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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Why the electoral bias against the Conservatives could be even greater next time
We all know that the national vote threshold for LAB overall majority is considerably lower than for the Tories. The reason is partly the boundaries but mostly down to the way the Labour vote is distributed.
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Labour caught out by The Mail, either they want to gain more publicity for the clusterfu*k or they are even incompetent, and out of touch than I thought.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2480664/The-phoney-ordinary-folk-Labours-TV-broadcast-Millionaire-restaurateur-Guardian-journalist-interviewees-saying-afford-fuel-bills.html
Must be the same group which were squealing over cuts to CB last year. The ordinary people on £75K are usually the preserve of The Telegraph and almost as unrepresentative.
Just wondering how many of the 2010 LDs who are switching back to Labour, actually voted for Labour in 2005 or 2002?
1997: 13,518,167
2001 : 10,724,953
2005 : 9,552,436
2010 : 8,606,517
Labour voters are becoming scarcer - whether they voted LD or BNP in 2010..
1997: 9,600,943
2001 : 8,357,615
2005 : 8,784,915
2010 : 10,703,654
For comparison.
Against that, the absence of the scheduled boundary changes should make things easier for Labour than 2010 if the previous demographic trends - Labour-inclined people moving from safe Labour seats to marginals - are still happening.
Not sure how reliable that data is though, because Mori didn't make this breakdown for GE2010, so perhaps they don't trust people's recollection of how they voted five years ago.
Of course, after yesterday you don't need a degree to be a teacher, relevant to subject or not. Or even a GCSE. You just need... I dunno. Length certificate? Third prize in the knobbly knees at Butlins?
In reality they don't.
The biggest effect in 2015 will be incumbancy bonuses for new Conservative MPs instead of Labour MPs
That will be worth the equivalent of a 2% national swing.
It will be extremely difficult for either party to win a majority in 2015 but Labour with most MPs is the likely outcome.
A couple of weeks back, I had a discussion with Mark Senior about whether polling in marginal seats, like the mega Ashcroft surveys, was more likely to be accurate than, say, a national VI poll with the normal 1,000+ sampling.
I promised to raise the subject with my old University chum and noted psephologist and former pollster, Dr Robert Waller (who I think Mike also knows) for his observations.
This is what he wrote back to me (without editing):
"The problem with marginals polls (of which I've taken a few) is not with the sample size. That's often a red herring, as it doesn't matter how many people you talk to if they're not typical of all voters.
Therefore it's the 'sampling frame'. Assuming the poll is not random, and it won't be, the designers have to establish targets to set quotas to match with respondents.
This is harder if it is not a standard national sample, as they have to find what is typical across 38 marginals, not the well known national figures that are regularly used.
As a result, I would agree that marginals are harder to get accurate polling in.
(Of course, the sample size in individual marginals will also be very small, so it's useless for single seats within the group).
Overall, if the results of the poll across marginals suggests a different swing from that suggested by the whole weight of national polls, it's probable that it's the marginals poll that is wrong.
So I think you are probably right - though polling has certainly become more sophisticated since I last took one in 1992, so the Ashcroft people may have made a better fist of the sampling than we did in the old days!
By all means use me as an authority, though myself don't think I have much standing as one on polling nowadays ......"
Rob has given me permission to publish his thoughts.
Personally, I agree with Yougov Labourite expert Peter Kellner...that the first time incumbency effect is likely to give the Conservatives a boost when compared to a UNS when individual MPs and individual constituency seats (and an actual GE) are considered, as per the most recent full marginal poll in March. But we shall see.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2480643/Labours-Unite-paymasters-intimidated-managers-oil-refinery-battle.html
"The full extent of the Unite union’s campaign of bullying and intimidation against senior managers during the bitter Grangemouth oil refinery dispute is revealed today.
In a disturbing echo of the union militancy of the 1970s and 80s, Unite leaders deployed a dirty tricks squad to personally target and humiliate executives of the Ineos chemical company and their families.
The sinister unit – known as the ‘Leverage team’ – sent mobs of protesters to the homes of senior figures in the firm.
One director last night said he had feared for the safety of his wife and his two young children after 30 Unite protesters descended on his drive during the school holidays."
In a disturbing echo of the union militancy of the 1970s and 80s, Unite leaders deployed a dirty tricks squad to personally target and humiliate executives of the Ineos chemical company and their families.
The sinister unit – known as the ‘Leverage team’ – sent mobs of protesters to the homes of senior figures in the firm.
