politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » If you were think of betting on LAB following this afternoo

Flightpath said:

I hope the tories make that clear. After all if you can't kick a man when he's down when else can you kick him?

They are on it...

@CCHQPress: .@hwallop @George_Osborne IF Labour had been in Govt Petrol'd be 20p/litre more, there4 EVEN WITH oil price fall, it'd be MORE than in 2010

SeanT said:

Comment on the polls in a minute, but first, check this extraordinary piece of apologetic dreck from the Guardian, even as they bury the dead in Paris.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/11/charie-hebdo-danger-polarised-debate-paris-attacks

Guess what, apparently, according to the writer " we, as a society, are collectively responsible" for the jihadist murders in France. That's right, you, me, Roger, Mark Senior's milkman and Sean Fear's deaf-mute great aunt in Nuneaton. We all did it. In a very real sense, we shot those cartoonists, we butchered those Jewish shoppers. Shame on us.

This argument is, of course, the exact equivalent of Rupert Murdoch saying Muslims have collective responsibility for the Paris killings, only the lefty version is more insane.

We await the Twitter outrage at the Guardian remarks.

"In a very real sense, we are all to blame" sounds a bit C of E.

antifrank said:

Sean_F said:

If the Conservatives finished on 324, they could probably govern well enough. Removing 5 Sinn Fein MPs and the Speaker would give them an effective majority of 2. Suppose you had 8 DUP, 5 UKIP, and Sylvia Hermon, they could probably get their budgets through.

Doesn't Lady Sylvia Hermon usually vote with Labour? She left the UUP because it linked up with the Conservatives.

Ah yes, that's correct.

MikeSmithson said:

JackW said:

MikeSmithson said:

Sean_F said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Sean_F said:

And, both polls were conducted by Populus, albeit one by 'phone and one online, and with different weightings.

Is it really done by Populus, doesn't say so anywhere on the table.

I'm pretty sure that Populus gather the raw data for Lord Ashcroft.

When I met him before Christmas Lord A said that he uses a range of phone pollsters to carry out his fieldwork. Given his constituency polling alone since last May has an overall sample of 150k then it is hard to see how any one firm can meet his demands .

I know his recent Brighton Pavillion poll was carried out at the ICM Bedford polling centre.

Mike, do you know the timeline on the Lord A Scottish constituency polling ?

Certainly before May 8th

This year ?!?

SeanT said:

Comment on the polls in a minute, but first, check this extraordinary piece of apologetic dreck from the Guardian, even as they bury the dead in Paris.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/11/charie-hebdo-danger-polarised-debate-paris-attacks

Guess what, apparently, according to the writer " we, as a society, are collectively responsible" for the jihadist murders in France.

I was looking forward to limbering up my outrage but that article is a disappointment in that respect. He doesn't say "we, as a society, are collectively responsible" for the jihadist murders in France. Instead he makes some reasonably nuanced points, and then concludes:

They [the murderers] are personally responsible for what they did. But we, as a society, are collectively responsible for the conditions that produced them. And if we want others to turn out differently – less hateful, more hopeful – we will have to keep more than one idea in our heads at the same time.

Which is rather different from your precis.

On the polling, if Lord A uses different companies for various different polls, is it possible that some of the volatility we have seen arises because a different pollster has been used compared with last time? Presumably it shouldn't make any difference, but perhaps there is some company-specific effect creeping in.

foxinsoxuk said:

isam said:

Scott_P said:

@DanHannanMEP: Miliband tries to weaponise the Paris atrocity by claiming - absurdly, tastelessly - that Euroscepticism costs lives. http://t.co/mLIbw65D34

Yeah free movement of terrorists must make it a lot easier to deal with

Unless we start to implement pre-travel visas (like the USA) I do not see how we can stop terrorists moving about. The European arrest warrant and similar may however help us haul back suspects or shift the to the tender care of the Gendarmerie.

stodge said:

For what little it's worth, the "campaign" so far has been the equivalent of baseline tennis. At some point, either Cameron or Miliband is going to have to go to the net to try to force the winner. That won't be for some time so we have the negative knockback of comments, claims, polls, counter-claims, tweets, retweets and the rest which will rapidly bore most of the British public (if it hasn't done so already).

The other thought I have is that all the messages are about why you should NOT vote for other parties - the winning team might just be the one which comes up with a solid optimistic reason why people should vote FOR them.

