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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The great CON Rochester primary mystery – how the reported
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The great CON Rochester primary mystery – how the reported turnout of 4,000 became 5,688
The first news that all was not well with the CON Rochester primary was this report, now not on the Spectator site, from the usually well informed Isabel Hardman.
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Truly shocking. I did say that not many political ideas make a successful transatlantic crossing and I think 'US primaries' might join the long list.
It also bodes extremely badly for the Conservatives in the by election.
"Attacks on 'Ukip Calypso' show just how skewed people’s priorities are
Where is the Left’s outrage over the sexual abuse of girls?"
"How's this for having your priorities in order: 1,400 young girls are groomed and raped in the North of England, and yet this week we've seen a stronger reaction from many on the Left to a calypso song produced by a Ukip supporter....."
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/attacks-on-ukip-calypso-show-just-how-skewed-peoples-priorities-are-9814360.html
In the midst of this story about abuse of girls largely by communities I hope we're not forgetting the part white middle-aged men play in this industry? How many of you commenting about Rotherham saw this shocking article?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2714200/How-London-child-abuse-capital-world-Trafficked-gangs-prey-pimps-paedophiles-murderers-booming-trade-lost-children-shames-all.html
(think now would be the time to waffle on about prisoner's dilemma and "zero sum mentality" but i don't know much about that. so i won't)
Put up.or shut up about reforming the EU.
A simple F U EU.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29751124
Or the Tory Bunny gets shot in Rochester or Stroud.
It almost looks like the EU are determined to strengthen UKIP to split the Tories. Starts folding tin foil...
Curiosity made me google him; he died in prison in 1989 at the age of 43, from a heart attack.
"What?"
"Bullshit, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that."
" I love the smell of bullshit in the morning."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29751124
"The UK has been doing better since 1997 than we thought and that's resulted in this extra payment. The Netherlands will pay more, while France and Germany get a rebate." Sarah Hewin of Standard Chartered on 5 live says the payment has to be made in the next few months. That could mean more borrowing, she says.
Perhaps it is a time for Cameron to just say No. If he doesn't then he might as well disband the Tories now, let UKIP walk over them in R & S. With friends like this in the EU telling the UK to hand over move money cos the economy has done so well since 1997, who needs enemies. It looks like a scam, smells like a scam, and if a single extra £1 or €1 is handed over it just confirms that Cameron is like the jellyfish, spineless and floating on the tide.
Agreed. The EU can't just shake us down for more money whenever it decides to change the numbers.
The Cons had the nuts to try it - none of the other parties did - despite much noise about being the parties of the workers or the army of the people.
Extrapolate from a single data point at your peril.
Meanwhile, YouGov numbers continue to be bad for Labour.
Con & Lab tied at 34% in the voting intention.
Here are some statements that different people make about different political parties. In each case, which party do you think it applies to most - the Conservatives, Labour or the Liberal Democrats?
It is led by people of real ability
Labour at 11% is the lowest figure since May 2010
http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/118eeuizl4/YG-Archive-Pol-Sun-results-231014.pdf
One of these fine mornings I'll come here only to be redirected to OneFootInTheGrave.com ...
Typical lefty nonsense punishing success.
Cameron should say we will pay it in late 2017.
Novelty value wears off quickly.
UKIP to win the seat with lead of 5% is my unscientific hunch.
Today's Yougov is more evidence that the real Con-Lab gap is close to eroded. Labour have had a string of subsample numbers in the Midlands/Wales which are implying Lab-Ukip switching gathering pace. Been in motion for weeks now.
Tory number up today largely on the back of southern subsample.
And remember Foot only beat Healey on the votes on MPs who had already decided to leave the Party.
irony on the internet: a risky strategy!
"The abuse was carried out by a small number of people. The 'calypso' insulted a great many."
We cannot take rebates in bad times and then refuse to par a surcharge in good times.
In fact, it would be interesting to know how often this has occurred in the past, and the amounts, and to which countries.
