politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Tories drop 5 and UKIP up 3 in this week’s Ashcroft nationa

Dat volatility.

Labour = India
Tories = England

So no "Nicky Morgan bounce" for the Conservatives?

As each week ticks by, the closer Ed gets to No. 10.

MrJones said:

FPT

MarkHopkins said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

MikeK said:

Agence France-Presse ‏@AFP 8m
Russian records show a Ukrainian Su-25 fighter jet was flying close to #MH17 before it crashed, senior Russian military official says

Russia is now coming up with evidence (fabricated?) that it was the Ukrainians wot dun it.

What's the evidence the Russians did it?

Do you mean the Russian supported rebels?

1. Russian supplied anti-aircraft missiles in rebel locations.
2. Missile launched from rebel area.
3. MH17 was flying East away from Ukraine and no threat to them.
4. Rebels had already shot down previous planes (similar size and height).
5. Rebels claimed then withdrew twitter statement that they shot a plane down there.

Enough?

Point (3). There's a Ukrainian army formation stuck in a pocket near the eastern border with Russia that is (was) being supplied by air. The Antonov transport plane that was shot down recently was flying to that pocket so point (3) doesn't necessarily apply (although it would depend on whether or not MH17's course was in the direction of that pocket).

http://www.jacdec.de/2014/07/14/2014-07-14-ukraine-air-force-antonov-an-26-shot-down-in-eastern-ukraine/

"There is speculation the AN-26 was hit by a russian anti-aircraft rocket because the pro russian militia in the region is lacking missile equipment that can reach such altitudes the aircraft was flying at."

Interesting...

FPT:

The Greens deserve an article I reckon. Not only are they reaching new heights of national support, but they are doing it without any media presence from their leader. Crossover (as a one-off, granted) with the LDs is practically inevitable at some point.

Interesting that according to Ashcroft people still voting LD would rather have Cameron as PM than Clegg. It's a mistake to keep him until the election. He'll be blamed for the 2010 losses even if he is replaced before, may as well give the new guy time to get used to the role before possible coalition negotiations.

I can't help feeling that Lord Ashcroft winces a little and gets a terrible sinking feeling every time he gets these results handed to him, presumably on a silver salver by a man in white gloves.

blackburn63 said:

Oh dear, looks like Cameron's reshuffle designed to see off UKIP has backfired.

It does look that way doesn't it? I thought the reshuffle would be more likely to drive Conservative voters away than attract back those who already had gone (see Charles Moore's article in the Telegraph for reasons), but as Mr OllyT said on the last thread Cameron doesn't have a principle that can't be shifted by a focus group or, perhaps, an opinion poll.

So MoE and all that accepted I am not in the least surprised that the Conservative figure is down to 27%. It probably ain't that low in reality, maybe 30%. However, Cameron still has another nine months and there are still some groups of voters he hasn't yet gone out of his way to piss off. He will get there.

Quincel said:

FPT:

The Greens deserve an article I reckon. Not only are they reaching new heights of national support, but they are doing it without any media presence from their leader. Crossover (as a one-off, granted) with the LDs is practically inevitable at some point.

Yes, agree... Is it due to Lib Dem defectors do you think? An easy switch from Havainas to Birkenstocks?

Lord Ashcroft's use of his personal fortune to fund political research is highly commendable. I do however wonder whether the money might be better spent on the welfare of cats and dogs.

Richard_Nabavi said:

Contrary to what Mike says in the header, this is well within MOE of the average of recent Ashcroft polls, given his small sample size.

I don't think anything is changing much at the moment, and nor would I expect much change over the summer when people are focused on other things. We need to wait until first IndyRef, and then the conferences, have happened, and start looking for trends from (say) November. It is that last six months which will determine the outcome.

Of course, the above assumes no major dislocations from domestic or international affairs, which may turn out to be a wrong assumption, given the current headlines.

BTW How's the 'brush-by' going?

1,000 isn't particularly small, it's what the gold standard uses!

Hugh said:

Quincel said:

FPT:

The Greens deserve an article I reckon. Not only are they reaching new heights of national support, but they are doing it without any media presence from their leader. Crossover (as a one-off, granted) with the LDs is practically inevitable at some point.

Completely agree. They're doing exceptionally well at the moment, a genuine anti-establishment mini-UKIP of the left could upset the apple cart even more.

Utter tosh , the Green % in all council by elections in July is just 4% .

Time for Lord A to stop wasting his money on these polls methinks

Richard_Nabavi said:

RobD said:

1,000 isn't particularly small, it's what the gold standard uses!

It's less than 500 after excluding Don't knows/Won't says, and the effective sample size is further reduced by weighting up certain demographic groups.

