Derbyshire North East Derbyshire UKIP gain from LAB : Natascha Engel Morley and Outwood West Yorkshire CON gain from LAB : Ed Balls
Only 2 UKIP gains from CON...
ukip effect = tory first, labour worst - hence the spin on here
I think what we are seeing here is classic protest vote behavior.
Lab types who would never dream of voting for the blues being attracted by he populist anti immigration and "screw them all" rhetoric, as well as the disaffected Tories wanting to get a vote on the EU etc.
Quite how much of this will last once the GE proper comes around i'm not sure, but my guess is not enough for any GE gains by UKIP.
For UKIP to win seats at the GE they will have to convince voters in the seats in question that they have a realistic chance in that particular seat. They will need to bombard voters with Lib Dem-style bar charts showing that only they can beat the Tories/Labour in that particular constituency, get lots of posters put up in houses, and generally make voters feel that they have a serious chance of winning.
All of this requires a significant on-the-ground presence from members and supporters and it also requires a disciplined approach with party members in seats that are not being seriously contested ignoring their home area and campaigning in seats which are more important to the party. The Lib Dems are very good at this kind of thing, but it is not clear whether UKIP has the number of members or the level of discipline required to emulate them.
If UKIP adopts this approach in, say, half a dozen constituencies they could easily win seats. But if they run an entirely media-based campaign across the whole country with no significant on-the-ground presence or targeting then their votes will be more evenly spread and they will be unlikely to win any seats.
The UK economy is growing faster than previously estimated, according to the latest official figures.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said gross domestic product was up 0.8% in the July-to-September period compared with the previous quarter, confirming its previous estimate.
But it revised its growth figures for earlier quarters.
This means the estimated annual growth rate has now risen from 1.5% to 1.9%, a revision that has surprised economists.
Derbyshire North East Derbyshire UKIP gain from LAB : Natascha Engel Morley and Outwood West Yorkshire CON gain from LAB : Ed Balls
Only 2 UKIP gains from CON...
ukip effect = tory first, labour worst - hence the spin on here
I think what we are seeing here is classic protest vote behavior.
Lab types who would never dream of voting for the blues being attracted by he populist anti immigration and "screw them all" rhetoric, as well as the disaffected Tories wanting to get a vote on the EU etc.
Quite how much of this will last once the GE proper comes around i'm not sure, but my guess is not enough for any GE gains by UKIP.
For UKIP to win seats at the GE they will have to convince voters in the seats in question that they have a realistic chance in that particular seat. They will need to bombard voters with Lib Dem-style bar charts showing that only they can beat the Tories/Labour in that particular constituency, get lots of posters put up in houses, and generally make voters feel that they have a serious chance of winning.
All of this requires a significant on-the-ground presence from members and supporters and it also requires a disciplined approach with party members in seats that are not being seriously contested ignoring their home area and campaigning in seats which are more important to the party. The Lib Dems are very good at this kind of thing, but it is not clear whether UKIP has the number of members or the level of discipline required to emulate them.
If UKIP adopts this approach in, say, half a dozen constituencies they could easily win seats. But if they run an entirely media-based campaign across the whole country with no significant on-the-ground presence or targeting then their votes will be more evenly spread and they will be unlikely to win any seats.
It all depends on the ground war IMHO.
UKIP have frequently said they're trying to follow Ashdown's strategy of using local government wins as a base for Westminster wins.
Have I missed the answer to the Xmas quiz re the Moscow monument?? Fascinating thing - starts with Marx and Engels - well, he was English in a sense - but I can't spot any British chaps further down, amongst the Saint Simons and the like. Unless the transliteration has thrown me and Fure and Uinschley are badly spelt Brits ...
My lovely wife gave me a new car DAB stereo for my birthday. And as a result my journeys to work are significantly improved. I'm not generally a fan of commercial radio at all, but Planet Rock is just amazing. And their iPhone app is good too.
\m/^_^\m/
I like the breakfast presenter on Planet Rock. Professional, no fuss, no jabbering on like an idiot. Makes a change from all the other stations that normally have an air-headed man-woman duo
Do other countries have problems with these machines ?
I believe they are a fairly big issue in Australia where Video Poker machines are known as 'Pokies' and blamed (rightly or wrongly I have no idea) for getting out of control.
Erm...I'd contend that the winner of WW2 was the Soviet Union and, much as it might hurt Anglo-Saxon pride, the entire western front and British / American involvement was pretty much a side-show to the main event in the East.
Quite so - though I have a feeling that the original poster may have had tongue in cheek. But the opinion he was quoting is still far too common. Britain lost that replay of the Great War and hasn't really admitted it yet.
One might also suggest that American production and British airfields and aircraft (to keep the Luftwaffe and the 8.8cm Flak guns out of the ground battle) were at the least very helpful on the Eastern Front.
This about WW2 and the Hanoverian vs US colonist comment together coincidentally recall a view doing the rounds up here in Scotland - that the SNP are - completely contrary to what is being projected by the media - the last bastion of British values, as exemplified by the postwar Attlee Gmt settlement, against the invasion of the barbarians: rather like something out of King Arthur, or Gildas's De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae ...
Do other countries have problems with these machines ?
From that BBC article....
Fixed-odds betting terminals were launched in 1999 after then chancellor Gordon Brown scrapped tax on individual bets in favour of taxing bookmakers' profits....
