Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does. Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.
Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".
What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
Wait until the total meltdown at Dover in January cuts through.
We'll be looking at omni-incompetent.
It will be very interesting to see how businesses exporting into the UK from Europe react to having their truckers logjamed for miles on the opposite side of the channel and in Ireland
There is going to be a lot of anger on all sides and total failure by both the EU and UK negotiators
The EU will just export elsewhere rather than sit in a queue, have the UK defined what paperwork is necessary to import goods?
Apparently we are not enforcing import customs for six months.
Presumably, lorries have to return empty to Calais to avoid French customs though.
How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?
On the subject of violence, the BBC’S Cummings documentary contains an interesting snippet from someone senior at the CBI alleging that Cummings tried to push him down a staircase after they came off air on a tv debate on the EU.
Cummings is evil? Hardly news.
More accurately, he's a sociopath.
He's forgotten the first rule of effective change management: take the people with you.
Instead he thinks it's more effective to call them idiots and threaten them with the sack.
Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does. Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.
Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".
What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
Wait until the total meltdown at Dover in January cuts through.
We'll be looking at omni-incompetent.
It will be very interesting to see how businesses exporting into the UK from Europe react to having their truckers logjamed for miles on the opposite side of the channel and in Ireland
There is going to be a lot of anger on all sides and total failure by both the EU and UK negotiators
I thought I'd seen that we would be prepared to waive import duties and paperwork for an initial period, if necessary.
Wait I'm confused- have they said they might start legal proceedings then? In which case I understand the decision even though its weak and cowardly, since I bet the lawyers are wary if people say they might start legal action as much as once they start it.
1. Iraq 2. Asymmetric devolution 3: Led to Brexit (no controls on A10 and pushing through with Lisbon against his own manifesto)
2 I would refute but 3 is a total fiction. Whatever the mistakes of allowing the accession countries immediate access to the UK Labour market Brexit falls fairly and squarely at the door of the Conservatives (for good or for ill). Cameron called a faulty, needless, vanity referendum and Johnson saw his opportunity by valiantly supporting the brave but vain effort to Leave the EU. He misjudged, Leave won!
Boris frequently looked all at sea on HIGNFY. When Hislop & Merton went after him he looked adrift and hopeless.
The idea that he's 'fast on his feet' or verbally quick is a myth.
The whole 'Boris' persona seems to be built on myth.
The Jeremy Vine take on Johnson's after dinner speech that (I think) Foxy posts here sometimes is very revealing. Give him a scripted set piece and he will deliver it so that he does appear fast on his feet, verbally sharp, funny and even likeable. But you are right it is all a myth, peel the layer away and even those speeches are just bluster as well.
If he can get away with doing scrutiny once a month or so, he could probably come up with enough ways of maintaining the illusions he has built up. If its once a week then he has very little chance.
And to say that Johnson is better than Blair is utterly ridiculous. I didn't like TB but he was light years better as a PM than this completely useless tosspot.
They are both Prime Ministers for good times, both hate offending people and both have an exaggerated fear of their opponents, whom they think are more powerful than they are, in Johnson's case woke Twittermobs and in Blair's the Daily Mail and its readership.
Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does. Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.
Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".
What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
I do not see anyone making the suggestion tax rises are 'not necessary due to the perceived uselessness of politicians', the public know covid has devastated economies worldwide and tax increases are inevitable no matter the quality of the various politicians involved, and yes UK has it's share of useless politicians
People dont know jack. They'll mouth words that tax rises are indeed inevitable but every single example of doing it will talk of a new tax hike or raid and cry great tears at how terrible an impact it has and why can't they raise different ones. That's what's inevitable.
1. Iraq 2. Asymmetric devolution 3: Led to Brexit (no controls on A10 and pushing through with Lisbon against his own manifesto)
There's much more than that:
- Careless and complacent financial regulation which led to the 2008 crash - Culture of dodgy dossiers, spin and the death of David Kelly - Minimum wage, which disincentivises low-skilled from upskilling themselves - High property prices, so that houses are unaffordable for the young anywhere people actually want to live - Gordon Brown
etc. etc.
Oh FFS! I have read too much utter fantasy this morning on here. Bye!
The Finland-based Nordea, largest bank in the Nordic/Baltic region, predicts a good recovery for the Swedish economy:
- recession will be milder than previously predicted - recovery during 2021 and 2022 - no big government stimulation will be required - GNP will fall 3.2% this year, followed by growth of 4.1% in 2021 and 2% in 2022 - unemployment will stabilise mid-2021 - house prices will rise 6% this year
3.2% decline in 2020? Despite PMIs that are the second worst in Europe.
Now Sweden's massive public sector (which is... decoupled... from the private sector) cushions it somewhat. But the reality is that consumer spending fell more than neighbours, while the recovery has been more muted.
If I have to choose between the forecasts of Nordea (the Lloyds TSB of Sweden) and Markit, I know which one I'll choose. (Worth noting that neither Svenska Handelsbank and SEB share Nordea's rose tinted glasses).
I also wonder how Sweden measures its output wrt the public sector. I know the ONS uses a deflator which has made the crash here look much worse than it is because 6 points of the 20 point drop came from health and education services (primarily state provisioned). Loads of European countries just add a multiplier to spending and don't bother measuring output, I know France does this, they just take state spending, stick a 1.2x multiplier on it and add it to private sector output.
- Minimum wage, which disincentivises low-skilled from upskilling themselves
This is a remarkable comment. I mean, if the minimum wage was set a level that say 50% of the population were on it and the lowest skilled/paid had no realistic prospect of ever obtaining a job that was higher paid then I could see the argument. But I know of no companies that have a minimum wage job and then the next job up also at minimum wage - it doesn't work, no one would want the next job up. Instead, pay rises a bit in the next job up to differentiate from the lowest paid job. There's still and incentive to progress and the worst off get something approaching a living wage.
Do you think people have to actually be starving to want to progress (ignoring that if there was no minimum wage we'd probably just have higher benefits to make up the difference). I'd rather employers pay than the state.
Yup, consistent with basically all the other data on this. Trump's position on this isn't popular. Riots on your watch are bad for an incumbent, people have seen the police brutality videos, and even his supporters can see that he's trying to increase the tensions in the hope of political gain.
It's almost perfect conditions for the punditry to push a totally incorrect assumption, because: 1) It fits what they learned about right-wing politicians being popular for law-and-order and the left being on the defensive during their formative years, the 1970s and 1980s 2) The press really, really need this to be a competitive race, but as far as we can tell from the polling the voters are stubbornly refusing to cooperate
Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does. Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.
Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".
What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
Wait until the total meltdown at Dover in January cuts through.
We'll be looking at omni-incompetent.
It will be very interesting to see how businesses exporting into the UK from Europe react to having their truckers logjamed for miles on the opposite side of the channel and in Ireland
There is going to be a lot of anger on all sides and total failure by both the EU and UK negotiators
The EU will just export elsewhere rather than sit in a queue, have the UK defined what paperwork is necessary to import goods?
Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does. Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.
Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".
What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
Wait until the total meltdown at Dover in January cuts through.
We'll be looking at omni-incompetent.
It will be very interesting to see how businesses exporting into the UK from Europe react to having their truckers logjamed for miles on the opposite side of the channel and in Ireland
There is going to be a lot of anger on all sides and total failure by both the EU and UK negotiators
The EU will just export elsewhere rather than sit in a queue, have the UK defined what paperwork is necessary to import goods?
Apparently we are not enforcing import customs for six months.
Presumably, lorries have to return empty to Calais to avoid French customs though.
That’s what I heard months ago so it might have changed.
Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w
How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?
How Britain ended up with Boris is very simple. The hardcore Remoaners wouldn’t vote for Mrs May’s deal, because they thought they could overturn the vote of the British Public to leave the EU.
Well yes, though personally I thought May would have been done once a deal was passed anyway (as she eventually agreed to in an effort to get it passed) and Boris would likely have picked up the baton anyway, on the basis of needing a proper Brexiteer for the next phase.
What is different is him taking charge pre deal meant we ended up with an election and gets a big majority rather than being forced to operate on 2017 numbers and no core issue to take to an early GE
How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?
On the subject of violence, the BBC’S Cummings documentary contains an interesting snippet from someone senior at the CBI alleging that Cummings tried to push him down a staircase after they came off air on a tv debate on the EU.
Cummings is evil? Hardly news.
More accurately, he's a sociopath.
He's forgotten the first rule of effective change management: take the people with you.
Instead he thinks it's more effective to call them idiots and threaten them with the sack.
Spot on. Cummings' main problem beyond his self-importance and ego is that he seems to hold the entire world beyond a few of his mates in total contempt.
And to say that Johnson is better than Blair is utterly ridiculous. I didn't like TB but he was light years better as a PM than this completely useless tosspot.
They are both Prime Ministers for good times, both hate offending people and both have an exaggerated fear of their opponents, whom they think are more powerful than they are, in Johnson's case woke Twittermobs and in Blair's the Daily Mail and its readership.
Remember the fuel protests?
Blair was completely lost, how do you think he would have done in a pandemic?
And to say that Johnson is better than Blair is utterly ridiculous. I didn't like TB but he was light years better as a PM than this completely useless tosspot.
They are both Prime Ministers for good times, both hate offending people and both have an exaggerated fear of their opponents, whom they think are more powerful than they are, in Johnson's case woke Twittermobs and in Blair's the Daily Mail and its readership.
I don't agree with what Blair did and opposed him vociferously throughout his term of office.
However, despite what I think of his policies and his politics there's no doubt he was a more *effective* PM then Boris Johnson, who's at Gordon Brown levels in my view.
1. Iraq 2. Asymmetric devolution 3: Led to Brexit (no controls on A10 and pushing through with Lisbon against his own manifesto)
Iraq would have been a bigger problem with the US going in alone Lots of things led to Brexit, before, during and after his term
On the credit side, peace in NI is a remarkable and undervalued achievement. NMW and better funding for health and education highlights as well.
It’s crazy to compare a historical PM with one who still has the capacity, through being in office, to shape their legacy. I wonder if the people being so disparaging of Blair were at the time.
Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w
How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?
How Britain ended up with Boris is very simple. The hardcore Remoaners wouldn’t vote for Mrs May’s deal, because they thought they could overturn the vote of the British Public to leave the EU.
And SKS was most at fault for this. Labour could have backed Mays deal, but he loved getting on the BBC rubbishing it. It was a completely hopleless political judgement which led to an 80 seat tory majority. All SKS lovers should remember how badly he played 2019.
I've been talking to friends in the US and they all say the same thing, Biden leads the polls but the feeling on the ground is that Trump has the momentum because he's been gifted a stronger hand by the riots and the Dems lack of condemnation of their own side and the very blatant media bias. This is among all likely Dem voters as well.
The CNN graphic of "Fiery but mostly peaceful protests" in front of burning buildings has become a recruiting tool for Trump among middle class suburban whites, it's team Trump saying "we told you, they'll lie to your face and expect you to accept it" and it's working for them among parents of my friends who were previously in the Dem column.
That's the narrative, and it's one that - for example - Conrad Black and Andrew Sullivan have both written about in the last two weeks.
But I'm a numbers rather than a narrative kind of guy. Let's see if voters are actually changing.
One problem with the polls last time was that in order to make the samples balanced, they compromised on randomness, which meant they failed to pick up on important movements.
A lot is being made of people overcompensating for the 2016 shock by overstating Trump's chances but I'm beginning to wonder whether a closer analogy is 2017 with Biden as May with regards to the polls.
As @MaxPB has pointed out, plus others such as Andrew Sullivan and Conrad Black, people do not like the violence and the fear it is coming to a town near you and it is starting to become a major issue. @rcs1000 pointed out Republican registrations in Florida are running ahead of the Democrats but my understanding is the Republicans have eroded the Democrat's lead since 2016 in PA as well, which also bodes ill for Biden.
More to the point, both the campaign's actions and what is being seen on the ground doesn't seem to match the polls. Trump has just opened an office in Minnesota and he has visited New Hampshire.
Trump is repeatedly banging the drum linking Biden with the violence and Biden is now running adverts condemning the violence. This is where the NY Times states about the adverts:
"The Biden campaign said the ad would air nationally on cable television and in local markets in nine battleground states: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin."
That doesn't sound like a campaign that is confident it is high single digits ahead.
Ultimately, though, Biden's national polling numbers aren't changing.
Pundits and stories and narrative have very little predictive power compared to hard numbers.
The problem I have is whether the data we are getting from these polls is clean.
If I am dealing with a set of financial numbers on which to make a forecast, I can assume they are clean in that they have been audited, subject to oversight etc.
That is not the case here. As many on here have pointed out, US polling methodology is not as audited as in the UK. More concerning is that the polls are seen as both sides to push their positions so they become used as a political football and used as to rally the troops so it is entirely possible you are getting self-selected samples.
Also, as mentioned on a previous thread, both parties will have continual internal polling going on which is why I am a great believer in looking at their actions as that demonstrates their "true" view.
I think the idea the campaigns have any idea what's going on is not backed by the evidence. Hillary had no idea she was losing in the rust belt. Trump and his advisors thought they had lost. Nigel Farage conceded defeat immediately after EU Referendum polls closed.
Your polling methodology point is a good one. It is entirely possible - maybe even likely - that there are shy Trump supporters, who are not being picked up.
The issue for the President is that (on current polls) there needs to be an unprecedented level of polling error.
