politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The big MRP message for Tory remainers is that Corbyn can’t be

Casino_Royale said:

FPT - the Conservatives have created a large polarisation in their voting coalition because their economics and cultural values work for older people, and don't for younger people.

If the Conservatives want the votes of younger people they need to not saddle them with so much debt, make buying houses easier/renting cheaper and show that whilst they are patriotic they are also relaxed about multi-levelled identities.

I don't climate change really features here, actually, as the Tories do actually have a good practical set of policies in place that are both deliverable and realistic.

Tories lead with all voters over 35 and over 50% of 34+ year olds now own their own home

https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1199953572118638593?s=20

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/milestonesjourneyingintoadulthood/2019-02-18

YBarddCwsc said:

alex_ said:

Personally I think the disaster that has befallen U.K. politics in recent years can almost all be traced back to the election of Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party. Virtually everything else has flowed from there.

So, it is back to Eric Joyce's fists again.
The election of Corbyn was absolutely key to the Brexit referendum result, agreed (and it is not acknowledged enough the role that Corbyn played, far more important than "Russian interference").
But, Corbyn himself happened because of the huge disillusionment in New Labour following the financial crisis & the Iraq War. Corbyn was inevitable.

Yep, Eric Joyce has an awful lot to answer for.
I guess we could even go a little further back, and pin it on the union who sent out their 2010 leadership ballots in a big envelope with Ed’s mug printed on the outside.

I don't like the 18-24 category much from a statistical point of view because it's such a small group. It's a bit like having a separate category for people aged 85+. 18-30 would be preferable IMO.

Cheeky OGH.

Reality is the polar opposite. Yes YouGov currently says that if Tory Remainers etc vote Conservative as they're saying then Corbyn will be kept out of Downing Street - job done.

However it also says it won't take that much swing to put Corbyn in Downing Street. What the MRP also shows is that with so few LD MPs to be elected and with the SNP tied at the hip to Corbyn's Labour it won't take many seats to change hands to put Corbyn in Downing Street.

A vote for the Conservatives will keep Corbyn out. A vote for anyone else is a vote for Corbyn as PM. It is as simple as that.

Peter_the_Punter said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

The idea that Corbyn can't become PM is simply not true. It really wouldn't take that much of a swing to lose the Tory majority and at that point it is entirely possible that Labour, as the next largest party could get a coalition with a couple of simple promises - Independence vote for Scotland and Second EU referendum for the Lib Dems.

Obviously OGH wants to push the narrative that it is safe to vote anti-Tory without the risk of Corbyn but that is just spin. Corbyn remains a genuine risk (if you regard his Premiership as a risk) and the only way to prevent him is by voting Tory.

Oh I regard a Corbyn Premiership as a risk, Richard, but I think OGH has it more right than you this time.

The only way Corbyn can realistically become PM is with an Overall Majority. That's 33/1 against as I write and I'd be a layer, not a backer, even at that price.

He might just about manage it, you might think, with a little help from his friends if he comes up a few short of 325 seats. But he ain't got many friends. The price for them supporting a Labour Government would almost certainly be his removal and replacement with a much more acceptable kind of Leader. It would also imply a much more centreist Labour government in Office.

You can see the appeal for Leavers like me. I can see it too for Remain Tories. Boris would go, the traditional Tory Party would resume control, the Brexiteers who hijacked the Party would be vanquished and we might even have a second look at the whole question of revisiting the referendum in the light of what we have learned since.

Seems a very positive way to use one's vote to me.

I would be delighted if it happens but am bemused why posters think Corbyn wouldnt be PM in a hung parliament scenario. In a hung parliament will almost certainly be Johnson (his deal) or Corbyn (2nd ref) as they can say its no deal if the minor parties dont play ball. There is no plausible timescale or majority for anything else. Johnson will squat as PM open to no deal, until either Labour leavers go for his deal or the SNP and LDs agree to a limited Corbyn minority govt.

IanB2 said:

Endillion said:

Endillion said:

FPT

IanB2 said:

Endillion said:

IanB2 said:

Pulpstar said:

IanB2 said:

Since the model works by starting from a very small sample of local voters - as I recall fewer than a hundred - and then projects demographic-based voting behaviour based on regional and national polling onto the seat to make up the result - I would have thought a weakness of this approach is determining accurately the level of support for Indy’s like Field or the TIGs?

I don’t expect them to win, just wonder how accurate the MRP can be for such candidates?

Last time round the MRP severely overestimated Claire Wright's appeal over the Tories in East Devon.

You’re right - and I remember wondering then how the model could do that. Nothing in any of the descriptions I have read suggests how you can use demographics to work out whether people are going to vote for an Independent standing in one constituency.

+1
I wrote the model off for this reason - it just made it look like it hadn't been through proper review by people who actually understood electoral mechanics.
On the other hand, she did have just about the largest error bar of any prediction in any seat in the country... but, even so ...

Do any statisticians happen to know roughly what the margin of error would be in a poll of just 100 people? Ignoring for the moment that they're not randomly sampled.