One director last night said he had feared for the safety of his wife and his two young children after 30 Unite protesters descended on his drive during the school holidays.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2480643/Labours-Unite-paymasters-intimidated-managers-oil-refinery-battle.html#ixzz2jHuUkTny
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Thanks for publishing that JohnO
The framework of the sampling is critical. If ever we saw this to be the case it was in last years US presidential election where Gallup amongst others had a nightmare with their sampling of the minority demographic resulting in poorer Obama numbers.
Clearly this demographic isn't as important in UK elections but to my view differential turnout will be a huge factor in bolstering Coalition MPs in 2015.
It's hard to say before GE day, but I think it's more likely to be the former, especially when individual MP's names are mentioned and individual constituencies considered. At the moment, marginal polls are nothing more than theoretical snapshots of local voting intention without so much local knowledge on individual MPs and where local issues have yet to be discussed openly (and local personalities ignored). Only the GE of 2015 will change that.
I think we'll find in 2015 that the Libs will hold onto more seats than many imagine, and that the Tories will hold most of the southern seats that on current polling would turn Labour....but will fail to impose themselves outside of the south and Midlands...therefore, the real battle for number 10 will be won and lost in the Midlands.
But as I said, we shall see.
Again I say to Carlotta and his/her/their/its followers - if you are bored of hearing about this, why raise it day after day after day?
http://www.icaew.com/~/media/Files/About-ICAEW/What-we-do/Policy/budget-and-pbr/icaew-brief-child-benefit-changes.ashx
This practice is not uncommon in either an authoritarian state or in many third-world countries where the media is not free and subject to strict government control. A bit like the UK is years to come?
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Maybe there will be a first time incumbency bonus. Bit other polling suggests that CON MPs have far worse net satisfaction ratings than LAB or LD ones."
At the moment...but that is likely to change with voting intention.
Remember the sample in this single phone poll was greater than the aggregate sample in all Ipsos-MORI politival monitors in a year.
“An uneasy truce between Unite and the Labour leadership after Ed Miliband's decision to abandon an inquiry into voting malpractice in Falkirk was threatening to fray on Sunday amid claims that witnesses had been bullied into dropping accusations and a claim by a Labour MP that Unite threatened to stop £3m in party donations unless an apology was given.”
Bullying and threatening families appears to be a UNITE trade-mark – I thought this unpleasant militant tendency crap had died out in the 1970s.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/sep/08/labour-unite-falkirk-bullying-claims
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For example in 2008, the super duper poll predicted the Tories would get 398 seats, and the 2009 one predicted the Tories would get 360. The same polls showed Labour would get less than 200 seats.
They were accurate on the Lib Dem figure (55 predicted in 2009)
The 2009 poll had a sample of 33,610.
http://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2009/10/03/will-the-towns-of-england-seal-browns-fate/
Come the election, who of the electorate will remember Miliband fearlessly trying to put the Murdoch empire out of business? Very few, however, I can tell you who will remember, the Murdoch Press.
Come the election, who will love Miliband's 20 month price freeze when the tories will be offering a price cut through green levies announced at a time of their choosing.
Will a phoney "cost of living crisis" in 2013 matter when the economy has been growing steadily and wages are rising in 2015?
Will demanding an EU a referendum in 2014 cut much ice in 2015? No, but being the only party able to deliver a referendum in the next pariament will.
And so on and so on. Mid term polls have always been pretty irrelevent but I believe that, this time, they are even more so due to the certainty of the next general election date. Being popular in 2013 may will the odd by election but 2015 is the bigger picture and the tories are more focussed on that than any other party.
As for the argument, oh dear. I remember Neil Kinnock's Labour in 1992 banging the 'but we're doing so much better in the marginals' argument. Doesn't wash. Where the nation goes, the marginals will follow. But the LD switching argument is beginning to look terribly flakey. It reminds me of undergraduates who, when faced with a complex problem that they don't understand, pin all their hopes on one argument instead of reasoning through multiple angles and arguments.
Thanks John, that is extremely helpful.
And kind of your friend to allow his thoughts to be published verbatim.
To be fair, I've found the cherry picking of polls to be used by all sides....
It's funny really...does anyone really think that having a Lab/Cons/Lib government will actually make much difference? I don't know, perhaps it's because I am somewhat apathetic most of politics, but I find the main parties are pretty much carbon copies of each other! That's why the psephological side of politics interests me far more than the day-to-day grind of politics. Probably my fascination with election day.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2480503/Lidl-accused-destroying-magic-Christmas-selling-reindeer-steaks-7-99.html
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Only two Governments have been voted out of office in the past c.35 years.
"If there was a likely first time incumbency bonus then you would have expected the Ashcroft to find evidence of it. It didn't.