Ah thanks, hadn't considered that.

blackburn63 said:

Whoever Cameron listens to is not in touch with traditional tories, I honestly wonder who he is trying to appeal to. In reaching out to his perceived wider audience he's alienating his core. Great news for us lot

Ukip voters seem to be motivated by a hatred of spin and PC, so why Cameron thought transparent promotion on the basis of gender to fill a quota was going to move things in his favour is puzzling.

I would have thought Gove was popular with kippers too. Any polling on that?

Hugh said:

Few years ago is was - second half of the Parliament will determine the outcome.
Few months ago it was - the last year will determine the outcome.

Citation needed, but it's certainly true that the Labour lead has already dropped considerably over the past few months.

I would have thought Gove was popular with kippers too. Any polling on that?

Rather, he annoyed the cr*p out of people UKIP really don;t like

BobaFett said:

I agree with you, and all your points below. But isn't the above the same for ICM?

Broadly yes, although they do seem to be less volatile (perhaps because their adjustments to the raw samples are better calibrated). Maybe we're just less aware of ICM volatility because they come out less often, and so we are more likely to (wrongly) attribute changes to real shifts in sentiment.

For example, the Labour lead according to ICM went from +5 to -2 between April and May. I'm inclined to the view that actually nothing much had changed.

BenM said:

Britain's worst political pundit, Dan Hodges, will be having kittens.

Just hope he doesn't change his mind. Increasing Lab leads as disastrous for Ed as a disastrous thing.

ARSE competing with DH for the title IMHO JackW previous good record will be dented by

One essential that will not change is that :

Ed Miliband Will Never Become Prime Minister

JacW 22/6/14

Early days yet but my BJESUS looking OK at this stage

taffys said:

I have seen a tweet on ConHome saying Ashcroft is releasing a 14,000 sample poll of tory held marginals tomorrow....

That'll be fun. What were the national polls showing when he last did it, so we can compare?

BobaFett said:

@Isam

I thought it was you who once masqueraded under the moniker Sam before trying to pull the wool over our eyes by cunningly changing your name to Isam?

That was over a year ago! How would you know???? Moderator, it's against the rules to accuse me of being someone else!!! Boo hoo mummy!!

Yes I did, but obviously am not pretending not to be Sam, and only changed because the old login and password wouldn't work on new computer.

What's your excuse?!

SouthamObserver said:

Nick Griffin ousted as BNP leader apparently. Anyone know for sure?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28408039

Lord Ashcroft (@LordAshcroft)
21/07/2014 17:08
Should the Tory Party suspend taking donations from companies owned by Russians.

HurstLlama said:

blackburn63 said:

Oh dear, looks like Cameron's reshuffle designed to see off UKIP has backfired.

It does look that way doesn't it? I thought the reshuffle would be more likely to drive Conservative voters away than attract back those who already had gone (see Charles Moore's article in the Telegraph for reasons), but as Mr OllyT said on the last thread Cameron doesn't have a principle that can't be shifted by a focus group or, perhaps, an opinion poll.

So MoE and all that accepted I am not in the least surprised that the Conservative figure is down to 27%. It probably ain't that low in reality, maybe 30%. However, Cameron still has another nine months and there are still some groups of voters he hasn't yet gone out of his way to piss off. He will get there.

Continuing the discussion from the last thread, "Big Bang" was Thatcher's cornerstone financial policy.

Quoting from Wiki:

"Although the "Big Bang" eased stock market transactions there is a debate in the UK about how far it affected the 2007–2012 global financial crisis. In 2010, Nigel Lawson, Thatcher's Chancellor at the time, appeared on the Analysis program to discuss banking reform, explaining that the 2007–2012 global financial crisis was an unintended consequence of the "Big Bang". He said that UK investment banks, previously very cautious with what was their own money, had merged with high street banks putting depositors' savings at risk and ...according to the program leading US banks to follow suit".

I guess if anyone should know, Lawson is the man. Far more significant than anything Brown did, though his actions hardly improved matters.

Apart from anything else, this sort of bar-chart is much better than the boring all-green ones

TGOHF said:

bigjohnowls said:

BenM said:

Britain's worst political pundit, Dan Hodges, will be having kittens.

Just hope he doesn't change his mind. Increasing Lab leads as disastrous for Ed as a disastrous thing.

ARSE competing with DH for the title IMHO JackW previous good record will be dented by

One essential that will not change is that :

Ed Miliband Will Never Become Prime Minister

JacW 22/6/14

Early days yet but my BJESUS looking OK at this stage

BJO calls Jack W "britain's worst political pundit" ?

Brave.

Anyone who states "One essential that will not change is that Ed will never become PM" with such certainty is indeed "Brave" especially since his ARSE predictions are approaching nearer to crossover in most seats as each one is published.

