The big unknown or the next election is, what will happen to the Brexit Party vote?
Most of it seems to have come from Labour. If that is so, it cost them a great many seats - e.g. Blyth Valley, Durham North West, Delyn. So if it goes back, they should have a decent shout of regaining many of them.
However, another way of looking at it is that in 38 seats, the Brexit Party vote was larger than the Labour majority. So if Nigel Farage had not been a dimwitted egomaniac, the Tories might have picked up Doncaster North, Normanton, Alyn and Deeside, Torfaen, both seats in Newport and all seats in Coventry if Leave voters had coalesced around them. So if that Brexit vote shifted to the Tories, Starmer’s task is even harder.
Therefore, I am reluctant to make firm predictions about the next election. Starmer could win, or force a draw, but he needs the dice to fall correctly. We could see considerable churn in both votes and seats - I could see Labour gaining Cheltenham (repeat Cheltenham) and falling further in Wales, for example, under his leadership.
Where the Brexit vote came from and where it would have gone otherwise is interesting.
I suspect it varies around the country.
In some places - Hartlepool and the Yorkshire mining constituencies I think it damaged the Conservatives, in other places it might have damaged Labour.
I will say that I've never seen such an expansive campaign as what TBP did in South Yorkshire - activists infesting town centres, masses of leaflets and even cars with speakers crawling through residential areas.
BTW there's no chance Labour will win Cheltenham - they lost their deposit there in 2019:
I know Cheltenham pretty well, and I disagree. I knew nobody would believe me which is why I put 'repeat Cheltenham'.
The thing is, it's exactly the sort of seat where a very large chunk of that Liberal Democrat vote would go with the soft left under Starmer (now Labour is not led by a racist nutter) rather than the soft right Davey is positioning the Yellows in. At the same time, much of the Tory vote will have no love for Johnson. I could see a Starmer-led Labour party picking up 10,000 remainers from the Tories who were panicked by Corbyn, and the same number from the LibDems who are unenthused by Davey.
So yes, Cheltenham is a seat where churn could be very interesting.
At the same time, I can easily see Labour losing both seats three stops down the railway line in Newport for exactly the same reasons.
Cheltenham is a sear which has never gone Labour but has gone LD, Tory Remainers there will not vote Labour but might vote LD
How to solve the housing crisis - which feeds into cramped accommodation for the poorest - exact money from the housing market and fill the boots of local councils. Oh, and provide alot of jobs building houses.
Foxy's suggestion of simply selling planning permission to build new properties - he suggested £100K a pop, I presume for a house.
Listening to reportage of the "big return to work". Government had the rail companies increase services and prepare for more people travelling as instructed - but appears to be very quiet as it was last week. This reluctance to resume normal as instructed will be the government's big problem. The row with teachers was largely irrelevant as polls have made it clear that parents aren't going to send their sprogs in when instructed. And it will be the same with work.
As a related aside, this TfL bailout is not good for Sadiq Khan's chances of re-election. Yes fares revenue was down 90% and a decent number of drivers were sick/dying. But the reduction in service provision was branded him putting workers at risk and the massive congestion charge increase is branded as him putting workers at risk...
A Tfl friend told me about his PPE - a 50ml bottle of hand sanitiser for 4 weeks.
That's interesting.
Personally, I live alone and have used a little over a litre of surgical spirit since March 15 ish, going out at most about 3 times a week plus exercise, and carrying a small bottle but mainly a ss-dampened cloth.
A colleague has used up his previous 20l supply as he has been the safety person for a village voluntary delivery network. He has now rigged up home electrolysis to manufacture a different suitable product.
He's manufacturing peroxide in a home made setup? I hope he knows what he is doing. And is doing it in a well ventilated space.....
Absolutely :-), but I believe it is hypochlorous acid not peroxide. You can get alleged generators online for about £20.
Shame - if he was doing peroxide and getting 40% at home.....
On the return to work - it's not going to an avalanche on the first day. It would be very surprising if a company un-furloughed all the staff and brought them in on day one. More likely that they will phase it in and try and match staff to demand.
A couple of manufacturers I know off, have been slowly increasing working staff for a while.
Listening to reportage of the "big return to work". Government had the rail companies increase services and prepare for more people travelling as instructed - but appears to be very quiet as it was last week. This reluctance to resume normal as instructed will be the government's big problem. The row with teachers was largely irrelevant as polls have made it clear that parents aren't going to send their sprogs in when instructed. And it will be the same with work.
Yes. A vocal minority, amplified by the press, has been protesting against the lockdown. I think a more silent minority - perhaps a majority - is not at all keen to come out of the lockdown. I think it's better that way round than the other.
Looking at the polling and from personal experience I would suggest it is a very large majority who still support the lockdown. Many of them will be people like me who have been working for home as normal and think a return to work is largely pointless. Many others will be those on furlough who are not at all reassured by the claims we are ready (in terms of safe working) for a return to work and think they are being used as guinea pigs.
The big unknown or the next election is, what will happen to the Brexit Party vote?
Most of it seems to have come from Labour. If that is so, it cost them a great many seats - e.g. Blyth Valley, Durham North West, Delyn. So if it goes back, they should have a decent shout of regaining many of them.
However, another way of looking at it is that in 38 seats, the Brexit Party vote was larger than the Labour majority. So if Nigel Farage had not been a dimwitted egomaniac, the Tories might have picked up Doncaster North, Normanton, Alyn and Deeside, Torfaen, both seats in Newport and all seats in Coventry if Leave voters had coalesced around them. So if that Brexit vote shifted to the Tories, Starmer’s task is even harder.
Therefore, I am reluctant to make firm predictions about the next election. Starmer could win, or force a draw, but he needs the dice to fall correctly. We could see considerable churn in both votes and seats - I could see Labour gaining Cheltenham (repeat Cheltenham) and falling further in Wales, for example, under his leadership.
Where the Brexit vote came from and where it would have gone otherwise is interesting.
I suspect it varies around the country.
In some places - Hartlepool and the Yorkshire mining constituencies I think it damaged the Conservatives, in other places it might have damaged Labour.
I will say that I've never seen such an expansive campaign as what TBP did in South Yorkshire - activists infesting town centres, masses of leaflets and even cars with speakers crawling through residential areas.
BTW there's no chance Labour will win Cheltenham - they lost their deposit there in 2019:
I know Cheltenham pretty well, and I disagree. I knew nobody would believe me which is why I put 'repeat Cheltenham'.
The thing is, it's exactly the sort of seat where a very large chunk of that Liberal Democrat vote would go with the soft left under Starmer (now Labour is not led by a racist nutter) rather than the soft right Davey is positioning the Yellows in. At the same time, much of the Tory vote will have no love for Johnson. I could see a Starmer-led Labour party picking up 10,000 remainers from the Tories who were panicked by Corbyn, and the same number from the LibDems who are unenthused by Davey.
So yes, Cheltenham is a seat where churn could be very interesting.
At the same time, I can easily see Labour losing both seats three stops down the railway line in Newport for exactly the same reasons.
For that to happen Starmer and Labour would have to get Blair 1997 levels of enthusiasm.
Actually they would need to exceed them significantly.
The thing is, it's exactly the sort of seat where a very large chunk of that Liberal Democrat vote would go with the soft left under Starmer (now Labour is not led by a racist nutter) rather than the soft right Davey is positioning the Yellows in. At the same time, much of the Tory vote will have no love for Johnson. I could see a Starmer-led Labour party picking up 10,000 remainers from the Tories who were panicked by Corbyn, and the same number from the LibDems who are unenthused by Davey.
My 6 month loan to the LibDems ultimately came to a crashing halt when I realised that the LibDems remain utterly torn between the "lets work with the Tories" and "lets work with "Labour" camps. My local party was firmly the latter (complete with an exec who openly decided to work towards the re-election of the Labour MP), others were firmly the other way.
I posted on this forum that I wanted to bridge the political divide between the hard left (Corbyn Labour) and hard right (Johnson Tory). The collapse of the Tiggers and the defection of most of them to the LibDems was my trigger to follow the Tiggers. Problem was that the LibDems had literally no idea what to do with them. You couldn't put the Labour defectors into the lean Labour camp, or the Tory defectors into the lean Tory camp.
The 2019 election was a rare one where fear of one candidate drove all other decisions. That simply won't be the case in 2024, which puts people back into broadly what kind of country they want. Brexit will have been done and dusted by then with the outturn from that no longer up for debate. So we move on. If the LibDems are smart they will have forged a new internationalist path which is broader than just being pro-EU. If they're smart...
Can I ask a stupid question of this article, as a non -statistician: If it were really true that election results are 'more like the roll of a dice than GDP statistics' then the chances of any party standing in all seats (The LDs come to mind) to win the election must be very high - much higher than the bookies make it. I have missed the point somewhere. Where?
Can I ask a stupid question of this article, as a non -statistician: If it were really true that election results are 'more like the roll of a dice than GDP statistics' then the chances of any party standing in all seats (The LDs come to mind) to win the election must be very high - much higher than the bookies make it. I have missed the point somewhere. Where?
Presumably the Top 2 are serially autocorrelated (as they seem to be in Cheltenham @ydoethur).
The mayor of Brazil's largest city, São Paulo, has said its health system could collapse as demand grows for emergency beds to deal with coronavirus cases. Bruno Covas said the city's public hospitals had reached 90% and could run out of space in about two weeks.
Brazil is not a third-world country by any means. A chilling reminder of what can happen when a stupid, ignorant denialist is in control and sticks to his guns.
Can I ask a stupid question of this article, as a non -statistician: If it were really true that election results are 'more like the roll of a dice than GDP statistics' then the chances of any party standing in all seats (The LDs come to mind) to win the election must be very high - much higher than the bookies make it. I have missed the point somewhere. Where?
Presumably the Top 2 are serially autocorrelated (as they seem to be in Cheltenham @ydoethur).
How to solve the housing crisis - which feeds into cramped accommodation for the poorest - exact money from the housing market and fill the boots of local councils. Oh, and provide alot of jobs building houses.
Foxy's suggestion of simply selling planning permission to build new properties - he suggested £100K a pop, I presume for a house.
Let it rip.
Absolutely, a long term advocate of this.
It is not uncommon for it to happen now anyway, but the payment to be much less than that (and often in favours not cash) to local officials involved in the process.
My thought is that if return is made voluntary (and I think compulsion would result in mass truancy) it is the most deprived children who are least likely to return.
Maybe as simple as poor people feeling that social advancement through education is not on the cards for their children. Interesting though.
I think in general well-off parents prioritise their children' education. Poorer parents prioritise their childrens' safety.
Worrying if true (and you may be right). Well-off parents in general have more alternatives - with money, time and a good education yourself you can set up really good home education facilities.
We also see and recognise a first time incumbency bonus for MPs driven partly by this funding but also harder working MPs aware that they have only just gained the seat and need to consolidate. Many Tory MPs are in that position now with seats in previously alien territory. The incumbency bonus can be looked at another way. Since 1979 (41 years depressingly) there have been 2.5 changes in government (allowing for the Coalition). If Fishing was right surely we would see more changes of government than that?
