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  • TudorRoseTudorRose Posts: 1,662

    Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    How the hell are the LibDems affording 11 postal leaflets??? Those expenses are going to need crawling over with a fine tooth comb......
    Probably national leaflets which don't count in local spending if they don't mention the constituency. I had one this week from Sarah Wollaston, saying she'd decided to leave the Tories and I should too.

    Good targeting :)
    11 leaflets targeting the same constituency being classed as national leafleting is absurd and makes a mockery of it.

    My leaflet count: 2 Tory, 0 anybody else.
    On my street: 2 houses with Labour signs in people's gardens (1 has a giant Unite flag too), 2 with Tory ones. Amusingly the Unite/Labour one was first then a few days later the Tory one went up next door but one to the Unite/Labour one.
    I’ve had one Tory (the sitting MP) and one Green. Nothing from anybody else. Don’t think I’ve seen any posters: it can be difficult to tell though as a local estate agent uses the same colours as Labour.
    Yes, definitely estate agents winning round here.
  • Scrapheap_as_wasScrapheap_as_was Posts: 10,059
    edited December 2019
    O/T Why on earth is the commentary match on R5 - Man U vs Villa?

    Surely it must be Leicester vs Everton given one is pushing for the title whilst City and Chelsea wobble and the toffees have a manager under huge pressure....

    BBC (Manchester) bias again? :)
  • I've had 2 Labour leaflets, 1 Conservative and 1 Green. None from the Lib Dems - but that might because I'm the person delivering them in the part of the city where I live and I didn't bother to leaflet my own home. :)
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,009
    edited December 2019
    TudorRose said:

    Stocky said:

    Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    How the hell are the LibDems affording 11 postal leaflets??? Those expenses are going to need crawling over with a fine tooth comb......
    Does Mike`s make 12?
    My recollection of the last discussion I saw on this was that because Mike doesn't recommend a vote for the LibDems in the leaflet it doesn't count towards their spending, although I think it must nibble at the edges of the rules.
    Those letters don't have an imprint mentioning the candidate's name, do they?
  • Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    What would your answer have been?

    Sign of a weak canvass not getting as much useful info as possible...
    Not at all. In all these canvas sheets all the questions are there for filling. There is only one question which matters - who are you going to vote for. And ironically it is the most stupid question of the lot. There is a much more reliable way of telling which way people are going to vote but I'm hardly going to disclose it here on the WEB. Some canvassers can do it, most can't. I can get an 85% accuracy - better than any paper canvas.
  • Stocky said:

    For those worried about / hopeful for a repeat of GE 2017:
    Average Tory lead (last 6 polls) 11 days ahead of GE19 = 9.2%
    Average Tory lead 11 days ahead of GE17 = 8.8%

    We are well past "peak Corbyn" now though
    The problem is about using 'peak' anything, is that its coined from 'peak oil' which was a myth a load of old bunkum, our supplies of oil will never reach a peak of maximum extraction capacity because, we now have the climate change fairy as a reason for reducing oil.

    So, in terms of 'peak corbyn', there is no maximum to his peak...
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281

    Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    What would your answer have been?

    Sign of a weak canvass not getting as much useful info as possible...
    Not at all. In all these canvas sheets all the questions are there for filling. There is only one question which matters - who are you going to vote for. And ironically it is the most stupid question of the lot. There is a much more reliable way of telling which way people are going to vote but I'm hardly going to disclose it here on the WEB. Some canvassers can do it, most can't. I can get an 85% accuracy - better than any paper canvas.
    How do you know what accuracy you get? Isn't it a secret ballot?
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    Stocky said:

    For those worried about / hopeful for a repeat of GE 2017:
    Average Tory lead (last 6 polls) 11 days ahead of GE19 = 9.2%
    Average Tory lead 11 days ahead of GE17 = 8.8%

    We are well past "peak Corbyn" now though
    The problem is about using 'peak' anything, is that its coined from 'peak oil' which was a myth a load of old bunkum, our supplies of oil will never reach a peak of maximum extraction capacity because, we now have the climate change fairy as a reason for reducing oil.

    So, in terms of 'peak corbyn', there is no maximum to his peak...
    I contend that there is a maximum, 100%.

    I'll get my coat.
  • The tweaks and corrections applied by the polling companies to correct for errors made during the last election campaign and what they think are the changed conditions that apply now are indeed another factor that could confuse comparisons between 2017 and 2019.
  • O/T Why on earth is the commentary match on R5 - Man U vs Villa?

    Surely it must be Leicester vs Everton given one is pushing for the title whilst City and Chelsea wobble and the toffees have a manager under huge pressure....

    BBC (Manchester) bias again? :)

    100% agreed.
  • Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    What would your answer have been?

    Sign of a weak canvass not getting as much useful info as possible...
    Not at all. In all these canvas sheets all the questions are there for filling. There is only one question which matters - who are you going to vote for. And ironically it is the most stupid question of the lot. There is a much more reliable way of telling which way people are going to vote but I'm hardly going to disclose it here on the WEB. Some canvassers can do it, most can't. I can get an 85% accuracy - better than any paper canvas.
    How do you know what accuracy you get? Isn't it a secret ballot?
    Comparing result of a local election from the prediction
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    Stocky said:

    Any bets I should be placing?

    You can lay Lab majority at 33/1. It's impossible, therefore a guaranteed 3% return on your money in 2 weeks. Equates to almost 100% APR compounded. You have credit risk on Paddy Power (Betfair) of course, but if we price that at, say, 50 basis points, it still leaves you with an investment that looks so good on yield that if you saw it in an advert you would smell a rat. So what I would recommend is that you withdraw every single penny of savings from all of your accounts - maybe borrow from friends and family to increase the opportunity even further - and deposit that to Betfair, then lay the 33/1 up to this maximum liability. If, for example, you commit £1000 to the transaction you will be earning yourself £33 on Dec 13th. Enough for a steak dinner plus red wine with a companion of choice.
  • kinabalu said:

    Time was when most people in the country would have known his name. Back in ‘85 18.5 million watched Taylor beat Davies in a final that finished after midnight.

    Yes. Such a shame. The standard is immeasurably better now too.
    That is true for pretty much all human endeavors. Our lives are better across the board, our sportsmen are better trained, our hospitals and schools are better resourced and the education and health offered is much richer. Our roads are much safer, our air is much cleaner, our cars are much more reliable, our computers are much better and faster. It goes on and on and on.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083

    I've had 2 Labour leaflets, 1 Conservative and 1 Green. None from the Lib Dems - but that might because I'm the person delivering them in the part of the city where I live and I didn't bother to leaflet my own home. :)

    That’s where I was clever in leafleting my own home; it’s the only one I have had so far that didn’t come through the post.
  • Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    What would your answer have been?

    Sign of a weak canvass not getting as much useful info as possible...
    Not at all. In all these canvas sheets all the questions are there for filling. There is only one question which matters - who are you going to vote for. And ironically it is the most stupid question of the lot. There is a much more reliable way of telling which way people are going to vote but I'm hardly going to disclose it here on the WEB. Some canvassers can do it, most can't. I can get an 85% accuracy - better than any paper canvas.
    How do you know what accuracy you get? Isn't it a secret ballot?
    Comparing result of a local election from the prediction
    ( You know who actually turned out and so you can compare what came out of the ballot box with what canvassing predicted. The divergence is a good test of canvassing techniques. )
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    kinabalu said:

    Time was when most people in the country would have known his name. Back in ‘85 18.5 million watched Taylor beat Davies in a final that finished after midnight.

    Yes. Such a shame. The standard is immeasurably better now too.
    That is true for pretty much all human endeavors. Our lives are better across the board, our sportsmen are better trained, our hospitals and schools are better resourced and the education and health offered is much richer. Our roads are much safer, our air is much cleaner, our cars are much more reliable, our computers are much better and faster. It goes on and on and on.
    And we used to have Disqus. :D
  • Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    What would your answer have been?

    Sign of a weak canvass not getting as much useful info as possible...
    Not at all. In all these canvas sheets all the questions are there for filling. There is only one question which matters - who are you going to vote for. And ironically it is the most stupid question of the lot. There is a much more reliable way of telling which way people are going to vote but I'm hardly going to disclose it here on the WEB. Some canvassers can do it, most can't. I can get an 85% accuracy - better than any paper canvas.
    How do you know what accuracy you get? Isn't it a secret ballot?
    Comparing result of a local election from the prediction
    Best canvassing technique ive found:

    Calling from your local X, on behalf o Y candidat,e theres an election in a few weeks, just wanting to know if we can rely on your support?

    A weak non committal response from the voter is followed up by
    "have you voted for us in the past?"

  • camelcamel Posts: 815
    Stocky said:

    I`m bored.
    Any bets I should be placing?

    50p. Paul Halloran (Ind) Batley and Spen, 6/1. If you enjoy boxing weigh-ins/press conferences I imagine the count and announcement at Huddersfield will be a lively affair. Bad tempered campaign. Good to have some skin in the game.
    https://www.batleynews.co.uk/news/politics/labour-accused-of-illegal-and-intimidating-tactics-during-batley-and-spenborough-elections-1-10120665
    And there's history:
    https://www.thepressnews.co.uk/press-news/labour-activists-reported-to-police-for-lies-and-threats-
  • ClippPClippP Posts: 1,667
    edited December 2019

    How the hell are the LibDems affording 11 postal leaflets??? Those expenses are going to need crawling over with a fine tooth comb......

