politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » If the Tories get a good turnout in the Rochester all posta

edmundintokyo said:

OldKingCole said:

On topic, I’ve asked before why any party should run all-elector primaries. I don’t care very much who the Tory candidate is; I’m wildly unlikely to vote for him or her. Indeed, if I did bother to vote I’d probably vote for the least attractive candidate on the grounds that if they were the actual Parliamentary candidate it would give someone from the Left a better chance. If I were a Kipper in R&S I’d vote for the more liberal Tory on preceisely those grounds!

The obvious endgame here is that all the parties do a primary and the ERS or whoever do them all in one go. So each voter gets a single envelope, with a ballot for each party, but they're only allowed to return one.

Douglas Carswell advocated piggy-backing party primaries onto local elections. With political parties picking up the additional cost.

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2009-10-13c.166.0&s=open+primaries+speaker:11621#g166.2

@taffys
I keep forgetting that some on PB think "geography" is about Britain's former empire.
If you lived in Bala, which hospital would you choose for major surgery, Cardiff, or Liverpool?

TGOHF said:

bigjohnowls said:

TGOHF said:

bigjohnowls said:

philiph said:

BenM said:

taffys said:

Good facts in that response BenM. As per normal the Daily Mail peddling crap

You may made the NHS the central plank of your offering. It's inevitable your performance in government is going to be scrutinised.

This is just the start.

Peddling inaccurate drivel in the Daily Mail isn't going to overturn people's well justified scepticism about the Tories competence in handling the NHS.

Since it was founded how many years has the NHS survived under:

1 Labour Administration
2 Conservative Administration
3 Coalition Administration

I think history shows it is able to survive and sometimes flourish under any administration.

There has never been a £30bn black hole in the history of the NHS until now.

So why is it so much worse in Wales than England ?

It isn't.

Why do Welsh people opt for treatment in England and not vice versa ?

Exodus of patients from English NHS to Wales increases by 12% in a year, as Wales residents shun English NHS numbers down by 9,000

Ignore the Daily Mail FFS

bigjohnowls said:

TGOHF said:

bigjohnowls said:

TGOHF said:

bigjohnowls said:

philiph said:

BenM said:

taffys said:

Good facts in that response BenM. As per normal the Daily Mail peddling crap

You may made the NHS the central plank of your offering. It's inevitable your performance in government is going to be scrutinised.

This is just the start.

Peddling inaccurate drivel in the Daily Mail isn't going to overturn people's well justified scepticism about the Tories competence in handling the NHS.

Since it was founded how many years has the NHS survived under:

1 Labour Administration
2 Conservative Administration
3 Coalition Administration

I think history shows it is able to survive and sometimes flourish under any administration.

There has never been a £30bn black hole in the history of the NHS until now.

So why is it so much worse in Wales than England ?

It isn't.

Why do Welsh people opt for treatment in England and not vice versa ?

Exodus of patients from English NHS to Wales increases by 12% in a year, as Wales residents shun English NHS numbers down by 9,000

Ignore the Daily Mail FFS

Just remember Gordon Brown was sooo chummy with the editor of the Daily Mail.

Further reason to ignore Gordon Brown.

Gordon Brown, however, was smiled upon as no other politician had ever been. The two men developed a strange friendship, involving meals together and walks in the park, which one Mail columnist described to me as “the attraction of the two weirdest boys in the playground”. Brown, Dacre told Hagerty, was “touched by the mantle of greatness . . . he is a genuinely good man . . . a compassionate man . . . an original thinker . . . of enormous willpower and courage”.

At a Savoy Hotel event to celebrate Dacre’s first ten years as editor, Brown was almost equally effusive, describing the Mail editor as showing “great personal warmth and kindness . . . as well as great journalistic skill”.

“We tried to tell Dacre,” says a former Mail political reporter, “that Brown was not a very good chancellor and the economy would implode eventually. But frankly, Dacre has poor political judgement. They were united by a mutual hatred of Blair. Both are social conservatives; they’re both suspicious of foreigners; they both have a kind of Presbyterian morality. Dacre would say that Brown believes in work. It’s typical of him that he seizes on a single word as the key to his understanding of someone else.”

http://www.newstatesman.com/media/2013/12/man-who-hates-liberal-britain

On topic I notice Anna Firth this morning tweeted that there has been a lot of interest in the primary this week. Whether this will translates into the 15% - 20% turnout Mike mentions is another matter.