Good points, but I'd argue:
a) the analysis is over a century, not over the last four decades. I did do subsamples, but they're probably too small to be statistically robust, and actually give perverse results, so I didn't put much weight on them b) a technical point is that the analysis looks at seat share, not governing party, which is different c) arguably, there have been five changes of government since 1980, depending on how you define the coalitions, which in ten elections is roughly what you'd expect (Con Maj changed to Lab Maj in 97, changed to Con Coalition in 10, changed to Con Maj in 15, changed to Con/DUP arrangement in 17, changed to Con Maj in 19). Even if we allow only a 0.5 value for the coalition changes, that's still 3.5 out of 10, which, on such a small subsample, is I think consistent with no serial autocorrelation.
How to solve the housing crisis - which feeds into cramped accommodation for the poorest - exact money from the housing market and fill the boots of local councils. Oh, and provide alot of jobs building houses.
Foxy's suggestion of simply selling planning permission to build new properties - he suggested £100K a pop, I presume for a house.
Let it rip.
Absolutely, a long term advocate of this.
It is not uncommon for it to happen now anyway, but the payment to be much less than that (and often in favours not cash) to local officials involved in the process.
You can't buy a planning officer. But you can rent one.
I actually think it is a testament to the lack of corruption in this country that every official in the planning process *isn't* driving a 6 figure car.
What Labour fail to comprehend is their voters in the North loathe the London centric approach. Starmer will do nothing to assuage them.
These people are pro Brexit and anti immigration, the antithesis of Starmer
Hence Home Counties and London marginal seats like Wycombe and Chingford and Woodford Green and Chipping Barnet, all Tory even in 1997 and 2001 now are easier Labour targets with smaller Tory majorities than northern Leave seats like Great Grimsby and Bishop Auckland and Penistone and Stocksbridge which only fell to the Tories last year
If the LibDems are smart they will have forged a new internationalist path which is broader than just being pro-EU. If they're smart...
Hmmm.
Pro-USA or pro-China?
pro-EU looks like the smart bet...
I'm saying broader because when you deadlock in a negotiation you have to broaden the deal. When we crash out to "WTO Terms", find the WTO Terms don't work and then watch the EU recover as we don't there will be a lot of people who will blame the EU. Trying to tie yourself to the perceived bad guy and hectoring people for being stupid enough to believe they are the bad guy won't work.
Can I ask a stupid question of this article, as a non -statistician: If it were really true that election results are 'more like the roll of a dice than GDP statistics' then the chances of any party standing in all seats (The LDs come to mind) to win the election must be very high - much higher than the bookies make it. I have missed the point somewhere. Where?
Presumably the Top 2 are serially autocorrelated (as they seem to be in Cheltenham @ydoethur).
Could you put that into non-statisticians English
The Tories and Labour have come first and second since 1922.
We also see and recognise a first time incumbency bonus for MPs driven partly by this funding but also harder working MPs aware that they have only just gained the seat and need to consolidate. Many Tory MPs are in that position now with seats in previously alien territory. The incumbency bonus can be looked at another way. Since 1979 (41 years depressingly) there have been 2.5 changes in government (allowing for the Coalition). If Fishing was right surely we would see more changes of government than that?
Good points, but I'd argue:
a) the analysis is over a century, not over the last four decades. I did do subsamples, but they're probably too small to be statistically robust, and actually give perverse results, so I didn't put much weight on them b) a technical point is that the analysis looks at seat share, not governing party, which is different c) arguably, there have been five changes of government since 1980, depending on how you define the coalitions, which in ten elections is roughly what you'd expect (Con Maj changed to Lab Maj in 97, changed to Con Coalition in 10, changed to Con Maj in 15, changed to Con/DUP arrangement in 17, changed to Con Maj in 19). Even if we allow only a 0.5 value for the coalition changes, that's still 3.5 out of 10, which, on such a small subsample, is I think consistent with no serial autocorrelation.
I take the point about the seat share but in substance we have had since 1980 17 years of Tory rule followed by 13 years of Labour rule followed by 10 years (and counting) of Tory dominated rule. This suggests to me that changes in government are relatively rare and need something dramatic to happen which in turn suggests that there is an autocorrelation bias arising from the previous result.
How to solve the housing crisis - which feeds into cramped accommodation for the poorest - exact money from the housing market and fill the boots of local councils. Oh, and provide alot of jobs building houses.
Foxy's suggestion of simply selling planning permission to build new properties - he suggested £100K a pop, I presume for a house.
Let it rip.
Absolutely, a long term advocate of this.
It is not uncommon for it to happen now anyway, but the payment to be much less than that (and often in favours not cash) to local officials involved in the process.
You can't buy a planning officer. But you can rent one.
I actually think it is a testament to the lack of corruption in this country that every official in the planning process *isn't* driving a 6 figure car.
Oh as a nation we do plenty of corruption we are just more subtle about it:
Get our children into a particular school Use a holiday home for free or cheap Get an overpaid non exec role
@CarlottaVance Desperate news for Carlotta, it looks like the Scottish Government have hired at least 600 Contract Tracers since Carlotta swore late yesterday that ZERO had been hired. 600 hired on a Sunday night and starting work today seems pretty good going.
You really are a disingenuous arse. There have not been 600 “hired”. The 600 are the STD tracers already in place ready to be reassigned
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman tells the BBC that 2,000 workers will be ready to start contact tracing on 1 June.
She explains that the testing, which is being piloted in three health boards, is a test of the technology.
She says there already 600 contact tracers ready to work. These are teams who already do the work for sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis.
My thought is that if return is made voluntary (and I think compulsion would result in mass truancy) it is the most deprived children who are least likely to return.
Maybe as simple as poor people feeling that social advancement through education is not on the cards for their children. Interesting though.
I think in general well-off parents prioritise their children' education. Poorer parents prioritise their childrens' safety.
Worrying if true (and you may be right). Well-off parents in general have more alternatives - with money, time and a good education yourself you can set up really good home education facilities.
The other possibility is that the consequences of an infection in the family are worse the lower down the social scale you go. Smaller homes, less likely to be able to WFH.
Intuitively you'd expect the biggest changes to occur when there is a substantial change of leader in one party or the other from one election to the next - and for that change to be net positive if the leader is perceived as substantially superior to their predessecor. (Kinnock -> Blair); Howard -> Cameron; Heath -> Thatcher
Starmer clearly is a large upgrade from Corbyn and the Tories have been in power for a long time now. Working on the basis of non correlation with the 2020 General Election would seem sensible for GE 24 analysis. If the polls have Starmer in a position to become PM prior to the election, he has a very good chance of forming a Labour Gov't.
My thought is that if return is made voluntary (and I think compulsion would result in mass truancy) it is the most deprived children who are least likely to return.
Maybe as simple as poor people feeling that social advancement through education is not on the cards for their children. Interesting though.
I don't know if families with children headed by a single parent could be another factor causing this reluctance? Clearly covid 19 has terrified many people and it's possible this is more pronounced in women? If so, women make-up most single parents and as such won't be influeced by another parent potentially holding a diverging view about going back to school. Families with children headed by a single parent may also be more adverse to taking any risk of bringing covid 19 into their household given they shoulder sole responsibility for looking after everything?
How to solve the housing crisis - which feeds into cramped accommodation for the poorest - exact money from the housing market and fill the boots of local councils. Oh, and provide alot of jobs building houses.
Foxy's suggestion of simply selling planning permission to build new properties - he suggested £100K a pop, I presume for a house.
Let it rip.
Very simplistic, unfortunately.
There are whole swathes of the country where you can buy a newbuild house for not much more than that.
Consider CiL (Community Infrastructure Levy), which was supposed to help iron out the inconsistencies of Planning Gain taxes - even nearly a decade later it is still only adopted in 1/3 of local authorities.
On a separate note the housing crisis is perhaps closer to being 'solved' than many think. Social housing waiting lists (which represent people who would prefer to live in social housing as well as "need") are 40% down since the coalition, and FTBers taking out mortgages doubled in the last couple of years.
We don't know what the Corona-effect will be, and we need to know first.
Can I ask a stupid question of this article, as a non -statistician: If it were really true that election results are 'more like the roll of a dice than GDP statistics' then the chances of any party standing in all seats (The LDs come to mind) to win the election must be very high - much higher than the bookies make it. I have missed the point somewhere. Where?
The point about the dice is that one throw of the dice does not influence the next, but it doesn't follow that all chances of victory are equal.
For a six-sided dice you might have Tory victory = 1-4, Labour victory = 5-6, Liberal victory = oops.
My thought is that if return is made voluntary (and I think compulsion would result in mass truancy) it is the most deprived children who are least likely to return.
Maybe as simple as poor people feeling that social advancement through education is not on the cards for their children. Interesting though.
I don't know if families with children headed by a single parent could be another factor causing this reluctance? Clearly covid 19 has terrified many people and it's possible this is more pronounced in women? If so, women make-up most single parents and as such won't be influeced by another parent potentially holding a diverging view about going back to school. Families with children headed by a single parent may also be more adverse to taking any risk of bringing covid 19 into their household given they shoulder sole responsibility for looking after everything?
He's getting lost in the detail. By far the most important thing in that chart is how many parents don't want to send their children back to school. Even the figures for the lowest quintile show a lot of resistance to the idea.
How to solve the housing crisis - which feeds into cramped accommodation for the poorest - exact money from the housing market and fill the boots of local councils. Oh, and provide alot of jobs building houses.
Foxy's suggestion of simply selling planning permission to build new properties - he suggested £100K a pop, I presume for a house.
Let it rip.
Very simplistic, unfortunately.
There are whole swathes of the country where you can buy a newbuild house for not much more than that.
Consider CiL (Community Infrastructure Levy), which was supposed to help iron out the inconsistencies of Planning Gain taxes - even nearly a decade later it is still only adopted in 1/3 of local authorities.
On a separate note the housing crisis is perhaps closer to being 'solved' than many think. Social housing waiting lists (which represent people who would prefer to live in social housing as well as "need") are 40% down since the coalition, and FTBers taking out mortgages doubled in the last couple of years.
We don't know what the Corona-effect will be, and we need to know first.
Obviously, the price will depend on the locality.
I mean, instead of blocking the planning process, rationing housing, let rip.
Chiswick, for example, was (largely) built in a handful of years - fields to suburb. There is a map online showing how they laid out the street plan and let the developers do the rest.
At a g.e., there's surely an advantage to a governing Party with a large majority if it's thought to have served the nation well. It remains to be seen to what extent the present government can succeed in defending itself against charges of mismanagement. 'Working day and night to ---', 'working round the clock to ---' 'challenges .....' may not hack it.
@CarlottaVance Desperate news for Carlotta, it looks like the Scottish Government have hired at least 600 Contract Tracers since Carlotta swore late yesterday that ZERO had been hired. 600 hired on a Sunday night and starting work today seems pretty good going.
