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Let’s party like it is 2005 – politicalbetting.com
Let’s party like it is 2005 – politicalbetting.com
Some notes:– This is not a forecast of later in the year, it is based on current polling for an election held tomorrow– This is a polls-only model, it doesn't incorporate MRPs, by-elections, local dynamics or tactical voting (hoping to build on this in future!)
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Apparently the whole thing is the Bank of England's fault.
Turning back to the Cass review, in my opinion it is now inevitable that those clinicians who did not dare to be wise and failed to resist being swept along with an ideological tide will soon need to account for their actions in Court.
https://www.harthanbarrister.com/blog/files/374457332de718b5f7b7954b1f384768-7.html
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/27325735/boe-boss-should-be-sacked-says-truss/
Everything suggests that extrapolating from historical behaviour does not apply. Not only is the current political context characterized by high voter mobility, there are also demographic changes in the boomer segment that have substantially dented the core conservative vote repository. So I have my doubts.
Yet another exercise in "why the numbers aren't the numbers" and I am not buying that with my betting.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-13311657/nadine-dorries-police-investigation-angela-rayner-not-manchester.html (£££)
Everyone's favourite Boris devotee, Nadine Dorries, is concerned that GMP is overseen by Kate Green on behalf on Andy Burnham, who are both former Labour MPs and friends of Ange, and so there might be a perceived conflict of interest. Interesting word, perceived. And Dorries is keen to remind us that Burnham and Green don’t have to do or say anything for their influence to be felt. It puts Chief Constable Stephen Watson, one of the most experienced officers in the country, in an impossible position.
Desperate stuff by the Mail, and good work by the Mail's libel lawyer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swc_dmRAK2o
The question is, what do you replace it with?
Personally, I’d go for about six different, much more specialised agencies* with a safeguarding framework for each but otherwise a presumption that any issues will be dealt with initially at least supportively rather than punitively.
That would, however, be expensive and money is rather tight.
*Nurseries, children’s homes, social services, primary, secondary and FE.
But of course if I had my way there would be no central government department managing education so that would not be a problem.
Then it could focus on useful stuff, like making sure children are getting a half-decent education, or safeguarding procedures are in place.
Ironically, of course, one reason it’s become discredited is because until three months ago it in effect had no safeguarding procedures of its own, relying on ad hoc arrangements that were usually never implemented.
Who then stands out? Garbett (Green) talks about rent controls, whereas the other candidates’ solution to housing is mostly to build our way out of it. She is also the only candidate to refer to Palestine. Britain First blame everything on immigration. Gallagher (SDP) leads on anti-woke in big letters.
Blackie (LibDem) has a statement that’s a bit more focused on him than a wishlist of policies. Nat Campbell (independent, ex-Tory) comes across well in terms of what she wants, but, like most of the candidates, doesn’t explain how she will do these things (e.g. pay for more police). Indeed, generally, there’s a tendency for all the candidates to duck the how.
I still think Khan will walk this, so it’s all moot.
Reason I ask is that the model (using the sort of intelligence that isn't entirely natural?) anticipates the Conservatives doing better than the polls suggest, because they have in the past. But polls now are much more determined to account for that effect than the polls the model was trained on.
Given that one party is extremely unpopular, I would expect tactical voting against that party to be strong.
In 2019 Corbyn was unpopular enough that quite a lot of people went out of their way to vote against him, even if it meant a cross in the Conservative box.
Clearly there are people who feel that way about Starmer, but not many. That's worth a decent slug of seats by itself.
This story is a rather grim one:
https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/news/education/liberation-by-academisation-why-hundreds-of-sheffield-parents-are-taking-a-stand/
The same thing happened at Caversham. Despite Spielman’s denials, it is obvious that what happened is the inspector concerned had been ordered to fail it on safeguarding so it could be transferred to a designated academy trust. That was proven past all possible doubt when Ofsted’s witnesses misled the Perry inquest on the process following an ‘inadequate’ rating.
This is not what inspections should be about. It makes them pretty much worthless for all practical purposes.
Sure, it doesn’t help that Ofsted hires sexual predators or fails to train its inspectors. But ultimately it has to go because it has become about enforcing the will of a bunch of frequently drunk and invariably not very intelligent civil servants and not improving standards in education.
Mr. Gezou, I always forget if it was the 50s or 60s, but the US had a programme of sterilising those with low IQs. Naturally, that's viewed with horror today.
I did wonder (and mentioned) whether the reckless encouragement aimed at children to get them to make life-changing decisions (including sterilisation) would be seen horrendously in the future. Just at first glance, it seems nuts to try and divorce authority from the parents and invest it in children too young to vote, drink, drive, or have sex, while certain groups of people cheerlead from the sidelines and dogpile anyone who has any disagreements or questions as bigots.
In the early days, the data for the Big Bang were pretty fuzzy and implied the Universe was younger than the Earth. The holes Hoyle picked at were worth picking at, and forced astrophysicists to think properly about what was really going on.