Negative campaigning can be very effective in a two horse race, but in a race with 5 or 6 horses it may have very different effects. Just because Ed (or Dave or Nick or Nigel) is crap does not mean that they would vote for the person pointing out the fact.

Maybe we should start to implement pre-travel Visas then

JackW said:

rcs1000 said:

JackW said:

rcs1000 said:

Sean_F said:

And, both polls were conducted by Populus, albeit one by 'phone and one online, and with different weightings.

LOL!

I stick with my forecast of:

Greens 31%
UKIP 29%
SNP 24%
Others nowhere

Repeat request from earlier today.

Any value in the Hampstead constituency market ?

No.

The Tories do not have the excellent Chris Philip, so I would expect them to fall back.
The LibDem candidate is outstanding, but they won't buck their downward fall. They won't lose two-thirds of their vote, as they will in the rest of the country, but they'll lose a lot of votes to Labour.
So, I predict a fairly comfortable Labour hold.

Thank you.

I wondered whether Maajid Nawas's recent high media profile might have provided some scope?

Well, he's working very, very hard - just as Chris Philip did last time. A lifelong Labour voter (of the multi-millionaire variety) on my street will be voting for him, while his wife will be going UKIP from Conservative.

Cyclefree, who I'd guess is naturally a Conservative, has also said she'll be voting for him.

I haven't made up my mind, but I think he's incredibly impressive, I'd much rather vote for a person than a party, and his voice is one I'd like to hear more from.

That being said, I just don't buy him doing more than arresting the LibDem's fall. They might get 25% in the seat, rather than the 15% they would have gotten otherwise. For 2020, if he continues to work hard, and if the LibDems stage some kind of modest recovery, he could be a good shot.

SeanT said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

SeanT said:

Comment on the polls in a minute, but first, check this extraordinary piece of apologetic dreck from the Guardian, even as they bury the dead in Paris.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/11/charie-hebdo-danger-polarised-debate-paris-attacks

Guess what, apparently, according to the writer " we, as a society, are collectively responsible" for the jihadist murders in France.

I was looking forward to limbering up my outrage but that article is a disappointment in that respect. He doesn't say "we, as a society, are collectively responsible" for the jihadist murders in France. Instead he makes some reasonably nuanced points, and then concludes:

They [the murderers] are personally responsible for what they did. But we, as a society, are collectively responsible for the conditions that produced them. And if we want others to turn out differently – less hateful, more hopeful – we will have to keep more than one idea in our heads at the same time.

Which is rather different from your precis.

FFS. We, as a society, are NOT F*CKING responsible for the evil mutation in Islam which has produced jihadist terror and murder across the world, in China and Thailand, in Chechnya and Mali, in the Phillipines and Australia and Nigeria and Indonesia. To say that is the most venal kind of equivocation. It's repulsive. It's worse than blaming Islam for Islamism.

And what exactly are we to do "as a society" if we want to stop these jihadists "emerging"? What? Half of them are middle class kids with degrees. They aren't deprived. They are given good lives by the west and cherished freedoms, and they repay us by killing us.

And Yonge wrote this 2 days after the atrocities.

Get a grip, you befuddled Osborne buttplug.

Politician s who ignored the warnings of the dangers of mass immigration are to blame, no one else

It's like having a 6 year old cat who is used to the way the house is run, and the attention it gets buying a dog and expecting the cats quality of life to remain unchanged.

Then carrying out a character assassination of the dog when the cat runs off

Richard_Nabavi said:

SeanT said:

Comment on the polls in a minute, but first, check this extraordinary piece of apologetic dreck from the Guardian, even as they bury the dead in Paris.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/11/charie-hebdo-danger-polarised-debate-paris-attacks

Guess what, apparently, according to the writer " we, as a society, are collectively responsible" for the jihadist murders in France.

I was looking forward to limbering up my outrage but that article is a disappointment in that respect. He doesn't say "we, as a society, are collectively responsible" for the jihadist murders in France. Instead he makes some reasonably nuanced points, and then concludes:

They [the murderers] are personally responsible for what they did. But we, as a society, are collectively responsible for the conditions that produced them. And if we want others to turn out differently – less hateful, more hopeful – we will have to keep more than one idea in our heads at the same time.

Which is rather different from your precis.