First stab: assume random sampling of 50k people (with or without replacement; doesn't matter much). Assume it's a two horse race and true result is 50:50 tossup. Then use normal approximation to the binomial distribution: gives you N(50, 25^2). Which implies a 95% CI between 0% and 100%. Which feels about right, actually.
I'm sure someone with a better stats background will be along soon to explain where I've gone wrong.

Where I went wrong is to confuse standard deviation with variance. It's actually N(50, 25), so SD = 5 and CI is about 10 points either side of central estimate. Load for a bit to allow for the simplifications I've made - probably looking at an error bar about 30 percentage points wide, at a guess.

Lesson one in statistics is that the population size is irrelevant to the accuracy of a sample. So any sums working from the population size have got off on the wrong foot.

Its less relevant but it is not irrelevant. Reductio ad absurdum if you have a sample of 1 it can not be an accurate sample.

Richard_Tyndall said:

The idea that Corbyn can't become PM is simply not true. It really wouldn't take that much of a swing to lose the Tory majority and at that point it is entirely possible that Labour, as the next largest party could get a coalition with a couple of simple promises - Independence vote for Scotland and Second EU referendum for the Lib Dems.

Obviously OGH wants to push the narrative that it is safe to vote anti-Tory without the risk of Corbyn but that is just spin. Corbyn remains a genuine risk (if you regard his Premiership as a risk) and the only way to prevent him is by voting Tory.

But, I think the swing is limited.

The Tory vote (for this election) is pretty solid. What's driving up the Labour score is Labour waverers firming up, and some LD voters (Remainers) moving back to them to try to frustrate Brexit.

There is a limit to how far that can go, probably 37-38% of the vote, so a "worst case" for Boris for this election is probably a 4% lead of 42% to 38%, or something like that.

He may or may not scrape a majority on that, but he wouldn't drop below 320 seats.

noneoftheabove said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

The idea that Corbyn can't become PM is simply not true. It really wouldn't take that much of a swing to lose the Tory majority and at that point it is entirely possible that Labour, as the next largest party could get a coalition with a couple of simple promises - Independence vote for Scotland and Second EU referendum for the Lib Dems.

Obviously OGH wants to push the narrative that it is safe to vote anti-Tory without the risk of Corbyn but that is just spin. Corbyn remains a genuine risk (if you regard his Premiership as a risk) and the only way to prevent him is by voting Tory.

Oh I regard a Corbyn Premiership as a risk, Richard, but I think OGH has it more right than you this time.

The only way Corbyn can realistically become PM is with an Overall Majority. That's 33/1 against as I write and I'd be a layer, not a backer, even at that price.

He might just about manage it, you might think, with a little help from his friends if he comes up a few short of 325 seats. But he ain't got many friends. The price for them supporting a Labour Government would almost certainly be his removal and replacement with a much more acceptable kind of Leader. It would also imply a much more centreist Labour government in Office.

You can see the appeal for Leavers like me. I can see it too for Remain Tories. Boris would go, the traditional Tory Party would resume control, the Brexiteers who hijacked the Party would be vanquished and we might even have a second look at the whole question of revisiting the referendum in the light of what we have learned since.

Seems a very positive way to use one's vote to me.

I would be delighted if it happens but am bemused why posters think Corbyn wouldnt be PM in a hung parliament scenario. In a hung parliament will almost certainly be Johnson (his deal) or Corbyn (2nd ref) as they can say its no deal if the minor parties dont play ball. There is no plausible timescale or majority for anything else. Johnson will squat as PM open to no deal, until either Labour leavers go for his deal or the SNP and LDs agree to a limited Corbyn minority govt.

I think the argument is that to survive any time in Government Labour would need some support from other Parties and the price, amongst other things, would include defenestration of Jeremy. Since a lot of Labour MPS, Members and Voters want this anyway it is a price that will surely be offered. He might well go voluntarily anyway.

I just don't see Corbyn surviving any result other than a Labour Overall Majority.

YBarddCwsc said:

alex_ said:

Personally I think the disaster that has befallen U.K. politics in recent years can almost all be traced back to the election of Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party. Virtually everything else has flowed from there.

So, it is back to Eric Joyce's fists again.

The election of Corbyn was absolutely key to the Brexit referendum result, agreed (and it is not acknowledged enough the role that Corbyn played, far more important than "Russian interference").

But, Corbyn himself happened because of the huge disillusionment in New Labour following the financial crisis & the Iraq War. Corbyn was inevitable.

Surely he wasn't the one and only non-blairite who could possibly have been elected? There must be Labour peeps in some ways similar but without all the baggage and not so totally rubbish at politics?

HYUFD said:

LostPassword said:

The MRP result seems to be perfectly calibrated for the satisfaction of Labour moderates. The Labour defeat is heavy enough that Corbyn will be seen to have clearly failed, but it's not so heavy as to do mortal damage to the Labour Party, nor are the Lib Dems making the advances that would put them closer to challenging Labour as the principal party of Opposition.
All they have to do now is find a candidate who can appeal to the membership, and then work out how to defeat the Tories.

True if Labour lose and replace Corbyn with a moderate. If after a second heavier Corbyn defeat Labour pick another hard left leader the LDs have their chance, especially if ex Labour Chuka wins Cities of London and Westminster and succeeds Swinson as LD leader

I don't think there are many (any?) hard left Labour MPs who could become leader.

