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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Labour’s much more variable performance in different catego
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Labour’s much more variable performance in different categories of seat helps it benefit most from First Past The Post
We’ve said it many times before but it is worth saying again. To maximise a party’s votes:seats ratio the best thing you can do is perform differently in different sorts of seats.
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Eurotunnel reports:
Groupe Eurotunnel carried nearly 210,000 cars, motorbikes, coaches and other passenger vehicles on its shuttles between Friday December 13th 2013 and Sunday January 5th, compared with nearly 200,000 vehicles at the same time a year ago.
Eurotunnel, which runs trains between Folkestone in the UK and Calais in France, said it laid on more services during the period in response to expected demand.
It said it also carried a daily record of nearly 1,400 dogs and cats on Saturday January 4th, which it said reflected the appeal of its services to travellers who wanted to keep their pets with them during the crossing.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0At91c3wX1Wu5dHdWdzBpbEl6S29TUmVid3dPR1k4RXc&usp=drive_web#gid=0
Brilliant stuff and thank you.
I'd quite like to create a page with links to all your excellent spreadsheets. Is that possible?
The percentage changes aren't on that spreadsheet yet, but they are available on my 2010 election night running totals document, on the far right-hand side:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0At91c3wX1Wu5dE9GYzdTNDJBVklJeXV4MV9DN3YzRmc#gid=0
The Economist - A very public private affair
Also do you (or anyone else) have a spreadsheet by constituency with demographic data on it? (ie A, B, C1, C2, D, E), Retired v Working, % with a degree, etc. etc. Would be very useful to help identify 'types' of seat / seeing where UKIP could have most traction etc.
I'm struggling to understand the Greens' obsession with 'depleting' fossil fuels. I mean, what use are they lying in the ground?
Go to Wizard Query, Census 2011, select the dataset you want and then parliamentary Constituencies for the Geography. Will give you virtually any variable.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25711091
Scottish independence: UK debt to be guaranteed
http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/scottish-independence-uk-debt-to-be-guaranteed-1-3266159
I think this is a clear indication the Bank of England will announce in the event of a Yes vote it will not continue to act as lender of last resort for Scottish banks and Scotland will effectively be deprived of protection of the pound. The groat's return has come that bit closer.
In an Independent Scotland, Socialists are in for one hell of a shock as the international economic bodies force the 1st Scottish government to adopt policies which make George Osborne's austerity look like a giveaway. The public sector will be decimated and a great many people in the Scottish public sector will have to learn what hard work is very quickly.
Ken Clarke hits out at Cameron immigration claims
Cabinet minister Ken Clarke disputes Prime Minister's claims that EU rules have led to "vast migrations" and says that foreigners make the UK "far more exciting and healthier".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10567766/Ken-Clarke-hits-out-at-Cameron-immigration-claims.html
With the Coalition on target to let 1 million new migrants net in over 5 years only the 'Mad Monk of Europhilia' could come out with such a demented rant
They have forced themselves into the corner with their stupid positioning.
This can only mean the rUK is looking after its own arse and Scottish needs will not drive decision making. Scottish 'independence' seems to mean no independence whatever when it comes to banking and currency. Deary me.
BAN THE BURKA!
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/01/syrian-al-qaeda-leader-captured-in-mascara-lipstick-and-a-burqa/
Ken Clarke has really jumped the shark. He's saying that having a debate about reducing immigration is "rightwing" and "nationalist". I expect this crap from the Labour party but not from Conservative cabinet ministers. Will Cameron have the balls to discipline him?
Already slapped him down, according to the front of the telegraph.
Mr. K, is burkha-banning UKIP policy?
Mr. Smithson, only looking at tax receipts and not the costs is somewhat misleading. Plus, the more immigrants who settle here the larger the pensions headache. And that's without considering the wildly varying degrees of integration and risks of enclaves the very different immigrants groups present.
If immigration were pure prosperity flowing from Elsewhere like a river of gold why bother with migration controls at all? Why not just let in everyone?
But much of the discussion about immigration is really a substitute for a discussion about the poor quality of too many British-born workers. Immigration is the symptom, not the disease.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/seanthomas/100254179/what-if-man-made-climate-change-is-all-in-the-mind/
The welfare system itself needs massive simplification. It's too large, too costly, and utter madness to be giving out money to such a high proportion of the working population.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/seanthomas/100254179/what-if-man-made-climate-change-is-all-in-the-mind/
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/dec/23/british-petroleum-geologist-peak-oil-break-economy-recession
I'd have thought Immigration for most people is a character issue , not a race issue, or a worker issue.
