Spot the outlier – politicalbetting.com
Spot the outlier – politicalbetting.com
It feels like on social media the poll that gets most attention each week is the Find Out Now poll because they are the pollster who are consistently showing Labour doing the worst.
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Being an outlier is uncomfortable, but it doesn't mean you're wrong. It is high-risk though: you are feted as a genius if you're right, and pilloried if you're wrong.
This is obviously a vulnerability that could be exploited maliciously, but equally could lead to political debate being affected by happenstance.
FPT: I can't speak for others but I think you do your opponents a disservice by referring to wounded pride.
Amongst those I spend time with (mostly teachers, and most were on the Remain side) Brexit doesn't really get talked about any more.
But I do think you are putting blinkers on if you only talk about pomposity and arrogance and discount the much more rational view that we have harmed ourselves economically and in relation to our security by divorcing from Europe just at the moment when other reliable global partners have imploded.
Perhaps he was simply too confident of the result and the outcome (incorrectly) on his Twitter feed.
Pretty sure that's also due to the aggressiveness of FON's enthusiasm filter. Nigel and Zak have fans, Keir notoriously doesn't.
I'm which case, FON probably gets low turnout elections righter than high turnout ones
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg87j86xg3o
As things stand, I see a very radical government (which won't do anything for them, or us, except burn it all down) getting in office at some point in the next 20 years - probably just in time to ruin my retirement and family - unless things change. Fast.
I was told the week Mrs May announced the election the Tory private polling had the Tories winning a majority of 294 and potentially over 300 if Scotland played ball.
I have no doubt that poll was kosher (I think the best public poll had the Tories winning a majority of around 200).
The irony is that the polling led Mrs May to propose the dementia tax thinking a hefty majority was in the bag.
OGH and I made a hefty profit selling the Tories at 395ish seats.
However, the evidence is beginning to stack up that isolating the British economy from the single market is having a cumulative and growing impact that needs to be addressed in one way or another.
But I think it's right to say that Starmer is likely to be more motivated by political positioning than economics. If he was motivated by economics there's a lot he could do that would be less contentious.
As I've said before on here - you can always make an economic argument against disintegration: if, say, there was a global single currency and global confederal government with global free movement we'd almost certainly have much higher nominal GDP growth too - trading costs would be far lower as would the costs of labour - however, it would favour large panglobal firms and also raise very serious political and sovereignty questions.
Leaving it would come at a significant cost to economic growth. That wouldn't make it irrational or illegitimate. Nor would it legitimise bile and pomposity coming at those who saw it differently. In fact, it would just aggravate them.
The argument works both ways.
It's a big thing because VALUES. That's it. The economics is viewed to be a useful stick to sidestep this.
Thankfully, I traded out my position to near neutral on the night itself.
I have really enjoyed bazball, and I thought the criticism of it was unwarranted, but the wheels are really coming off now.
Winning big money on Verstappen feels immoral.
Utter filth!
Yes, that's the joke.
The government will fund 350,000 training and work experience placements, and will guarantee 55,000 jobs in areas it says are in the highest need from spring 2026.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqlke33rzplo
Two years ago we had full employment with endless job vacancies in hospitality and construction.
Yet the NEETs did not want them.
Now Labour has put hospitality and construction into recession with continual job losses but think that employers want to take on people who don't want to work.
Are there any Labour politicians who have actually ever employed other people ?
I wouldn't say it's the biggest problem, but I think it's probably a big enough problem that you can't just ignore it. Some unreconciled Remainers will attempt to use the problem to push for rejoining, when there are other potential ways forward that have a better chance of winning majority public support.
Obviously hard-core Leavers may make a value judgement that the economic costs are an acceptable price for freedom, but I never thought Britain wasn't free as an EU member, so I don't accept that value judgement.
From next year, they’ll be using entirely synthetic fuel.
Next summer is the World Cup. England and Scotland matches will be in the evenings, and if they do well, pubs will be rammed and beer sales will go through the roof
This will be recorded as an upward blip in economic growth, with the government cheering their successful economic management. But all that will have happened is people getting plastered and being sick on the pavement and filling A and E.