Laura Pidcock is possibly the closest, but they've clearly been fishing around for ages to try and find a replacement for Corbyn, and appear desperate to over promote her and Long-Bailey as the only viable options. I doubt Long-Bailey is anything like as left wing as Corbyn, and the other favourites in the betting (Starmer, Thornberry, Cooper and Rayner) are far closer to the centre.

LostPassword said:

The MRP result seems to be perfectly calibrated for the satisfaction of Labour moderates. The Labour defeat is heavy enough that Corbyn will be seen to have clearly failed, but it's not so heavy as to do mortal damage to the Labour Party, nor are the Lib Dems making the advances that would put them closer to challenging Labour as the principal party of Opposition.
All they have to do now is find a candidate who can appeal to the membership, and then work out how to defeat the Tories.

Disagreed. It will leave Corbyn's Labour close enough for Corbynites to think 'one more heave' of extreme Corbyn/McDonell Marxism will work. And there is a very worrying danger that with a leader less repugnantly antisemitic etc it might.

For moderates to regain the party Corbyn's Labour is going to need to be humiliated 1983 style. Even if it is and the moderates regain control of the party they could still win the following election. It would be a challenge but a 1997-style swing is entirely possible in 2024: it will have been 14 years of Tory-led government and many of the gains the Tories make now based on Brexit could be vulnerable to being regained by Labour once Brexit is done.

FPT: A View From Cumbria:

"Acorns planted would never be seen again - its a squirrel thing !
You need to plant things that are about 2 ft tall optimum. I am a great believer in over planting rather than the sodding plastic guards which tend to kill those trees the rabbits don't eat. But as I said earlier you really can't get oak trees to grow at over 900 ft - have a nice photo of one at that height, just about their limit.
And none of this addresses the other reality Ash Dieback a disaster of European proportions. I know I have about 400 or so ash trees on my farm so I scaled that up to somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 in South Lakeland. They will all be dead within five years.
For the blanket planting being proposed you need to be talking larch or spruce I guess and Japanese Larch are not exactly native. Historically in the valleys of the dales the terminal species were oak in the lower dry areas with ash further up, perhaps to 1200 ft. Alder in the wetter areas and birch up to the tree line, perhaps even covering the drier parts of the fell tops at 2000 ft. But the weather was a lot better 5,000 years ago of course.
On reflection I think you would be planting a lot denser than Fysics Teacher and I suggested earlier - you should do 50 trees per acre ajust our calculations accordingly."

50 trees per acre requires something closer to 5 x Wales for 2 billion trees......

Peter_the_Punter said:

noneoftheabove said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Oh I regard a Corbyn Premiership as a risk, Richard, but I think OGH has it more right than you this time.

The only way Corbyn can realistically become PM is with an Overall Majority. That's 33/1 against as I write and I'd be a layer, not a backer, even at that price.

He might just about manage it, you might think, with a little help from his friends if he comes up a few short of 325 seats. But he ain't got many friends. The price for them supporting a Labour Government would almost certainly be his removal and replacement with a much more acceptable kind of Leader. It would also imply a much more centreist Labour government in Office.

You can see the appeal for Leavers like me. I can see it too for Remain Tories. Boris would go, the traditional Tory Party would resume control, the Brexiteers who hijacked the Party would be vanquished and we might even have a second look at the whole question of revisiting the referendum in the light of what we have learned since.

Seems a very positive way to use one's vote to me.

I would be delighted if it happens but am bemused why posters think Corbyn wouldnt be PM in a hung parliament scenario. In a hung parliament will almost certainly be Johnson (his deal) or Corbyn (2nd ref) as they can say its no deal if the minor parties dont play ball. There is no plausible timescale or majority for anything else. Johnson will squat as PM open to no deal, until either Labour leavers go for his deal or the SNP and LDs agree to a limited Corbyn minority govt.

I think the argument is that to survive any time in Government Labour would need some support from other Parties and the price, amongst other things, would include defenestration of Jeremy. Since a lot of Labour MPS, Members and Voters want this anyway it is a price that will surely be offered. He might well go voluntarily anyway.

I just don't see Corbyn surviving any result other than a Labour Overall Majority.

And Corbyn just says he has won* the election and its up to SNP & LD to decide if they want no deal or a 2nd referendum. Each day is a day closer to no deal and Corbyn has the mandate and electoral success to go with it. If remainer centrist Labour MPs try and force him out, then it would only take a handful of obstinate Corbynites to stop the centrist candidate becoming PM, far too messy a chain reaction to play around with when no deal is imminent.
*Yes they would probably be 2nd in seats, but they claimed to have won the last election when miles behind.

Mr. B2, there'd still be divisions. But Labour, and British politics, as a whole, would be in a healthier state.

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Punter, voting for something you don't want to happen is running a very serious risk...

Many of us dont want any of the parties or their manifestos. Risk is an unavoidable part of life, all we can do is try and manage it where we can.

