politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Do the size of ministers’ majorities matter?

Patrick said:

It would be funny beyond belief if Ed Balls fell in 2015.

His constituency is ripe for UKIP IMO

"In other electoral systems Ministers are not constituency MPs."

Not many places do national lists without constituencies, do they? I guess there's the US model where the executive isn't made up of MPs at all.

The government front-bench will tend to have bigger majorities than the opposition front-bench, for obvious reasons.

isam said:

His constituency is ripe for UKIP IMO

Nothing would secure his position more than UKIP splitting the opposition.

UKIP should mount a big campaign against Ed Balls, might have a sniff - 20-1 against or thereabouts. If they could get BNP and CON voters behind it..

Also Lib Dems in the seat, would they vote tactically - if a Lib-Lab coalition comes up better to have Balls out, after all he was one of the chief wreckers of the 2010 votes, plus more leverage for Cable.

In Morely and Outwood in 2010 UKIP polled 3.1% which is what they polled nationwide.

TheScreamingEagles said:

In Morely and Outwood in 2010 UKIP polled 3.1% which is what they polled nationwide.

and Balls scraped home with about 1.5% - go figure

Alanbrooke said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

In Morely and Outwood in 2010 UKIP polled 3.1% which is what they polled nationwide.

and Balls scraped home with about 1.5% - go figure

Well done UKIP, I mean that.

I mean, we all know how crap Dave and in particular George are, but thanks to Ed Balls, they still manage to outpoll the two Eds on the economic front.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Alanbrooke said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

In Morely and Outwood in 2010 UKIP polled 3.1% which is what they polled nationwide.

and Balls scraped home with about 1.5% - go figure

Well done UKIP, I mean that.

I mean, we all know how crap Dave and in particular George are, but thanks to Ed Balls, they still manage to outpoll the two Eds on the economic front.

I must admit I'm in 2 minds about this, Short term I'd like nothing better than Balls off the airwaves but Balls is a permanent reminder of just how atrocious Labour's economic management has been.

" we ran a surplus, we ran a surplus, we ran a surplus - ok it was a 5.2% deficit"

You can tell how bad he is by how good he makes Osborne look.

Socrates said:

tim said:

isam said:

Socrates said:

I see tim is referring to the elderly as "coffin dodgers" now. How pleasant.

I don't get what anyone gains by using terms like that, we all must have elderly friends/relatives

Yes it was a deadly serious post.
I genuinely think they smell of humbugs and Nigel Farage puts his tongue down their throats.

Is there anything worse than a sensitive Kipper.

Love this. Imagine if someone on here referred to Muslim women as "bin bag wearers" or Sikh men as "towel heads", and then when people objected saying "oh it obviously wasn't serious!", thinking that the comic nature of the insult made it ok. The moderators would, rightly, ban that person instantly and there would be a general outcry. Yet when it is done to the elderly, who are as vulnerable and marginalised as any of the above groups, the moderators do nothing and the left-wing posters stay silent in their hypocrisy.

tim is at the obnoxious heart of New Labour, along with people like Derek Draper and Damian McBride.

Incredible lack of self awareness

isam said:

@TheScreamingEagles

I answered your question re gay marriage & Inter racial marriage on the last thread, would you like to answer mine on civil partnerships? Are they equal for all people? Are you angry at the lack of equality?

And if you want to bet on this seat make me a price on UKIP winning it in 2015...putting your money where your mouth is always helps to see how confident people are in their opinions

Re Civil partnerships, no I'm not happy with them at all.

Second point, I've not analysed this seat fully to price it up, yet.

Alanbrooke said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Alanbrooke said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

In Morely and Outwood in 2010 UKIP polled 3.1% which is what they polled nationwide.

and Balls scraped home with about 1.5% - go figure

Well done UKIP, I mean that.

I mean, we all know how crap Dave and in particular George are, but thanks to Ed Balls, they still manage to outpoll the two Eds on the economic front.

I must admit I'm in 2 minds about this, Short term I'd like nothing better than Balls off the airwaves but Balls is a permanent reminder of just how atrocious Labour's economic management has been.

" we ran a surplus, we ran a surplus, we ran a surplus - ok it was a 5.2% deficit"

You can tell how bad he is by how good he makes Osborne look.

I suspect the two Eds will be like Varro and Paullus, and thus make Cameron look like Hannibal at the next election.

The irony of it is, Labour tried to spin Black Wednesday as all being Dave's fault when he was Norman Lamont's bag carrier.

