and my sister are left; everyone else has moved away. It is still the place in the world I feel most at home though. It's mine.
  • fitalassfitalass Posts: 4,320
    edited December 2013
    Malcolm, face it, that Indy White Paper really was disappointing pedestrian dross. And deep down you know it too, hence your usual grumpy response to this fact being pointed out. :)

    The Economist - Salmond sets out his stall
    "THOSE who attended the launch of Scotland’s independence campaign on November 26th might have failed to detect any evidence of national oppression. No police checked their papers. Nor, if they wandered farther to shops bristling with tartanalia and blasting bagpipe music, was there much sign of a suppressed culture struggling to express itself.

    A speech by Alex Salmond, Scotland’s nationalist first minister, was long on management-speak. Searching for a visionary quote to headline, the best the Herald, a nationalist-leaning Glasgow broadsheet, could produce was: “We do not seek independence as an end in itself, but as a means to change Scotland for the better.” The document that Mr Salmond unveiled, a 667-page plan for independence, was more like a corporate prospectus for a share offering than a blood-tingling cry for freedom.

    Strange, because a referendum on Scottish independence will be held next September. With opinion polls showing that Scotland is leaning against breaking free from the rest of the United Kingdom, the document is Mr Salmond’s big chance to turn things around. But “Scotland’s Future”, as it is titled, reveals a fundamental problem with the independence pitch. Contemporary Scotland is neither so successful that it can clearly afford to go it alone, nor so impoverished that it has much to rail against."
    malcolmg said:

    fitalass said:

    Just catching up with today's earlier thread and a few observations.
    David Herdson's excellent article yesterday morning really nailed the problems for the SNP and the Yes campaign after the launch of their White Paper. Absolutely no surprises in the polling reaction to the White Paper launch either, and I am feeling ever more confident that there will be a comfortable No result come the vote next year.

    And the somewhat rattled and bad tempered reaction of some Nats on here today following the launch of the White Paper is another entirely predictable outcome. There was a lot of high hopes riding on that White Paper, with many in the Yes camp desperately praying it would manage to pull a game changing rabbit out of the hat and thus confound the Nationalists critics. But as David Herdson noted, it came across as more of an SNP Holyrood election manifesto than a serious prospectus for Independence.

    The Independence White Paper launch turned out to be a real damp squib, and it hasn't been the game changer that its supporters had hoped it might be. Its simple hardened already made up minds on both sides of the debate, and this in turn is going to lead to yet more angry and noisy bickering of the kind we are already increasing seeing online.

    Dear oh dear , what can one say but give me strength, utter dross.
  • AndyJS said:

    The morning thread is about the changes in the polling over the last 12 months, and I've got vastly different figures to AndyJS

    I was using Wikipedia. The article on polling looks accurate and reliable.
    I hope so, I am one of the people who has been keeping it up to date (although only since about July). The problem is not so much making sure all the YouGovs get included, it's some of the others that get missed. I started doing it when Populus came back on the scene and whoever was updating it missed every other poll - presumably on the assumption it was weekly.

  • AndyJS said:

    The UKPR polling average is weighted in favour of the most recent polls which obviously an average for the whole month isn't.

    UKPR is also weighted against repeat polls from the same company, so a YouGov from a couple of days ago might be weighted lower than an older ICM.

  • john_zimsjohn_zims Posts: 3,399
    @NicKPalmer

    'On topic, I think Boris is a lazy mayor (though to be honest not as vile as I thought he'd be)'

    You must have thought that Livingstone was in the gutter with his antisemitism and support for assorted nutters.
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    edited December 2013
    The phenomenon of people in the top 10% being convinced they're fairly average is surprisingly widespread: for example a lot of people I've come across seem to think that owning a detached home outright is fairly average. It can't be, because only about 17% of houses are detached to begin with:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/.../1750754.pdf

    "2008 figures:

    small terraced house 9.8%
    medium/large terraced house 18.8%
    semi-detached house 26.0%
    detached house 17.4%
    bungalow 9.4%
    converted flat 3.7%
    purpose built flat, low rise 13.4%
    purpose built flat, high rise 1.5%"
  • Edin_RokzEdin_Rokz Posts: 516
    edited December 2013
    Er! Is it just me, or is Vanilla having fun with comments to quotes and making reading the thread very repetitive? I just got lost reading the same comments 3 or 4 times.

