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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » REMINDER: The CON poll deficit maybe getting smaller but th
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » REMINDER: The CON poll deficit maybe getting smaller but they need to be well ahead on votes just to be level-pegging on seats
The above table was published here three year ago and was based on a slide from Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University that was presented at a post-GE2010 conference at Nottingham University.
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'So when Mr Swinney says that George Osborne “is arguing…that the UK would be the successor state”, this is completely wrong. The opposite is true: it’s Scotland who will be the successor state, according to Westminster. Mr Swinney is either making a slip of the tongue here – getting his successors and continuators mixed up – or misrepresenting the UK government’s position.
Either way, his assertion that if Westminster is right “the UK…is obliged to hold on to all of the debt” doesn’t appear to have any basis in reality."
http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-can-scotland-avoid-paying-uk-debt/13362
Good thing we have the May local elections as a reality check isn't it?
But don't tell the tea party tories just yet, it's going to be far more fun watching them run into that brick wall at full speed.
CH 4 Fact checks the SNP's claims that they can "walk away from the debt if they can't keep the £":
"Of course, the government of a newly independent Scotland could try to refuse to take any of the debt on board as a bargaining position, but the chancellor could be equally confrontational about dividing state-owned assets between the two countries.
The one thing we can say for sure about a “yes” vote is that there would have to be intense negotiations between Holyrood and Westminster. There are few certainties about the outcomes."
At least we can all agree that having someone as popular with the scottish voters as omnishambles Osborne is delivering that message to scotland was a triumph for the incompetent fops.
*chortle*
http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/0o8p7g0w79/YG-Archive-Pol-Sun-results-230413.pdf
UKIP VI (vs OA)
Issues facing
Country:
Immigration: 90 (+49)
Economy: 64 (-12)
Europe: 43 (+25)
You/Your Family
Economy: 58 (-7)
Immigration: 42(+25)
Pensions: 34 (+4)
But you go on about Osborne as usual.
"This is the view set out in the Vienna Conventions on Succession of States, which the SNP has often referred to in the past.
The convention that relates to property and debt says: “When part of the territory of a state is transferred by that state to another state, the passing of the state debt of the predecessor state to the successor state is to be settled by agreement between them.
“In the absence of such an agreement, the state debt of the predecessor state shall pass to the successor State in an equitable proportion…”
The SNP did appear distinctly rattled yesterday - how desperate must you be to cite Danny "5 million unemployed" Blanchflower in your defence?
But Swinney's remarks are hardly the first SNP pronouncement that "doesn't appear to have any basis in reality"...
If you seriously think it's a great idea having someone as popular with the scottish voters as he is making AAA economic threats in scotland, then you are presumably in the Scott_P camp expecting an imminent scottish tory surge.
I fear you are going to be waiting for quite some time.
Look on the bright side, you can't blame Osbrowne for labour's poll lead can you?
Oh that's right, you can.
Source - Mike Smithson tweet.
Just how out of touch are you?
Chortle....
If rUK says no to a Sterling zone, what would be your preferred currency solution?
If you think that presuming you know my position on a topic I have not commented on is clever, then you are more of an idiot then you appear.
Which is quite a feat.
Jut a tip: repeatedly using words like 'PB Tory', 'chortle', and 'Osbrowne' does your arguments no favours at all. Unless you are, as sometimes appears, just a troll.
That Factcheck article is a slight embarrassment for Swinney. It's a shame you cannot bring yourself to discuss it, and instead spam-post on your comfort-blanket topic of Osborne.
Actually, as you're Scottish it should be 'Look - Red Squirrel!'
Where can we look up the answer?
Obrowne's budget was an omnishambles and the evidence of it's impact isn't something as laughable as tea party tory anecdote. It's right there in the VI polling graph for all to see.
Of course if you want to ignore all those months polling and you think Osbrowne is "near perfect" then you are going to get a bit of a surprise at the May local elections where the polling VI turns into real votes.