And there's one last issue. Why isn't Biden's share moving? If the riots were having an effect, he should still see his share move. Because changes in opinions should be picked up, even if the overall totals are wrong. And we're not seeing any meaningful move in the Biden total.
Trafalgar is rated as a C- pollster by FiveThirtyEight with an average polling error of 5.8 points. Best ignored
Yes ignore the only pollster who predicted Trump would win Michigan and Pennsylvania in 2016 if you wish but don't come crying to me on election night if you are wrong
What’s your latest prediction for the election?
Still fence-sitting so you are certain you can claim you were right?
It is not fence sitting when I say it will be between 260-275 votes either way.
If Biden wins with a landslide obviously I will have been miles out and if Trump won comfortably that would also be the case even if less likely
Looking on from afar, that doesn't add up. A tie is 269, seats over that on one side have to be matched by exactly the same number under if they apply either way.
So no more than 275 (+6) over implies no fewer than 263 (-6) under, whereas you say 260.
Alternatively, no fewer than 260 under implies no more than 278 over, whereas you say only 275.
OK, 263 to 275 for either candidate then if you really want to pin me down.
That is my prediction
At this point, if I limited myself to a spread of 12 to match yours, I would predict Biden getting between 279 and 291.
I would go with Biden 338-350 for a current prediction in a 12 EV band. If Texas flips then 400+ is on the cards.
FPT Based on the objective polling evidence alone, I would be close to yours. However, I am factoring in the likelihood that Trump succeeds to a degree in his despicable unprecedented attempts to undermine the functioning of US democracy through voter suppression, impeding the counting of postal votes and ballot stuffing. On the latter, he is now urging his supporters to commit illegal acts on his behalf by voting twice, hoping presumably that some will get away with it.
A 12 vote spread is also very limiting because of the lumpiness of the electoral college system. There are however quite a few plausible combinations of states that could deliver something in the range 279 to 291.
- Minimum wage, which disincentivises low-skilled from upskilling themselves
This is a remarkable comment. I mean, if the minimum wage was set a level that say 50% of the population were on it and the lowest skilled/paid had no realistic prospect of ever obtaining a job that was higher paid then I could see the argument. But I know of no companies that have a minimum wage job and then the next job up also at minimum wage - it doesn't work, no one would want the next job up. Instead, pay rises a bit in the next job up to differentiate from the lowest paid job. There's still and incentive to progress and the worst off get something approaching a living wage.
Do you think people have to actually be starving to want to progress (ignoring that if there was no minimum wage we'd probably just have higher benefits to make up the difference). I'd rather employers pay than the state.
I very much approve of the NMW and think the current levels are about right.
But the examples do exist where the gaps between zero responsibility and significant responsibility is less than £1 per hour. An example would be a mini supermarket duty manager and shelf stacker. Little chance of further promotion and a small pay gap makes shelf stacker the better job.
The issues solved by NMW far outweigh the issues around this though.
Yup, consistent with basically all the other data on this. Trump's position on this isn't popular. Riots on your watch are bad for an incumbent, people have seen the police brutality videos, and even his supporters can see that he's trying to increase the tensions in the hope of political gain.
It's almost perfect conditions for the punditry to push a totally incorrect assumption, because: 1) It fits what they learned about right-wing politicians being popular for law-and-order and the left being on the defensive during their formative years, the 1970s and 1980s 2) The press really, really need this to be a competitive race, but as far as we can tell from the polling the voters are stubbornly refusing to cooperate
I think the polling on this (and most other issues) is just the pro-Trump people saying they like him on Law and Order, and the anti-Trump people saying they don't. So Trump's position on this is about as popular (or unpopular) as Trump is.
It's only significant if the polling is much different from the Trump-Biden voting numbers. Trump has a narrow advantage on the economy, so that remains his best chance I reckon.
Boris isn't stupid but he's lazy, entitled, untrustworthy and a total narcisstic. He also has a deeply unpleasant streak - I've never trusted him since that Darius Guppy story came out.
If he feels the rules aren't working for him, he will try and change the rules. If he feels someone is disloyal to him he will get someone loyal. Competence doesn't matter. It's all about him.
He has no sense of duty, honour or integrity - all the things that matter.
He must go.
Westminster isn't stupid but it’s lazy, entitled, untrustworthy and totally narcisstic. It also has a deeply unpleasant streak - we’ve never trusted them since that Darien sabotage came out.
If they feel the rules aren't working for them, they will try and change the rules. If they feel someone is disloyal to them they will get someone loyal. Competence doesn't matter. It's all about them.
They have no sense of duty, honour or integrity - all the things that matter.
Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does. Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.
Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".
What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
Wait until the total meltdown at Dover in January cuts through.
We'll be looking at omni-incompetent.
It will be very interesting to see how businesses exporting into the UK from Europe react to having their truckers logjamed for miles on the opposite side of the channel and in Ireland
There is going to be a lot of anger on all sides and total failure by both the EU and UK negotiators
The EU will just export elsewhere rather than sit in a queue, have the UK defined what paperwork is necessary to import goods?
If it was that simple they'd be doing it already.
Imports become more expensive, directly or indirectly, due to Brexit red tape. We have to buy our stuff from somewhere, so we will pay the price. The EU will still provide most of what it already does, due to being closer than other suppliers, albeit at a higher cost.
How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?
On the subject of violence, the BBC’S Cummings documentary contains an interesting snippet from someone senior at the CBI alleging that Cummings tried to push him down a staircase after they came off air on a tv debate on the EU.
Cummings is evil? Hardly news.
More accurately, he's a sociopath.
He's forgotten the first rule of effective change management: take the people with you.
Instead he thinks it's more effective to call them idiots and threaten them with the sack.
Spot on. Cummings' main problem beyond his self-importance and ego is that he seems to hold the entire world beyond a few of his mates in total contempt.
I could be wrong but Id expect his mates are also held in total contempt, just seen as useful so treated differently.
Yup, consistent with basically all the other data on this. Trump's position on this isn't popular. Riots on your watch are bad for an incumbent, people have seen the police brutality videos, and even his supporters can see that he's trying to increase the tensions in the hope of political gain.
It's almost perfect conditions for the punditry to push a totally incorrect assumption, because: 1) It fits what they learned about right-wing politicians being popular for law-and-order and the left being on the defensive during their formative years, the 1970s and 1980s 2) The press really, really need this to be a competitive race, but as far as we can tell from the polling the voters are stubbornly refusing to cooperate
I think the polling on this (and most other issues) is just the pro-Trump people saying they like him on Law and Order, and the anti-Trump people saying they don't. So Trump's position on this is about as popular (or unpopular) as Trump is.
It's only significant if the polling is much different from the Trump-Biden voting numbers. Trump has a narrow advantage on the economy, so that remains his best chance I reckon.
Does that preclude you, if it’s true, from raising issues with the PM? Does it mean your losses are less than those who are not part of the movement? The world is not just for right wingers nor is government.
How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?
On the subject of violence, the BBC’S Cummings documentary contains an interesting snippet from someone senior at the CBI alleging that Cummings tried to push him down a staircase after they came off air on a tv debate on the EU.
Cummings is evil? Hardly news.
More accurately, he's a sociopath.
He's forgotten the first rule of effective change management: take the people with you.
Instead he thinks it's more effective to call them idiots and threaten them with the sack.
Spot on. Cummings' main problem beyond his self-importance and ego is that he seems to hold the entire world beyond a few of his mates in total contempt.
Whilst it is pushing an analogy a bit too far, he's a bit Corbynesque in thinking a 'great' idea means taking people with you doesnt matter, forgetting that people are needed to make it happen.
1. Iraq 2. Asymmetric devolution 3: Led to Brexit (no controls on A10 and pushing through with Lisbon against his own manifesto)
There's much more than that:
- Careless and complacent financial regulation which led to the 2008 crash - Culture of dodgy dossiers, spin and the death of David Kelly - Minimum wage, which disincentivises low-skilled from upskilling themselves - High property prices, so that houses are unaffordable for the young anywhere people actually want to live - Gordon Brown
etc. etc.
I despised the Blair government (though I voted Labour in 97) - but I have to say that looking back from where we are now I`m struggling to recall why I hated them so much. I`ve even grown quite fond of Blair and Campbell. Strange.
Doesn`t say much for the current lot. Am I being an old fart in saying "MPs aren`t what they used to be"?
Boris isn't stupid but he's lazy, entitled, untrustworthy and a total narcisstic. He also has a deeply unpleasant streak - I've never trusted him since that Darius Guppy story came out.
If he feels the rules aren't working for him, he will try and change the rules. If he feels someone is disloyal to him he will get someone loyal. Competence doesn't matter. It's all about him.
He has no sense of duty, honour or integrity - all the things that matter.
He must go.
Westminster isn't stupid but it’s lazy, entitled, untrustworthy and totally narcisstic. It also has a deeply unpleasant streak - we’ve never trusted them since that Darien sabotage came out.
If they feel the rules aren't working for them, they will try and change the rules. If they feel someone is disloyal to them they will get someone loyal. Competence doesn't matter. It's all about them.
They have no sense of duty, honour or integrity - all the things that matter.
Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w
How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?
How Britain ended up with Boris is very simple. The hardcore Remoaners wouldn’t vote for Mrs May’s deal, because they thought they could overturn the vote of the British Public to leave the EU.
And SKS was most at fault for this. Labour could have backed Mays deal, but he loved getting on the BBC rubbishing it. It was a completely hopleless political judgement which led to an 80 seat tory majority. All SKS lovers should remember how badly he played 2019.
Help me out here- I've asked this before, and not got an answer...
Very very many Conservative MPs- lots of them prominent in the current government- really disliked May's plan. (Or, if you're more cynical, affected to dislike it as a wedge to create a vacancy for PM.)
Had it shown any sign of going through on the back of opposition votes, what was to stop them VONCing TM and getting her out of Downing Street faster than you can say "vassal state"?
(Or being less florid, how do you get round the problem that any Brexit plan needed a double majority in practice- a majority in Parliament as a whole and a majority in the Conservative party? And until the 2019 win with MPs signing in blood to Back Boris, that was damn difficult?)
which is where he was when they introduced the forecast about 3 weeks ago
I think it's a shame they aren't doing a nowcast this year, which would give us an idea of what the model would say if the polls are like they are today on election day. This is the more robust part of the model, compared to the "uncertainty" they add because of the time til the election which is basically informed guesswork.
Nate Silver tweeted when the model was launched that if the polls were saying the same thing the night before the election, Biden would have a 93% chance of winning. Probably slightly lower now given Trump has improved somewhat
PMQs is good for rallying your MPs but rarely makes much difference with the public, Hague for example regularly bested Blair but it did not do Blair much harm.
Starmer like Hague is a good Commons performer but he still has a long way to go to turn that into a big poll lead
1. Iraq 2. Asymmetric devolution 3: Led to Brexit (no controls on A10 and pushing through with Lisbon against his own manifesto)
There's much more than that:
- Careless and complacent financial regulation which led to the 2008 crash - Culture of dodgy dossiers, spin and the death of David Kelly - Minimum wage, which disincentivises low-skilled from upskilling themselves - High property prices, so that houses are unaffordable for the young anywhere people actually want to live - Gordon Brown
etc. etc.
I despised the Blair government (though I voted Labour in 97) - but I have to say that looking back from where we are now I`m struggling to recall why I hated them so much. I`ve even grown quite fond of Blair and Campbell. Strange.
Doesn`t say much for the current lot. Am I being an old fart in saying "MPs aren`t what they used to be"?
Another batch of mostly excellent polls for Biden overnight bar the Monmouth PA poll. PB really seems in denial over how strong Biden’s chances are, drawing false equivalencies with 2016.
No one has satisfactorily answered the question of why someone who voted for Clinton in 2016 will vote for Trump in 2020. And these people need to exist for Trump to win given the large numbers who have switched in the opposite direction.
Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w
How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?
How Britain ended up with Boris is very simple. The hardcore Remoaners wouldn’t vote for Mrs May’s deal, because they thought they could overturn the vote of the British Public to leave the EU.
And SKS was most at fault for this. Labour could have backed Mays deal, but he loved getting on the BBC rubbishing it. It was a completely hopeless political judgement which led to an 80 seat tory majority. All SKS lovers should remember how badly he played 2019.
Quite correct. Politics is a matter of constant compromise. There were these groups: Hard Brexit at any price. Brexit at any price. Remain at any price. Remain or soft Brexit at any price, ie anything but a hard Brexit. This last was the only feasible group for Remainers to belong to once the referendum was decided. Their failure to agree and vote for a soft Brexit is a staggering failure of political organisation.
Essentially they had to decide between 'Norway for Now' and close alignment and play the politics right. Their failure to do so is mostly about playing games with the country's future.
Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does. Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.
Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".
What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
Wait until the total meltdown at Dover in January cuts through.
We'll be looking at omni-incompetent.
It will be very interesting to see how businesses exporting into the UK from Europe react to having their truckers logjamed for miles on the opposite side of the channel and in Ireland
There is going to be a lot of anger on all sides and total failure by both the EU and UK negotiators
How is it a total failure by the EU? Their rules on external borders are clear and longstanding - one of the arguments for us leaving was that their rules weren't enforced harshly enough.
The EU has a system and process for its side of the external border. Its side will work. The UK does not have a system nor indeed have we even made any preparations. The queues will be from our side of the border. How is that the fault of EU negotiators?
PMQs is good for rallying your MPs but rarely makes much difference with the public, Hague for example regularly bested Blair but it did not do Blair much harm.