Incidentally I am not so sure the two candidates are that similar. Anna Firth describes herself as a traditional conservative whereas Kelly Tolhurst has some views that are not in the Conservative mainstream unless you are Baroness Warsi. Anna comes from Sevenoaks and is a well spoken barrister who can apparently project her voice remarkably well. She was in the running as candidate for Thanet South so in that sense she has "been around". She is also a married mother of three whereas Kelly I think has no children, is a local business woman (daughter of a boat builder) and speaks in the Medway vernacular. Kelly is new to the parliamentary candidate selection process and as such might stand a better chance of being chosen via a primary contest than with a vote by local Tory members. She has attracted the more flak of the two especially over her role as a local councillor. Of course that simply may be because Ukip sense Kelly might present the slightly greater threat to Reckless's chances.

The PSBR figures are disappointing, I don't think that can be disputed. It should be a major concern for any political party which thinks they might have a role in government after May that exceptional growth is simply not producing the additional taxes that might be expected. It strongly suggests that deficit reduction is going to be harder, involving more tax increases and more cuts in public spending than had been hoped.

So why are they so much worse given growth well north of 3%?

Firstly, I think the government has overreached itself with increases in personal allowances. Not enough people are paying into the pot any more and a vastly disproportionate number of the newly employed are not paying in at all.

Secondly, this increase in low paid employment combined with policies focused on making work pay has meant that many of the newly employed are getting more benefits from being employed than they got when they were unemployed.

Thirdly, the increase in low paid employment has been so massive that it is reducing the average increase in wages across the economy. Whilst many in work are in fact doing better the overall average is falling in real terms.

Fourthly, other revenues, such as North Sea oil, have disappointed.

Of course if the revisals had not been made to last year's figures reducing the deficit by over £14 bn we would actually be doing marginally better than last year rather than worse. But we are simply not managing to rebalance our economy in the way we need to. No doubt Ed Balls will be announcing another round of cuts in spending after the election in the next week or two to compensate.

MikeK said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

TGOHF said:

michaelcollins10 said:

Dadge said:

I'm surprised that this postal primary is legal. Sending ballots to everyone in the seat is tantamount to junk mail or spamming. Certainly I think there's a very strong case that it should be counted under election expenses, since it's advertising the party and the candidate. Hopefully once the lawyers have got their teeth into it, it'll be the last time it happens.

Michael Crick thinks it's dodgy!

http://blogs.channel4.com/michael-crick-on-politics/lawyers-judges-overturn-tory-victory-rochester/4541

That must be why Ukip didn't have one in Clacton or R&S then ?? ...

If UKIP tried to overturn a Tory victory in Rochester & Strood, it would be sooo funny.

Poor Douglas Carswell look like complete and utter scumbag if he condoned such an action.

The whining from Kippers could be harnessed into an energy source to end our dependency on foreign and Scottish oil.

You can't have it all ways, TSE. either it's a fair and equal election for all, or Cameron is using his usual lubricious ways to gain an extra edge. If the Tories are caught being dodgy and illegal, I hope UKIP sue the pants off them.

See further proof of that energy source that could be harnessed.

anotherDave said:

This is interesting.

"NIGEL Farage has revealed that the UK Independence Party’s general election strategy will be significantly swayed by its success or failure in the South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner by-election."

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/main-topics/politics/ukip-on-the-march-in-the-north-farage-1-6905686

They aren't being very active in my neck of the woods, I've received literature from the Tory candidate and the Labour candidate.

That said, I can't see Dore being very fertile for UKIP.

And as one of your fellow Kippers said on here, the UKIP candidate isn't very impressive, if he's representative, you can see why South Yorkshire police are held in such low regard.

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Eagles, I recently got some electoral stuff (a faux newspaper) from the Conservatives. Bit surprised, but there's been a fair amount, for the off-season, from both them and Balls over the years since the last election.

I think both the Tories and Labour don't know what to make of the last result. Notional majority of 10k, becomes a majority of 1k.

Not surprised both are throwing a lot of effort into your seat.

isam said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

TGOHF said:

Not quite Latvian Homophobes but...

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/20/ukip-does-deal-with-far-right-to-save-european-grouping

"Ukip has struck a deal with a Polish MEP whose far-right party leader casually uses racial slurs and questions the Holocaust following fears that its grouping in Europe would lose millions of pounds in taxpayers’ funds."

I linked to that in nighthawks.

What a lovely chap

In July, he declared in English that the minimum wage should be “destroyed” and said that “four million n*ggers” lost their jobs in the US as a result of President John F Kennedy signing a bill on the minimum wage in 1961.

