politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Labour’s “crutch” remains: The 2010 LD-LAB switchers are st

Theuniondivvie said:

Stuart_Dickson said:

The fact that the Orange Order, the BNP and the SDL are campaigning on the same side at the Labour Party has not gone unnoticed in parts of the country with high numbers of swing voters.

Strangely Bettertogether are pretending not to notice.

Maybe they think too much of the Scottish people to worry about guilt by association.

MikeK said:

I've just had a £10 bet E/W on Ernie Els for old times sake @125/1.

Hi Mike check your PB email

you too @Socrates @Nigel4England @AnotherDave

@JosiasJessop

" I think the cost of equipment will kill local garages. You need hardware to plug into a car to interrogate its systems, and software to tell you what it says"

....Or use an old laptop and a CAN bus / OBD lead. (under a tenner from Flea Bay)

SeanT said:

Cybergnats seem a little tetchy today. Like a tiny swarm of angry midges.

Cybergnats! Good one!

We have to fill in the gaps left by the temporary halt to your torrent of portents for a doomed Union.

Neil said:

Theuniondivvie said:

Stuart_Dickson said:

The fact that the Orange Order, the BNP and the SDL are campaigning on the same side at the Labour Party has not gone unnoticed in parts of the country with high numbers of swing voters.

Strangely Bettertogether are pretending not to notice.

Maybe they think too much of the Scottish people to worry about guilt by association.

And yet they're unable to stop themselves from trying to associate the Yes campaign with vile, Cybernat abuse and 'monstering'.

Seats like Crawley, Harlow, Basildon, Ilford North may be difficult for Labour to win next year.

The reason is the LD vote is already relatively low in those seats, as this list shows:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0At91c3wX1Wu5dE0wZTMyZW1nYko1TE15MDVJVF8zYXc#gid=0

@JJ - "As cars get more complex, it will become increasingly hard for non-aligned repair shops to deal with them. But perhaps I'm being too negative."

Not at all - Of course there will continue to be a demand for ‘traditional’ garages and mechanics per se, however based on my admittedly narrow experience of car ownership, as cars have become more complex and sophisticated, repairs and the annual service involve ever more ranks of electronic test equipment and modular replacement. – I fear the days of ‘hit it with a hammer’ are long over.

Smarmeron said:

@JosiasJessop

" I think the cost of equipment will kill local garages. You need hardware to plug into a car to interrogate its systems, and software to tell you what it says"

....Or use an old laptop and a CAN bus / OBD lead. (under a tenner from Flea Bay)

Well, that shows how much my automotive diagnostics knowledge is out of date. I didn't realise that OBD-2 interface was much more standardised than OBD-1.

I'd still be interested to know if there is a deeper level of diagnostic systems manufacturers use - I'll have to ask a friend.

"Two wrongs don't make a right" springs to mind.

"Over the last weekend, plans emerged for what is termed a ‘One Nation Civil Service’, to be outlined in the next Labour election manifesto. These plans will see quotas for the elite Fast Stream programme, of 18 per cent black and ethnic minority, and 24 per cent ‘working-class’, plus further positive action for women.

"This idea of treating individual people primarily as members of abstract groupings comes out of narratives of ‘structural oppression’ and ‘privilege’ that are prominent in feminist, anti-racist and anti-colonialist political traditions. The practical policies that emerge from these narratives often border on the nonsensical, lumping the successful British Indian businessman into the same oppressed category with the poor Somali migrant, third generation black Britons, confident well-educated young women, everyone of mixed race – and from now on, those deemed to be of ‘working class’ (a problematic category to define to say the least)."

http://afreeleftblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/one-nation-quotas-uniting-by-division.html

Joe Murphy ‏@JoeMurphyLondon 16m
Strand by folks for a cracking @IpsosMORI poll in @standardnews ... Good news if your name is Nigel

Theuniondivvie said:

Neil said:

Ah. So they started it.

No, just that you're suggestion that BT was being fastidious because of how much they think of the Scottish people was particularly fatuous.