You really are a disingenuous arse. There have not been 600 “hired”. The 600 are the STD tracers already in place ready to be reassigned
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman tells the BBC that 2,000 workers will be ready to start contact tracing on 1 June.
She explains that the testing, which is being piloted in three health boards, is a test of the technology.
She says there already 600 contact tracers ready to work. These are teams who already do the work for sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis.
Malcolmg is the Nat equivalent of HYUFD. Nicola could tell him the moon was made of cheese an he would ask her what variety. I always find it very odd that someone who is so critical of everyone else could be so gullible when it comes to messages from their own side.
My thought is that if return is made voluntary (and I think compulsion would result in mass truancy) it is the most deprived children who are least likely to return.
Maybe as simple as poor people feeling that social advancement through education is not on the cards for their children. Interesting though.
I think in general well-off parents prioritise their children' education. Poorer parents prioritise their childrens' safety.
Can I ask a stupid question of this article, as a non -statistician: If it were really true that election results are 'more like the roll of a dice than GDP statistics' then the chances of any party standing in all seats (The LDs come to mind) to win the election must be very high - much higher than the bookies make it. I have missed the point somewhere. Where?
The point about the dice is that one throw of the dice does not influence the next, but it doesn't follow that all chances of victory are equal.
For a six-sided dice you might have Tory victory = 1-4, Labour victory = 5-6, Liberal victory = oops.
It's not a stupid question at all, it's a pretty subtle point.
LP is exactly right, and that's why I used (following the advice of another PB-er) the example of two dice, rather than one. With two dice, you have a 1/6 chance of rolling a 7, but only a 1/36 chance of a 2 or a 12. But the odds are the same whatever the previous roll is.
The odds of, for instance, getting a radically different unemployment number in most quarters (though not the current one) to the one you had previously are small. Unemployment may vary over time between 3% and 15%, but if this quarter's is 6%, next quarter's will be between 5% and 7% most of the time. Whereas the roll of two dice has the same probability whatever it was last time.
On people's reluctance to quickly go back to work / school / restaurants - what do you expect? People aren't as stupid as the cabinet ministers who patronise us every day at teatime. If they sent out someone serious like Gove every day then maybe, but people aren't going to take direction from spoons like Williamson Jenrick and (giggles) Raaaaaab. Its obvious to normals (who aren't chanting fealty to either Tory or Labour) that things in the UK are worse than in most other countries and when their governments force masks and our meekly suggests you wear one but its up to your common sense its no wonder they are struggling with trust of what we are being told.
On which seats are now pro Tory / Labour leaning targets my advice is simple. We are in the middle of a political and societal watershed. Clinging to the state of affairs as far back as March when the outturn will be radically different feels like a waste of time. I have little interest in trying to call an election in May 2024 now as I can barely call June 2020. The role of the government now is to provide clear leadership and of the opposition to provide critique to that leadership. That is all. Positioning towards an election a million years into the future is for the birds.
What Labour fail to comprehend is their voters in the North loathe the London centric approach. Starmer will do nothing to assuage them.
These people are pro Brexit and anti immigration, the antithesis of Starmer
Hence Home Counties and London marginal seats like Wycombe and Chingford and Woodford Green and Chipping Barnet, all Tory even in 1997 and 2001 now are easier Labour targets with smaller Tory majorities than northern Leave seats like Great Grimsby and Bishop Auckland and Penistone and Stocksbridge which only fell to the Tories last year
The latter only fell because of Corbyn. Even if one buys your Brexit hypothesis, trad Labour voters no longer need to vote Tory for that reason. Brexit obsessives will bleat about Starmer wanting to take us back in, but it will fall on deaf ears. My guess is that we will see almost all the trad Labour seats return to Labour. If the Tories do lose the next election, which I consider very possible, the Tories will be out for a generation. It will be some legacy for your mate "Boris".
On topic, thanks to @Fishing for a very clear, very interesting and counter-intuitive piece. It feels all wrong but I'm not equipped to argue with the maths.
How to solve the housing crisis - which feeds into cramped accommodation for the poorest - exact money from the housing market and fill the boots of local councils. Oh, and provide alot of jobs building houses.
Foxy's suggestion of simply selling planning permission to build new properties - he suggested £100K a pop, I presume for a house.
Let it rip.
Very simplistic, unfortunately.
There are whole swathes of the country where you can buy a newbuild house for not much more than that.
Consider CiL (Community Infrastructure Levy), which was supposed to help iron out the inconsistencies of Planning Gain taxes - even nearly a decade later it is still only adopted in 1/3 of local authorities.
On a separate note the housing crisis is perhaps closer to being 'solved' than many think. Social housing waiting lists (which represent people who would prefer to live in social housing as well as "need") are 40% down since the coalition, and FTBers taking out mortgages doubled in the last couple of years.
We don't know what the Corona-effect will be, and we need to know first.
Obviously, the price will depend on the locality.
I mean, instead of blocking the planning process, rationing housing, let rip.
Chiswick, for example, was (largely) built in a handful of years - fields to suburb. There is a map online showing how they laid out the street plan and let the developers do the rest.
We need to spread building and development around the country, not simply add to London's sprawl. A greater degree of central planning might be needed.
Seamless how we've gone from "Sweden is trending strongly downward" to "you can't compare Sweden with the rest of the world".
Anyone holding up Sweden as a model to follow for economic reasons also tends to gloss over the fact that economically, it doesn't seem that great a route.
In short, while they might be following a slightly better route for themselves (dependent on whether or not they successfully protect their older population, or avoid a second wave in autumn, or no vaccine is ever found and they find the way to adjust to long-term running under some restrictions), not only is it inapplicable to a country as densely populated and interconnected as the UK, and it doesn't give a significantly better economic outcome. The fundamental problem is the coronavirus, which doesn't go away under that route, either.
My thought is that if return is made voluntary (and I think compulsion would result in mass truancy) it is the most deprived children who are least likely to return.
Maybe as simple as poor people feeling that social advancement through education is not on the cards for their children. Interesting though.
That matches the reality, those in greatest need have been targetted as being abke yo attend school at the moment yet the number doing so is very poor. The argument about schools opening further to address inequality is spurious,
You address inequality by addressing inequality.
If people at the Telegraph and Mail really do mean what they claim, can we expect a campaign on this or are they, as suspected, yet again using the poor for political point scoring (I know, the answer is obvious)? Enough of this ‘middle class’ parents being the problem as well, while we’re at it.
The greater issue there is that, even on those numbers, it makes the job of running equal education impossible. A half and half, in and out school is not practical, given staffing numbers and the ‘in’ part will be maybe two or three days a week in any case. It would be more useful to use this time to target those who need it most, otherwise those inequalities will just grow and grow.
Can I ask a stupid question of this article, as a non -statistician: If it were really true that election results are 'more like the roll of a dice than GDP statistics' then the chances of any party standing in all seats (The LDs come to mind) to win the election must be very high - much higher than the bookies make it. I have missed the point somewhere. Where?
The point about the dice is that one throw of the dice does not influence the next, but it doesn't follow that all chances of victory are equal.
For a six-sided dice you might have Tory victory = 1-4, Labour victory = 5-6, Liberal victory = oops.
It's not a stupid question at all, it's a pretty subtle point.
LP is exactly right, and that's why I used (following the advice of another PB-er) the example of two dice, rather than one. With two dice, you have a 1/6 chance of rolling a 7, but only a 1/36 chance of a 2 or a 12. But the odds are the same whatever the previous roll is.
The odds of, for instance, getting a radically different unemployment number in most quarters (though not the current one) to the one you had previously are small. Unemployment may vary over time between 3% and 15%, but if this quarter's is 6%, next quarter's will be between 5% and 7% most of the time. Whereas the roll of two dice has the same probability whatever it was last time.
Fishing - just to be clear, we're talking about the predictive strength of the current parliament (let's say, Tory majority 70) to predict the next parliament (Tory majority 12) - and not the change in majority?
How to solve the housing crisis - which feeds into cramped accommodation for the poorest - exact money from the housing market and fill the boots of local councils. Oh, and provide alot of jobs building houses.
Foxy's suggestion of simply selling planning permission to build new properties - he suggested £100K a pop, I presume for a house.
Let it rip.
Very simplistic, unfortunately.
There are whole swathes of the country where you can buy a newbuild house for not much more than that.
Consider CiL (Community Infrastructure Levy), which was supposed to help iron out the inconsistencies of Planning Gain taxes - even nearly a decade later it is still only adopted in 1/3 of local authorities.
On a separate note the housing crisis is perhaps closer to being 'solved' than many think. Social housing waiting lists (which represent people who would prefer to live in social housing as well as "need") are 40% down since the coalition, and FTBers taking out mortgages doubled in the last couple of years.
We don't know what the Corona-effect will be, and we need to know first.
Obviously, the price will depend on the locality.
I mean, instead of blocking the planning process, rationing housing, let rip.
Chiswick, for example, was (largely) built in a handful of years - fields to suburb. There is a map online showing how they laid out the street plan and let the developers do the rest.
We need to spread building and development around the country, not simply add to London's sprawl. A greater degree of central planning might be needed.
Quite a few years back, under Blair, it was suggested that refugees should be spread out across the country more. Rather than concentrated in London, the most expensive location.
Human rights campaigners claimed that it was a human right to live in London (existing communities), and that it would inhumane to send them to Glasgow.
What Labour fail to comprehend is their voters in the North loathe the London centric approach. Starmer will do nothing to assuage them.
These people are pro Brexit and anti immigration, the antithesis of Starmer
Hence Home Counties and London marginal seats like Wycombe and Chingford and Woodford Green and Chipping Barnet, all Tory even in 1997 and 2001 now are easier Labour targets with smaller Tory majorities than northern Leave seats like Great Grimsby and Bishop Auckland and Penistone and Stocksbridge which only fell to the Tories last year
The latter only fell because of Corbyn. Even if one buys your Brexit hypothesis, trad Labour voters no longer need to vote Tory for that reason. Brexit obsessives will bleat about Starmer wanting to take us back in, but it will fall on deaf ears. My guess is that we will see almost all the trad Labour seats return to Labour. If the Tories do lose the next election, which I consider very possible, the Tories will be out for a generation. It will be some legacy for your mate "Boris".
Once people break the habit of tribal voting, their votes are up for grabs. The collapse of the red wall means it will never go back to what it was.
To gain an overall majority Starmer will need to win 124 or more seats, something only 2 party leaders, Attlee in 1945 and Blair in 1997 have achieved.
It is not impossible but a big ask and essentially requires a Labour landslide
The point of the article is that to win an overall majority, Starmer needs to win 325 or more seats. That this is 124 more than he currently holds is possibly less relevant than we originally believe.
I was dubious, but it seems to hold up. In fact, when I had a look, the main correlation seemed to be a reversion to the mean for the Big Two. That is, when you have loads of seats, the pressure is down; when you have fewer, the pressure is up.
