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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Irish General Election 2020 : Predictions & Review, Part One

SystemSystem Posts: 12,600
edited January 2020 in General

imagepoliticalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Irish General Election 2020 : Predictions & Review, Part One

Last week, Leo Varadkar called an early Dáil Election. Will his choice backfire or will he get another term? Find out below.

Read the full story here


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Comments

  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 55,538
    First?
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 55,538
    There look to be a mess of "too close to calls" in this one! Maybe part 2 is full of the shoo-ins?
  • ExiledInScotlandExiledInScotland Posts: 1,540
    Is that Dame Edna Kenny?
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 67,089
    Rayner back tracks almost immediately.

    https://twitter.com/siennamarla/status/1221447692267741185
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 40,392
    rottenborough said:

    Stocky said:

    Sunil_Prasannan said:

    Gabs3 said:

    Andrew Adonis doing his best to make the pro-EU movement seem incredibly childish:

    https://www.twitter.com/Andrew_Adonis/status/1221408246650621952

    I'll use it as my avatar then? :)
    What part of the wording does Adonis not agree with:

    Peace
    Prosperity
    or Friendship with all nations?
    Prosperity? That's a laugh. When we crash out of the SM and CU our economy will go down the toilet.
    Honestly, how do you know? I know loads of people who do this for a living and they've got no idea what's going to happen. To have so much certainty about something smacks of religious zeal, you might believe it will be bad, but that doesn't make it true just as some people believe in the sky fairy, doesn't make that the truth either.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 67,089
    MaxPB said:

    rottenborough said:

    Stocky said:

    Sunil_Prasannan said:

    Gabs3 said:

    Andrew Adonis doing his best to make the pro-EU movement seem incredibly childish:

    https://www.twitter.com/Andrew_Adonis/status/1221408246650621952

    I'll use it as my avatar then? :)
    What part of the wording does Adonis not agree with:

    Peace
    Prosperity
    or Friendship with all nations?
    Prosperity? That's a laugh. When we crash out of the SM and CU our economy will go down the toilet.
    Honestly, how do you know? I know loads of people who do this for a living and they've got no idea what's going to happen. To have so much certainty about something smacks of religious zeal, you might believe it will be bad, but that doesn't make it true just as some people believe in the sky fairy, doesn't make that the truth either.
    True, I don't know. It's a prediction.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 67,089
    Starmer hits 40 CLPs by my reckoning

    https://twitter.com/CLPNominations/status/1221450263669678084
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 67,089
    CNN:

    "Des Moines, Iowa (CNN) Pete Buttigieg will close out his campaign in Iowa focusing on his ability to win over disaffected Republicans who backed President Donald Trump in 2016, his campaign tells CNN, hoping that Democrats who are hellbent on defeating Trump in November will be wooed by a candidate who can eat into the President's support."
  • Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 3,678
    It is sometimes argued on here that the FTPA has removed the prerogative power to call an election and it cannot easily be restored. Yet the Irish seem to manage. Is this because the Irish presidency assumed the prerogative powers of the British crown and no-one has seen fit to change them?
  • mattmatt Posts: 3,789
    edited January 2020
    Re the topic - without evidence as to why the picks were made or evidence as to the writer’s long term prediction ability, I struggle to see how this brings any clarity. Perhaps I’ve misunderstood.
  • kicorsekicorse Posts: 437
    rottenborough said:

    Rayner back tracks almost immediately.

    https://twitter.com/siennamarla/status/1221447692267741185

    Ah okay. That's much more sensible. Not sure whether I agree but she has point.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 32,027
    MaxPB said:

    rottenborough said:

    Stocky said:

    Sunil_Prasannan said:

    Gabs3 said:

    Andrew Adonis doing his best to make the pro-EU movement seem incredibly childish:

    https://www.twitter.com/Andrew_Adonis/status/1221408246650621952

    I'll use it as my avatar then? :)
    What part of the wording does Adonis not agree with:

    Peace
    Prosperity
    or Friendship with all nations?
    Prosperity? That's a laugh. When we crash out of the SM and CU our economy will go down the toilet.
    Honestly, how do you know? I know loads of people who do this for a living and they've got no idea what's going to happen. To have so much certainty about something smacks of religious zeal, you might believe it will be bad, but that doesn't make it true just as some people believe in the sky fairy, doesn't make that the truth either.
    You could be right but remember we've had two Conservative Prime Ministers, and their Chancellors, tell us that is what will happen and you cannot blame people for believing what the government tells them. #ProjectFear.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 67,089
    kicorse said:

    rottenborough said:

    Rayner back tracks almost immediately.

    https://twitter.com/siennamarla/status/1221447692267741185

    Ah okay. That's much more sensible. Not sure whether I agree but she has point.
    iirc the Greens have such a system and indeed might even have members vote on the selection (not that it happens very often for Greens).
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,822
    edited January 2020
    Thanks to Green Machine for this. Irish elections are really difficult to analyse because the relationship between the headline opinion poll figures and the outcome in the various constituencies under STV is hard to model. Not only is there a general difficulty of analysing the transfers and the order in which candidates might meet the 'quota' to get elected, there are also lots of independents and minor parties who can win seats, and local loyalties and rivalries overlay the national picture.

    There have been three polls since the election was announced. All of them show Fianna Fáil in first place, with Fine Gael second, with leads of 3, 2 and 12 points; the 12-point lead looks a bit of an outlier. All three show Sinn Fein up substantially since the last election, on 19% to 21% compared with 13.8% (first prefs) in 2016.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2020_Irish_general_election

    Irish politics over the past three years or so had been dominated by Brexit, but the two main parties don't differ much on this, and in any case this election is taking place at a time where there is a pause in the Brexit drama. Healthcare and housing are the two big issues this time, with Fine Gael as the governing party getting it in the neck because of major issues in the health service, delays in the building of a new Dublin hospital, and a major crisis on housing. It's hard to see any outcome from this other than Fianna Fáil becoming the largest party and its leader Micheál Martin becoming the next Taoiseach, but exactly what the make-up of the next government will be is very hard to predict. Fianna Fáil would like to govern with the Greens or Labour, but on current polling the numbers don't look to be there. Last time it took months for the then Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny to put together a government, eventually with the support of some independents and a confidence & supply arrangement with arch-enemies Fianna Fáil. This time the result may well be just as indecisive.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 60,630
    edited January 2020
    Alphabet_Soup said:

    It is sometimes argued on here that the FTPA has removed the prerogative power to call an election and it cannot easily be restored. Yet the Irish seem to manage. Is this because the Irish presidency assumed the prerogative powers of the British crown and no-one has seen fit to change them?

    The role of the president to dissolve their parliament is described in their constitution. There's nothing stopping a similar thing happening in the UK, but it would no longer be a prerogative power, rather one based on statute.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 20,753
    On the subject of the previous thread, almost every town in Northumberland offers free parking for a certain amount of time with the display a ‘parking disc’ that you set to your arrival time. It works very well.

    Newcastle also offers free parking every day of the year after 5pm which also works very well to encourage people to come into the city centre to shop and eat after work.

    I don’t know if other towns and cities do this but it seems to be quite effective.
  • kicorsekicorse Posts: 437
    edited January 2020
    I love the Irish electoral system.

    STV, with so many candidates and several seats per constituency, is fiendishly complicated. Yet my Irish family assure me that the electorate understands it. Not in full detail but to the extent that they don't make stupid decisions out of misplaced "tactics", and they do use later preferences if they have them. I found it hilarious when No to AV campaigned on the idea that far simpler system was too complicated for the British electorate....

    The other thing about it is that, contrary to perceptions of PR, it delivers a huge individual vote, at least in rural constituencies like Donegal. It isn't assumed that voters will place all candidates from the same party next to one another. Back when there was a North-East Donegal, people sometimes put the candidates of all parties on their side of the Swilly ahead of candidates on the other side (not that this is necessarily a good thing).

    Good luck predicting it, but it's one of the most interesting countries to follow.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 36,634
    kicorse said:

    I love the Irish electoral system.