He went on to claim that 20 million young Europeans were being treated as “negroes” as a result of the minimum wage. He refused to apologise and was fined 10 days of allowances for his comments.

To be clear, the person you are quoting isn't the MEP that has joined the UKIP group is he?

He is not, but the other piece I read, is that he didn't condemn the comments either.

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Eagles, sizeable (but distant third) Lib Dem vote for others to eat into as well. UKIP did well last time (4-5k votes, I think, off the top of my head), and the BNP's 1k or so will vanish.

I'd still expect Balls to increase his majority fairly easily. UKIP are on the up and the Conservatives are in office. The only potential pitfall for Balls here is if UKIP take more Labour sorts than Conservatives.

As I've mentioned before, I may write a piece entitled Ed Balls - My Part In His Downfall if he loses.

Had Balls and Darling lost last time, I was going to write a book called

"Were you up for Balls Darling?"

Itajai said:

anotherDave said:

This is interesting.

"NIGEL Farage has revealed that the UK Independence Party’s general election strategy will be significantly swayed by its success or failure in the South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner by-election."

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/main-topics/politics/ukip-on-the-march-in-the-north-farage-1-6905686

When will it be?

Next Thursday

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Eagles, sizeable (but distant third) Lib Dem vote for others to eat into as well. UKIP did well last time (4-5k votes, I think, off the top of my head), and the BNP's 1k or so will vanish.

I'd still expect Balls to increase his majority fairly easily. UKIP are on the up and the Conservatives are in office. The only potential pitfall for Balls here is if UKIP take more Labour sorts than Conservatives.

As I've mentioned before, I may write a piece entitled Ed Balls - My Part In His Downfall if he loses.

If a poll came out showing UKIP ahead ((Significantly) Of the Tories) in your patch, would you vote for them ?

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Eagles, why didn't he get the gig this time?

I don't think he went for it, I think he foresees a life outside politics

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/21/oscar-pistorius-jail-sentence-imprisonment#start-of-comments

Bit of hand wringing from Simon Jenkins to kick the day off.

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Pulpstar, there's a difficult question.

It'd depend on a few things:
how far from the vote it was
whether it was similar to other polls
how close to Labour the UKIP vote was
what the UKIP candidate was like

My priority is axing Balls. Voting UKIP, if I believe they stood the best chance of getting rid of him, would not be difficult.

I don't think that's a likely occurrence, though.

Edited extra bit: cheers for the answer, Mr. Eagles.

My local MP is Natascha Engels, for a Labourite she's not bad actually - so given its a fairly safe Labour Hold my vote won't be particularly tactical. I'm undecided between the yellow peril, the purples and the blues at the moment.
To vote Lib Dem or not to vote Lib Dem might be the most important here as I think their deposit will be on a knife edge.

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Pulpstar, there's a difficult question.

It'd depend on a few things:
how far from the vote it was
whether it was similar to other polls
how close to Labour the UKIP vote was
what the UKIP candidate was like

My priority is axing Balls. Voting UKIP, if I believe they stood the best chance of getting rid of him, would not be difficult.

I don't think that's a likely occurrence, though.

Edited extra bit: cheers for the answer, Mr. Eagles.

20/1 is a good price on UKIP there IMO

Peter_the_Punter said:

RobC said:

DavidL said:

The PSBR figures are disappointing, I don't think that can be disputed. It should be a major concern for any political party which thinks they might have a role in government after May that exceptional growth is simply not producing the additional taxes that might be expected. It strongly suggests that deficit reduction is going to be harder, involving more tax increases and more cuts in public spending than had been hoped.

So why are they so much worse given growth well north of 3%?

Firstly, I think the government has overreached itself with increases in personal allowances. Not enough people are paying into the pot any more and a vastly disproportionate number of the newly employed are not paying in at all.

Secondly, this increase in low paid employment combined with policies focused on making work pay has meant that many of the newly employed are getting more benefits from being employed than they got when they were unemployed.

Thirdly, the increase in low paid employment has been so massive that it is reducing the average increase in wages across the economy. Whilst many in work are in fact doing better the overall average is falling in real terms.

Fourthly, other revenues, such as North Sea oil, have disappointed.

Of course if the revisals had not been made to last year's figures reducing the deficit by over £14 bn we would actually be doing marginally better than last year rather than worse. But we are simply not managing to rebalance our economy in the way we need to. No doubt Ed Balls will be announcing another round of cuts in spending after the election in the next week or two to compensate.