If I were them I wouldnt worry about smears like those. I really dont think they do.

JosiasJessop said:

DecrepitJohnL said:

I think the great untold story is the Americanisation of our education system. Everyone goes to university, teaching in modules, devalued A-levels, and so on. It does not help that the implementation was cocked up. Nor that innumerate politicians thought the graduate earnings premium would be unaffected by increasing the number of graduates.

I have seen some terrible graduates In my industry (software engineering) over the last twenty years. In fact, the best software engineer IME are people who've graduated in subjects like physics and maths, with a second string of biology and, strangely, geography. Software engineering graduates are some way down the list.

Some examples:
*) People not being able to describe their final-year projects, completed a matter of months before. One did not even know what his project had been.
*) A guy who could not explain what a compiler was, even at a high level.
*) *Two* guys (well, a guy and a girl) who could not create a simple linked-list, even conceptually on a white board.
*) Someone who could not describe even basic software development methodology (e.g. waterfall)
*) A guy who could not add up in binary. And no, it was not nerves.

And so on.

Their CV's all had the right buzz words, and they had done the 'right' sort of modules. None of these people had been served well by their degree course.

One of the hardest things I ever had to do was try to pick which graduates to interview from CVs. Which is something to tell all our kids: when it comes to being more noticeable than your competitors at graduate level, work experience matters.

I'm glad I'm no longer doing that sort of thing.

I've done my share of interviewing programmers who cannot program, but the industry has become so fragmented it is hard not to feel sorry for those designing courses. Just look at the alphabet soup used by any medium-sized project. The result is that to provide skills required in the workplace, students are taught to write "hello, world" in upwards of a dozen languages (and I suspect, often by filling in boilerplate) rather than how to write a kernel in one. And therein lies another problem. Thirty years back, the source code for Unix could be studied and mainly understood by any bright undergraduate. Now, linux source is now freely available but is just far too big for anyone to get their head around.

AndyJS said:

The UKIP candidate for Basingstoke, Alan Stone, doesn't seem to have generated much enthusiasm so far.

He only has 21 Twitter followers:

https://mobile.twitter.com/alan_h_stone

Greatness is not measured by number of twitter followers.

"Global solar dominance in sight as science trumps fossil fuels
Solar power will slowly squeeze the revenues of petro-rentier regimes in Russia, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. They will have to find a new business model, or fade into decline"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/10755598/Global-solar-dominance-in-sight-as-science-trumps-fossil-fuels.html

Pulpstar said:

AndyJS said:

The UKIP candidate for Basingstoke, Alan Stone, doesn't seem to have generated much enthusiasm so far.

He only has 21 Twitter followers:

https://mobile.twitter.com/alan_h_stone

Greatness is not measured by number of twitter followers.

Who could you be referring to ? - 'innocent face'

Neil said:

Socrates said:

Only 12% of the UK is ethnic minority. Even if you support quotas, why on Earth should you provide 18% of fast stream places?

For the same reason the PSNI had a 50:50 recruitment policy despite the fact that catholics represented a much smaller proportion of the population?

Are Crystal Swing fans over or under represented in the PSNI?

Socrates said:

Only 12% of the UK is ethnic minority. Even if you support quotas, why on Earth should you provide 18% of fast stream places?

This is just an effort by Labour to stack the civil service with people who are more likely to be their supporters.

Fortunately I suspect that it will fall foul of EU Directives 2000/78/EC and 2000/43/EC, prohibiting direct or indirect discrimination on the grounds of race or ethnic origin.

Socrates said:

I wonder how Labour will define "working class" in their new quota system.

One curiosity is that while the USA (which did have institutional racial discrimination) is moving away from affirmative action/quotas, the UK (which never had institutional racial discrimination) is moving towards them.

I must say that I am slightly tempted by the over 77% turnout figure but I agree with Stuart that it is pretty on the money with the addition of 16-18 year olds who may (or may not) have low turnout, the usual problems of the register not being up to date and the considerable efforts to get people on the register who have never bothered voting before and may well not do so this time.