    STV, with so many candidates and several seats per constituency, is fiendishly complicated. Yet my Irish family assure me that the electorate understands it. Not in full detail but to the extent that they don't make stupid decisions out of misplaced "tactics", and they do use later preferences if they have them. I found it hilarious when No to AV campaigned on the idea that far simpler system was too complicated for the British electorate....

    The other thing about it is that, contrary to perceptions of PR, it delivers a huge individual vote, at least in rural constituencies like Donegal. It isn't assumed that voters will place all candidates from the same party next to one another. Back when there was an East Donegal, people sometimes put the candidates of all parties on their side of the Swilly ahead of candidates on the other side (not that this is necessarily a good thing).

    Good luck predicting it, but it's one of the most interesting countries to follow.

    What I don't understand is the surplus aspect of STV: they take a stack of votes to either reduce a surplus or make up the numbers, but how do they know the votes they take are representative of all the votes?
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,697
    edited January 2020
    Gallowgate said:

    On the subject of the previous thread, almost every town in Northumberland offers free parking for a certain amount of time with the display a ‘parking disc’ that you set to your arrival time. It works very well.

    Newcastle also offers free parking every day of the year after 5pm which also works very well to encourage people to come into the city centre to shop and eat after work.

    I don’t know if other towns and cities do this but it seems to be quite effective.

    Yes to this. Our local town centre market place has 1 hour free on the first ticket then charged.

    I suspect that they have just cocked it by creating a £4 day rate for business employees, who should be either parking further away or on push / e-bikes.

    But Zadrozzle has got several 10s of millions from various funds which will probably make some differences.

    (Which is another reason why a unitary Council at County Level would be the curse of the devil. Control has to be at perceived community level not with some turbo-apparatchik 25 miles away.

    I was working is Oswestry when the execrable Hazel Blears pithed that town a bit more than a decade ago because NuLab thought unified Shropshire would save 0.0012 of a bin lorry).
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 55,336
    kicorse said:

    I love the Irish electoral system.

    STV, with so many candidates and several seats per constituency, is fiendishly complicated. Yet my Irish family assure me that the electorate understands it. Not in full detail but to the extent that they don't make stupid decisions out of misplaced "tactics", and they do use later preferences if they have them. I found it hilarious when No to AV campaigned on the idea that far simpler system was too complicated for the British electorate....

    The other thing about it is that, contrary to perceptions of PR, it delivers a huge individual vote, at least in rural constituencies like Donegal. It isn't assumed that voters will place all candidates from the same party next to one another. Back when there was a North-East Donegal, people sometimes put the candidates of all parties on their side of the Swilly ahead of candidates on the other side (not that this is necessarily a good thing).

    Good luck predicting it, but it's one of the most interesting countries to follow.

    I would have voted for STV in 2011 if the option was available. AV is not proportional...
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 55,336
    rottenborough said:

    Rayner back tracks almost immediately.

    https://twitter.com/siennamarla/status/1221447692267741185

    House of Lords = House of Unelected Has-beens! 😀
  • kicorsekicorse Posts: 437
    edited January 2020
    Andy_JS said:

    kicorse said:

    I love the Irish electoral system.

    STV, with so many candidates and several seats per constituency, is fiendishly complicated. Yet my Irish family assure me that the electorate understands it. Not in full detail but to the extent that they don't make stupid decisions out of misplaced "tactics", and they do use later preferences if they have them. I found it hilarious when No to AV campaigned on the idea that far simpler system was too complicated for the British electorate....

    The other thing about it is that, contrary to perceptions of PR, it delivers a huge individual vote, at least in rural constituencies like Donegal. It isn't assumed that voters will place all candidates from the same party next to one another. Back when there was an East Donegal, people sometimes put the candidates of all parties on their side of the Swilly ahead of candidates on the other side (not that this is necessarily a good thing).

    Good luck predicting it, but it's one of the most interesting countries to follow.

    What I don't understand is the surplus aspect of STV: they take a stack of votes to either reduce a surplus or make up the numbers, but how do they know the votes they take are representative of all the votes?
    Let's say the threshold is 10,000, and a candidate gets 15,000 first preference votes.

    That means that everyone who voted for that candidate used up 10,000/15,000 = 2/3 of their vote getting that candidate over the line.

    They therefore each have 1/3 of a vote left, and their 2nd preference votes count carry a third as much weight as in subsequent rounds.

    That's my understanding, anyway.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,822
    Incidentally one very curious feature of this election is that both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil say that they won't form a government with Sinn Féin because of its historic links with the IRA, but both are strong supporters of power-sharing in Stormont.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,697
    edited January 2020
    Also on subject of the previous thread, there is a contrast between "older" towns - market towns, and newer - post industrial. I'd point to places like Southwell, Chichester and say Bury St Edmunds contrasted with the likes of Victorian growth towns.

    Around here there is a very sharp contrast between Mansfield and Chesterfield - the latter still has a 250 stall market twice a week; the former has nothing like that in the centre even though I can point to several major businesses (FTSE250) in the area which have grown up locally in the last 30 or so years. There's a civic life thing to be addressed too.

    Both are around 70k people.

    I think the distinction between towns and cities is pretty academic. The last 20 years have really been all types of govts handing out cheap rosettes because it is easy.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 46,445
    kicorse said:

    Let's say the threshold is 10,000, and a candidate gets 15,000 first preference votes.

    That means that everyone who voted for that candidate used up 10,000/15,000 = 2/3 of their vote getting that candidate over the line.

    They therefore each have 1/3 of a vote left, and their 2nd preference votes count carry a third as much weight as in subsequent rounds.

    That's my understanding, anyway.

    I like the idea of the electorate being trusted to understand a modicum of complexity in the voting system. Treating them like the competent functioning adults that they mostly are. I bet it feeds through to the campaign too. Less likely to have parties running on simplistic three word slogans and little else.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,822
    kinabalu said:

    kicorse said:

    Let's say the threshold is 10,000, and a candidate gets 15,000 first preference votes.

    That means that everyone who voted for that candidate used up 10,000/15,000 = 2/3 of their vote getting that candidate over the line.

    They therefore each have 1/3 of a vote left, and their 2nd preference votes count carry a third as much weight as in subsequent rounds.

    That's my understanding, anyway.

    I like the idea of the electorate being trusted to understand a modicum of complexity in the voting system. Treating them like the competent functioning adults that they mostly are. I bet it feeds through to the campaign too. Less likely to have parties running on simplistic three word slogans and little else.
    A closer acquaintance with Irish politics would soon disabuse you of that!
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 23,199
    kicorse said:

    Andy_JS said:

    kicorse said:

    I love the Irish electoral system.

    STV, with so many candidates and several seats per constituency, is fiendishly complicated. Yet my Irish family assure me that the electorate understands it. Not in full detail but to the extent that they don't make stupid decisions out of misplaced "tactics", and they do use later preferences if they have them. I found it hilarious when No to AV campaigned on the idea that far simpler system was too complicated for the British electorate....

    The other thing about it is that, contrary to perceptions of PR, it delivers a huge individual vote, at least in rural constituencies like Donegal. It isn't assumed that voters will place all candidates from the same party next to one another. Back when there was an East Donegal, people sometimes put the candidates of all parties on their side of the Swilly ahead of candidates on the other side (not that this is necessarily a good thing).

    Good luck predicting it, but it's one of the most interesting countries to follow.

    What I don't understand is the surplus aspect of STV: they take a stack of votes to either reduce a surplus or make up the numbers, but how do they know the votes they take are representative of all the votes?
    Let's say the threshold is 10,000, and a candidate gets 15,000 first preference votes.

    That means that everyone who voted for that candidate used up 10,000/15,000 = 2/3 of their vote getting that candidate over the line.

    They therefore each have 1/3 of a vote left, and their 2nd preference votes count carry a third as much weight as in subsequent rounds.