And that, of course, is a fair point. Terrorists of whatever kind tend to be youngish men with troubled pasts, egged on by older men. That is absolutely no excuse for what they do, but if we want to prevent others following them we need to understand how they got to the point they did. Look at their backgrounds, how and where they grew up, and so on, and in many cases a few common threads emerge. It is complex, it is nuanced and it is harder than just blaming it all on them being evil or Moslem, but it will probably get us closer to the truth.

We as individuals or as part of society are not responsible for the decision to become a brutal mass murderer that a young man - troubled or otherwise - may make, but that does not mean we cannot ask questions of ourselves and of wider society. In the same way, of course, Moslems are not to blame for anything that others do in their name, but they should be asking themselves hard questions about why their religion that attracts so many young men willing to kill and to die in its name.

isam said:

SeanT said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

SeanT said:

Comment on the polls in a minute, but first, check this extraordinary piece of apologetic dreck from the Guardian, even as they bury the dead in Paris.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/11/charie-hebdo-danger-polarised-debate-paris-attacks

Guess what, apparently, according to the writer " we, as a society, are collectively responsible" for the jihadist murders in France.

I was looking forward to limbering up my outrage but that article is a disappointment in that respect. He doesn't say "we, as a society, are collectively responsible" for the jihadist murders in France. Instead he makes some reasonably nuanced points, and then concludes:

They [the murderers] are personally responsible for what they did. But we, as a society, are collectively responsible for the conditions that produced them. And if we want others to turn out differently – less hateful, more hopeful – we will have to keep more than one idea in our heads at the same time.

Which is rather different from your precis.

FFS. We, as a society, are NOT F*CKING responsible for the evil mutation in Islam which has produced jihadist terror and murder across the world, in China and Thailand, in Chechnya and Mali, in the Phillipines and Australia and Nigeria and Indonesia. To say that is the most venal kind of equivocation. It's repulsive. It's worse than blaming Islam for Islamism.

And what exactly are we to do "as a society" if we want to stop these jihadists "emerging"? What? Half of them are middle class kids with degrees. They aren't deprived. They are given good lives by the west and cherished freedoms, and they repay us by killing us.

And Yonge wrote this 2 days after the atrocities.

Get a grip, you befuddled Osborne buttplug.

Politician s who ignored the warnings of the dangers of mass immigration are to blame, no one else

No, the people who pulled the trigger are to blame.

Other things can be contributory causes, but let's not forget that.

SeanT said:

Comment on the polls in a minute, but first, check this extraordinary piece of apologetic dreck from the Guardian, even as they bury the dead in Paris.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/11/charie-hebdo-danger-polarised-debate-paris-attacks

Guess what, apparently, according to the writer " we, as a society, are collectively responsible" for the jihadist murders in France. That's right, you, me, Roger, Mark Senior's milkman and Sean Fear's deaf-mute great aunt in Nuneaton. We all did it. In a very real sense, we shot those cartoonists, we butchered those Jewish shoppers. Shame on us.

This argument is, of course, the exact equivalent of Rupert Murdoch saying Muslims have collective responsibility for the Paris killings, only the lefty version is more insane.

We await the Twitter outrage at the Guardian remarks.

I try to be charitable, but as a Guardian/Telegraph/NYTimes-ista I've always taken that one as nominal.

I did relate my anecdotes back in September about my staunch lefty chums going. Green because they just couldn't stomach Ed and - to the extent that they have any policies - They see Labour as Tory-lite.

I can honestly say I have yet to meet anybody who thinks Ed Miliband will do even a so-so job as PM. He is toxic, even amongst my friends who are Labour voters. The absence of cheerleaders on here is notable. Labour shills manage to look beyond Ed to what Labour would do. I just don't see the voters being that generous.

Even if you get to see past Ed to Labour, it has a real problem. They can either insist they will deliver on broadly a continuation of the economic policies of the Coalition. In which case they lose those whose views are firmly of the Left, off to the Greens.

Or else they row back and promise some elements of socialism. In which case they lose the centre vote, who will think it is not worth the risk of destabilising the economic upturn - after all, it was an economy buggered on Labour's watch and fixed on the Coalition's.

Labour - why would you take the risk?

Labour is currently trying to ride two horses going in opposite directions. At a full gallop.

I also can't see the naked ugly politics of Ed "weaponising the NHS" being anything other than distateful to those on the soft Left and the centre.