I think the question of who the higher turnout benefits is a complicated one and there are factors that point each way.

Firstly, it is clear that Yes are going to have by far the superior GOTV and ground campaign. But if 4 in 5 of the eligible voters are voting anyway that would seem to give them a lot less advantage than if the turnout had been, say, 60%.

OTOH, as Stuart has again drawn to our attention by far the most determined and vehement "no" supporters are the Scottish tories who tend to vote come hell or high water. In a low turnout that would have been more telling.

OTOH a higher turnout means that the key segment will be those who are not committed, are not really very sure or very interested and not particularly well informed. I think it is reasonable to infer that such people are likely to be conservative with a small "c" (not least because most of them will be Labour supporters) and to favour the status quo.

I think on balance a higher turnout will favour no, if only because the fanatics on both sides will be swamped by those who care rather less and might be more influenced by a generally hostile media (the Scotsman is, as a strong no supporter, getting positively embarrassing). But it is still possible that a huge surge of nationalist feeling might be generated and sweep up the apathetic.

Neil said:

Socrates said:

Only 12% of the UK is ethnic minority. Even if you support quotas, why on Earth should you provide 18% of fast stream places?

For the same reason the PSNI had a 50:50 recruitment policy despite the fact that catholics represented a much smaller proportion of the population?

It's a case of who/whom. Labour wants to reward those who it believes will vote for the party.

SeanT said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

Socrates said:

Only 12% of the UK is ethnic minority. Even if you support quotas, why on Earth should you provide 18% of fast stream places?

This is just an effort by Labour to stack the civil service with people who are more likely to be their supporters.

Fortunately I suspect that it will fall foul of EU Directives 2000/78/EC and 2000/43/EC, prohibiting direct or indirect discrimination on the grounds of race or ethnic origin.

I believe - I could be wrong - that there are caveats to those Directives which allow sexual and racial discrimination if it is deemed to be "in the public good". This is why Labour were allowed to get away with All Women Shortlists, despite their being clearly discriminatory.

I imagine that "noble cause" racial discrimination could be permitted.

This type of proposal is just the sort of thing that could rally UKIP supporters to vote Conservative.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Neil said:

Socrates said:

Only 12% of the UK is ethnic minority. Even if you support quotas, why on Earth should you provide 18% of fast stream places?

For the same reason the PSNI had a 50:50 recruitment policy despite the fact that catholics represented a much smaller proportion of the population?

Are Crystal Swing fans over or under represented in the PSNI?

If there is one they are overrepresented.

Sean_F said:

SeanT said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

Socrates said:

Only 12% of the UK is ethnic minority. Even if you support quotas, why on Earth should you provide 18% of fast stream places?

This is just an effort by Labour to stack the civil service with people who are more likely to be their supporters.

Fortunately I suspect that it will fall foul of EU Directives 2000/78/EC and 2000/43/EC, prohibiting direct or indirect discrimination on the grounds of race or ethnic origin.

I believe - I could be wrong - that there are caveats to those Directives which allow sexual and racial discrimination if it is deemed to be "in the public good". This is why Labour were allowed to get away with All Women Shortlists, despite their being clearly discriminatory.

I imagine that "noble cause" racial discrimination could be permitted.

This type of proposal is just the sort of thing that could rally UKIP supporters to vote Conservative.

The fact that people who think...

"People used to get jobs they didnt merit because of prejudice, so to counteract that we are going to give people jobs they don't merit based on prejudice"

...hold any positions of power in this country absolutely baffles me.

@Theuniondivvie

" "think of me as a giant Dyno-Rod,” he said." "

Head first in the sh*t?

Neil said:

I'd be surprised if this policy actually made it into the manifesto but knowing some people who advocate these kind of things I'd be more inclined to believe they genuinely thought it was a good thing to do.

I fear that that is true.

Mr. Isam, who's Kirsty Williams?

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Isam, who's Kirsty Williams?