"The additional payment was requested after the European Commission's statistics agency, Eurostat, reviewed the economic performances of member states since 1995, and readjusted the contributions made by each state over the last four years - based on their pace of growth."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29751124
Note France and Germany get rebates.
Wasn't this ballot run by ERS? Surely they will put out final, detailed figures?
Unless there has been a paradigm shift in 4 years, which I don't believe, the centre is where power is won and Miliband and Farage may be doing the perfect job of letting Cameron through the middle where roughly 40% of votes are to be found.
EU 1.3 billion euros, Cameron should tell them to fcuk themselves.
2015 GE, it really looks more like 1983 all over again. So how about Ed to poll in the range 25-28% just ahead of UKIP with Tories in 33-35 range and Labour to lose seats to Tories south of Birmingham and win no seats back from Tories. SNP and Tories to take a dozen+ seats between them from Labour and LibDems in Scotland and UKIP to win fewer than 10 seats.
The 'revision' is helpful to the Commission, the timing couldn't be less unhelpful for Cameron. If the economy was so damaged from 2008, how is it a success which means more contributions. Must be a disguised bail out for the French.
Cameron is now caught between Scylla and Charybdis. His failure to secure any meaningful concessions in the last four years is going to hit him hard. UKIP and the EU Commission must be laughing. As for the LDs how do they sell austerity, if the economy is so successful c. Juncker and the Eurocrats, why were spending cuts ever needed. Silence from Labour could help, but even Miliband might recognise that selling more contributions (levied from UK taxes) might be a hard sell, especially if it is less spending for his party's beloved NHS.
It's the who whom obsession of the left. Same reason Stephen Lawrence still gets dragged up whilst so many other crimes don't get a mention.
Very hard to translate into seats, other than a clear Tory majority - anything from 20 to 120.
Even if Cameron gives a guarantee written in blood that it will not be paid, then his opponents will not believe him as the actual payment date is after the by-election. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/23/uk-european-commission-eu-budget-contribution
What about those racist meerkats in the adverts putting on fake Eastern European accents?
I think there were some protests initially but they were laughed at.
A poster on here a couple of days ago wrote that racism was the worst thing in the world. Even worse than murder. Let alone industrial child rape.
The irony here being that the additional money being demanded by the EU would barely count as a rounding error compared to how much money is going to be lost by exporting emissions and jobs as a result of that climate change policy agreement.
Oh, and tell the EU to F*ck off !
No way should we cough up extra to an undemocratic organisation that hasn't been able to have its account signed off in how many years........
Whilst they give France (who breaks a number of EU "rules with nigh on impunity a rebate - notwithstanding they will not fix their basket case economy and we subsidise their farmers
BOO anybody?
Elections are won when - and only when - a party can win the support of centrist, floating voters *and* turn out its core vote. The Liberals / Lib Dems have been the 'centre' party for over a hundred years but haven't won a general election since 1910. Simply being most central means little without being able to ally it to support elsewhere. If 40% of the votes are to be found in the centre, it's a fact that no party has been able to create a coaltion built on that 40% since the SDP-Liberal Alliance briefly did so in late 1981.
UKIP is taking support from both Labour and the Tories. In net terms, what matters is who they take more from (and also who they Lib Dems lose most to - the other point you make only implicitly), but I'm struggling to see how UKIP taking votes from the Tories is helping the Blue cause.
In any case, even if a party does win an election with 30-32% of the vote, it's a very poor mandate to govern.
http://www.lefigaro.fr/conjoncture/2014/10/24/20002-20141024ARTFIG00010-budget-hollande-refuse-de-devoiler-la-lettre-banale-de-bruxelles.php
blancmange versus jellyfish - who's got more backbone ?
Journalist with Ukrainian girlfriend in outrage shock.
Except Scotland. Scotland is looking great for the SNP.
1) Has this revaluation occurred in the past; if so, how often, and what are the details.
2) Have we had a cut in payments in the past, based on our economy underperforming?
These seem particularly pertinent, to me at least. It'd be good to get the answers.