Easterross said:

I gather 2 LibDem councillors in Poole have defected in the last day or so to the Tories and last week 2 Labour councillors in somewhere like Nottinghamshire defected to the Tories too. Not surprisingly I didn't see it reported on by the BBC anywhere.

"Somewhere like Nottinghamshire", eh? Not actually Nottinghamshire, at any rate.

Socrates said:

bondegezou said:

Socrates said:

@bondegezou

Can you find one source mentioning Aisha as being older than nine at the age of consumation from before the 20th Century?

Yes. Ibn Hisham, writing in the early 9th century, thought she was probably ten at consummation. Ibn Khallikan in the 13th century and Ibn Sa'd al-Baghdadi also in the early 9th century said she was 12 at consummation.

And none of those and none of the sources saying she was 9 constitute reliable historical sources. They are all religious writers working with scripture. They do not produce historical fact. You cannot one day rail against scriptural literalism and then, the next, argue something is historical fact based purely on scriptural sources.

A modern, rational view is to say we don't know what age Aisha was (she might have been that young, she might not). Most Western historians dismiss most of the hadith as being unreliable and written much later than tradition claims.

Here's a quote from another hadith:

SNIP

So, do you believe that Muhammed miraculously re-filled the water bags? Or do you only believe hadith that suit your political arguments? Aisha's age at consummation is not historical fact. It's like Mary being a virgin in the New Testament. It is a matter of religion.

I believe the hadith when they are (a) the closest historical record to the event and (b) are not making scientifically ridiculous claims. Herodotus obviously made some crazy claims in his works, but for the plausible claims, I would still believe it over work written several centuries later.

Could you please link me to your sources for Hisham, Khalikan and al-Baghdadi? I'm genuinely interested.

You may believe as you wish, but using the phrase "historical fact" when your only source is a religious text written >200 years after the event suggests a poor grasp of historical method. If you want the sort of religious reform of Islam away from scriptural literalism that you say, then a good place to start is a huge dose of scepticism about the Hadith, including understanding that things in the Hadith may have been invented for political reasons.

(I note our history of ancient Israel used to take a similar attitude. The Old Testament may not be perfect and we can ignore all the supernatural stuff, but the basic history of David and Solomon etc. is probably OK, we thought. Until we took a proper look at the archaeology and it became clear how little of the OT has any basis. The 19th century revolution in Biblical studies and the 20th century revolution in "Biblical" archaeology are important parts of a modern view of Christianity, and I think it would be good to see the same sort of development in Islam. I thought you did too.)

Wikipedia's Aisha article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aisha , has, I think, the sources you're interested in.

isam said:

rcs1000 said:

isam said:

SeanT said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

SeanT said:

Comment on the polls in a minute, but first, check this extraordinary piece of apologetic dreck from the Guardian, even as they bury the dead in Paris.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/11/charie-hebdo-danger-polarised-debate-paris-attacks

Guess what, apparently, according to the writer " we, as a society, are collectively responsible" for the jihadist murders in France.

I was looking forward to limbering up my outrage but that article is a disappointment in that respect. He doesn't say "we, as a society, are collectively responsible" for the jihadist murders in France. Instead he makes some reasonably nuanced points, and then concludes:

They [the murderers] are personally responsible for what they did. But we, as a society, are collectively responsible for the conditions that produced them. And if we want others to turn out differently – less hateful, more hopeful – we will have to keep more than one idea in our heads at the same time.

Which is rather different from your precis.

FFS. We, as a society, are NOT F*CKING responsible for the evil mutation in Islam which has produced jihadist terror and murder across the world, in China and Thailand, in Chechnya and Mali, in the Phillipines and Australia and Nigeria and Indonesia. To say that is the most venal kind of equivocation. It's repulsive. It's worse than blaming Islam for Islamism.

And what exactly are we to do "as a society" if we want to stop these jihadists "emerging"? What? Half of them are middle class kids with degrees. They aren't deprived. They are given good lives by the west and cherished freedoms, and they repay us by killing us.

And Yonge wrote this 2 days after the atrocities.

Get a grip, you befuddled Osborne buttplug.

Politician s who ignored the warnings of the dangers of mass immigration are to blame, no one else

No, the people who pulled the trigger are to blame.

Other things can be contributory causes, but let's not forget that.

Another animal analogy...

You keep chickens
You buy a fox.
The fox kills the chickens.
You blame the fox

You can give all the analogies you like, but when you start taking responsibility away from the people who did the deed (it was society, etc. etc. etc.) then you are going down a very slippery slope.