This is also compatible with no/minimal autocorrelation.
You could view it as two electoral pressures in different directions that cancel out: - When you have loads of seats, you have to try to hang on to them. Price of power, plus being spread thin with loads of narrow majorities (which is inevitable under that scenario) and holding seats which have had a tendency to vote the other way (also inevitable if you've gained them fairly recently) push you down. - When you have loads of seats, you've been successful, you have the opportunity to spread the largesse, and you could gain incumbency, which tends to resist the push down.
If these cancel out (or come close to it), you get no (or minimal) serial autocorrelation.
What Labour fail to comprehend is their voters in the North loathe the London centric approach. Starmer will do nothing to assuage them.
These people are pro Brexit and anti immigration, the antithesis of Starmer
The same people that were anti joining the Euro, but then voted for Blair over and over. Brexiteers are even more obsessed by Brexit than I am, and they are completely blinkered by it. Most ex Labour voters voted Tory (or didn't vote at all) not because of Brexit, but because of Corbyn. It was a choice between a Tory clown or a Labour terrorist sympathiser. They thought the clown the lesser of the two evils. Next time it will be a choice between proven incompetent Tory clown or Labour metropolitan lawyer. They will choose the Labour metropole without hesitation.
Fishing - just to be clear, we're talking about the predictive strength of the current parliament (let's say, Tory majority 70) to predict the next parliament (Tory majority 12) - and not the change in majority?
Strictly, because the time series tested was the proportion of Conservative seats out of the total, we're talking about the predicted proportion in 2024 as a function of the proportion in 2019.
How to solve the housing crisis - which feeds into cramped accommodation for the poorest - exact money from the housing market and fill the boots of local councils. Oh, and provide alot of jobs building houses.
Foxy's suggestion of simply selling planning permission to build new properties - he suggested £100K a pop, I presume for a house.
Let it rip.
Very simplistic, unfortunately.
There are whole swathes of the country where you can buy a newbuild house for not much more than that.
Consider CiL (Community Infrastructure Levy), which was supposed to help iron out the inconsistencies of Planning Gain taxes - even nearly a decade later it is still only adopted in 1/3 of local authorities.
On a separate note the housing crisis is perhaps closer to being 'solved' than many think. Social housing waiting lists (which represent people who would prefer to live in social housing as well as "need") are 40% down since the coalition, and FTBers taking out mortgages doubled in the last couple of years.
We don't know what the Corona-effect will be, and we need to know first.
Obviously, the price will depend on the locality.
I mean, instead of blocking the planning process, rationing housing, let rip.
Chiswick, for example, was (largely) built in a handful of years - fields to suburb. There is a map online showing how they laid out the street plan and let the developers do the rest.
However having lived in 2 separate places in Chiswick, it is hardly the most attractive place in the world, and the build quality of much (particularly) Georgian but also Victorian speculative development around London is appallingly poor. How much of Chiswick would still be green space under this suggestion?
What Planning controls would you leave in place. Offstreet parking? Bin stores? Room sizes? Ability of heating to perform? Insulation quality? Ventilation requirements? Money needed to heat it? Does quality matter?
What about input from the local community - or should random person X from the Middle East with £100k be able to build a poor quality concrete blob in (say) Marlborough?
How important is raising X billion £££ in this.
A very complex question, as they always find out when they try to throw planning up in the air.
@CarlottaVance Desperate news for Carlotta, it looks like the Scottish Government have hired at least 600 Contract Tracers since Carlotta swore late yesterday that ZERO had been hired. 600 hired on a Sunday night and starting work today seems pretty good going.
You really are a disingenuous arse. There have not been 600 “hired”. The 600 are the STD tracers already in place ready to be reassigned
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman tells the BBC that 2,000 workers will be ready to start contact tracing on 1 June.
She explains that the testing, which is being piloted in three health boards, is a test of the technology.
She says there already 600 contact tracers ready to work. These are teams who already do the work for sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis.
In fairness the only place you can get the clap at the moment is 8.00pm on a Thursday so they probably have spare capacity. The lack of a working app is more of a problem.
What Labour fail to comprehend is their voters in the North loathe the London centric approach. Starmer will do nothing to assuage them.
These people are pro Brexit and anti immigration, the antithesis of Starmer
Hence Home Counties and London marginal seats like Wycombe and Chingford and Woodford Green and Chipping Barnet, all Tory even in 1997 and 2001 now are easier Labour targets with smaller Tory majorities than northern Leave seats like Great Grimsby and Bishop Auckland and Penistone and Stocksbridge which only fell to the Tories last year
The latter only fell because of Corbyn. Even if one buys your Brexit hypothesis, trad Labour voters no longer need to vote Tory for that reason. Brexit obsessives will bleat about Starmer wanting to take us back in, but it will fall on deaf ears. My guess is that we will see almost all the trad Labour seats return to Labour. If the Tories do lose the next election, which I consider very possible, the Tories will be out for a generation. It will be some legacy for your mate "Boris".
Once people break the habit of tribal voting, their votes are up for grabs. The collapse of the red wall means it will never go back to what it was.
You hope that is the case, of course, but time will tell. All the indicators so far look as though the primary reason was Corbyn. Brexit will have had some impact no doubt, but that will be much much less of an issue. If Starmer manages to get the Labour Party back to a position of respectability, ex-voters (and a number of disaffected Con voters) will vote for them. You don't change people's basic allegiance. I am still a Tory, and when the Conservative Party returns to being less extreme (which will most likely happen in about 10 years) I will most likely vote for it again.
What Labour fail to comprehend is their voters in the North loathe the London centric approach. Starmer will do nothing to assuage them.
These people are pro Brexit and anti immigration, the antithesis of Starmer
Hence Home Counties and London marginal seats like Wycombe and Chingford and Woodford Green and Chipping Barnet, all Tory even in 1997 and 2001 now are easier Labour targets with smaller Tory majorities than northern Leave seats like Great Grimsby and Bishop Auckland and Penistone and Stocksbridge which only fell to the Tories last year
The latter only fell because of Corbyn. Even if one buys your Brexit hypothesis, trad Labour voters no longer need to vote Tory for that reason. Brexit obsessives will bleat about Starmer wanting to take us back in, but it will fall on deaf ears. My guess is that we will see almost all the trad Labour seats return to Labour. If the Tories do lose the next election, which I consider very possible, the Tories will be out for a generation. It will be some legacy for your mate "Boris".
When the Tories took these seats it wasn't just because of Brexit - it was because of several decades of decline and the (correct) view that London had forgotten they exist. So people voted Tory for the first time because like Brexit something had offered them a possible future that was a bit less shit than what they had now.
The Tories then needed to throw an ocean of development cash at these areas to hold these seats. Brexit would no longer be a factor (indeed likely to be a negative if the IDS loon vision of Brexit transpires) which leaves offering something better than long term decline. Problem is that some of the new non-Labour councils elected last year have transpired to be a comedy act of ineptitude, and the MPs unexpectedly elected have said stupid things (Bishop Aukland), disappeared completely (Stockton South) etc and their government will switch off Furlough and switch on tax rises and More Cuts.
What Labour fail to comprehend is their voters in the North loathe the London centric approach. Starmer will do nothing to assuage them.
These people are pro Brexit and anti immigration, the antithesis of Starmer
With all due respect this homogenisation of "the North" is ludicrous. Voters in Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, York, Newcastle, of which there are many, remained solidly pro Labour in 2019. Yes, Labour does have a problem in smaller northern towns, and needs to overcome this - Lisa Nandy was good on this during the leadership election. Enough of the white working class in the towns liked Brexit, liked Boris, and didn't like immigration (which overlapped with liking Brexit) to win those seats in 2019. But the idea that these folk have suddenly become 'natural' Conservatives is highly dubious. Throughout the Blair years they still voted Labour despite its pro-European and pro-immigration rhetoric. And although Blair's own seat was in the north, that Labour government certainly had a strong whiff of London-centrism, metropolitan elite about it.
Worth saying that if the result of the previous election is not important, then the Tories may win more seats next time.
They may - but the further a result is away from the historical mean, the less likely it is.
In essence, say that last time they rolled a 10 on two dice. The dice have no memory (no autocorrelation), so the next roll is independent. They could beat it with an 11 or 12 (3 chances out of 36 when rolling two dice), but it's far more likely that it will be lower than higher. If there's no serial autocorrelation.
On people's reluctance to quickly go back to work / school / restaurants - what do you expect? People aren't as stupid as the cabinet ministers who patronise us every day at teatime. If they sent out someone serious like Gove every day then maybe, but people aren't going to take direction from spoons like Williamson Jenrick and (giggles) Raaaaaab. Its obvious to normals (who aren't chanting fealty to either Tory or Labour) that things in the UK are worse than in most other countries and when their governments force masks and our meekly suggests you wear one but its up to your common sense its no wonder they are struggling with trust of what we are being told.
Lack of trust will translate to lower demand & consumption. I think the countries with the best health outcomes will have the most robust internal consumption.
How to solve the housing crisis - which feeds into cramped accommodation for the poorest - exact money from the housing market and fill the boots of local councils. Oh, and provide alot of jobs building houses.
Foxy's suggestion of simply selling planning permission to build new properties - he suggested £100K a pop, I presume for a house.
Let it rip.
Very simplistic, unfortunately.
There are whole swathes of the country where you can buy a newbuild house for not much more than that.
Consider CiL (Community Infrastructure Levy), which was supposed to help iron out the inconsistencies of Planning Gain taxes - even nearly a decade later it is still only adopted in 1/3 of local authorities.
On a separate note the housing crisis is perhaps closer to being 'solved' than many think. Social housing waiting lists (which represent people who would prefer to live in social housing as well as "need") are 40% down since the coalition, and FTBers taking out mortgages doubled in the last couple of years.
We don't know what the Corona-effect will be, and we need to know first.
Obviously, the price will depend on the locality.
I mean, instead of blocking the planning process, rationing housing, let rip.
Chiswick, for example, was (largely) built in a handful of years - fields to suburb. There is a map online showing how they laid out the street plan and let the developers do the rest.
However having lived in 2 separate places in Chiswick, it is hardly the most attractive place in the world, and the build quality of much (particularly) Georgian but also Victorian speculative development around London is appallingly poor.
What Planning controls would you leave in place. Offstreet parking? Bin stores? Room sizes? Ability of heating to perform? Insulation quality? Ventilation requirements?
What about input from the local community - or should random person X from the Middle East with £100k be able to build a poor quality concrete blob in (say) Marlborough?
How important is raising X billion £££ in this.
A very complex question, as they always find out when they try to throw planning up in the air.
If it is so terrible, how come everyone is trying to buy property there? Not much Georgian rubbish there. It's all* Edwardian or later.
The simple truth is that planning is quite carefully and explicitly stopping the increase in house building. If more permissions are given, more will be built.
The idea that you need to give up the rest of the planning system, if you grant more permissions, doesn't make sense. Chiswick, for example, was planned - services constructed, plots allocated etc.