    That's my understanding, anyway.
    I used to think I didn't understand how this works. Now I understand it even less!
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,697
    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    MaxPB said:

    rottenborough said:

    Stocky said:

    Sunil_Prasannan said:

    Gabs3 said:

    Andrew Adonis doing his best to make the pro-EU movement seem incredibly childish:

    https://www.twitter.com/Andrew_Adonis/status/1221408246650621952

    I'll use it as my avatar then? :)
    What part of the wording does Adonis not agree with:

    Peace
    Prosperity
    or Friendship with all nations?
    Prosperity? That's a laugh. When we crash out of the SM and CU our economy will go down the toilet.
    Honestly, how do you know? I know loads of people who do this for a living and they've got no idea what's going to happen. To have so much certainty about something smacks of religious zeal, you might believe it will be bad, but that doesn't make it true just as some people believe in the sky fairy, doesn't make that the truth either.
    You could be right but remember we've had two Conservative Prime Ministers, and their Chancellors, tell us that is what will happen and you cannot blame people for believing what the government tells them. #ProjectFear.
    And there was Adonis starting to sound slightly sane again wrt HS2.
  • eggegg Posts: 1,749
    The BBC have just put out that 2 to 3% of the population are going to be killed by Snake Flu. What impact will this carnage have on the economy and the financial markets. At what point will it start causing chaos in the financial markets?
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,822
    SandyRentool said:

    kicorse said:

    Andy_JS said:

    kicorse said:

    I love the Irish electoral system.

    STV, with so many candidates and several seats per constituency, is fiendishly complicated. Yet my Irish family assure me that the electorate understands it. Not in full detail but to the extent that they don't make stupid decisions out of misplaced "tactics", and they do use later preferences if they have them. I found it hilarious when No to AV campaigned on the idea that far simpler system was too complicated for the British electorate....

    The other thing about it is that, contrary to perceptions of PR, it delivers a huge individual vote, at least in rural constituencies like Donegal. It isn't assumed that voters will place all candidates from the same party next to one another. Back when there was an East Donegal, people sometimes put the candidates of all parties on their side of the Swilly ahead of candidates on the other side (not that this is necessarily a good thing).

    Good luck predicting it, but it's one of the most interesting countries to follow.

    What I don't understand is the surplus aspect of STV: they take a stack of votes to either reduce a surplus or make up the numbers, but how do they know the votes they take are representative of all the votes?
    Let's say the threshold is 10,000, and a candidate gets 15,000 first preference votes.

    That means that everyone who voted for that candidate used up 10,000/15,000 = 2/3 of their vote getting that candidate over the line.

    They therefore each have 1/3 of a vote left, and their 2nd preference votes count carry a third as much weight as in subsequent rounds.

    That's my understanding, anyway.
    I used to think I didn't understand how this works. Now I understand it even less!
    See here:

    https://www.thejournal.ie/how-does-prstv-work-2619448-Feb2016/
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,422
    Sunil_Prasannan said:

    rottenborough said:

    Rayner back tracks almost immediately.

    https://twitter.com/siennamarla/status/1221447692267741185

    House of Lords = House of Unelected Has-beens! 😀
    Some of them never were anybody
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    egg said:

    The BBC have just put out that 2 to 3% of the population are going to be killed by Snake Flu. What impact will this carnage have on the economy and the financial markets. At what point will it start causing chaos in the financial markets?

    Citation needed...
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,697
    egg said:

    The BBC have just put out that 2 to 3% of the population are going to be killed by Snake Flu. What impact will this carnage have on the economy and the financial markets. At what point will it start causing chaos in the financial markets?

    Link?
  • NorthernPowerhouseNorthernPowerhouse Posts: 557
    SandyRentool said:

    kicorse said:

    Andy_JS said:

    kicorse said:

    I love the Irish electoral system.

    STV, with so many candidates and several seats per constituency, is fiendishly complicated. Yet my Irish family assure me that the electorate understands it. Not in full detail but to the extent that they don't make stupid decisions out of misplaced "tactics", and they do use later preferences if they have them. I found it hilarious when No to AV campaigned on the idea that far simpler system was too complicated for the British electorate....

    The other thing about it is that, contrary to perceptions of PR, it delivers a huge individual vote, at least in rural constituencies like Donegal. It isn't assumed that voters will place all candidates from the same party next to one another. Back when there was an East Donegal, people sometimes put the candidates of all parties on their side of the Swilly ahead of candidates on the other side (not that this is necessarily a good thing).

    Good luck predicting it, but it's one of the most interesting countries to follow.

    What I don't understand is the surplus aspect of STV: they take a stack of votes to either reduce a surplus or make up the numbers, but how do they know the votes they take are representative of all the votes?
    Let's say the threshold is 10,000, and a candidate gets 15,000 first preference votes.

    That means that everyone who voted for that candidate used up 10,000/15,000 = 2/3 of their vote getting that candidate over the line.

    They therefore each have 1/3 of a vote left, and their 2nd preference votes count carry a third as much weight as in subsequent rounds.

    That's my understanding, anyway.
    I used to think I didn't understand how this works. Now I understand it even less!
    And yet people on here claim that ordinary voters fully understand it. Many people barely understand how FPTP works. You will always find those who understand it and make it work to maximise their preference.

    There are great numbers of people who struggle with many of the things we take for granted.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 23,199
    Richard_Nabavi said:

    SandyRentool said:

    kicorse said:

    Andy_JS said:

    kicorse said:

    I love the Irish electoral system.

    STV, with so many candidates and several seats per constituency, is fiendishly complicated. Yet my Irish family assure me that the electorate understands it. Not in full detail but to the extent that they don't make stupid decisions out of misplaced "tactics", and they do use later preferences if they have them. I found it hilarious when No to AV campaigned on the idea that far simpler system was too complicated for the British electorate....

    The other thing about it is that, contrary to perceptions of PR, it delivers a huge individual vote, at least in rural constituencies like Donegal. It isn't assumed that voters will place all candidates from the same party next to one another. Back when there was an East Donegal, people sometimes put the candidates of all parties on their side of the Swilly ahead of candidates on the other side (not that this is necessarily a good thing).

    Good luck predicting it, but it's one of the most interesting countries to follow.

    What I don't understand is the surplus aspect of STV: they take a stack of votes to either reduce a surplus or make up the numbers, but how do they know the votes they take are representative of all the votes?
    Let's say the threshold is 10,000, and a candidate gets 15,000 first preference votes.

    That means that everyone who voted for that candidate used up 10,000/15,000 = 2/3 of their vote getting that candidate over the line.

    They therefore each have 1/3 of a vote left, and their 2nd preference votes count carry a third as much weight as in subsequent rounds.

    That's my understanding, anyway.
    I used to think I didn't understand how this works. Now I understand it even less!
    See here:

    https://www.thejournal.ie/how-does-prstv-work-2619448-Feb2016/
    Thanks for the link. Nonsense on stilts!
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,738
    O/T: Kicorse on the last thread makes a good point about the need to portray policies with an air of calm. There's a lot in that in our personality-driven age - people generally recoil from tub-thumping unless they're already convinced (and even if they are).

    That's an argument for Starmer, perhaps - he does calm like nobody's business. Add optimism (Boris's trademark) and you have two components of successful leadership.

  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,822
    SandyRentool said:

    Richard_Nabavi said:

    SandyRentool said:

    kicorse said:

    Andy_JS said:

    kicorse said:

    I love the Irish electoral system.

    STV, with so many candidates and several seats per constituency, is fiendishly complicated. Yet my Irish family assure me that the electorate understands it. Not in full detail but to the extent that they don't make stupid decisions out of misplaced "tactics", and they do use later preferences if they have them. I found it hilarious when No to AV campaigned on the idea that far simpler system was too complicated for the British electorate....

    The other thing about it is that, contrary to perceptions of PR, it delivers a huge individual vote, at least in rural constituencies like Donegal. It isn't assumed that voters will place all candidates from the same party next to one another. Back when there was an East Donegal, people sometimes put the candidates of all parties on their side of the Swilly ahead of candidates on the other side (not that this is necessarily a good thing).

    Good luck predicting it, but it's one of the most interesting countries to follow.

    What I don't understand is the surplus aspect of STV: they take a stack of votes to either reduce a surplus or make up the numbers, but how do they know the votes they take are representative of all the votes?
    Let's say the threshold is 10,000, and a candidate gets 15,000 first preference votes.