What de Bono called the black thinking hat. The world needs them.
(He did become increasingly sad as his objections were overcome, but by then it was too late for him. Science tends to progress and professional funeral at a time and all that.)
(And more generally, early evidence for things can be wobbly. Absence of evidence isn't automatically evidence of absence and all that.)
If one requires double masked controlled trials for "good evidence" then you won't find them in this area. Partly there would be ethical problems, but more practically it would be impossible to mask either the subjects or observers with a placebo puberty blockers, as puberty unmasks itself. We know these drugs are highly effective at stopping puberty, it's their role in Gender services that are controversial.
Cass supports the usage of puberty blockers as part of clinical trials, though it is unclear what the inclusion criteria for those trials and what the comparison group should be.
Forgive me @TSE for suggesting so but this doesn’t look very scientific. It basically boils down to a belief that UNS is the most reliable gauge and everything about this nowcast is pinned on that. I don’t know of many psephologists who would go along with that these days. UNS has been less and less reliable except when a single issue dominates (e.g. 2019).
I also note the inherent contradiction that ‘this isn’t a prediction but based on the polling now’ which runs completely counter to the whole premise of what they are saying, that the UNS will take over the closer you get to the actual election.
The polls may narrow or they may not. Pace @Big_G_NorthWales I do not think this is comparable to either 1979 (before my time) or 1997. The former was not characterised by hatred and vilification of Callaghan despite the Winter of Discontent and the opinion polls in the run up gave leads to the Conservatives at least 10% lower than the current Labour lead: in single and sometimes low single figures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1979_United_Kingdom_general_election
Psychologically I contend that people are more motivated to vote based on hatred than they are on love. All the pent up frustration and anger of the past 5 years (or 14 if you want to parrot Labour’s line) will be brought forth in a massive kicking of the Conservatives.
In 1997 Labour held commanding leads largely thanks to a feel good happy feeling for Tony. Heck, even Big G you said you voted for him. This time things are very different. The country is in an almighty mess but the main factor is the vilification of the Conservatives. Want that backed empirically? They are polling up to 10% lower than they were then. That’s decisive. But Labour would happily settle for a 1997 result when the Conservatives managed 165 seats. I think it will be a lot worse than that for them this time. Sub 150. Based on the opinion polls.
This election will be decided on the unpopularity of the Conservatives.
I had absolutely no idea that Ofsted, rather than being an arbiter of quality, wilfully abused its oversight brief to implement Conservative Party political objectives on the sly.
This is Economist prediction is based on real numbers and precedent.
I see people are highlighting the need for objective evidence. Sometimes, it's easier said than done.
https://conservativehome.com/2023/12/11/john-bald-ofsted-has-lost-all-credibility-with-the-profession-it-is-difficult-to-see-a-way-forward/
‘There was no good reason to fail Caversham, and one very bad one, enforced by the regional director with the approval of HMCI.‘
p.s. And whatever TSE might like to claim otherwise I notice that, yet again, this psychotic obsession with trans issues threatens to derail yet another political betting thread.
If the polls roughly where they are now, I'd expect some very reluctant Tories to vote Tory.
Though with commendable modesty she declares she's "not perfect".
Oxford University (Lady Margaret Hall) – Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) 2:1
https://twitter.com/Nick_Pettigrew/status/1779982399994036399
You may not approve of such parents, but it does seem that the majority were supportive of the treatments given, indeed desperate for treatment for distressed young people.
The rubbish piled up in London and the dead unburied in Liverpool were the abiding background of the 1979 election
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/dec/30/liverpool-gravedigger-strikes
Most people wanting to kick the Tories will vote Labour unthinkingly. In the 40 or so seats that the Yellow Peril actually want to win, they will make it clear that they're targeting the seat.
Infuriating for Lib Dems in seats 41-60, but them's the breaks.
And there Major may not have been liked but he was respected.
The reality is that until the election kicks off we don’t know what (if any ) swing back to the Tories will be - it may be significant it may equally be the case that he Tory party is now the party of selfish baby boomers with few voters below the age of 50…
Which is why this forecast may be correct, it’s also why @Peter_the_Punter may be equally correct.
The Tories could end up with 200 seats, they could end up with 10. It will all come down to the actual election and it’s very likely that he Tories will implode and end up on the other side.
And we may not know to the day of the vote given how much (Tory at least) advertising will be done hidden away on social media
I hope your inference is not to dismiss the power of tactical voting. Once something gets momentum like this it’s very difficult to stop. Much less reverse.
The result this Economist poll gives is very possible. But “no tactical voting” is hopium rather than today’s reality. You just dismissed Heather as being based on anecdotage. Perhaps she is. But what she is hearing is what an awful lot of people are hearing - including practically every pollster…
The Daily Star is the only newspaper whose front page records the death of England and Kent spinner Derek Underwood, as is to be expected of the paper of the London elite!
I suspect that the Economist prediction is a bit optimistic for the Tories as it makes a number of tenditious assumptions as is common in modeling.