In what sense is this 'economic growth'. None of them will be fit for work the next day, though no doubt there will be boom time for cleaners wiping up the vomit and glaziers mending the broken windows.
Isn't it time for a more sensible measure
Britain has always been a global trading nation, but we are chiefly a services-exporting one and the single market really doesn't do much for us except in agriculture and (some) goods and that isn't enough of an advantage for me to support a political project to build a new country called Europe, which is what it is.
Sorry.
She had time to be found out. He didn't.
Still, unlikey to be in that position again.
I also didn't say 'harmed ourselves' in general. I think it is unequivocal now that the economic and security implications of Brexit are negative.
The interesting argument (though perhaps not on here as Brexit has been done to death) is where the balance lies between those effects and others, including those that you mention.
I suspect the public have made their minds up, hence agreeing with your original point on the last thread that Labour may be tactically astute to use a customs union or similar as the base for a coalition of voters at the next election.
Becoming the party of the retired (more pensions, no more houses, no more capital spending because I'll be dead before I see the benefit, social nostalgia) was excellent tactics, but appalling strategy.
Remember that William Hague speech from the 1970s? Half of you won't be here in 30 or 40 years' time... It will be a lot more than half now, and the timeline is much shorter. But there's no obvious way off the death spiral the Conservatives cheerily drove onto with their embrace of Red Wall theory.
But in general we're trying to measure the ability of the economy to make more stuff so that we can improve our standard of living, and no-one has created a better measure.
If people have the spare income to go out and enjoy themselves drinking and watching soccer then I think that's better than people not being able to afford to do so, and so it should be measured and be considered a good thing.
Where FON is very different is on the Labour and Green voteshares. It has Labour on just 14% and the Greens on 18% while Opinium has Labour on 21% and the Greens on 13% and Freshwater has Labour on 19% and the Greens on 12%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_National_Happiness
That formulation has been doing the rounds on the European left a bit more recently and it's such a despicable cop-out.
https://x.com/itsme_urstruly/status/1997416426710413686?s=20
I realise the following is anecdotal (but I also think you are just following your gut): my values are much more closely aligned to the individual state sovereignty that we (theoretically) have post-Brexit. I'm basically in Corbyn's camp when it comes to the EU.
But I am also a realist. We aren't big or powerful enough to actually enact the theoretical sovereignty that Brexit offers us. And even if we are, any benefit is likely to be subsumed in the enormous economic and social inefficiency from going it alone security-wise just as our most reliable.security partner (USA) exits stage right, and our most troubling adversary (Russia) appears to have made alliances and consolidated power domestically such that we actually have to defend ourselves.
Theoretical notions of sovereignty will mean little if we go to war with Russia whilst unable to defend ourselves. I realise the EU has never really been about military security, so I don't think we should be looking back at Rejoin. But I do think we should accept a loss of the ability to make trade deals in order to more closely align ourselves to the other powerful nations in Europe (and simultaneously hope that that do not implode as the USA has done)
May had a comfortable majority on the table but threw it away with that policy proposal.
This season has absolutely cemented the fact that Verstappen is the best driver, possibly of all time.
But he is also an arsehole.
If he wins today it will be both the most just and most annoying outcome.
Saying Max Verstappen is the best driver of all time makes me want to reach for the banhammer.
I'm not wasting another day of my life debating Brexit on here.
Enjoy your Sunday.
Britain is not the sick man of Europe, Germany is.
Britain has outgrown the Eurozone, despite Brexit.
The idea we would have outgrown them even more, if only we were shackled to their low growing economy, is entirely theoretical and without an iota of actual substantial evidence.
Britain has been leading and developing cooperation with the Scandis and Baltics through JEF. There's a very recent agreement on maritime security with Norway. Cooperation to assist Ukraine has been very close via the Rammstein format within NATO, the European Political Community and the Coalition of the Willing (to waffle).