Barnesian said:

IanB2 said:

FPT

Barnesian said:

The MRP modelling technique is based on sampling the voting preferences of a large number of demographic groups and then applying the result to the demographics of each constituency. It is a model.
My model does not rely on demographics at all - not even remain/leave of each seat. It assumes that the demographics of each seat are "baked in" to the 2017 actual result including the relative strength of the activists base, council representation, history etc that I don't think the MRP model reflects. It then applies assumptions about tactical voting. It is a model.
The appeal of the MRP model is that it was close last time. But that is a sample of one. I think it was also used in the US so a sample of two.
Imagine a heavily promoted modelling technique (with whizzy multilevel Regression and Post-stratification) that correctly picked the 20/1 winner of last year's Grand National. Would its prediction for this year influence the betting? You bet it would - whether it was a sound model or not! "The computer says"
For this reason I'm betting against the MRP which has moved certain markets e.g LD over 25.5 seats at 3.35 looks good value. It shot up after the MRP was published.
EDIT. If my model proves to be spot on this time, you shouldn't assume it is a good model. It might just be lucky. But I suspect it would be followed with close attention next time!

MRP therefore wins over a 'static' model if the change in voting behaviour is driven by demographics - as has been the case in recent years. The MRP also starts with the data from its panellists (around 100?) in each seat, rather than starting with a blank piece of paper.

Where you have a point is that the MRP will itself affect the result. Last time it came late and few people believed it. This time it comes early and, as you say, with a lot of credibility.

As I understand it, the panellists (around 100?) in each seat are not chosen to be representative of that seat though in total across the nation they are chosen to be representative. So a huge MOE for the panellists - more than +/- 10%.
The big changes in demographics are reflected in the change in vote share. My model is not static. If it were, it would produce the same results as last time.

It's a mix. Otherwise they'd never be able to predict the LibDem share in LibDem held seats.

OnlyLivingBoy said:

camel said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

camel said:

Scientific info request:
How does planting a tree help with CO2 levels? I understand it will absorb CO2 during its life, but when it dies surely it will release the carbon as it decomposes or is burned.

Yes but the trick is you then plant a new one. If, once you have your 2 billion trees you are continually planting new trees in rotation you keep the carbon locked up.

I imagined it was better than that - like burying the trunks or something. I'm actually disappointed.

Does it release CO2 when it decomposes? If so, where did oil and coal come from? Isn't that just dead trees and animals that have been buried under successive layers of the earth's surface? Anyway, as others have said, the key is to keep replacing the trees over time.

As has been said elsewhere during the cretaceous period trees which fell did not rot and that is why we have fossil fuels. That did not happen for that long, 100 million years or so. On this I am as eco as anyone - it is NOT a good idea to be burning any of this - even if 95% of what is said is bullshit that must be true.

What you are describing though is a trees Ponzi scheme. In fact what is there already is probably doing that in any case.

So do I have any suggestion rather than just knocking ? Well yes actually. Buy up as much dry desert as you can and build enormous sheds 35 ft tall. Cover the top with solar panels taking the light levels down by 80 or 90% and do arable and market cropping in the vast space below. You would need water but in a closed enviroment that would be self recycling.

IanB2 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

NorthofStoke said:

MikeSmithson said:

alex_ said:

The flaw is that many want Corbyn(ism) to be demonstrably shown to have failed as an election platform and be killed off completely. They desperately need a return to sanity in the main opposition and an alternative to vote for with confidence.

Personally I think the disaster that has befallen U.K. politics in recent years can almost all be traced back to the election of Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party. Virtually everything else has flowed from there.

Agree 100%

I also agree 100%. The Sarajavo pistol shot was the election of Ed rather than David by the narrowest of margins. There had to be a lot of mistakes after that to be sure but that vote has had a catastrophic effect.

Wrong party. David Cameron was the worst prime minister since Lord North, and is largely responsible for the current mess vis-a-vis Europe, the economy, and the dislocation of Britain, so we need to trace Cameron's rise to power. Perhaps the Sarajevo assassination was that William Hague resigned too quickly, and should have stayed on to fight another election.

Surely in your scenario it was that speech without notes?

Hug a Tory

IshmaelZ said:

camel said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

camel said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

camel said:

Scientific info request:
How does planting a tree help with CO2 levels? I understand it will absorb CO2 during its life, but when it dies surely it will release the carbon as it decomposes or is burned.

Yes but the trick is you then plant a new one. If, once you have your 2 billion trees you are continually planting new trees in rotation you keep the carbon locked up.

I imagined it was better than that - like burying the trunks or something. I'm actually disappointed.

Does it release CO2 when it decomposes? If so, where did oil and coal come from? Isn't that just dead trees and animals that have been buried under successive layers of the earth's surface? Anyway, as others have said, the key is to keep replacing the trees over time.

I think coal and oil was formed in anaerobic conditions and, in the case of coal, require something quite literally seismic to form. If dead trees are left on the surface they will return their carbon to the atmosphere. What I've learned today is that you can store x amount of carbon per hectare. Once you've run out of hectares, you've run out of potential. And one thing we know about the UK is that hectares are expensive - at the last auctions I attended farmland here was selling at £45k/hectare. That's without the opportunity cost of not growing food on it.
On the plus side, after 37 years wondering, we may have found a genuine use for the Falkland Islands where land cost 1000x less.

