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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » 2013: The year when according to political punters, at least, nothing changed very much
Labour’s polling lead over the Tories is down a couple of points on a year ago but the gap seems to be remarkably stubborn. Even in the very bad period for Labour in the late summer Miliband’s party continued to see reasonable polling gaps.
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Both the Euros and the indyref will make things more interesting next year. It has been a dull year politically.
@Tykejohnno. "UK has the highest density of population in Europe" [ or, in so many words ]
As usual you are talking crap ! Just because you repeat it does not make it correct.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934666.html
Malta, Netherlands, Belgium well above UK. Germany just behind us.
Sadiq Khan going in to bat for the court in an interview for the Observer trailed in the Guardian.
Meanwhile, in the telly, a top judge says European courts have too much power.
Are labour going to line up behind the ECHR? Blimey.
The ECHR predates the EEC/EU and has nothing to do with the EU.
"what policies does UKIP have."
I can't really answer for Ukip, but one policy is one more than Labour have.
Yes I am aware of that.
Kahn's point is that other countries are using our dislike of the ECHR to commit human rights abuses.
I guess he probably has a point, but I'm not sure that voters are that bothered about what's happening overseas right now.
Kahn will have to defend the court when the next major criminal is allowed to stay because of his human rights.
Best of luck with that one....
"And your point is?"
Why expect any party to produce a manifesto more than a year before an election?
I've voted LD for the last few elections (Labour before then) on the basis of what they represent not what their policies are. I suspect you do too. If I'm wrong, please accept my apologies.
If you know the LD policies already, I'd be interested in seeing them.
surbiton said:
FPT:
@Tykejohnno. "UK has the highest density of population in Europe" [ or, in so many words ]
As usual you are talking crap ! Just because you repeat it does not make it correct.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934666.html
Malta, Netherlands, Belgium well above UK. Germany just behind us.
No he is not talking crap. You are misquoting him. What he actually said was "England is officially Europe's most densely packed country". It is there just a few posts below your own.
And whilst city states and small islands like Malta may have a higher population density, England at 407 people per sq Km is well above the Netherlands or Belgium - or any other country in Europe.
Whilst what you say may have been true in the past it is now not true. Membership of the EU requires membership of the ECHR. Indeed the EU is now becoming a member of the ECHR in its own rights so that even were the UK to leave the EHCR as a signatory it would still be forced to remain a member and adhere to all its rulings so long as it remained a member of the EU.
Secondly there is a long term project ongoing to unify and align ECHR and ECJ rulings which will make it possible for the ECJ to enforce ECHR rulings.
There is no damage to the economy of this country or the welfare of the people who live here that the Lib Dems will not accept as long as we remain in the EU which they love unconditionally.
There. It makes sense now.
At this time of year, I like to work out what I'm expecting for the year ahead, largely to clarify my own thoughts for betting purposes. But before I do that, it's important to look back to the previous year's predictions to introduce a note of humility and to try to work out where I went wrong.
So how did I do last year? Here were my predictions:
http://politicalbetting.blogspot.hu/2012/12/2013-unlucky-for-whom.html
The first thing to note is that I actually didn't make that many. That was not just cowardice but also an implied prediction that not that much would happen. I just wish I'd said so more explicitly.
So, my detailed predictions:
1. Labour will keep and perhaps increase its lead in the polls
Labour managed to keep its lead, but it has reduced over the last year. So while this prediction wasn't hopeless, it wasn't on the money either.
Where did I go wrong? I assumed that the economy wouldn't improve. In fact, the economy had a really good 2013. The YouGov polling on the performance of the Government has shown a small but meaningful swing in favour of the Government, and the swing to the Conservatives has been of a similar level.
In many ways, Labour has outperformed the economic backdrop in 2013. Can it continue to defy economic gravity?
2. UKIP will rise further in the polls
A big tick for me here. I was even right for broadly the right reasons.
3. But don't expect major changes in the identity of Britain's politicians
Another big tick for me here. But this was an easy prediction to make. For all three party leaders it's just too complicated right now to change things about.
4. The cause of Scottish independence will continue to languish
I'm reasonably happy with this prediction too. Even Panelbase, consistently the most favourable pollster for the nationalists, shows the same 9 point deficit it showed at the end of 2012. If the Yes campaign has shown any progress, it is in persuading erstwhile opponents to think further about the subject, with a rise in Don't Knows. But they have yet to be converted to supporters.
So I didn't do too badly for once. But 2013 was a quiet year. 2014 should be a lot more challenging. I'll make my predictions for 2014 in the next couple of days.
Thanks for that. Looks like you did reasonably well.