    Probably national leaflets which don't count in local spending if they don't mention the constituency. I had one this week from Sarah Wollaston, saying she'd decided to leave the Tories and I should too.
    leaflets targeting the same constituency being classed as national leafleting is absurd and makes a mockery of it.
    A valid point. However, it was the Conservatives who started using the "national campaign" expenditure to target specific constituencies, wasn`t it? Conservatives are always very good at spotting loopholes in the legislation that they themselves draw up.

    The problem this time is that the short-sighted policies they are fighting on, plus the irresponsible buffoons they have leading the Conservative Pparty, have caused many of their former large donors to switch their support to the Liberal Democrats. For the first time ever, the Lib Dems are able to take on the Tories on very nearly equal terms. Except for the manipulation of the media, of course.
  • alb1onalb1on Posts: 698
    Just had the Conservative canvasser here in Guildford. A middle aged lady. I explained that I could not vote for them this time as it would be immoral to put a serial adulterer in No10. Whilst this had nothing to do with either my voting intention or reasoning, the look on her face was priceless.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    ClippP said:

    How the hell are the LibDems affording 11 postal leaflets??? Those expenses are going to need crawling over with a fine tooth comb......

    Probably national leaflets which don't count in local spending if they don't mention the constituency. I had one this week from Sarah Wollaston, saying she'd decided to leave the Tories and I should too.
    leaflets targeting the same constituency being classed as national leafleting is absurd and makes a mockery of it.
    A valid point. However, it was the Conservatives who started using the "national campaign" expenditure to target specific constituencies, wasn`t it? Conservatives are always very good at spotting loopholes in the legislation that they themselves draw up.

    The problem this time is that the short-sighted policies they are fighting on, plus the irresponsible buffoons they have leading the Conservative Pparty, have caused many of their former large donors to switch their support to the Liberal Democrats. For the first time ever, the Lib Dems are able to take on the Tories on very nearly equal terms. Except for the manipulation of the media, of course.
    Very nearly equal terms? Have you seen the donation figures?
  • kinabalu said:

    Stocky said:

    Any bets I should be placing?

    You can lay Lab majority at 33/1. It's impossible, therefore a guaranteed 3% return on your money in 2 weeks. Equates to almost 100% APR compounded. You have credit risk on Paddy Power (Betfair) of course, but if we price that at, say, 50 basis points, it still leaves you with an investment that looks so good on yield that if you saw it in an advert you would smell a rat. So what I would recommend is that you withdraw every single penny of savings from all of your accounts - maybe borrow from friends and family to increase the opportunity even further - and deposit that to Betfair, then lay the 33/1 up to this maximum liability. If, for example, you commit £1000 to the transaction you will be earning yourself £33 on Dec 13th. Enough for a steak dinner plus red wine with a companion of choice.
    Surely some companions are a lot more expensive than that?
  • kinabalu said:

    Stocky said:

    Any bets I should be placing?

    You can lay Lab majority at 33/1. It's impossible, therefore a guaranteed 3% return on your money in 2 weeks. Equates to almost 100% APR compounded. You have credit risk on Paddy Power (Betfair) of course, but if we price that at, say, 50 basis points, it still leaves you with an investment that looks so good on yield that if you saw it in an advert you would smell a rat. So what I would recommend is that you withdraw every single penny of savings from all of your accounts - maybe borrow from friends and family to increase the opportunity even further - and deposit that to Betfair, then lay the 33/1 up to this maximum liability. If, for example, you commit £1000 to the transaction you will be earning yourself £33 on Dec 13th. Enough for a steak dinner plus red wine with a companion of choice.
    Not sure if you are joking or not but if you are serious never gamble with anything you can't afford to lose like borrowed money.
  • Chris said:

    TudorRose said:

    Stocky said:

    Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    How the hell are the LibDems affording 11 postal leaflets??? Those expenses are going to need crawling over with a fine tooth comb......
    Does Mike`s make 12?
    My recollection of the last discussion I saw on this was that because Mike doesn't recommend a vote for the LibDems in the leaflet it doesn't count towards their spending, although I think it must nibble at the edges of the rules.
    Those letters don't have an imprint mentioning the candidate's name, do they?
    If they don't they are very illegal as they are an inducement to vote for or against a candidate in an election. It would be an illegal practice and would certainly land the agent in deep shit. The candidate could be barred from seeking election for five years.

    If material has been distributed without an imprint then the Acting Returning Officer needs to be informed immediately. This should be followed by a petition to have the candidate disqualified. Then Plod should be informed who will send it to York where they will sit on it for six months until the time limit for appeal has been passed.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,009

    Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    What would your answer have been?

    Sign of a weak canvass not getting as much useful info as possible...
    Not at all. In all these canvas sheets all the questions are there for filling. There is only one question which matters - who are you going to vote for. And ironically it is the most stupid question of the lot. There is a much more reliable way of telling which way people are going to vote but I'm hardly going to disclose it here on the WEB. Some canvassers can do it, most can't. I can get an 85% accuracy - better than any paper canvas.
    How do you know what accuracy you get? Isn't it a secret ballot?
    Comparing result of a local election from the prediction
    Best canvassing technique ive found:

    Calling from your local X, on behalf o Y candidat,e theres an election in a few weeks, just wanting to know if we can rely on your support?

    A weak non committal response from the voter is followed up by
    "have you voted for us in the past?"

    For antis, I was often recommended to suggest to them they would be voting for the opposite party to the one I suspected, and hope to get confirmation from an explosion of indignation.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    edited December 2019

    That is true for pretty much all human endeavors. Our lives are better across the board, our sportsmen are better trained, our hospitals and schools are better resourced and the education and health offered is much richer. Our roads are much safer, our air is much cleaner, our cars are much more reliable, our computers are much better and faster. It goes on and on and on.

    Absolutely right. And IMO this applies to the arts too. Music, films, TV, novels, poetry, plays etc, all better now than they used to be. Why? Because wider access means more product, thus harder to stand out. Every week there are songs released that are as good as anything by the Beatles. Just that you won't come across them. Yes, progress in everything is inevitable. I believe that. We are even getting better looking. Well, we aren't, quite the opposite, but you know what I mean.
  • camelcamel Posts: 815
    kinabalu said:

    Stocky said:

    Any bets I should be placing?

    You can lay Lab majority at 33/1. It's impossible, therefore a guaranteed 3% return on your money in 2 weeks. Equates to almost 100% APR compounded. You have credit risk on Paddy Power (Betfair) of course, but if we price that at, say, 50 basis points, it still leaves you with an investment that looks so good on yield that if you saw it in an advert you would smell a rat. So what I would recommend is that you withdraw every single penny of savings from all of your accounts - maybe borrow from friends and family to increase the opportunity even further - and deposit that to Betfair, then lay the 33/1 up to this maximum liability. If, for example, you commit £1000 to the transaction you will be earning yourself £33 on Dec 13th. Enough for a steak dinner plus red wine with a companion of choice.
    You can hire an escort and get a steak dinner with drinks for £33. Seems good value. Would this be Kilburn. Or Hampstead?
  • Do we think we'll get Survation by 10PM?
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281

    Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    What would your answer have been?

    Sign of a weak canvass not getting as much useful info as possible...
    Not at all. In all these canvas sheets all the questions are there for filling. There is only one question which matters - who are you going to vote for. And ironically it is the most stupid question of the lot. There is a much more reliable way of telling which way people are going to vote but I'm hardly going to disclose it here on the WEB. Some canvassers can do it, most can't. I can get an 85% accuracy - better than any paper canvas.
    How do you know what accuracy you get? Isn't it a secret ballot?
    Comparing result of a local election from the prediction
    ( You know who actually turned out and so you can compare what came out of the ballot box with what canvassing predicted. The divergence is a good test of canvassing techniques. )
    Yebbut...
    Say you canvass a ward of 500 people and predict 50% will turn out and will vote 110 Con, 90 Lab and 50 LD. When the results come out at 95 Con, 100 Lab and 55 LD you can claim to be 85% accurate in your canvassing but you've got the result wrong and you have no way at all of knowing if 85% (or indeed any) of those canvassed individually voted the way you predicted them to.
  • camel said:

    kinabalu said:

    Stocky said:

    Any bets I should be placing?