No native trees in the Falklands, which possibly tells us something about the viability of introducing them there.

I have seen the most remote single tree in the world - on Campbell Island, in the sub-Antarctic Islands south of New Zealand.

Casino_Royale said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

MikeSmithson said:

alex_ said:

The flaw is that many want Corbyn(ism) to be demonstrably shown to have failed as an election platform and be killed off completely. They desperately need a return to sanity in the main opposition and an alternative to vote for with confidence.

Personally I think the disaster that has befallen U.K. politics in recent years can almost all be traced back to the election of Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party. Virtually everything else has flowed from there.

Agree 100%

And me

Actually, I don't. It's attacking the symptom not the cause.

Left-wing populism has its roots in the great recession in the late noughties, and the relative economic stagnation of the West this century. Globalisation.

Put simply: because the money and baubles weren't there to spread around anymore.

Centre-left candidates weren't promising that, but Corbyn did.

Or the money and baubles were there but went to the already comfortably and well off, without the centrist politicians noticing.

***Betting post***

I think Labour in Birmingham Edgbaston at 8/11 with Bet365 is another cracking bet.

This seat is the dog that never barks for the Tories, and MRP gives it an estimated 11% Labour lead.

Big_G_NorthWales said:

I am not persuaded you can safely tactically vote and keep Corbyn out

There is only one way to do that and it is to vote conservative

Unfortunately, I'm not impressed by the Conservative candidate in my constituency. As FPTP relies on its legitimacy by having the best candidate win in each constituency, and, a few years ago, the Conservatives insisted that a second-choice vote should never be as legitimate as a first-choice vote I find I cannot in good conscience vote for the Conservative candidate.

Neither am I impressed by the manifesto under which he is standing, so I can't use that as an argument, either (albeit that voting for the Party rather than the Person would be inappropriate, anyway, and might justify such things as PR)

SandyRentool said:

camel said:

Scientific info request:
How does planting a tree help with CO2 levels? I understand it will absorb CO2 during its life, but when it dies surely it will release the carbon as it decomposes or is burned.

Depends what happens to the tree at end of life. If it is used as building material, the CO2 remains locked in. If it is burnt then the CO2 returns to the atmosphere. If it is burnt with CCS, then there is a transfer of CO2 from the atmosphere to underground storage, so the overall tree growing and burning process becomes net negative. See "BECCS" - bioenergy with carbon capture and storage.

Second point, if the overall level of tree coverage is increased, then this will hold more CO2 in a dynamic steady state (!) than with lower tree coverage, so less CO2 in the atmosphere.

Planting trees 'sui generis' has the potential to worsen ecosystems because of monoculture - but if it's done correctly, there is a ton of benefits from healthy long-term reforestation, including (but not limited to) protecting top-soil, locking up rainwater, a thriving ecosystem (which may also lock up additional carbon), and often benefits to local communities (as relevant in the UK as anywhere else in the world). But your basic point is correct - if we keep pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere, forests of themselves don't reduce them, but they can act as a 'sink' - at the moment, the oceans are sinking a lot of CO2 and that's causing them to acidify.

This 11 minute mini-doc is a great explainer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN8RE02iNII

Oh and sorry OGH, the nearer Labour climbs to 35%, the more the Tory waverers are firming up. Possibles to probables, probables to firm.

Corbyn is toxic. The LibDems will make no meaningful advance until he - and his ilk - depart the scene. That 2017 exit poll hangs over this election more than any 2019 poll.

IFS Lib Dems have the only fiscally conservative manifesto, we can’t say much about the Tory manifesto because there is nothing in it and Labour ...er it would be the highest tax/spend regime in the industrialized world. (Paraphrased)

Mr. Above, I can appreciate that. It's sad that an idiot is a better option than the alternative, but the far left must be opposed.

If the Conservatives had a far right leader and Labour had a bland numpty as their leader, I'd vote Labour.

Mr. Nichomar, others here have been quite impressed, relatively at least, with the Lib Dem manifesto.

Klaxons at the ready....or not.....
https://twitter.com/keiranpedley/status/1199983139638173696?s=20

noneoftheabove said:

Re the site, the greys for previous comments are great but imo removing the new double spacing would make it much more readable.

People just need to learn to stop pressing enter twice; I am slowly reminding myself to just get rid of the gaps.

Andy_JS said:

Sandpit said:

Ah, and I see Vanilla has had another “upgrade” in the last couple of days. Can someone please tell them to stop it?

Obviously an upgrade by someone who doesn't actually use the service very much.

Indeed. I’m consulting with a company designing a website and mobile app at the moment, and it’s quite amazing how difficult it is to get across to the “visionary” people the importance of real-world feedback and not doing things differently to competitors simply for the sake of it.
At the very least, a company like Vanilla should give their paying customers the option of which layout style to use, with existing users defaulted to the old one so they can make the change themselves if they wish. One of the worst traits of ‘cloud’ computing.

CarlottaVance said:

Klaxons at the ready....or not.....
https://twitter.com/keiranpedley/status/1199983139638173696?s=20

"Not to miss"? Jo Swinson in trouble?