How to solve the housing crisis - which feeds into cramped accommodation for the poorest - exact money from the housing market and fill the boots of local councils. Oh, and provide alot of jobs building houses.
Foxy's suggestion of simply selling planning permission to build new properties - he suggested £100K a pop, I presume for a house.
Let it rip.
Absolutely, a long term advocate of this.
It is not uncommon for it to happen now anyway, but the payment to be much less than that (and often in favours not cash) to local officials involved in the process.
You can't buy a planning officer. But you can rent one.
I actually think it is a testament to the lack of corruption in this country that every official in the planning process *isn't* driving a 6 figure car.
O’Leary on R4 claiming 14 day quarantine won’t work but masks do - quoting a study that was conducted in a clinical setting. Doubt he’s made any friends in the government.
His argument that the government is making stuff up without any scientific foundation came across well.
I think “special pleading” would be a better description. He misleadingly quotes a study conducted in a hospital (where staff are trained in mask use and change them every 20 minutes) and passes that off as applicable in the general population. He says he doesn’t know where “14 days” comes from - hasn’t he heard of “incubation period”? Lord knows the governmentS have got plenty wrong on this - but O’Leary was downright irresponsible.
How do you police the 14 day quarantine? Simple. Random flights go into mandatory quarantine - so you don’t know if you’ll get home or not - and steep fines for those who break self quarantine.
Personally, I cannot see the point of 14 day quarantine now. For 10 weeks have most cases have been caught domestically rather than from foreign contacts. Nearly all travellers will be going to lower risk destinations than the UK itself.
Spoke with a dentist friend of mine at the weekend , who said the guidelines for dentistry are horrendous.
Full PPE for all staff Because they use air drills they need 30 mins between patients to let wet particles settle Plus a full wipe down after 30 mins
He reckons one patient per hour at best.
I suggest that those guidelines sound sensible, rather than horrendous. Though they will be horrendous in terms of earnings for dental practises.
As far as I know dentists are open and operating normally in Sweden and the Netherlands. They are saying don't come if you have symptoms of coronavirus, but otherwise they are not taking loads of precautions. Probably the dentists are wearing masks, but that is about all. They are following the official guidelines.
Right now, with the above regulations in the UK, dentists are simply not allowed to work. Due to the COVID regulations most dental care in the UK is effectively shut down until we get a vaccine. This will have serious long-term consequences for dental health with significant preventable loss of teeth and implications for general health as well. There is a proven link for example between gum disease and heart disease.
Starmer gives Labour a chance for the first time in 10-15 years. However small, that is progress.
that rather depends on your perspective
As a democrat, it’s progress. One party states fail.
As Blair showed us
We were better off then than now.
Only because he spent all the money at once.
The current government has spent more money than all of them. Global crises have a knack of doing that.
Boris was going to be a very big spender even before the crisis. Both here and in America the right have a knack of turning a blind eye when the spending, deficits and borrowing come from their own side.
Can we have a sensible conversation about planning policy before we flush through the societal changes of the virus? Who needs to buy rat trap flats in easy reach of the station to take you to London when your job is now WFH?
My guess is that we will see almost all the trad Labour seats return to Labour. If the Tories do lose the next election, which I consider very possible, the Tories will be out for a generation. It will be some legacy for your mate "Boris".
UNS will be a rough and ready guide to next election, the map has been reshaped... I think there's a whole slew of red-blue switching seats here in the north of the East Mids/rural South Yorkshire that I doubt PM Starmer will have. But he'll capture others - Altrincham and Sale West falls before Penistone and Stocksbridge for instance.
To gain an overall majority Starmer will need to win 124 or more seats, something only 2 party leaders, Attlee in 1945 and Blair in 1997 have achieved.
It is not impossible but a big ask and essentially requires a Labour landslide
The point of the article is that to win an overall majority, Starmer needs to win 325 or more seats. That this is 124 more than he currently holds is possibly less relevant than we originally believe.
I was dubious, but it seems to hold up. In fact, when I had a look, the main correlation seemed to be a reversion to the mean for the Big Two. That is, when you have loads of seats, the pressure is down; when you have fewer, the pressure is up.
This is also compatible with no/minimal autocorrelation.
You could view it as two electoral pressures in different directions that cancel out: - When you have loads of seats, you have to try to hang on to them. Price of power, plus being spread thin with loads of narrow majorities (which is inevitable under that scenario) and holding seats which have had a tendency to vote the other way (also inevitable if you've gained them fairly recently) push you down. - When you have loads of seats, you've been successful, you have the opportunity to spread the largesse, and you could gain incumbency, which tends to resist the push down.
If these cancel out (or come close to it), you get no (or minimal) serial autocorrelation.
There's also the point of sheer resources - once you fall below a certain level, it's very hard to come back, as the Liberals have demonstrated for the best part of a century.
If Corbyn had not gone, that might have happened to Labour.
What Labour fail to comprehend is their voters in the North loathe the London centric approach. Starmer will do nothing to assuage them.
These people are pro Brexit and anti immigration, the antithesis of Starmer
Hence Home Counties and London marginal seats like Wycombe and Chingford and Woodford Green and Chipping Barnet, all Tory even in 1997 and 2001 now are easier Labour targets with smaller Tory majorities than northern Leave seats like Great Grimsby and Bishop Auckland and Penistone and Stocksbridge which only fell to the Tories last year
The latter only fell because of Corbyn. Even if one buys your Brexit hypothesis, trad Labour voters no longer need to vote Tory for that reason. Brexit obsessives will bleat about Starmer wanting to take us back in, but it will fall on deaf ears. My guess is that we will see almost all the trad Labour seats return to Labour. If the Tories do lose the next election, which I consider very possible, the Tories will be out for a generation. It will be some legacy for your mate "Boris".
When the Tories took these seats it wasn't just because of Brexit - it was because of several decades of decline and the (correct) view that London had forgotten they exist. So people voted Tory for the first time because like Brexit something had offered them a possible future that was a bit less shit than what they had now.
The Tories then needed to throw an ocean of development cash at these areas to hold these seats. Brexit would no longer be a factor (indeed likely to be a negative if the IDS loon vision of Brexit transpires) which leaves offering something better than long term decline. Problem is that some of the new non-Labour councils elected last year have transpired to be a comedy act of ineptitude, and the MPs unexpectedly elected have said stupid things (Bishop Aukland), disappeared completely (Stockton South) etc and their government will switch off Furlough and switch on tax rises and More Cuts.
Boris has made clear austerity is over and there will not be tax rises
Interesting piece. I sense the central hypothesis is neither true nor false.
Sort of related - I have always wanted to know if there is much correlation between the relative performance of a Fund Manager and their performance in the preceding period. At periods of 1 month, 1 year, 3 years and 5 years.
Really bad news for our restaurant/entertainment trades. Even after the lockdown is lifted people are very, very reluctant to come out and play.
And that's in a country with about 5 confirmed cases a day per billion of population.
It's almost as if the population didn't believe the government figures, isn't it?
There is that.
On the other hand, if we were running at 60% of normal, that would be a vast improvement.
Oh certainly. What China shows is that the OBR forecast of a rapid bounce back to something like "normal" is wildly optimistic. Something as traumatic as this will have significant effects on people's behaviour for a significant period of time. Fewer holidays, less nights out, a more cautious approach to spending. Businesses that need normal to thrive or even survive (restaurants, cinemas, theatres, holiday companies, hotels, car franchises, a lot of retail, tourism, Universities who have grown fat on foreign students, those that let properties to those students etc etc) are going to really struggle for a long time and most will not survive.
We urgently need to get those parts of our economy that will survive up and running so that their cash flow helps those not so fortunate to adapt. The China data shows that this is not in the gift of government, it is a collective decision by us all.
What Labour fail to comprehend is their voters in the North loathe the London centric approach. Starmer will do nothing to assuage them.
These people are pro Brexit and anti immigration, the antithesis of Starmer
Hence Home Counties and London marginal seats like Wycombe and Chingford and Woodford Green and Chipping Barnet, all Tory even in 1997 and 2001 now are easier Labour targets with smaller Tory majorities than northern Leave seats like Great Grimsby and Bishop Auckland and Penistone and Stocksbridge which only fell to the Tories last year
The latter only fell because of Corbyn. Even if one buys your Brexit hypothesis, trad Labour voters no longer need to vote Tory for that reason. Brexit obsessives will bleat about Starmer wanting to take us back in, but it will fall on deaf ears. My guess is that we will see almost all the trad Labour seats return to Labour. If the Tories do lose the next election, which I consider very possible, the Tories will be out for a generation. It will be some legacy for your mate "Boris".
Once people break the habit of tribal voting, their votes are up for grabs. The collapse of the red wall means it will never go back to what it was.
Yes, look at the US, West Virginia voted for Dukakis and Bill Clinton, it now has voted Republican ever since George W Bush.
California voted for Nixon, Ford and Reagan, it is now solid Democratic
How to solve the housing crisis - which feeds into cramped accommodation for the poorest - exact money from the housing market and fill the boots of local councils. Oh, and provide alot of jobs building houses.
Foxy's suggestion of simply selling planning permission to build new properties - he suggested £100K a pop, I presume for a house.
Let it rip.
Very simplistic, unfortunately.
There are whole swathes of the country where you can buy a newbuild house for not much more than that.
Consider CiL (Community Infrastructure Levy), which was supposed to help iron out the inconsistencies of Planning Gain taxes - even nearly a decade later it is still only adopted in 1/3 of local authorities.
On a separate note the housing crisis is perhaps closer to being 'solved' than many think. Social housing waiting lists (which represent people who would prefer to live in social housing as well as "need") are 40% down since the coalition, and FTBers taking out mortgages doubled in the last couple of years.
We don't know what the Corona-effect will be, and we need to know first.
Obviously, the price will depend on the locality.
I mean, instead of blocking the planning process, rationing housing, let rip.
Chiswick, for example, was (largely) built in a handful of years - fields to suburb. There is a map online showing how they laid out the street plan and let the developers do the rest.
However having lived in 2 separate places in Chiswick, it is hardly the most attractive place in the world, and the build quality of much (particularly) Georgian but also Victorian speculative development around London is appallingly poor.
What Planning controls would you leave in place. Offstreet parking? Bin stores? Room sizes? Ability of heating to perform? Insulation quality? Ventilation requirements?
What about input from the local community - or should random person X from the Middle East with £100k be able to build a poor quality concrete blob in (say) Marlborough?
How important is raising X billion £££ in this.
A very complex question, as they always find out when they try to throw planning up in the air.
If it is so terrible, how come everyone is trying to buy property there? Not much Georgian rubbish there. It's all* Edwardian or later.
The simple truth is that planning is quite carefully and explicitly stopping the increase in house building. If more permissions are given, more will be built.
The idea that you need to give up the rest of the planning system, if you grant more permissions, doesn't make sense. Chiswick, for example, was planned - services constructed, plots allocated etc.
*A few older bits scattered about.
I think Chiswick is probably the least worst compromise available.
