politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Why Blairites like John Rentoul have got to stop looking at

isam said:

shadsy said:

Some political scientists at UEA have had a go at making a general election prediction based on Ladbrokes' individual constituency markets.
http://www.ueapolitics.org/2014/07/14/general-election-2015-what-do-the-bookmakers-say/

PARTY SEATS
Conservatives 272.99
Labour 310.43
Liberal Democrats 36.39
SNP 9.33
Plaid Cymru 2.78
Greens 0.77
UKIP 5.75
Other 0.77


Plausible

Very

CON 275
LAB 312
LIB 28
NAT 14
UKIP 3

Thats my prediction from June 29.

Nice to see the bookie analysis sort of confirms it.

isam said:

PARTY SEATS
Conservatives 272.99
Labour 310.43
Liberal Democrats 36.39
SNP 9.33
Plaid Cymru 2.78
Greens 0.77
UKIP 5.75
Other 0.77


Plausible

Interesting confirmation that the Conservative constituency odds are longer than implied by the bands/lines/most seats etc.

Compare the above with the Over/Under lines which are 284.5 Con, 303.5 Lab.

I've made a note of that analysis and resultant seat allocation in my profile.

Charles said:

Fundamentally, we need a zero based review of government spending.

Simply put (and only highlighting the major points obviously), the government is responsible for (1) defence of the realm (2) national infrastructure (3) funding an acceptable minimum level of education and health care (4) ensuring an acceptable minimum level of income for people who are retired / unable to work, etc (5) provision of local services

The government spends £720 billion pounds per year. That's more than £10K per head.

I find it very difficult to believe that government can't deliver what it needs to deliver with less pending than that.

You are absolutely correct, Mr. Charles, but having participated in two zero based spending reviews in the public sector you would be wrong to think that one across the whole of government would result in any savings. Both of mine demonstrated that I actually needed more staff and a bigger discretionary budget (which on the second occasion I actually got). Maybe I was just very good in playing the system but there are civil servants out there who are even better at it than I was.

What has to happen first is for a very brave PM (and that knocks out the current clown) to set down and get the agreement of the general public what government is for. Then when you have decided what functions are actually necessary, bin those that aren't. That means closing whole departments. Then you bring in the cost accountants to sort out what remains and ensure that service delivery not supplier interest triumphs.

That will take about ten years all told and generate more bad headlines than you can shake a stick at. We will be a better governed and more prosperous nation at the end of the process. However, the timescales involved will mean a general election in the middle of the process. So no PM will ever do it. Much easier to salami slice and tinker around the edges, upsets less people, more chance of being re-elected.

Cameron and Clegg had the biggest and best opportunity to re-face the economy and governance of this country since WWII. The people in 2010 would have been prepared to go along with a radical redesign, as long as we were genuinely all in it together. The pair of weak-kneed jessies never had the bottle to even try.

Richard_Nabavi said:

isam said:

PARTY SEATS
Conservatives 272.99
Labour 310.43
Liberal Democrats 36.39
SNP 9.33
Plaid Cymru 2.78
Greens 0.77
UKIP 5.75
Other 0.77


Plausible

Interesting confirmation that the Conservative constituency odds are longer than implied by the bands/lines/most seats etc.

Compare the above with the Over/Under lines which are 284.5 Con, 303.5 Lab.

Yes, and before a filter was used to rectify the short ones not being short enough/long ones not long enough, this was. The projection


PARTY SEATS
Conservatives 260.21
Labour 286.80
Liberal Democrats 42.96
SNP 12.12
Plaid Cymru 3.18
Greens 1.78
UKIP 22.68
Other 2.28

So it seems right that the value is with individual Tory seats I guess... Ukip and labour poor value, LD neutral

In fairness I have backed a few ukip wins at bigger odds than currently available as have Pulpstar and TSE... The over reaction to a few quid on an outsider may be the reason for the over estimation of ukip seats

Richard_Nabavi said:

isam said:

Yes, and before a filter was used to rectify the short ones not being short enough/long ones not long enough, this was. The projection


PARTY SEATS
Conservatives 260.21
Labour 286.80
Liberal Democrats 42.96
SNP 12.12
Plaid Cymru 3.18
Greens 1.78
UKIP 22.68
Other 2.28

So it seems right that the value is with individual Tory seats I guess... Ukip and labour poor value, LD neutral

In fairness I have backed a few ukip wins at bigger odds than currently available as have Pulpstar and TSE... The over reaction to a few quid on an outsider may be the reason for the over estimation of ukip seats

I think the UKIP figures are a bit special because they are a small number of related contingencies, so it's a very skewed probability distribution.

