politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » PB Poll on the Indyref

Martin McKee ‏@martinmckee 6h

How #Eurosceptics threaten UK research and innovation. Excellent assessment by @mikegalsworthy http://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2014/feb/18/eurosceptics-could-damage-british-science-and-innovation …

That should please the Cameroons.

Ave it late night grammar lesson!

I am tim
You are tim
He/she is tim
We are tim
They are tim
You (plural) are tim
Moderators are not tim

@Edin_Rokz

'One word of advice to the Nats, get KP* back! He's the only one who can keep Salmond under control before he becomes a national joke.'

Unfortunately too late, after the past week he's already become a laughing stock.

Sun Politics ‏@Sun_Politics 14s
YouGov/Sun poll tonight - Labour remain seven points ahead: CON 33%, LAB 40%, LD 8%, UKIP 12%

Danny565 said:

Sun Politics ‏@Sun_Politics 14s
YouGov/Sun poll tonight - Labour remain seven points ahead: CON 33%, LAB 40%, LD 8%, UKIP 12%

Isn't that last night's poll?

Crossover December 2015

I voted for 40 to 50 percent. Which Muppet voted for 90+?

Alanbrooke said:

usual naive nonsense divvie. They are underrepresented because they pack their bags and head to westminster, cut off that option and they stay in Scotland so you get Darling or Gove as well as Fergus Ewing. Elites look after themselves and if the Westminster road is cut off then they stay at home and organise things to suit themselves.

I see you've entirely body swerved my point about a disproportionate amount of public school entrants to Oxbridge.

I'm sorry to break it to you, but snobs (which my father tended towards) don't consider the likes of Robert Gordon's (Gove's alma mater) as a 'public school'.

In any case, Wiki says independent schools account for around 7% of pupils in England and 3% in Scotland. That's a basic difference from the get go.

SeanT said:

Hugh said:

SeanT said:

Hugh said:

Must say, some splendid footy punditry from SeanT earlier, as the "EPL" richest team plods around chasing Barca like the Dog and Duck XI after 3 pints of Greene King watching some Morris Dancing.

Ah, so you ARE tim. My hope was to smoke you out. You couldn't resist, could you?

Arf.

No I'm not.

I need to make that very clear, again, because I know (from reading posts here) that Tim has a) outstanding bets and b) an impeccable reputation on betting.

It is nominally at least a betting site after all.

I rest my case, m'Lud.

Outstanding's not the word I'd use.. UKIP were 1/5 to get less than 10% w Ladbrokes when we had the bet and theyre 8/15 now!!

isam said:

Whatever happened to that annoying Bobajob dude?

Bobajob left after Tim was banned but before SeanT was banned. The purging of the lefties.
He might have a new nickname on here by now though

antifrank said:

I agree with JackW.

Quite the most brilliant post on PB for some years ....

Spaldings ‏@Spaldings 1h

Oxfordshire farmer forewarns the Prime Minister that the effect of floods will devastate his business into 2015 #Agri http://ow.ly/tJsBN

phil dilks ‏@fairdealphil 2h

Media swallow 'Downing St Flood Summit' spin which Cameron didnt attend and which wasn't even in Downing St! #con http://tinyurl.com/nakpbjx

Out of touch fop.

SeanT said:

AndyJS said:

Any PBers been to Ukraine? Not sounding good there atm:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26249330

How is Bangkok?! My advice is just stay away from the protest zones at night and you will be fine. You are much more at danger from being run over in the city's insane traffic.

If your hotel is smack bang in the middle of a protest zone (quite difficult, as there are only 3 or 4 such zones, in a city of 10m) then I suggest you move hotel.

Otherwise, enjoy! You are almost certainly getting a cheaper deal now, on all fronts, as Bangkok is desperate for more tourist business. And the sun shines all day at this time of year.

*envious, wistful sigh*

I'm staying at the Novotel Ploenchit opposite the BTS station, but I can still see tents on the road below belonging to protestors. Might try out the SkyBar at Lebua tonight.

"The threat of civil war is now very real in Thailand":

http://www.leftfootforward.org/2014/02/the-threat-of-violence-is-now-very-real-in-thailand/

JackW said:

PBModerator said:

Please DON'T accuse other posters of being incarnations of previous posters!

An outrageous attack on the rights of PB Buddhists

Mike Smithson was 17th century powdered wigmaker named Ivor Pollworthy

Oh no! Please no! Oh God NOOOOO!: Chortle

Alanbrooke said:

Theuniondivvie said:

Alanbrooke said:

usual naive nonsense divvie. They are underrepresented because they pack their bags and head to westminster, cut off that option and they stay in Scotland so you get Darling or Gove as well as Fergus Ewing. Elites look after themselves and if the Westminster road is cut off then they stay at home and organise things to suit themselves.