Chortle...
If the EU says no to a new treaty, when do you expect Cammie's EU referendum to take place ? Since his referendum is predicated on renegotiations and a new deal on a treaty.
Because unlike Cammie's Cast Iron EU referendum we know that the Independence referendum isn't a fantasy but very real and is going to happen next year.
Potentially a very large story - the immediate question is why the deal's fallen through.
Not sure about that answer Mick. Sounds a bit vague. After all, the SNP has had 50 years to figure this stuff out. I would expect answers - some answers at least - to be ready. I don't think they've done their homework.
The hilarity of watching PB Tories trying to speculate on the negotiations which follow that referendum, when Cammie doesn't even know if he supports IN or OUT for his own Cast Iron referendum or if it will even take place, is priceless.
Issues facing country - immigration:
LibDem : 25
2010 LibDem: 37
There is similar, but much smaller difference among both Con (+6) and Lab (+3) 2010 voters.
There weren't too many tories skipping when they realised how gullible they had been to believe that nonsense. ;^) They believe him over his Cast Iron EU referendum Pledge this time though, don't they?
Well, apart from those 100 tory MPs they do.
RT @ianpuddick: Breaking
#ScotlandYard now investigating #IPCC re failed historic childabuse investigations
http://www.exaronews.com/articles/4936/met-investigates-police-watchdog-over-richmond-paedo-ring?utm_source=newsletter-news&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter-13-04-24
#OperationFernbridge
Let's dissect a post of yours earlier.
- You make a statement that I may or may not agree with (the subordinate clause in the first sentence).
- You presume (wrongly) about my viewpoint on another topic (the remainder of the first sentence).
- You then take that presumption as the truth, and the rest of the post is about that, including a chart you repeatedly post.
In other words, you created a position I do not hold but you find easy to argue against, and argued against it, rather than discussing the relevant subject.It's a rather poor style of debate.
"So roughly speaking we appear to have had a small increase for the Tories, a slight knock for Labour. At this point we can normally expect lots of speculation about what has caused it… or more typically, lots of people claiming that the thing they personally care deeply about has caused it, the thing they think their party shouldn’t be doing has damaged them, or the thing they think their party should be doing has helped them. Normally such claims don’t bother with evidence."
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/7327
Don't you think their energies might be better utilised trying to turn that around their electoral fortunes and worrying about UKIP than endlessly fretting about an independence referendum they will have zero impact on? ;^)
A woman was jailed ‘in secret’ for trying to remove her father from a care home where his family thought he was in danger of dying.
Wanda Maddocks, 50, is the first person known to be imprisoned by the Court of Protection, which settles the affairs of people too ill to make their own decisions. A judge ruled that she should go to prison for five months for contempt of court even though she was not present or represented by a lawyer.
Details of the case were made public for the first time yesterday and provoked a fresh row over behind-closed-doors justice. Miss Maddocks, who served six weeks of her sentence, was jailed because she ignored the court’s orders not to try to remove her father John from the home.
She was condemned for incidents including taking the 80-year-old dementia sufferer to a court hearing and to see a solicitor. She was also censured for producing a leaflet to try to publicise details of the case and giving her father a wooden cross ‘to ward off evil’ in the care home. Her family said Mr Maddocks, a retired painter and decorator from Stoke-on-Trent, had been held ‘like a prisoner’ on the orders of a local council. Miss Maddocks was initially not allowed to be named after the hearing and was identified only by her initials WM.
And the court’s ruling containing details of her sentence was not published. The Court of Protection is a branch of the High Court and its hearings are always conducted in private. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2313760/Wanda-Maddocks-Jailed-secret--trying-rescue-father-care-home-believed-die.html
1) there are rather a lot of seats at stake
2) any party that aspires to being a national party needs to show that it has something to say to all parts of the nation
3) it is unhealthy for any large part of the country to be governed by a party which is supported by no significant element of the population.