Voters don;t see why we can;t keep the nurses, entrepreneurs, teachers, footie players,manual workers, engineers etc. and not have the drug dealers, people traffickers, benefit cheats, pickpockets, health tourists, hate preachers and terrorists.
If we could have one without the other, regardless of race or creed, I think that would satisfy the qualms of many people worried about immigration.
The rump UK and Scotland will need to agree a deal based on mutually agreed debts and assets which will not be based on the overall UK debt per say.
Rump UK is responsible under law for all of the outstanding UK debt. Scotland can choose to pay some of it or not as it wishes. Dear Dear
Some of the public are concerned about the impact of immigration on their personal living standards - for those in trades that are vulnerable to competition from immigrants, that's reasonable enough. Lawyers can afford to take an Olympian view, but plumbers cannot. That doesn't mean that lawyers are wrong and plumbers are right.
And some are concerned about pressure on resources (transport, housing, schools etc). That's also a reasonable concern. But it means we need to make sure that the extra tax revenues generated by immigrants are disproportionately used to increase those resources.
It's not smart, or polite. Bilateral trade with the UK will be very important for an independent Scotland, and pissing off 53m or so potential customers isn't good for trade.
The announcement by the Treasury would seem to set a precedent for the privileges, responsibilities and liabilities of the UK now and post-Scottish separation, should it occur. I would imagine a typical Scot would be either unmoved or likelier to vote Yes based on the debt argument.
Mr Morris, do Brits on welfare want the jobs we are talking about?
Its apocryphal of course, but many employers of low paid workers will tell you they get plenty of applications, but very few from Brits.
It is also very UK-centric. All these productive people coming to the UK are lost to their home countries. A small amount does no harm, but large numbers must be very significant in their home countries. IMHO we too often forget that issue.
Titter...
Let's ignore Mr Farage's "prejudice" for a second, as that implies that British companies are economically irrational. The answer is two-fold:
Firstly, (and particularly at lower wage levels in London), British people simply don't apply for jobs. The tax and benefit system is such that we have unemployment of 5% in Britain, and it is not economically worthwhile for British people to apply for ceratain jobs - that is they will not earn sufficiently more than they earn on benefits. This is not the fault of the Brit - it is the fault of the tax and benefit system.
Secondly, our education system is simply not providing enough people with maths and engineering backgrounds. When any of my various computing companies put out adverts for developers, we usually see 3-4x as many Europeans as Brits.
Now, I know someone is going say "get a Brit and train them up". So, let me tell you what happened when we hired someone - we'll call them Jack - from prison. Jack was an entirely self taught developer. He worked with us for about a year, and - with a lot of help from the other employees - became an accomplished developer. The salary he could command went from £15k to £50k. He was no longer an ex-con, but now a developer with highly prized skills.
Unfortunately, Jack left us for the £50k job. We took someone on, spent a huge amount of money on him, and we - undoubtedly - lost £20k or so in total, when you consider the cost of other developers' time. It's very hard to justify to your shareholders why you should bring someone in, and train them up, given their cost to you will be 2x their salary in year one, and their output will unfortunately be fairly modest early on.
I mention this because it is important to understand that there are trade-offs with everything. There are no easy options. Small companies who train people up, and give them valuable skills, often find themselves having given the employee a free education which they'll cash in at the earliest possible opportunity. I don't know what the right answer is (not indentured servitude!), but it certainly does encourage businesses to hire people who are already trained-up.
Hungarian doctors are poorly paid. I'm aware that some work in Hungary during the week, then work in the NHS at weekends, flying to and from Britain every week for the weekend (earning considerably more money in Britain at the weekend than they do in Hungary during th week). I imagine this may well be true in other eastern European EU states too. Are they immigrants?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/seanthomas/100254179/what-if-man-made-climate-change-is-all-in-the-mind/
"What if man-made climate change is all in the mind? "
What if it isn't?
Clearly I'm the victim of anti-Yorkshire bigotry.
And if you are looking for precedent then all the examples of the post war period which saw friendly separations also saw the debt being divided.
When Ireland left the UK in 1921, Singapore left Malaysia in 1965 and Bangladesh left Pakistan in 1971, all saw agreements with the debt being spilt amongst the two new states. The same applied during the Czech and Slovak divorce with the Czechoslovak debt being split on a two-to-one basis, with population as the benchmark.
It took me about 30 seconds to find all that out from a simple google search. I am sure you could do the same if you were really interested in facts rather than propaganda.