    You can lay Lab majority at 33/1. It's impossible, therefore a guaranteed 3% return on your money in 2 weeks. Equates to almost 100% APR compounded. You have credit risk on Paddy Power (Betfair) of course, but if we price that at, say, 50 basis points, it still leaves you with an investment that looks so good on yield that if you saw it in an advert you would smell a rat. So what I would recommend is that you withdraw every single penny of savings from all of your accounts - maybe borrow from friends and family to increase the opportunity even further - and deposit that to Betfair, then lay the 33/1 up to this maximum liability. If, for example, you commit £1000 to the transaction you will be earning yourself £33 on Dec 13th. Enough for a steak dinner plus red wine with a companion of choice.
    You can hire an escort and get a steak dinner with drinks for £33. Seems good value. Would this be Kilburn. Or Hampstead?
    It will be an extra £25 if you want the lady to put her teeth in.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,009

    Chris said:

    TudorRose said:

    Stocky said:

    Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    How the hell are the LibDems affording 11 postal leaflets??? Those expenses are going to need crawling over with a fine tooth comb......
    Does Mike`s make 12?
    My recollection of the last discussion I saw on this was that because Mike doesn't recommend a vote for the LibDems in the leaflet it doesn't count towards their spending, although I think it must nibble at the edges of the rules.
    Those letters don't have an imprint mentioning the candidate's name, do they?
    If they don't they are very illegal as they are an inducement to vote for or against a candidate in an election. It would be an illegal practice and would certainly land the agent in deep shit. The candidate could be barred from seeking election for five years.

    If material has been distributed without an imprint then the Acting Returning Officer needs to be informed immediately. This should be followed by a petition to have the candidate disqualified. Then Plod should be informed who will send it to York where they will sit on it for six months until the time limit for appeal has been passed.
    There is an imprint, but it says "on behalf of the Liberal Democrats" and doesn't mention the candidate's name. See the example here:
    https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/exclusive-libdems-latest-lying-leaflet-with-fake-tactical-advice-just-helps-tories/29/11/

    Presumably the pretence is that these letters aren't intended to "promote or procure" the election of the Lib Dem candidate.
  • alb1onalb1on Posts: 698
    edited December 2019
    camel said:

    kinabalu said:

    Stocky said:

    Any bets I should be placing?

    You can lay Lab majority at 33/1. It's impossible, therefore a guaranteed 3% return on your money in 2 weeks. Equates to almost 100% APR compounded. You have credit risk on Paddy Power (Betfair) of course, but if we price that at, say, 50 basis points, it still leaves you with an investment that looks so good on yield that if you saw it in an advert you would smell a rat. So what I would recommend is that you withdraw every single penny of savings from all of your accounts - maybe borrow from friends and family to increase the opportunity even further - and deposit that to Betfair, then lay the 33/1 up to this maximum liability. If, for example, you commit £1000 to the transaction you will be earning yourself £33 on Dec 13th. Enough for a steak dinner plus red wine with a companion of choice.
    You can hire an escort and get a steak dinner with drinks for £33. Seems good value. Would this be Kilburn. Or Hampstead?
    It should be £330 but Diane Abbott is managing the pricing.
  • eggegg Posts: 1,749
    IshmaelZ said:

    OK but all polls are hypothetical (if there were a GE tomorrow...)

    And what were the VI figures *without* the hypothetical at the time of the hypothetical poll, for comparison?

    On topic I don’t get it 🙁
    Isn’t that latest Comres election win poll, what hypothetical about it, it’s a proper poll!
  • camel said:

    kinabalu said:

    Stocky said:

    Any bets I should be placing?

    You can lay Lab majority at 33/1. It's impossible, therefore a guaranteed 3% return on your money in 2 weeks. Equates to almost 100% APR compounded. You have credit risk on Paddy Power (Betfair) of course, but if we price that at, say, 50 basis points, it still leaves you with an investment that looks so good on yield that if you saw it in an advert you would smell a rat. So what I would recommend is that you withdraw every single penny of savings from all of your accounts - maybe borrow from friends and family to increase the opportunity even further - and deposit that to Betfair, then lay the 33/1 up to this maximum liability. If, for example, you commit £1000 to the transaction you will be earning yourself £33 on Dec 13th. Enough for a steak dinner plus red wine with a companion of choice.
    You can hire an escort and get a steak dinner with drinks for £33. Seems good value. Would this be Kilburn. Or Hampstead?
    It will be an extra £25 if you want the lady to put her teeth in.
    To be fair you can get a steak dinner plus red wine for 2 in Mansfield for that price. Mansfield and Las Vegas are the only two places in the world where you can pay for sex with chips.
  • kinabalu said:

    That is true for pretty much all human endeavors. Our lives are better across the board, our sportsmen are better trained, our hospitals and schools are better resourced and the education and health offered is much richer. Our roads are much safer, our air is much cleaner, our cars are much more reliable, our computers are much better and faster. It goes on and on and on.

    Absolutely right. And IMO this applies to the arts too. Music, films, TV, novels, poetry, plays etc, all better now than they used to be. Why? Because wider access means more product, thus harder to stand out. Every week there are songs released that are as good as anything by the Beatles. Just that you won't come across them. Yes, progress in everything is inevitable. I believe that. We are even getting better looking. Well, we aren't, quite the opposite, but you know what I mean.
    True, and its why that film Yesterday was just nostalgic mush. All those songs are fantastic. But our joy in hearing beatles songs is in how familiar we are with them and how they flood our minds with memories when we hear them.

    My significant other got me onto an obscure artist that most people havent heard of. Having been forced to listen to many of his songs over the space of a couple of years i now listen to him a lot and some of them feel to me as good as those classics.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    camel said:

    You can hire an escort and get a steak dinner with drinks for £33. Seems good value. Would this be Kilburn. Or Hampstead?

    If you're going the steak dinner route that is definitely Kilburn. It's a no no in Hampstead, that sort of thing. Even our MacDonalds got the chop.
  • alb1onalb1on Posts: 698

    camel said:

    kinabalu said:

    Stocky said:

    Any bets I should be placing?

    You can lay Lab majority at 33/1. It's impossible, therefore a guaranteed 3% return on your money in 2 weeks. Equates to almost 100% APR compounded. You have credit risk on Paddy Power (Betfair) of course, but if we price that at, say, 50 basis points, it still leaves you with an investment that looks so good on yield that if you saw it in an advert you would smell a rat. So what I would recommend is that you withdraw every single penny of savings from all of your accounts - maybe borrow from friends and family to increase the opportunity even further - and deposit that to Betfair, then lay the 33/1 up to this maximum liability. If, for example, you commit £1000 to the transaction you will be earning yourself £33 on Dec 13th. Enough for a steak dinner plus red wine with a companion of choice.
    You can hire an escort and get a steak dinner with drinks for £33. Seems good value. Would this be Kilburn. Or Hampstead?
    It will be an extra £25 if you want the lady to put her teeth in.
    To be fair you can get a steak dinner plus red wine for 2 in Mansfield for that price. Mansfield and Las Vegas are the only two places in the world where you can pay for sex with chips.
    I suspect you are wrong. Judging by the size of Boris and his personal habits they must involve an awful lot of chips.
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195

    camel said:

    kinabalu said:

    Stocky said:

    Any bets I should be placing?

    You can lay Lab majority at 33/1. It's impossible, therefore a guaranteed 3% return on your money in 2 weeks. Equates to almost 100% APR compounded. You have credit risk on Paddy Power (Betfair) of course, but if we price that at, say, 50 basis points, it still leaves you with an investment that looks so good on yield that if you saw it in an advert you would smell a rat. So what I would recommend is that you withdraw every single penny of savings from all of your accounts - maybe borrow from friends and family to increase the opportunity even further - and deposit that to Betfair, then lay the 33/1 up to this maximum liability. If, for example, you commit £1000 to the transaction you will be earning yourself £33 on Dec 13th. Enough for a steak dinner plus red wine with a companion of choice.
    You can hire an escort and get a steak dinner with drinks for £33. Seems good value. Would this be Kilburn. Or Hampstead?
    It will be an extra £25 if you want the lady to put her teeth in.
    To be fair you can get a steak dinner plus red wine for 2 in Mansfield for that price. Mansfield and Las Vegas are the only two places in the world where you can pay for sex with chips.
    LOL
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    alb1on said:

    camel said:

    kinabalu said:

    Stocky said:

    Any bets I should be placing?

    You can lay Lab majority at 33/1. It's impossible, therefore a guaranteed 3% return on your money in 2 weeks. Equates to almost 100% APR compounded. You have credit risk on Paddy Power (Betfair) of course, but if we price that at, say, 50 basis points, it still leaves you with an investment that looks so good on yield that if you saw it in an advert you would smell a rat. So what I would recommend is that you withdraw every single penny of savings from all of your accounts - maybe borrow from friends and family to increase the opportunity even further - and deposit that to Betfair, then lay the 33/1 up to this maximum liability. If, for example, you commit £1000 to the transaction you will be earning yourself £33 on Dec 13th. Enough for a steak dinner plus red wine with a companion of choice.
    You can hire an escort and get a steak dinner with drinks for £33. Seems good value. Would this be Kilburn. Or Hampstead?
    It should be £330 but Diane Abbott is managing the pricing.
    She also triple booked the escort
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    TudorRose said:

    Stocky said:

    Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    How the hell are the LibDems affording 11 postal leaflets??? Those expenses are going to need crawling over with a fine tooth comb......
    Does Mike`s make 12?
    My recollection of the last discussion I saw on this was that because Mike doesn't recommend a vote for the LibDems in the leaflet it doesn't count towards their spending, although I think it must nibble at the edges of the rules.
    Those letters don't have an imprint mentioning the candidate's name, do they?
    If they don't they are very illegal as they are an inducement to vote for or against a candidate in an election. It would be an illegal practice and would certainly land the agent in deep shit. The candidate could be barred from seeking election for five years.