Remember the sample in this single phone poll was greater than the aggregate sample in all Ipsos-MORI politival monitors in a year."
But the results of the marginal polls have been pretty mixed...the latest suggests Labour benefiting....the one before that (by Ashcroft) the Tories.
Personally, I think until local personalities (and names) and local issues are discussed in depth in the lead up to a GE, the results of any marginal polls are liable to change pretty drastically...as with the latest two! Any first time incumbency effect, if it will exist in 2015, is only likely to show itself when local considerations come to the fore IMO, and that is only likely to be highlighted during a local campaign before a GE.
Will be.
This will vary from place to place depending upon how the local MP is viewed and how the outgoing Labour MP was viewed.
Robert Halfon in Harlow is likely to have a significant incumbancy bonus for example.
"Labour caught out by The Mail"
I've just looked at Labour's PPB it again and it's exactly what it says it is. The 'millionaire restaurateur' that got the Mail (and several PB posters so excited) is surprise surprise appearing as a restaurateur in his own restaurant. All the rest as far as I can tell are what they purport to be.
The rules for a vox pop commercial are very stringent. No fee just expenses and the words have to be their own. The rules for a PPB are much more lax but even so I can't see anything here that wouldn't be acceptable in an ad let alone a PPB.
*doubts will be persuaded
But the interesting thing is that we will not have a government putting itself up for re-election in 2015.
Good points.
Also, as I said before, net satisfaction ratings for MPs are likely to change roughly in line with national polling...at the moment, Labour has a 6-7% lead nationally, whilst their lead over the Tories with net satisfaction ratings is virtually identical at 8%.....you would, therefore, expect that if the Labour lead were to collapse completely, so would their lead in net satisfaction ratings with their MPs.
But as already mentioned, this broad-based figure is also likely bound to mask regional variation and therefore be less meaning. It's individual seats which count...and the Tories are currently hated outside of their southern base.
Though I suspect the The Tories and The Lib Dems message will be "Don't let Labour ruin it again"
Can Ed Davey please be involved a scandal that involves him having to resign as an MP.
A Kingston and Surbiton by-election would be fascinating.
"Whereas the head of a private school will usually be highly academically qualified themselves and be looking for somebody with a similar background, our state schools have not valued academic achievement in a long time. Headteachers do not go out of their way to get the best qualified staff as it is."
Fair?
The three-piece suite, coloured jeans and table linens have fallen victim to the dramatic change in how families shop, according to one of the most detailed insights into the behaviour of British consumers. The research by department store chain John Lewis, which has analysed a year of sales data, shows that consumers are shopping morning, noon and night thanks to the revolution in digital technology.
The John Lewis report, called How We Shop, Live & Look, also highlights a stark North-South divide in the tastes and behaviour of shoppers. For example, Welsh shoppers are 19pc more likely to buy red underwear, while sales of suspenders are 45pc above average in the North East, and shape and control underwear is 35pc higher in Scotland.
In addition, shoppers in northern cites are using the internet differently to the South East. So while families in Liverpool, Edinburgh and Newcastle still find it convenient to drive to the high street to shop, online penetration is highest in the affluent London commuter belt, which includes cities such as St Albans, and the SW London postcode. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/10415995/Three-piece-suite-falls-victim-to-online-revolution-says-John-Lewis.html
http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/Lost-love-Labour-Bristol-Ethos-fear-prevails/story-20012427-detail/story.html
I will go on highlighting this as long as the polls show its happening because it is the overwhelming factor over te next election. My analysis on this is the same as Prof John Curtice.
Because of the new attempts to stop properties from being held within corporate/trust vehicles (ITED etc) then I'd have thought it's got a bit harder anyway. Equally, it is a bit hard to see what further steps can be taken; given the small amounts being talked about my guess is "not many" but it'll be interesting to see - certainly any progress should be applauded, though I'm sceptical about it being a story with any substance at this stage.
For example, Luciana Berger rents from a trade union at £583 pcm, that same union gave £4,000 in cash to her constituency party.
Owen Smith, shadow Welsh Secretary rents his from the GMB at £500pcm, the GMB made £7,000 in cash donations to his local Labour party.
None of this illegal, or outside the rules, or improper, but in politics, sometimes the perceptions matter more than the facts.
Really ? Even you can’t believe that – As Priti Patel said: ‘Labour’s party political broadcast would be a lot more effective if they used real people rather than their own coterie of left-wing campaigners and champagne socialists.
"The incumbncy factor will be for Conservatives in conservative held seats, and Lib Dems in Lib Dem seats. That, at the very best can preserve the status quo - I think the most Con can hope for is a continuation of the coalition or a Con minority Gov't. Only place I can see CON making gains is Scotland actually."