I don't think most people are angry with immigrants at all. In the vast majority of cases they probably think, well given your situation I'd probably do the same.
They are angry with government.
After all, politicians are supposed to put their voters first. But the whole story of immigration since the mid 1990s is a story of politicians putting their own voters last, and calling any objections to being put last 'racist'.
I saw it briefly, and as you say the way welfare into work is punished by 100% effective tax rates is utterly ridiculous.
Mr. Eagles, to be fair your deranged taste in shoes is not in keeping with a typical Yorkshireman...
For me a hungarian doctor isn't even on my complaining about immigration radar screen. Or a romanian engineer, polish plumber, pakistani accountant, south african waiter.
What is on my radar screen are criminals, ne'er do wells, welfare takers, health tourists, hate mongers, refuse to integrators, etc.
The net result of the antipodean lawyers, from my perspective, was a greater competition for jobs which certainly diminished working conditions and probably lowered pay as well. This introduction to the effects of immigration in the raw has changed my attitude completely about it.
Nobody in Scotland is crowing , we want to make our own decisions and have our fair share of what is rightly ours, bought and paid for. We are even magnanimous enough to take our share of debt which we did not incur , almost all of it down to Labour and now Tories in Westminster.
“The international law is not clear. The Arbitration Commission on Yugoslavia declared that successor states must ‘together settle all aspects of secession by agreement’. However, when agreement cannot be reached, it appears that the presumption is that debt remains with the predecessor state.”
Can you tell me apart from Ireland any Commonwealth country that paid debt to UK on independence, you have plenty of options.
Also , it is only in your mind that Scotland has ever said they will default. On the contrary the position has been very clear that they will take their share of assets and debts.
The debt was very largely incurred by a one-eyed Scottish man and spent on public services (which in Scotland is about 1,100 quid higher per person than England). You may not like the fact the the UK exists - but no amount of chips on your shoulder about it will:
A. Make it any harder to distinguish you from a ray of sunshine; or
B. Alter the fact that Scotland has a national debt
Ah Well, at least the loss will be in the Victor account !
Be that as it may, I wonder if our local Big Issue seller pays his way in taxes. Given that he is from Albania and lives with his mates in a house in Brighton and they are bussed around the Sussex towns by their gang-master, I doubt it. Still I suppose you could say he makes Hurst High Street more exciting, though, given his chronic cough as he stands all day next to the entrance to our little Co-Op, I doubt he adds to the health of the place.
http://www.migrationwatchuk.org.uk/pdfs/BP12_3.pdf
http://www.migrationwatchuk.org.uk/briefing-papers/
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/01/why-snp-shouldnt-be-celebrating-uks-pledge-guarantee-scotlands-debt
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/372/2006.toc
For those who believe fracking, or shale-oil, tarsands, etc are the answer, the article on EROI is sobering.
"Murphy & Hall examined the relation between EROI, oil price and economic growth over
the past 40 years and found that economic growth occurred during periods that combined low oil prices with an increasing oil supply. They also found that high oil prices led to an increase in energy expenditures as a share of GDP, which has led historically to recessions. Lastly, they found that oil prices and EROI are inversely related, which implies that increasing the oil supply by exploiting unconventional and hence lower EROI sources of oil would require high oil prices. This created what Murphy & Hall called the ‘economic growth paradox: increasing the oil supply to support economic growth will require high oil prices that will undermine that economic growth’"
"Transitioning to lower EROI energy sources has a number of implications for global society. First, it will reallocate energy that was previously destined for society towards the energy industry alone. This will, over the long run, lower the net energy available to society, creating significant headwinds for economic growth. Secondly, transitioning to lower EROI oil means that the price of oil will remain high compared to the past, which will also place contractionary pressure on the economy. Third, as we try to increase oil supplies from unconventional sources, we will accelerate the resource acquisition rate, and therefore the degradation of our natural environment..."
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/03/nhs-overwhelmed-long-term-medical-conditions
"Looking after the 15.4 million people in England with at least one long-term condition already takes up 70% of the NHS's £110bn budget"
It's the elderly who comprise most of the costs of the NHS.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/isabel-hardman/2014/01/iain-duncan-smith-people-are-shocked-by-benefits-street-and-labour-will-thank-us-for-welfare-reform/
Most interesting
"Duncan Smith also had the opportunity to drop hints about the most popular welfare reform this government has ever touched, the £26,000 benefit cap. He told Andrew Bridgen, who had asked for the cap to be lowered, that it was ‘under review’."