    If material has been distributed without an imprint then the Acting Returning Officer needs to be informed immediately. This should be followed by a petition to have the candidate disqualified. Then Plod should be informed who will send it to York where they will sit on it for six months until the time limit for appeal has been passed.
    There is an imprint, but it says "on behalf of the Liberal Democrats" and doesn't mention the candidate's name. See the example here:
    https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/exclusive-libdems-latest-lying-leaflet-with-fake-tactical-advice-just-helps-tories/29/11/

    Presumably the pretence is that these letters aren't intended to "promote or procure" the election of the Lib Dem candidate.
    It really is a shame he let himself be used like that
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    egg said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    OK but all polls are hypothetical (if there were a GE tomorrow...)

    And what were the VI figures *without* the hypothetical at the time of the hypothetical poll, for comparison?

    On topic I don’t get it 🙁
    Isn’t that latest Comres election win poll, what hypothetical about it, it’s a proper poll!
    It is a poll on a question about what you would do "if there were a General Election tomorrow," which looks to me like a counterfactual hypothesis.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    edited December 2019
    I just meant 'companion of choice' as in one's significant other. So the £33 all goes on the food and drink.
    Honestly.
  • NemtynakhtNemtynakht Posts: 2,311

    If Survation shows the gap tightening - me thinks that 1.51 majority is going to go out

    Wow 1400 posts in 3 weeks all opining a Labour victory - i note your avowed support for the Lib Dem’s. Not really much value aside from ramping? What’s the word on the street in your constituency? What are the talking about down the labour, sorry I mean liberal club?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083

    Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    What would your answer have been?

    Sign of a weak canvass not getting as much useful info as possible...
    Not at all. In all these canvas sheets all the questions are there for filling. There is only one question which matters - who are you going to vote for. And ironically it is the most stupid question of the lot. There is a much more reliable way of telling which way people are going to vote but I'm hardly going to disclose it here on the WEB. Some canvassers can do it, most can't. I can get an 85% accuracy - better than any paper canvas.
    How do you know what accuracy you get? Isn't it a secret ballot?
    Comparing result of a local election from the prediction
    Best canvassing technique ive found:

    Calling from your local X, on behalf o Y candidat,e theres an election in a few weeks, just wanting to know if we can rely on your support?

    A weak non committal response from the voter is followed up by
    "have you voted for us in the past?"

    Yes, immediately switching to asking about past voting is a great technique, since it immediately knocks out all the various “haven’t made up my mind yet” excuses that are so easy in response to asking about the current election
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 9,688
    alb1on said:

    camel said:

    kinabalu said:

    Stocky said:

    Any bets I should be placing?

    You can lay Lab majority at 33/1. It's impossible, therefore a guaranteed 3% return on your money in 2 weeks. Equates to almost 100% APR compounded. You have credit risk on Paddy Power (Betfair) of course, but if we price that at, say, 50 basis points, it still leaves you with an investment that looks so good on yield that if you saw it in an advert you would smell a rat. So what I would recommend is that you withdraw every single penny of savings from all of your accounts - maybe borrow from friends and family to increase the opportunity even further - and deposit that to Betfair, then lay the 33/1 up to this maximum liability. If, for example, you commit £1000 to the transaction you will be earning yourself £33 on Dec 13th. Enough for a steak dinner plus red wine with a companion of choice.
    You can hire an escort and get a steak dinner with drinks for £33. Seems good value. Would this be Kilburn. Or Hampstead?
    It should be £330 but Diane Abbott is managing the pricing.
    You mean our next, and very lovely, Home Secretary who will have the full powers of the Police at her disposal under the new regime to investigate any prior anti-state activity?
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    camel said:

    kinabalu said:

    Stocky said:

    Any bets I should be placing?

    You can lay Lab majority at 33/1. It's impossible, therefore a guaranteed 3% return on your money in 2 weeks. Equates to almost 100% APR compounded. You have credit risk on Paddy Power (Betfair) of course, but if we price that at, say, 50 basis points, it still leaves you with an investment that looks so good on yield that if you saw it in an advert you would smell a rat. So what I would recommend is that you withdraw every single penny of savings from all of your accounts - maybe borrow from friends and family to increase the opportunity even further - and deposit that to Betfair, then lay the 33/1 up to this maximum liability. If, for example, you commit £1000 to the transaction you will be earning yourself £33 on Dec 13th. Enough for a steak dinner plus red wine with a companion of choice.
    You can hire an escort and get a steak dinner with drinks for £33. Seems good value. Would this be Kilburn. Or Hampstead?
    It will be an extra £25 if you want the lady to put her teeth in.
    To be fair you can get a steak dinner plus red wine for 2 in Mansfield for that price. Mansfield and Las Vegas are the only two places in the world where you can pay for sex with chips.
    It is said the going rate for having somebody bumped off is £50 in Falkirk.
  • alb1onalb1on Posts: 698

    kinabalu said:

    That is true for pretty much all human endeavors. Our lives are better across the board, our sportsmen are better trained, our hospitals and schools are better resourced and the education and health offered is much richer. Our roads are much safer, our air is much cleaner, our cars are much more reliable, our computers are much better and faster. It goes on and on and on.

    Absolutely right. And IMO this applies to the arts too. Music, films, TV, novels, poetry, plays etc, all better now than they used to be. Why? Because wider access means more product, thus harder to stand out. Every week there are songs released that are as good as anything by the Beatles. Just that you won't come across them. Yes, progress in everything is inevitable. I believe that. We are even getting better looking. Well, we aren't, quite the opposite, but you know what I mean.
    True, and its why that film Yesterday was just nostalgic mush. All those songs are fantastic. But our joy in hearing beatles songs is in how familiar we are with them and how they flood our minds with memories when we hear them.

    My significant other got me onto an obscure artist that most people havent heard of. Having been forced to listen to many of his songs over the space of a couple of years i now listen to him a lot and some of them feel to me as good as those classics.
    Sorry but I have to disagree. I cannot rate any modern composer with the likes of Schubert. No living artist can rival past masters such as Casper David Friedrich. And I defy anyone to find a play to equal Stoppard's Arcadia since it was written nearly 30 years ago. The real benefit of wider access is that it makes it easier to find the hidden gems from all eras. The example I like is Willy DeVille. A neglected genius in the UK and USA, I first heard his music in Germany (where he is still huge 10 years after his death), and youtube has given me the access to confirm his genius.
  • Novo said:

    Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    How the hell are the LibDems affording 11 postal leaflets??? Those expenses are going to need crawling over with a fine tooth comb......
    Were they all postal?
    I would have thought that most would be hand delivered - i.e. free delivery.
  • Chris said:

    Chris said:

    TudorRose said:

    Stocky said:

    Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    How the hell are the LibDems affording 11 postal leaflets??? Those expenses are going to need crawling over with a fine tooth comb......
    Does Mike`s make 12?
    My recollection of the last discussion I saw on this was that because Mike doesn't recommend a vote for the LibDems in the leaflet it doesn't count towards their spending, although I think it must nibble at the edges of the rules.
    Those letters don't have an imprint mentioning the candidate's name, do they?
    If they don't they are very illegal as they are an inducement to vote for or against a candidate in an election. It would be an illegal practice and would certainly land the agent in deep shit. The candidate could be barred from seeking election for five years.

    If material has been distributed without an imprint then the Acting Returning Officer needs to be informed immediately. This should be followed by a petition to have the candidate disqualified. Then Plod should be informed who will send it to York where they will sit on it for six months until the time limit for appeal has been passed.
    There is an imprint, but it says "on behalf of the Liberal Democrats" and doesn't mention the candidate's name. See the example here:
    https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/exclusive-libdems-latest-lying-leaflet-with-fake-tactical-advice-just-helps-tories/29/11/

    Presumably the pretence is that these letters aren't intended to "promote or procure" the election of the Lib Dem candidate.
    They are then passing it off as part of the National Campaign - I had a similar one from Boris
  • IanB2 said:

    Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    What would your answer have been?

    Sign of a weak canvass not getting as much useful info as possible...
    Not at all. In all these canvas sheets all the questions are there for filling. There is only one question which matters - who are you going to vote for. And ironically it is the most stupid question of the lot. There is a much more reliable way of telling which way people are going to vote but I'm hardly going to disclose it here on the WEB. Some canvassers can do it, most can't. I can get an 85% accuracy - better than any paper canvas.
    How do you know what accuracy you get? Isn't it a secret ballot?
    Comparing result of a local election from the prediction
    Best canvassing technique ive found:

    Calling from your local X, on behalf o Y candidat,e theres an election in a few weeks, just wanting to know if we can rely on your support?

    A weak non committal response from the voter is followed up by
    "have you voted for us in the past?"

    Yes, immediately switching to asking about past voting is a great technique, since it immediately knocks out all the various “haven’t made up my mind yet” excuses that are so easy in response to asking about the current election
    Yup. As soon as it's clear they haven't voted for you in the past, its thank you very much and move on.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    camel said:

    kinabalu said:

    Stocky said:

    Any bets I should be placing?