You also might want to look up what the word IF means before embarking on another amusing 'dissection' of my post.
I'd be happy to provide a threader for any of the topics you or I mention to Mike for consideration. However, some of them have been done to death already, and there are knowledgeable posters on some of the topics that could do a far better threader than I ever could.
MORE than 155,000 NHS staff in Scotland are having to wait for a promised pay rise which has already been given to health service workers south of the Border.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/health/anger-over-delay-in-pay-increase-for-nhs-staff.20898524
One key factor is how many Scottish seats will Labour have? It won 41 at GE2010, so how many of those will it lose to the SNP? Could they be down 10+ in Scotland?
Well it's a view, I suppose.
And I do not what the conditional 'if' means. In fact, that is rather crucial to my dissection of your post. You put a conditional at the beginning, and then react as if the conditional is true. All the time avoiding the topic.
As I said, it's a poor form of debate.
We ought to have a version of Godwin's Law dedicated to you: "As a PB discussion grows longer, the probability of MickPork using 'Osbrowne' or 'PBTories' approaches 1. The convergence is faster if the topic under debate is not about Tories or Osborne."
100? 200? 300?
Maybe you should ask yourself if we have AV and which side led there before the campaign finally became a reality? Or ask yourself where Iain Gray's landslide for the scottish parliament went since scottish labour were leading by double figures until it got down to the actual campaign in the final months.
Better still why aren't you demanding that Osbrowne make threats in scotland every day or every week if you seriously think it's such a good idea?
"The Scottish Independence Referendum will be on the 18th September 2014. This is 512 days away"
Dies a little inside at the prospect...
The tories have a long way to go but a 5% tory/Labour swing from here would probably make them the largest party again. What makes our politics interesting is that it is very unlikely to be as straightforward as this.
The tories will probably regain some support from UKIP, the Lib Dems will probably recover some of their lost support from Labour, some Lib Dems may support the tories. As these are not direct transfers it is more like 10% of people would have to change their current intentions for the tories to become largest party. This is far more difficult but how these movements will play out will be complicated..if the exit poll at the next election is as accurate as the last one was I will be seriously impressed.
Or can we agree that it is all down to the bureaucrats?
As for Osbrowne or Cammie, I'll take that seriously when I see PB tories slam anyone calling little Ed, rEd, Red Ed or just that perennial PB tory favourite 'Ed is crap'. The tories on PB certainly didn't have a problem when all those threads were going.
It certainly looks like hypocrisy rolled in with glorious irony.
If the independence vote is lost then the SNP could slump and actually drop to circa 5 and Labour have 335.
23 October 2011
SNP independence campaign 'starts today', conference told
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-15419108
25 May 2012
SNP launch 'Yes' campaign for independence.. just as new poll shows majority of Scots oppose leaving UK
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/snp-launch-yes-campaign-for-independence-858155
5 Feb 2013
Scottish Independence Plans Launched By SNP Slammed As Absurd By Critics
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/02/05/scottish-independence-pla_n_2621228.html
Curiously we seem to have got to the point the SNP have more support than independence and I think expectations of a collapse after the referendum are ill-founded. The SNP will remain a major player in Scottish politics.
Difficult to predict the impact of the Independence vote on the SNP - barring a major humiliation (which looks very unlikely) you could argue that the Scots - who want more devolution, if not outright separation - may decide to strengthen the SNP's hand in Westminster to help get a better deal.
Too early to really be considering the General Election, I think.
Mr. L, indeed. The question is, where would voters turn? The SNP/Labour/the poll tax have done a great job of damaging Conservative prospects north of the border, the Lib Dems may not be seen in a positive late due to entering the Coalition, Labour could benefit from being in opposition but lose a Brown-bonus in Scotland.