You, and only you, are responsible for your actions.

TGOHF said:

What were the changes from the last LA poll ?

Tories up 4
Lab down 3
UKIP down 3
LD nc
Green up 3

isam said:

rcs1000 said:

isam said:

SeanT said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

SeanT said:

Comment on the polls in a minute, but first, check this extraordinary piece of apologetic dreck from the Guardian, even as they bury the dead in Paris.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/11/charie-hebdo-danger-polarised-debate-paris-attacks

Guess what, apparently, according to the writer " we, as a society, are collectively responsible" for the jihadist murders in France.

I was looking forward to limbering up my outrage but that article is a disappointment in that respect. He doesn't say "we, as a society, are collectively responsible" for the jihadist murders in France. Instead he makes some reasonably nuanced points, and then concludes:

They [the murderers] are personally responsible for what they did. But we, as a society, are collectively responsible for the conditions that produced them. And if we want others to turn out differently – less hateful, more hopeful – we will have to keep more than one idea in our heads at the same time.

Which is rather different from your precis.

FFS. We, as a society, are NOT F*CKING responsible for the evil mutation in Islam which has produced jihadist terror and murder across the world, in China and Thailand, in Chechnya and Mali, in the Phillipines and Australia and Nigeria and Indonesia. To say that is the most venal kind of equivocation. It's repulsive. It's worse than blaming Islam for Islamism.

And what exactly are we to do "as a society" if we want to stop these jihadists "emerging"? What? Half of them are middle class kids with degrees. They aren't deprived. They are given good lives by the west and cherished freedoms, and they repay us by killing us.

And Yonge wrote this 2 days after the atrocities.

Get a grip, you befuddled Osborne buttplug.

Politician s who ignored the warnings of the dangers of mass immigration are to blame, no one else

No, the people who pulled the trigger are to blame.

Other things can be contributory causes, but let's not forget that.

Another animal analogy...

You keep chickens
You buy a fox.
The fox kills the chickens.
You blame the fox

iSam or JihadiSam??

SeanT said:

He says we are "collectively responsible" for the jihadist murderers. .

You need some new glasses. He does not say that.

Things have come to a pretty pass when I'm having to defend the Guardian from being misquoted!

rcs1000 said:

isam said:

rcs1000 said:

isam said:

SeanT said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

SeanT said:

Comment on the polls in a minute, but first, check this extraordinary piece of apologetic dreck from the Guardian, even as they bury the dead in Paris.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/11/charie-hebdo-danger-polarised-debate-paris-attacks

Guess what, apparently, according to the writer " we, as a society, are collectively responsible" for the jihadist murders in France.

I was looking forward to limbering up my outrage but that article is a disappointment in that respect. He doesn't say "we, as a society, are collectively responsible" for the jihadist murders in France. Instead he makes some reasonably nuanced points, and then concludes:

.

Which is rather different from your precis.

FFS. We, as a society, are NOT F*CKING responsible for the evil mutation in Islam which has produced jihadist terror and murder across the world, in China and Thailand, in Chechnya and Mali, in the Phillipines and Australia and Nigeria and Indonesia. To say that is the most venal kind of equivocation. It's repulsive. It's worse than blaming Islam for Islamism.

And what exactly are we to do "as a society" if we want to stop these jihadists "emerging"? What? Half of them are middle class kids with degrees. They aren't deprived. They are given good lives by the west and cherished freedoms, and they repay us by killing us.

And Yonge wrote this 2 days after the atrocities.

Get a grip, you befuddled Osborne buttplug.

Politicians who ignored the warnings of the dangers of mass immigration are to blame, no one else

No, the people who pulled the trigger are to blame.

Other things can be contributory causes, but let's not forget that.

Another animal analogy...

You keep chickens
You buy a fox.
The fox kills the chickens.
You blame the fox

You can give all the analogies you like, but when you start taking responsibility away from the people who did the deed (it was society, etc. etc. etc.) then you are going down a very slippery slope.

You, and only you, are responsible for your actions.

Well obviously the ultimate responsibility rests on the shoulders of the killers.

But I was responding to the article which blames society for creating the conditions for people to adopt the mindset that inspired the killing., The responsibility for that is on the shoulders of Edward Heath, Roy Jenkins, Lord Lester and the other fools responsible for the multicultural experiment

With two polls over the same period showing a difference of 9% between each Labour result, the margin for error must be plus or minus 4.5% at the very least.