Yes some boffins need to work out how to improve the tax take in this country. There are too many anomalies remaining because income tax isn't providing the funds required - an example being the unfair stamp duty banding on property sales. So some thinking outside the box is required. In principle wealth should be taxed more heavily but Labour's revised and half hearted mansion tax doesn't do the trick that's for sure. Far too many tears are shed for people living in £3m houses on a supposedly low income. They're millionaires benefiting from huge rises in the value of their assets and they should make a proper contribution.

Remove the capital gains tax exemption on principal private residences. That'll do the trick.

It would also foster a healthier and saner property market, but somehow I think no Political Leader has the cojones to suggest it.

I agree that no politician would bring in such a measure. However, I am sceptical that it would raise the sort of sums needed and it would have side-effects that would do more harm than any good obtained.

DavidL said:

The PSBR figures are disappointing, I don't think that can be disputed. It should be a major concern for any political party which thinks they might have a role in government after May that exceptional growth is simply not producing the additional taxes that might be expected. It strongly suggests that deficit reduction is going to be harder, involving more tax increases and more cuts in public spending than had been hoped.

So why are they so much worse given growth well north of 3%?

Firstly, I think the government has overreached itself with increases in personal allowances. Not enough people are paying into the pot any more and a vastly disproportionate number of the newly employed are not paying in at all.

Secondly, this increase in low paid employment combined with policies focused on making work pay has meant that many of the newly employed are getting more benefits from being employed than they got when they were unemployed.

Thirdly, the increase in low paid employment has been so massive that it is reducing the average increase in wages across the economy. Whilst many in work are in fact doing better the overall average is falling in real terms.

Fourthly, other revenues, such as North Sea oil, have disappointed.

Of course if the revisals had not been made to last year's figures reducing the deficit by over £14 bn we would actually be doing marginally better than last year rather than worse. But we are simply not managing to rebalance our economy in the way we need to. No doubt Ed Balls will be announcing another round of cuts in spending after the election in the next week or two to compensate.

There is a tendency for the public sector deficit to get revised downwards. This time last year, borrowing seemed to be heading higher than in 2012/13.

___Bobajob___ said:

Sean_F said:

In today's Yougov poll 40% want to remain in the EU, 39% want to leave. Voters in England and Wales are slightly in favour of leaving, voters in Scotland in favour of staying. If it's that close, Northern Ireland might tip the scale in favour of leaving.

There's no chance we would vote to leave, especially on those numbers. The idea that we would vote Yes to leave the EU exists only as wild europhobe fantasy.

"No chance" seems a bold claim when there's only 1% in it either way.

The Scottish Independence campaign finished on 45%, despite polls giving them 30-35%, prior to the start of the campaign.

Sean_F said:

DavidL said:

The PSBR figures are disappointing, I don't think that can be disputed. It should be a major concern for any political party which thinks they might have a role in government after May that exceptional growth is simply not producing the additional taxes that might be expected. It strongly suggests that deficit reduction is going to be harder, involving more tax increases and more cuts in public spending than had been hoped.

So why are they so much worse given growth well north of 3%?

Firstly, I think the government has overreached itself with increases in personal allowances. Not enough people are paying into the pot any more and a vastly disproportionate number of the newly employed are not paying in at all.

Secondly, this increase in low paid employment combined with policies focused on making work pay has meant that many of the newly employed are getting more benefits from being employed than they got when they were unemployed.

Thirdly, the increase in low paid employment has been so massive that it is reducing the average increase in wages across the economy. Whilst many in work are in fact doing better the overall average is falling in real terms.

Fourthly, other revenues, such as North Sea oil, have disappointed.

Of course if the revisals had not been made to last year's figures reducing the deficit by over £14 bn we would actually be doing marginally better than last year rather than worse. But we are simply not managing to rebalance our economy in the way we need to. No doubt Ed Balls will be announcing another round of cuts in spending after the election in the next week or two to compensate.

There is a tendency for the public sector deficit to get revised downwards. This time last year, borrowing seemed to be heading higher than in 2012/13.

That is true Sean and it may well happen again but it is not going to do George much good this side of an election!

Plus in the overall scheme of things the revisals are quite small. We still have a major problem.

Alistair said:

DavidL said:

RobC said:

DavidL said:

The PSBR two to compensate.