    Edited to try and make sense
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    SeanT said:

    tim said:

    On topic, I think Boris is a lazy mayor (though to be honest not as vile as I thought he'd be) and would be a laughably awful PM, but I'm not his target voter profile. The speech is, I agree, more interesting than his usual nonsense. I'd guess that his core vote will think it's a fine speech, but there was a YouGov (I think) question on the greed question, asking if people agreed with him on that, and it got a big thumbs down.

    He'll get the Tory leadership when the time comes, but they'll live to regret it.

    No he won't
    Agreed: he won't.

    Not sure who will though. Theresa May doesn't fluff my sporran.

    If Cameron loses in 2015 (likely) I predict a darkhorse candidate; the Tories desperately need a northern, lower class woman leader, or even a comp schooled southern suburbanite of ethnically intriguing background.

    A Tory party led by a decent competent leader of either stripe would have totally wiped out Labour in 2010, and gained a majority of 100. And they would now be cheerfully contemplating a 2nd term, guaranteed.

    I recommend a Sikh. A Sikh man would make a great leader for the Tories: hard working, devout, naturally conservative, non threatening, yet also masculine, and entirely overturning perceptions of the Tories as white English (just as Maggie overturned perceptions of Tory maleness).

    Labour won three terms with Tory Tony. The Tories need to learn the trick.
    The Tories have a Sikh MP in Enoch's old constituency. Only problem is his majority is 700.
  • JonathanDJonathanD Posts: 2,400
    SeanT said:

    tim said:

    On topic, I think Boris is a lazy mayor (though to be honest not as vile as I thought he'd be) and would be a laughably awful PM, but I'm not his target voter profile. The speech is, I agree, more interesting than his usual nonsense. I'd guess that his core vote will think it's a fine speech, but there was a YouGov (I think) question on the greed question, asking if people agreed with him on that, and it got a big thumbs down.

    He'll get the Tory leadership when the time comes, but they'll live to regret it.

    No he won't
    Agreed: he won't.

    Not sure who will though. Theresa May doesn't fluff my sporran.

    If Cameron loses in 2015 (likely) I predict a darkhorse candidate; the Tories desperately need a northern, lower class woman leader, or even a comp schooled southern suburbanite of ethnically intriguing background.

    A Tory party led by a decent competent leader of either stripe would have totally wiped out Labour in 2010, and gained a majority of 100. And they would now be cheerfully contemplating a 2nd term, guaranteed.

    I recommend a Sikh. A Sikh man would make a great leader for the Tories: hard working, devout, naturally conservative, non threatening, yet also masculine, and entirely overturning perceptions of the Tories as white English (just as Maggie overturned perceptions of Tory maleness).

    Labour won three terms with Tory Tony. The Tories need to learn the trick.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sajid_Javid

    If only he hadn't worked in banking - although it was developing market finance so a chance to dress it up as international development.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,916
    SeanT Indeed, and Farage lives in Kent. Caroline Lucas is MP for Brighton, which is basically 'Islington on Sea' so does not count. Some of the frontbenches, Hague, Pickles, even Balls and Burnham also offer at least something of the provinces to contrast with the smug metropolitan clique!
  • SMukeshSMukesh Posts: 1,759
    It looks like Labour are going on the attack again on energy bills.

    `Government`s energy plan smoke and mirrors`

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25178726

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,916
    Roberts I did mention Galloway who does most of the things you say, as does Caroline Lucas but she is also posh metropolitan
  • surbitonsurbiton Posts: 13,549

    AndyJS said:

    The morning thread is about the changes in the polling over the last 12 months, and I've got vastly different figures to AndyJS

    I was using Wikipedia. The article on polling looks accurate and reliable:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#2013

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#2012
    Have you included all the yougovs in the average?

    I think my methodology is slightly different.
    When you see the Conservative and UKIP lines in the graph in Wikipedia, they are virtually a mirror image of eachother. When one goes up, the other goes down.

  • surbiton said:

    AndyJS said:

    The morning thread is about the changes in the polling over the last 12 months, and I've got vastly different figures to AndyJS

    I was using Wikipedia. The article on polling looks accurate and reliable:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#2013

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#2012
    Have you included all the yougovs in the average?

    I think my methodology is slightly different.
    When you see the Conservative and UKIP lines in the graph in Wikipedia, they are virtually a mirror image of eachother. When one goes up, the other goes down.

    That's when you lump all the pollsters together.