I see you've entirely body swerved my point about a disproportionate amount of public school entrants to Oxbridge.

I'm sorry to break it to you, but snobs (which my father tended towards) don't consider the likes of Robert Gordon's (Gove's alma mater) as a 'public school'.

In any case, Wiki says independent schools account for around 7% of pupils in England and 3% in Scotland. That's a basic difference from the get go.

Not at all divvie Oxbridge gets a higher proportion of public school candidates because PS are more likely to push their kids that way and state schools don't. What are you going to do set quotas ? Public schools in england while to you are evidence of a class to me are more evidence of a failing education system as the figures this morning illustrated.

And as for the difference between england and scotland that doesn't really mean much, the majority of public school kids in england - we had this re Eton of all places - end up doing fairly non-descript middle class jobs such as lawyers and doctors, they don't become politicians. The nat mythology which insists everyone's a public school elitist toff is simply guff.

I'd say you are both right in part. Public schooling and Oxbridge were definitely launchpads in their way (as Trade Union and Ruskin College or ?Newbattle Abbey, for instance, once (and still?) were in the Labour movement). But the effect of public schooling seemed to be to wring out all the potential of each schoolchild and push them through the exam system - once that support is lost some of them fell by the wayside at university. My ex-public school chums seemed to have a much more mixed record of formal academic uni success than the ex-state school chaps - a sort of opposite phenomenon from the reversion to the mean.

So for all the uniformity of their suits and blazers at 18, a lot of public school types would have ended up as accountants and medics and the like - but some became highflyers or idiosyncratic academics or just plain dropouts.

No idea if that phenomenon still occurs but it was a very real one in the 1970s and 1980s.

The SNP front bench is notably mixed educationally - rather different from the three main UK parliament parties. I have not seen any analyses of the Holyrood Tories, LDs and Labour.

Hugh said:

Mick_Pork said:

Danny565 said:

Labour's lead does seem to have ticked upwards again the last couple of weeks.

Hence the shrill shrieking from the right wingers on anything apart from westminster politics.

I hadn't noticed!

They'll get their mojo back if there's a decent poll or event for the Tories, until then we're probably stuck with Braveheart and squirrels :-(

How much time/effort in the political calendar is this referendum going to eat up? The media fever seems to have inched up a notch as the London press realise that it really is quite a fascinating rolling story. The danger for the government is it takes up a good chunk of the political airtime, which it may if it is at all close.

TheLastBoyScout said:

Hugh said:

Mick_Pork said:

Danny565 said:

Labour's lead does seem to have ticked upwards again the last couple of weeks.

Hence the shrill shrieking from the right wingers on anything apart from westminster politics.

I hadn't noticed!

They'll get their mojo back if there's a decent poll or event for the Tories, until then we're probably stuck with Braveheart and squirrels :-(

How much time/effort in the political calendar is this referendum going to eat up? The media fever seems to have inched up a notch as the London press realise that it really is quite a fascinating rolling story. The danger for the government is it takes up a good chunk of the political airtime, which it may if it is at all close.

Which one? (referendum I mean).

Never mind, if the moderators allow one to predict future incarnations (as opposed to reincarnations) we'll all be accumulating enough positive karma to end up with a nice quiet life next time round. Say, as a tapeworm in a blue whale ...

JonnyJimmy said:

Mick_Pork said:

JonnyJimmy said:

Come on you great big McWimp, post your predictions.

You think if you shriek loud enough I'll suddenly give a shit what a you say TimmyTommy?
Think again chum. Calm down and wipe the spittle from the monitor before you hurt yourself you amusing twerp.

So McBwak McBwak...

Bwak??

LOL

Poor old TimmyTommy. You seem so furious and enraged you could be accused of losing the ability to post coherently except you obviously never possessed it in the first place.

Go back to your petulant shrieking, it's clearly all you're good for.

Yet more trouble brewing for calamity Clegg.

Times News ‏@TimesNewsdesk 13m

Clegg’s middle-ground tactic sparks Lib Dem infighting http://thetim.es/1h2ZwA3

This on top of the lib dem Wythenshawe disaster and it's beginning to look like Clegg's ostrich faction are going to be dealing with a whisper campaign against Clegg after May.

Yet more out of touch fop news.

Jonathan Haynes ‏@JonathanHaynes 15h

John Bercow calls for end to "yobbery and public school twittishness" at PMQs http://bit.ly/O2w6dg

TheIndyPolitics ‏@IndyPolitics 3h

Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg back John Bercow's plans to reform PMQs - but Conservative backbenchers resist http://ind.pn/1h2npI0

JonnyJimmy said:

Are any SNPers prepared to post their predictions for both Indy Ref and GE percentages?