But Labour don't like it when you point out Balls was Gordon's Advisor in the treasury for nearly a decade, and Ed Miliband was appointed Chairman of HM Treasury's Council of Economic Advisers as a replacement for Ed Balls, with specific responsibility for directing the UK's long-term economic planning.

The reason why most Tory cabinet ministers have large majorities is that the great majority of Conservative MPs with sub-5k majorities were gains in the 2010 election and those MPs haven't had time to be promoted to the cabinet, particularly with the restrictions that the coalition places on the PM's patronage. That's not to say that those marginal-seat MPs can't make their voices heard but they do need to find a willing ear too. There may be a few examples though of longer-serving Tories with non-Labour opposition who didn't gain a goodly sized swing in 2010, and boundary reviews could also leave some with smaller majorities. They'll be the exception though.

The reverse is also true. Few, if any (?), of Labour's 1997 cabinet will have had a small majority as they'd have all received a huge boost from their 1992 scores, however after seeing reverses in 2005 and 2010, it's not surprising that several of the shadow cabinet are now nursing closely-fought seats.

Does it matter? Not of itself, providing that those at the top keep their ear to the ground, one way or another. After all, nearly all PMs will have had safe seats otherwise they'd probably have lost at some time on the way up. If anything, the problem with the gay marriage issue was that it went down badly with core Tory voters rather than centrist swing ones, so those with large numbers of Conservative voters should have been all the more aware of the likely response.

Anorak, I read that article too. I've been working in Qatar for the last year (looking forward to coming home soon!) and generally found the ex-pats a fairly decent bunch. There is a line in that article about an ex-pat not seeing the poverty that exists in Dubai, I find it hard to believe that line was spoken. Everyone working anywhere in the Middle East is acutely aware of the poverty that exists, it's very, very visible.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Ladbrokes have a great market up

To be spotted at the Grove Hotel, Watford during the Bilderberg conference

http://sportsbeta.ladbrokes.com/Politics/Bilderberg-Specials-N-1z141lkZ1z0t4iw/

Who's Wayner Rooney?

To be spotted at the Grove Hotel, Watford during the Bilderberg conference

I wonder if UKIP missed a trick by not targeting/picketing Bilderberg. It storms into their narrative of us being ruled by a remote and self perpetuating elite class who are 'all the same'.

may Nige is hoping for an invite...

Had to smile at a featured article on the Guardian site.

Amidst all the class warriors manning the barricades in support of the workers, we have a winsome piece on 'how to buy your perfect coffee machine'

It really is grim up North London.

France has ossified. It is intellectually, morally, politically and increasingly actually bankrupt. They rage aginst the globalised world with as much chance of putting it back in its box as I do of being the next Queen of England. A true horror story of lefty statism run riot over a prolonged period. The Germans are starting to give up on them:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/economic-decline-in-france-the-failed-leadership-of-hollande-a-903732.html

taffys said:

I wonder if UKIP missed a trick by not targeting/picketing Bilderberg. It storms into their narrative of us being ruled by a remote and self perpetuating elite class who are 'all the same'.

It also plays into the narrative of them being tin-foil-hat wearing loonies so probably not a good tactic.

Patrick said:

France has ossified. It is intellectually, morally, politically and increasingly actually bankrupt. They rage aginst the globalised world with as much chance of putting it back in its box as I do of being the next Queen of England. A true horror story of lefty statism run riot over a prolonged period. The Germans are starting to give up on them:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/economic-decline-in-france-the-failed-leadership-of-hollande-a-903732.html

Their struggles over gay marriage really still shock me. I've seen people pepper sprayed in the street. Far more open antagonism of police and passers by and the other night, a mate of a mate got killed 2 nights ago, presumably because he said the wrong thing to the wrong people.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22798876

2 sets all in the Final in all but name at Roland Garros
And Djoko has broken !

Edit: How did these two end up in the same side of the draw btw ? Surely they are the two big pre tourney favourites - Some voodoo with the rankings due to Nadal's lack of play ?

@BoredInParis

You wait until the deficit spending splurge ends and the French state is obliged to live within its means. The rioting will make the Battle of Stalingrad look like a Morris dancing festival.

Here's a really bad news story:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2f213f78-ce9f-11e2-8e16-00144feab7de.html#axzz2VS7NhTSq

Neil said:

We feel your pain antifrank. Wont somebody please think of the lawyers?!