    That means that everyone who voted for that candidate used up 10,000/15,000 = 2/3 of their vote getting that candidate over the line.

    They therefore each have 1/3 of a vote left, and their 2nd preference votes count carry a third as much weight as in subsequent rounds.

    That's my understanding, anyway.
    I used to think I didn't understand how this works. Now I understand it even less!
    See here:

    https://www.thejournal.ie/how-does-prstv-work-2619448-Feb2016/
    Thanks for the link. Nonsense on stilts!
    Some of the seats have twenty candidates - don't expect the count to be quick!
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 9,243
    I bet on Irish politics so I found this an interesting analysis.
    The Betfair market is here and I'm helping develop this market.
    https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.131734096

    I won on the last Irish GE (FG minority at 7/1)

    The interesting feature of Green Machine's analysis (which only covers half the seats) is how well he thinks the Greens will do.

    I make it 24 FF, 19 FG, 11 SF, 8 Grn, 4 Ind, 3 Lab, 2 SBP, 1 SD for half the seats.

    I think you can ignore majorities for FF or FG because of STV.
    Perhaps you can also ignore FF/SF and FG/SF based on what FF and FG have said.

    The only other significant player is the Greens. So I'm looking at some alliance with the Greens or FF minority (with C&S) or FG minority (with C&S) again.

    Or perhaps the grand alliance of FF/FG with Martin as Taoiseach if the two parties can put the Civil War behind them after nearly a 100 years. That's really all that separates them.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,822
    Barnesian said:

    I bet on Irish politics so I found this an interesting analysis.
    The Betfair market is here and I'm helping develop this market.
    https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.131734096

    I won on the last Irish GE (FG minority at 7/1)

    The interesting feature of Green Machine's analysis (which only covers half the seats) is how well he thinks the Greens will do.

    I make it 24 FF, 19 FG, 11 SF, 8 Grn, 4 Ind, 3 Lab, 2 SBP, 1 SD for half the seats.

    I think you can ignore majorities for FF or FG because of STV.
    Perhaps you can also ignore FF/SF and FG/SF based on what FF and FG have said.

    The only other significant player is the Greens. So I'm looking at some alliance with the Greens or FF minority (with C&S) or FG minority (with C&S) again.

    Or perhaps the grand alliance of FF/FG with Martin as Taoiseach if the two parties can put the Civil War behind them after nearly a 100 years. That's really all that separates them.

    The only full seat prediction I've found is here:

    https://politicalreform.ie/2020/01/15/early-2020-election-predictions/

    Unfortunately it's two weeks old and before the latest polls came out.

    Adrian Kavanagh, who in previous election has published modelling of how opinion polls might map to seats, doesn't seem to have produced anything so far this time, but perhaps he's working on it. If he does publish anything, it will be well worth following.
  • kicorsekicorse Posts: 437
    edited January 2020
    NorthernPowerhouse said:



    And yet people on here claim that ordinary voters fully understand it. Many people barely understand how FPTP works. You will always find those who understand it and make it work to maximise their preference.

    There are great numbers of people who struggle with many of the things we take for granted.

    I claim that people in Ireland understand it as well as they need to. Or at least that my family, whose judgment I trust, tell me that people in Ireland understand it as well as they need to.

    That doesn't mean that many people can explain how the transfers work. It means that they recognise that the best thing to do is to rank the candidates in your sincere order of preference, that this will won't hurt your first-preference and may help your later preferences.

    All voting systems are theoretically open to tactical voting, but in practice this one isn't because nobody has a sufficiently precise knowledge of how other people will vote. That removes all the agonising about tactics, which has to be a good thing.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 9,243
    NickPalmer said:

    O/T: Kicorse on the last thread makes a good point about the need to portray policies with an air of calm. There's a lot in that in our personality-driven age - people generally recoil from tub-thumping unless they're already convinced (and even if they are).

    That's an argument for Starmer, perhaps - he does calm like nobody's business. Add optimism (Boris's trademark) and you have two components of successful leadership.

    I agree. I think the four key components of successful leadership are optimism, calmness, clarity and reliability.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 55,538
    Barnesian said:

    NickPalmer said:

    O/T: Kicorse on the last thread makes a good point about the need to portray policies with an air of calm. There's a lot in that in our personality-driven age - people generally recoil from tub-thumping unless they're already convinced (and even if they are).

    That's an argument for Starmer, perhaps - he does calm like nobody's business. Add optimism (Boris's trademark) and you have two components of successful leadership.

    I agree. I think the four key components of successful leadership are optimism, calmness, clarity and reliability.
    However, Corbyn calmly and reliably picked the most disastrous option electorally....
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 9,243
    Richard_Nabavi said:

    Barnesian said:

    I bet on Irish politics so I found this an interesting analysis.
    The Betfair market is here and I'm helping develop this market.
    https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.131734096

    I won on the last Irish GE (FG minority at 7/1)

    The interesting feature of Green Machine's analysis (which only covers half the seats) is how well he thinks the Greens will do.

    I make it 24 FF, 19 FG, 11 SF, 8 Grn, 4 Ind, 3 Lab, 2 SBP, 1 SD for half the seats.

    I think you can ignore majorities for FF or FG because of STV.
    Perhaps you can also ignore FF/SF and FG/SF based on what FF and FG have said.

    The only other significant player is the Greens. So I'm looking at some alliance with the Greens or FF minority (with C&S) or FG minority (with C&S) again.

    Or perhaps the grand alliance of FF/FG with Martin as Taoiseach if the two parties can put the Civil War behind them after nearly a 100 years. That's really all that separates them.

    The only full seat prediction I've found is here:

    https://politicalreform.ie/2020/01/15/early-2020-election-predictions/

    Unfortunately it's two weeks old and before the latest polls came out.

    Adrian Kavanagh, who in previous election has published modelling of how opinion polls might map to seats, doesn't seem to have produced anything so far this time, but perhaps he's working on it. If he does publish anything, it will be well worth following.
    Thanks. That's useful. He has a higher number of Lab seats and lower number of Green seats than Green Machine. Otherwise fairly similar overall.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 44,514
    Amazing how much 'hate' the SNP, a fairly unremarkable centre left party, inspires.

    https://twitter.com/SocReview/status/1221474027501432832?s=20

    Labour are now more likely to direct venom at the SNP than at whatever latest xenophobe fest Farage has dreamed up.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 9,243
    MarqueeMark said:

    Barnesian said:

    NickPalmer said:

    O/T: Kicorse on the last thread makes a good point about the need to portray policies with an air of calm. There's a lot in that in our personality-driven age - people generally recoil from tub-thumping unless they're already convinced (and even if they are).

    That's an argument for Starmer, perhaps - he does calm like nobody's business. Add optimism (Boris's trademark) and you have two components of successful leadership.

    I agree. I think the four key components of successful leadership are optimism, calmness, clarity and reliability.
    However, Corbyn calmly and reliably picked the most disastrous option electorally....
    You couldn't say he was optimistic! Nor clear on where he stood on Brexit.

    Johnson scores on optimism and clarity. Not so high on reliability.

    Blair scored highly on all four until he came to be seen as unreliable (Bliar).
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 99,232
    Theuniondivvie said:

    Amazing how much 'hate' the SNP, a fairly unremarkable centre left party, inspires.

    https://twitter.com/SocReview/status/1221474027501432832?s=20

    Labour are now more likely to direct venom at the SNP than at whatever latest xenophobe fest Farage has dreamed up.

    I struggle to see why you would genuinely think it is amazing. Nationalist politics inspires a lot of hate, for and against their enemies, even if it is a milder nationalism than some since it is all about identity.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 46,445
    Richard_Nabavi said:

    A closer acquaintance with Irish politics would soon disabuse you of that!

    Oh is it just as bad over there? "To Infinity and Beyond with Leo" and such like. Ah well. Just a thought.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 32,208
    Theuniondivvie said:

    Amazing how much 'hate' the SNP, a fairly unremarkable centre left party, inspires.

    https://twitter.com/SocReview/status/1221474027501432832?s=20

    Labour are now more likely to direct venom at the SNP than at whatever latest xenophobe fest Farage has dreamed up.