A year ago, the SNP and their fellow travellers were sweeping all before them; theirs was the way to go. Mr Salmond had all the answers. At least that’s how it looked. An independent Scotland would waltz into the European Union, without let or hindrance. It would be welcomed with open arms into Nato and it would enter into a currency union with what Scottish civil servants have now been schooled to call “RUK”, in other words the rest of the United Kingdom, once Scotland departs.
Today all of these crucial parts of life in an independent Scotland, as asserted by Mr Salmond and his friends, have turned to ashes in their mouths. None of it, not a single aspect of any of the three essentials of everyday life as expounded by the Nats – trade, defence and the economy – stands up to any kind of scrutiny... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/10014186/Osborne-savages-plan-for-currency-union.html
All you just proved is that don't know what for real means.
Do you think Cammie announcing his Cast Iron Referndum meant that campaign has started for real?
Do you seriously believe the 2015 GE campaign has started for real?
The May local elections are not 512 days away yet you are the one who thinks repeatedly bringing up the toxic Osborne making threats to the scottish public is a good idea.
Just so you know, Osbrowne's threats are neither new or unexpected any more than PB tories jumping on them as some ludicrous 'proof' of the unionist case is.
Same story a year ago.
Same nonsense as yesterday, same idiots thinking it's a great idea for Osbrowne to do it.
That the No campaign has run out of ideas and is forced to recycle the same old tosh is as amusing as having Osbrowne do it again. We'll see if the results in May prove that was a AAA use of his time.
In case you missed it the SNP won their local elections last year and beat scottish labour. The scottish tories had one of their worst results in a long, long time.
Will there only be one announcement?
Or should we expect serial announcements, as we have seen to date?
And how will we be able to tell that this is the real campaign?
The evident attempt to rehabilitate Osborne is continuing with his well-reported speech on Scotland. Not sure whether it will help the No campaign but his ratings should pick up a bit.
AFTER Osbrowne had made the same ludicrous threats to the scottish voters over independence.
SNP 424 (+61)
Labour 394 (+46)
Conservatives 115 (-28)
Liberal Democrats 71 (-95)
Greens 14 (+6)
SSP 1 (-)
Others 201 (+8)
So not only did the SNP secure the most seats, they also enjoyed the biggest gains. Unambiguously a victory.
I'm looking forward to your PR spin for the tories the day after this years May local elections.
As much as Osborne was being childish yesterday with that daft Treasury report, the fact the question over currencies is being raised at all is fatal for all the arguments for independence.
In fact a coach and horses has been run through the whole yes campaign. The referendum defeat will be as big as that for the Yes to AV campaign.
I hope we don't get one. Coalitions are rubbish.
As we've seen this morning expect the likes of Tim, Smithson and Porky to be posting more than ever, which shows how desperate they are. It will also put off anyone who reads these threads from the rubbish they spout.
More than a quarter of jobs are now available only to graduates, it says.
The study shows a major shift in the job market towards requiring many more skilled workers, as roles disappear for those without qualifications.
Researchers at the Institute of Education surveyed 3,000 adults across the job market.
The findings of the Skills and Employment Survey, with the latest figures for 2012, show a significant milestone in the employment landscape, with graduate jobs at a record high level and unskilled jobs at a record low.
Skills mismatch
In the mid-1980s, graduate jobs accounted for about one in 10 jobs, and more than three times as many unskilled jobs would then have been open to school-leavers without any qualifications.
Through the 1980s, 1990s and the first decade of this century, this has relentlessly shifted, with a growing number of jobs needing degrees, while unskilled jobs have become a shrinking part of the labour market.
Employers have been slow to take up the swathes of better-qualified workers, but now they are starting to wake up to the use of graduate labour”
The fall in jobs without qualifications has accelerated since 2006 and this latest survey places it at a "historic low" of 23% of the labour market, compared with 26% for graduate jobs.