....After the 2005 Gambling Act, FOBTs were given legal backing and put under the same regulatory framework as fruit machines
Do other countries have problems with these machines ?
I believe they are a fairly big issue in Australia where Video Poker machines are known as 'Pokies' and blamed (rightly or wrongly I have no idea) for getting out of control.
My lovely wife gave me a new car DAB stereo for my birthday. And as a result my journeys to work are significantly improved. I'm not generally a fan of commercial radio at all, but Planet Rock is just amazing. And their iPhone app is good too.
\m/^_^\m/
Fraternal in "off-topicness" let me say that I suppose a distracting & noisy car environment is appropriate for DAB radio. But listened to in a quiet room with a good system and speakers (and decent hearing too) it sounds worse than VHF does with a decent signal. DAB is 20-30 years out of date (DAB+ is better). And the Beeb's latest Christmas push is implicitly equating DAB to digital. That's a bit like equating rain to precipitation, and implicitly mendacious and sneaky. The future may be digital but sadly, pretty well only in the UK, is it going to be DAB.
Here's a graph I did using the Survation poll data. It compares the proportion of Ukip voters that would vote Tory to stop Miliband with the proportion of Ukip voters that are former Tory voters. If that makes sense.
About 50% of the former Tories that have switched would apparently switch back to Stop Miliband (which in turn are about 40% of the total Stop Miliband cohort).
In other words slightly more non-Tories than former Tories would vote Tory to stop Miliband.
Another way to interpret it - the losses from Tory to Ukip are more than made up with voters that will switch to the party to Stop Miliband.
Do other countries have problems with these machines ?
From that BBC article....
Fixed-odds betting terminals were launched in 1999 after then chancellor Gordon Brown scrapped tax on individual bets in favour of taxing bookmakers' profits....
....After the 2005 Gambling Act, FOBTs were given legal backing and put under the same regulatory framework as fruit machines
Well I have to say that moving to a tax on bookie's profits was a good one. Beating an overround AND a tax on a bet sounds tough from a punting point of view.
It has been suggested to me that Britain won WWII, the Americans only having come on as a substitute when the French were injured.
It's also been suggested somewhere that the British won the American War of Independence, since it was British (indeed largely English) colonists fighting Hanoverian mercenaries
Do other countries have problems with these machines ?
From that BBC article....
Fixed-odds betting terminals were launched in 1999 after then chancellor Gordon Brown scrapped tax on individual bets in favour of taxing bookmakers' profits....
....After the 2005 Gambling Act, FOBTs were given legal backing and put under the same regulatory framework as fruit machines
Well I have to say that moving to a tax on bookie's profits was a good one. Beating an overround AND a tax on a bet sounds tough from a punting point of view.
"Britain lost that replay of the Great War and hasn't really admitted it yet. " I should have qualified that, by saying that it was in terms of economic wealth and status in the world, especially when the spread of the war to the Far East is added. But whether it had any choice other than to fight, both strategic and moral, I doubt very much. And that is in no way to detract from the services and sacrifices of those who lived through that time.
One more minor result from yesterday Stratford on Avon TC Avenue and New Town Con gain from Stratford 1st Con 281 Lib Dem 257 Lab 175 Stratford 1st 136 UKIP 105
On topic, the first fascinating thing about UKIP is where their support is coming from. The second fascinating thing, which is related to the first, is where their support might go to if it gets squeezed.
While we have a fair amount of data on the first point, the second point has not yet been properly tested.
My lovely wife gave me a new car DAB stereo for my birthday. And as a result my journeys to work are significantly improved. I'm not generally a fan of commercial radio at all, but Planet Rock is just amazing. And their iPhone app is good too.
\m/^_^\m/
Fraternal in "off-topicness" let me say that I suppose a distracting & noisy car environment is appropriate for DAB radio. But listened to in a quiet room with a good system and speakers (and decent hearing too) it sounds worse than VHF does with a decent signal. DAB is 20-30 years out of date (DAB+ is better). And the Beeb's latest Christmas push is implicitly equating DAB to digital. That's a bit like equating rain to precipitation, and implicitly mendacious and sneaky. The future may be digital but sadly, pretty well only in the UK, is it going to be DAB.
Indeed.. at home all of my 'radio' listening is via the internet.
One thing UKIP could learn from the Greens under FPTP is to target one area, as the Greens did in Brighton, get councillors elected and then stand the leader at the general election. It worked for Lucas.
Off to Rome for a couple of days before Christmas!
"t's also been suggested somewhere that the British won the American War of Independence, since it was British (indeed largely English) colonists fighting Hanoverian mercenaries."
The Lexington people run a very informative video about the beginning of the Revolution. Paul Revere did not shout out that."The British are coming!". That would have been very silly as they were all British and regarded themselves as so.
Final Populus VI figures of 2013: Lab 40 (=); Cons 32 (-1); LD 12 (-1); UKIP 8 (=); Oth 8 (+1)
That must be slightly disappointing for the blue team.
Yeah, a little bit.
But the average seems to be around 5%, and there's a long way to go before May 2015.
Wouldn't want this to be repeated this time next year though - I'd then becoming seriously concerned!
What would you like/expect the polling to be this time next year?
Like Labour 0%
Expect: Labour 38%, I don't think they will reduce much until early 2015 Con 36% a small increase is possible if economic news is steady and good Lib 11% not a lot of recovery until early 2015 UKIP 14% on a decrease after a Euro Poll peak Others 5% as who can predict post Indy ref.