LD in Wales

malcolmg said:

TGOHF said:

Theuniondivvie said:

TGOHF said:

Interesting read..


http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9181991/the-british-clan/

"Scots and English are the same people, with different accents. Why pretend otherwise?
Why are unionists so scared to talk about what unites us?
5 CommentsChris Deerin 12 April 2014"

Unionist cites piece by Unionist explaining why the Union is attractive to Unionists. Not that interesting.

'Irish and English are the same people, with different accents.'

Discuss.

I would welcome the ROI back into the fold anytime.

Flash, Can you explain this real troughing, note it is not legitimate hotel costs just a jolly
Hard to swallow: Taxpayers forced to stump up £13,000 for David Cameron's wine-tasting tour

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/david-cameron-wine-tasting-tour-costs-1293961#ixzz2yTqRdPMU
Follow us: @DailyMirror on Twitter | DailyMirror on Facebook
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/david-cameron-wine-tasting-tour-costs-1293961

A Daily Mirror article from 2012 - I thought you were better than that...!

Mr. Isam, cheers.

Mr. Socrates, unsurprising. Reminds me of the Newsnight idiocy attacking the chap who created Jesus and Mo and doing nothing to stand up for freedom of speech.

Surely Zac Goldsmith is talking complete sense on Daily Politics regarding recall, and McTernan is squirming like a toad?

[Revision to ONS Immigration Statistics: continued]

The explanation of why the ONS had changed its net immigrations over the period 2001-11 are summarised in the report's Key Findings:

1. There is evidence that shows the International Passenger Survey (IPS) missed a substantial amount of immigration of EU8 citizens that occurred between 2004 and 2008, prior to IPS improvements from 2009. This is evident from comparisons of IPS data with a number of other data sources related to immigration. The EU8 migrants were missed due to IPS interviewing being concentrated at the time at principal airports, such as London Heathrow, London Gatwick and Manchester. During this time, many migrants from the EU8 countries were travelling on the increasing number of routes connecting their countries with the UK regional airports (the number of routes connecting UK airports with airports in EU8 countries increased from 30 in 2001 to a peak of 190 in 2007). Many of these routes were not covered, or not fully covered, by the IPS for migration purposes prior to 2009.

2. The IPS has underestimated the migration of children. There is evidence from comparisons with other data sources that estimates from the IPS of children under 15 years old are too low. Investigations have shown that this is not due to the weighting of the IPS, and clear instructions are given to interviewers that when children are sampled responses should be provided on behalf of the child, and not on behalf of any accompanying adult. Field procedures have already been improved, but the impact of this action may not be fully resolved until e-Borders data are available which will allow the direct comparison of passenger numbers by age with IPS data.

3. The IPS improvements have both reduced the relative error around the IPS estimates, as well as improving the balance of the sample improvements to the IPS. Starting in 2008, more regional airports were included in the IPS and there were an increased number of migration interviews at key regional airports such as Luton and Stansted. These improvements reduced the skew towards particular migrant groups (typically non-EU) who predominately travel through the main airports (mainly London Heathrow). The outcome of these improvements is that the IPS sample is much more balanced towards all groups of migrants.

According to MORI

Lab 37%,
Con 31%,
UKIP 15%,
Lib Dem 9%

By the way, did anyone see Jon Snows pathetic attempt to smear Nigel Farage as a racist on Ch4 yesterday?

It was along the lines of "I hesitate to use the word black in conversation with you, but isn't this a bit like the pot calling the kettle black?"

EDIT: Here is the clip.. its at 7:45 and I amaze myself with my memory!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTo5cfaUSNA

Stuart_Dickson said:

SeanT said:

DavidL said:

I must say that I am slightly tempted by the over 77% turnout figure but I agree with Stuart that it is pretty on the money with the addition of 16-18 year olds who may (or may not) have low turnout, the usual problems of the register not being up to date and the considerable efforts to get people on the register who have never bothered voting before and may well not do so this time.

I think the question of who the higher turnout benefits is a complicated one and there are factors that point each way.

Firstly, it is clear that Yes are going to have by far the superior GOTV and ground campaign. But if 4 in 5 of the eligible voters are voting anyway that would seem to give them a lot less advantage than if the turnout had been, say, 60%.