    You can lay Lab majority at 33/1. It's impossible, therefore a guaranteed 3% return on your money in 2 weeks. Equates to almost 100% APR compounded. You have credit risk on Paddy Power (Betfair) of course, but if we price that at, say, 50 basis points, it still leaves you with an investment that looks so good on yield that if you saw it in an advert you would smell a rat. So what I would recommend is that you withdraw every single penny of savings from all of your accounts - maybe borrow from friends and family to increase the opportunity even further - and deposit that to Betfair, then lay the 33/1 up to this maximum liability. If, for example, you commit £1000 to the transaction you will be earning yourself £33 on Dec 13th. Enough for a steak dinner plus red wine with a companion of choice.
    You can hire an escort and get a steak dinner with drinks for £33. Seems good value. Would this be Kilburn. Or Hampstead?
    It will be an extra £25 if you want the lady to put her teeth in.
    To be fair you can get a steak dinner plus red wine for 2 in Mansfield for that price. Mansfield and Las Vegas are the only two places in the world where you can pay for sex with chips.
    A former colleague relates a story of how he impresed a girl into bed by buying her a prawn sandwich.....
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    maaarsh said:

    For those worried about / hopeful for a repeat of GE 2017:
    Average Tory lead (last 6 polls) 11 days ahead of GE19 = 9.2%
    Average Tory lead 11 days ahead of GE17 = 8.8%

    Bearing in mind the lead needed this time to cause a HP is apparently a lot higher, that's good for me
    Are you on performance related pay?
    If he is they are due a rebate :-)
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263



    11 leaflets targeting the same constituency being classed as national leafleting is absurd and makes a mockery of it.

    Yes, I quite agree, and that's before you even start looking at targeted social media and phone banking. I don't think constituency limits work any more - I'd prefer a fairly strict national limit (say £10 million, which any party aspiring to be the Government should be able to raise) and have it apply to all leaflets, phone calls and other expenses eveywhere. Then if someone wanted to send you 11 leaflets, they'd potentially need to economise by sending none somewhere else. That would concentrate minds and lead to more sensible distribution.

    Even disregarding the spending limits, I don't think it makes sense. Say you've got some amazing clinching argument to put out in the final week. People who've had 11 leaflets from you alreadu simply aren't going to read it.
  • Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    What would your answer have been?

    Sign of a weak canvass not getting as much useful info as possible...
    Not at all. In all these canvas sheets all the questions are there for filling. There is only one question which matters - who are you going to vote for. And ironically it is the most stupid question of the lot. There is a much more reliable way of telling which way people are going to vote but I'm hardly going to disclose it here on the WEB. Some canvassers can do it, most can't. I can get an 85% accuracy - better than any paper canvas.
    How do you know what accuracy you get? Isn't it a secret ballot?
    Comparing result of a local election from the prediction
    ( You know who actually turned out and so you can compare what came out of the ballot box with what canvassing predicted. The divergence is a good test of canvassing techniques. )
    Yebbut...
    Say you canvass a ward of 500 people and predict 50% will turn out and will vote 110 Con, 90 Lab and 50 LD. When the results come out at 95 Con, 100 Lab and 55 LD you can claim to be 85% accurate in your canvassing but you've got the result wrong and you have no way at all of knowing if 85% (or indeed any) of those canvassed individually voted the way you predicted them to.
    That way be demons ! You sort of have to assume that most people tell the truth or give the truth away. If people are voting for you who tell you they aren't then that is surreal. So, the rest fall into place.
  • Has anybody done any work on comparing local gov by-elections close to a general election with the eventual result?
  • How many indies likely to get elected this time - Ashfield has one at about 2/1 (was fav at one point) - anymore?
  • Floater said:

    maaarsh said:

    For those worried about / hopeful for a repeat of GE 2017:
    Average Tory lead (last 6 polls) 11 days ahead of GE19 = 9.2%
    Average Tory lead 11 days ahead of GE17 = 8.8%

    Bearing in mind the lead needed this time to cause a HP is apparently a lot higher, that's good for me
    Are you on performance related pay?
    If he is they are due a rebate :-)
    I'm paid a flat £50 an hour to post here
  • alb1on said:

    kinabalu said:

    That is true for pretty much all human endeavors. Our lives are better across the board, our sportsmen are better trained, our hospitals and schools are better resourced and the education and health offered is much richer. Our roads are much safer, our air is much cleaner, our cars are much more reliable, our computers are much better and faster. It goes on and on and on.

    Absolutely right. And IMO this applies to the arts too. Music, films, TV, novels, poetry, plays etc, all better now than they used to be. Why? Because wider access means more product, thus harder to stand out. Every week there are songs released that are as good as anything by the Beatles. Just that you won't come across them. Yes, progress in everything is inevitable. I believe that. We are even getting better looking. Well, we aren't, quite the opposite, but you know what I mean.
    True, and its why that film Yesterday was just nostalgic mush. All those songs are fantastic. But our joy in hearing beatles songs is in how familiar we are with them and how they flood our minds with memories when we hear them.

    My significant other got me onto an obscure artist that most people havent heard of. Having been forced to listen to many of his songs over the space of a couple of years i now listen to him a lot and some of them feel to me as good as those classics.
    Sorry but I have to disagree. I cannot rate any modern composer with the likes of Schubert. No living artist can rival past masters such as Casper David Friedrich. And I defy anyone to find a play to equal Stoppard's Arcadia since it was written nearly 30 years ago. The real benefit of wider access is that it makes it easier to find the hidden gems from all eras. The example I like is Willy DeVille. A neglected genius in the UK and USA, I first heard his music in Germany (where he is still huge 10 years after his death), and youtube has given me the access to confirm his genius.
    Better play? Probably not. Play I enjoyed more? The Thirty Nine steps.
  • MysticroseMysticrose Posts: 4,688
    Just as a little aside, the latest weather outputs are showing an election day of epic weather proportions. The polar vortex (which is normally over the north pole) is shown right over Scotland, with one hell of a violent storm across southern Britain and heavy snow in Wales, the north-west and Scotland.

    Still long range in meteorological terms but thought it worth mentioning.

    https://www.netweather.tv/charts-and-data/gfs

  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,009

    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    TudorRose said:

    Stocky said:

    Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    How the hell are the LibDems affording 11 postal leaflets??? Those expenses are going to need crawling over with a fine tooth comb......
    Does Mike`s make 12?
    My recollection of the last discussion I saw on this was that because Mike doesn't recommend a vote for the LibDems in the leaflet it doesn't count towards their spending, although I think it must nibble at the edges of the rules.
    Those letters don't have an imprint mentioning the candidate's name, do they?
    If they don't they are very illegal as they are an inducement to vote for or against a candidate in an election. It would be an illegal practice and would certainly land the agent in deep shit. The candidate could be barred from seeking election for five years.

    If material has been distributed without an imprint then the Acting Returning Officer needs to be informed immediately. This should be followed by a petition to have the candidate disqualified. Then Plod should be informed who will send it to York where they will sit on it for six months until the time limit for appeal has been passed.
    There is an imprint, but it says "on behalf of the Liberal Democrats" and doesn't mention the candidate's name. See the example here:
    https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/exclusive-libdems-latest-lying-leaflet-with-fake-tactical-advice-just-helps-tories/29/11/

    Presumably the pretence is that these letters aren't intended to "promote or procure" the election of the Lib Dem candidate.
    They are then passing it off as part of the National Campaign - I had a similar one from Boris
    It's difficult to see how a letter that by its nature is specific to a particular constituency and is promoting a particular party (as the imprint shows) can be classed as national rather than local. If it can, what can't?
  • Has anybody done any work on comparing local gov by-elections close to a general election with the eventual result?

    I can tell you the county council elections of 2017 showed little relationship to the general election that happened a month later.


  • 11 leaflets targeting the same constituency being classed as national leafleting is absurd and makes a mockery of it.

    Yes, I quite agree, and that's before you even start looking at targeted social media and phone banking. I don't think constituency limits work any more - I'd prefer a fairly strict national limit (say £10 million, which any party aspiring to be the Government should be able to raise) and have it apply to all leaflets, phone calls and other expenses eveywhere. Then if someone wanted to send you 11 leaflets, they'd potentially need to economise by sending none somewhere else. That would concentrate minds and lead to more sensible distribution.

    Even disregarding the spending limits, I don't think it makes sense. Say you've got some amazing clinching argument to put out in the final week. People who've had 11 leaflets from you alreadu simply aren't going to read it.
    The problem with that is a party like the Lib Dems seeking to get 30 seats could outspend those seeking to get over 330 by ten to one then in individual constituencies.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 9,688



    11 leaflets targeting the same constituency being classed as national leafleting is absurd and makes a mockery of it.

    Yes, I quite agree, and that's before you even start looking at targeted social media and phone banking. I don't think constituency limits work any more - I'd prefer a fairly strict national limit (say £10 million, which any party aspiring to be the Government should be able to raise) and have it apply to all leaflets, phone calls and other expenses eveywhere. Then if someone wanted to send you 11 leaflets, they'd potentially need to economise by sending none somewhere else. That would concentrate minds and lead to more sensible distribution.

    Even disregarding the spending limits, I don't think it makes sense. Say you've got some amazing clinching argument to put out in the final week. People who've had 11 leaflets from you alreadu simply aren't going to read it.
    The whole area of how you communicate political parties views is almost impossible to tackle - almost always its grim - whether its a shouty mob, or a slick tv ad.