Starmer like Hague is a good Commons performer but he still has a long way to go to turn that into a big poll lead
Yesterday wasn't about anyone "besting" anyone, nor about Starmer. Not one bit. Have a watch.
- Minimum wage, which disincentivises low-skilled from upskilling themselves
This is a remarkable comment. I mean, if the minimum wage was set a level that say 50% of the population were on it and the lowest skilled/paid had no realistic prospect of ever obtaining a job that was higher paid then I could see the argument. But I know of no companies that have a minimum wage job and then the next job up also at minimum wage - it doesn't work, no one would want the next job up. Instead, pay rises a bit in the next job up to differentiate from the lowest paid job. There's still and incentive to progress and the worst off get something approaching a living wage.
Do you think people have to actually be starving to want to progress (ignoring that if there was no minimum wage we'd probably just have higher benefits to make up the difference). I'd rather employers pay than the state.
I very much approve of the NMW and think the current levels are about right.
But the examples do exist where the gaps between zero responsibility and significant responsibility is less than £1 per hour. An example would be a mini supermarket duty manager and shelf stacker. Little chance of further promotion and a small pay gap makes shelf stacker the better job.
The issues solved by NMW far outweigh the issues around this though.
Yes, the issue is the jobs even two or three promotions up the ladder pay only a few pence an hour more than the bottom job, and in a lot of industries there’s not as much scope for overtime in those roles either, which makes it unattractive to train for promotion.
That said, despite my initial scepticism the NMW has been successful, it’s possible the above problem will be partially solved as immigration rules tighten with regard to low paid employees in future.
Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does. Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.
Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".
What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
Wait until the total meltdown at Dover in January cuts through.
We'll be looking at omni-incompetent.
It will be very interesting to see how businesses exporting into the UK from Europe react to having their truckers logjamed for miles on the opposite side of the channel and in Ireland
There is going to be a lot of anger on all sides and total failure by both the EU and UK negotiators
How is it a total failure by the EU? Their rules on external borders are clear and longstanding - one of the arguments for us leaving was that their rules weren't enforced harshly enough.
The EU has a system and process for its side of the external border. Its side will work. The UK does not have a system nor indeed have we even made any preparations. The queues will be from our side of the border. How is that the fault of EU negotiators?
It’s the EU’s fault for not realising we hold all the cards, or something.
Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does. Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.
Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".
What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
Wait until the total meltdown at Dover in January cuts through.
We'll be looking at omni-incompetent.
It will be very interesting to see how businesses exporting into the UK from Europe react to having their truckers logjamed for miles on the opposite side of the channel and in Ireland
There is going to be a lot of anger on all sides and total failure by both the EU and UK negotiators
The EU will just export elsewhere rather than sit in a queue, have the UK defined what paperwork is necessary to import goods?
If it was that simple they'd be doing it already.
Imports become more expensive, directly or indirectly, due to Brexit red tape. We have to buy our stuff from somewhere, so we will pay the price. The EU will still provide most of what it already does, due to being closer than other suppliers, albeit at a higher cost.
It was worse than that. Did you notice the bowed heads of his "colleagues". They appeared to prefer looking at their shoes, rather than they're alleged leader. I think her may be gone by Christmas, he can claim "health grounds and a young family etc"
Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w
How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?
How Britain ended up with Boris is very simple. The hardcore Remoaners wouldn’t vote for Mrs May’s deal, because they thought they could overturn the vote of the British Public to leave the EU.
And SKS was most at fault for this. Labour could have backed Mays deal, but he loved getting on the BBC rubbishing it. It was a completely hopleless political judgement which led to an 80 seat tory majority. All SKS lovers should remember how badly he played 2019.
Umm, Corbyn was the Labour leader who failed miserably at every single stage of Brexit. At least he has gone now, but he's done massive damage to the UK and Europe. He should have resigned the day after the referendum vote in 2016, like Cameron did. But the idiot was always a Brexiteer so he stayed on to make sure we ended up with a hard Brexit. Unforgiveable.
Starmer has a black mark for remaining part of Corbyn's team, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as if he hadn't we might have ended up with a useless Corbynite as Labour leader now.
Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w
How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?
How Britain ended up with Boris is very simple. The hardcore Remoaners wouldn’t vote for Mrs May’s deal, because they thought they could overturn the vote of the British Public to leave the EU.
And SKS was most at fault for this. Labour could have backed Mays deal, but he loved getting on the BBC rubbishing it. It was a completely hopeless political judgement which led to an 80 seat tory majority. All SKS lovers should remember how badly he played 2019.
Quite correct. Politics is a matter of constant compromise. There were these groups: Hard Brexit at any price. Brexit at any price. Remain at any price. Remain or soft Brexit at any price, ie anything but a hard Brexit. This last was the only feasible group for Remainers to belong to once the referendum was decided. Their failure to agree and vote for a soft Brexit is a staggering failure of political organisation.
Essentially they had to decide between 'Norway for Now' and close alignment and play the politics right. Their failure to do so is mostly about playing games with the country's future.
1. The blockage for May's deal was Tory MPs. 2. This endless nonsense about the 2017 parliament "trying to overturn the vote of the British public". A referendum. Held in the 2015 parliament. A parliament which by law and convention cannot bind the hands of its successors. 3. "Soft" Brexit - leaving the EU and not the EEU or CU - was never on the table because successive Tory PMs refused to offer it
Another batch of mostly excellent polls for Biden overnight bar the Monmouth PA poll. PB really seems in denial over how strong Biden’s chances are, drawing false equivalencies with 2016.
No one has satisfactorily answered the question of why someone who voted for Clinton in 2016 will vote for Trump in 2020. And these people need to exist for Trump to win given the large numbers who have switched in the opposite direction.
- Minimum wage, which disincentivises low-skilled from upskilling themselves
This is a remarkable comment. I mean, if the minimum wage was set a level that say 50% of the population were on it and the lowest skilled/paid had no realistic prospect of ever obtaining a job that was higher paid then I could see the argument. But I know of no companies that have a minimum wage job and then the next job up also at minimum wage - it doesn't work, no one would want the next job up. Instead, pay rises a bit in the next job up to differentiate from the lowest paid job. There's still and incentive to progress and the worst off get something approaching a living wage.
Do you think people have to actually be starving to want to progress (ignoring that if there was no minimum wage we'd probably just have higher benefits to make up the difference). I'd rather employers pay than the state.
I very much approve of the NMW and think the current levels are about right.
But the examples do exist where the gaps between zero responsibility and significant responsibility is less than £1 per hour. An example would be a mini supermarket duty manager and shelf stacker. Little chance of further promotion and a small pay gap makes shelf stacker the better job.
The issues solved by NMW far outweigh the issues around this though.
Yes, the issue is the jobs even two or three promotions up the ladder pay only a few pence an hour more than the bottom job, and in a lot of industries there’s not as much scope for overtime in those roles either, which makes it unattractive to train for promotion.
That said, despite my initial scepticism the NMW has been successful, it’s possible the above problem will be partially solved as immigration rules tighten with regard to low paid employees in future.
I always thought the coalition government should have introduced a lock on the minimum wage that meant it went up depending on immigration and unemployment. Essentially, if lots of people are coming to the country and finding jobs, then the minimum wage needed to go up.
Yup, consistent with basically all the other data on this. Trump's position on this isn't popular. Riots on your watch are bad for an incumbent, people have seen the police brutality videos, and even his supporters can see that he's trying to increase the tensions in the hope of political gain.
It's almost perfect conditions for the punditry to push a totally incorrect assumption, because: 1) It fits what they learned about right-wing politicians being popular for law-and-order and the left being on the defensive during their formative years, the 1970s and 1980s 2) The press really, really need this to be a competitive race, but as far as we can tell from the polling the voters are stubbornly refusing to cooperate
I think the polling on this (and most other issues) is just the pro-Trump people saying they like him on Law and Order, and the anti-Trump people saying they don't. So Trump's position on this is about as popular (or unpopular) as Trump is.
It's only significant if the polling is much different from the Trump-Biden voting numbers. Trump has a narrow advantage on the economy, so that remains his best chance I reckon.
Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does. Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.
Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".
What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
Wait until the total meltdown at Dover in January cuts through.
We'll be looking at omni-incompetent.
It will be very interesting to see how businesses exporting into the UK from Europe react to having their truckers logjamed for miles on the opposite side of the channel and in Ireland
There is going to be a lot of anger on all sides and total failure by both the EU and UK negotiators
The EU will just export elsewhere rather than sit in a queue, have the UK defined what paperwork is necessary to import goods?
If it was that simple they'd be doing it already.
Imports become more expensive, directly or indirectly, due to Brexit red tape. We have to buy our stuff from somewhere, so we will pay the price. The EU will still provide most of what it already does, due to being closer than other suppliers, albeit at a higher cost.
That's not what was said before.
It was said before by the retailers, the manufacturers, the logistics industry, the ports, HMRC, the WTO. What do they know? We've Had Enough of Experts etc...
Does that preclude you, if it’s true, from raising issues with the PM? Does it mean your losses are less than those who are not part of the movement? The world is not just for right wingers nor is government.
No, but the fact theat the campaigners are political activists intent on suing the government makes the decision easy for the PM.
It would be like the meeting between Andrew Mitchell and the police union, the activists would come out afterwards and say that the PM was a heartless Incompetent on the six o’clock news, having made a careful note of every word he said for their court case.
There’s no upside for the PM to the meeting, and plenty of downside.
Another batch of mostly excellent polls for Biden overnight bar the Monmouth PA poll. PB really seems in denial over how strong Biden’s chances are, drawing false equivalencies with 2016.
No one has satisfactorily answered the question of why someone who voted for Clinton in 2016 will vote for Trump in 2020. And these people need to exist for Trump to win given the large numbers who have switched in the opposite direction.
Very few have switched since 2016, Trump is still polling 45% in plenty of national polls and he got 46% in 2016 and he even got to 49% with Emerson excluding learners.
Biden has simply squeezed the libertarian and green votes to get to around 51% in most national polling, however that still might not be enough to win all the swing states he needs as they had a lower third party vote than the West or North East or Texas for example
Another batch of mostly excellent polls for Biden overnight bar the Monmouth PA poll. PB really seems in denial over how strong Biden’s chances are, drawing false equivalencies with 2016.
No one has satisfactorily answered the question of why someone who voted for Clinton in 2016 will vote for Trump in 2020. And these people need to exist for Trump to win given the large numbers who have switched in the opposite direction.
Yup, consistent with basically all the other data on this. Trump's position on this isn't popular. Riots on your watch are bad for an incumbent, people have seen the police brutality videos, and even his supporters can see that he's trying to increase the tensions in the hope of political gain.
It's almost perfect conditions for the punditry to push a totally incorrect assumption, because: 1) It fits what they learned about right-wing politicians being popular for law-and-order and the left being on the defensive during their formative years, the 1970s and 1980s 2) The press really, really need this to be a competitive race, but as far as we can tell from the polling the voters are stubbornly refusing to cooperate
I think the polling on this (and most other issues) is just the pro-Trump people saying they like him on Law and Order, and the anti-Trump people saying they don't. So Trump's position on this is about as popular (or unpopular) as Trump is.
It's only significant if the polling is much different from the Trump-Biden voting numbers. Trump has a narrow advantage on the economy, so that remains his best chance I reckon.
Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w
How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?
How Britain ended up with Boris is very simple. The hardcore Remoaners wouldn’t vote for Mrs May’s deal, because they thought they could overturn the vote of the British Public to leave the EU.
And SKS was most at fault for this. Labour could have backed Mays deal, but he loved getting on the BBC rubbishing it. It was a completely hopeless political judgement which led to an 80 seat tory majority. All SKS lovers should remember how badly he played 2019.
Quite correct. Politics is a matter of constant compromise. There were these groups: Hard Brexit at any price. Brexit at any price. Remain at any price. Remain or soft Brexit at any price, ie anything but a hard Brexit. This last was the only feasible group for Remainers to belong to once the referendum was decided. Their failure to agree and vote for a soft Brexit is a staggering failure of political organisation.
Essentially they had to decide between 'Norway for Now' and close alignment and play the politics right. Their failure to do so is mostly about playing games with the country's future.
1. The blockage for May's deal was Tory MPs. 2. This endless nonsense about the 2017 parliament "trying to overturn the vote of the British public". A referendum. Held in the 2015 parliament. A parliament which by law and convention cannot bind the hands of its successors. 3. "Soft" Brexit - leaving the EU and not the EEU or CU - was never on the table because successive Tory PMs refused to offer it
Soft Brexit was also never on the table because Corbyn didn't support it. Imagine a Labour leader in 2016 after the referendum saying "OK we have to leave the EU, let's do it in the way that is best for Britain, best for jobs, and best for reuniting our divided country: staying in the EEA"
It's also true that some remainers slowly became convinced that cancelling Brexit entirely was the only option because of the intransigence of the extreme Brexiteers on the other side.
Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w
How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?
How Britain ended up with Boris is very simple. The hardcore Remoaners wouldn’t vote for Mrs May’s deal, because they thought they could overturn the vote of the British Public to leave the EU.
And SKS was most at fault for this. Labour could have backed Mays deal, but he loved getting on the BBC rubbishing it. It was a completely hopleless political judgement which led to an 80 seat tory majority. All SKS lovers should remember how badly he played 2019.