    See this from May, when I split out the phone pollsters

    http://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2013/05/29/polling-averages-and-changes-with-the-phone-pollsters-since-january/
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,916
    Andy JS Yes I voted for him as I was living in Wolverhampton for a brief time at the time of the last election. Personally, I doubt any leader would have won last time, people wanted rid of Brown but with austerity on the horizon did not want to hand it all to the Tories. I may be tempted to vote for Clegg in 2015, against the tide
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,963
    edited December 2013
    One for NickPalmer, possibly NSFW, is about computer programming in Germany, from the 80s

    Ian Berriman ‏@ianberriman 8m

    Computers=SEXY RT @SteveWHamp: from November 1983

    pic.twitter.com/0AehiSjDCq
  • RichardNabaviRichardNabavi Posts: 3,413
    edited December 2013
    It was an absolutely superb speech, very thoughtful and well-argued.

    The rumpus has of course not been about what Boris actually said, but the usual knee-jerk reaction, based entirely on prejudice, about what the left think he must have said, or, for political reasons, would like him to have said. (He didn't say 'Greed is good', for a starter). But then we should be used to that - I believe that many on the left genuinely believe that the famous Maggie 'no such thing as society' interview meant that she was advocating selfishness and individualism, when of course anyone who has actually bothered to read it will know she was advocating the precise opposite

    What Boris' speech certainly wasn't, by any possible stretch of the imagination, was a right-wing speech, A lot of it was about the central One Nation Conservatism/Thatcherite scheme of social mobility and opportunity for all, and he didn't mince his words on that:

    I remember once sitting in a meeting of the Tory shadow education team and listening with mounting disbelief to a conversation in which we all agreed solemnly that it would be political madness to try to bring back the Grammar schools - while I happened to know that most of the people in that room were about to make use, as parents, of some of the most viciously selective schools in the country.

    He also makes some very interesting points about the EU.

    In the longer term, if Boris can maintain the degree of serious analysis shown in the speech, he will have made the possibility of him become Conservative leader slightly more likely. But it's still unlikely - quite apart from the problems of process, he is actually, as the speech makes abundantly clear, very much to the left of most the party.
  • AndyJS said:

    The phenomenon of people in the top 10% being convinced they're fairly average is surprisingly widespread

    Almost all of the people the top 10% know are themselves part of the top 10%.

    So we get a feedback loop.

    This is especially likely in London where there is proportionally more of the top 10% and proportionally much less of the 25%-75% group.

    My favourite example is the numerous references to the middle class having nannies.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,916
    edited December 2013
    Richard Navabi Interesting too that apart from David Davis, Boris is the only senior Tory standing up for grammar schools, quite a contrast from his fellow public school counterparts Dave and George for whom comps are fine for the masses, but it will be Eton or St Paul's for their own children (or in the case of Nick Clegg London Oratory, which is basically a grammar in all but name and was also attended by the Blairs' children)
  • HYUFD said:

    Richard Navabi Interesting too that apart from David Davis, Boris is the only senior Tory standing up for grammar schools, quite a contrast from his fellow public school counterparts Dave and George for whom comps are fine for the masses, but it will be Eton or St Paul's for their own children (or in the case of Nick Clegg London Oratory, which is basically a grammar in all but name and was also attended by the Blairs' children)

    He's not actually calling for a return to grammar schools, but supporting Michael Gove's efforts to spread excellence throughout the system.

  • john_zimsjohn_zims Posts: 3,399
    @SMukesh

    'It looks like Labour are going on the attack again on energy bills.'

    They need to, Ed shot his bolt too soon.

    Labour energy freeze v Coalition energy cut.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 52,133
    edited December 2013
    john_zims said:

    @SMukesh

    'It looks like Labour are going on the attack again on energy bills.'

    They need to, Ed shot his bolt too soon.

    Labour energy freeze v Coalition energy cut.

    I am not a destroyer of energy companies! I am a liberator of them!
    The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that Ed, for lack of a better word, is good. Ed is right, Ed works. Ed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the Revolutionary spirit. Ed, in all of his forms; Ed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And Ed, you mark my words, will not only save the Labour Party, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the UK. Thank you very much.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,568
    AndyJS said:


    purpose built flat, high rise 1.5%"

    In one line, the reason why London has the highest property prices in Europe while we worry about urban sprawl. Are there any other major cities in Europe that don't have a significant proportion of tall blocks? If we're all aspiring to have houses and gardens, of course we'll concrete over the country.

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,916
    Richard Navabi He not only supports the existing grammar schools, but the principle of selection at some point in the education system, that may not be a return to the 11-plus, but even Finland selects at 16
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 26,803
    edited December 2013

    AndyJS said:


    purpose built flat, high rise 1.5%"

    In one line, the reason why London has the highest property prices in Europe while we worry about urban sprawl. Are there any other major cities in Europe that don't have a significant proportion of tall blocks? If we're all aspiring to have houses and gardens, of course we'll concrete over the country.