Yes, you're probably right.

Surely this analysis is worthy of a thread... It doesn't get much more about political betting!

Flightpath said:

''If he was such a family man, why didn't he register himself as the father of his first child until the boy was 18 months old?''

Miliband does not believe in 'family'. He is a socialist - if in power we would soon see his marxist tendencies - he only registered the birth and got married as a political convenience. He does not belive in marriage he believes in units of cohabitation. He believes in directing us poor simple people for the benefit of our own good.

Precisely.

This is also why he and his brother were prepared to do each other over to be leader: they don't give a fig for family except where there is some personal gain, like inheriting a house or grabbing a few votes.

In no circumstances would I ever apply for a job if my getting it meant my brother did not. this is obviously not a concern to the Milibands; maybe they hate each other. Yet another strike against them.

So: he's anti-business, anti-family, inherited rather than paid for his house, and got married for political convenience. That's four counts on which he deserves the utmost contempt. And the GE campaign hasn't started yet.

@DecrepitJohnL

" ...they did not do enough thinking ..."

Surely that will be carved on the tombstone of Cameron's administration.

This song was much thrown at Gordon Brown when he was PM but, really, the longer Cameron has been PM the more it seems to apply to him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRUDmLP6wlU

BobaFett said:

isam said:

BobaFett said:

Socrates said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

@Socrates - You should really try to understand what is proposed before going off your trolley. Admittedly the Beeb (as so often) are not terribly coherent in that article.

There is a clearer account here:

http://www.onmedica.com/newsarticle.aspx?id=cd8ff2d4-b164-4e7d-a89c-e79bd38471c1

If I've got a wrong impression of things based on a misleading BBC article, then I apologise. Lines like "Patients from outside the EU are to be charged 150% of the cost of treatment in the NHS in a fresh crackdown on so-called "health tourism" certainly sound like they are applying to all non-EU citizens using the NHS.

"For those who are temporary migrants from outside the EEA and are here for longer than six months, a new health surcharge will be applied when they submit an application for leave to enter or remain in the UK. This surcharge could generate up to £200 million per annum in the future."

Is this the £200 increase in visa fees already announced?

As I have said before, your views on such matters are hard to take seriously given that you appear to favour almost zero immigration.

It's hard to see how your analyses aren't coloured by that overarching worldview.

Being against mass immigration doesn't mean almost zero immigration , gross misrepresentation

I realise that. Nevertheless, my sense is that Socrates is indeed in favour of near zero immigration.

Your views are perhaps quite different.

In the past Socrates has linked to variations on this graph and expressed a desire to return to the situation of the 1960s - ie net migration ~0 and immigration ~200,000.

This is a long way from zero immigration.

I feel that the complete absence of any discussion of emigration from this debate to be a bit strange, particularly given that Cameron's target was to reduce net migration, rather than immigration, and given that emigrants from the UK are necessarily immigrants elsewhere.

Charles said:

DecrepitJohnL said:

Charles said:

BobaFett said:

@Charles
My apologies. It was unnecessarily provocative.
I have been very riled and deeply disturbed by the Ed is Weird stuff - this was a reaction to that.

Thank you.

I'm not sure that the 'ed is weird stuff' is a party campaign

it's just lazy & underfunded journos looking for something easy to write

Either way it's pretty childish.

Although character debates are very reasonable: for me the way that Ed behaved over Syria suggests to me that he's not someone you can trust.

The way things have turned out, Ed may yet get the Nobel Peace Prize for stopping us intervening on behalf of our enemies' enemies' enemies who might not be our friends after all.