Umm, Corbyn was the Labour leader who failed miserably at every single stage of Brexit. At least he has gone now, but he's done massive damage to the UK and Europe. He should have resigned the day after the referendum vote in 2016, like Cameron did. But the idiot was always a Brexiteer so he stayed on to make sure we ended up with a hard Brexit. Unforgiveable.
Starmer has a black mark for remaining part of Corbyn's team, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as if he hadn't we might have ended up with a useless Corbynite as Labour leader now.
Ok but don't forget how much SKS enjoyed rubbsihing Mays deal without realising what the obvious outcome was, a huge Tory majority, as SKS thought that he could overturn a democratic vote because he did not agree with it. Boris may be a dick but he played 2019 perfectly. He was ridiculed on this site consistently for losing parliamentary vote after vote but he knew the resentment that was building up in the Country. Something SKS in his London bubble failed to see coming.
I wonder if at any point BoZo regrets achieving his dream?
Yes, the history books will record he was PM, right next to "the one that totally fucked up Brexit and Covid" and may yet lead to the break up of the UK
Another batch of mostly excellent polls for Biden overnight bar the Monmouth PA poll. PB really seems in denial over how strong Biden’s chances are, drawing false equivalencies with 2016.
No one has satisfactorily answered the question of why someone who voted for Clinton in 2016 will vote for Trump in 2020. And these people need to exist for Trump to win given the large numbers who have switched in the opposite direction.
Very few have switched since 2016, Trump is still polling 45% in plenty of national polls and he got 46% in 2016 and he even got to 49% with Emerson excluding learners.
Biden has simply squeezed the libertarian and green votes to get to around 51% in most national polling, however that still might not be enough to win all the swing states he needs as they had a lower third party vote than the West or North East or Texas for example
The polls show that white suburban women have switched en masse to Biden. Those are GOP bedrock voters, not your typical Green or Libertarian.
It’s easy to forget just how close Trump’s wins in the Midwest were in 2016 - all by 1% or less. So any losses need to be made up, and it’s hard to see where they are coming from.
Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w
How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?
How Britain ended up with Boris is very simple. The hardcore Remoaners wouldn’t vote for Mrs May’s deal, because they thought they could overturn the vote of the British Public to leave the EU.
And SKS was most at fault for this. Labour could have backed Mays deal, but he loved getting on the BBC rubbishing it. It was a completely hopleless political judgement which led to an 80 seat tory majority. All SKS lovers should remember how badly he played 2019.
Help me out here- I've asked this before, and not got an answer...
Very very many Conservative MPs- lots of them prominent in the current government- really disliked May's plan. (Or, if you're more cynical, affected to dislike it as a wedge to create a vacancy for PM.)
Had it shown any sign of going through on the back of opposition votes, what was to stop them VONCing TM and getting her out of Downing Street faster than you can say "vassal state"?
(Or being less florid, how do you get round the problem that any Brexit plan needed a double majority in practice- a majority in Parliament as a whole and a majority in the Conservative party? And until the 2019 win with MPs signing in blood to Back Boris, that was damn difficult?)
At the time the government had no power to call an election because it did not have the numbers under the FTPA, so a House of Commons with a majority supporting a soft Brexit or Remain and agreeing a line to take held the cards. Both the skill and the courage were lacking along with the willingness to accept that Remain was not an option. The courage involved knowing that political careers might be destroyed by being principled (ask Chuka).The group with the numbers were beaten by the group without the numbers. It has been remarkable.
Another batch of mostly excellent polls for Biden overnight bar the Monmouth PA poll. PB really seems in denial over how strong Biden’s chances are, drawing false equivalencies with 2016.
No one has satisfactorily answered the question of why someone who voted for Clinton in 2016 will vote for Trump in 2020. And these people need to exist for Trump to win given the large numbers who have switched in the opposite direction.
I agree with your general take, but I can think of a few reasons:
1) If you're generally conservative, but were never-Trump, you got some conservative stuff - tax cuts, SCOTUS appointments etc, and you annoyed liberals a lot, which pulls you back towards Trump's side with every left-right news cycle. I think quite a few conservatives who went with Hillary, didn't vote or voted for a minor candidate - remember the libertarian got 3.3%, the ex-CIA dude got 0.5% - are now on Team Trump.
2) The economy! OK, the virus screwed things up, but Trump said he'd make the economy strong, and the economy was strong. A lot of people were saying that if Trump got elected the stock market would crash, but the stock market didn't crash - and it carried on not crashing, a lot. Also people were saying the trade wars would wreck the economy, and he did the trade wars, and they didn't wreck the economy.
3) The lockdowns. People have different opinions on the appropriate virus response, and it's not *entirely* polarized on pro-Trump vs anti-Trump. If you think people should be going back to normal, if you think kids should be back in school, if your business is being destroyed by the reaction to the virus - I think you jump to Trump.
4) Law and order. I know I've been saying Trump's stance is unpopular and I think he's onto a net loser. But the number of not-otherwise-Trump voters it will attract will definitely be greater than zero.
5) Minorities. IDK, I haven't looked at it in detail, but there seems to be some polling support for the idea that he's put on black and latino support for whatever reason.
Yup, consistent with basically all the other data on this. Trump's position on this isn't popular. Riots on your watch are bad for an incumbent, people have seen the police brutality videos, and even his supporters can see that he's trying to increase the tensions in the hope of political gain.
It's almost perfect conditions for the punditry to push a totally incorrect assumption, because: 1) It fits what they learned about right-wing politicians being popular for law-and-order and the left being on the defensive during their formative years, the 1970s and 1980s 2) The press really, really need this to be a competitive race, but as far as we can tell from the polling the voters are stubbornly refusing to cooperate
I think the polling on this (and most other issues) is just the pro-Trump people saying they like him on Law and Order, and the anti-Trump people saying they don't. So Trump's position on this is about as popular (or unpopular) as Trump is.
It's only significant if the polling is much different from the Trump-Biden voting numbers. Trump has a narrow advantage on the economy, so that remains his best chance I reckon.
Another batch of mostly excellent polls for Biden overnight bar the Monmouth PA poll. PB really seems in denial over how strong Biden’s chances are, drawing false equivalencies with 2016.
No one has satisfactorily answered the question of why someone who voted for Clinton in 2016 will vote for Trump in 2020. And these people need to exist for Trump to win given the large numbers who have switched in the opposite direction.
Very few have switched since 2016, Trump is still polling 45% in plenty of national polls and he got 46% in 2016 and he even got to 49% with Emerson excluding learners.
Biden has simply squeezed the libertarian and green votes to get to around 51% in most national polling, however that still might not be enough to win all the swing states he needs as they had a lower third party vote than the West or North East or Texas for example
The polls show that white suburban women have switched en masse to Biden. Those are GOP bedrock voters, not your typical Green or Libertarian.
It’s easy to forget just how close Trump’s wins in the Midwest were in 2016 - all by 1% or less. So any losses need to be made up, and it’s hard to see where they are coming from.
Even Hillary won white college educated women in 2016 so that is not really a change either.
Trafalgar Group was the only poll in 2016 to have Trump ahead in Michigan and Pennsylvania and has Trump ahead in Michigan and Wisconsin in its latest poll
Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does. Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.
Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".
What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
Wait until the total meltdown at Dover in January cuts through.
We'll be looking at omni-incompetent.
It will be very interesting to see how businesses exporting into the UK from Europe react to having their truckers logjamed for miles on the opposite side of the channel and in Ireland
There is going to be a lot of anger on all sides and total failure by both the EU and UK negotiators
How is it a total failure by the EU? Their rules on external borders are clear and longstanding - one of the arguments for us leaving was that their rules weren't enforced harshly enough.
The EU has a system and process for its side of the external border. Its side will work. The UK does not have a system nor indeed have we even made any preparations. The queues will be from our side of the border. How is that the fault of EU negotiators?
It’s the EU’s fault for not realising we hold all the cards, or something.
I don't know how exporters/importers to/from the UK are going to feel, but I am pretty confident that the vast majority of people here in Germany are going to give the UK approximately 100% of the blame for any problems caused by Brexit. Unsurprisingly.
I've been talking to friends in the US and they all say the same thing, Biden leads the polls but the feeling on the ground is that Trump has the momentum because he's been gifted a stronger hand by the riots and the Dems lack of condemnation of their own side and the very blatant media bias. This is among all likely Dem voters as well.
The CNN graphic of "Fiery but mostly peaceful protests" in front of burning buildings has become a recruiting tool for Trump among middle class suburban whites, it's team Trump saying "we told you, they'll lie to your face and expect you to accept it" and it's working for them among parents of my friends who were previously in the Dem column.
That's the narrative, and it's one that - for example - Conrad Black and Andrew Sullivan have both written about in the last two weeks.
But I'm a numbers rather than a narrative kind of guy. Let's see if voters are actually changing.
One problem with the polls last time was that in order to make the samples balanced, they compromised on randomness, which meant they failed to pick up on important movements.
A lot is being made of people overcompensating for the 2016 shock by overstating Trump's chances but I'm beginning to wonder whether a closer analogy is 2017 with Biden as May with regards to the polls.
As @MaxPB has pointed out, plus others such as Andrew Sullivan and Conrad Black, people do not like the violence and the fear it is coming to a town near you and it is starting to become a major issue. @rcs1000 pointed out Republican registrations in Florida are running ahead of the Democrats but my understanding is the Republicans have eroded the Democrat's lead since 2016 in PA as well, which also bodes ill for Biden.
More to the point, both the campaign's actions and what is being seen on the ground doesn't seem to match the polls. Trump has just opened an office in Minnesota and he has visited New Hampshire.
Trump is repeatedly banging the drum linking Biden with the violence and Biden is now running adverts condemning the violence. This is where the NY Times states about the adverts:
"The Biden campaign said the ad would air nationally on cable television and in local markets in nine battleground states: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin."
That doesn't sound like a campaign that is confident it is high single digits ahead.
Ultimately, though, Biden's national polling numbers aren't changing.
Pundits and stories and narrative have very little predictive power compared to hard numbers.
The problem I have is whether the data we are getting from these polls is clean.
If I am dealing with a set of financial numbers on which to make a forecast, I can assume they are clean in that they have been audited, subject to oversight etc.
That is not the case here. As many on here have pointed out, US polling methodology is not as audited as in the UK. More concerning is that the polls are seen as both sides to push their positions so they become used as a political football and used as to rally the troops so it is entirely possible you are getting self-selected samples.
Also, as mentioned on a previous thread, both parties will have continual internal polling going on which is why I am a great believer in looking at their actions as that demonstrates their "true" view.
I think the idea the campaigns have any idea what's going on is not backed by the evidence. Hillary had no idea she was losing in the rust belt. Trump and his advisors thought they had lost. Nigel Farage conceded defeat immediately after EU Referendum polls closed.
Your polling methodology point is a good one. It is entirely possible - maybe even likely - that there are shy Trump supporters, who are not being picked up.
The issue for the President is that (on current polls) there needs to be an unprecedented level of polling error.
And there's one last issue. Why isn't Biden's share moving? If the riots were having an effect, he should still see his share move. Because changes in opinions should be picked up, even if the overall totals are wrong. And we're not seeing any meaningful move in the Biden total.
If they posted their crosstabs they would be a lot easier to analyse.
Nevertheless, their simple "error rate" - i.e. the average amount they were wrong for Dem and Republican candidates - in 2018 was not great, at 5.6 percent.
“When we talk about hidden voters, what we’re talking about is the social-desirability bias, and that is when people basically tell a live-caller what they think will get them judged least harshly,” says Cahaly. “Some races have that, some races don’t.” Cahaly points to the Florida 2018 gubernatorial race as an example. Democrats had branded Republican Ron DeSantis as a racist, and all pollsters, except Trafalgar, showed Democrat Andrew Gillum with a lead in the days before the election. DeSantis won the election by 0.4 points.
“In 2020, the presidential question has social-desirability bias,” says Cahaly. He tries to capture the views of “hidden voters” in several ways. “I start with a voter file that has everything from occupation to incomes to education levels to voting history to likely religion,” says Cahaly. “We give people multiple ways to participate in our polls,” he adds. “We do live calls, we do automated calls, we do texts, we do emails, we do other digital platforms.” Cahaly tries to get a sample of at least 1,000 respondents in any statewide poll: “Big samples are better samples.”
He thinks a lot of pollsters for media outlets simply ask too many questions — if a pollster is asking 30 questions, “you end up with people who really care too much about politics,” says Cahaly. Trafalgar’s surveys ask “no more than nine [questions] and [take] less than three minutes to complete.”
Yes, I've linked to that article myself, about why we shouldn't ignore Trafalgar.
But let me turn it around. Trafalgar didn't do very well in 2018, where they applied these same weightings.
Now, it could be that 2020 is just like 2016. Or it could be that it's more like 2018.
The difference between 2016 and 2018 though was Trump was not on the ballot, many Trump voters in 2016 stayed home in 2018. The question is if they will turn out for him again in 2020 and whether other pollsters are capturing them or missing them unlike Trafalgar
Didn't the GOP congressional vote outperform Trump nationally in 2016?
Trump got a higher voteshare in 2016 than the Republicans did at the 2018 congressional elections
OK, but when Trump was on the ballot in 2016 the GOP candidates out polled him nationally.
Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does. Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.
Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".
What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
Wait until the total meltdown at Dover in January cuts through.
We'll be looking at omni-incompetent.