    Surely if they were more like the Tories, educational standards would be rising?
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,822
    Barnesian said:


    Thanks. That's useful. He has a higher number of Lab seats and lower number of Green seats than Green Machine. Otherwise fairly similar overall.

    Bear in mind though that support for the Greens is heavily skewed towards Dublin, so Part 2 of GreenMachine's assessment may not add many further seats for them.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,822
    kinabalu said:

    Richard_Nabavi said:

    A closer acquaintance with Irish politics would soon disabuse you of that!

    Oh is it just as bad over there? "To Infinity and Beyond with Leo" and such like. Ah well. Just a thought.
    The Fine Gael slogan is "A future to look forward to". Which is odd, given that they've been in government since 2011.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 44,514
    Luckyguy1983 said:

    Theuniondivvie said:

    Amazing how much 'hate' the SNP, a fairly unremarkable centre left party, inspires.

    https://twitter.com/SocReview/status/1221474027501432832?s=20

    Labour are now more likely to direct venom at the SNP than at whatever latest xenophobe fest Farage has dreamed up.

    Surely if they were more like the Tories, educational standards would be rising?
    Well, not like the Scottish Tories obvs, cos' they vote down their own manifesto education policies when given the opportunity.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 55,336
    Barnesian said:

    I bet on Irish politics so I found this an interesting analysis.
    The Betfair market is here and I'm helping develop this market.
    https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.131734096

    I won on the last Irish GE (FG minority at 7/1)

    The interesting feature of Green Machine's analysis (which only covers half the seats) is how well he thinks the Greens will do.

    I make it 24 FF, 19 FG, 11 SF, 8 Grn, 4 Ind, 3 Lab, 2 SBP, 1 SD for half the seats.

    I think you can ignore majorities for FF or FG because of STV.
    Perhaps you can also ignore FF/SF and FG/SF based on what FF and FG have said.

    The only other significant player is the Greens. So I'm looking at some alliance with the Greens or FF minority (with C&S) or FG minority (with C&S) again.

    Or perhaps the grand alliance of FF/FG with Martin as Taoiseach if the two parties can put the Civil War behind them after nearly a 100 years. That's really all that separates them.

    It's actually S-PBP.. Solidarity-People Before Profit.
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity–People_Before_Profit
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 60,850
    Andy_JS said:

    kicorse said:

    I love the Irish electoral system.

    STV, with so many candidates and several seats per constituency, is fiendishly complicated. Yet my Irish family assure me that the electorate understands it. Not in full detail but to the extent that they don't make stupid decisions out of misplaced "tactics", and they do use later preferences if they have them. I found it hilarious when No to AV campaigned on the idea that far simpler system was too complicated for the British electorate....

    The other thing about it is that, contrary to perceptions of PR, it delivers a huge individual vote, at least in rural constituencies like Donegal. It isn't assumed that voters will place all candidates from the same party next to one another. Back when there was an East Donegal, people sometimes put the candidates of all parties on their side of the Swilly ahead of candidates on the other side (not that this is necessarily a good thing).

    Good luck predicting it, but it's one of the most interesting countries to follow.

    What I don't understand is the surplus aspect of STV: they take a stack of votes to either reduce a surplus or make up the numbers, but how do they know the votes they take are representative of all the votes?
    They count all votes and weight appropriately.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 32,027
    Luckyguy1983 said:

    Theuniondivvie said:

    Amazing how much 'hate' the SNP, a fairly unremarkable centre left party, inspires.

    https://twitter.com/SocReview/status/1221474027501432832?s=20

    Labour are now more likely to direct venom at the SNP than at whatever latest xenophobe fest Farage has dreamed up.

    Surely if they were more like the Tories, educational standards would be rising?
    The Gove/Cummings reforms seem to have resulted in more pupils leaving school with no qualifications.
  • kicorsekicorse Posts: 437
    Richard_Nabavi said:

    kinabalu said:

    Richard_Nabavi said:

    A closer acquaintance with Irish politics would soon disabuse you of that!

    Oh is it just as bad over there? "To Infinity and Beyond with Leo" and such like. Ah well. Just a thought.
    The Fine Gael slogan is "A future to look forward to". Which is odd, given that they've been in government since 2011.
    Empty, bland and safe is probably an improvement on "Keep the recovery going". Outside Dublin, the response was "What recovery?".

    And British resentment of London can't hold a candle to Irish resentment of Dublin.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 60,850
    Richard_Nabavi said:

    kinabalu said:

    Richard_Nabavi said:

    A closer acquaintance with Irish politics would soon disabuse you of that!

    Oh is it just as bad over there? "To Infinity and Beyond with Leo" and such like. Ah well. Just a thought.
    The Fine Gael slogan is "A future to look forward to". Which is odd, given that they've been in government since 2011.
    I believe the Conservatives will be using "Let's Put The Future Behind Us" as their slogan in 2024.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 46,445
    Richard_Nabavi said:

    The Fine Gael slogan is "A future to look forward to". Which is odd, given that they've been in government since 2011.

    Better than "dread", I suppose, but it's a bit vacuous.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 44,514
    kle4 said:

    Theuniondivvie said:

    Amazing how much 'hate' the SNP, a fairly unremarkable centre left party, inspires.

    https://twitter.com/SocReview/status/1221474027501432832?s=20

    Labour are now more likely to direct venom at the SNP than at whatever latest xenophobe fest Farage has dreamed up.

    I struggle to see why you would genuinely think it is amazing. Nationalist politics inspires a lot of hate, for and against their enemies, even if it is a milder nationalism than some since it is all about identity.
    Yep, all to do with the nationalism, nothing to do with Lab's Scotch red wall being obliterated years before their Northern red wall is being dismantled.

    If you think Scottish Nationalism 'is all about identity' you really haven't being paying attention. Can't blame you, apparently serious professional politicians running for the leadership of the Labour party have been doing the same. The tartan Tories trope is a sure sign of such a cloth eared dunderhead.
  • logical_songlogical_song Posts: 10,082
    SandyRentool said:

    kicorse said:

    Andy_JS said:

    kicorse said:

    I love the Irish electoral system.

    STV, with so many candidates and several seats per constituency, is fiendishly complicated. Yet my Irish family assure me that the electorate understands it. Not in full detail but to the extent that they don't make stupid decisions out of misplaced "tactics", and they do use later preferences if they have them. I found it hilarious when No to AV campaigned on the idea that far simpler system was too complicated for the British electorate....

    The other thing about it is that, contrary to perceptions of PR, it delivers a huge individual vote, at least in rural constituencies like Donegal. It isn't assumed that voters will place all candidates from the same party next to one another. Back when there was an East Donegal, people sometimes put the candidates of all parties on their side of the Swilly ahead of candidates on the other side (not that this is necessarily a good thing).

    Good luck predicting it, but it's one of the most interesting countries to follow.

    What I don't understand is the surplus aspect of STV: they take a stack of votes to either reduce a surplus or make up the numbers, but how do they know the votes they take are representative of all the votes?
    Let's say the threshold is 10,000, and a candidate gets 15,000 first preference votes.

    That means that everyone who voted for that candidate used up 10,000/15,000 = 2/3 of their vote getting that candidate over the line.

    They therefore each have 1/3 of a vote left, and their 2nd preference votes count carry a third as much weight as in subsequent rounds.

    That's my understanding, anyway.
    I used to think I didn't understand how this works. Now I understand it even less!
    I think this says more about what people have forgotten about O Level Maths than anything else.
    In order to vote you don't need to be able to run an STV election, it is literally as simple as 1, 2, 3.
    Even running an STV election is not difficult if you're vaguely numerate.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 60,850
    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    Luckyguy1983 said:

    Theuniondivvie said:

    Amazing how much 'hate' the SNP, a fairly unremarkable centre left party, inspires.

    https://twitter.com/SocReview/status/1221474027501432832?s=20

    Labour are now more likely to direct venom at the SNP than at whatever latest xenophobe fest Farage has dreamed up.