Off-topic:
The BBC has short obituaries of the ex-MPs who died during the year:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25449128
http://www.standard.co.uk/panewsfeeds/lord-judge-in-sovereignty-warning-9028181.html
Your cause is lost for a generation.
"If it's right, it can't be overruled by anybody. I genuinely don't think that a body of judges - however distinguished - should have that sort of power."
The amusing arrogant complacency of SLAB replicated by an ARSE.
Perhaps you should consult your labour chums leading 'better together' as to how well their polling held up for the 2011 scottish election?
Or if you could finish your "cause is lost for a generation" stupidity with 'killing the SNP stone dead' that would complete your oblivious hilarity.
If Tim is still reading, then the film 'Up' is on BBC1 at 18.50.
Just so he can see the inspiration behind "Look, squirrel!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBWrMQVsuak
There may not have been another omnishambles from Osbrowne but it is very far from the static picture that some would like to believe as UK polling report highlights. The changes are also very easily spotted in the all polls trends.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/96/UK_opinion_polling_2010-2015.png
So for the first few months of 2014 it's going to be tories trying to rubbish the kippers with little Ed mostly keeping his head down but still trying to convince voters he can tackle the cost of living crisis.
The incredible idiocy of further alienating tory kipper waverers by spinning that a vote for UKIP is a vote for labour makes it an absolute certainty that will be the line spun by the out of touch twits. Meanwhile little Ed will still struggle to convince voters he truly understands cost of living issues as he gets drawn into internal labour arguments as well as immigration and EU posturing when it becomes clearer that the kipper vote is not just taking from the tories particularly when it gets higher.
Claiming that because British lawyers were involved in the ECHR's creation we should respect it now is like citing the virtue of Trajan to justify the mutilations of Nicephoras Phocas.
The question the SNP and Yes campaigners need to answer is why they think the polls will change in the next nine months when there's been barely any movement so far. If they are to change, something has to prompt that: what is it?
PS we are more than 9 months out so polls are not a real guide at this point , only the direction of travel, which is away from NO.
The question the No side need to answer is what exactly are their plans to get out the vote and for the ground campaign in general? Those counting on 'flipper' Darling or a unionist friendly press to do all the work for them are going to be in for quite the surprise.
Perhaps a quick glance at the No campaign's 'rallies' and efforts to speak face to face with voters across scotland to date might be the salutary reminder some still seemingly unfamiliar with scottish politics need?
'Perhaps a quick glance at the No campaign's 'rallies' and efforts to speak face to face with voters across scotland to date might be the salutary reminder some still seemingly unfamiliar with scottish politics need? '
If that's the case, why is the polling so poor for the Yes campaign?
Regarding population density: what a crock of shit everyone talks.
If England was excessively crowded, people would not come, and - indeed - people would leave.
It's very simple. You have the ability to vote with your feet, if you don't like how crowded England is. You can move to Scotland or Wales, or indeed any country inside the EU, and most of the countries in the world will welcome you with reasonably open arms if you are well educated.
You may not like how crowded England is. But you don't get to choose that.
That may seem outrageous. The British government should be allowed to blah, blah, blah.
But the town of Ipswich doesn't get to choose how many people live in Ipswich. It can't stop people from buying apartments in the town and living ten to the room.
Of course, it doesn't happen because there are better options available. The economic 'indifference principle' kicks in. It's like people who talk of 'demand outstripping supply', it's a nonsense made up by people who don't understand economics.
In other words, if England were 'full', then people would choose other options. (And the price of houses in Dundee would be significantly higher.)
But to repeat my earlier quote, you don't get to choose how many Scots or Welsh or Northern Irish get to live in this country. And you don't get to choose how many children Mrs Smith at number 11 has.
If there were 'too many', people would leave. And then there wouldn't be too many.
Stop trying to plan, and let economics and people's own feet make the decisions.
The immigration vs aging population nonsense.
Hypothetical economy where someone of working age can support 1.5 pensioners but there are 2 pensioners per person of working age then obviously you have a problem but importing extra working age people is by definition not a solution if that support ratio remains fixed. If the x number of working age people it takes to support y number of pensioners stays the same then as those new people age you just made the original problem *worse*.
It's simple arithmetic.
(And that's without taking into account the extra costs of housing, schools, hospitals, roads, flooding etc.)
So the support ratio is the important bit i.e. whether it's 1.8 working people per pensioner or 2.4 working people per pensioner or whatever it is. So actual long-term solutions to the problem which weren't just ideological spin in disguise have to involve changing the ratio of how many working age people are needed to support how many pensioners.