"At no time in the 1986-2012 period have falls and rises of these magnitudes been recorded," says the report.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22268809
I raised this point a few days ago - what are we going to do with the unemployable who have been ill-educated - a legacy of the last 30 years. Will we be reverting to a two-class system: the educated and employable and the uneducated and only able to be sweepers and cleaners as in many developing countries.
The GE campaign typically starts to get serious six months before polling day and the final two months are a fair estimate for when it really begins to dominate the media.
The AV referendum similarly only seriously got going in the final couple of months with the major shifts in polling taking place in that time.
The final six months before the independence referendum is when the scottish media and parties will being to really deploy the publicity for both sides of the argument with the final couple of months being the focus of the GOTV and ground campaigning as well as TV debates and TV 'specials'.
The same pattern occurred for the scottish elections in 2011.
If you still don't understand how these things work that would be your problem.
Possibility of the benefit cap and the income tax cut never cross their minds ?
It was asked and answered a while ago nor was it the first time it was raised.
Contains some interesting political conclusions.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18973923
So tactics for 2015 sees the Tories running for cover behind their increasingly ignored and discredited press chums wibbling about Labour tax bombshells even after a spending review containing yet more cuts?
Don't fancy their chances much.
It was raised last year and it's about as 'new' to the debate as when Iain Gray raised it in the 2011 scottish elections. Those weren't good for labour in case you still don't know.
How the opposing side being forced to reuse the same 'too poor, too wee and too stupid' arguments over and over again is 'fatal' is perhaps one of those questions best left to little Ed since he helped masterminded the SLAB 2011 campaign. Or perhaps house flipper Darling can answer it? You know what killed AV? Clegg.
No to AV used him as the poster boy again and again and again and it worked.
You know who's side Clegg is on for the Independence campaign? The No side.
You know who else is on the No side? Cammie and Osbrowne.
If the No campaign seriously want to make this purely negative then they had better have a good look around at who they have supporting it. It's an embarrassment of riches for Yes.
Or not.
Which party was getting beat by double figures a couple of months before the 2011 scottish election?
Take your time.
Scottish Referendum - Yes 35% .. No 65%
2015 General Election - Con 290 .. Lab 280 .. LibDem 40 .. Others 40
Broxtowe - After 3 recounts Nick Palmer is ....
Hang on a mo Mrs Jack W is calling out, bereft at the news that JLS are splitting up. I had the same problem with her when WHAM finished !!
http://order-order.com/2013/04/24/secret-bbc-poll-results-350000-on-way-to-uk/
If this is true then expect the UKIP vote to be higher than anticipated come GE time, and while that may fill the Labour supporters on here with glee in reality a lot of the voters will be WWC, it will play out badly Labour as well.
The fact the deficit fell - ok, statistically it was stagnant but these things are reported to 1dp so the claim holds - was due to an inordinate amount of inclusion of special measures and sharp bookkeeping, much of which was evidently planned well in advance.
This shows the Treasury team - led by Osborne - skilled in forecasting and understanding the political consequences of even the slightest failure to meet an expectation. So all the stops were pulled out to ensure full year borrowing crept under the target mark.
And Osborne's reward is a muted response in the media during the evening and next day, with analysis pushed back to the business pages which no one reads anyway. A clear victory for George.
FDs up and down the land will recognise the need to push the boundaries a bit when business is tight and half year reports are due. Keeping shareholders onside while the ship is being buffeted takes great skill.
You sometimes have to stand back and admire such things.
I'm also unconvinced that the SNP of a currency union with the eurozone debt crisis entirely unresolved and the obvious British question of "Why would we want one?" is necessarily to the SNP's advantage.
Furthermore, it seems that if the SNP believe Scotland has a 9-10% stake in the Bank of England (why? It predates the union and is located in England) then logic dictates that rUK would have a 91-90% stake in Scottish assets. Like oil.