I'd imagine Antifrank will be just fine, young graduates looking for training contracts however - well this is where the sharp end will hit.

@antifrank What do the internals of the article say or do I really not want to know based on our messages ?

Neil said:

We feel your pain antifrank. Wont somebody please think of the lawyers?!

Pls explain Paul Elliott remarks!!!

Even net trade is making a modest contribution to growth now although the underlying picture is less happy with imports falling faster than exports being the basis of the improvement: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/10105470/UK-trade-position-improves-in-April.html

What I find really interesting is the change in trade between the EU and the rest of the world. The Coalition's policy does seem to be bearing fruit there and the rate of change is remarkable. They quote the office of National Statistics which says:

"The positions are now reversed. The volume of exports to the EU has gone down since 2011 by around 5pc, while they have risen to the rest of the world [by] 7pc. Conversely, imports from the EU have risen slightly over this period while they have been flatter from the rest of the world.”

These are really rapid changes in the world of trade. It will be of interest and political importance how far our share of trade going to the EU has fallen by the end of the year, let alone 2017.

@Pulpstar The main point of the article was:

"The UK’s largest 100 law firms by revenue nudged up their fee income by an average of only 2.6 per cent in the 2012-13 fiscal year, less than half the median rate of 6.6 per cent seen in the preceding 12 months, according to new research by Deloitte."

Partners will feel some of the pain, though they have the most upholstering. There will be a continuing reduction in partner headcounts, increased use of paralegals and technology and much more brutal career development paths for all lawyers.

Hmm Each Nadal service game an epic fist pumping struggle, each Djoko game an easy hold.

No title number 8 at RG for Nadal methinks.

There has been a new wave of redundancies in Scottish Commercial law firms in the last month with 30 announced from MacLays this week. Not big numbers by London standards but sore enough to hurt in a smaller profession.

The driving force is a chronic lack of deals involving the buying or selling of UK companies. The market has been moribund for so long the wish to hold onto good staff is no longer enough.

The lack of commercial activity is hurting the bar too. People are just not entering enough contracts to generate the disputes. Insolvency is starting to feature a lot more which is a late recession scenario.

There will be a long tail to this recession even when this is over.

@TGOHF

We're running a 6% deficit. And even a super growth number will be a fair bit lower than that. This is not sustainable.

Maybe I'm being harsh and Ozzy is pushing a Goldilocks zone where spending falls at a rate just slow enough not to kill confidence. In which case the increase in debt will not level off for many years. Years to be followed by an extended surplus or 'growth exceeds deficit' zone. Either way public sector largesse is dead for a long long time.

My own view is we could push spending cuts quite a bit harder and offer some tax breaks for small business too. The relative pain of adjustment is not yet falling enough in the public sector and growth stimulus not enough in the private sector.

How about a fiscally neutral sharp cut in total benefits (the 'cap' - which is very popular) and a sharp cut in employers' NIC (also popular, esp for the jobless)?

antifrank said:

@DavidL The Scottish market is consolidating rapidly in response to the current market conditions. I expect to see plenty more mergers, the flight of good partners to financially stronger practices, the enforced transfer of weaker partners to weaker practices and further redundancies at many firms.

Disclaimer: I do have a commercial interest in this process.

Yep.The absorbtion of McGrigors, historically one of Scotland's largest commercial firms, by Pinsent Mason (who probably barely noticed) last year set a trend that has a long way to go. It is more than a little ironic that at a time Scotland is supposedly thinking about Independence its' historically indepedent and proud legal profession is being gobbled up by England like never before.

Socrates said:

antifrank said:

@Pulpstar The main point of the article was:

"The UK’s largest 100 law firms by revenue nudged up their fee income by an average of only 2.6 per cent in the 2012-13 fiscal year, less than half the median rate of 6.6 per cent seen in the preceding 12 months, according to new research by Deloitte."

Partners will feel some of the pain, though they have the most upholstering. There will be a continuing reduction in partner headcounts, increased use of paralegals and technology and much more brutal career development paths for all lawyers.

Pain? More brutal career development? What does that mean? Having to look for another very well compensated job?

It means not becoming a solicitor due to not getting a training contract. And redundancies from £16k a year legal help jobs. Thats err what it means.

TGOHF said:

Patrick said:

I want to know when UK austrity is going to start. For all the buzz spending is still going up.

Yes but the shares are changing which is enough to produce whining losers - mostly public sector workers.

Also interest payments are a hefty £44Bn + per annum - not easy to cut those down without a surplus.