Things that would do that include
-increasing *per capita* GDP
-increasing pension age
-reducing pensioner welfare bill
-not wrecking private pensions
-using people's worklife taxes for pensions and not current expenditure
-temporarily riding the pensioner population bulge and letting the population decline to a more sustainable level
etc
Adding more people - unless they are only large net contributors - obviously (by simple arithmetic) just makes the problem worse long-term.
From a purely economics perspective - and ignoring all else - doesn't it depend completely on whether migrants are temporary or permanent.
So, if the Polish plumber comes here and lives and works for four years, and then returns to his family in Gdansk then he may well have (a) lowered the average wage of plumbers, but (b) will have positively contributed to the dependency ratio during his time in the country.
'In other words, if England were 'full', then people would choose other options. (And the price of houses in Dundee would be significantly higher.)'
If people could take their job to Dundee they would,but of course in the real world that's not an option.
However, the Yes/No polling figures for a referendum like this aren't necessarily reliable. If they were, then all the polls would be giving a roughly similar level of Yes/No/DK support to each other, and they don't.
Psephologists like John Curtice have tried to discover methodological reasons for the disparity, but have been unable to unearth any.
Panelbase (the pollster showing the highest Yes vote) can't explain it either, but their explanation - that no pollster really has the methodology to accurately estimate Yes/No support - seems likely to be the case.
in that event, the best we can do is to estimate the levels of support from an average of BPC member polls, and that shows (excluding DKs) 40% Yes, 60% No. Given that the only further useful data that can be gained from the polls is the direction of travel within each pollster (when using the same methodology as previously), that's moderately encouraging for Yes campaigners. The trend across all these pollsters is from No to Don't Know. That shift from the default No is important.
Can that trend be continued? Can the DKs be converted to Yes? We'll need to wait to find out!
It would be a brave (or foolish, or partisan) person to assume that No will have an overwhelming win on 18th September.
Polling before the AV referendum, every PB Unionist's favourite example of the electorate's attachment to the status quo, regularly showed AV in the lead by anything up to 17 points ahead from Nov '10 to Feb '11, the momentum towards No happened in the last 3 months. Two months before the '95 Quebec referendum, polling showed No winning over Yes by 2:1, the actual result was a No win by just over a point.
If Yes was currently substantially ahead but losing its lead incrementally while bleeding support to Don't Knows, I'd be far from complacent.
Alternatively the master strategy pioneered by Cammie's chumocracy of labeling their own activists as "swivel-eyed loons" might help the tories in next year's EU elections to just as good a result as the 2013 May local elections. Just in case anyone thinks elections or referenda are all about what an increasingly irrelevant and impotent press says or even a few party talking heads in interviews.
They can always enter into a similar voluntary agreement with someone else, somewhere else. That they do not suggests they value the arrangement more than square feet. (And if you look at Hong Kong, people there like economic prosperity a lot more than a few square feet.)
Looking at my immigrant friends, few would. They are all well educated and earning large amounts in industries that are at best nascent in their home countries. Then again, I tend to associate with techies.
In fact, the number who have become UK citizens might be a useful pointer - they're less likely to do this if they're not considering settling permanently.
Perhaps it's a sign of how wonderful Britain is, that people prefer to live here rather than in Romania, Poland and elsewhere ...
(*) We also need to consider the damage it does to the countries who have lost large portions of their populations, especially when they tend to be young.
So as with all your other attempts to mislead this afternoon you are once again quite wrong.
But of course that wasn't the point of my post. The point was to highlight the fact that you deliberately misquoted TykeJohnno so as to make it appear he was wrong in his assertion when in fact what he said was absolutely correct.
That said, the ECHR has a special mission, to protect individuals against unreasonable State action, and on the whole I think that's a useful backstop, even when I don't agree with them. i'm surprised that lpeople much more libertarian than me don't feel the same. If the EHR was entirely British, Judge's comments would still apply -it's not clear to me how much of the objections stem from the word "Europe" and how much people really object to court-enforceable individual rights against the State.
Note that AFAIK there is nothing in the ECHR ruling to prevent Parliament passing a law that a range of crimes, or possibly even all crimes, are punishable by the loss of the vote - it is not illegal to limit the vote to over-18s, so limiting it to people who have been imprisoned for crimes is not in principle different. What the ECJ objects to is sticking it in arbitrarily as an extra punishment with no legal basis. A reasonable compromise IMO would be to limit the restriction to people due to spend the next Parliament in prison.
'So, if the Polish plumber comes here and lives and works for four years, and then returns to his family in Gdansk then he may well have (a) lowered the average wage of plumbers, but (b) will have positively contributed to the dependency ratio during his time in the country.'
But if the average plumber is now claiming tax credits & other benefits because their wages have been cut then there is no positive contribution for (b). .