Yes some boffins need to work out how to improve the tax take in this country. There are too many anomalies remaining because income tax isn't providing the funds required - an example being the unfair stamp duty banding on property sales. So some thinking outside the box is required. In principle wealth should be taxed more heavily but Labour's revised and half hearted mansion tax doesn't do the trick that's for sure. Far too many tears are shed for people living in £3m houses on a supposedly low income. They're millionaires benefiting from huge rises in the value of their assets and they should make a proper contribution.

I agree with that. A major problem for the UK and indeed most western countries is the inability to impose effective taxes on multinationals operating within our country. The idea that Amazon, for example, is really not making a taxable profit is laughable and should not be tolerated.

Those that gain the most from our society should pay the most to sustain it but that does not mean that we do not need more to contribute. The talk of tax cuts at the Tory conference was irresponsible in my view. The tax take needs to increase by 2-3% of GDP while government spending is also reduced by 2-3% of GDP. That is the scale of the problem and our political classes are not facing up to it on either side of the P&L.

OECD countries are slowly moving towards country-by-country reporting, that's the key building block of stopping multi-national money "disappearing".

It certainly needs an international approach and I can see the attraction in that for big countries in particular. Not so sure Ireland will think it is a brilliant plan!

We still have a major problem.

Mrs Thatcher believed in spending what we could afford. It proved reasonably popular at the time.

DavidL said:

I agree with that. A major problem for the UK and indeed most western countries is the inability to impose effective taxes on multinationals operating within our country. The idea that Amazon, for example, is really not making a taxable profit is laughable and should not be tolerated.

I don't know much about Amazon UK or British tax laws, but Amazon as a whole genuinely does seem to run without making a profit:
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/01/amazon_earnings_how_jeff_bezos_gets_investors_to_believe_in_him.html

Breaking News!

I am no longer losing over £10k in my annuity share punts (at the moment), I'm now just down £9.4k.

It's all coming right baby.

Watch out Reckless, I'm on a roll!

Socrates said:

___Bobajob___ said:

Sean_F said:

In today's Yougov poll 40% want to remain in the EU, 39% want to leave. Voters in England and Wales are slightly in favour of leaving, voters in Scotland in favour of staying. If it's that close, Northern Ireland might tip the scale in favour of leaving.

There's no chance we would vote to leave, especially on those numbers. The idea that we would vote Yes to leave the EU exists only as wild europhobe fantasy.

That's why all the Europhile parties are running scared of a referendum!

Surely the most unintentionally comic post of the year.

anotherDave said:

Using the recent ComRes poll, and their "would seriously consider voting for" question, you get the following minimum/maximum support levels:

Lab 17-43%
Con 15-39%
UKIP 12-34%
Green 1-18%
LD 3-17%

http://www.comres.co.uk/poll/1293/sunday-mirror-independent-on-sunday-poll.htm

Correct my maths if needed but i work out the average point of those figures to come to something like;

Lab: 30%
Con: 27%
UKIP: 23%
LD: 10%
Green: 9%

Perhaps not a bad prediction?

bigjohnowls said:

TGOHF said:

bigjohnowls said:

TGOHF said:

bigjohnowls said:

philiph said:

BenM said:

taffys said:

Good facts in that response BenM. As per normal the Daily Mail peddling crap

You may made the NHS the central plank of your offering. It's inevitable your performance in government is going to be scrutinised.

This is just the start.

Peddling inaccurate drivel in the Daily Mail isn't going to overturn people's well justified scepticism about the Tories competence in handling the NHS.

Since it was founded how many years has the NHS survived under:

1 Labour Administration
2 Conservative Administration
3 Coalition Administration

I think history shows it is able to survive and sometimes flourish under any administration.

There has never been a £30bn black hole in the history of the NHS until now.

So why is it so much worse in Wales than England ?

It isn't.

Why do Welsh people opt for treatment in England and not vice versa ?

Exodus of patients from English NHS to Wales increases by 12% in a year, as Wales residents shun English NHS numbers down by 9,000

Ignore the Daily Mail FFS

bigjohnowls said:

TGOHF said:

Why do Welsh people opt for treatment in England and not vice versa ?

Exodus of patients from English NHS to Wales increases by 12% in a year, as Wales residents shun English NHS numbers down by 9,000

Ignore the Daily Mail FFS

First rule of politics. Anyone who mixes percentages with absolute numbers is either a) mathematically illiterate b) wants to promote the opposite meaning to what the actual figures show and mislead the public or c) a combination of the two.