Not trying to be antagonistic.
Each LA area already has a process of 'objective assessment' for future housing requirements, for up to 15 years ahead and targets for the shorter term. If land is not provided, then they lose some degree of control. I know - I got a PP for housing on family land through because of that.
But what Planning Controls are you going to take away? And what would you retain? Would you have any controls on Land Use?
How to solve the housing crisis - which feeds into cramped accommodation for the poorest - exact money from the housing market and fill the boots of local councils. Oh, and provide alot of jobs building houses.
Foxy's suggestion of simply selling planning permission to build new properties - he suggested £100K a pop, I presume for a house.
Let it rip.
Very simplistic, unfortunately.
There are whole swathes of the country where you can buy a newbuild house for not much more than that.
Consider CiL (Community Infrastructure Levy), which was supposed to help iron out the inconsistencies of Planning Gain taxes - even nearly a decade later it is still only adopted in 1/3 of local authorities.
On a separate note the housing crisis is perhaps closer to being 'solved' than many think. Social housing waiting lists (which represent people who would prefer to live in social housing as well as "need") are 40% down since the coalition, and FTBers taking out mortgages doubled in the last couple of years.
We don't know what the Corona-effect will be, and we need to know first.
Obviously, the price will depend on the locality.
I mean, instead of blocking the planning process, rationing housing, let rip.
Chiswick, for example, was (largely) built in a handful of years - fields to suburb. There is a map online showing how they laid out the street plan and let the developers do the rest.
We need to spread building and development around the country, not simply add to London's sprawl. A greater degree of central planning might be needed.
Quite a few years back, under Blair, it was suggested that refugees should be spread out across the country more. Rather than concentrated in London, the most expensive location.
Human rights campaigners claimed that it was a human right to live in London (existing communities), and that it would inhumane to send them to Glasgow.
I also recall reading many reports about the kind of reception that they received in places like Sunderland and Bolton so I don't think it was only lefty liberals who didn't approve of the policy. Although of course living in London should be considered a human right. Who would want to live anywhere else, darling?
Worth saying that if the result of the previous election is not important, then the Tories may win more seats next time.
They may - but the further a result is away from the historical mean, the less likely it is.
In essence, say that last time they rolled a 10 on two dice. The dice have no memory (no autocorrelation), so the next roll is independent. They could beat it with an 11 or 12 (3 chances out of 36 when rolling two dice), but it's far more likely that it will be lower than higher. If there's no serial autocorrelation.
Since 1945 the Tories have averaged 50% of seats in England & Wales and Labour have averaged 47%. Based on 573 seats that gives:
Tories: 287 Labour: 268
Based on averages alone, I'd suggest that the Tories should be slight favourites to win most seats at the next election.
Listening to reportage of the "big return to work". Government had the rail companies increase services and prepare for more people travelling as instructed - but appears to be very quiet as it was last week. This reluctance to resume normal as instructed will be the government's big problem. The row with teachers was largely irrelevant as polls have made it clear that parents aren't going to send their sprogs in when instructed. And it will be the same with work.
Yes. A vocal minority, amplified by the press, has been protesting against the lockdown. I think a more silent minority - perhaps a majority - is not at all keen to come out of the lockdown. I think it's better that way round than the other.
Looking at the polling and from personal experience I would suggest it is a very large majority who still support the lockdown. Many of them will be people like me who have been working for home as normal and think a return to work is largely pointless. Many others will be those on furlough who are not at all reassured by the claims we are ready (in terms of safe working) for a return to work and think they are being used as guinea pigs.
Morning, Richard.
Surely some sort of voluntary model is the way forward for now?
Assuming the numbers continue to fall, you could liberalise a whole bunch of measure next week, say.
Allow gatherings of ten people, let bars open if they have beer gardens, further encourage/incentivise home-working (most companies are now very keen on it anyway – they have finally realised that it works well for a whole bunch of people).
Coupled with a stringent risk-based segmentation of the most vulnerable groups, it could help alleviate a lot of the pain for those of us that are being driven mad by the lockdown.
P.S. I see punters in Brighton managed to buy pints of beer on Saturday – apparently there is a loophole whereby stalls/open air bars can serve beers so the beach bars in Brighton stepped up! Lucky sods!
What Labour fail to comprehend is their voters in the North loathe the London centric approach. Starmer will do nothing to assuage them.
These people are pro Brexit and anti immigration, the antithesis of Starmer
Hence Home Counties and London marginal seats like Wycombe and Chingford and Woodford Green and Chipping Barnet, all Tory even in 1997 and 2001 now are easier Labour targets with smaller Tory majorities than northern Leave seats like Great Grimsby and Bishop Auckland and Penistone and Stocksbridge which only fell to the Tories last year
The latter only fell because of Corbyn. Even if one buys your Brexit hypothesis, trad Labour voters no longer need to vote Tory for that reason. Brexit obsessives will bleat about Starmer wanting to take us back in, but it will fall on deaf ears. My guess is that we will see almost all the trad Labour seats return to Labour. If the Tories do lose the next election, which I consider very possible, the Tories will be out for a generation. It will be some legacy for your mate "Boris".
When the Tories took these seats it wasn't just because of Brexit - it was because of several decades of decline and the (correct) view that London had forgotten they exist. So people voted Tory for the first time because like Brexit something had offered them a possible future that was a bit less shit than what they had now.
The Tories then needed to throw an ocean of development cash at these areas to hold these seats. Brexit would no longer be a factor (indeed likely to be a negative if the IDS loon vision of Brexit transpires) which leaves offering something better than long term decline. Problem is that some of the new non-Labour councils elected last year have transpired to be a comedy act of ineptitude, and the MPs unexpectedly elected have said stupid things (Bishop Aukland), disappeared completely (Stockton South) etc and their government will switch off Furlough and switch on tax rises and More Cuts.
Boris has made clear austerity is over and there will not be tax rises
When we assess the chance of a Labour victory at the next GE we take into account factors such as: -anticipated performance and popularity of the leaders at that time -anticipated state of the economy at that time -anticipated SNP performance at that time - etc - result of the last election (stick with nurse or time for a change?)
I think Fishing is suggesting we drop the last factor. I'm not so sure. The random effect of the other factors in the past might be removing the autocorrelation. Perhaps that is what he's saying? It is easy to jump to unwarranted conclusions. Bayes probably has something to say about this?
What Labour fail to comprehend is their voters in the North loathe the London centric approach. Starmer will do nothing to assuage them.
These people are pro Brexit and anti immigration, the antithesis of Starmer
Hence Home Counties and London marginal seats like Wycombe and Chingford and Woodford Green and Chipping Barnet, all Tory even in 1997 and 2001 now are easier Labour targets with smaller Tory majorities than northern Leave seats like Great Grimsby and Bishop Auckland and Penistone and Stocksbridge which only fell to the Tories last year
The latter only fell because of Corbyn. Even if one buys your Brexit hypothesis, trad Labour voters no longer need to vote Tory for that reason. Brexit obsessives will bleat about Starmer wanting to take us back in, but it will fall on deaf ears. My guess is that we will see almost all the trad Labour seats return to Labour. If the Tories do lose the next election, which I consider very possible, the Tories will be out for a generation. It will be some legacy for your mate "Boris".
When the Tories took these seats it wasn't just because of Brexit - it was because of several decades of decline and the (correct) view that London had forgotten they exist. So people voted Tory for the first time because like Brexit something had offered them a possible future that was a bit less shit than what they had now.
The Tories then needed to throw an ocean of development cash at these areas to hold these seats. Brexit would no longer be a factor (indeed likely to be a negative if the IDS loon vision of Brexit transpires) which leaves offering something better than long term decline. Problem is that some of the new non-Labour councils elected last year have transpired to be a comedy act of ineptitude, and the MPs unexpectedly elected have said stupid things (Bishop Aukland), disappeared completely (Stockton South) etc and their government will switch off Furlough and switch on tax rises and More Cuts.
Boris has made clear austerity is over and there will not be tax rises
Can we have a sensible conversation about planning policy before we flush through the societal changes of the virus? Who needs to buy rat trap flats in easy reach of the station to take you to London when your job is now WFH?
Agreed. We'd be much better off encouraging city living on decent footages and developing 'urban villages'. My local district in London has come alive – the shopkeepers have never been so busy. The butchers, bakers and vintners should benefit from a permanent increase in footfall. Soulless out-of-town supermarkets and packed outlets next to transport hubs, less so.
My thought is that if return is made voluntary (and I think compulsion would result in mass truancy) it is the most deprived children who are least likely to return.
Maybe as simple as poor people feeling that social advancement through education is not on the cards for their children. Interesting though.
I don't know if families with children headed by a single parent could be another factor causing this reluctance? Clearly covid 19 has terrified many people and it's possible this is more pronounced in women? If so, women make-up most single parents and as such won't be influeced by another parent potentially holding a diverging view about going back to school. Families with children headed by a single parent may also be more adverse to taking any risk of bringing covid 19 into their household given they shoulder sole responsibility for looking after everything?
He's getting lost in the detail. By far the most important thing in that chart is how many parents don't want to send their children back to school. Even the figures for the lowest quintile show a lot of resistance to the idea.
And of course other polls have shown large numbers are reluctant to go to pubs, use public transport or even shop for food.
How to solve the housing crisis - which feeds into cramped accommodation for the poorest - exact money from the housing market and fill the boots of local councils. Oh, and provide alot of jobs building houses.
Foxy's suggestion of simply selling planning permission to build new properties - he suggested £100K a pop, I presume for a house.
Let it rip.
Very simplistic, unfortunately.
There are whole swathes of the country where you can buy a newbuild house for not much more than that.
Consider CiL (Community Infrastructure Levy), which was supposed to help iron out the inconsistencies of Planning Gain taxes - even nearly a decade later it is still only adopted in 1/3 of local authorities.
On a separate note the housing crisis is perhaps closer to being 'solved' than many think. Social housing waiting lists (which represent people who would prefer to live in social housing as well as "need") are 40% down since the coalition, and FTBers taking out mortgages doubled in the last couple of years.
We don't know what the Corona-effect will be, and we need to know first.
Obviously, the price will depend on the locality.
I mean, instead of blocking the planning process, rationing housing, let rip.
Chiswick, for example, was (largely) built in a handful of years - fields to suburb. There is a map online showing how they laid out the street plan and let the developers do the rest.
However having lived in 2 separate places in Chiswick, it is hardly the most attractive place in the world, and the build quality of much (particularly) Georgian but also Victorian speculative development around London is appallingly poor.
What Planning controls would you leave in place. Offstreet parking? Bin stores? Room sizes? Ability of heating to perform? Insulation quality? Ventilation requirements?
What about input from the local community - or should random person X from the Middle East with £100k be able to build a poor quality concrete blob in (say) Marlborough?
How important is raising X billion £££ in this.
A very complex question, as they always find out when they try to throw planning up in the air.
If it is so terrible, how come everyone is trying to buy property there? Not much Georgian rubbish there. It's all* Edwardian or later.