What hardship in the public sector would that be exactly? The most interesting thing about this article from the end of last year was the failure to find a convincing answer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20561444

370K off the public wage bill but a 2% rise in the wage bill in the same timescale equivalent to an average increase in earnings for those in the public sector of 9% in 2 years when wages for the majority in the private sector were not rising at all (April 2010 to April 2012).

A major reason for "austerity" not cutting the deficit or public spending is how difficult it has proven in practice to restrict public sector wage increases. The contractual entitlements built into their employment under the last government have proven extremely difficult to resist.

Anyway back on topic, No not particularly if you are a Labour Minister.

I'll tell you a minister who could do with another 10,000 majority to his seat - Danny Alexander - current majority 8765. At a guess I'd say he would be likely to lose it next GE though. Probably Evens to hold, 5/6 to lose it.

Candidates selected so far for GE2015:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0At91c3wX1Wu5dFkzTjFrRmJRN3F6ODBTTEs4NGFhcUE#gid=0

DavidL said:

TGOHF said:

DavidL said:

TGOHF said:

Patrick said:

I want to know when UK austrity is going to start. For all the buzz spending is still going up.

Yes but the shares are changing which is enough to produce whining losers - mostly public sector workers.

Also interest payments are a hefty £44Bn + per annum - not easy to cut those down without a surplus.

What hardship in the public sector would that be exactly? The most interesting thing about this article from the end of last year was the failure to find a convincing answer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20561444

370K off the public wage bill but a 2% rise in the wage bill in the same timescale equivalent to an average increase in earnings for those in the public sector of 9% in 2 years when wages for the majority in the private sector were not rising at all (April 2010 to April 2012).

A major reason for "austerity" not cutting the deficit or public spending is how difficult it has proven in practice to restrict public sector wage increases. The contractual entitlements built into their employment under the last government have proven extremely difficult to resist.

The best way to save cash therefore is to have a lot less of them...

And we do. The number employed by the state has fallen for 13 consecutive quarters: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/pse/public-sector-employment/q4-2012/index.html

The cumulative effect is remarkable and demonstrates vividly how out of control things got under new Labour. Has anyone noticed any of our public services falling apart with over 400,000 fewer workers? What on earth did they all do?

Well there is the small matter of A&E departments that are apparently reaching crisis point, though I don't know whether that is due to cuts in headcount.

You also won't necessarily notice the drop in armed forces numbers until you wish to use them in a war somewhere.

You also have to be wary of living in the filter bubble. Just because you haven't noticed public services falling apart, doesn't mean that it isn't happening. It depends how reliant you are on those services, as to whether you would notice, and whether you discount stories about problems in the public service as whining from producer interests, etc.

There are some bits of the public sector that have had sod all pay rises since Brown introduced his 2% pay cap, back when he was still Chancellor. It's all down to how strong your union is, and what sort of pay system you have. It's a long way from being as homogeneous as people make out is the public sector. I reckon Plato would agree - she used to take the Government's shilling, if I recall correctly.

AndyJS said:

Candidates selected so far for GE2015:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0At91c3wX1Wu5dFkzTjFrRmJRN3F6ODBTTEs4NGFhcUE#gid=0

Thanks AndyJS for the list. It looks like the Lib Dems might be getting their act together on the gender balance - the problem of course is getting elected!

On-topic and away from the half-baked and poorly-quoted nonsense about cutting public sector workers (half the loss is down to the re-classification of workers in colleges).

Good grief, it's bad enough that most people on here have to run off and quote someone else because they're incapable of forming an argument themselves but then to completely misunderstand the information you're using to support your own argument.

I mean, mouth meet foot - please get better acquainted.

Sorr, on-topic, and almost the only response worth reading as most of the early discussion descended into a rant about Ed Balls came, as might be expected, from David Herdson. I recall one of the problems Conservatives after 1997 and Labour after 1979 had was the sense among the survivors that they were untouchable.

If all that you represent is the heartland that's the voice you'll be listening to. I would argue the limited improvement in Conservative fortunes in 2005 and the election of 30-35 new MPs allowed Cameron and all he stood for to gain the upper hand. In the same way, I think Blair gained from the influx of Labour MPs elected in 1992.

The mauling of 1997 carried away experience - what was left were the backwoodspeople often without any prospect of Ministerial advancement who suddenly found themselves having to shadow Ministers for which they were almost completely unprepared.