Total 104%, which is about right as it allows for 4% voter fraud.
Napoleon was Corsican, not French. Born in 1769, he was exactly as French as a contemporary American was British.
I'd rate Napoleon above anyone except Alexander. Hannibal only fought the Romans, and Scipio only fought an exhausted Carthage. Napoleon fought and defeated everyone, including Britain in 1802 (oh yes he did. Look at what's in the Treaty of Amiens and it's clear that he'd achieved all his aims while Britain's had all been thwarted).
Tactically he was no innovator, but then he didn't need to be. Strategically he used the same ruse - the manoeuvre sur les derrieres - at least 30 times during his career. His problem was simply that he was a rubbish diplomat, so Napoleon the statesman kept writing cheques Napoleon the general couldn't cash.
Russia Against Napoleon is a good read, charting how Alexander planned from 1807 to destroy France in two consecutive campaigns. The first was 1812, the second was 1813-14. Notwithstanding all the guff Peter "Loony" Hofschroer writes, the key to Allied victory in 1813 to 1815 was Russia.
A point often made in stock market contexts but rarely for political markets, is that the best predictor for next year's performance is usually last year's performance. We should now assume that UKIP will maintain a base in the 5-10% range up to and including the 2015 election, with a potential strong upside if they do well in a by-election or the Euros.
I'm not meeting many Labour->UKIP switchers in my patch, but there are quite a few in by-elections in safe Labour seats, so I'd speculate that they're attracting people who are bored with one-party dominance and in the mood to try something new - just as we've seen from the Tories in safe Tory seats (is it happening in strong LibDem seats too?). Because people aren't especially good at working out what a safe seat is, this may produce some unexpected results. In the more obvious marginals like mine, the UKIP vote does seem to be mainly drawn from Conservatives, as mostly shown by the Ashcroft and Bown polls.
My lovely wife gave me a new car DAB stereo for my birthday. And as a result my journeys to work are significantly improved. I'm not generally a fan of commercial radio at all, but Planet Rock is just amazing. And their iPhone app is good too.
\m/^_^\m/
Fraternal in "off-topicness" let me say that I suppose a distracting & noisy car environment is appropriate for DAB radio. But listened to in a quiet room with a good system and speakers (and decent hearing too) it sounds worse than VHF does with a decent signal. DAB is 20-30 years out of date (DAB+ is better). And the Beeb's latest Christmas push is implicitly equating DAB to digital. That's a bit like equating rain to precipitation, and implicitly mendacious and sneaky. The future may be digital but sadly, pretty well only in the UK, is it going to be DAB.
Indeed.. at home all of my 'radio' listening is via the internet.
DAB isn't that bad, and DAB+ only came around about seven or eight years ago. There are better technologies than DAB+ in the pipeline, AIUI.
It becomes a case of when you bite the bullet and say "We'll use this."
Then again, most of my radio listening is talk radio, and the only music station I listen to is Absolute 80s, which sounds reasonable to me at 112 kB. All other music gets streamed from by MP3 from my PC to wherever I am working.
The only weasel way out I can spot is - IIRC (again I can't be arsed to check) - is that the new Bill needs to pass through the Commons in *exactly* the same form as the old Bill for the parliament. Hence perhaps the opponents of the Bill could support an amendment that changes the date of the Referendum by, say, 1 month to prevent the PA being used.
Interesting - can anyone confirm that's how it works? The cheeky weasel move would be to try to amend to have the referendum immediately instead of waiting until 2017, on the grounds that the uncertainty was bad for Jobs so if they're going to do it they should get it over with. Then the whole thing flips around and the Tory MPs with UKIP challengers have to defend their vote against an immediate referendum.
Mr. Bond, I'm off for a bit, but before I go I must dispute your claim that Napoleon was better than Hannibal or Scipio.
Saying Hannibal 'only' fought the Romans, when the Romans were at the height of their patriotic fervour, is like saying Ripley 'only' fought xenomorphs.
Hannibal's campaigns included arguably the greatest ambush in history, almost certainly the greatest march in history, arguably the greatest battlefield victory in history, and evading defeat by an enemy whilst in that enemy's territory for about a decade.
Carthage was not exhausted when Scipio Africanus was dispatched to Iberia. The Carthaginians had killed his father and uncle (separate people, I hasten to add) and consolidated control of the peninsula. Scipio worked well on and off the battlefield to eventually utterly defeat the Carthaginians there. If Carthage was exhausted then it was Scipio who tired them.
When Napoleon fled Russia it was because he had failed. When Hannibal left Italy it was because others had failed and allowed Scipio the opportunity to threaten Carthage. Furthermore, Napoleon (like Alexander) was master of both the military and political spheres, so the wider failures were also his (unlike Scipio and Hannibal, who benefited and suffered respectively at the hands of their states' competence, or lack thereof).
Incidentally, can any of you historians explain why the Americans think they won the 1812 squabble?
If having the White House burned down and having Johnny Frog kick you out of Canada because they preferred the British to their so-called comrades across the border is victory, then what does a defeat look like?
I'm not meeting many Labour->UKIP switchers in my patch, but there are quite a few in by-elections in safe Labour seats,
In the more obvious marginals like mine, the UKIP vote does seem to be mainly drawn from Conservatives, as mostly shown by the Ashcroft and Bown polls.
At the 2010 election Labour was at a 29% low, and the swing voters chose Con/LD/Other.