It will be very interesting to see how businesses exporting into the UK from Europe react to having their truckers logjamed for miles on the opposite side of the channel and in Ireland
There is going to be a lot of anger on all sides and total failure by both the EU and UK negotiators
How is it a total failure by the EU? Their rules on external borders are clear and longstanding - one of the arguments for us leaving was that their rules weren't enforced harshly enough.
The EU has a system and process for its side of the external border. Its side will work. The UK does not have a system nor indeed have we even made any preparations. The queues will be from our side of the border. How is that the fault of EU negotiators?
It’s the EU’s fault for not realising we hold all the cards, or something.
I don't know how exporters/importers to/from the UK are going to feel, but I am pretty confident that the vast majority of people here in Germany are going to give the UK approximately 100% of the blame for any problems caused by Brexit. Unsurprisingly.
But they're still gonna want to sell stuff to the UK, no?
Yup, consistent with basically all the other data on this. Trump's position on this isn't popular. Riots on your watch are bad for an incumbent, people have seen the police brutality videos, and even his supporters can see that he's trying to increase the tensions in the hope of political gain.
It's almost perfect conditions for the punditry to push a totally incorrect assumption, because: 1) It fits what they learned about right-wing politicians being popular for law-and-order and the left being on the defensive during their formative years, the 1970s and 1980s 2) The press really, really need this to be a competitive race, but as far as we can tell from the polling the voters are stubbornly refusing to cooperate
I think the polling on this (and most other issues) is just the pro-Trump people saying they like him on Law and Order, and the anti-Trump people saying they don't. So Trump's position on this is about as popular (or unpopular) as Trump is.
It's only significant if the polling is much different from the Trump-Biden voting numbers. Trump has a narrow advantage on the economy, so that remains his best chance I reckon.
Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w
How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?
How Britain ended up with Boris is very simple. The hardcore Remoaners wouldn’t vote for Mrs May’s deal, because they thought they could overturn the vote of the British Public to leave the EU.
And SKS was most at fault for this. Labour could have backed Mays deal, but he loved getting on the BBC rubbishing it. It was a completely hopleless political judgement which led to an 80 seat tory majority. All SKS lovers should remember how badly he played 2019.
Help me out here- I've asked this before, and not got an answer...
Very very many Conservative MPs- lots of them prominent in the current government- really disliked May's plan. (Or, if you're more cynical, affected to dislike it as a wedge to create a vacancy for PM.)
Had it shown any sign of going through on the back of opposition votes, what was to stop them VONCing TM and getting her out of Downing Street faster than you can say "vassal state"?
(Or being less florid, how do you get round the problem that any Brexit plan needed a double majority in practice- a majority in Parliament as a whole and a majority in the Conservative party? And until the 2019 win with MPs signing in blood to Back Boris, that was damn difficult?)
The Tory MPs had the chance to oust her but voted for her in the leadership election. There were more than enough Tory MPs who supported her deal to get it through parliament with Labour's support but SKS (remember he was their Brexit spokesman) enjoyed the Governments difficulties and would not support May's deal. It was the most stupid polititcal judgement in decades. If Labour had supported it, the Tories would have torn themselves apart and Labour would have won the election.
Another batch of mostly excellent polls for Biden overnight bar the Monmouth PA poll. PB really seems in denial over how strong Biden’s chances are, drawing false equivalencies with 2016.
No one has satisfactorily answered the question of why someone who voted for Clinton in 2016 will vote for Trump in 2020. And these people need to exist for Trump to win given the large numbers who have switched in the opposite direction.
Very few have switched since 2016, Trump is still polling 45% in plenty of national polls and he got 46% in 2016 and he even got to 49% with Emerson excluding learners.
Biden has simply squeezed the libertarian and green votes to get to around 51% in most national polling, however that still might not be enough to win all the swing states he needs as they had a lower third party vote than the West or North East or Texas for example
The polls show that white suburban women have switched en masse to Biden. Those are GOP bedrock voters, not your typical Green or Libertarian.
It’s easy to forget just how close Trump’s wins in the Midwest were in 2016 - all by 1% or less. So any losses need to be made up, and it’s hard to see where they are coming from.
Even Hillary won white college educated women in 2016 so that is not really a change either.
Trafalgar Group was the only poll in 2016 to have Trump ahead in Michigan and Pennsylvania and has Trump ahead in Michigan and Wisconsin in its latest poll
you switched "white suburban women" to "white college educated women". Sneaky, but I guess everybody noticed. Must try harder.
- Minimum wage, which disincentivises low-skilled from upskilling themselves
This is a remarkable comment. I mean, if the minimum wage was set a level that say 50% of the population were on it and the lowest skilled/paid had no realistic prospect of ever obtaining a job that was higher paid then I could see the argument. But I know of no companies that have a minimum wage job and then the next job up also at minimum wage - it doesn't work, no one would want the next job up. Instead, pay rises a bit in the next job up to differentiate from the lowest paid job. There's still and incentive to progress and the worst off get something approaching a living wage.
Do you think people have to actually be starving to want to progress (ignoring that if there was no minimum wage we'd probably just have higher benefits to make up the difference). I'd rather employers pay than the state.
I very much approve of the NMW and think the current levels are about right.
But the examples do exist where the gaps between zero responsibility and significant responsibility is less than £1 per hour. An example would be a mini supermarket duty manager and shelf stacker. Little chance of further promotion and a small pay gap makes shelf stacker the better job.
The issues solved by NMW far outweigh the issues around this though.
Funnily enough, I have experience of that scenario - as an 6th form student I had a Saturday job at a small Co-Op. Sunday duty manager job was similar to how you described, barely above shop floor pay. No one wanted to do it, so the real store manager (not duty manager, the person in charge of the shop overall/all decisions in shop) fiddled the books so we put down extra hours and got effectively paid 1.5 times the shop floor pay. Either the pay gap, even if small, is incentive enough or the employer has to find a way to produce the incentive - they need managers, up the pay.
Obviously there comes a point at which some of these stores become non-viable, in theory. But then you look at the Scandinavian countries, which still manage to have coffee shops (with very expensive coffee because the workers get paid more).
Yup, consistent with basically all the other data on this. Trump's position on this isn't popular. Riots on your watch are bad for an incumbent, people have seen the police brutality videos, and even his supporters can see that he's trying to increase the tensions in the hope of political gain.
It's almost perfect conditions for the punditry to push a totally incorrect assumption, because: 1) It fits what they learned about right-wing politicians being popular for law-and-order and the left being on the defensive during their formative years, the 1970s and 1980s 2) The press really, really need this to be a competitive race, but as far as we can tell from the polling the voters are stubbornly refusing to cooperate
I think the polling on this (and most other issues) is just the pro-Trump people saying they like him on Law and Order, and the anti-Trump people saying they don't. So Trump's position on this is about as popular (or unpopular) as Trump is.
It's only significant if the polling is much different from the Trump-Biden voting numbers. Trump has a narrow advantage on the economy, so that remains his best chance I reckon.
Another batch of mostly excellent polls for Biden overnight bar the Monmouth PA poll. PB really seems in denial over how strong Biden’s chances are, drawing false equivalencies with 2016.
No one has satisfactorily answered the question of why someone who voted for Clinton in 2016 will vote for Trump in 2020. And these people need to exist for Trump to win given the large numbers who have switched in the opposite direction.
Very few have switched since 2016, Trump is still polling 45% in plenty of national polls and he got 46% in 2016 and he even got to 49% with Emerson excluding learners.
Biden has simply squeezed the libertarian and green votes to get to around 51% in most national polling, however that still might not be enough to win all the swing states he needs as they had a lower third party vote than the West or North East or Texas for example
The polls show that white suburban women have switched en masse to Biden. Those are GOP bedrock voters, not your typical Green or Libertarian.
It’s easy to forget just how close Trump’s wins in the Midwest were in 2016 - all by 1% or less. So any losses need to be made up, and it’s hard to see where they are coming from.
Even Hillary won white college educated women in 2016 so that is not really a change either.
Trafalgar Group was the only poll in 2016 to have Trump ahead in Michigan and Pennsylvania and has Trump ahead in Michigan and Wisconsin in its latest poll
Biden is winning them by much more. And I am talking about suburban women, not just those with a college degree
Nottingham City Council is aware of hoax messages that have been circulating on social media regarding schools having children tested for Covid-19 without seeking permission from parents; and children being taken into quarantine if they test positive for the virus.
Another batch of mostly excellent polls for Biden overnight bar the Monmouth PA poll. PB really seems in denial over how strong Biden’s chances are, drawing false equivalencies with 2016.
No one has satisfactorily answered the question of why someone who voted for Clinton in 2016 will vote for Trump in 2020. And these people need to exist for Trump to win given the large numbers who have switched in the opposite direction.
I agree with your general take, but I can think of a few reasons:
1) If you're generally conservative, but were never-Trump, you got some conservative stuff - tax cuts, SCOTUS appointments etc, and you annoyed liberals a lot, which pulls you back towards Trump's side with every left-right news cycle. I think quite a few conservatives who went with Hillary, didn't vote or voted for a minor candidate - remember the libertarian got 3.3%, the ex-CIA dude got 0.5% - are now on Team Trump.
2) The economy! OK, the virus screwed things up, but Trump said he'd make the economy strong, and the economy was strong. A lot of people were saying that if Trump got elected the stock market would crash, but the stock market didn't crash - and it carried on not crashing, a lot. Also people were saying the trade wars would wreck the economy, and he did the trade wars, and they didn't wreck the economy.
3) The lockdowns. People have different opinions on the appropriate virus response, and it's not *entirely* polarized on pro-Trump vs anti-Trump. If you think people should be going back to normal, if you think kids should be back in school, if your business is being destroyed by the reaction to the virus - I think you jump to Trump.
4) Law and order. I know I've been saying Trump's stance is unpopular and I think he's onto a net loser. But the number of not-otherwise-Trump voters it will attract will definitely be greater than zero.
5) Minorities. IDK, I haven't looked at it in detail, but there seems to be some polling support for the idea that he's put on black and latino support for whatever reason.
Original premise is wrong I think -> we just need some (dunno how many) Clinton backers not to show up to vote for Biden and then Trump wins.
Potentially some people were just voting to have the first female president. I doubt they'd switch to Trump, but they might not show up for Biden.
Michael Moore's 2016 article on lack of Dem enthusiasm may still hold. I know Dems probably want to beat Trump more than in 2016, but Biden (like Hilary) is not really a pulse-raising candidate.
I've been talking to friends in the US and they all say the same thing, Biden leads the polls but the feeling on the ground is that Trump has the momentum because he's been gifted a stronger hand by the riots and the Dems lack of condemnation of their own side and the very blatant media bias. This is among all likely Dem voters as well.
The CNN graphic of "Fiery but mostly peaceful protests" in front of burning buildings has become a recruiting tool for Trump among middle class suburban whites, it's team Trump saying "we told you, they'll lie to your face and expect you to accept it" and it's working for them among parents of my friends who were previously in the Dem column.
That's the narrative, and it's one that - for example - Conrad Black and Andrew Sullivan have both written about in the last two weeks.
But I'm a numbers rather than a narrative kind of guy. Let's see if voters are actually changing.
One problem with the polls last time was that in order to make the samples balanced, they compromised on randomness, which meant they failed to pick up on important movements.
A lot is being made of people overcompensating for the 2016 shock by overstating Trump's chances but I'm beginning to wonder whether a closer analogy is 2017 with Biden as May with regards to the polls.
As @MaxPB has pointed out, plus others such as Andrew Sullivan and Conrad Black, people do not like the violence and the fear it is coming to a town near you and it is starting to become a major issue. @rcs1000 pointed out Republican registrations in Florida are running ahead of the Democrats but my understanding is the Republicans have eroded the Democrat's lead since 2016 in PA as well, which also bodes ill for Biden.
More to the point, both the campaign's actions and what is being seen on the ground doesn't seem to match the polls. Trump has just opened an office in Minnesota and he has visited New Hampshire.
Trump is repeatedly banging the drum linking Biden with the violence and Biden is now running adverts condemning the violence. This is where the NY Times states about the adverts:
"The Biden campaign said the ad would air nationally on cable television and in local markets in nine battleground states: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin."
That doesn't sound like a campaign that is confident it is high single digits ahead.
Ultimately, though, Biden's national polling numbers aren't changing.
Pundits and stories and narrative have very little predictive power compared to hard numbers.
The problem I have is whether the data we are getting from these polls is clean.
If I am dealing with a set of financial numbers on which to make a forecast, I can assume they are clean in that they have been audited, subject to oversight etc.
That is not the case here. As many on here have pointed out, US polling methodology is not as audited as in the UK. More concerning is that the polls are seen as both sides to push their positions so they become used as a political football and used as to rally the troops so it is entirely possible you are getting self-selected samples.
Also, as mentioned on a previous thread, both parties will have continual internal polling going on which is why I am a great believer in looking at their actions as that demonstrates their "true" view.
I think the idea the campaigns have any idea what's going on is not backed by the evidence. Hillary had no idea she was losing in the rust belt. Trump and his advisors thought they had lost. Nigel Farage conceded defeat immediately after EU Referendum polls closed.
Your polling methodology point is a good one. It is entirely possible - maybe even likely - that there are shy Trump supporters, who are not being picked up.
The issue for the President is that (on current polls) there needs to be an unprecedented level of polling error.
And there's one last issue. Why isn't Biden's share moving? If the riots were having an effect, he should still see his share move. Because changes in opinions should be picked up, even if the overall totals are wrong. And we're not seeing any meaningful move in the Biden total.