......My point, though, wasn't about outcome, but about trust. Ed Miliband received confidential briefings from the PM and the team. On the basis of this he committed to a certain action. The PM therefore recalled Parliament and set out a policy. At which point Miliband switched sides and did not commicate his change of position to the PM.
........

I agree that EdM's flaw is trust. His brother certainly cannot trust him. His mother was clearly upset over it. Very few people would do that to an older sibling. Also the arrogance to think they could do the job so much better.

taffys said:

''No. Because that isn't a personal attack. Duh.''

North London is cited because it is seen as the area of people who are doing very nicely out of the publicly funded sector.

Labour has the unfortunate habit of picking leaders who personify the notion that the only legitimate personal fortune is one made in the public sector.

Pulpstar said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

@isam - In fact Dr. Hanretty is slightly wrong (or not expressing himself clearly) when he says:

bookmakers repeatedly offer 1-in-100 odds for parties like UKIP without realizing that they’re implying that UKIP should win six-and-a-half seats even if they’re at 1/100 everywhere.

Offering 1-in-100 odds in all 650 seats does NOT imply that UKIP should win six and a half seats. It implies that that is the sum of the probability distribution, but, since they are related contingencies, it might still be that by far the most likely single outcome is zero seats, with a small probability of a massive UKIP surge which takes them to (say) 50+ seats.

If you backed 100-1 shots in all seats at the GE you'd end up with a massive loss I expect.

Whilst this kind of research is not that important ,one hopes that people who do it understand related contingencies more than apparently seems to be the case.

state_go_away said:

Pulpstar said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

@isam - In fact Dr. Hanretty is slightly wrong (or not expressing himself clearly) when he says:

bookmakers repeatedly offer 1-in-100 odds for parties like UKIP without realizing that they’re implying that UKIP should win six-and-a-half seats even if they’re at 1/100 everywhere.

Offering 1-in-100 odds in all 650 seats does NOT imply that UKIP should win six and a half seats. It implies that that is the sum of the probability distribution, but, since they are related contingencies, it might still be that by far the most likely single outcome is zero seats, with a small probability of a massive UKIP surge which takes them to (say) 50+ seats.

If you backed 100-1 shots in all seats at the GE you'd end up with a massive loss I expect.

Whilst this kind of research is not that important ,one hopes that people who do it understand related contingencies more than apparently seems to be the case.

I've only backed 1 100-1 outsider I think, UKIP in Burton - just to cover an under-round on Lib Dem/Con/Labour

The people doing this analysis know their stuff, the second seat table effectively takes out alot of the skewing on the UKIP odds.

Edited: Would be in the poor house dutching Lib Dem/Con in Burton !

People that want it to continue to surge are the extremists.

Its amazing how the situation is changed. Your graphic shows that in the 1960s and 1970s here was net emigration. Did that make the immigration easier to handle?

Its Ed Miliband's policies that I cannot fathom really. Ok, be the solid (if not hard) left type but come up with something better than banning zero hours contracts and nationalising railway trains (both of which are arguably doing fine if with some inevitable abuses that can be ironed out).
Its the tory equivalent of banning the BBC or privatising forests

Shadsy - please would you consider offering a market for banded SNP seats at the GE as you have done for the other parties? Not wishing to do your job for you, but I had in mind something along the lines of :

0 - 7 seats ....... Evens
8 - 10 seats ..... 6/4
11+ seats ......... 9/2

Whaddya think?

Richard_Nabavi said:

The weakness in Ed's approach, though, is obvious: at some point, he'll have to choose a policy direction. He is either leaving it to absolutely the last moment, or (perhaps more likely) hoping to get away with avoiding it altogether before the GE.

This, I suspect. If he sets policies out in advance, he may gain or he may take a hit if they get ripped to shreds. If he sets out no policies he takes a trivial hit ("'E ain't got no bleedin' policies") but the bigger hit need never happen because his inbuilt electoral advantage may waft him into power without any.