That makes the polls useless for deciding voters current preferences between Labour (32.5% +or- 4.5%) and Conservative (33% +or- 4.5%) let alone for forecasting the May result.

NickPalmer said:

Easterross said:

I gather 2 LibDem councillors in Poole have defected in the last day or so to the Tories and last week 2 Labour councillors in somewhere like Nottinghamshire defected to the Tories too. Not surprisingly I didn't see it reported on by the BBC anywhere.

"Somewhere like Nottinghamshire", eh? Not actually Nottinghamshire, at any rate.

Well it begins with an 'N'
http://www.conservativehome.com/localgovernment/2015/01/two-northampton-councillors-defect-from-labour-to-the-conservatives.html
Sadly I have to admit in a bit of a kipper tradition it is husband and wife.

audreyanne said:

TGOHF said:

What were the changes from the last LA poll ?

Cons +4
Lab -3
UKIP - 3
Green + 3
LibDem n/c

Very interesting comment below about the disappearance of Labour's ballast i.e. The Red Liberals. Presumably they've gone green at the thought of EdM? Funny to think we endured week after week of being told they were Labour's firewall. It vanished.

MarqueeMark said:

I can honestly say I have yet to meet anybody who thinks Ed Miliband will do even a so-so job as PM. He is toxic, even amongst my friends who are Labour voters. The absence of cheerleaders on here is notable. Labour shills manage to look beyond Ed to what Labour would do. I just don't see the voters being that generous.

Even if you get to see past Ed to Labour, it has a real problem. They can either insist they will deliver on broadly a continuation of the economic policies of the Coalition. In which case they lose those whose views are firmly of the Left, off to the Greens.

Or else they row back and promise some elements of socialism. In which case they lose the centre vote, who will think it is not worth the risk of destabilising the economic upturn - after all, it was an economy buggered on Labour's watch and fixed on the Coalition's.

Labour - why would you take the risk?

Labour is currently trying to ride two horses going in opposite directions. At a full gallop.

I also can't see the naked ugly politics of Ed "weaponising the NHS" being anything other than distateful to those on the soft Left and the centre.

Spot on post and very much what I've been seeing and hearing on the ground. I'm not sure enthusiasm for Cameron will be huge but EdM is a toxic disaster for Labour. Your point about absence of cheerleaders for him on here is interesting. If we took a litmus test you'd think from this site that UKIP were rampant, but that reflects the daytime demographic (no need to spell that out). Nevertheless, you're right. Enthusiastic Labour and especially EdM supporters are almost non-existent on here. How things have changed.

MikeK aside, I don't see anyone saying UKIP are rampant.. who are you thinking of?

Plenty of people on here repeatedly say UKIP are finished/on the way down etc, but the last three polls have been 14, 16 & 18.

An average of 16

The collective difference from the previous three comparable polls is zero

SeanT said:

He says, and I quote, "we, as a society, are collectively responsible for the conditions that produced [the jihadist murderers]".

Ah, I see you've found your glasses.

audreyanne said:

Spot on post and very much what I've been seeing and hearing on the ground. I'm not sure enthusiasm for Cameron will be huge but EdM is a toxic disaster for Labour. Your point about absence of cheerleaders for him on here is interesting. If we took a litmus test you'd think from this site that UKIP were rampant, but that reflects the daytime demographic (no need to spell that out). Nevertheless, you're right. Enthusiastic Labour and especially EdM supporters are almost non-existent on here. How things have changed.

Conservative activist and supporter says Labour leader isn't up to the job.

And in other news, the Sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning and bears will perform certain functions in wooded areas.

Labour has traditionally been grossly under-represented on this site (whereas the Conservatives and UKIP are over-represented). Unfortunately, IF anyone supporting the Labour line or saying something positive about Ed Miliband comes on, they are almost immediately hounded until they leave.

None of this bears any resemblance on how the electorate as a whole will vote in May. To assume some mystical significance to the allegiance of posters on a political forum is absurd.

peter_from_putney said:

The next few polls could be very interesting ..... were they to confirm today's today's findings by Ashcroft, these could lead to some very sharp movements in the betting markets, particularly in those marginal Tory seats which have long been considered lost to Labour, particularly on this site. I've previously suggested there's value in looking at those seats which are between 30th - 60th on Labour's hit list. I also like a handful of LibDem marginal seats in the SW, which oddly have been assumed by *cough* some to be impregnable from attack by the Tories.