(When I used to visit my parents, my mother would complain that the amount of washing up increased by 50% when I arrived, but only reduced by 33% when I left.)

Mr. Me, interesting idea, but I was only intending a single fairly brief piece mocking Balls rather than multiple articles, let alone a book.

Edited extra bit: hmm. A more sustainable/regular idea has occurred to me. I might give it a go on my blog, see what people think (if it even works, it might not) and proceeding accordingly.

Assuming I have some spare time. Got another, unrelated, project I want to try and start.

AllyPally_Rob said:

anotherDave said:

Using the recent ComRes poll, and their "would seriously consider voting for" question, you get the following minimum/maximum support levels:

Lab 17-43%
Con 15-39%
UKIP 12-34%
Green 1-18%
LD 3-17%

http://www.comres.co.uk/poll/1293/sunday-mirror-independent-on-sunday-poll.htm

Correct my maths if needed but i work out the average point of those figures to come to something like;

Lab: 30%
Con: 27%
UKIP: 23%
LD: 10%
Green: 9%

Perhaps not a bad prediction?

The root ComRes numbers were:

Lab 34%
Con 31%
UKIP 19%
LD 7%
Green 4%

But your mid-point numbers look a lot more like their 'prompt for UKIP' poll, which is encouraging!

@BBCNormanS: Nigel Farage says @UKIP Calypso song " not racist.....it's clearly a bit of fun"

Scrapheap_as_was said:

Breaking News!

I am no longer losing over £10k in my annuity share punts (at the moment), I'm now just down £9.4k.

It's all coming right baby.

Watch out Reckless, I'm on a roll!

This crossed my mind when you made reference to your CT bill not being paid yet this morning. Hopefully you have some other, more successful, investments. George needs the money!

Progressives think they are sooo modern but they are just old fashioned authoritarians wearing different clothes with the addition of blinkers.

Control is central to the everyone on the left. Take Climate change. It isn;t about the climate, its about controlling the behaviour of others via self appointed authority.

Scott_P said:

@BBCNormanS: Nigel Farage says @UKIP Calypso song " not racist.....it's clearly a bit of fun"

It's clearly...moronic, of course.

Why on earth would you want to invite even the merest hint of racism when enough people think you are racist to start with?

Beyond me. Either

a) very very clever; or
b) very very well, you know...

Bob,

"There is nothing much good about social conservatism, which is essentially telling others how to live their lives."

Isn't that what the Labour party exists for? And political correctness tells them what to think?

Scott_P said:

@BBCNormanS: Nigel Farage says @UKIP Calypso song " not racist.....it's clearly a bit of fun"

Standard Farage excuse.

isam said:

___Bobajob___ said:

Socrates

There will be no referendum. We are not going to destabilise the UK for years merely to ask a question to which we already know the answer. I am euroagnostic but the idea we should or would vote to leave is so preposterous I am amazed that otherwise intellegent people even countenance it.

The polls have it 50/50.. how could someone who has no real view takes such a closed minded position?

On the Scottish question, Dave has settled it for a generation now.. whatever the SNP says, and the SNP has got 80,000 new members and is in great shape. It cost Salmond his job but well that is politics.

Fair play to both Dave and Alex for putting their necks on the block (Dave would have probably gone in a YES vote) and asking the question and getting the answer.

Labour simply don't trust the people however.

anotherDave said:

AllyPally_Rob said:

anotherDave said:

Using the recent ComRes poll, and their "would seriously consider voting for" question, you get the following minimum/maximum support levels:

Lab 17-43%
Con 15-39%
UKIP 12-34%
Green 1-18%
LD 3-17%

http://www.comres.co.uk/poll/1293/sunday-mirror-independent-on-sunday-poll.htm

Correct my maths if needed but i work out the average point of those figures to come to something like;

Lab: 30%
Con: 27%
UKIP: 23%
LD: 10%
Green: 9%

Perhaps not a bad prediction?

The root ComRes numbers were:

Lab 34%
Con 31%
UKIP 19%
LD 7%
Green 4%

But your mid-point numbers look a lot more like their 'prompt for UKIP' poll, which is encouraging!

I'm not sure how seriously to take these figures, TBH. How was the question worded? They seem like 2nd order derivative voting intention questions to me. Effectively, "if there were a general election tomorrow, would you seriously consider voting for the following?"

Besides which, they might not pick up all prospective voters. I.e. there might be voters who wouldn't seriously consider voting 'Conservative', but would consider voting for David Cameron as PM to stop Ed Miliband.