    I like newspaper journalism in this space, and I like programmes like BBC QT, but oddly not so much for the party leaders where there's too much pressure and thus noone really says anything.

    The best opportunity to judge though comes from watching and listening to the commons proceedings, which is of course denied to us now (quite sensibly so in that it would be unfair to any non-established party).
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083

    Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    What would your answer have been?

    Sign of a weak canvass not getting as much useful info as possible...
    Not at all. In all these canvas sheets all the questions are there for filling. There is only one question which matters - who are you going to vote for. And ironically it is the most stupid question of the lot. There is a much more reliable way of telling which way people are going to vote but I'm hardly going to disclose it here on the WEB. Some canvassers can do it, most can't. I can get an 85% accuracy - better than any paper canvas.
    How do you know what accuracy you get? Isn't it a secret ballot?
    Comparing result of a local election from the prediction
    ( You know who actually turned out and so you can compare what came out of the ballot box with what canvassing predicted. The divergence is a good test of canvassing techniques. )
    Yebbut...
    Say you canvass a ward of 500 people and predict 50% will turn out and will vote 110 Con, 90 Lab and 50 LD. When the results come out at 95 Con, 100 Lab and 55 LD you can claim to be 85% accurate in your canvassing but you've got the result wrong and you have no way at all of knowing if 85% (or indeed any) of those canvassed individually voted the way you predicted them to.
    Well you can get the marked resister and then analyse the canvass returns from those who actually voted, ignoring all the no shows. In one election it’s quite hard to do a thorough analysis, but if you fight the same ward enough times you do build up a picture of most of your voters’ voting habits.

    The biggest problem is canvassers who only speak to one person on the doorstep but make assumptions about the rest of the household. Over the years you can find households who apparently switch arbitrarily between Tory and Labour, and it always used to satisfy me greatly when I finally puzzled out such a house and discovered two people of opposing views who lived together and over the years had each answered the door to different canvasses.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Definitely agree with the header, hypotheticals in polling are worse than useless.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    Just as a little aside, the latest weather outputs are showing an election day of epic weather proportions. The polar vortex (which is normally over the north pole) is shown right over Scotland, with one hell of a violent storm across southern Britain and heavy snow in Wales, the north-west and Scotland.

    Still long range in meteorological terms but thought it worth mentioning.

    https://www.netweather.tv/charts-and-data/gfs

    Do you know how accurate 10-day forecasts are typically?


  • 11 leaflets targeting the same constituency being classed as national leafleting is absurd and makes a mockery of it.

    Yes, I quite agree, and that's before you even start looking at targeted social media and phone banking. I don't think constituency limits work any more - I'd prefer a fairly strict national limit (say £10 million, which any party aspiring to be the Government should be able to raise) and have it apply to all leaflets, phone calls and other expenses eveywhere. Then if someone wanted to send you 11 leaflets, they'd potentially need to economise by sending none somewhere else. That would concentrate minds and lead to more sensible distribution.

    Even disregarding the spending limits, I don't think it makes sense. Say you've got some amazing clinching argument to put out in the final week. People who've had 11 leaflets from you alreadu simply aren't going to read it.
    If the LDs, Greens and Brexit Party have extremely poor vote inefficiency thru FPTP it does seem harsh to force them to make it even more ineffecient by having constituency spending limits, instead of allowing them to target the few seats they can win in.

    Do spending limits work at all in the present day? With endless interest groups, viral campaigning, not to mention billionaires who can just buy media companies to promote their world view it seems very outdated. And with enforcement weak, only retrospective and inevitably contentious does it actually help even if the intentions of the limits are good?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083

    How many indies likely to get elected this time - Ashfield has one at about 2/1 (was fav at one point) - anymore?

    Probably none. But, in order, I reckon Ashfield, then East Devon, then Beaconsfield, then whatever Frank Field’s seat is are the only realistic chances, all of them worse than evens.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281



    11 leaflets targeting the same constituency being classed as national leafleting is absurd and makes a mockery of it.

    Yes, I quite agree, and that's before you even start looking at targeted social media and phone banking. I don't think constituency limits work any more - I'd prefer a fairly strict national limit (say £10 million, which any party aspiring to be the Government should be able to raise) and have it apply to all leaflets, phone calls and other expenses eveywhere. Then if someone wanted to send you 11 leaflets, they'd potentially need to economise by sending none somewhere else. That would concentrate minds and lead to more sensible distribution.

    Even disregarding the spending limits, I don't think it makes sense. Say you've got some amazing clinching argument to put out in the final week. People who've had 11 leaflets from you alreadu simply aren't going to read it.
    The problem with that is a party like the Lib Dems seeking to get 30 seats could outspend those seeking to get over 330 by ten to one then in individual constituencies.
    If we had a more proportional system than FPTP smaller parties wouldn't need to focus on a small number of seats.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    How the hell are the LibDems affording 11 postal leaflets??? Those expenses are going to need crawling over with a fine tooth comb......
    Probably national leaflets which don't count in local spending if they don't mention the constituency. I had one this week from Sarah Wollaston, saying she'd decided to leave the Tories and I should too.
    Good targeting :)
    How good of the LDs to keep targeting you, maybe one day they’ll realise you’re probably unlikely to switch!
  • alb1onalb1on Posts: 698

    alb1on said:

    kinabalu said:

    That is true for pretty much all human endeavors. Our lives are better across the board, our sportsmen are better trained, our hospitals and schools are better resourced and the education and health offered is much richer. Our roads are much safer, our air is much cleaner, our cars are much more reliable, our computers are much better and faster. It goes on and on and on.

    Absolutely right. And IMO this applies to the arts too. Music, films, TV, novels, poetry, plays etc, all better now than they used to be. Why? Because wider access means more product, thus harder to stand out. Every week there are songs released that are as good as anything by the Beatles. Just that you won't come across them. Yes, progress in everything is inevitable. I believe that. We are even getting better looking. Well, we aren't, quite the opposite, but you know what I mean.
    True, and its why that film Yesterday was just nostalgic mush. All those songs are fantastic. But our joy in hearing beatles songs is in how familiar we are with them and how they flood our minds with memories when we hear them.

    My significant other got me onto an obscure artist that most people havent heard of. Having been forced to listen to many of his songs over the space of a couple of years i now listen to him a lot and some of them feel to me as good as those classics.
    Sorry but I have to disagree. I cannot rate any modern composer with the likes of Schubert. No living artist can rival past masters such as Casper David Friedrich. And I defy anyone to find a play to equal Stoppard's Arcadia since it was written nearly 30 years ago. The real benefit of wider access is that it makes it easier to find the hidden gems from all eras. The example I like is Willy DeVille. A neglected genius in the UK and USA, I first heard his music in Germany (where he is still huge 10 years after his death), and youtube has given me the access to confirm his genius.
    Better play? Probably not. Play I enjoyed more? The Thirty Nine steps.
    Enjoyment is a difficult and more subjective issue. I loved the revival of The Ruling Class with James McEvoy, but my daughter hated it, having no context to enable her to relate to it.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    That poll did not prove accurate as Boris did not vote or support further extension himself but was able to blame Parliament instead given the lack of a Tory majority
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    Better play? Probably not. Play I enjoyed more? The Thirty Nine steps.

    I have been waiting for Waiting For Godot to be put on in London for what seems like an eternity. It's a play I've always wanted to see, it's a solid gold classic, and yet it never gets an airing. Time ticks by, months become years, years become decades, and ... nothing.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083

    Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    What would your answer have been?

    Sign of a weak canvass not getting as much useful info as possible...
    Not at all. In all these canvas sheets all the questions are there for filling. There is only one question which matters - who are you going to vote for. And ironically it is the most stupid question of the lot. There is a much more reliable way of telling which way people are going to vote but I'm hardly going to disclose it here on the WEB. Some canvassers can do it, most can't. I can get an 85% accuracy - better than any paper canvas.
    How do you know what accuracy you get? Isn't it a secret ballot?
    Comparing result of a local election from the prediction
    ( You know who actually turned out and so you can compare what came out of the ballot box with what canvassing predicted. The divergence is a good test of canvassing techniques. )
    Yebbut...
    Say you canvass a ward of 500 people and predict 50% will turn out and will vote 110 Con, 90 Lab and 50 LD. When the results come out at 95 Con, 100 Lab and 55 LD you can claim to be 85% accurate in your canvassing but you've got the result wrong and you have no way at all of knowing if 85% (or indeed any) of those canvassed individually voted the way you predicted them to.
    That way be demons ! You sort of have to assume that most people tell the truth or give the truth away. If people are voting for you who tell you they aren't then that is surreal. So, the rest fall into place.
    The biggest value is in comparing the returns from the same street, one election to the next. Yes, there are always people who tell everyone they are voting for them hoping to get rid of them (bad mistake!), and others who shut the door on everyone who calls. But if you canvass in a friendly and open way, enough people are honest to give you good data, and when you do the same street again it is easy to tell which way things are swinging.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    Sandpit said:

    Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    How the hell are the LibDems affording 11 postal leaflets??? Those expenses are going to need crawling over with a fine tooth comb......
    Probably national leaflets which don't count in local spending if they don't mention the constituency. I had one this week from Sarah Wollaston, saying she'd decided to leave the Tories and I should too.
    Good targeting :)
    How good of the LDs to keep targeting you, maybe one day they’ll realise you’re probably unlikely to switch!
    You'd think Mike would have a word.....
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Stocky said:

    I`m bored.
    Any bets I should be placing?