The simple truth is that planning is quite carefully and explicitly stopping the increase in house building. If more permissions are given, more will be built.
The idea that you need to give up the rest of the planning system, if you grant more permissions, doesn't make sense. Chiswick, for example, was planned - services constructed, plots allocated etc.
*A few older bits scattered about.
Not trying to be antagonistic.
Each LA area already has a process of 'objective assessment' for future housing requirements, for up to 15 years ahead and targets for the shorter term. If land is not provided, then they lose some degree of control. I know - I got a PP for housing on family land through because of that.
But what Planning Controls are you going to take away? And what would you retain? Would you have any controls on Land Use?
And how do you know what the result will be?
Currently, the philosophy is to ration those terrible things. Domestic properties. And land usage. Pack more and more people into less and less. Hence trying to build Town Houses* in Marden.
Either get rid of population growth or grant the number of planning permission to match demand.
New to the thread so may have missed this being pointed out already but i'd hesitate to put too much store by a statistician who thinks that the middle values you get from 2 fair dice are 7,8 and 9...
What Labour fail to comprehend is their voters in the North loathe the London centric approach. Starmer will do nothing to assuage them.
These people are pro Brexit and anti immigration, the antithesis of Starmer
Hence Home Counties and London marginal seats like Wycombe and Chingford and Woodford Green and Chipping Barnet, all Tory even in 1997 and 2001 now are easier Labour targets with smaller Tory majorities than northern Leave seats like Great Grimsby and Bishop Auckland and Penistone and Stocksbridge which only fell to the Tories last year
The latter only fell because of Corbyn. Even if one buys your Brexit hypothesis, trad Labour voters no longer need to vote Tory for that reason. Brexit obsessives will bleat about Starmer wanting to take us back in, but it will fall on deaf ears. My guess is that we will see almost all the trad Labour seats return to Labour. If the Tories do lose the next election, which I consider very possible, the Tories will be out for a generation. It will be some legacy for your mate "Boris".
Once people break the habit of tribal voting, their votes are up for grabs. The collapse of the red wall means it will never go back to what it was.
There have been numerous examples of Tory seats where people have broken the habit of tribal voting and elected LD's on massive swings in by-elections only to return safely to the Tories in a few years.
We do not yet know the extent to which switchers in the red wall were one-off protest/anti-Corbyn/get Brexit done votes or long term switchers to the Tories. My money is very firmly on there being far more of the former than the latter former but we shall have to wait to the next GE to find out.
I remember being told (way back in the dim and distant past when I was a Tory activist) was that one reason for strong incumbency is the relative health and motivation of the local activist base. If that base becomes demoralised then there is less good quality activism, or visa versa. Therefore the longer an MP is entrenched the greater this effect. A lot will therefore depend (assuming this is true) on how motivated the local parties are on the seats that have changed hands.
Interesting piece. I sense the central hypothesis is neither true nor false.
Sort of related - I have always wanted to know if there is much correlation between the relative performance of a Fund Manager and their performance in the preceding period. At periods of 1 month, 1 year, 3 years and 5 years.
My personal theory on trading performance is that successful traders/institutions have winning strategy(ies), which will be eroded by others picking up the same ideas. Some can create new strategies, many can't. In addition, I think the lifespan of a successful strategy is getting shorter.
Really bad news for our restaurant/entertainment trades. Even after the lockdown is lifted people are very, very reluctant to come out and play.
And that's in a country with about 5 confirmed cases a day per billion of population.
It's almost as if the population didn't believe the government figures, isn't it?
Sorry, forgot. The heathen Chinee and all that.
This is the Chinese themselves showing marked changes in their behaviour. We will be no different. We are a long way from it being true to say that the only thing that we have to fear is fear itself but that fear is real and will outlive this virus.
Worth saying that if the result of the previous election is not important, then the Tories may win more seats next time.
They may - but the further a result is away from the historical mean, the less likely it is.
In essence, say that last time they rolled a 10 on two dice. The dice have no memory (no autocorrelation), so the next roll is independent. They could beat it with an 11 or 12 (3 chances out of 36 when rolling two dice), but it's far more likely that it will be lower than higher. If there's no serial autocorrelation.
Since 1945 the Tories have averaged 50% of seats in England & Wales and Labour have averaged 47%. Based on 573 seats that gives:
Tories: 287 Labour: 268
Based on averages alone, I'd suggest that the Tories should be slight favourites to win most seats at the next election.
Makes sense. I've noticed a bit of "overshoot" when heading towards the mean (when heading down towards the mean, parties tend to go further before coming back), but that's not at all statistically robust.
Worth saying that if the result of the previous election is not important, then the Tories may win more seats next time.
They may - but the further a result is away from the historical mean, the less likely it is.
In essence, say that last time they rolled a 10 on two dice. The dice have no memory (no autocorrelation), so the next roll is independent. They could beat it with an 11 or 12 (3 chances out of 36 when rolling two dice), but it's far more likely that it will be lower than higher. If there's no serial autocorrelation.
Since 1945 the Tories have averaged 50% of seats in England & Wales and Labour have averaged 47%. Based on 573 seats that gives:
Tories: 287 Labour: 268
Based on averages alone, I'd suggest that the Tories should be slight favourites to win most seats at the next election.
Makes sense. I've noticed a bit of "overshoot" when heading towards the mean (when heading down towards the mean, parties tend to go further before coming back), but that's not at all statistically robust.
That's a fair point. The Tories have not recorded 200-299 seats in England and Wales since October 1974:
Can we have a sensible conversation about planning policy before we flush through the societal changes of the virus? Who needs to buy rat trap flats in easy reach of the station to take you to London when your job is now WFH?
Agreed. We'd be much better off encouraging city living on decent footages and developing 'urban villages'. My local district in London has come alive – the shopkeepers have never been so busy. The butchers, bakers and vintners should benefit from a permanent increase in footfall. Soulless out-of-town supermarkets and packed outlets next to transport hubs, less so.
Personal anecdote alert.
I knew a chap who inherited a literal bomb site - three houses taken out of a terrace by a stray from the Herman Goering Urban Redevelopment chaps.
It had been various commercial things over the years. All pretty unsightly.
The area had picked up massively. His plan was to build three houses to match the rest of the terrace, using matching brick to face, and copies of the lintels etc. Inside modern standards etc.
The planning application took forever. Apparently what he wanted to do was Not The Thing.
He eventually did what he wanted - took 3 years to get it through.
My thought is that if return is made voluntary (and I think compulsion would result in mass truancy) it is the most deprived children who are least likely to return.
Maybe as simple as poor people feeling that social advancement through education is not on the cards for their children. Interesting though.
For secondary schools its reasonably consistent between Quintile 2 through Quintile 5.
I think that there are many in Quintile 1 (certainly not all) who simply don't value education. I'd be curious to see a breakdown of truancy or opinions on education in normal circumstances, wouldn't surprise me to see such a relationship.
It's also possible that people on lower incomes have had more experience of illness and death from Covid-19, since we know that death rates in lower paid manual occupations are higher than for middle class types, and so their greater risk aversion may be more rational than you think. I have found the discussion around schooling and the inequalities exacerbated by Covid fascinating. So many Tories here and in the wider debate suddenly so concerned that the poor lack the resources to get a good education. Yet it is their policies that have made that happen. No room to study? The bedroom tax. No money for a laptop? The welfare cap and the third child tax. No broadband? Of course Labour's free broadband policy was a stupid pointless gimmick because everyone has broadband, right? Our society lacks resilience to deal with the stresses of this kind of shock, but that has been a deliberate policy choice. Spare us your crocodile tears now, and don't force the rest of our kids into an unsafe rush back to school simply because schools have become the last remaining functioning part of our threadbare welfare state.
Oh give over!
"third child tax"? There's no such thing. You can have as many children as you want without paying extra taxes for them. Just as there's no taxes on bedrooms either.
And it was the Conservative-led government that boosted educational resources to the poorest in society via the pupil premium as one of the first actions taken after a long period of Labour governance that introduced tuition fees as one of its first actions.
People can honestly disagree without not caring or having "crocodile tears"
Starmer gives Labour a chance for the first time in 10-15 years. However small, that is progress.
that rather depends on your perspective
As a democrat, it’s progress. One party states fail.
As Blair showed us
We were better off then than now.
Only because he spent all the money at once.
The current government has spent more money than all of them. Global crises have a knack of doing that.
Boris was going to be a very big spender even before the crisis. Both here and in America the right have a knack of turning a blind eye when the spending, deficits and borrowing come from their own side.
They certainly do. Reagan was extremely feckless with the public purse. And Trump had wrecked the federal finances even before the virus seeking to bribe voters with their own cash.
Comments
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/trump-son-baseless-attack-biden-preview-dirty-campaign.html
https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/1262083583893803008
How to solve the housing crisis - which feeds into cramped accommodation for the poorest - exact money from the housing market and fill the boots of local councils. Oh, and provide alot of jobs building houses.
Foxy's suggestion of simply selling planning permission to build new properties - he suggested £100K a pop, I presume for a house.
Let it rip.
On the return to work - it's not going to an avalanche on the first day. It would be very surprising if a company un-furloughed all the staff and brought them in on day one. More likely that they will phase it in and try and match staff to demand.
A couple of manufacturers I know off, have been slowly increasing working staff for a while.
Actually they would need to exceed them significantly.
These people are pro Brexit and anti immigration, the antithesis of Starmer
I posted on this forum that I wanted to bridge the political divide between the hard left (Corbyn Labour) and hard right (Johnson Tory). The collapse of the Tiggers and the defection of most of them to the LibDems was my trigger to follow the Tiggers. Problem was that the LibDems had literally no idea what to do with them. You couldn't put the Labour defectors into the lean Labour camp, or the Tory defectors into the lean Tory camp.
The 2019 election was a rare one where fear of one candidate drove all other decisions. That simply won't be the case in 2024, which puts people back into broadly what kind of country they want. Brexit will have been done and dusted by then with the outturn from that no longer up for debate. So we move on. If the LibDems are smart they will have forged a new internationalist path which is broader than just being pro-EU. If they're smart...
Pro-USA or pro-China?
pro-EU looks like the smart bet...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2020/may/18/bolsonaro-greets-anti-lockdown-protesters-as-coronavirus-cases-rise-in-brazil-video
It is not uncommon for it to happen now anyway, but the payment to be much less than that (and often in favours not cash) to local officials involved in the process.
a) the analysis is over a century, not over the last four decades. I did do subsamples, but they're probably too small to be statistically robust, and actually give perverse results, so I didn't put much weight on them
b) a technical point is that the analysis looks at seat share, not governing party, which is different
c) arguably, there have been five changes of government since 1980, depending on how you define the coalitions, which in ten elections is roughly what you'd expect (Con Maj changed to Lab Maj in 97, changed to Con Coalition in 10, changed to Con Maj in 15, changed to Con/DUP arrangement in 17, changed to Con Maj in 19). Even if we allow only a 0.5 value for the coalition changes, that's still 3.5 out of 10, which, on such a small subsample, is I think consistent with no serial autocorrelation.