A point made by Mark Pack is that UKIP is attracting swing voters from the Conservatives, who would in elections past have switched to Labour.
A point often made in stock market contexts but rarely for political markets, is that the best predictor for next year's performance is usually last year's performance. .
I'm sorry NP, I don't recall that claim often being made - either during my degree which included security & investment analysis, my career in investment banking nor then as an IFA - indeed the regulator tells me to put disclosures saying exactly the opposite of that point... as a contrarian investor too I don't believe it either.
Even if it is a true 'point', I'd say it's twaddle and sounds like primary-school technical analysis or momentum theory.
The only weasel way out I can spot is - IIRC (again I can't be arsed to check) - is that the new Bill needs to pass through the Commons in *exactly* the same form as the old Bill for the parliament. Hence perhaps the opponents of the Bill could support an amendment that changes the date of the Referendum by, say, 1 month to prevent the PA being used.
Interesting - can anyone confirm that's how it works? The cheeky weasel move would be to try to amend to have the referendum immediately instead of waiting until 2017, on the grounds that the uncertainty was bad for Jobs so if they're going to do it they should get it over with. Then the whole thing flips around and the Tory MPs with UKIP challengers have to defend their vote against an immediate referendum.
Yes, that's how it works. There is IIRC an exception that if there's an amendment that the Lords approve (even if they didn't approve the original Bill) then that doesn't break the Parliament Act. Minor logical amendments approved by the Speaker to take account of the passage of time are also allowed (e.g. the Bill made it compulsory to post on pb from Jan1 2014, but it comes back to the Commons later in 2014 - they can then change it to 2015 since the 1.1.2014 date is no longer possible). But these can only reflect the technical problems of the passage of time - any substantial amendment like the one you suggest wrecks the use of the Parliament Act.
Supporters of the Bill shouldn't get their hopes up IMO.
''I plan to celebrate the 4th of July as "The Day we Brits decided we'd much rather rule India than America Day"
I remember my history teacher claiming the thirteen colonies of America were a low priority at the time - with the sugar and spices of the West Indies being at the top of the list.
My lovely wife gave me a new car DAB stereo for my birthday. And as a result my journeys to work are significantly improved. I'm not generally a fan of commercial radio at all, but Planet Rock is just amazing. And their iPhone app is good too.
\m/^_^\m/
Fraternal in "off-topicness" let me say that I suppose a distracting & noisy car environment is appropriate for DAB radio. But listened to in a quiet room with a good system and speakers (and decent hearing too) it sounds worse than VHF does with a decent signal. DAB is 20-30 years out of date (DAB+ is better). And the Beeb's latest Christmas push is implicitly equating DAB to digital. That's a bit like equating rain to precipitation, and implicitly mendacious and sneaky. The future may be digital but sadly, pretty well only in the UK, is it going to be DAB.
Indeed.. at home all of my 'radio' listening is via the internet.
DAB isn't that bad, and DAB+ only came around about seven or eight years ago. There are better technologies than DAB+ in the pipeline, AIUI.
It becomes a case of when you bite the bullet and say "We'll use this."
Then again, most of my radio listening is talk radio, and the only music station I listen to is Absolute 80s, which sounds reasonable to me at 112 kB. All other music gets streamed from by MP3 from my PC to wherever I am working.
There's a great deal of audio snobbery.
Hello J-J. My problem is that I can't see why we should spend 100s of millions replacing FM with a system that sounds worse. I am sure there are other considerations, like maybe selling off frequency bands for money, etc, and anyway maybe most people don't care much about the sound. As you know well of course, the best sound is real sound, blackbirds in a woods or music one makes or listens to live. Now, to work.
My lovely wife gave me a new car DAB stereo for my birthday. And as a result my journeys to work are significantly improved. I'm not generally a fan of commercial radio at all, but Planet Rock is just amazing. And their iPhone app is good too.
\m/^_^\m/
Fraternal in "off-topicness" let me say that I suppose a distracting & noisy car environment is appropriate for DAB radio. But listened to in a quiet room with a good system and speakers (and decent hearing too) it sounds worse than VHF does with a decent signal. DAB is 20-30 years out of date (DAB+ is better). And the Beeb's latest Christmas push is implicitly equating DAB to digital. That's a bit like equating rain to precipitation, and implicitly mendacious and sneaky. The future may be digital but sadly, pretty well only in the UK, is it going to be DAB.
Indeed.. at home all of my 'radio' listening is via the internet.
DAB isn't that bad, and DAB+ only came around about seven or eight years ago. There are better technologies than DAB+ in the pipeline, AIUI.
It becomes a case of when you bite the bullet and say "We'll use this."
Then again, most of my radio listening is talk radio, and the only music station I listen to is Absolute 80s, which sounds reasonable to me at 112 kB. All other music gets streamed from by MP3 from my PC to wherever I am working.
There's a great deal of audio snobbery.
Hello J-J. My problem is that I can't see why we should spend 100s of millions replacing FM with a system that sounds worse. I am sure there are other considerations, like maybe selling off frequency bands for money, etc, and anyway maybe most people don't care much about the sound. As you know well of course, the best sound is real sound, blackbirds in a woods or music one makes or listens to live. Now, to work.
I see you have a bike as your avatar - what are your thoughts on Rogers/JTL ?
I'm still gathering my thoughts about what I'm expecting for next year. As in previous years, I'll braindump my thoughts when I'm ready on pb2. The bit that always makes me cringe is looking at the previous year's predictions.