Surely not.....

Richard_Tyndall said:

A_View_From_Cumbria5 said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

camel said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

camel said:

Scientific info request:
How does planting a tree help with CO2 levels? I understand it will absorb CO2 during its life, but when it dies surely it will release the carbon as it decomposes or is burned.

Yes but the trick is you then plant a new one. If, once you have your 2 billion trees you are continually planting new trees in rotation you keep the carbon locked up.

I imagined it was better than that - like burying the trunks or something. I'm actually disappointed.

Does it release CO2 when it decomposes? If so, where did oil and coal come from? Isn't that just dead trees and animals that have been buried under successive layers of the earth's surface? Anyway, as others have said, the key is to keep replacing the trees over time.

As has been said elsewhere during the cretaceous period trees which fell did not rot and that is why we have fossil fuels. That did not happen for that long, 100 million years or so. On this I am as eco as anyone - it is NOT a good idea to be burning any of this - even if 95% of what is said is bullshit that must be true.

What you are describing though is a trees Ponzi scheme. In fact what is there already is probably doing that in any case.

So do I have any suggestion rather than just knocking ? Well yes actually. Buy up as much dry desert as you can and build enormous sheds 35 ft tall. Cover the top with solar panels taking the light levels down by 80 or 90% and do arable and market cropping in the vast space below. You would need water but in a closed enviroment that would be self recycling.

Point of order. The main coal developing period was the Carboniferous (hence the name) not the Cretaceous. A difference of about 150 million years.

This labour dyscalculia is contagious.

noneoftheabove said:

Casino_Royale said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

MikeSmithson said:

alex_ said:

The flaw is that many want Corbyn(ism) to be demonstrably shown to have failed as an election platform and be killed off completely. They desperately need a return to sanity in the main opposition and an alternative to vote for with confidence.

Personally I think the disaster that has befallen U.K. politics in recent years can almost all be traced back to the election of Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party. Virtually everything else has flowed from there.

Agree 100%

And me

Actually, I don't. It's attacking the symptom not the cause.

Left-wing populism has its roots in the great recession in the late noughties, and the relative economic stagnation of the West this century. Globalisation.

Put simply: because the money and baubles weren't there to spread around anymore.

Centre-left candidates weren't promising that, but Corbyn did.

Or the money and baubles were there but went to the already comfortably and well off, without the centrist politicians noticing.

That, in itself, is a populist view.

A better one would be that globalisation gives good well-paid jobs to the highly educated and mobile but depressed or stagnated the wages of those with low education and local.

And, they get called racists or idiots for their trouble, which really pisses them off.

Thoughts on this thread:
https://twitter.com/prospect_clark/status/1199826967375351808
Specifically:
https://twitter.com/prospect_clark/status/1199831323977900032
https://twitter.com/prospect_clark/status/1199831867115147264
I must say I've thought the narrative of current polling suggesting a hung parliament relied really heavily on super efficient vote spreading for Lab/LD and super inefficient vote spreading for Cons, but the thinking here is that we shouldn't always trust poll weighting, and that if it is closer to the raw data than it is still a v close race.

Philip_Thompson said:

IanB2 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Its less relevant but it is not irrelevant. Reductio ad absurdum if you have a sample of 1 it can not be an accurate sample.

Which is true whether the population is ten or ten million.

Once you get beyond trivial examples with small populations, it makes no difference. You can draw ten balls from a small box with 100 white and 100 black balls, or from a swimming pool with 10000 white and 10000 black. Provided the balls are mixed properly and your sample is randomly chosen, the statistical errors are the same.

Are you talking about population now? Rather than sample? Again I believe it does vary somewhat actually. Because if your box is small enough then each ball you draw out is changing the remaining sample.

If you're drawing 10 balls then the odds of drawing 10 of the same colour [thus incorrectly seeming to have no variation at all in your sample] from the box is 0.15% while the odds of drawing 10 of the same colour from the pool is 0.19%

If you'd have said 100,000 of each or 1,000,000 of each then that would have reduced the variance more.

I was always talking about population, if you read back.

For the purposes of this discussion, the marginal effect you are talking about can be ignored.

speybay said:

It is a huge risk for anyone to vote in favour of something that they dont want to happen. That is exactly what happened to allow Corbyn in in the first place.
Von Papen thought the constitutional conservatives could control the Nazis. People like OGH and Heseltine think the same about the LD's and tory remainers re theTrotskyites and Bosheviks now in charge of the Labour Party. Foolish and dangerous in equal measure.

Godwin in your fourth post ever? Congratulations!

Sandpit said:

Casino_Royale said:

FPT - the Conservatives have created a large polarisation in their voting coalition because their economics and cultural values work for older people, and don't for younger people.
If the Conservatives want the votes of younger people they need to not saddle them with so much debt, make buying houses easier/renting cheaper and show that whilst they are patriotic they are also relaxed about multi-levelled identities.
I don't climate change really features here, actually, as the Tories do actually have a good practical set of policies in place that are both deliverable and realistic.

We just need to shout from the rooftops that Corbyn’s economic illiteracy of spending trillions (£1,000,000,000,000s) of pounds of tomorrow’s money today, will make today’s young much, much poorer in life than a government that spends within its means - no matter how difficult that may seem right now.