    Lay Swinson for PM?
    Rather annoyingly, and unlike to the US election markets, Betfair only has a “PM after Boris Johnson” market, which could well take several years to pay out.
    Has anyone seen a “PM on 1/1/2020” market anywhere?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    HYUFD said:

    That poll did not prove accurate as Boris did not vote or support further extension himself but was able to blame Parliament instead given the lack of a Tory majority

    Yep. The Benn Act. The creator of this upcoming Tory majority.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    I know the Tory candidate in Cambridge who is chairman of Harlow Tories and am sure will be grateful for the support, though the Tories are 3rd there do it is really a Labour v LD battle
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392



    11 leaflets targeting the same constituency being classed as national leafleting is absurd and makes a mockery of it.

    Yes, I quite agree, and that's before you even start looking at targeted social media and phone banking. I don't think constituency limits work any more - I'd prefer a fairly strict national limit (say £10 million, which any party aspiring to be the Government should be able to raise) and have it apply to all leaflets, phone calls and other expenses eveywhere. Then if someone wanted to send you 11 leaflets, they'd potentially need to economise by sending none somewhere else. That would concentrate minds and lead to more sensible distribution.

    Even disregarding the spending limits, I don't think it makes sense. Say you've got some amazing clinching argument to put out in the final week. People who've had 11 leaflets from you alreadu simply aren't going to read it.
    On top of this element not working it seems pretty easy to get away with things because people pull the old 'it's too complicated, I didn't know what I could do' crap, when themain parties are more than capable of paying people sufficiently to make it very very clear to all their candidates and agents what the rules are. No matter how complicated it is they have the means to make themselves clear on it, so if they are not its because they do not want to be.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083
    RobD said:

    Just as a little aside, the latest weather outputs are showing an election day of epic weather proportions. The polar vortex (which is normally over the north pole) is shown right over Scotland, with one hell of a violent storm across southern Britain and heavy snow in Wales, the north-west and Scotland.

    Still long range in meteorological terms but thought it worth mentioning.

    https://www.netweather.tv/charts-and-data/gfs

    Do you know how accurate 10-day forecasts are typically?
    Long range weather forecasting is one of the unsung achievements of the past decade or so, with real advances in the accuracy of the three or four global models that are widely available. They can’t tell you whether it’ll be wet or dry on Thursday afternoon three weeks forward, but they can predict with a fair degree of accuracy the likely climatic conditions that will be driving local weather up to a month ahead.


  • 11 leaflets targeting the same constituency being classed as national leafleting is absurd and makes a mockery of it.

    Yes, I quite agree, and that's before you even start looking at targeted social media and phone banking. I don't think constituency limits work any more - I'd prefer a fairly strict national limit (say £10 million, which any party aspiring to be the Government should be able to raise) and have it apply to all leaflets, phone calls and other expenses eveywhere. Then if someone wanted to send you 11 leaflets, they'd potentially need to economise by sending none somewhere else. That would concentrate minds and lead to more sensible distribution.

    Even disregarding the spending limits, I don't think it makes sense. Say you've got some amazing clinching argument to put out in the final week. People who've had 11 leaflets from you alreadu simply aren't going to read it.
    If the LDs, Greens and Brexit Party have extremely poor vote inefficiency thru FPTP it does seem harsh to force them to make it even more ineffecient by having constituency spending limits, instead of allowing them to target the few seats they can win in.

    Do spending limits work at all in the present day? With endless interest groups, viral campaigning, not to mention billionaires who can just buy media companies to promote their world view it seems very outdated. And with enforcement weak, only retrospective and inevitably contentious does it actually help even if the intentions of the limits are good?
    For all that is wrong with our spending limits (£30,000 per constituency) I’d rather have that than the amount spent in the US which is two orders of magnitude more for congress and more than four more for the presidency.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Interstellar Comet Borisov is About to Make its Closest Approach to Earth !
  • kinabalu said:

    Better play? Probably not. Play I enjoyed more? The Thirty Nine steps.

    I have been waiting for Waiting For Godot to be put on in London for what seems like an eternity. It's a play I've always wanted to see, it's a solid gold classic, and yet it never gets an airing. Time ticks by, months become years, years become decades, and ... nothing.
    🤔
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    Pulpstar said:

    Interstellar Comet Borisov is About to Make its Closest Approach to Earth !

    Aliens.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    I'm paid a flat £50 an hour to post here

    You're doing well. Yesterday off the back of polls showing a nailed on Tory majority you managed to single-handedly create an atmosphere on here of impending socialist revolution at the ballot box :smile:
  • camelcamel Posts: 815



    11 leaflets targeting the same constituency being classed as national leafleting is absurd and makes a mockery of it.

    Yes, I quite agree, and that's before you even start looking at targeted social media and phone banking. I don't think constituency limits work any more - I'd prefer a fairly strict national limit (say £10 million, which any party aspiring to be the Government should be able to raise) and have it apply to all leaflets, phone calls and other expenses eveywhere. Then if someone wanted to send you 11 leaflets, they'd potentially need to economise by sending none somewhere else. That would concentrate minds and lead to more sensible distribution.

    Even disregarding the spending limits, I don't think it makes sense. Say you've got some amazing clinching argument to put out in the final week. People who've had 11 leaflets from you alreadu simply aren't going to read it.
    The problem with that is a party like the Lib Dems seeking to get 30 seats could outspend those seeking to get over 330 by ten to one then in individual constituencies.
    If we had a more proportional system than FPTP smaller parties wouldn't need to focus on a small number of seats.
    But First Past The Post delivers [FPT] "a general election, the most sporting of all events" as opposed to betting on vote share and erm...that's it.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Floater said:

    maaarsh said:

    For those worried about / hopeful for a repeat of GE 2017:
    Average Tory lead (last 6 polls) 11 days ahead of GE19 = 9.2%
    Average Tory lead 11 days ahead of GE17 = 8.8%

    Bearing in mind the lead needed this time to cause a HP is apparently a lot higher, that's good for me
    Are you on performance related pay?
    If he is they are due a rebate :-)
    I'm paid a flat £50 an hour to post here
    I'll do it for half that, if anyone is watching.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083

    IanB2 said:

    Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    What would your answer have been?

    Sign of a weak canvass not getting as much useful info as possible...
    Not at all. In all these canvas sheets all the questions are there for filling. There is only one question which matters - who are you going to vote for. And ironically it is the most stupid question of the lot. There is a much more reliable way of telling which way people are going to vote but I'm hardly going to disclose it here on the WEB. Some canvassers can do it, most can't. I can get an 85% accuracy - better than any paper canvas.
    How do you know what accuracy you get? Isn't it a secret ballot?
    Comparing result of a local election from the prediction
    Best canvassing technique ive found:

    Calling from your local X, on behalf o Y candidat,e theres an election in a few weeks, just wanting to know if we can rely on your support?

    A weak non committal response from the voter is followed up by
    "have you voted for us in the past?"

    Yes, immediately switching to asking about past voting is a great technique, since it immediately knocks out all the various “haven’t made up my mind yet” excuses that are so easy in response to asking about the current election
    Yup. As soon as it's clear they haven't voted for you in the past, its thank you very much and move on.
    Nope! Whenever possible I would try to guess which way they voted and then, if I could get away with it, make a semi-humorous comment such as “shall I put you down as Labour, then?” as the likely Tory voter began to close the door. The horror most Tories feel at being identified as a Labour voter (or vice versa) was usually sufficient for them to give themselves away with a “certainly not!” before the door closed, and I could walk away with the information I wanted, confident that I wouldn’t have to bother them again for many a year.

    The biggest problem Tory and Labour canvassers have in fighting elections where a third party represents a serious challenge is separating their refusals. It is so much easier canvassing from the centre.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    kle4 said:

    Floater said:

    maaarsh said:

    For those worried about / hopeful for a repeat of GE 2017:
    Average Tory lead (last 6 polls) 11 days ahead of GE19 = 9.2%
    Average Tory lead 11 days ahead of GE17 = 8.8%

    Bearing in mind the lead needed this time to cause a HP is apparently a lot higher, that's good for me
    Are you on performance related pay?
    If he is they are due a rebate :-)
    I'm paid a flat £50 an hour to post here
    I'll do it for half that, if anyone is watching.
    Ah, so lust for gold does turn a man neutral.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 9,688
    kle4 said:

    Floater said:

    maaarsh said:

    For those worried about / hopeful for a repeat of GE 2017:
    Average Tory lead (last 6 polls) 11 days ahead of GE19 = 9.2%
    Average Tory lead 11 days ahead of GE17 = 8.8%

    Bearing in mind the lead needed this time to cause a HP is apparently a lot higher, that's good for me
    Are you on performance related pay?
    If he is they are due a rebate :-)
    I'm paid a flat £50 an hour to post here
    I'll do it for half that, if anyone is watching.
    And if two people watch?
  • kinabalu said:

    I'm paid a flat £50 an hour to post here

    You're doing well. Yesterday off the back of polls showing a nailed on Tory majority you managed to single-handedly create an atmosphere on here of impending socialist revolution at the ballot box :smile:
    It's all part of the plan
  • kle4 said:

    Floater said:

    maaarsh said:

    For those worried about / hopeful for a repeat of GE 2017:
    Average Tory lead (last 6 polls) 11 days ahead of GE19 = 9.2%
    Average Tory lead 11 days ahead of GE17 = 8.8%

    Bearing in mind the lead needed this time to cause a HP is apparently a lot higher, that's good for me
    Are you on performance related pay?
    If he is they are due a rebate :-)
    I'm paid a flat £50 an hour to post here
    I'll do it for half that, if anyone is watching.
    Send me your details, we can send you for re-education
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083
    Pulpstar said:

    Interstellar Comet Borisov is About to Make its Closest Approach to Earth !