I'm still gathering my thoughts about what I'm expecting for next year. As in previous years, I'll braindump my thoughts when I'm ready on pb2. The bit that always makes me cringe is looking at the previous year's predictions.
Can I suggest you ask Mike to post it on here.
I used your piece last year here, and it was one of the most viewed pieces of the year.
Edit, here's your piece from last year, largely stands the test of time
Miliband's big new policy of the day (restricting access to betting machines) ...
'We, the next Labour government, will ban the things that we, the last Labour government, legislated to introduce. We, Labour governments past and future, are to be praised for our consistency of approach to this vital issue about which we appear to know absolutely bugger all.'
And people wonder why Miliband has a credibility issue...
this is a clear reaction to all the enslaved children now working in the mines and up chimneys under this evil Tory government and who are now also being ripped off on their pay as well...
The last few days I have been thinking about the impact of mass immigration on the working class, and came to the conclusion that it is simply pure capitalism... then I thought about the minimum wage
Big organisations get to employ hundreds of thousands of new employees at much lower rates... the new employees are paid up to four times what they were in their home country, and the overall GDP increases as a result of their hard working nature
Governments can correctly point out that Eastern European immigrants are not a strain on the welfare system... why would they be? They are earning a (comparative) fortune!
The only losers are the less well off inhabitants of the UK, but capitalism is all about winners and losers, and in utilitarian terms, one might argue the greater good has been served.
Labour, as the party of the working class, are in a sticky situation though, as they have to justify worse conditions for the poor of the country they govern solely by the effect is has on GDP, the bottom line... society as those people know it has been sacrificed for £££££
Anyway my conclusion is.... Labour only introduced the minimum wage in a half arsed effort to look after their working class voters. They knew they were going to let hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans into the country to work, and that they were earning about £1 an hour at home.... without the minimum wage, they would have the native working class competing with the immigrants for £2-3 an hour jobs, a very low level that big corporates would be happy to pay.
So maybe the minimum wage has increased wages for the working class, as what would the going rate be now that this new workforce has arrived? Pure capitalism would have resulted in the going rate being about half the minimum wage
I see you have a bike as your avatar - what are your thoughts on Rogers/JTL ?
I think SKY was/is trying very hard to be substance free. I'm not up on the details, but I know Rogers is really excellent. But then so was Lance Armstrong. In fact he really was the best. Phenomenal. Detection methods are improving. So let's see how these things develop.
Looking at the populus polls since July when they started twice weekly polling, the main observance is how stable they have been.
But, have they been too stable. The standard deviation for C,L,LD&UKIP percentages is 1.35%,1.06%,1.07%&1.25% respectively with a lower standard deviation for LD than C. This sounds counter intuitive. Your 95% confidence limits, of course 2.5% either side of the range, is 2.64%,2.08%,2.09%&2.44%. This assumes no change in the average polling over the period and a pure statisical sample.
This suggests that the Populus adjustment methodology is damping their results.
Indeed.. at home all of my 'radio' listening is via the internet.
DAB isn't that bad, and DAB+ only came around about seven or eight years ago. There are better technologies than DAB+ in the pipeline, AIUI.
It becomes a case of when you bite the bullet and say "We'll use this."
Then again, most of my radio listening is talk radio, and the only music station I listen to is Absolute 80s, which sounds reasonable to me at 112 kB. All other music gets streamed from by MP3 from my PC to wherever I am working.
There's a great deal of audio snobbery.
Hello J-J. My problem is that I can't see why we should spend 100s of millions replacing FM with a system that sounds worse. I am sure there are other considerations, like maybe selling off frequency bands for money, etc, and anyway maybe most people don't care much about the sound. As you know well of course, the best sound is real sound, blackbirds in a woods or music one makes or listens to live. Now, to work.
It's a swings and roundabouts thing. True, most compressed audio *should* sound worse than the analogue, as compressing generally loses data, for instance the high frequencies that should be inaudible. FLAC and other formats are lossless, but the compression rates are not as good as for AAC or MP3.
And it's not just compression: audiophiles state that CDs, which are uncompressed, are worse than vinyl.
So to get the best audio quality, we would need to broadcast at high bitrates, 256 kB or above. This reduces the number of services that can be broadcast. By reducing the bitrate we give people more choice, and on the whole I think that, as with DTV, is a good thing. If people want better quality, they have their iPods and similar devices.
Add in error correction, then DAB at 192 or 256 kB can apparently be notably superior to FM in real-life situations.
society as those people know it has been sacrificed for £££££
Patronising twaddle.
Didn't expect you to agree tim
But how would you explain why millions of working class British people have had their wages driven down, and job prospects hindered by a mass immigration of cheap labour?
The only explanation I hear is that its good for GDP. But that is for the overall country.. Big business benefits, and the working class suffer.. so how does that fit with Labour being the party of the working class?
Rebalancing of the economy under Labour included the closure of Rover, LDV vans, Ford's exit from the UK as a manufacturer. Add on the inept energy policy which has helped wipe out UK ability to design, build and run nuclear power stations.
At social gatherings this Christmas I've been quite shocked at the numbers of Lib Dems I know who are saying quietly that they are voting Labour. One interesting post-AV referendum perspective. It's the way of making their vote count in this ultra marginal CON-held seat.
At social gatherings this Christmas I've been quite shocked at the numbers of Lib Dems I know who are saying quietly that they are voting Labour. One interesting post-AV referendum perspective. It's the way of making their vote count in this ultra marginal CON-held seat.