Let's face it, the 35% or so of votes he needs are not, on the whole, thoughtful people carefully considering the offerings of the various parties and choosing the one they think is best. They're Labour's core of 28% or so plus another 7% who'd vote Labour if they can be arsed on the day. If you present them with Michael Foot or Gordon Brown you get just the 28% and if you present them with Tony Liar you get the 35, 36% kind of result.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Charles Clarke: 'Neil Kinnock Had Far More Qualities Than Ed Miliband As A Leader

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/07/10/charles-clarke-ed-miliband-interview_n_5574103.html?1405334984

Edit: I like John Rentoul's take on it

John Rentoul ‏@JohnRentoul 2m

Neil Kinnock was a friend of his. EdM is no Neil Kinnock, says Charles Clarke http://m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/5574103?1405334984 …

Ah, but Kinnock didn't unfortunately have Ed's intellecutal self-confidence that we all so admire.

BobaFett said:

@Carlotta

So Dave had nothing to do with it then?

So everything the government gets wrong is Cameron's fault?

In any case Cameron is at Farnborough today, so this talk of "delayed reshuffles because of botched appointment" is just delusional horse feathers from the confirmed haters.....


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28289331

BobaFett said:

@JamesBond

What pompous, prejudiced garbage.

Presumably you reserve similar opprobrium for David, who also stood against his own brother. Or do you believe older brothers should get preference?

They are as odious as each other.

My older brother died 3 years ago, thanks, but he wouldn't have done the same to me either. We'd both have passed rather than do each other over.

That you do not understand this speaks volumes about you.

edmundintokyo said:

Bond_James_Bond said:

In no circumstances would I ever apply for a job if my getting it meant my brother did not.

So neither of you would apply for the job? Or do you guys have some kind of precedence rule?

Correct. If it meant doing your own brother over, neither of us would apply.

The Milibands instead figured screw my brother, give me the job. Says it all.

Socrates said:

BobaFett said:

Socrates said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

@Socrates - You should really try to understand what is proposed before going off your trolley. Admittedly the Beeb (as so often) are not terribly coherent in that article.

There is a clearer account here:

http://www.onmedica.com/newsarticle.aspx?id=cd8ff2d4-b164-4e7d-a89c-e79bd38471c1

If I've got a wrong impression of things based on a misleading BBC article, then I apologise. Lines like "Patients from outside the EU are to be charged 150% of the cost of treatment in the NHS in a fresh crackdown on so-called "health tourism" certainly sound like they are applying to all non-EU citizens using the NHS.

"For those who are temporary migrants from outside the EEA and are here for longer than six months, a new health surcharge will be applied when they submit an application for leave to enter or remain in the UK. This surcharge could generate up to £200 million per annum in the future."

Is this the £200 increase in visa fees already announced?

As I have said before, your views on such matters are hard to take seriously given that you appear to favour almost zero immigration.

It's hard to see how your analyses aren't coloured by that overarching worldview.

Your views on any issue are hard to take seriously given that you supported the 1997-2010 Labour government, whose most significant actions in office were to wreck the social fabric of this country by mass immigration from the third world, dodge a referendum to hand over swathes of sovereignty to Brussels, ramp up public and private debt more than any other G7 economy, utterly fail to regulate the financial sector and plunging the country into financial crisis, and lie about weapons of mass destruction to enter into a reckless war in the Middle East.

I think that puts a needlessly positive gloss on Labour's achievements.

The main thing they did was to make lying respectable.

Sean_F said:

GIN1138 said:

Interesting thread discussion:

Could the Conservative Party go bust if there's mass litigation of abuse victims?

The man who claims to have procured boys for Conservative ministers sounds like a complete fantasist to me.

He would also be admitting to having committed a very serious criminal offence, if he were telling the truth. Another reason for me to believe that he isn't.

The same thought crossed my mind at the time the article first appeared - he was either admitting to procuring these alleged 'victims' or he didn't, in which case the alleged incident never took place. Perhaps further questions need to be asked of his involvement when the inquiry eventually starts.

Socrates said:

edmundintokyo said:

Socrates said:

BobaFett said:

isam said:

BobaFett said:

Socrates said:

If I've got a wrong impression of things based on a misleading BBC article, then I apologise. Lines like "Patients from outside the EU are to be charged 150% of the cost of treatment in the NHS in a fresh crackdown on so-called "health tourism" certainly sound like they are applying to all non-EU citizens using the NHS.