Have not seen this picked up by the cartoonists, but it is akin to the banana moment that his brother had and could never shake off.
Say Labour drop by 10% in Scotland to 32%, then that would shave 1% off their GB total.
The question is how far has the UK lost, permanently, the ability to pay for some government spending at current levels. There's some odd stuff going which is confusing the number crunchers, for example, more jobs, but lower productivity leading to lower wages and thus less tax take.
Personally, I'm a Keynesian, and think all this austerity was an economic mistake, given the UK has its own currency and could borrow money at record low rates from rich people desperate to keep away from the EU states. We should have built up more debt pump priming investment in long-term infrastructure and innovation. But, I accept that politically that argument was lost and we need to move on.
1) I expect the original leaked figures are about right. Not good for the Conservatives at all.
2) The idea that there's a vast conspiracy of the parties left of UKIP to conceal and accommodate industrial scale child abuse by members of a particular ethnic minority is... curious
3) The EU cash demand is a) a signal that the EU Commission doesn't care if Britain leaves b) a signal that the EU Commission reckons it can do better in 2015 without David Cameron or c) something that the British government is either conniving with or confecting in order to give David Cameron a chance to channel a nation's outrage against the EU. Since a) would be a bizarre misjudgement and b) is a high risk strategy indeed, I'm going with c).
A few of the comments I heard:
"They can't just ask us for more money whenever they decide!"
"So that's an extra £150 for my family, all because France is a basket case"
"We should just tell them to #### off"
"Sounds like an old-fashioned shakedown"
From a few forums:
"I support the EU in principle but for fuck sake, are they oblivious to the fact that there's a not insignificant chance that the UK will be voting to leave the EU in around 3 years?"
"Now all the swing voters will definitely vote to stay in Europe. Good move EU. It's like they want us to leave. I'm pro EU but fuck me, shit like this makes me think I could be very wrong."
"It's stupid in my opinion either way. It's subsidizing failure. It's encouraging bad economic policy, because the EU rewards economically illiterate governments (such as France) with rebates"
"Europe is like your brother who you love and wants to get a flat with you. You love him and all but you can just tell that your going to get stuck paying the rent"
"I'm probably Pro-EU, but great way to get Britain to stay with you, EU. Really.
Seriously though, fuck those guys. Cameron need to just laugh and tell them where to go. That's ridiculous. 'Oh you're doing well? Let us just hamstring you.' The correct response: 'No.'"
It's all so marvellously OTT and perfectly timed - a lost Yes, Minister script...
Yes, that's one of the moans. I was never sure whether it was sarcasm or serious.
I would never describe LibDems as a centre party. With the unproven exception of the coalition government they have often, and normally, had far more radical policies than either the two main parties. If you've attended or listened to their conferences you would know what I mean, with a raft of speeches, statements and policies passed which would fair take away the breath of Labour and Conservative.
By the way, the Social Democrats prove my point. They formed in reaction to Labour's lurch leftward and the response to that was what? Labour moved to the centre under Kinnock, John Smith and Tony Blair. And that's where they won back power.
Centre = power. Thatcher got it. Major got it. Blair got it. Brown got it. Cameron has got it.
http://newstonoone.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/a-short-story-greens-target-list-for.html
Winning margin = 50 votes = 0.88%
Therefore, total number of valid ballots cast = ( 100/0.88 ) * 50 = 5682
Number of votes for Tolhurst = .5044 * 5682 = 2866
Number of votes for Firth = .4956 * 5682 = 2816
This would imply only 6 spoilt ballots, but because the reported percentages are only to two decimal places you can distribute these remaining six ballots evenly to each candidate and the percentages remain the same.
Therefore, the votes were:
Tolhurst 2869 (50.44%)
Firth 2819 (49.56%)
Turnout 5688 (~7.6%)
I expect that the figure of 4,000 was either a desperate attempt at expectations management, or it was from someone who only had a quick look at the figures and just added together two lots of "two thousand and something" to get "four thousand and something" ~ "four thousand".