Are you really so shocked though Mike ? It fits well with your lost deposits/Lib Dems outperforming national vote -> seats scenario.
society as those people know it has been sacrificed for £££££
Patronising twaddle.
Didn't expect you to agree tim
Working class people are, and always have been, more used to mixing and working with people from different backgrounds and different countries than pretty much any other section of society.
UKIP, by contrast, are a party of rich middle aged establishment men, who are scared of a modern world they simply don't understand. For them to profess to be the authority on "the working class" is laughable.
Even Cameron and Osborne understand what life is like for the "working class" more than your average UKIP politician.
"society as those people know it" indeed.
Paul Nuttall ?
And what are your views on Iraq. I know it seems an odd question and a bit random but its important
I was nearly hit off my bicycle today when a vehicle overtook me dangerously. Someone showed me this research which suggests that there is nothing** I can do to dissuade a small minority of drivers from over-taking me dangerously.
I wouldn't like to simply give up cycling, but I'm finding it hard to deal with on such a regular basis. With so many senior politicians now being cyclists I'm surprised that more hasn't been done to deal with this. What can I do?
** Though I have heard a tale of a man who cycled with a rake fixed across the back of his panniers to take to the allotment, and had the safest cycle ride of his life. Not very good for the shared use paths mixing with pedestrians, though.
society as those people know it has been sacrificed for £££££
Patronising twaddle.
Didn't expect you to agree tim
Working class people are, and always have been, more used to mixing and working with people from different backgrounds and different countries than pretty much any other section of society.
UKIP, by contrast, are a party of rich middle aged establishment men, who are scared of a modern world they simply don't understand. For them to profess to be the authority on "the working class" is laughable.
Even Cameron and Osborne understand what life is like for the "working class" more than your average UKIP politician.
"society as those people know it" indeed.
You have just proved that it is you that doesn't understand the attitude of millions of working class people whose life has been affected by Labours mass immigration policy
society as those people know it has been sacrificed for £££££
Patronising twaddle.
Didn't expect you to agree tim
Working class people are, and always have been, more used to mixing and working with people from different backgrounds and different countries than pretty much any other section of society.
UKIP, by contrast, are a party of rich middle aged establishment men, who are scared of a modern world they simply don't understand. For them to profess to be the authority on "the working class" is laughable.
Even Cameron and Osborne understand what life is like for the "working class" more than your average UKIP politician.
"society as those people know it" indeed.
Completely bonkers! In my local branch of UKIP we are all workers, except for retirees like me. Oh I forgot we now have lawyer; came over from the tories 3 months ago.
"UKIP, by contrast, are a party of rich middle aged establishment men, who are scared of a modern world they simply don't understand."
I think you're referring to the UKIP voters you meet. I seem to meet a different sort, but we probably move in different circles, so neither of us sees the full picture.
Comments
All of this requires a significant on-the-ground presence from members and supporters and it also requires a disciplined approach with party members in seats that are not being seriously contested ignoring their home area and campaigning in seats which are more important to the party. The Lib Dems are very good at this kind of thing, but it is not clear whether UKIP has the number of members or the level of discipline required to emulate them.
If UKIP adopts this approach in, say, half a dozen constituencies they could easily win seats. But if they run an entirely media-based campaign across the whole country with no significant on-the-ground presence or targeting then their votes will be more evenly spread and they will be unlikely to win any seats.
It all depends on the ground war IMHO.
Good YoY GDP growth. Up to 1.9% from 1.5%, ahead of expectations.
The UK economy is growing faster than previously estimated, according to the latest official figures.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said gross domestic product was up 0.8% in the July-to-September period compared with the previous quarter, confirming its previous estimate.
But it revised its growth figures for earlier quarters.
This means the estimated annual growth rate has now risen from 1.5% to 1.9%, a revision that has surprised economists.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25461227
Atherstone Town Council Central ward Lab hold Lab 253 Con 102 UKIP 74
One might also suggest that American production and British airfields and aircraft (to keep the Luftwaffe and the 8.8cm Flak guns out of the ground battle) were at the least very helpful on the Eastern Front.
This about WW2 and the Hanoverian vs US colonist comment together coincidentally recall a view doing the rounds up here in Scotland - that the SNP are - completely contrary to what is being projected by the media - the last bastion of British values, as exemplified by the postwar Attlee Gmt settlement, against the invasion of the barbarians: rather like something out of King Arthur, or Gildas's De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae ...
Fixed-odds betting terminals were launched in 1999 after then chancellor Gordon Brown scrapped tax on individual bets in favour of taxing bookmakers' profits....
....After the 2005 Gambling Act, FOBTs were given legal backing and put under the same regulatory framework as fruit machines
About 50% of the former Tories that have switched would apparently switch back to Stop Miliband (which in turn are about 40% of the total Stop Miliband cohort).
In other words slightly more non-Tories than former Tories would vote Tory to stop Miliband.
Another way to interpret it - the losses from Tory to Ukip are more than made up with voters that will switch to the party to Stop Miliband.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bb659bOCMAAJ2uR.png:large
"Britain lost that replay of the Great War and hasn't really admitted it yet. " I should have qualified that, by saying that it was in terms of economic wealth and status in the world, especially when the spread of the war to the Far East is added. But whether it had any choice other than to fight, both strategic and moral, I doubt very much. And that is in no way to detract from the services and sacrifices of those who lived through that time.