If they posted their crosstabs they would be a lot easier to analyse.
Nevertheless, their simple "error rate" - i.e. the average amount they were wrong for Dem and Republican candidates - in 2018 was not great, at 5.6 percent.
“When we talk about hidden voters, what we’re talking about is the social-desirability bias, and that is when people basically tell a live-caller what they think will get them judged least harshly,” says Cahaly. “Some races have that, some races don’t.” Cahaly points to the Florida 2018 gubernatorial race as an example. Democrats had branded Republican Ron DeSantis as a racist, and all pollsters, except Trafalgar, showed Democrat Andrew Gillum with a lead in the days before the election. DeSantis won the election by 0.4 points.
“In 2020, the presidential question has social-desirability bias,” says Cahaly. He tries to capture the views of “hidden voters” in several ways. “I start with a voter file that has everything from occupation to incomes to education levels to voting history to likely religion,” says Cahaly. “We give people multiple ways to participate in our polls,” he adds. “We do live calls, we do automated calls, we do texts, we do emails, we do other digital platforms.” Cahaly tries to get a sample of at least 1,000 respondents in any statewide poll: “Big samples are better samples.”
He thinks a lot of pollsters for media outlets simply ask too many questions — if a pollster is asking 30 questions, “you end up with people who really care too much about politics,” says Cahaly. Trafalgar’s surveys ask “no more than nine [questions] and [take] less than three minutes to complete.”
Yes, I've linked to that article myself, about why we shouldn't ignore Trafalgar.
But let me turn it around. Trafalgar didn't do very well in 2018, where they applied these same weightings.
Now, it could be that 2020 is just like 2016. Or it could be that it's more like 2018.
The difference between 2016 and 2018 though was Trump was not on the ballot, many Trump voters in 2016 stayed home in 2018. The question is if they will turn out for him again in 2020 and whether other pollsters are capturing them or missing them unlike Trafalgar
Didn't the GOP congressional vote outperform Trump nationally in 2016?
Trump got a higher voteshare in 2016 than the Republicans did at the 2018 congressional elections
OK, but when Trump was on the ballot in 2016 the GOP candidates out polled him nationally.
Only as they had Trump voters and traditional Republican and independent voters, a few of the latter even voted for Hillary or libertarian at presidential level.
Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does. Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.
Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".
What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
Wait until the total meltdown at Dover in January cuts through.
We'll be looking at omni-incompetent.
It will be very interesting to see how businesses exporting into the UK from Europe react to having their truckers logjamed for miles on the opposite side of the channel and in Ireland
There is going to be a lot of anger on all sides and total failure by both the EU and UK negotiators
How is it a total failure by the EU? Their rules on external borders are clear and longstanding - one of the arguments for us leaving was that their rules weren't enforced harshly enough.
The EU has a system and process for its side of the external border. Its side will work. The UK does not have a system nor indeed have we even made any preparations. The queues will be from our side of the border. How is that the fault of EU negotiators?
It’s the EU’s fault for not realising we hold all the cards, or something.
I don't know how exporters/importers to/from the UK are going to feel, but I am pretty confident that the vast majority of people here in Germany are going to give the UK approximately 100% of the blame for any problems caused by Brexit. Unsurprisingly.
But they're still gonna want to sell stuff to the UK, no?
Who? The vast majority of people are not directly involved in selling stuff to the UK.
In any case, in political terms, people are just going to blame the UK for any problems caused by Brexit, whether or not EU negotiators/other European governments should share the blame. This shouldn't come as news.
Thanks for the reply. I agree pre-COVID that the economy would have been Trump’s strong suit, but “Would you have been better off 9 months ago than you were 4 years ago” is not a very convincing slogan.
I agree, it wouldn't work if the election was tomorrow, I think he needs another couple of conditions.
First, he needs light at the end of the tunnel on the virus. You don't necessarily need lots of people to have been vaccinated, but you need a path to doing that - there's a vaccine, it's been approved for use on somebody, they're starting to get it. Secondly, you need the economy to start to pick up as a result. Then he can run on sunny optimism, here's the economic growth we got before, now we've beaten the virus, you won't believe what's coming next.
I think it's pretty plausible that these conditions will hold; There seems to be a lot of progress with different vaccine candidates, and there would definitely be a sigh of relief and a lot of pent-up economic activity released if it happened.
The other thing about this story is that it's a way for him to get support that he isn't getting at the moment. I find this far more plausible than the law-and-order business or whatever that, if it was real, should have shown itself to the pollsters by now.
Another batch of mostly excellent polls for Biden overnight bar the Monmouth PA poll. PB really seems in denial over how strong Biden’s chances are, drawing false equivalencies with 2016.
No one has satisfactorily answered the question of why someone who voted for Clinton in 2016 will vote for Trump in 2020. And these people need to exist for Trump to win given the large numbers who have switched in the opposite direction.
Very few have switched since 2016, Trump is still polling 45% in plenty of national polls and he got 46% in 2016 and he even got to 49% with Emerson excluding learners.
Biden has simply squeezed the libertarian and green votes to get to around 51% in most national polling, however that still might not be enough to win all the swing states he needs as they had a lower third party vote than the West or North East or Texas for example
The polls show that white suburban women have switched en masse to Biden. Those are GOP bedrock voters, not your typical Green or Libertarian.
It’s easy to forget just how close Trump’s wins in the Midwest were in 2016 - all by 1% or less. So any losses need to be made up, and it’s hard to see where they are coming from.
Even Hillary won white college educated women in 2016 so that is not really a change either.
Trafalgar Group was the only poll in 2016 to have Trump ahead in Michigan and Pennsylvania and has Trump ahead in Michigan and Wisconsin in its latest poll
Biden is winning them by much more. And I am talking about suburban women, not just those with a college degree
Polling evidence on that? Though most suburban as opposed to small town and rural white women do have college degrees
I've been talking to friends in the US and they all say the same thing, Biden leads the polls but the feeling on the ground is that Trump has the momentum because he's been gifted a stronger hand by the riots and the Dems lack of condemnation of their own side and the very blatant media bias. This is among all likely Dem voters as well.
The CNN graphic of "Fiery but mostly peaceful protests" in front of burning buildings has become a recruiting tool for Trump among middle class suburban whites, it's team Trump saying "we told you, they'll lie to your face and expect you to accept it" and it's working for them among parents of my friends who were previously in the Dem column.
That's the narrative, and it's one that - for example - Conrad Black and Andrew Sullivan have both written about in the last two weeks.
But I'm a numbers rather than a narrative kind of guy. Let's see if voters are actually changing.
One problem with the polls last time was that in order to make the samples balanced, they compromised on randomness, which meant they failed to pick up on important movements.
A lot is being made of people overcompensating for the 2016 shock by overstating Trump's chances but I'm beginning to wonder whether a closer analogy is 2017 with Biden as May with regards to the polls.
As @MaxPB has pointed out, plus others such as Andrew Sullivan and Conrad Black, people do not like the violence and the fear it is coming to a town near you and it is starting to become a major issue. @rcs1000 pointed out Republican registrations in Florida are running ahead of the Democrats but my understanding is the Republicans have eroded the Democrat's lead since 2016 in PA as well, which also bodes ill for Biden.
More to the point, both the campaign's actions and what is being seen on the ground doesn't seem to match the polls. Trump has just opened an office in Minnesota and he has visited New Hampshire.
Trump is repeatedly banging the drum linking Biden with the violence and Biden is now running adverts condemning the violence. This is where the NY Times states about the adverts:
"The Biden campaign said the ad would air nationally on cable television and in local markets in nine battleground states: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin."
That doesn't sound like a campaign that is confident it is high single digits ahead.
Ultimately, though, Biden's national polling numbers aren't changing.
Pundits and stories and narrative have very little predictive power compared to hard numbers.
The problem I have is whether the data we are getting from these polls is clean.
If I am dealing with a set of financial numbers on which to make a forecast, I can assume they are clean in that they have been audited, subject to oversight etc.
That is not the case here. As many on here have pointed out, US polling methodology is not as audited as in the UK. More concerning is that the polls are seen as both sides to push their positions so they become used as a political football and used as to rally the troops so it is entirely possible you are getting self-selected samples.
Also, as mentioned on a previous thread, both parties will have continual internal polling going on which is why I am a great believer in looking at their actions as that demonstrates their "true" view.
I think the idea the campaigns have any idea what's going on is not backed by the evidence. Hillary had no idea she was losing in the rust belt. Trump and his advisors thought they had lost. Nigel Farage conceded defeat immediately after EU Referendum polls closed.
Your polling methodology point is a good one. It is entirely possible - maybe even likely - that there are shy Trump supporters, who are not being picked up.
The issue for the President is that (on current polls) there needs to be an unprecedented level of polling error.
And there's one last issue. Why isn't Biden's share moving? If the riots were having an effect, he should still see his share move. Because changes in opinions should be picked up, even if the overall totals are wrong. And we're not seeing any meaningful move in the Biden total.
If they posted their crosstabs they would be a lot easier to analyse.
Nevertheless, their simple "error rate" - i.e. the average amount they were wrong for Dem and Republican candidates - in 2018 was not great, at 5.6 percent.
“When we talk about hidden voters, what we’re talking about is the social-desirability bias, and that is when people basically tell a live-caller what they think will get them judged least harshly,” says Cahaly. “Some races have that, some races don’t.” Cahaly points to the Florida 2018 gubernatorial race as an example. Democrats had branded Republican Ron DeSantis as a racist, and all pollsters, except Trafalgar, showed Democrat Andrew Gillum with a lead in the days before the election. DeSantis won the election by 0.4 points.
“In 2020, the presidential question has social-desirability bias,” says Cahaly. He tries to capture the views of “hidden voters” in several ways. “I start with a voter file that has everything from occupation to incomes to education levels to voting history to likely religion,” says Cahaly. “We give people multiple ways to participate in our polls,” he adds. “We do live calls, we do automated calls, we do texts, we do emails, we do other digital platforms.” Cahaly tries to get a sample of at least 1,000 respondents in any statewide poll: “Big samples are better samples.”
He thinks a lot of pollsters for media outlets simply ask too many questions — if a pollster is asking 30 questions, “you end up with people who really care too much about politics,” says Cahaly. Trafalgar’s surveys ask “no more than nine [questions] and [take] less than three minutes to complete.”
Yes, I've linked to that article myself, about why we shouldn't ignore Trafalgar.
But let me turn it around. Trafalgar didn't do very well in 2018, where they applied these same weightings.
Now, it could be that 2020 is just like 2016. Or it could be that it's more like 2018.
The difference between 2016 and 2018 though was Trump was not on the ballot, many Trump voters in 2016 stayed home in 2018. The question is if they will turn out for him again in 2020 and whether other pollsters are capturing them or missing them unlike Trafalgar
Didn't the GOP congressional vote outperform Trump nationally in 2016?
Trump got a higher voteshare in 2016 than the Republicans did at the 2018 congressional elections
OK, but when Trump was on the ballot in 2016 the GOP candidates out polled him nationally.
Only as they had Trump voters and traditional Republican and independent voters, a few of the latter even vote for Hillary or libertarian at presidential level.
In 2018 though many Trump 2016 voters stayed home
OK so do you think the GOP will out perform Trump nationally or under perform at this forthcoming election?
Here is my prediction, they will out perform Trump.
And to say that Johnson is better than Blair is utterly ridiculous. I didn't like TB but he was light years better as a PM than this completely useless tosspot.
Ignoring the warcrimes, yes.
Johnson was of course a major cheerleader for the Iraq abomination.
All (Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson) should be rotting in a cell in the Hague.
Abbott is only in the frame because he tickled Boris's ego by lauding Brexit - one of the few 'world statesmen' who did. I feel a bit sorry for Hancock for being forced to pretend it's because of anything else.
Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w
How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?
How Britain ended up with Boris is very simple. The hardcore Remoaners wouldn’t vote for Mrs May’s deal, because they thought they could overturn the vote of the British Public to leave the EU.
And SKS was most at fault for this. Labour could have backed Mays deal, but he loved getting on the BBC rubbishing it. It was a completely hopleless political judgement which led to an 80 seat tory majority. All SKS lovers should remember how badly he played 2019.
Umm, Corbyn was the Labour leader who failed miserably at every single stage of Brexit. At least he has gone now, but he's done massive damage to the UK and Europe. He should have resigned the day after the referendum vote in 2016, like Cameron did. But the idiot was always a Brexiteer so he stayed on to make sure we ended up with a hard Brexit. Unforgiveable.
Starmer has a black mark for remaining part of Corbyn's team, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as if he hadn't we might have ended up with a useless Corbynite as Labour leader now.
Ok but don't forget how much SKS enjoyed rubbsihing Mays deal without realising what the obvious outcome was, a huge Tory majority, as SKS thought that he could overturn a democratic vote because he did not agree with it. Boris may be a dick but he played 2019 perfectly. He was ridiculed on this site consistently for losing parliamentary vote after vote but he knew the resentment that was building up in the Country. Something SKS in his London bubble failed to see coming.
I don't know what Starmer did or didn't see coming. Maybe he was making the best of a shit situation, maybe he was ambitious and saw a route to becoming Labour leader (in which case he played a blinder, no?). I just blame Corbyn for Labour's many failures when Corbyn was leader.
Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does. Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.
Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".
What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
Wait until the total meltdown at Dover in January cuts through.