OTOH, as Stuart has again drawn to our attention by far the most determined and vehement "no" supporters are the Scottish tories who tend to vote come hell or high water. In a low turnout that would have been more telling.

OTOH a higher turnout means that the key segment will be those who are not committed, are not really very sure or very interested and not particularly well informed. I think it is reasonable to infer that such people are likely to be conservative with a small "c" (not least because most of them will be Labour supporters) and to favour the status quo.

I think on balance a higher turnout will favour no, if only because the fanatics on both sides will be swamped by those who care rather less and might be more influenced by a generally hostile media (the Scotsman is, as a strong no supporter, getting positively embarrassing). But it is still possible that a huge surge of nationalist feeling might be generated and sweep up the apathetic.

JackW is absurdly complacent.

And in other breaking news, it has just been announced that the Pope ia a Roman Catholic, that cows eat grass, and that David Cameron is posh. The world is stunned.

And in other breaking news JackW will be proved correct again.

But of course even if I plead guilty to "absurdly complacent" it doesn't mean that I'm not correct as indeed you were absurdly correct in noting that Daisy chomps the pasture and the Pope supports Celtic FC.

"Don't Know" is hardly a viable position when one is the owner and CEO of the world's greatest election projection operation.

Carnyx said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome back to the Diplomacy game, Mr. Foxinsox.

Mr. Flashman (deceased), he didn't send out voting ballots with the preferred candidate's face on them, did he?

Mr. G, just joined the thread so this is neither against nor for you, or the specific unionists to whom you refer, but I fear the unpleasantness expressed here may well be reflected more widely. That's one of the reasons why I think a potential split will be acrimonious rather than amiable, sadly.

I'm not nearly as worried as you are, in one sense anyway, as a lot of the stuff in the media is obviously deliberate disinformation.

Irrespective of the personal proclivities and language of PBers, what is becoming very obvious is that the No Campaign have been orchestrating/encouraging lots of mostly made up/biased stories about nasty cybernats in recent weeks. And Labour activists have started talking (again) about the danger of violence [emended to amend memory hiccup], as well as Labour MPs making up stories about their offices being vandalised. I was criticised here for posting Wings over Scotland's analysus of this last, and the Scotsman's resulting first page story (which BTW did not make the Herald, which still has some pretensions to quality, and that is very significant). But the point was that if the No campaign can seemingly make up frnt page stories about some old neds' spray slogans and the odd Yes sticker on the window, then what does that say about their morality, truthfulness, and reliability more generally?

Thank you for that enlightening and utterly disinterested analysis or as others far less charitable than I might put it - getting your excuses in early.

DavidL said:

SeanT said:

DavidL said:

I think on balance a higher turnout will favour no, if only because the fanatics on both sides will be swamped by those who care rather less and might be more influenced by a generally hostile media (the Scotsman is, as a strong no supporter, getting positively embarrassing). But it is still possible that a huge surge of nationalist feeling might be generated and sweep up the apathetic.

Pretty much agree with all of that.

This is why a "bad" poll - just one - is more irritating for YES than it is for NO. The best hope for YES is to give the impression they have all the momentum, that this is some huge national surge, a great emotional leap for freedom. if they sell that idea, the Undecideds might all swing their way just to be part of this thing, to join with this great mass movement. Everyone wants to be on the winning side...

And they were doing quite a good impression of that until today.

But this is far from over. JackW is absurdly complacent. YES have already shifted significant votes in their favour since January. One or two further step changes like that, and they will win.

NO needs to up its game and start winning back the undecideds. What they need is aggressive positivity (with subtle hints of scaremongering, focused on how BOTH England and Scotland will suffer from divorce, so it doesn't seem patronising (an argument which also has the merit of being true)).

The last point is the key one. I gave an example in the context of the EU earlier this morning on this thread.

No needs to show why Scotland is better off in the Union without being patronising or condescending. It really isn't that difficult once you focus on what your objectives are.

David, if it is not difficult why are they unable to even begin to show how we are better off in the union.