Stratford on Avon TC Avenue and New Town Con gain from Stratford 1st
Con 281 Lib Dem 257 Lab 175 Stratford 1st 136 UKIP 105
While we have a fair amount of data on the first point, the second point has not yet been properly tested.
Decent poll for Labour.
Any monthly poll showing no change from here to GE is very good for Labour tbh.
Off to Rome for a couple of days before Christmas!
But the average seems to be around 5%, and there's a long way to go before May 2015.
Wouldn't want this to be repeated this time next year though - I'd then becoming seriously concerned!
"t's also been suggested somewhere that the British won the American War of Independence, since it was British (indeed largely English) colonists fighting Hanoverian mercenaries."
The Lexington people run a very informative video about the beginning of the Revolution. Paul Revere did not shout out that."The British are coming!". That would have been very silly as they were all British and regarded themselves as so.
Expect:
Labour 38%, I don't think they will reduce much until early 2015
Con 36% a small increase is possible if economic news is steady and good
Lib 11% not a lot of recovery until early 2015
UKIP 14% on a decrease after a Euro Poll peak
Others 5% as who can predict post Indy ref.
Total 104%, which is about right as it allows for 4% voter fraud.
I EXPECT a modest Tory lead of maybe 2-3% that will increase as the election draws closer.
The Tories have discarded their carefully crafted centrist positioning that got them into Downing St. Feels like a big mistake to me.
EdM continues to puzzle me.
I'd rate Napoleon above anyone except Alexander. Hannibal only fought the Romans, and Scipio only fought an exhausted Carthage. Napoleon fought and defeated everyone, including Britain in 1802 (oh yes he did. Look at what's in the Treaty of Amiens and it's clear that he'd achieved all his aims while Britain's had all been thwarted).
Tactically he was no innovator, but then he didn't need to be. Strategically he used the same ruse - the manoeuvre sur les derrieres - at least 30 times during his career. His problem was simply that he was a rubbish diplomat, so Napoleon the statesman kept writing cheques Napoleon the general couldn't cash.
Russia Against Napoleon is a good read, charting how Alexander planned from 1807 to destroy France in two consecutive campaigns. The first was 1812, the second was 1813-14. Notwithstanding all the guff Peter "Loony" Hofschroer writes, the key to Allied victory in 1813 to 1815 was Russia.
I'm not meeting many Labour->UKIP switchers in my patch, but there are quite a few in by-elections in safe Labour seats, so I'd speculate that they're attracting people who are bored with one-party dominance and in the mood to try something new - just as we've seen from the Tories in safe Tory seats (is it happening in strong LibDem seats too?). Because people aren't especially good at working out what a safe seat is, this may produce some unexpected results. In the more obvious marginals like mine, the UKIP vote does seem to be mainly drawn from Conservatives, as mostly shown by the Ashcroft and Bown polls.
It becomes a case of when you bite the bullet and say "We'll use this."
Then again, most of my radio listening is talk radio, and the only music station I listen to is Absolute 80s, which sounds reasonable to me at 112 kB. All other music gets streamed from by MP3 from my PC to wherever I am working.
There's a great deal of audio snobbery.
Saying Hannibal 'only' fought the Romans, when the Romans were at the height of their patriotic fervour, is like saying Ripley 'only' fought xenomorphs.
Hannibal's campaigns included arguably the greatest ambush in history, almost certainly the greatest march in history, arguably the greatest battlefield victory in history, and evading defeat by an enemy whilst in that enemy's territory for about a decade.
Carthage was not exhausted when Scipio Africanus was dispatched to Iberia. The Carthaginians had killed his father and uncle (separate people, I hasten to add) and consolidated control of the peninsula. Scipio worked well on and off the battlefield to eventually utterly defeat the Carthaginians there. If Carthage was exhausted then it was Scipio who tired them.
When Napoleon fled Russia it was because he had failed. When Hannibal left Italy it was because others had failed and allowed Scipio the opportunity to threaten Carthage. Furthermore, Napoleon (like Alexander) was master of both the military and political spheres, so the wider failures were also his (unlike Scipio and Hannibal, who benefited and suffered respectively at the hands of their states' competence, or lack thereof).
Incidentally, can any of you historians explain why the Americans think they won the 1812 squabble?
If having the White House burned down and having Johnny Frog kick you out of Canada because they preferred the British to their so-called comrades across the border is victory, then what does a defeat look like?
I plan to celebrate the 4th of July as "The Day we Brits decided we'd much rather rule India than America Day"
You posted that, just to wind up Morris Dancer didn't you?
Kudos.
A point made by Mark Pack is that UKIP is attracting swing voters from the Conservatives, who would in elections past have switched to Labour.
http://www.markpack.org.uk/47012/how-ukip-is-damaging-labour-reprised/
Even if it is a true 'point', I'd say it's twaddle and sounds like primary-school technical analysis or momentum theory.
Supporters of the Bill shouldn't get their hopes up IMO.
I remember my history teacher claiming the thirteen colonies of America were a low priority at the time - with the sugar and spices of the West Indies being at the top of the list.
I used your piece last year here, and it was one of the most viewed pieces of the year.
Edit, here's your piece from last year, largely stands the test of time
http://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2012/12/30/antifrank-looks-ahead-to-2013/
In the next manager out betting for the Premier League.... the joint 6th favourite for the chop is .....