The correct SNP answer on the currency question should be: "Well of course at the outset we'll carry on using sterling. Our relationship with the rest of the UK on currency matters, as on everything else, will be up for discussion on separation, but we would hope we could come to a sensible arrangement that suits everyone. Once we've got those terms settled, we'll reassess our options, but since it would be entirely feasible to keep using sterling or to have our own currency or to join the euro, we won't be short of options."
Instead, the SNP has fallen into a process trap. Every time the discussion gets stuck on process, the big picture gets lost. This is the exact equivalent of the question whether MPs elected by AV would always be elected with a majority of the constituency. The right answer doesn't matter. What matters is that it's a point of geeky detail that just makes the uncommitted think that this is all too much trouble to be worth doing.
The SNP has compounded the mistake by taking the opportunity to attack the UK government. I have no doubt that George Osborne gets few Valentine's cards with a Scottish postcode. But the rug would be much more effectively pulled from under the feet of the UK government if the SNP were to argue that they were looking for a civilised discussion on the precise terms of disentanglement, rather than look as though they were spoiling for a fight.
The use of a spreadsheet or word processor in a standard office job doesn't really require someone to have a degree and that has been the major change in those 30 years frankly. Someone who processes orders still does that just the method has changed slightly.
Most of these jobs will require a degree in the job adverts but you could take just about any literate person with reasonable common sense and train them to do it in a week. The truth is that if you increase the supply of a commodity (in this case workers with a degree) the value goes down. Why employ someone with a mere 5 gcse's when you can pay the same money for someone with a degree?
Currency, EU membership, defence arrangements, share of UK debt, blah, blah, blah. What are they heading towards? It's not clear.
Much better to have an initial referendum approving a period of negotiation with EU, rUK etc on what 'independence' actually would entail - and then a second referendum on Yes / No.
Nope. They're going positive. They can however always resort to the same negative tactics as No should they feel the need. That's what having options means. No don't have any other option than reheated negative stuff. If Osbrowne keeps blundering in who wouldn't welcome that in Yes? But that's his choice, eccentric though it undoubtedly is. Perhaps you missed the recent Thatcher fest? Even viewers in scotland could hardly miss it and indeed for some peculiar reason Osborne was highlighted on the scottish news at the funeral.
If you're desperate enough to hope that people don't recognise Osborne then maybe that's a bit more telling of just how big a problem he is for the tories rather than just a commentary on the independence referendum.
We'll see in May just how well his recent master strategies have gone down at least elsewhere. It's just a pity there are no May locals in scotland this year after his amusing intervention again.
The First Minister does not back the pound because he thinks it is the best option for an independent Scotland.
He backs the pound because he thinks it is his best chance of winning the referendum and because the SNP’s own research among voter focus groups tells them that ditching the pound would be unpopular."
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/record-view-independence-currency-debate-1850555
1. Lewisham, London
2. Lambeth, London
3. Hackney, London
4. Newham, London
5. Tower Hamlets, London
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22275280
I'm trying to work out what they have in common.
Wha daur meddle wi me?
Cha togar m' fhearg gun dìoladh
not - youse lookin' at a faceful of heid.
The most searing and deadly attack I've seen recently on little Ed was on an pro Independence site. It was backed up by real evidence not anecdote. The PB tories burblings are pathetically weak by comparison.
However, I'm not about to do the PB tories work for them since there are so many of them whining constantly whenever anyone who isn't a tory speaks out.
I might later, just for a laugh.
One of tim's criticisms of Osborne has been that he's a part-time Chancellor who is so busy dabbling in masterful political strategy that he doesn't do the hard detailed work required. That the Treasury have managed to arrange the deckchairs of the accounts such that they have come in under the previous year's figure by the tiniest of margins does indicate that someone there has a very good grasp on all the numbers.
http://www.scotsman.com/the-scotsman/opinion/comment/brian-wilson-snp-takes-a-pounding-over-u-turn-1-2906175
Hey ho old fruit, any idea where you're posting from today - the correct county would do nicely for now ?!?