"For those who are temporary migrants from outside the EEA and are here for longer than six months, a new health surcharge will be applied when they submit an application for leave to enter or remain in the UK. This surcharge could generate up to £200 million per annum in the future."

Is this the £200 increase in visa fees already announced?

As I have said before, your views on such matters are hard to take seriously given that you appear to favour almost zero immigration.

It's hard to see how your analyses aren't coloured by that overarching worldview.

Being against mass immigration doesn't mean almost zero immigration , gross misrepresentation

I realise that. Nevertheless, my sense is that Socrates is indeed in favour of near zero immigration.

Your views are perhaps quite different.

Here are the numbers for immigration over the last half century. Apologies for lack of precision - I'm reading off a graph:

1965: 200,000
1970: 220,000
1975: 200,000
1980: 180,000
1985: 230,000
1990: 260,000
1995: 220,000
2000: 380,000
2005: 500,000
2010: 570,000

Source: Page 222 here: http://www.eufreshstart.org/downloads/immigration-chapter.pdf

My preference for immigration would be in the 1965-1995 range. People that want it to continue to surge are the extremists.

I'm pretty sure if you polled voters with a neutral question asking for the appropriate number you'd find you were way out on the extreme pro-immigration end. Sometimes the voters just don't know what they're doing.

Only because they've never had chance to look into the facts. If you gave them some basic details on those numbers, they'd probably say similar numbers to what I have, or slightly below that.

The people that really need to justify themselves as those that think we need immigration at three times the rate of what we had during the mid-1990s economic boom.

If you're selectively feeding them facts you can get pretty much any answer you like.

Richard_Nabavi said:

Pulpstar said:

If you backed 100-1 shots in all seats at the GE you'd end up with a massive loss I expect.

Yes, certainly. However that is a slightly different point - odds for long-shots are usually too mean.

You mean like the 50/1 I got an Obama, the 33/1 bets on Galloway in Bradford & EdM for LAB leader and the my lay at 1.01 on Romney in Colorado primary.

I do wonder about the intelligence of ministers. Mark Francois Defence minister believes that it should not be difficult to recruit 75,000 to join the TA by 2018/19, as this was done in the 1980's with a smaller population.

I would have thought that the nature of most peoples working lifes has changed since the 1980's, with work less secure. Also we have had reserves deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq etc, so it is much more likely for reserves to face active duty than they did in the 1980's.

Seems to me that the government are being overly optimistic, because they don't have the budget for full time armed forces personnel.

Conservative Majority available @ 3.85 to lay on Betfair still.

DavidL said:

MikeSmithson said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

Pulpstar said:

If you backed 100-1 shots in all seats at the GE you'd end up with a massive loss I expect.

Yes, certainly. However that is a slightly different point - odds for long-shots are usually too mean.

You mean like the 50/1 I got an Obama, the 33/1 bets on Galloway in Bradford & EdM for LAB leader and the my lay at 1.01 on Romney in Colorado primary.

You got 50/1on Obama? Wow. You have never said.

Modesty is OGH’s middle name..! ; )

peter_from_putney said:

Pulpstar said:

peter_from_putney said:

Shadsy - please would you consider offering a market for banded SNP seats at the GE as you have done for the other parties? Not wishing to do your job for you, but I had in mind something along the lines of :

0 - 7 seats ....... Evens
8 - 10 seats ..... 6/4
11+ seats ......... 9/2

Whaddya think?

6.5+ is priced at 4-6,

6.5- at 6-5

Yes indeed, I thought my suggestion might just make things just a little more interesting, rather than simply offering line betting.

I think those are accurate but I feel SNP individual seat bets offer better value.

TCPoliticalBetting said:

Pulpstar said:

Hmm I've just stuck £10 on the SNP in Caithness Sutherland & Easter Ross @ 6-1 and Gordon @ 5-4
Caithness will be massive result (And is better value I think) but I'd expect Gordon to fall (And to the SNP)

Has John Thurso been reselected or is he thinking of standing down?