Whoever the next permanent Spurs manager is...
ahead of people like pulis, meulensteen and pardew...
Uganda's parliament has passed a bill to toughen the punishment for homosexual acts to include life imprisonment for repeat offenders.
The anti-homosexuality bill also makes it a crime punishable by a prison sentence, not to report homosexual activities to the police.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-25463942
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15524013
Liverpool's Brendan Rodgers declined Tottenham job in 2012
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/dec/19/liverpool-brendan-rodgers-tottenham-cardiff
'We, the next Labour government, will ban the things that we, the last Labour government, legislated to introduce. We, Labour governments past and future, are to be praised for our consistency of approach to this vital issue about which we appear to know absolutely bugger all.'
And people wonder why Miliband has a credibility issue...
There is no justification for ever selling pay day loans during children’s TV: Labour will stop it - @stellacreasy http://press.labour.org.uk/post/70577533795/there-is-no-justification-for-ever-selling-pay-day …
this is a clear reaction to all the enslaved children now working in the mines and up chimneys under this evil Tory government and who are now also being ripped off on their pay as well...
The last few days I have been thinking about the impact of mass immigration on the working class, and came to the conclusion that it is simply pure capitalism... then I thought about the minimum wage
Big organisations get to employ hundreds of thousands of new employees at much lower rates... the new employees are paid up to four times what they were in their home country, and the overall GDP increases as a result of their hard working nature
Governments can correctly point out that Eastern European immigrants are not a strain on the welfare system... why would they be? They are earning a (comparative) fortune!
The only losers are the less well off inhabitants of the UK, but capitalism is all about winners and losers, and in utilitarian terms, one might argue the greater good has been served.
Labour, as the party of the working class, are in a sticky situation though, as they have to justify worse conditions for the poor of the country they govern solely by the effect is has on GDP, the bottom line... society as those people know it has been sacrificed for £££££
Anyway my conclusion is.... Labour only introduced the minimum wage in a half arsed effort to look after their working class voters. They knew they were going to let hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans into the country to work, and that they were earning about £1 an hour at home.... without the minimum wage, they would have the native working class competing with the immigrants for £2-3 an hour jobs, a very low level that big corporates would be happy to pay.
So maybe the minimum wage has increased wages for the working class, as what would the going rate be now that this new workforce has arrived? Pure capitalism would have resulted in the going rate being about half the minimum wage
I think they'll have a net loss 20 seats - which brings it to exactly the current Ladbrokes line level. They'll take 2+ seats from the Tories.
Think the data today pours cold water over Tory efforts to lionise their "achievements" on the economy.
What recovery there is is skewed and heavily reliant on consumer spending. Rebalancing is for the birds.
Once again Tories manage to stuff up the economy.
Do you think the LDs will hold Solihull
But, have they been too stable. The standard deviation for C,L,LD&UKIP percentages is 1.35%,1.06%,1.07%&1.25% respectively with a lower standard deviation for LD than C. This sounds counter intuitive. Your 95% confidence limits, of course 2.5% either side of the range, is 2.64%,2.08%,2.09%&2.44%. This assumes no change in the average polling over the period and a pure statisical sample.
This suggests that the Populus adjustment methodology is damping their results.
And it's not just compression: audiophiles state that CDs, which are uncompressed, are worse than vinyl.
So to get the best audio quality, we would need to broadcast at high bitrates, 256 kB or above. This reduces the number of services that can be broadcast. By reducing the bitrate we give people more choice, and on the whole I think that, as with DTV, is a good thing. If people want better quality, they have their iPods and similar devices.
Add in error correction, then DAB at 192 or 256 kB can apparently be notably superior to FM in real-life situations.
You've probably seen codec comparison test before, but for everyone else:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/06/concluding-the-great-mp3-bitrate-experiment.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codec_listening_test
My biggest bugbear with DAB is that it is a real battery killer in portable sets. But sadly there's not much that can be done about that ...
But how would you explain why millions of working class British people have had their wages driven down, and job prospects hindered by a mass immigration of cheap labour?
The only explanation I hear is that its good for GDP. But that is for the overall country.. Big business benefits, and the working class suffer.. so how does that fit with Labour being the party of the working class?
If the Labour government had been more adept at picking winners touch screen phones might not have been the preserve of Apple, Samsung amongst others.
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2013/12/13/uk_innovation_nesta_fentem/
Rebalancing of the economy under Labour included the closure of Rover, LDV vans, Ford's exit from the UK as a manufacturer. Add on the inept energy policy which has helped wipe out UK ability to design, build and run nuclear power stations.
If anything surely it is reassuring
And what are your views on Iraq. I know it seems an odd question and a bit random but its important
I wouldn't like to simply give up cycling, but I'm finding it hard to deal with on such a regular basis. With so many senior politicians now being cyclists I'm surprised that more hasn't been done to deal with this. What can I do?
** Though I have heard a tale of a man who cycled with a rake fixed across the back of his panniers to take to the allotment, and had the safest cycle ride of his life. Not very good for the shared use paths mixing with pedestrians, though.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/the-most-bizarre-political-moments-of-2013
Oh I forgot we now have lawyer; came over from the tories 3 months ago.
"UKIP, by contrast, are a party of rich middle aged establishment men, who are scared of a modern world they simply don't understand."
I think you're referring to the UKIP voters you meet. I seem to meet a different sort, but we probably move in different circles, so neither of us sees the full picture.
Just about tops off Farage's year, I'd have thought...