I would be interested to know if The Economist has a track record in getting predictions right.
We can quibble about the details - tactical voting, poll accuracy, etc - but if the Tories do end up with a better result then expected by the betting odds it will be for some of the reasons they identify with this analysis.
My own view is that people in general underestimate the extent of uncertainty, and this is why people are surprised when the result deviates from the central expectation. We saw this in 2010, 2015 and 2017.
Obviously, this uncertainty exists on both sides of the central expectation, and I cling to the hope that the Tory wipeout will blow our collective socks off. If Sunak even has half of a May-style election campaign disaster...
Political interviewers seem to have universally adopted the performing monkey Paxman style these days, in their desperation for a gotcha moment, and it simply drives absurd defensiveness and soundbitery on the other side.
Something doesn’t quite compute.
But when there is a collapse in party support, it tends towards being proportional, because others are deserting the party in droves and there are many more voters to lose in held seats and not enough to lose in the hopeless seats.
This is the main difference between the Yougov MRP, which has adjustments within the method to push the swing away from uniform and to counter the regression to the mean effect you get when dropping demographic trends onto every locality, and Survation, which does less of both. If we expect a collapse then the Yougov approach looks more credible and that means more Tory losses
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has predicted the last 54,535 of 1 economic meltdowns, for example.
I went on to say that if Braverman, Johnson or Truss were leading the conservatives I would abstain
I also stated the Lib Dems are invisible and I would not vote Plaid
The fact is my vote is irrelevant as labour will easily win the seat
It was an honest comment and certainly not worthy of the 'clinging to nurse' jibe
We all vote in our own constituency. 650 entirely separate elections held simultaneously. So if I am a voter motivated to get the Tories out then I need to vote where I am.
Labour is concerned about apathy. Not "they are all the same", instead "I don't need to bother, they have already won." I think that hits them predominantly in seats they are already strong in - same with young voters angry about Gaza or the lack of radical policies.
It only becomes a threat in swing seats - red wall as a block. That could be a race between Lab voters not bothering and the 60+% of Con voters who are no longer Con voters. But in that kind of seat - Bury North as an example - surely people will vote if they want that wazzock gone?
I fear that this time the "worried about the Tories getting back in" effect will be in the minds of some, but for many the experience of poor polls & a late shift is mostly "before their time" (although there was there was a bit of this in 2010). I expect that many simply won't vote because they will expect that the tories will be voted out, especially in the under 30 group.
https://www.economist.com/interactive/uk-general-election/forecast
This starts long before she is even in Downing Street. It’s 2020, and the Covid pandemic has just kicked off. Boris Johnson is already sick, as is Dominic Cummings, as is Matt Hancock, as is the chief medical officer. “I still find it hard to comprehend,” writes Truss, “how the official state allowed this to happen.” Think about that phrase, “the official state”. Who, actually, does she mean? By then, she’d had an unbroken run in government since 2012. Could she not think of a name?
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/oh-liz-your-conspiracy-theorys-a-total-state-gpfxr7r2v
One thing we haven’t taken into account so far is whether or not the appearance of Davey and Cable at the post office enquiry will adversely affect the Liberal Democrat position.
Or not!
TSE is doing a wonderful job of talking the price up. Please don't undermine him by telling people what is really going on.
In the social media age? In the odd seat that is bound to happen. But this has it happening everywhere. As an example it has the Tories just about holding Hazel Grove - despite everything...
There is quite a minefield ahead with this research-only approach to puberty blockers in terms of consent.
One other point on Trans issues before I clear off. The closure of the Tavistock and delays in setting up alternative services, combined with a restrictive approach to hormonal treatments has one very obvious effect.
Social transition of anatomic and hormonally unchanged Trans people will become the norm. The concerns about access to sex restricted places will become more rather than less as a result of implementing Cass.
Having 200+ very left-wing MPs on Labour's backbenches encouraging him to do psychopathic left-wing things - with no parliamentary opposition- is in no-ones interests, save the fanatics.
What’ll be interesting is what this Economist methodology shows when polls tighten towards the election and Reform drops. They might start showing the sorts of results that will put the shits up Labour. Which might be just what’s needed to encourage the lazier Labour voters out.
Well, if the state hadn't been wasting time stopping me doing what I wanted, it would have been able to stop COVID doing what it wanted. Duh.
(Teenager mode OFF)
Can't see any possible way of that going wrong
Everything is pointing to atypical voter behaviour, so why assume historical patterns 🤷
Also true that certain charities and pressure-groups tried to divorce authority from the parents.
Both things can be true.
Rather unhinged commentators like Carol Vorderman seem to think they are going to inspire a wave of tactical voting to dump loads of Tories. It won't happen. These initiatives seem to fire up the devoted already. Preaches to the converted.
Labour are on course for a majority well over 250 seats with the Tories virtually wiped out.
That isn't logical. Once the Tories are safely out of office, with Labour having a solid majority, anything extra isn't in the interests of good governance.