    Hopefully it’s come by to pick him up.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited December 2019



    11 leaflets targeting the same constituency being classed as national leafleting is absurd and makes a mockery of it.

    Yes, I quite agree, and that's before you even start looking at targeted social media and phone banking. I don't think constituency limits work any more - I'd prefer a fairly strict national limit (say £10 million, which any party aspiring to be the Government should be able to raise) and have it apply to all leaflets, phone calls and other expenses eveywhere. Then if someone wanted to send you 11 leaflets, they'd potentially need to economise by sending none somewhere else. That would concentrate minds and lead to more sensible distribution.

    Even disregarding the spending limits, I don't think it makes sense. Say you've got some amazing clinching argument to put out in the final week. People who've had 11 leaflets from you alreadu simply aren't going to read it.
    If the LDs, Greens and Brexit Party have extremely poor vote inefficiency thru FPTP it does seem harsh to force them to make it even more ineffecient by having constituency spending limits, instead of allowing them to target the few seats they can win in.
    Do spending limits work at all in the present day? With endless interest groups, viral campaigning, not to mention billionaires who can just buy media companies to promote their world view it seems very outdated. And with enforcement weak, only retrospective and inevitably contentious does it actually help even if the intentions of the limits are good?
    Spending limits are a huge issue, especially so in the era of highly targeted social media advertising. There have been several court cases following recent elections, the Electoral Commission need to produce much more explicit guidance over local and national spending limits, over online and printed spending, and over spending by groups not explicitly standing for election.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083
    HYUFD said:

    Jamei said:

    My leaflet count in Cambridge so far: LibDem 22 (11 of which sent by post), Labour 6 (2 of which sent by post).
    Had a LibDem canvasser today, I told him I'd voted LibDem in 2010 and 2015 but wouldn't be doing so this time. As I refused to say who I would vote for he no doubt correctly assumed I will be voting Tory. He didn't ask why they had lost my vote though, which was a shame, but presumably I'm a lost cause now.

    I know the Tory candidate in Cambridge who is chairman of Harlow Tories and am sure will be grateful for the support, though the Tories are 3rd there do it is really a Labour v LD battle
    A Tory vote is a WASTED VOTE! From the horse’s mouth....


  • 11 leaflets targeting the same constituency being classed as national leafleting is absurd and makes a mockery of it.

    Yes, I quite agree, and that's before you even start looking at targeted social media and phone banking. I don't think constituency limits work any more - I'd prefer a fairly strict national limit (say £10 million, which any party aspiring to be the Government should be able to raise) and have it apply to all leaflets, phone calls and other expenses eveywhere. Then if someone wanted to send you 11 leaflets, they'd potentially need to economise by sending none somewhere else. That would concentrate minds and lead to more sensible distribution.

    Even disregarding the spending limits, I don't think it makes sense. Say you've got some amazing clinching argument to put out in the final week. People who've had 11 leaflets from you alreadu simply aren't going to read it.
    If the LDs, Greens and Brexit Party have extremely poor vote inefficiency thru FPTP it does seem harsh to force them to make it even more ineffecient by having constituency spending limits, instead of allowing them to target the few seats they can win in.

    Do spending limits work at all in the present day? With endless interest groups, viral campaigning, not to mention billionaires who can just buy media companies to promote their world view it seems very outdated. And with enforcement weak, only retrospective and inevitably contentious does it actually help even if the intentions of the limits are good?
    For all that is wrong with our spending limits (£30,000 per constituency) I’d rather have that than the amount spent in the US which is two orders of magnitude more for congress and more than four more for the presidency.
    Thats 30p per constituent. So half a second class stamp per constituent. Not sure it makes any sense.

    Obviously the US situation is bonkers, but that doesnt make our current system right.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    Been busy this afternoon so just catching up now. Apologies if this has already been seen by all, but I thought I'd draw attention to this item from today's Observer: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/01/wokingham-don-valley-general-election-johnson-swinson-corbyn

    The report details the difficulties that both the Lib Dems and Labour are encountering with the topic of Brexit on the doorstep. It ends with the observation, not the first of its kind that I've read recently, that the change of Labour strategy that's said to have been made to target resources at defence in northern Leave seats...


    ...is not really about the election but the first act in the battle for the post-election narrative about why Labour failed to win. Several Labour figures said they believed it was a move designed to blame pro-Remain figures in the party for defeat, and deflect from the personal unpopularity of Corbyn or the party’s radical policy platform.

    “They are not changing tack,” said one insider. “This is about blaming everyone but themselves for the loss. The fact that we can’t make a decision on Brexit means the voters can’t trust us on anything else.”


    Maybe it's not just the recent constituency polls that corroborate the MRP - perhaps Labour's own canvassing returns are doing likewise? In which case, they could be in a lot of trouble - although, as ever with reports of this kind, I offer the caveat that I suspect that the Labour Leavers may wobble en masse when it comes to the moment that they actually have to vote Tory. We may not be getting another Hung Parliament after all, but I won't actually believe it until the results are in.
  • Omnium said:

    kle4 said:

    Floater said:

    maaarsh said:

    For those worried about / hopeful for a repeat of GE 2017:
    Average Tory lead (last 6 polls) 11 days ahead of GE19 = 9.2%
    Average Tory lead 11 days ahead of GE17 = 8.8%

    Bearing in mind the lead needed this time to cause a HP is apparently a lot higher, that's good for me
    Are you on performance related pay?
    If he is they are due a rebate :-)
    I'm paid a flat £50 an hour to post here
    I'll do it for half that, if anyone is watching.
    And if two people watch?
    For an audience, disappointing. For voyeurs, about average.
  • Sandpit said:



    11 leaflets targeting the same constituency being classed as national leafleting is absurd and makes a mockery of it.

    Yes, I quite agree, and that's before you even start looking at targeted social media and phone banking. I don't think constituency limits work any more - I'd prefer a fairly strict national limit (say £10 million, which any party aspiring to be the Government should be able to raise) and have it apply to all leaflets, phone calls and other expenses eveywhere. Then if someone wanted to send you 11 leaflets, they'd potentially need to economise by sending none somewhere else. That would concentrate minds and lead to more sensible distribution.

    Even disregarding the spending limits, I don't think it makes sense. Say you've got some amazing clinching argument to put out in the final week. People who've had 11 leaflets from you alreadu simply aren't going to read it.
    If the LDs, Greens and Brexit Party have extremely poor vote inefficiency thru FPTP it does seem harsh to force them to make it even more ineffecient by having constituency spending limits, instead of allowing them to target the few seats they can win in.
    Do spending limits work at all in the present day? With endless interest groups, viral campaigning, not to mention billionaires who can just buy media companies to promote their world view it seems very outdated. And with enforcement weak, only retrospective and inevitably contentious does it actually help even if the intentions of the limits are good?
    Spending limits are a huge issue, especially so in the era of highly targeted social media advertising. There have been several court cases following recent elections, the Electoral Commission need to produce much more explicit guidance over local and national spending limits, over online and printed spending, and over spending by groups not explicitly standing for election.
    If we are going to have them I think they should be enforced in real time, rather than retrospectively. With digital banking should be do-able. Something like all political spending has to come from designated bank accounts which the electoral commission get a daily report on.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083

    camel said:

    kinabalu said:

    Stocky said:

    Any bets I should be placing?

    You can lay Lab majority at 33/1. It's impossible, therefore a guaranteed 3% return on your money in 2 weeks. Equates to almost 100% APR compounded. You have credit risk on Paddy Power (Betfair) of course, but if we price that at, say, 50 basis points, it still leaves you with an investment that looks so good on yield that if you saw it in an advert you would smell a rat. So what I would recommend is that you withdraw every single penny of savings from all of your accounts - maybe borrow from friends and family to increase the opportunity even further - and deposit that to Betfair, then lay the 33/1 up to this maximum liability. If, for example, you commit £1000 to the transaction you will be earning yourself £33 on Dec 13th. Enough for a steak dinner plus red wine with a companion of choice.
    You can hire an escort and get a steak dinner with drinks for £33. Seems good value. Would this be Kilburn. Or Hampstead?
    It will be an extra £25 if you want the lady to put her teeth in.
    Why would you want that? < innocent face >
This discussion has been closed.