You seem to believe that we should have free movement of individuals so long as companies wish to employ them. Since those companies can currently choose to dispose of that labour again should it prove surplus to requirement at a later date would you agree that under those circumstances the company themselves, having lobbied for open borders and the right to employ whoever they want, should also assume full responsibility for paying for that excess labour once they have disposed of it. By which I mean they should pay the full cost of all benefits, schooling, health care and retirement for any workers who would not otherwise have come to the country? After all, why should corporate entities be exempt from the costs of increased immigration that they themselves have demanded to help improve their profit margins? .
I also can't help but think that the supporters of independence greatly underestimate the solidity of the No vote and how motivated it will be to come out on the day.
I agree that those who claim there is no link between the EU and the ECtHR are out of date. I think our own Judges are becoming increasingly exasperated with the lack of quality or reasoning in decisions of the ECtHR and it is healthy that they are saying so publicly.
The Court had worthy origins and aspirations but has simply become a run away train out of control seeking to justify its own existence. Basic Human rights are a bedrock to which all countries need to be held. Once they are protected how they deal with the more subtle points is a matter for them and their elected politicians, not any court. The idea that they can continually accress additional rights and protections by "interpretation" or judicial activism is flawed and needs to be stopped.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Five_of_the_United_States_Constitution
I wanted to comment on the thread this morning from David Herdson but Mrs Stodge insisted the Christmas sales were of greater import..
To be honest, Western Europe got 1989-90 wrong just as it got 1918-19 wrong but that's easy to say in hindsight. So much of today's political discourse flows from the events of the end of the 1980s. Without those pivotal events, I doubt UKIP would even exist today and certainly not in its current form while the frame of the European debate would be very different.
As it is, the EU has, through accident or design (and contrary to some on here, I suspect the former) become an organisation thoroughly discredited and distrusted by large sections of the British population though that may be true of all power structures and institutions of authority especially since the financial crisis.
I'm an internationalist by conviction but I can't defend the EU as it stands. Nor though do I have any enthusiasm for a post-EU UK as postulated by UKIP though I'm far from clear as to what that would be like. It remains to be seen what David Cameron (if he gets the chance) will achieve through his re-negotiation.
http://starwars.com/play/online-activities/crawl-creator/index.jsp?cs=rak7w2x54p
Lab lead:
Jan 2013 - 9.9%
Feb 2013 - 10.8%
Sept 2013 - 5.3%
Nov 2013 - 6.9%
Dec 2013 - 6.0%
The magnitude of the lead changed direction in Feb, Sept and Nov.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/
It's difficult. But it's supposed to be difficult.
That's why I don't pretend that I can characterise what people outwith those groups will do on 18th September. Equally, I don't use (frankly silly) terms such as "stampede", or make (frankly foolish) assumptions that referendum votes will proceed along party lines.
You, of course, are free to do as you wish.
Given the scale of the SNP victory in 2011, it might be a little surprising if they had continued that momentum. In any case, a fair proportion of that vote was in response to the perceived incompetence of Labour in Scotland.
Despite the efforts of Nick Johnston and what the Scotsman describes as "a burgeoning centre-right movement for Scottish independence", I don't anticipate a significant shift among those on the right who define their position by their Britishness, though their may be some movement among their Poujadist element.
The critical group who will decide the referendum are those who traditionally voted Labour - or didn't vote at all.
Australia
£33.06
England
£78.24
The Draw
£28.50 (Irrelevant)
Our batting has been utter garbage but our bowling has been ok this test !
It was officially passed into law by the Representation of the People Act 1983. (Edit: which in itself was a consolidation of earlier acts of 1870, 1967 and 1969)
The ECHR judgement seeks to overturn a properly debated and approved law passed by Parliament. You may not agree with that law but to try and claim it has no legitimacy or is equivalent to the arbitrary seizure of property is a dishonest position for a former (and perhaps hopefully future) Parliamentarian.
Even worse when we were bowled out for 46 in The West Indies.
Many people don't realise how crowded it is until they get here and are forced to live on a roundabout in Peterborough or an old football ground in Hendon.
And people are leaving.
Even tasering didn't stop him self pleasuring,
Alleged masturbating man in Salem bar arrested after Taser proves ineffective, officials say
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2013/12/alleged_masturbating_man_in_sa.html
"Tories fear Scots will break away - Wake up, England, or lose Union"
The Sunday Times @thesundaytimes 1m
Tomorrow's front page:
Tories fear Scots will break away + Bumper 4-page puzzle special
pic.twitter.com/jszUcolBny
Good thing they won't be on either side debating independence, oh that's right, they almost certainly will.