I am not certain EIC will be PM but certainly the polls are pointing that way with 10.5 months to go. My BJESUS tomorrow will be consistent with all 5 published so far and will have Ed as biggest party with tiny overall majority. If the polls tighten soon this will impact on my BJESUS. I would not be at all surprised if Ed does not get a majority but i would be very surprised if LAB are not biggest party.

Myself and JackW are about 30 seats apart we will see who is right and who is wrong. JackW has DH on his side which is comforting!

TGOHF said:

JohnLoony said:

Apart from anything else, this sort of bar-chart is much better than the boring all-green ones

Love the use of bright pink for Ukip ...

One of us is colourblind

''Continuing the discussion from the last thread, "Big Bang" was Thatcher's cornerstone financial policy.''

I owe my career to big bang, for what its worth. Before it the City was a tiny and ineffectual club for chinless wonders. After Big Bang the Japanese and Americans moved in, and guess what, they didn't care what tie you wore or which regiment you served in.

This is where people get Mrs Thatcher so wrong. She was happy to eviscerate the old City, no matter how many well connected chaps it shook to the core. She didn't like upper class vested interest any more than trade union vested interest, or civil service vested interest.

Rather depressing walking past the newsstands in full 'Putin is going to eat your baby' mode. One does hope that people will adopt the same healthy cynicism that helped us avoid bombing Syria, but I feel that the media hatchet job on Putin has been too thorough and extreme. Also worth noting the utter demonisation and dehumanisation of the rebels. Grotesque distortion on an unprecedented scale.

@taffys

'BTW How's the 'brush-by' going?

Surely Washington would be keen to court what labour posters think is the British Prime Minister in waiting?'

A brush off ?

OllyT said:

HurstLlama said:

blackburn63 said:

Oh dear, looks like Cameron's reshuffle designed to see off UKIP has backfired.

It does look that way doesn't it? I thought the reshuffle would be more likely to drive Conservative voters away than attract back those who already had gone (see Charles Moore's article in the Telegraph for reasons), but as Mr OllyT said on the last thread Cameron doesn't have a principle that can't be shifted by a focus group or, perhaps, an opinion poll.

So MoE and all that accepted I am not in the least surprised that the Conservative figure is down to 27%. It probably ain't that low in reality, maybe 30%. However, Cameron still has another nine months and there are still some groups of voters he hasn't yet gone out of his way to piss off. He will get there.

Continuing the discussion from the last thread, "Big Bang" was Thatcher's cornerstone financial policy.

Quoting from Wiki:

"Although the "Big Bang" eased stock market transactions there is a debate in the UK about how far it affected the 2007–2012 global financial crisis. In 2010, Nigel Lawson, Thatcher's Chancellor at the time, appeared on the Analysis program to discuss banking reform, explaining that the 2007–2012 global financial crisis was an unintended consequence of the "Big Bang". He said that UK investment banks, previously very cautious with what was their own money, had merged with high street banks putting depositors' savings at risk and ...according to the program leading US banks to follow suit".

I guess if anyone should know, Lawson is the man. Far more significant than anything Brown did, though his actions hardly improved matters.

Sorry, old chap, quoting Wikki doesn't answer the question. I know about the big bang, I was alive and sentient at the time. The question I asked was specifically what measure(s) of Thatchers administration brought about the banking crisis nearly twenty years later. Your saying there was such, I am saying really, which. Once we have established that we can move on to what Brown did about it and the effect of his revised supervisory structure.

Any joy on when Regan repealed the Glass-Stegall Act, by the way?

isam said:

BobaFett said:

@Sam

I thought it was a low down dirty trick trying to rebrand yourself as Isam. I read it wrong and thought it was Islam. Impersonating an entire religion. Downright disgraceful behaviour.

I noticed that it resembled Islam, not deliberate.

While we are on the subject, I think it is an interesting paradox that left wingers won't hear a word said against Islam despite Muslims being very intolerant of many lefty favourites(equality for women and gays etc) while right wingers seem to have it in for Muslims despite them sharing many old fashioned values that they want to preserve ( marriage, discipline in schools)

We're all a bit different on this and it doesn't divide that tidily. I'm sceptical of religion, and the more dogmatic the religion the more sceptical I am. On the other hand, I'm reluctant to portray all followers of any particular religion as having common characteristics, and think that a bad habit more common on the right, because it's a habit that carries over from national stereotyping. But I feel very much at home with conservatives who say we should treat people as individuals without generalising (I'm also critical of far-left types who categorise all posh people or all businessmen as enemies).

I have good friends who are charismatic Christians (speaking in tongues and all that) and devout Muslims. I think some of their beliefs are strange and they think my absence of belief is sad (one of the Christians says he feels it's a shame I'll probably go to hell, and he hopes he can yet save me). But primarily they're just nice people and I dislike anyone making assumptions about them.