I suspect that short of a landslide in 2015, the Conservative Opposition frontbench will be a much stronger outfit than recent Governments have faced and once having coalesced around a new leader and seen off UKIP (love-bombing anyone?), they will be a formidable force.

Three new German polls out in the last few days, all putting Merkel's party on 41-42%:

http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/index.htm

Good evening, everyone.

Saw the end of the Nadal-Djokovic match. It was rather good. One suspects Wimbledon could be very good, especially if the top 4 reach the semis.

Socrates said:

antifrank said:

@Pulpstar The main point of the article was:

"The UK’s largest 100 law firms by revenue nudged up their fee income by an average of only 2.6 per cent in the 2012-13 fiscal year, less than half the median rate of 6.6 per cent seen in the preceding 12 months, according to new research by Deloitte."

Partners will feel some of the pain, though they have the most upholstering. There will be a continuing reduction in partner headcounts, increased use of paralegals and technology and much more brutal career development paths for all lawyers.

Pain? More brutal career development? What does that mean? Having to look for another very well compensated job?

Pain for partners = less money, in some cases a lot less money. Or losing their jobs.

More brutal career development = less tolerance of plodders, more average lawyers losing their jobs.

There will be fewer jobs for lawyers all round, which means that many lawyers will have no jobs, very well compensated or otherwise.

BoredInParis said:

Patrick said:

France has ossified. It is intellectually, morally, politically and increasingly actually bankrupt. They rage aginst the globalised world with as much chance of putting it back in its box as I do of being the next Queen of England. A true horror story of lefty statism run riot over a prolonged period. The Germans are starting to give up on them:

http://www.spiegel.de/international
Their struggles over gay marriage really still shock me. I've seen people pepper sprayed in the street. Far more open antagonism of police and passers by and the other night, a mate of a mate got killed 2 nights ago, presumably because he said the wrong thing to the wrong people.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22798876

BoredInParis said:

Patrick said:

France has ossified. It is intellectually, morally, politically and increasingly actually bankrupt. They rage aginst the globalised world with as much chance of putting it back in its box as I do of being the next Queen of England. A true horror story of lefty statism run riot over a prolonged period. The Germans are starting to give up on them:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/economic-decline-in-france-the-failed-leadership-of-hollande-a-903732.html

Their struggles over gay marriage really still shock me. I've seen people pepper sprayed in the street. Far more open antagonism of police and passers by and the other night, a mate of a mate got killed 2 nights ago, presumably because he said the wrong thing to the wrong people.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22798876

BoredInParis said:

Patrick said:

France has ossified. It is intellectually, morally, politically and increasingly actually bankrupt. They rage aginst the globalised world with as much chance of putting it back in its box as I do of being the next Queen of England. A true horror story of lefty statism run riot over a prolonged period. The Germans are starting to give up on them:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/economic-decline-in-france-the-failed-leadership-of-hollande-a-903732.html

Their struggles over gay marriage really still shock me. I've seen people pepper sprayed in the street. Far more open antagonism of police and passers by and the other night, a mate of a mate got killed 2 nights ago, presumably because he said the wrong thing to the wrong people.

Genuinely shocked. Gay marriage opponents was it?

Quiz competiion: Fill-in the missing word....

An ??????? terror group plotted to bomb the EDL for “blasphemy” because they were bored and not very intelligent, a court heard today.

The answer can be found here....

:awaits-low-viz-punishment:

RobD said:

AndyJS said:

Three new German polls out in the last few days, all putting Merkel's party on 41-42%:

http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/index.htm

But the FDP are stubbornly below the 5% threshold, which I think is needed to continue the current coalition.

They're only one percentage point below the threshold. The chances are enough CDU/CSU voters will vote tactically to push them above 5%. We saw that in Lower Saxony at the start of the year, where the FDP polled 10% compared to 5% in most polls.

On topic. Isn't this an argument for Single Transferable Vote, because I keep reading instances in Ireland where Cabinet Ministers there having to break off from international summits to attend some constituency event for fear of losing their seat?

FluffyThoughts said:

Quiz competiion: Fill-in the missing word....

An ??????? terror group plotted to bomb the EDL for “blasphemy” because they were bored and not very intelligent, a court heard today.

The answer can be found here....

:awaits-low-viz-punishment:

A great defence: my client is really stupid!

Mind you under Labours workfare scheme these plotters would be in the workfare scheme. perhaps as class room assistants or as helpers in old folks homes, rather than creating economic growth and employment in the criminal justice sector of the economy.