I totally agree with this assessment.
As a 2010 Lib Dem, he's got a got strong possibility of voting Lab in 2015, if he hasn't already defected.
Cutting back on staff costs is becoming increasingly the norm now budgets have been 'freed' - though not, I have to say, when it comes to creating more management posts, which apparently have upped by 35%.
The big mistake Gove is making - or not, depending on what you think his goal is - is to assume that school leaders/managers are any good. Or remotely competent.
In 1992 they said Labour could never win under FPTP.
With things as they are....with the public yet to be enamoured with either Labour or EM....but with Labour recording modest mid-single digit leads in the polls....I still think a hung parliament is the likeliest scenario.
http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/10/31/who-knew-britain-hates-halloween/
Which means today is my anniversary.
Uh oh.
See you in a few days.
sean thomas knox @thomasknox 57m
Checking the flatness of the Plains.
pic.twitter.com/sF6TsNxIDj
'I really do I like the good Lord's polling, but would it be churlish to point out that in the last parliament, the mega marginal polling proved to be as accurate as an American war movie.
For example in 2008, the super duper poll predicted the Tories would get 398 seats, and the 2009 one predicted the Tories would get 360. The same polls showed Labour would get less than 200 seats.'
Thanks for pointing that out.
About as useful & reliable as an Angus Reid poll.
Weren't the measurements "as things stand today"?
Given that the big shift against the Tories happened from Jan 1 onwards, what else would you expect?
Devil Worship Celebrating Halloween highest among Lib Dems, with Cons biggest True Christians Party Poopers:
Net 'Celebrating Halloween':
Con: -68
Lab: -44
LibD: -37
UKIP: -56
http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/pwd56t48sa/YG-Archive-Halloween-results-301013.pdf
If we lived in a more urban area perhaps, where teenagers who preferred ‘tricking’ was the norm, then no doubt we’d be one of the 70% who answered the poll.
But if you follow it through, it would seem to suggest that an untrained teacher, employed by a poorly managed school, could in time be appointed as a head by a set of untrained, inexpert governors... there does seem to be a problem there. The model moves away from reasonably transparent standards of training and qualification towards a kind of occult guild-apprenticeship system policed by inspection regimes which are either easily dodged or potentially very time-consuming and stressful for everyone involved, including those who are quietly getting on with a good job.
Having a fair bit of experience of the training and management style of the Church of England, the idea of rolling this approach across to the education system doesn't fill me with great hope...
They could have gone for an alliance with the Lib Dems but they threw away that possibility with their attacks on the LDs at the time of the AV referendum.
They could have got the boundary changes but they threw away that possibility by refusing to give the Lib Dems even a token reform of the House of Lords.
They could have gone all-out to re-establish a meaningful presence in the North and Scotland by adopting Lib Dem pavement politics techniques in areas where there are "one-party state" Labour councils but they seem incapable of doing this - maybe because their local parties in these areas have withered away to nothing.
Their failure to do anything about the anti-Tory bias in the electoral system is incredible, unbelievable and will go down as one of the biggest failures of Cameron's government.
It's a mystery ....
"As Priti Patel said: ‘Labour’s party political broadcast would be a lot more effective if they used real people rather than their own coterie of left-wing campaigners and champagne socialists."
But that's how you put a vox pop or a testimonial together. There's no other way.
People with an interest get in touch or you get in touch with them. They might have written or called in the past.
You then ask some questions and if you think they're suitable you invite them in for an interview.
You then select the most interesting set up the shoot and re interview them on camera.
Pritti Patel is obviously ignorant of the process.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0At91c3wX1Wu5dE0wZTMyZW1nYko1TE15MDVJVF8zYXc&pli=1#gid=0
She didn't say that was practical to do this, merely that it would be a lot more effective if it were done.
Interplanetary travel would be a lot more effective if we all had TARDISes.
Beg to differ Roger - That is not a ‘vox-pop’ – it is an echo chamber, dressed up as 'reality'.
http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/30/rahm-emanuel-nsa-obamacare-2016-hillary/?hpt=po_c2
It's a significant straw in the wind and prompted me to have another £40 at 6/4 with Hills on Hillary to be the Democrat nominee.
Not sure how long Sidney can hold that price.
Surely it would have been simpler and more honest for Piri to say: "I don't like this successful businessman because he does not agree with me."
This discussion was memorable on outpost Gallifrey many years ago.
Think of the AV discussions but with geeks on speed.
A lot of the swingback to incumbents effect that is sometimes described was actually flawed polling.