Or they could confirm the Populus.

Probably still close to a tie tho.

There were 28 2010 LDs in Ashcroft poll who said they were switching to the main two parties - 15 said CON and 13 said LAB.

If there is a trend it will show up in further polling.

Pulpstar said:

peter_from_putney said:

The next few polls could be very interesting ..... were they to confirm today's today's findings by Ashcroft, these could lead to some very sharp movements in the betting markets, particularly in those marginal Tory seats which have long been considered lost to Labour, particularly on this site. I've previously suggested there's value in looking at those seats which are between 30th - 60th on Labour's hit list. I also like a handful of LibDem marginal seats in the SW, which oddly have been assumed by *cough* some to be impregnable from attack by the Tories.

Or they could confirm the Populus.

Probably still close to a tie tho.

I'm not so sure ..... when did we last see a 6% Tory lead ..... it must have been yonks ago!

RodCrosby said:

breaking: ISIS hack twitter feed of US Central Command...

That is f***ing serious if true.

AndyJS said:

RodCrosby said:

breaking: ISIS hack twitter feed of US Central Command...

That is f***ing serious if true.

BBC breaking news article on it. Gives credence.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-30785232

"The hack happened as President Barack Obama prepared a speech on cybersecurity." Arf.

SeanT said:

So now, having had everyone one of your alternative arguments tested positive for geriatric drool, you're reduced to saying:

"the general point that our response should not be simplistic seems right to me."

Fantastic. Brilliant. That's so INCISIVE. Without you and Gary Yonge I expect most people would have been saying, Look, what we really need here is a totally simplistic response that does no good at all.

Err, you are the one who pointed us to Gary Younge's unremarkable article. I agree it doesn't say anything very much.

Next time, please make sure you find something a bit more meaty so that we can get properly outraged.

AndyJS said:

UKIP's Scottish MEP David Coburn to stand against Alex Salmond in the general election:

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/ukip-ready-to-take-on-alex-salmond-and-snp-1-3645016

this could be a real hoot.

kle4 said:

AndyJS said:

RodCrosby said:

breaking: ISIS hack twitter feed of US Central Command...

That is f***ing serious if true.

Hacking a twitter account, whoever's it is, is at least not as serious as a hack of a system containing serious information or capabilities.

Looks like they've done that too

isam said:

stodge said:

audreyanne said:

Spot on post and very much what I've been seeing and hearing on the ground. I'm not sure enthusiasm for Cameron will be huge but EdM is a toxic disaster for Labour. Your point about absence of cheerleaders for him on here is interesting. If we took a litmus test you'd think from this site that UKIP were rampant, but that reflects the daytime demographic (no need to spell that out). Nevertheless, you're right. Enthusiastic Labour and especially EdM supporters are almost non-existent on here. How things have changed.

Conservative activist and supporter says Labour leader isn't up to the job.

And in other news, the Sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning and bears will perform certain functions in wooded areas.

Labour has traditionally been grossly under-represented on this site (whereas the Conservatives and UKIP are over-represented). Unfortunately, IF anyone supporting the Labour line or saying something positive about Ed Miliband comes on, they are almost immediately hounded until they leave.

None of this bears any resemblance on how the electorate as a whole will vote in May. To assume some mystical significance to the allegiance of posters on a political forum is absurd.

"Labour has traditionally been grossly under-represented on this site "

tim left well over a year ago and had posted over 10,000 times

9,500 of the them were the same post, though.

dr_spyn said:

Alanbrooke said:

AndyJS said:

UKIP's Scottish MEP David Coburn to stand against Alex Salmond in the general election:

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/ukip-ready-to-take-on-alex-salmond-and-snp-1-3645016

this could be a real hoot.

Clash of heavyweights...

I suspect it's a while since Salmond has been pursued by an in your face fanatic. Kippers can have a taste of revenge served cold.

Stabbing capital of the UK.

This article is a few years old but it's still true:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-557336/Knifetown-UK-We-visit-London-suburb-stab-vests-knives-way-life.html

dr_spyn said:

Dr Andrea has flagged up that the Labour MP is standing down in Edmonton.

http://www.enfieldindependent.co.uk/news/11718590.Edmonton_MP_Andy_Love_to_step_down_before_election/