Hmm I thought he'd restand

Contador abandons le Tour after crashing.

Live Now

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28290730

Theresa May is giving evidence to the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee on the "Work of the Home Secretary".

In her quarterly appearance, the home secretary is expected to face questions on extremism in schools, passports and historical child abuse allegations

slade said:

Contador abandons le Tour after crashing.

Ffsake was avoiding updates on the Tour as was going to watch it when got home ><

Now, I knew that socialists hate the UK and everything it stands for. But today I have learned that they also hate their families. I never realised. They are really are the lowest of the low.

First Froome, now Contador - this was looking like the best Tour in years too ><

On the Tory whistleblower, it may be wise to wait for corroboration.....

Mr Gilberthorpe, is frank about the battles he has fought with bankruptcy and depression and frustrations over his failed political ambitions.

Last night he said: “Yes, I was very angry about how the Tory party had used me and then later snubbed me. But none of that alters what I saw.

“Yes, I have had my fair share of issues and problems in the past but it doesn’t change what happened and what I saw those men doing.”

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-child-abuse-whistleblower-margaret-3849172#ixzz37S6nMq4w

CarlottaVance said:

On the Tory whistleblower, it may be wise to wait for corroboration.....

Mr Gilberthorpe, is frank about the battles he has fought with bankruptcy and depression and frustrations over his failed political ambitions.

Last night he said: “Yes, I was very angry about how the Tory party had used me and then later snubbed me. But none of that alters what I saw.

“Yes, I have had my fair share of issues and problems in the past but it doesn’t change what happened and what I saw those men doing.”

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-child-abuse-whistleblower-margaret-3849172#ixzz37S6nMq4w

Sounds like the kind of thing people said about troubled/badly behaved kids from children's homes who report they were abused by celebrities

Celebrity charity campaigners word against a kid who's been caught thieving?

Edited.

F1: sounds like Force India have vetoed the agreement/consensus of most other teams to keep FRIC suspension. If they're the only team nearish the top not to run it, the relative running order may be more or less unaffected (excepting Force India). Fine for most, probably bad news for Ferrari in the Constructors'.

isam said:

CarlottaVance said:

On the Tory whistleblower, it may be wise to wait for corroboration.....

Mr Gilberthorpe, is frank about the battles he has fought with bankruptcy and depression and frustrations over his failed political ambitions.

Last night he said: “Yes, I was very angry about how the Tory party had used me and then later snubbed me. But none of that alters what I saw.

“Yes, I have had my fair share of issues and problems in the past but it doesn’t change what happened and what I saw those men doing.”

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-child-abuse-whistleblower-margaret-3849172#ixzz37S6nMq4w

Sounds like the kind of thing people said about troubled/badly behaved kids from children's homes who report they were abused by celebrities

Celebrity charity campaigners word against a kid who's been caught thieving?

That may be so. However, just because child abuse really does exist, it doesn't follow that each and every accusation is true. Allegations of ritual Satanic abuse, for example, turned out to be unfounded.

If Gilberthorpe really is telling the truth, then he should go to the police.

Sean_F said:

That may be so. However, just because child abuse really does exist, it doesn't follow that each and every accusation is true. Allegations of ritual Satanic abuse, for example, turned out to be unfounded.

A more relevant example is the libellous and wholly unfounded allegation against poor old Lord McAlpine, which the media and the left took up with such disgusting enthusiasm. You'd have thought they'd have learnt a lesson from that unsavoury episode, but apparently not.

BobaFett said:

@TC
So Ed should have stood aside purely as a consequence of an accident of birth, that he happens to be younger?

He knew his brother was going to stand, he may even have disuaded his brother from standing against Brown a year or two before. But it comes down to the principles of how you view people should act with regard to their family. Mine are different to yours.

@Shadsy notes a long odds winner.

I'm still waiting for him to post prices on Mike Smithson winning the Tour de France whilst wearing Burnley FC lycra and jointed sponsored by UKIP, John Rentoul and the Belgravia Hair Centre.