But, with Boris dog-whistling that he never really agreed with fiscal conservatism (austerity) and scrapped corporation tax cuts to save money he is surrendering that intellectual argument to Labour.

Sandpit said:

Casino_Royale said:

FPT - the Conservatives have created a large polarisation in their voting coalition because their economics and cultural values work for older people, and don't for younger people.
If the Conservatives want the votes of younger people they need to not saddle them with so much debt, make buying houses easier/renting cheaper and show that whilst they are patriotic they are also relaxed about multi-levelled identities.
I don't climate change really features here, actually, as the Tories do actually have a good practical set of policies in place that are both deliverable and realistic.

We just need to shout from the rooftops that Corbyn’s economic illiteracy of spending trillions (£1,000,000,000,000s) of pounds of tomorrow’s money today, will make today’s young much, much poorer in life than a government that spends within its means - no matter how difficult that may seem right now.

Free Broadband would be good, though. And who doesn't like trees?

I can see some of Mike's logic in the header but the MRP is also clear that a Tory majoity is by no means secure. Without one, there is every prospect of a Labour-led administration. Tory remainers will come in many shapes and sizes but, while many are upset about leaving the EU, lots are concerned about overturning the referendum result, about any Westminster government dancing to the tune of the SNP and about continued uncertainty. Also, the bigger Boris's majority, the less reliant he is on the ERG and the more room for manoeuvre he has in his negotiations with the EU.

Someone mentioned Cambridge, I think it's going to stay Labour and quite easily. The Lib Dem candidate has run into some problems and I think the student vote will be heavily Labour. Many will have gone home but there are still a lot of graduate students around plus many undergraduates will be staying up to help out with the Cambridge interviews that happen in the week of the election. The UCU strike has also helped Labour, I think, as there's a strong Momentum element in UCU that are using the strike for rallying support for Corbyn.

camel said:

Scientific info request:
How does planting a tree help with CO2 levels? I understand it will absorb CO2 during its life, but when it dies surely it will release the carbon as it decomposes or is burned.

It's complicated.
But putting a forest where there was none before has the net effect of sequestering carbon from the atmosphere in the near term, and also in the long term, if the forest is maintained and dying trees are replaced by new growth (and also a certain amount of carbon gets locked up in soil formation).
In the short term there can also be negative effects through change in albedo - forests planted a high latitudes with reduce snow cover, and therefore reflect less energy back into space in the winter.
Here's a recent paper looking at some of the dynamics:
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/10/4382

Can someone explain the idea of we need trees to prevent flooding by absorbing rainwater idea to me. I understand the notion that the trees will absorb the water thus preventing flooding - but does that not result in the risk of the opposite problem? Ie that when we go through a dry spell resulting in a drought the trees will still be needing water thus making the drought effects worse? Would we be facing many more hosepipe bans etc etc?

IanB2 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

NorthofStoke said:

MikeSmithson said:

alex_ said:

The flaw is that many want Corbyn(ism) to be demonstrably shown to have failed as an election platform and be killed off completely. They desperately need a return to sanity in the main opposition and an alternative to vote for with confidence.

Personally I think the disaster that has befallen U.K. politics in recent years can almost all be traced back to the election of Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party. Virtually everything else has flowed from there.

Agree 100%

I also agree 100%. The Sarajavo pistol shot was the election of Ed rather than David by the narrowest of margins. There had to be a lot of mistakes after that to be sure but that vote has had a catastrophic effect.

Wrong party. David Cameron was the worst prime minister since Lord North, and is largely responsible for the current mess vis-a-vis Europe, the economy, and the dislocation of Britain, so we need to trace Cameron's rise to power. Perhaps the Sarajevo assassination was that William Hague resigned too quickly, and should have stayed on to fight another election.

Surely in your scenario it was that speech without notes?

Without Blair there would have been no Cameron. We can clearly trace the problem back to the premature death of John Smith, and, in turn, the high cholesterol levels in the diet of the typical Scot.

IanB2 said:

Sandpit said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Sandpit, there was another absolutely bloody brilliant reason McBride wasn't liked.

Indeed so, and the same issues with Mr Coulson. There’s a reason that leaders cling on to their advisors well beyond the point at which you’d think they’d be seen as a liability.

Even the LibDems reappointed the same idiot to run this campaign who ran the 2017 one.

Yep, and they also kept on Chris Rennard well after he was a serious liability too. Every party does it.
I’ve seen similar things in business, where a “star” sales person or designer isn’t fired when they should have been despite their being a terrible person, because they make the numbers and trifling little problems like sexual harrasment shouldn’t be allowed to get in the way.

Casino_Royale said:

noneoftheabove said:

Casino_Royale said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

MikeSmithson said:

alex_ said:

The flaw is that many want Corbyn(ism) to be demonstrably shown to have failed as an election platform and be killed off completely. They desperately need a return to sanity in the main opposition and an alternative to vote for with confidence.

Personally I think the disaster that has befallen U.K. politics in recent years can almost all be traced back to the election of Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party. Virtually everything else has flowed from there.