There are a couple of minor snags. It looks like the French have spitefully shut Britain out of SAFE as a short-sighted measure to benefit their defence industry. And Britain hasn't been at the table when the EU discusses using Russian assets to help Ukraine. But generally I think both sides have worked well to cooperate despite Brexit.
Good luck winning an election saying that out loud, though.
Putinesque socialist republicans?
3% of the voting population, but maybe 15% of the Labour supporting population?
She's a spoiler. It might make sense if there was PR.
Maybe I got the wrong inference but that’s the way it came across in her interview .
If this is the case and assuming it continues, this suggests the next election will be determined by how the votes get distributed amongst parties other than Reform.
The disparity between polling companies might also be explained by how they handle "Don't Knows" ?
Since the breakup of the empire resulted in social democracy in the Baltics, Eastern Europe etc, it is obviously bad.
So it is written in How To Tankie.
There is a really simple test as to the strength of a country, you look at the exchange rate.
In 2015 flying round Europe I got €1.40 to £1. After Brexit in 2017 I got about €1.25. Last year it was €1.18 and today it’s about €1.13 (or it was). Heck in Prague a Happy Meal (we needed the loo and Mrs Eek need some quick protein) a Happy Meal cost £6
The Genius Square games and variants for example. Essentially all the genius of Tetris without the screens.
They are the ideal party for communist students basically who want purity above all without having to bother with the real world
The Brexit result was unusual in that its aftermath was dominated by both bad winners and bad losers.
Yes, the pound has fallen. It had fallen over time pre Brexit too, and will continue to do so into the future. The UK runs a major budget and current account deficit meaning we need to sell assets to fund that. If you want the pound to appreciate, we need to tackle that.
Inflation has been a problem there, yes, like here. That means we need to look at real data.
However when it comes to real GDP/capita the UK has outgrown the Eurozone.
The data is distorted in 2016 due to the wild changes that happened on the currency markets etc that year, so choosing a sensible benchmark date of say 2010 (pre Brexit, pre debate) to 2024 (post Covid, post Brexit) the UK has grown both real per capita and in aggregate real percentage terms by more than the Eurozone.
Last year, we did again. A long term look eliminates swings and roundabouts but long and short term is the same.
If you want a higher value for sterling then the UK needs to increase output, improve productivity, have a higher savings rate and live within its means.
1 Britain's GDP performance since 2016 has been fine and Brexit wasn't a problem.
2 Britain's GDP has been artificially inflated by the immigration spike.
They can't both be true.
...
Police said the incident involved a "group of people known to each other" after an argument escalated
https://news.sky.com/story/heathrow-airport-live-armed-police-part-of-response-to-significant-incident-in-terminal-3-car-park-13480437
Not terrorism then.
And at the next election who would be prospective PM . Will voters have to wait to post election where the committee decided who they wanted ?
I'd definitely take that, nothing can done about people determined to be bitter regardless.
Now personally I have argued since long before the referendum that we should be in the EEA. I even made bets on it on here, losing the money I won on the Brexit result to Richard N. on the EEA destination. I still believe that so I am not opposed to closer economic ties. But if you are going to have this debate then it should be based on reality and what is practical with our relationship with the EU. Not on the sort of fanciful rubbish being pushed by people like Lammy.
2 is easily resolved by looking at per capita data.
Standard of living improvements are increasingly disconnected from making more stuff.
If we could find a way to measure standard of living directly (however imperfectly) that would be great.
It might well still include the impact of peak time World Cup games, but for a more useful reason.
Mind you Germany has a whole set of structural issues inherited from previous political decisions (lack of energy due to dependency on Russian Gas) and China going after its main industries (heavy engineering, cars).
2016 $42,961 2024 $55,800 29.9% up
UK GDP per capita:
2016 $40,988 2024 $52,636 28.4% up
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?end=2024&locations=DE-GB&start=2016
2015 was rather anomalous...
Despite being on the losing side then, I feel I'm a good deal less noisy than the PB Brexiteers who despite being 'winners' never miss an opportunity to rage about remoaners etc.