I actually think it is a testament to the lack of corruption in this country that every official in the planning process *isn't* driving a 6 figure car.
Get our children into a particular school
Use a holiday home for free or cheap
Get an overpaid non exec role
etc
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman tells the BBC that 2,000 workers will be ready to start contact tracing on 1 June.
She explains that the testing, which is being piloted in three health boards, is a test of the technology.
She says there already 600 contact tracers ready to work. These are teams who already do the work for sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-scotland-52661083
(Kinnock -> Blair); Howard -> Cameron; Heath -> Thatcher
Starmer clearly is a large upgrade from Corbyn and the Tories have been in power for a long time now. Working on the basis of non correlation with the 2020 General Election would seem sensible for GE 24 analysis. If the polls have Starmer in a position to become PM prior to the election, he has a very good chance of forming a Labour Gov't.
There are whole swathes of the country where you can buy a newbuild house for not much more than that.
Consider CiL (Community Infrastructure Levy), which was supposed to help iron out the inconsistencies of Planning Gain taxes - even nearly a decade later it is still only adopted in 1/3 of local authorities.
On a separate note the housing crisis is perhaps closer to being 'solved' than many think. Social housing waiting lists (which represent people who would prefer to live in social housing as well as "need") are 40% down since the coalition, and FTBers taking out mortgages doubled in the last couple of years.
We don't know what the Corona-effect will be, and we need to know first.
For a six-sided dice you might have Tory victory = 1-4, Labour victory = 5-6, Liberal victory = oops.
I mean, instead of blocking the planning process, rationing housing, let rip.
Chiswick, for example, was (largely) built in a handful of years - fields to suburb. There is a map online showing how they laid out the street plan and let the developers do the rest.
https://www.oecd.org/sdd/statistical-insights-trust-in-the-united-kingdom.htm
LP is exactly right, and that's why I used (following the advice of another PB-er) the example of two dice, rather than one. With two dice, you have a 1/6 chance of rolling a 7, but only a 1/36 chance of a 2 or a 12. But the odds are the same whatever the previous roll is.
The odds of, for instance, getting a radically different unemployment number in most quarters (though not the current one) to the one you had previously are small. Unemployment may vary over time between 3% and 15%, but if this quarter's is 6%, next quarter's will be between 5% and 7% most of the time. Whereas the roll of two dice has the same probability whatever it was last time.
On which seats are now pro Tory / Labour leaning targets my advice is simple. We are in the middle of a political and societal watershed. Clinging to the state of affairs as far back as March when the outturn will be radically different feels like a waste of time. I have little interest in trying to call an election in May 2024 now as I can barely call June 2020. The role of the government now is to provide clear leadership and of the opposition to provide critique to that leadership. That is all. Positioning towards an election a million years into the future is for the birds.
Is the sample statistically significant?
https://www.ft.com/content/93105160-dcb4-4721-9e58-a7b262cd4b6e
In short, while they might be following a slightly better route for themselves (dependent on whether or not they successfully protect their older population, or avoid a second wave in autumn, or no vaccine is ever found and they find the way to adjust to long-term running under some restrictions), not only is it inapplicable to a country as densely populated and interconnected as the UK, and it doesn't give a significantly better economic outcome. The fundamental problem is the coronavirus, which doesn't go away under that route, either.
You address inequality by addressing inequality.
If people at the Telegraph and Mail really do mean what they claim, can we expect a campaign on this or are they, as suspected, yet again using the poor for political point scoring (I know, the answer is obvious)? Enough of this ‘middle class’ parents being the problem as well, while we’re at it.
The greater issue there is that, even on those numbers, it makes the job of running equal education impossible. A half and half, in and out school is not practical, given staffing numbers and the ‘in’ part will be maybe two or three days a week in any case. It would be more useful to use this time to target those who need it most, otherwise those inequalities will just grow and grow.
Human rights campaigners claimed that it was a human right to live in London (existing communities), and that it would inhumane to send them to Glasgow.
That this is 124 more than he currently holds is possibly less relevant than we originally believe.
I was dubious, but it seems to hold up. In fact, when I had a look, the main correlation seemed to be a reversion to the mean for the Big Two. That is, when you have loads of seats, the pressure is down; when you have fewer, the pressure is up.
This is also compatible with no/minimal autocorrelation.
You could view it as two electoral pressures in different directions that cancel out:
- When you have loads of seats, you have to try to hang on to them. Price of power, plus being spread thin with loads of narrow majorities (which is inevitable under that scenario) and holding seats which have had a tendency to vote the other way (also inevitable if you've gained them fairly recently) push you down.
- When you have loads of seats, you've been successful, you have the opportunity to spread the largesse, and you could gain incumbency, which tends to resist the push down.
If these cancel out (or come close to it), you get no (or minimal) serial autocorrelation.
What Planning controls would you leave in place. Offstreet parking? Bin stores? Room sizes? Ability of heating to perform? Insulation quality? Ventilation requirements? Money needed to heat it? Does quality matter?
What about input from the local community - or should random person X from the Middle East with £100k be able to build a poor quality concrete blob in (say) Marlborough?
How important is raising X billion £££ in this.
A very complex question, as they always find out when they try to throw planning up in the air.
The Tories then needed to throw an ocean of development cash at these areas to hold these seats. Brexit would no longer be a factor (indeed likely to be a negative if the IDS loon vision of Brexit transpires) which leaves offering something better than long term decline. Problem is that some of the new non-Labour councils elected last year have transpired to be a comedy act of ineptitude, and the MPs unexpectedly elected have said stupid things (Bishop Aukland), disappeared completely (Stockton South) etc and their government will switch off Furlough and switch on tax rises and More Cuts.
On the other hand, if we were running at 60% of normal, that would be a vast improvement.
In essence, say that last time they rolled a 10 on two dice.
The dice have no memory (no autocorrelation), so the next roll is independent. They could beat it with an 11 or 12 (3 chances out of 36 when rolling two dice), but it's far more likely that it will be lower than higher. If there's no serial autocorrelation.
The simple truth is that planning is quite carefully and explicitly stopping the increase in house building. If more permissions are given, more will be built.
The idea that you need to give up the rest of the planning system, if you grant more permissions, doesn't make sense. Chiswick, for example, was planned - services constructed, plots allocated etc.
*A few older bits scattered about.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2002/mar/13/uknews
It's probably one of those crimes which is quite difficult to hide if there's ever a serious effort to investigate ?
Right now, with the above regulations in the UK, dentists are simply not allowed to work. Due to the COVID regulations most dental care in the UK is effectively shut down until we get a vaccine. This will have serious long-term consequences for dental health with significant preventable loss of teeth and implications for general health as well. There is a proven link for example between gum disease and heart disease.
But he'll capture others - Altrincham and Sale West falls before Penistone and Stocksbridge for instance.
If Corbyn had not gone, that might have happened to Labour.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/15/boris-johnson-no-public-sector-pay-freeze-no-austerity-uk-emerges/
Sort of related - I have always wanted to know if there is much correlation between the relative performance of a Fund Manager and their performance in the preceding period. At periods of 1 month, 1 year, 3 years and 5 years.
We urgently need to get those parts of our economy that will survive up and running so that their cash flow helps those not so fortunate to adapt. The China data shows that this is not in the gift of government, it is a collective decision by us all.
California voted for Nixon, Ford and Reagan, it is now solid Democratic
Not trying to be antagonistic.
Each LA area already has a process of 'objective assessment' for future housing requirements, for up to 15 years ahead and targets for the shorter term. If land is not provided, then they lose some degree of control. I know - I got a PP for housing on family land through because of that.
But what Planning Controls are you going to take away? And what would you retain? Would you have any controls on Land Use?
And how do you know what the result will be?
Although of course living in London should be considered a human right. Who would want to live anywhere else, darling?
Tories: 287
Labour: 268
Based on averages alone, I'd suggest that the Tories should be slight favourites to win most seats at the next election.
Surely some sort of voluntary model is the way forward for now?
Assuming the numbers continue to fall, you could liberalise a whole bunch of measure next week, say.
Allow gatherings of ten people, let bars open if they have beer gardens, further encourage/incentivise home-working (most companies are now very keen on it anyway – they have finally realised that it works well for a whole bunch of people).
Coupled with a stringent risk-based segmentation of the most vulnerable groups, it could help alleviate a lot of the pain for those of us that are being driven mad by the lockdown.
P.S. I see punters in Brighton managed to buy pints of beer on Saturday – apparently there is a loophole whereby stalls/open air bars can serve beers so the beach bars in Brighton stepped up! Lucky sods!
When we assess the chance of a Labour victory at the next GE we take into account factors such as:
-anticipated performance and popularity of the leaders at that time
-anticipated state of the economy at that time
-anticipated SNP performance at that time
- etc
- result of the last election (stick with nurse or time for a change?)
I think Fishing is suggesting we drop the last factor. I'm not so sure. The random effect of the other factors in the past might be removing the autocorrelation. Perhaps that is what he's saying? It is easy to jump to unwarranted conclusions. Bayes probably has something to say about this?
Agreed. We'd be much better off encouraging city living on decent footages and developing 'urban villages'. My local district in London has come alive – the shopkeepers have never been so busy. The butchers, bakers and vintners should benefit from a permanent increase in footfall. Soulless out-of-town supermarkets and packed outlets next to transport hubs, less so.
Either get rid of population growth or grant the number of planning permission to match demand.
*Horseshit name for a house without garden.
:-)
We do not yet know the extent to which switchers in the red wall were one-off protest/anti-Corbyn/get Brexit done votes or long term switchers to the Tories. My money is very firmly on there being far more of the former than the latter former but we shall have to wait to the next GE to find out.
I've noticed a bit of "overshoot" when heading towards the mean (when heading down towards the mean, parties tend to go further before coming back), but that's not at all statistically robust.
1974 (October) - 261
1979 - 317
1983 - 376
1987 - 366
1992 - 325
1997 - 165
2001 - 165
2005 - 197
2010 - 305
2015 - 329
2017 - 304
2019 - 359
I knew a chap who inherited a literal bomb site - three houses taken out of a terrace by a stray from the Herman Goering Urban Redevelopment chaps.
It had been various commercial things over the years. All pretty unsightly.
The area had picked up massively. His plan was to build three houses to match the rest of the terrace, using matching brick to face, and copies of the lintels etc. Inside modern standards etc.
The planning application took forever. Apparently what he wanted to do was Not The Thing.
He eventually did what he wanted - took 3 years to get it through.
"third child tax"? There's no such thing. You can have as many children as you want without paying extra taxes for them. Just as there's no taxes on bedrooms either.
And it was the Conservative-led government that boosted educational resources to the poorest in society via the pupil premium as one of the first actions taken after a long period of Labour governance that introduced tuition fees as one of its first actions.
People can honestly disagree without not caring or having "crocodile tears"