We'll be looking at omni-incompetent.
It will be very interesting to see how businesses exporting into the UK from Europe react to having their truckers logjamed for miles on the opposite side of the channel and in Ireland
There is going to be a lot of anger on all sides and total failure by both the EU and UK negotiators
The EU will just export elsewhere rather than sit in a queue, have the UK defined what paperwork is necessary to import goods?
If it was that simple they'd be doing it already.
Imports become more expensive, directly or indirectly, due to Brexit red tape. We have to buy our stuff from somewhere, so we will pay the price. The EU will still provide most of what it already does, due to being closer than other suppliers, albeit at a higher cost.
That's not what was said before.
Indeed. I disagree with @nichomar. We will continue to import from the EU at a higher cost and at slightly lower levels, I expect. The question is whether the additional costs to EU imports make non-EU or UK substitution competitive despite the extra distance of the first and lack of scale for the second.
The problem is going the other way, where extra costs put our exports to the EU at a competitive disadvantage to intra-EU trade. Diverting to other markets doesn't help because the constraints that previously applied still do. Also on Day 1 we have a lack of preferential trade agreements with non-EU countries.
And to say that Johnson is better than Blair is utterly ridiculous. I didn't like TB but he was light years better as a PM than this completely useless tosspot.
Ignoring the warcrimes, yes.
Johnson was of course a major cheerleader for the Iraq abomination.
All (Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson) should be rotting in a cell in the Hague.
In fairness to Boris he recanted and joined Plaid Cymru and the SNP in the campaign to get Blair impeached!
Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does. Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.
Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".
What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
Wait until the total meltdown at Dover in January cuts through.
We'll be looking at omni-incompetent.
It will be very interesting to see how businesses exporting into the UK from Europe react to having their truckers logjamed for miles on the opposite side of the channel and in Ireland
There is going to be a lot of anger on all sides and total failure by both the EU and UK negotiators
How is it a total failure by the EU? Their rules on external borders are clear and longstanding - one of the arguments for us leaving was that their rules weren't enforced harshly enough.
The EU has a system and process for its side of the external border. Its side will work. The UK does not have a system nor indeed have we even made any preparations. The queues will be from our side of the border. How is that the fault of EU negotiators?
It’s the EU’s fault for not realising we hold all the cards, or something.
I don't know how exporters/importers to/from the UK are going to feel, but I am pretty confident that the vast majority of people here in Germany are going to give the UK approximately 100% of the blame for any problems caused by Brexit. Unsurprisingly.
But they're still gonna want to sell stuff to the UK, no?
Who? The vast majority of people are not directly involved in selling stuff to the UK.
In any case, in political terms, people are just going to blame the UK for any problems caused by Brexit, whether or not EU negotiators/other European governments should share the blame. This shouldn't come as news.
Another batch of mostly excellent polls for Biden overnight bar the Monmouth PA poll. PB really seems in denial over how strong Biden’s chances are, drawing false equivalencies with 2016.
No one has satisfactorily answered the question of why someone who voted for Clinton in 2016 will vote for Trump in 2020. And these people need to exist for Trump to win given the large numbers who have switched in the opposite direction.
I agree with your general take, but I can think of a few reasons:
1) If you're generally conservative, but were never-Trump, you got some conservative stuff - tax cuts, SCOTUS appointments etc, and you annoyed liberals a lot, which pulls you back towards Trump's side with every left-right news cycle. I think quite a few conservatives who went with Hillary, didn't vote or voted for a minor candidate - remember the libertarian got 3.3%, the ex-CIA dude got 0.5% - are now on Team Trump.
2) The economy! OK, the virus screwed things up, but Trump said he'd make the economy strong, and the economy was strong. A lot of people were saying that if Trump got elected the stock market would crash, but the stock market didn't crash - and it carried on not crashing, a lot. Also people were saying the trade wars would wreck the economy, and he did the trade wars, and they didn't wreck the economy.
3) The lockdowns. People have different opinions on the appropriate virus response, and it's not *entirely* polarized on pro-Trump vs anti-Trump. If you think people should be going back to normal, if you think kids should be back in school, if your business is being destroyed by the reaction to the virus - I think you jump to Trump.
4) Law and order. I know I've been saying Trump's stance is unpopular and I think he's onto a net loser. But the number of not-otherwise-Trump voters it will attract will definitely be greater than zero.
5) Minorities. IDK, I haven't looked at it in detail, but there seems to be some polling support for the idea that he's put on black and latino support for whatever reason.
Original premise is wrong I think -> we just need some (dunno how many) Clinton backers not to show up to vote for Biden and then Trump wins.
Potentially some people were just voting to have the first female president. I doubt they'd switch to Trump, but they might not show up for Biden.
Michael Moore's 2016 article on lack of Dem enthusiasm may still hold. I know Dems probably want to beat Trump more than in 2016, but Biden (like Hilary) is not really a pulse-raising candidate.
In 2016 the Dems has held the presidency for two terms, and Hilary was clearly a downgrade from Obama.
Dem voters certainly turned up on 2018 (eg in Wisconsin) so it’s not clear whey they wouldn’t in 2020 as well. Biden may not be an incredibly inspiring candidate, but dislike of Trump is *very* motivating!
Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does. Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.
Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".
What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
Wait until the total meltdown at Dover in January cuts through.
We'll be looking at omni-incompetent.
It will be very interesting to see how businesses exporting into the UK from Europe react to having their truckers logjamed for miles on the opposite side of the channel and in Ireland
There is going to be a lot of anger on all sides and total failure by both the EU and UK negotiators
How is it a total failure by the EU? Their rules on external borders are clear and longstanding - one of the arguments for us leaving was that their rules weren't enforced harshly enough.
The EU has a system and process for its side of the external border. Its side will work. The UK does not have a system nor indeed have we even made any preparations. The queues will be from our side of the border. How is that the fault of EU negotiators?
It’s the EU’s fault for not realising we hold all the cards, or something.
I don't know how exporters/importers to/from the UK are going to feel, but I am pretty confident that the vast majority of people here in Germany are going to give the UK approximately 100% of the blame for any problems caused by Brexit. Unsurprisingly.
But they're still gonna want to sell stuff to the UK, no?
Who? The vast majority of people are not directly involved in selling stuff to the UK.
In any case, in political terms, people are just going to blame the UK for any problems caused by Brexit, whether or not EU negotiators/other European governments should share the blame. This shouldn't come as news.
Sure they will. I'm only reporting that the vast majority of people will blame the UK for any problems caused by Brexit. I'm not sure why anybody would want to dispute this.
Abbott is only in the frame because he tickled Boris's ego by lauding Brexit - one of the few 'world statesmen' who did. I feel a bit sorry for Hancock for being forced to pretend it's because of anything else.
It's definitely nothing to do with him being on good terms with all the TPP nations, as the UK seeks to join that trade group.
Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does. Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.
Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".
What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
Wait until the total meltdown at Dover in January cuts through.
We'll be looking at omni-incompetent.
It will be very interesting to see how businesses exporting into the UK from Europe react to having their truckers logjamed for miles on the opposite side of the channel and in Ireland
There is going to be a lot of anger on all sides and total failure by both the EU and UK negotiators
How is it a total failure by the EU? Their rules on external borders are clear and longstanding - one of the arguments for us leaving was that their rules weren't enforced harshly enough.
The EU has a system and process for its side of the external border. Its side will work. The UK does not have a system nor indeed have we even made any preparations. The queues will be from our side of the border. How is that the fault of EU negotiators?
It’s the EU’s fault for not realising we hold all the cards, or something.
I don't know how exporters/importers to/from the UK are going to feel, but I am pretty confident that the vast majority of people here in Germany are going to give the UK approximately 100% of the blame for any problems caused by Brexit. Unsurprisingly.
But they're still gonna want to sell stuff to the UK, no?
Who? The vast majority of people are not directly involved in selling stuff to the UK.
In any case, in political terms, people are just going to blame the UK for any problems caused by Brexit, whether or not EU negotiators/other European governments should share the blame. This shouldn't come as news.
Sure they will. I'm only reporting that the vast majority of people will blame the UK for any problems caused by Brexit. I'm not sure why anybody would want to dispute this.
Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w
How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?
How Britain ended up with Boris is very simple. The hardcore Remoaners wouldn’t vote for Mrs May’s deal, because they thought they could overturn the vote of the British Public to leave the EU.
And SKS was most at fault for this. Labour could have backed Mays deal, but he loved getting on the BBC rubbishing it. It was a completely hopleless political judgement which led to an 80 seat tory majority. All SKS lovers should remember how badly he played 2019.
Umm, Corbyn was the Labour leader who failed miserably at every single stage of Brexit. At least he has gone now, but he's done massive damage to the UK and Europe. He should have resigned the day after the referendum vote in 2016, like Cameron did. But the idiot was always a Brexiteer so he stayed on to make sure we ended up with a hard Brexit. Unforgiveable.
Starmer has a black mark for remaining part of Corbyn's team, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as if he hadn't we might have ended up with a useless Corbynite as Labour leader now.
Ok but don't forget how much SKS enjoyed rubbsihing Mays deal without realising what the obvious outcome was, a huge Tory majority, as SKS thought that he could overturn a democratic vote because he did not agree with it. Boris may be a dick but he played 2019 perfectly. He was ridiculed on this site consistently for losing parliamentary vote after vote but he knew the resentment that was building up in the Country. Something SKS in his London bubble failed to see coming.
Starmer knew perfectly well what was coming - he saw the polling. Luckily for Labour, he managed to get the party to a point where it was able to recoup most of the votes it was in damger of losing to the LibDems. This saved Labour from a far worse defeat than might otherwise have been the case.
Another batch of mostly excellent polls for Biden overnight bar the Monmouth PA poll. PB really seems in denial over how strong Biden’s chances are, drawing false equivalencies with 2016.
No one has satisfactorily answered the question of why someone who voted for Clinton in 2016 will vote for Trump in 2020. And these people need to exist for Trump to win given the large numbers who have switched in the opposite direction.
I agree with your general take, but I can think of a few reasons:
1) If you're generally conservative, but were never-Trump, you got some conservative stuff - tax cuts, SCOTUS appointments etc, and you annoyed liberals a lot, which pulls you back towards Trump's side with every left-right news cycle. I think quite a few conservatives who went with Hillary, didn't vote or voted for a minor candidate - remember the libertarian got 3.3%, the ex-CIA dude got 0.5% - are now on Team Trump.
2) The economy! OK, the virus screwed things up, but Trump said he'd make the economy strong, and the economy was strong. A lot of people were saying that if Trump got elected the stock market would crash, but the stock market didn't crash - and it carried on not crashing, a lot. Also people were saying the trade wars would wreck the economy, and he did the trade wars, and they didn't wreck the economy.
3) The lockdowns. People have different opinions on the appropriate virus response, and it's not *entirely* polarized on pro-Trump vs anti-Trump. If you think people should be going back to normal, if you think kids should be back in school, if your business is being destroyed by the reaction to the virus - I think you jump to Trump.
4) Law and order. I know I've been saying Trump's stance is unpopular and I think he's onto a net loser. But the number of not-otherwise-Trump voters it will attract will definitely be greater than zero.
5) Minorities. IDK, I haven't looked at it in detail, but there seems to be some polling support for the idea that he's put on black and latino support for whatever reason.
Original premise is wrong I think -> we just need some (dunno how many) Clinton backers not to show up to vote for Biden and then Trump wins.
Potentially some people were just voting to have the first female president. I doubt they'd switch to Trump, but they might not show up for Biden.
Michael Moore's 2016 article on lack of Dem enthusiasm may still hold. I know Dems probably want to beat Trump more than in 2016, but Biden (like Hilary) is not really a pulse-raising candidate.
In 2016 the Dems has held the presidency for two terms, and Hilary was clearly a downgrade from Obama.
Dem voters certainly turned up on 2018 (eg in Wisconsin) so it’s not clear whey they wouldn’t in 2020 as well. Biden may not be an incredibly inspiring candidate, but dislike of Trump is *very* motivating!
The only way that anyone would EVER be motivated to vote for Biden is having Trump as his opponent.
Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does. Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.
Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".
What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
Wait until the total meltdown at Dover in January cuts through.
We'll be looking at omni-incompetent.
It will be very interesting to see how businesses exporting into the UK from Europe react to having their truckers logjamed for miles on the opposite side of the channel and in Ireland
There is going to be a lot of anger on all sides and total failure by both the EU and UK negotiators
How is it a total failure by the EU? Their rules on external borders are clear and longstanding - one of the arguments for us leaving was that their rules weren't enforced harshly enough.
The EU has a system and process for its side of the external border. Its side will work. The UK does not have a system nor indeed have we even made any preparations. The queues will be from our side of the border. How is that the fault of EU negotiators?
It’s the EU’s fault for not realising we hold all the cards, or something.
I don't know how exporters/importers to/from the UK are going to feel, but I am pretty confident that the vast majority of people here in Germany are going to give the UK approximately 100% of the blame for any problems caused by Brexit. Unsurprisingly.
But they're still gonna want to sell stuff to the UK, no?
Who? The vast majority of people are not directly involved in selling stuff to the UK.
In any case, in political terms, people are just going to blame the UK for any problems caused by Brexit, whether or not EU negotiators/other European governments should share the blame. This shouldn't come as news.
Sure they will. I'm only reporting that the vast majority of people will blame the UK for any problems caused by Brexit. I'm not sure why anybody would want to dispute this.