    Surely if they were more like the Tories, educational standards would be rising?
    The Gove/Cummings reforms seem to have resulted in more pupils leaving school with no qualifications.
    Part of the problem, surely, is that assessing the correct measure for education is hard, and people will have different views as to the right goals for schools. Is it no children without qualifications? Or is proportion with 5 A-Cs? Or is it the educational standards of the top 10%?

    Making your metric proportion of 18 year olds with 5 A-Cs at GCSE, for example, encourages schools to concentrate on those children who wouldn't get over the line without help.

    Ultimately, it needs a sophisticated balanced scorecard approach. Which it's not going to get.
  • GarethoftheVale2GarethoftheVale2 Posts: 2,351
    There is an amusing typo - Edna rather than Enda Kenny!
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,422
    Theuniondivvie said:

    kle4 said:

    Theuniondivvie said:

    Amazing how much 'hate' the SNP, a fairly unremarkable centre left party, inspires.

    https://twitter.com/SocReview/status/1221474027501432832?s=20

    Labour are now more likely to direct venom at the SNP than at whatever latest xenophobe fest Farage has dreamed up.

    I struggle to see why you would genuinely think it is amazing. Nationalist politics inspires a lot of hate, for and against their enemies, even if it is a milder nationalism than some since it is all about identity.
    If you think Scottish Nationalism 'is all about identity' you really haven't being paying attention.
    Yes, Scottish Nationalism is so much better than anyone else's nationalism.....
  • logical_songlogical_song Posts: 10,082
    MarqueeMark said:

    There look to be a mess of "too close to calls" in this one! Maybe part 2 is full of the shoo-ins?

    I wonder if you can buy a stamp which marks these new 50p pieces with 12 gold stars.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    MattW said:

    egg said:

    The BBC have just put out that 2 to 3% of the population are going to be killed by Snake Flu. What impact will this carnage have on the economy and the financial markets. At what point will it start causing chaos in the financial markets?

    Link?
    I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that they, er, haven't? The reported mortality rate seems to currently be between 2-3% (although probably lower as that is based on reported cases only), and that isn't quite the same thing!

    Unless the Chinese are involved in a massive cover up of the number of people dying of this thing, it does seem all a little bit over the top. Although from what I have read "normal" flu has a mortality rate of around 1% but you can't draw a direct comparison as Flu has a vaccination, whereas this, currently, doesn't. So 2-3% mortality and no vaccine, is obviously many times worse than 1% with a vaccine. But probably a vaccine will be developed soon.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 18,228
    alex_ said:

    MattW said:

    egg said:

    The BBC have just put out that 2 to 3% of the population are going to be killed by Snake Flu. What impact will this carnage have on the economy and the financial markets. At what point will it start causing chaos in the financial markets?

    Link?
    I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that they, er, haven't? The reported mortality rate seems to currently be between 2-3% (although probably lower as that is based on reported cases only), and that isn't quite the same thing!

    Unless the Chinese are involved in a massive cover up of the number of people dying of this thing, it does seem all a little bit over the top. Although from what I have read "normal" flu has a mortality rate of around 1% but you can't draw a direct comparison as Flu has a vaccination, whereas this, currently, doesn't. So 2-3% mortality and no vaccine, is obviously many times worse than 1% with a vaccine. But probably a vaccine will be developed soon.
    Does the mortality rate of 3% relate to those that are infected and not the whole population? For comparison, SARS had a mortality rate of about 10% on that basis.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 40,392
    rcs1000 said:

    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    Luckyguy1983 said:

    Theuniondivvie said:

    Amazing how much 'hate' the SNP, a fairly unremarkable centre left party, inspires.

    https://twitter.com/SocReview/status/1221474027501432832?s=20

    Labour are now more likely to direct venom at the SNP than at whatever latest xenophobe fest Farage has dreamed up.

    Surely if they were more like the Tories, educational standards would be rising?
    The Gove/Cummings reforms seem to have resulted in more pupils leaving school with no qualifications.
    Part of the problem, surely, is that assessing the correct measure for education is hard, and people will have different views as to the right goals for schools. Is it no children without qualifications? Or is proportion with 5 A-Cs? Or is it the educational standards of the top 10%?

    Making your metric proportion of 18 year olds with 5 A-Cs at GCSE, for example, encourages schools to concentrate on those children who wouldn't get over the line without help.

    Ultimately, it needs a sophisticated balanced scorecard approach. Which it's not going to get.
    Which is why the middle school idea makes so much more sense. Get rid of GCSEs entirely and make the age of streaming into the correct path at 14, 15-18 is essentially prolonged A-levels, office based internships or apprenticeships or manual/technical internships or apprenticeships. A-levels gain a lot of rigour, the majority of people get a recognised apprenticeship qualification and actual work experience so they don't leave with nothing.

    It mirrors the highly successful Swiss education system.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,422
    alex_ said:

    MattW said:

    egg said:

    The BBC have just put out that 2 to 3% of the population are going to be killed by Snake Flu. What impact will this carnage have on the economy and the financial markets. At what point will it start causing chaos in the financial markets?

    Link?
    The reported mortality rate seems to currently be between 2-3% (although probably lower as that is based on reported cases only), and that isn't quite the same thing!
    While the death rate so far is 3%, the WHO report that 18% (237) of the 1287 cases reported are "severely ill" (ex- Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR and Taipei - total is 1320) - so lets hope the vast majority of them recover:

    https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200125-sitrep-5-2019-ncov.pdf?sfvrsn=429b143d_4
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    FF43 said:

    alex_ said:

    MattW said:

    egg said:

    The BBC have just put out that 2 to 3% of the population are going to be killed by Snake Flu. What impact will this carnage have on the economy and the financial markets. At what point will it start causing chaos in the financial markets?

    Link?
    I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that they, er, haven't? The reported mortality rate seems to currently be between 2-3% (although probably lower as that is based on reported cases only), and that isn't quite the same thing!

    Unless the Chinese are involved in a massive cover up of the number of people dying of this thing, it does seem all a little bit over the top. Although from what I have read "normal" flu has a mortality rate of around 1% but you can't draw a direct comparison as Flu has a vaccination, whereas this, currently, doesn't. So 2-3% mortality and no vaccine, is obviously many times worse than 1% with a vaccine. But probably a vaccine will be developed soon.
    Does the mortality rate of 3% relate to those that are infected and not the whole population? For comparison, SARS had a mortality rate of about 10% on that basis.
    Yes, that's what the mortality rate is.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    CarlottaVance said:

    alex_ said:

    MattW said:

    egg said:

    The BBC have just put out that 2 to 3% of the population are going to be killed by Snake Flu. What impact will this carnage have on the economy and the financial markets. At what point will it start causing chaos in the financial markets?

    Link?
    The reported mortality rate seems to currently be between 2-3% (although probably lower as that is based on reported cases only), and that isn't quite the same thing!
    While the death rate so far is 3%, the WHO report that 18% (237) of the 1287 cases reported are "severely ill" (ex- Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR and Taipei - total is 1320) - so lets hope the vast majority of them recover:

    https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200125-sitrep-5-2019-ncov.pdf?sfvrsn=429b143d_4
    Fair point - clearly if the mortality rate rises, then it becomes more serious.

  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,740
    matt said:

    Re the topic - without evidence as to why the picks were made or evidence as to the writer’s long term prediction ability, I struggle to see how this brings any clarity. Perhaps I’ve misunderstood.

    The polling is very volatile and the system encourages many candidates from the same party to stand and fill seats, which makes it hard to call which individual party member will win even if the party has a safe seat.
  • mattmatt Posts: 3,789
    For a view on Irish politics and localism, one should look to Kerry and the Healy-Raes. A flavour: His political platform includes opposition to tighter controls on drinking and driving. His father and brother have also expressed similar views on such legislation. In January 2012, Healy-Rae proposed changing Ireland's number plate system so that the supposedly unlucky number 13 would be dropped for the year 2013 to save the Irish car industry

    One should also not underestimate the determination of FF to return to power. 10 years without bribes is a long time.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/1221448396835213312?s=09
  • mattmatt Posts: 3,789
    alex_ said:

    MattW said:

    egg said:

    The BBC have just put out that 2 to 3% of the population are going to be killed by Snake Flu. What impact will this carnage have on the economy and the financial markets. At what point will it start causing chaos in the financial markets?