Agree 100%

And me

Actually, I don't. It's attacking the symptom not the cause.

Left-wing populism has its roots in the great recession in the late noughties, and the relative economic stagnation of the West this century. Globalisation.

Put simply: because the money and baubles weren't there to spread around anymore.

Centre-left candidates weren't promising that, but Corbyn did.

Or the money and baubles were there but went to the already comfortably and well off, without the centrist politicians noticing.

That, in itself, is a populist view.

A better one would be that globalisation gives good well-paid jobs to the highly educated and mobile but depressed or stagnated the wages of those with low education and local.

And, they get called racists or idiots for their trouble, which really pisses them off.

I think it was fairly accurate rather than populist. Highly educated and mobile have always had good jobs, technology and globalisation have certainly limited opportunities in the West for many of those without education.
On being called racist, we need to get rid of the word racist and replace it with several new words describing more specific types of racist behaviour. Racism means different things to different people, which is why many get offended at being called racist, when others really think they are racist. The human mind uses pattern recognition and stereotyping very heavily so we are likely all racist to a degree. There is clearly a huge difference between someone attacking a stranger purely for their race through to nationalistic jokes through to sub conscious bias in job recruitment. They are separate issues yet bundled together through a word that has lost any shared meaning.

YBarddCwsc said:

AndrewSpencer said:

I can see some of Mike's logic in the header but the MRP is also clear that a Tory majoity is by no means secure. Without one, there is every prospect of a Labour-led administration. Tory remainers will come in many shapes and sizes but, while many are upset about leaving the EU, lots are concerned about overturning the referendum result, about any Westminster government dancing to the tune of the SNP and about continued uncertainty. Also, the bigger Boris's majority, the less reliant he is on the ERG and the more room for manoeuvre he has in his negotiations with the EU.

Someone mentioned Cambridge, I think it's going to stay Labour and quite easily. The Lib Dem candidate has run into some problems and I think the student vote will be heavily Labour. Many will have gone home but there are still a lot of graduate students around plus many undergraduates will be staying up to help out with the Cambridge interviews that happen in the week of the election. The UCU strike has also helped Labour, I think, as there's a strong Momentum element in UCU that are using the strike for rallying support for Corbyn.

Easy Labour hold. I think the LibDems grossly underestimated that fact that every Labour Remain seat has a very strong Labour Remainer MP. The posters in Cambridge all say "Re-Elect Dan Z". The emphasis is on the candidate, not the party.

When candidates effectively disown their own party and leader (and even colours - cf. 'Rosina the Remainer' in Tooting, campaigning in yellow and blue) it's always a bad sign for their national prospects.

kjohnw1 said:

Anyone know when postal votes went out ?

Varies depending on the local authority.

YBarddCwsc said:

AndrewSpencer said:

I can see some of Mike's logic in the header but the MRP is also clear that a Tory majoity is by no means secure. Without one, there is every prospect of a Labour-led administration. Tory remainers will come in many shapes and sizes but, while many are upset about leaving the EU, lots are concerned about overturning the referendum result, about any Westminster government dancing to the tune of the SNP and about continued uncertainty. Also, the bigger Boris's majority, the less reliant he is on the ERG and the more room for manoeuvre he has in his negotiations with the EU.

Someone mentioned Cambridge, I think it's going to stay Labour and quite easily. The Lib Dem candidate has run into some problems and I think the student vote will be heavily Labour. Many will have gone home but there are still a lot of graduate students around plus many undergraduates will be staying up to help out with the Cambridge interviews that happen in the week of the election. The UCU strike has also helped Labour, I think, as there's a strong Momentum element in UCU that are using the strike for rallying support for Corbyn.

Easy Labour hold. I think the LibDems grossly underestimated that fact that every Labour Remain seat has a very strong Labour Remainer MP. The posters in Cambridge all say "Re-Elect Dan Z". The emphasis is on the candidate, not the party.

Yes, I think among the more permanent residents of Cambridge the message is aimed at promoting Zeichner, and particular his record as a remainer. That is allied with a strong pro-Corbyn/Momentum movement among the students, which means I think Labour will hold easily.

camel said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Theuniondivvie said:

Has this been done, or has it just been added to the huge compost heap of stuff that BJ voters are nobly holding their noses over* for the good of the country?
https://twitter.com/bobobalti/status/1199978035702829057?s=20
*secretly agree with

A bit rich for a man who has an unknown number of illegitimate children and has rendered his wife a single mother by his serial infidelity.

There's news, there's fake news, and then there's stuff that happened in 1995.

Is that when he challenged Ed Miliband to a rubik cube-off ?

camel said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Theuniondivvie said:

Has this been done, or has it just been added to the huge compost heap of stuff that BJ voters are nobly holding their noses over* for the good of the country?
https://twitter.com/bobobalti/status/1199978035702829057?s=20
*secretly agree with

A bit rich for a man who has an unknown number of illegitimate children and has rendered his wife a single mother by his serial infidelity.

There's news, there's fake news, and then there's stuff that happened in 1995.

Except where Corbyn is concerned, of course!

Please don't stop dredging up the old stuff on him as far as primary school ...