I can see why you wouldn't want to ....
Why I wouldn't want to what? Dispute the thing that I myself am saying is obvious? Why would I want to do that?
Another batch of mostly excellent polls for Biden overnight bar the Monmouth PA poll. PB really seems in denial over how strong Biden’s chances are, drawing false equivalencies with 2016.
No one has satisfactorily answered the question of why someone who voted for Clinton in 2016 will vote for Trump in 2020. And these people need to exist for Trump to win given the large numbers who have switched in the opposite direction.
I agree with your general take, but I can think of a few reasons:
1) If you're generally conservative, but were never-Trump, you got some conservative stuff - tax cuts, SCOTUS appointments etc, and you annoyed liberals a lot, which pulls you back towards Trump's side with every left-right news cycle. I think quite a few conservatives who went with Hillary, didn't vote or voted for a minor candidate - remember the libertarian got 3.3%, the ex-CIA dude got 0.5% - are now on Team Trump.
2) The economy! OK, the virus screwed things up, but Trump said he'd make the economy strong, and the economy was strong. A lot of people were saying that if Trump got elected the stock market would crash, but the stock market didn't crash - and it carried on not crashing, a lot. Also people were saying the trade wars would wreck the economy, and he did the trade wars, and they didn't wreck the economy.
3) The lockdowns. People have different opinions on the appropriate virus response, and it's not *entirely* polarized on pro-Trump vs anti-Trump. If you think people should be going back to normal, if you think kids should be back in school, if your business is being destroyed by the reaction to the virus - I think you jump to Trump.
4) Law and order. I know I've been saying Trump's stance is unpopular and I think he's onto a net loser. But the number of not-otherwise-Trump voters it will attract will definitely be greater than zero.
5) Minorities. IDK, I haven't looked at it in detail, but there seems to be some polling support for the idea that he's put on black and latino support for whatever reason.
Original premise is wrong I think -> we just need some (dunno how many) Clinton backers not to show up to vote for Biden and then Trump wins.
Potentially some people were just voting to have the first female president. I doubt they'd switch to Trump, but they might not show up for Biden.
Michael Moore's 2016 article on lack of Dem enthusiasm may still hold. I know Dems probably want to beat Trump more than in 2016, but Biden (like Hilary) is not really a pulse-raising candidate.
In 2016 the Dems has held the presidency for two terms, and Hilary was clearly a downgrade from Obama.
Dem voters certainly turned up on 2018 (eg in Wisconsin) so it’s not clear whey they wouldn’t in 2020 as well. Biden may not be an incredibly inspiring candidate, but dislike of Trump is *very* motivating!
The only way that anyone would EVER be motivated to vote for Biden is having Trump as his opponent.
Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does. Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.
Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".
What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
Wait until the total meltdown at Dover in January cuts through.
We'll be looking at omni-incompetent.
It will be very interesting to see how businesses exporting into the UK from Europe react to having their truckers logjamed for miles on the opposite side of the channel and in Ireland
There is going to be a lot of anger on all sides and total failure by both the EU and UK negotiators
How is it a total failure by the EU? Their rules on external borders are clear and longstanding - one of the arguments for us leaving was that their rules weren't enforced harshly enough.
The EU has a system and process for its side of the external border. Its side will work. The UK does not have a system nor indeed have we even made any preparations. The queues will be from our side of the border. How is that the fault of EU negotiators?
It’s the EU’s fault for not realising we hold all the cards, or something.
I don't know how exporters/importers to/from the UK are going to feel, but I am pretty confident that the vast majority of people here in Germany are going to give the UK approximately 100% of the blame for any problems caused by Brexit. Unsurprisingly.
But they're still gonna want to sell stuff to the UK, no?
Who? The vast majority of people are not directly involved in selling stuff to the UK.
In any case, in political terms, people are just going to blame the UK for any problems caused by Brexit, whether or not EU negotiators/other European governments should share the blame. This shouldn't come as news.
Sure they will. I'm only reporting that the vast majority of people will blame the UK for any problems caused by Brexit. I'm not sure why anybody would want to dispute this.
It wasn't the UK that called off this week's talks.
Comments
Presumably, lorries have to return empty to Calais to avoid French customs though.
He's forgotten the first rule of effective change management: take the people with you.
Instead he thinks it's more effective to call them idiots and threaten them with the sack.
https://order-order.com/2020/09/02/covid-justice-group-is-momentum-front-organisation/
If he can get away with doing scrutiny once a month or so, he could probably come up with enough ways of maintaining the illusions he has built up. If its once a week then he has very little chance.
Do you think people have to actually be starving to want to progress (ignoring that if there was no minimum wage we'd probably just have higher benefits to make up the difference). I'd rather employers pay than the state.
Lots of things led to Brexit, before, during and after his term
On the credit side, peace in NI is a remarkable and undervalued achievement. NMW and better funding for health and education highlights as well.
It's almost perfect conditions for the punditry to push a totally incorrect assumption, because:
1) It fits what they learned about right-wing politicians being popular for law-and-order and the left being on the defensive during their formative years, the 1970s and 1980s
2) The press really, really need this to be a competitive race, but as far as we can tell from the polling the voters are stubbornly refusing to cooperate
What is different is him taking charge pre deal meant we ended up with an election and gets a big majority rather than being forced to operate on 2017 numbers and no core issue to take to an early GE
Blair was completely lost, how do you think he would have done in a pandemic?
However, despite what I think of his policies and his politics there's no doubt he was a more *effective* PM then Boris Johnson, who's at Gordon Brown levels in my view.
Based on the objective polling evidence alone, I would be close to yours. However, I am factoring in the likelihood that Trump succeeds to a degree in his despicable unprecedented attempts to undermine the functioning of US democracy through voter suppression, impeding the counting of postal votes and ballot stuffing. On the latter, he is now urging his supporters to commit illegal acts on his behalf by voting twice, hoping presumably that some will get away with it.
A 12 vote spread is also very limiting because of the lumpiness of the electoral college system. There are however quite a few plausible combinations of states that could deliver something in the range 279 to 291.
But the examples do exist where the gaps between zero responsibility and significant responsibility is less than £1 per hour. An example would be a mini supermarket duty manager and shelf stacker. Little chance of further promotion and a small pay gap makes shelf stacker the better job.
The issues solved by NMW far outweigh the issues around this though.
It's only significant if the polling is much different from the Trump-Biden voting numbers. Trump has a narrow advantage on the economy, so that remains his best chance I reckon.
If they feel the rules aren't working for them, they will try and change the rules. If they feel someone is disloyal to them they will get someone loyal. Competence doesn't matter. It's all about them.
They have no sense of duty, honour or integrity - all the things that matter.
We must go.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/02/biden-staggering-monthly-cash-haul-407712
Doesn`t say much for the current lot. Am I being an old fart in saying "MPs aren`t what they used to be"?
Very very many Conservative MPs- lots of them prominent in the current government- really disliked May's plan. (Or, if you're more cynical, affected to dislike it as a wedge to create a vacancy for PM.)
Had it shown any sign of going through on the back of opposition votes, what was to stop them VONCing TM and getting her out of Downing Street faster than you can say "vassal state"?
(Or being less florid, how do you get round the problem that any Brexit plan needed a double majority in practice- a majority in Parliament as a whole and a majority in the Conservative party? And until the 2019 win with MPs signing in blood to Back Boris, that was damn difficult?)
Starmer like Hague is a good Commons performer but he still has a long way to go to turn that into a big poll lead
No one has satisfactorily answered the question of why someone who voted for Clinton in 2016 will vote for Trump in 2020. And these people need to exist for Trump to win given the large numbers who have switched in the opposite direction.
Essentially they had to decide between 'Norway for Now' and close alignment and play the politics right. Their failure to do so is mostly about playing games with the country's future.
The EU has a system and process for its side of the external border. Its side will work. The UK does not have a system nor indeed have we even made any preparations. The queues will be from our side of the border. How is that the fault of EU negotiators?
That said, despite my initial scepticism the NMW has been successful, it’s possible the above problem will be partially solved as immigration rules tighten with regard to low paid employees in future.
Starmer has a black mark for remaining part of Corbyn's team, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as if he hadn't we might have ended up with a useless Corbynite as Labour leader now.
2. This endless nonsense about the 2017 parliament "trying to overturn the vote of the British public". A referendum. Held in the 2015 parliament. A parliament which by law and convention cannot bind the hands of its successors.
3. "Soft" Brexit - leaving the EU and not the EEU or CU - was never on the table because successive Tory PMs refused to offer it
In fact you have to go back to 2004 when Bush outside Kerry to find the last time the Republican nominee outraised the Democratic nominee
It would be like the meeting between Andrew Mitchell and the police union, the activists would come out afterwards and say that the PM was a heartless Incompetent on the six o’clock news, having made a careful note of every word he said for their court case.
There’s no upside for the PM to the meeting, and plenty of downside.
Biden has simply squeezed the libertarian and green votes to get to around 51% in most national polling, however that still might not be enough to win all the swing states he needs as they had a lower third party vote than the West or North East or Texas for example
It's also true that some remainers slowly became convinced that cancelling Brexit entirely was the only option because of the intransigence of the extreme Brexiteers on the other side.
Yes, the history books will record he was PM, right next to "the one that totally fucked up Brexit and Covid" and may yet lead to the break up of the UK
It’s easy to forget just how close Trump’s wins in the Midwest were in 2016 - all by 1% or less. So any losses need to be made up, and it’s hard to see where they are coming from.
1) If you're generally conservative, but were never-Trump, you got some conservative stuff - tax cuts, SCOTUS appointments etc, and you annoyed liberals a lot, which pulls you back towards Trump's side with every left-right news cycle. I think quite a few conservatives who went with Hillary, didn't vote or voted for a minor candidate - remember the libertarian got 3.3%, the ex-CIA dude got 0.5% - are now on Team Trump.
2) The economy! OK, the virus screwed things up, but Trump said he'd make the economy strong, and the economy was strong. A lot of people were saying that if Trump got elected the stock market would crash, but the stock market didn't crash - and it carried on not crashing, a lot. Also people were saying the trade wars would wreck the economy, and he did the trade wars, and they didn't wreck the economy.
3) The lockdowns. People have different opinions on the appropriate virus response, and it's not *entirely* polarized on pro-Trump vs anti-Trump. If you think people should be going back to normal, if you think kids should be back in school, if your business is being destroyed by the reaction to the virus - I think you jump to Trump.
4) Law and order. I know I've been saying Trump's stance is unpopular and I think he's onto a net loser. But the number of not-otherwise-Trump voters it will attract will definitely be greater than zero.
5) Minorities. IDK, I haven't looked at it in detail, but there seems to be some polling support for the idea that he's put on black and latino support for whatever reason.
Trafalgar Group was the only poll in 2016 to have Trump ahead in Michigan and Pennsylvania and has Trump ahead in Michigan and Wisconsin in its latest poll
Hillary was not the incumbent president in 2016 either.
Bush raised most in 2000 too so was the last Republican to raise most even before he was elected President
Obviously there comes a point at which some of these stores become non-viable, in theory. But then you look at the Scandinavian countries, which still manage to have coffee shops (with very expensive coffee because the workers get paid more).
https://www.mynottinghamnews.co.uk/hoax-messages-concerning-nottingham-schools-and-covid-19-testing-of-children/?utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_name=&utm_source=govdelivery&utm_term=
Potentially some people were just voting to have the first female president.
I doubt they'd switch to Trump, but they might not show up for Biden.
Michael Moore's 2016 article on lack of Dem enthusiasm may still hold.
I know Dems probably want to beat Trump more than in 2016, but Biden (like Hilary) is not really a pulse-raising candidate.
In 2018 though many Trump 2016 voters stayed home
The vast majority of people are not directly involved in selling stuff to the UK.
In any case, in political terms, people are just going to blame the UK for any problems caused by Brexit, whether or not EU negotiators/other European governments should share the blame. This shouldn't come as news.
First, he needs light at the end of the tunnel on the virus. You don't necessarily need lots of people to have been vaccinated, but you need a path to doing that - there's a vaccine, it's been approved for use on somebody, they're starting to get it. Secondly, you need the economy to start to pick up as a result. Then he can run on sunny optimism, here's the economic growth we got before, now we've beaten the virus, you won't believe what's coming next.
I think it's pretty plausible that these conditions will hold; There seems to be a lot of progress with different vaccine candidates, and there would definitely be a sigh of relief and a lot of pent-up economic activity released if it happened.
The other thing about this story is that it's a way for him to get support that he isn't getting at the moment. I find this far more plausible than the law-and-order business or whatever that, if it was real, should have shown itself to the pollsters by now.
Here is my prediction, they will out perform Trump.
Johnson was of course a major cheerleader for the Iraq abomination.
All (Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson) should be rotting in a cell in the Hague.
The problem is going the other way, where extra costs put our exports to the EU at a competitive disadvantage to intra-EU trade. Diverting to other markets doesn't help because the constraints that previously applied still do. Also on Day 1 we have a lack of preferential trade agreements with non-EU countries.
https://theeconomicstandard.com/around-half-a-million-german-jobs-depend-on-exports-to-uk/
Dem voters certainly turned up on 2018 (eg in Wisconsin) so it’s not clear whey they wouldn’t in 2020 as well. Biden may not be an incredibly inspiring candidate, but dislike of Trump is *very* motivating!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/09/02/michel-barnier-accuses-uk-holding-eu-fishermen-hostage-trade/