    Link?
    I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that they, er, haven't? The reported mortality rate seems to currently be between 2-3% (although probably lower as that is based on reported cases only), and that isn't quite the same thing!

    Unless the Chinese are involved in a massive cover up of the number of people dying of this thing, it does seem all a little bit over the top. Although from what I have read "normal" flu has a mortality rate of around 1% but you can't draw a direct comparison as Flu has a vaccination, whereas this, currently, doesn't. So 2-3% mortality and no vaccine, is obviously many times worse than 1% with a vaccine. But probably a vaccine will be developed soon.
    WeChat means that this is far harder to cover up in the past. If, however, there are unexplained WeChat outages, one should assume the worst.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    EPG said:

    matt said:

    Re the topic - without evidence as to why the picks were made or evidence as to the writer’s long term prediction ability, I struggle to see how this brings any clarity. Perhaps I’ve misunderstood.

    The polling is very volatile and the system encourages many candidates from the same party to stand and fill seats, which makes it hard to call which individual party member will win even if the party has a safe seat.
    Isn't it the case that parties have to basically try and predict their share of the vote and then put up the appropriate number of candidates to reflect that? Put up too many candidates and it increases the chances of underperformance, but there is a danger of missing out on huge overperformance. The consequence being that nobody does too badly or too well, unless some party gambles on a big overperformance.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 40,054
    There has been a big row in Ireland recently about a memorial or commemoration of people who served in the Royal Irish Constabulary. Fine Gael was supportive. I suspect that has cost them a fair few votes.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 32,027
    rcs1000 said:

    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    Luckyguy1983 said:

    Theuniondivvie said:

    Amazing how much 'hate' the SNP, a fairly unremarkable centre left party, inspires.

    https://twitter.com/SocReview/status/1221474027501432832?s=20

    Labour are now more likely to direct venom at the SNP than at whatever latest xenophobe fest Farage has dreamed up.

    Surely if they were more like the Tories, educational standards would be rising?
    The Gove/Cummings reforms seem to have resulted in more pupils leaving school with no qualifications.
    Part of the problem, surely, is that assessing the correct measure for education is hard, and people will have different views as to the right goals for schools. Is it no children without qualifications? Or is proportion with 5 A-Cs? Or is it the educational standards of the top 10%?

    Making your metric proportion of 18 year olds with 5 A-Cs at GCSE, for example, encourages schools to concentrate on those children who wouldn't get over the line without help.

    Ultimately, it needs a sophisticated balanced scorecard approach. Which it's not going to get.
    I'm quite sympathetic to Michael Gove's fondness for a liberal arts education, which in America is seen as a left-wing ideal and over here as right-wing. I also like Dominic Cummings' idea that there should be more concentration on what works. Trouble is in practice, both men let their prejudices run away with them, fought a lot of pointless battles, and generally ballsed things up a treat.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 129,216
    Alistair said:

    https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/1221448396835213312?s=09

    Which is irrelevant as the Republican controlled Senate will decide, the voters do not get consulted until November
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,740
    alex_ said:

    EPG said:

    matt said:

    Re the topic - without evidence as to why the picks were made or evidence as to the writer’s long term prediction ability, I struggle to see how this brings any clarity. Perhaps I’ve misunderstood.

    The polling is very volatile and the system encourages many candidates from the same party to stand and fill seats, which makes it hard to call which individual party member will win even if the party has a safe seat.
    Isn't it the case that parties have to basically try and predict their share of the vote and then put up the appropriate number of candidates to reflect that? Put up too many candidates and it increases the chances of underperformance, but there is a danger of missing out on huge overperformance. The consequence being that nobody does too badly or too well, unless some party gambles on a big overperformance.
    They do try this, but it is also impossible to control their own voters' preferences. If John or Michael is locally popular, he will run as an independent, and may well beat the official candidate.

    One recent complicating factor to this story is gender quotas. This causes the large parties to field larger slates than is locally optimal for winning seats, because fielding enough women is globally optimal for retaining public campaign funding.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 129,216
    https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1221440051529252865?s=20
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 129,216
    https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1221478953745027072?s=20
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/1221448396835213312?s=09

    Which is irrelevant as the Republican controlled Senate will decide, the voters do not get consulted until November
    Just checking, if 90% of the American population wanted Trump removed from office would you call that irrelevant?
  • No_Offence_AlanNo_Offence_Alan Posts: 5,141
    Theuniondivvie said:

    Amazing how much 'hate' the SNP, a fairly unremarkable centre left party, inspires.

    https://twitter.com/SocReview/status/1221474027501432832?s=20

    Labour are now more likely to direct venom at the SNP than at whatever latest xenophobe fest Farage has dreamed up.

    Has nobody told them about Wales' academic record?
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 23,199
    logical_song said:

    SandyRentool said:

    kicorse said:

    Andy_JS said:

    kicorse said:

    I love the Irish electoral system.

    STV, with so many candidates and several seats per constituency, is fiendishly complicated. Yet my Irish family assure me that the electorate understands it. Not in full detail but to the extent that they don't make stupid decisions out of misplaced "tactics", and they do use later preferences if they have them. I found it hilarious when No to AV campaigned on the idea that far simpler system was too complicated for the British electorate....

    The other thing about it is that, contrary to perceptions of PR, it delivers a huge individual vote, at least in rural constituencies like Donegal. It isn't assumed that voters will place all candidates from the same party next to one another. Back when there was an East Donegal, people sometimes put the candidates of all parties on their side of the Swilly ahead of candidates on the other side (not that this is necessarily a good thing).

    Good luck predicting it, but it's one of the most interesting countries to follow.

    What I don't understand is the surplus aspect of STV: they take a stack of votes to either reduce a surplus or make up the numbers, but how do they know the votes they take are representative of all the votes?
    Let's say the threshold is 10,000, and a candidate gets 15,000 first preference votes.

    That means that everyone who voted for that candidate used up 10,000/15,000 = 2/3 of their vote getting that candidate over the line.

    They therefore each have 1/3 of a vote left, and their 2nd preference votes count carry a third as much weight as in subsequent rounds.

    That's my understanding, anyway.
    I used to think I didn't understand how this works. Now I understand it even less!
    I think this says more about what people have forgotten about O Level Maths than anything else.
    In order to vote you don't need to be able to run an STV election, it is literally as simple as 1, 2, 3.
    Even running an STV election is not difficult if you're vaguely numerate.
    If we ever get PR, I favour d'Hondt rather than this bugger's muddle. When it takes 4 days to get a result, and you hear about someone being elected on the 14th count, the system is anything but user-friendly.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 55,336
    HYUFD said:

    https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1221440051529252865?s=20

    National GE 2016 (actual):

    Hillary 48%
    Trump 46%
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 79,880
    edited January 2020
    SouthamObserver said:

    There has been a big row in Ireland recently about a memorial or commemoration of people who served in the Royal Irish Constabulary. Fine Gael was supportive. I suspect that has cost them a fair few votes.

    Britain will miss Varadkar when he is gone.
    Alistair said:

    https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/1221448396835213312?s=09

    Along with the GE polls, implies there are almost zero Democrats that take the view that he should not be convicted yet I personally will vote against him in November.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 55,336
    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/1221448396835213312?s=09

    Which is irrelevant as the Republican controlled Senate will decide, the voters do not get consulted until November
    More American voters voted for Hillary than for Trump in 2016...
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    HYUFD said:

    https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1221440051529252865?s=20

    Trump isn't going to like this. Expect some anti Fox tweeting tonight!
  • No_Offence_AlanNo_Offence_Alan Posts: 5,141
    SandyRentool said:

    logical_song said:

    SandyRentool said:

    kicorse said:

    Andy_JS said:


    What I don't understand is the surplus aspect of STV: they take a stack of votes to either reduce a surplus or make up the numbers, but how do they know the votes they take are representative of all the votes?