To be fair, I think Stuart predicted between 40-60% downthread. For disclosure I put 30-40%, but probably on the high end of that range.

Hugh said:

Mick_Pork said:

Yet more trouble brewing for calamity Clegg.

Times News ‏@TimesNewsdesk 13m

Clegg’s middle-ground tactic sparks Lib Dem infighting http://thetim.es/1h2ZwA3

This on top of the lib dem Wythenshawe disaster and it's beginning to look like Clegg's ostrich faction are going to be dealing with a whisper campaign against Clegg after May.

I wonder what Lib Dem infighting is even like?

Clegg is safe, he needs to absorb as much toxicity personally as he can for the sake of the party, then be flushed down the sewer.

Well it's blatantly obvious that any possible lib dem challenger and leader replacement doesn't want to take over and become the coalition shit magnet this far out from the GE.
The question is whether any of them have the bottle to initiate leadership proceedings as the 2015 election campaign looms. Whisper campaign? They might do that and hope Clegg does the decent thing and stands down. It's also pertinent that any challenger who waited till after 2015 would be dealing with a devastated lib dem party with far less MPs and no clear way of knowing who will remain and which way they will jump. (against the Clegg direction of travel obviously but that there will be very few realistic replacements who won't be doing that)

Alanbrooke said:

@Carnyx

Public schools prepare their pupils for Oxbridge more intensely than state schools as they see success at getting pupils in to Oxbridge as something that makes the place attractive to parents. Most public school folks end up doing "respectable" middle class jobs.

The UK front bench phenomenon is probably more function of Oxford PPE where something like 16% of MPs have the dreaded letters. The issue of elites is increasingly less that of their schools and more the professionalisation of politicians in a small clique. Nicola Sturgeon appears to be leading the way for the Nats.

I would also contend that comparisons between UK and Scottish parliaments are fairly pointless since the issue is really what would a Indy Parlt look like ? Since there are 129 Holyrood seats and Scotland sends 59 of it's best and brightest to Westminster, I'd say that post indy the 59 would displace more of the 129 and give it a few years there won't be that much difference between the two parliaments.

Thanks: all good food for thought, and quite right on the first point.

I did wonder about the final point, but decided not to explore it. As you say, it would affect Labour, and to some extent the LDs, far more than (for their very different reasons) the SNP and Tories. So yes we get the 2nd XV there. But there is another factor however which is that experienced Labour MSPs stood on the constituency lists and some got the chop in 2011, but were to a considerable degree (as the system was devised to do) replaced under the weird Holyrood system with the third XV who were on the regional lists. So the current lot is a sort of mix of 2nd XV partly struck down by dreaded lurgy and replacements from the 3rd XV.

All the time I was watching "The Monuments Men", I thought the British chap was Colin Firth. Only when the credits came up at the end did I realise it was Hugh Bonneville. I must be getting senile, or perhaps I'm not cultured enough.

TimmyTommy said:

McBlatantly McObvious but too McChicken to put it in a percentage prediction?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRWcPoxmZos

Shriek louder petal.

TheLastBoyScout said:

Even in your wildest dreams the Conservatives couldn't manage -10% Nick

They're working on it. Give them another year!

Tykejohnno said:

Ave_it said:

Ave it individual GE2015 seat projection!

Lab gain Redcar!

Just got back,bradford gain vale ;-)

Come in the Bradford first win in 16!

Bit like Watford form team now!!!

Con gain Bradford West (maybe)!!!!

Alanbrooke said:

@Carnyx

Public schools prepare their pupils for Oxbridge more intensely than state schools as they see success at getting pupils in to Oxbridge as something that makes the place attractive to parents. Most public school folks end up doing "respectable" middle class jobs.

The UK front bench phenomenon is probably more function of Oxford PPE where something like 16% of MPs have the dreaded letters. The issue of elites is increasingly less that of their schools and more the professionalisation of politicians in a small clique. Nicola Sturgeon appears to be leading the way for the Nats.

I would also contend that comparisons between UK and Scottish parliaments are fairly pointless since the issue is really what would a Indy Parlt look like ? Since there are 129 Holyrood seats and Scotland sends 59 of it's best and brightest to Westminster, I'd say that post indy the 59 would displace more of the 129 and give it a few years there won't be that much difference between the two parliaments.

UK politics particularly Labour is becoming hereditary, Benn, Prescott, Blair, Kinnock, Vas, to name just a few off the top of my head, then you have the married couples, Balls, Dromey, to make sure the gravy train is kept nice and tightly controlled.

hunchman said:

Ave_it said:

Tykejohnno said:

Ave_it said:

Ave it individual GE2015 seat projection!