    Wasn't your constituency home in Nottingham a bungalow Nick ?

    When you could have had any of these delights to reside in:

    http://search.aol.co.uk/aol/image?q=nottingham+tower+blocks&v_t=client97-sb

    ;-)
  • AndyJS said:


    purpose built flat, high rise 1.5%"

    In one line, the reason why London has the highest property prices in Europe while we worry about urban sprawl. Are there any other major cities in Europe that don't have a significant proportion of tall blocks? If we're all aspiring to have houses and gardens, of course we'll concrete over the country.

    London does also have massive green spaces like Richmond Park, Hyde Park and Hampstead Heath.
  • TomTom Posts: 273
    Are there any other major cities in Europe that don't have a significant proportion of tall blocks?

    Paris, central parts of Rome or Madrid. Barcelona mostly 5 to 6 storeys. In fact most parts of any of the large European Cities you would actually want to live in. Your examples of v high rise are mainly non-European - parts of Manhattan (but not as much as you'd think), HK and Tokyo. Former East Berlin and Moscow at a push.

    Also those figures are I assume UK. London will be much more dense, inner London, the only place where further building is being pushed, even more so. London Plan targets for outer London are a very small %age of the total. And this building is more expensive, as is the land - see NYC, HK and Tokyo.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,568

    AndyJS said:


    purpose built flat, high rise 1.5%"

    In one line, the reason why London has the highest property prices in Europe while we worry about urban sprawl. Are there any other major cities in Europe that don't have a significant proportion of tall blocks? If we're all aspiring to have houses and gardens, of course we'll concrete over the country.

    Wasn't your constituency home in Nottingham a bungalow Nick ?

    When you could have had any of these delights to reside in:

    http://search.aol.co.uk/aol/image?q=nottingham+tower+blocks&v_t=client97-sb

    ;-)
    It's a fair cop, Richard. But I'm not the only one who got a say in where I lived. The blocks would have been fine with me.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,568
    Tom said:

    Are there any other major cities in Europe that don't have a significant proportion of tall blocks?

    Paris, central parts of Rome or Madrid. Barcelona mostly 5 to 6 storeys. In fact most parts of any of the large European Cities you would actually want to live in. Your examples of v high rise are mainly non-European - parts of Manhattan (but not as much as you'd think), HK and Tokyo. Former East Berlin and Moscow at a push.

    Also those figures are I assume UK. London will be much more dense, inner London, the only place where further building is being pushed, even more so. London Plan targets for outer London are a very small %age of the total. And this building is more expensive, as is the land - see NYC, HK and Tokyo.

    Pretty sure I've seen some tall blocks in Seine St Denis, though I appreciate that it's not everyone's favourite? (I have a Tory cousin with a Communist wife who lives in one, I think - love conquers all etc.) There are certainly lots of nice ones in Copenhagen (I grew up in one). But perhaps I was generalising too much.

  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    Thanks to thorny90 on VoteUK for these:

    "Labour selection dates

    ALDRIDGE-BROWNHILLS
    Final Hustings and Count: Sat 08 Feb 2014

    BASILDON & BILLERICAY
    Final Hustings and Count: Sun 19 Jan 2014

    BRAINTREE
    Final Hustings and Count: Sat 01 Feb 2014

    BROMLEY & CHISLEHURST
    Final Hustings and Count: Sat 14 Dec 2013

    CAMBORNE & REDRUTH
    Final Hustings and Count: Sat 25 Jan 2014

    EAST DEVON
    Final Hustings and Count: Wed 15 Jan 2014

    LEEDS EAST
    Final Hustings and Count: Sat 25 Jan 2014

    LICHFIELD
    Final Hustings and Count: Fri 18 Jan 2013

    NORTH THANET
    Final Hustings and Count: Fri 22 Feb 2014

    ORPINGTON
    Final Hustings and Count: Thurs 12 Dec 2013

    SOUTH WEST BEDFORDSHIRE
    Final Hustings and Count: Sat 18 Jan 2014"
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 43,471
    edited December 2013

    One for NickPalmer, possibly NSFW, is about computer programming in Germany, from the 80s

    Ian Berriman ‏@ianberriman 8m

    Computers=SEXY RT @SteveWHamp: from November 1983

    pic.twitter.com/0AehiSjDCq

    The previous piccie was good as well:

    twitter.com/computermuseum/status/406810708853018624/photo/1
This discussion has been closed.