    Let's say the threshold is 10,000, and a candidate gets 15,000 first preference votes.

    That means that everyone who voted for that candidate used up 10,000/15,000 = 2/3 of their vote getting that candidate over the line.

    They therefore each have 1/3 of a vote left, and their 2nd preference votes count carry a third as much weight as in subsequent rounds.

    That's my understanding, anyway.
    I used to think I didn't understand how this works. Now I understand it even less!
    I think this says more about what people have forgotten about O Level Maths than anything else.
    In order to vote you don't need to be able to run an STV election, it is literally as simple as 1, 2, 3.
    Even running an STV election is not difficult if you're vaguely numerate.
    If we ever get PR, I favour d'Hondt rather than this bugger's muddle. When it takes 4 days to get a result, and you hear about someone being elected on the 14th count, the system is anything but user-friendly.
    There is no need for a count to last 4 days. In Scotland STV local elections are counted by machine.
    For a really neat visualisation of STV counts, try this:
    https://council17.mulvenna.org/results/
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 55,999
    Sunil_Prasannan said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/1221448396835213312?s=09

    Which is irrelevant as the Republican controlled Senate will decide, the voters do not get consulted until November
    More American voters voted for Hillary than for Trump in 2016...
    Where can we get stats on the efficiency of the various democratic contenders? As in which ones get huge votes in solidly blue states, poor chances in the swing states etc?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 55,999
    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    Luckyguy1983 said:

    Theuniondivvie said:

    Amazing how much 'hate' the SNP, a fairly unremarkable centre left party, inspires.

    https://twitter.com/SocReview/status/1221474027501432832?s=20

    Labour are now more likely to direct venom at the SNP than at whatever latest xenophobe fest Farage has dreamed up.

    Surely if they were more like the Tories, educational standards would be rising?
    The Gove/Cummings reforms seem to have resulted in more pupils leaving school with no qualifications.
    It's an interesting mix - in London for example, big improvements. Derby, North Lincolnshire, Swindon & Nottingham are very very bad.
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 5,334
    edited January 2020
    Sunil_Prasannan said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/1221448396835213312?s=09

    Which is irrelevant as the Republican controlled Senate will decide, the voters do not get consulted until November
    More American voters voted for Hillary than for Trump in 2016...
    It would be so funny if Trump were to win the popular vote but lose the electoral college. With the rustbelt states flipping, of course ...
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 5,334
    Malmesbury said:

    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    Luckyguy1983 said:

    Theuniondivvie said:

    Amazing how much 'hate' the SNP, a fairly unremarkable centre left party, inspires.

    https://twitter.com/SocReview/status/1221474027501432832?s=20

    Labour are now more likely to direct venom at the SNP than at whatever latest xenophobe fest Farage has dreamed up.

    Surely if they were more like the Tories, educational standards would be rising?
    The Gove/Cummings reforms seem to have resulted in more pupils leaving school with no qualifications.
    It's an interesting mix - in London for example, big improvements. Derby, North Lincolnshire, Swindon & Nottingham are very very bad.
    The improvements in London predated the Gove reforms.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/1221448396835213312?s=09

    Which is irrelevant as the Republican controlled Senate will decide, the voters do not get consulted until November
    It is (almost certainly) irrelevant to the question of whether he gets convicted. It is possibly not irrelevant to the manner in which the Senate chooses to conduct the trial, or the debate about whether pursuing impeachment was an (electoral) mistake on the part of the Democrats.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 55,999
    ThomasNashe said:

    Malmesbury said:

    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    Luckyguy1983 said:

    Theuniondivvie said:

    Amazing how much 'hate' the SNP, a fairly unremarkable centre left party, inspires.

    https://twitter.com/SocReview/status/1221474027501432832?s=20

    Labour are now more likely to direct venom at the SNP than at whatever latest xenophobe fest Farage has dreamed up.

    Surely if they were more like the Tories, educational standards would be rising?
    The Gove/Cummings reforms seem to have resulted in more pupils leaving school with no qualifications.
    It's an interesting mix - in London for example, big improvements. Derby, North Lincolnshire, Swindon & Nottingham are very very bad.
    The improvements in London predated the Gove reforms.
    Trying to get useful data seems to be a bit of stretch, but we are talking about the last 5 years here, aren't we?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 74,569
    edited January 2020
    Theuniondivvie said:

    Amazing how much 'hate' the SNP, a fairly unremarkable centre left party, inspires.

    https://twitter.com/SocReview/status/1221474027501432832?s=20

    Labour are now more likely to direct venom at the SNP than at whatever latest xenophobe fest Farage has dreamed up.

    Just as well they aren’t actually reading the news and focussing their fire intelligently.* This story is just beyond extraordinary (not least that the officers who carried out this kidnap face no charges):

    Man wrongfully arrested given £100k compensation by police
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-51255287

    In nine years, it’s difficult to think of anything to do with Police Scotland that hasn’t been an utter fiasco. At what point will the SNP admit Police Scotland has been the most epic law enforcement clusterfuck since the Keystone Cops and replace it in its entirety with new local forces?

    *Although this does of course partly explain why the SNP are getting away with a dismal domestic record.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 55,999
    ydoethur said:

    Theuniondivvie said:

    Amazing how much 'hate' the SNP, a fairly unremarkable centre left party, inspires.

    https://twitter.com/SocReview/status/1221474027501432832?s=20

    Labour are now more likely to direct venom at the SNP than at whatever latest xenophobe fest Farage has dreamed up.

    Just as well they aren’t actually reading the news and focussing their fire intelligently.* This story is just beyond extraordinary (not least that the officers who carried out this kidnap face no charges):

    Man wrongfully arrested given £100k compensation by police
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-51255287

    In nine years, it’s difficult to think of anything to do with Police Scotland that hasn’t been an utter fiasco. At what point will the SNP admit Police Scotland has been the most epic law enforcement clusterfuck since the Keystone Cops and replace it in its entirety with new local forces?

    *Although this does of course partly explain why the SNP are getting away with a dismal domestic record.
    Police Scotland appear to be a approaching the levels of the Met - I see they are going with the "lessons learned" bullshit.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 129,216
    Alistair said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/1221448396835213312?s=09

    Which is irrelevant as the Republican controlled Senate will decide, the voters do not get consulted until November
    Just checking, if 90% of the American population wanted Trump removed from office would you call that irrelevant?
    Until election day yes unless the opposition party controlled both chambers of Congress
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    ydoethur said:

    Theuniondivvie said:

    Amazing how much 'hate' the SNP, a fairly unremarkable centre left party, inspires.

    https://twitter.com/SocReview/status/1221474027501432832?s=20

    Labour are now more likely to direct venom at the SNP than at whatever latest xenophobe fest Farage has dreamed up.

    Just as well they aren’t actually reading the news and focussing their fire intelligently.* This story is just beyond extraordinary (not least that the officers who carried out this kidnap face no charges):

    Man wrongfully arrested given £100k compensation by police
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-51255287

    In nine years, it’s difficult to think of anything to do with Police Scotland that hasn’t been an utter fiasco. At what point will the SNP admit Police Scotland has been the most epic law enforcement clusterfuck since the Keystone Cops and replace it in its entirety with new local forces?

    *Although this does of course partly explain why the SNP are getting away with a dismal domestic record.
    "Learning opportunities..."
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 129,216
    edited January 2020
    Pulpstar said:

    SouthamObserver said:

    There has been a big row in Ireland recently about a memorial or commemoration of people who served in the Royal Irish Constabulary. Fine Gael was supportive. I suspect that has cost them a fair few votes.

    Britain will miss Varadkar when he is gone.
    Alistair said:

    https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/1221448396835213312?s=09

    Along with the GE polls, implies there are almost zero Democrats that take the view that he should not be convicted yet I personally will vote against him in November.
    Given both FG and FF have ruled out a coalition with Sinn Fein, the irony is Sinn Fein will be in government in Northern Ireland with the DUP but still blocked from government in the Republic of Ireland whatever the result next month
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 63,882
    Peace and friendship between the UK and EU.
This discussion has been closed.

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