Lab gain Redcar!

Just got back,bradford gain vale ;-)

Come in the Bradford first win in 16!

Bit like Watford form team now!!!

Con gain Bradford West (maybe)!!!!

Con hold Watford?!

Nailed on! Bit like FTSE 9000 soon super Osbourne revival!!!

Ave_it said:

Tykejohnno said:

Ave_it said:

Ave it individual GE2015 seat projection!

Lab gain Redcar!

Just got back,bradford gain vale ;-)

Come in the Bradford first win in 16!

Bit like Watford form team now!!!

Con gain Bradford West (maybe)!!!!

Nice to see you back ave it ;-)

TY Ave it not = tim!

The Nats seem remarkably coy about their predictions, but smart punters will have taken note firstly of Jack W, and then of antifrank's pithy post.

For those who weren't around at the time, antifrank's contribution to Hibernian psephology first came to notice when he correctly predicted (and he may well have been the only person who predicted) that there would be not a haggis, not a sausage, not even a designer chipolata's worth, of change in the Scottish seat totals in GE 2010 compared with 2005:

We can expect this election to be a no change election in Scotland at least.

http://politicalbetting.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/scottish-play.html

This was at a time when some of our distinguished Scottish friends were adamant that the SNP was going to make big gains.

So 30% to 40% is where the smart money is going.

JonnyJimmy said:

Theuniondivvie said:

JonnyJimmy said:

I'm amused that SNPers are so lacking in confidence that none of them will make a £100 bet that they'll get more than 44% at evens.

Or even give me a predicted percentage....

I think you can put that in the category of not wanting to go for a pint with some wild-eyed jakey that importunes you on the street.

Too scared to even give a prediction?

McBawk McBawk!

'Naw pal, am aff the drink, here's a fiver, you go an' have one yersel'.'

Election-data ‏@election_data 19m

Two take-aways from YouGov/Sun poll. 1. Labour pulling away amongst ABC1s and 2. UKIP strength among 60+ C2DEs @YouGov

DickMandrake ‏@DickMandrake 30s

Interesting Dan Hodges piece on what Twitch Plays Pokemon means for Ed Miliband.

LOL

I see wage growth is up and inflation is down:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/10645625/Inflation-falls-below-2pc-target-for-first-time-in-four-years.html

I'm getting worried for Osborne. People have short memories, and he's starting to make this economic management thing look just too easy. Widespread public complacency could let Balls in by the back door. I never thought things could be too perfect, but Osborne looks as if he's getting there.

AVE IT FTSE FORECAAST!

31.12.2014 8000
31.12.2015 10000
31.12.2000 20000
31.12.2025 100000

Ukraine

I have to say it looks like a very heavy Belfast night of the past, just with larger number in one place.

The tactical situation on the ground at the epicentre of trouble is not good for the protestors as it stands. Its a space that can ultimately be choked by the authorities and the street -based opposition movement will need to maintain channels. It is, bluntly, a man's fight. You look at the protestors now, its overwhelmingly men, often younger. The opposition movement has left its street fighters out which doesn't bode well for peace in the very short term.

At this point at street-level, the advantages lie with the authorities. To that end the opposition needs:

1. a loss of nerve on the political front by the President. He himself is slightly shaky and has been for a bit. Plenty of others around him are most definitely not at this point.

2. Assuming this requires being on the street to get their way, what the opposition needs is to launch out elsewhere, both in Kiev and around the country. So far this has not happened to the degree it needs to.

As a result the authorities could crack down in the one major location and finish this stage of protest. The bloodshed may be mighty but within that space the authorities have the ability to cycle resources and do a mix of holding the line and upsurges to exhaust the protestors, over days if necessary, before moving in.

The authorities do have more tools here and haven't used them . It is, believe it or not, an element of restraint or alternatively the subject to a stiffling internal debate that is stiffling the full on crackdown.

No sign of the army yet. If the current government had full control and/or direction it wouldn't need a law to bring them in, it would need an order. It hasn't come even though a significant number of military personnel have been moved closer to the action.

It is delicately poised. From the armchair, and sadly for the protestors, it looks as if they have some policy and civil affairs wonks in suits from the EU to advise them. The Ukrainian government has Putin and a fairly (it isn't 100%) solid security apparatus. Doesnt sound even does it? In reality there is somewhat more robust and dirty tactics type contacts coming from at least two EU countries. The Russians say the Europeans are stoking. On this they are correct.

@Tykejohnno

'Watching abit of the Scottish parliament today,loved how Sturgeon kept reminding the Scottish public of Scottish labours new found friends - the tories = lol'

What else can she say when two of the SNP's key separation policies have been demolished in a week?