politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Farage’s “unresignation” makes him and his party look stupi

AndyJS There was a swing in the marginals above UNS this election, no reason there could not be a swingback larger than UNS if the circumstances are right, especially given the marginals are the focus of most campaigning

SeanT said:

Alistair said:

SeanT said:

tyson said:

@Casino and @Seant

Enjoy your lefty, love in bashing while it lasts. Labour lost the last two elections because of terrible, terrible, terrible leadership choices. Provided it doesn't make another terrible choice I fully expect the political gravity to return shortly to the centre progressives, i.e. Labour.

Not without Scotland it won't. And Scotland is not coming back to Labour, there is no logical reason for this to happen.

And you were TEN points behind the Tories in England. And UKIP is gobbling up your WWC core.

If the Tories don't implode over the EUref, then Labour will find it very very hard to get a majority in 2020. Best hope is a plurality. And if the Tories time the next economic boomlet right, you will lose again.

Given that the last elections labour won they would have won without Scotland why do you say that?

That was pre-UKIP (as well as pre-indyref). I do believe the political topography has fundamentally altered, for Labour, and not to their advantage.

Of course in time "a" Labour party will govern again, but it may take 10 years, or even 15, not 5, and that Labour party might be considerably more rightwing than the one we see today. And who knows, it might have a different name and constitution. It may, for instance, absorb the leftwing LDs, if that party entirely dies.

All is changed.

I don't think it's in the British electorate's DNA to welcome a Conservative government. Any time the Labour Party even pays lip service to sanity and credibility it gets elected. The electorate place a considerably lower credibility bar to left-wing politicians. All they have to do is find a leader even half-attractive and present a programme which is even half-coherent. Unfortunately, for most of the last forty years, this has proved entirely beyond them.* But there's no reason they can't do so in 2020, especially rid of the rules which give one third of the votes to Len McCluskey.

*With the exception of Jim Callaghan, who would have fitted the bill entirely but came to power in a time and situation almost anyone would have struggled to win from.

Carola said:

'Labour's election pollster says public polls "showed a much more favourable position for Labour than we were finding in our internal data" both before the campaign and during it.'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32606713

"The main difference between our polls and the newspaper polls is that we don't ask the voting intention first... we first ask respondents to think about the country, the economy, their top issues, the parties and the leaders. We think it gets them closer to their ballot box mindset."

SeanT said:

SouthamObserver said:

@SeanT - I had a well-known right wing thriller writer wish death on me online merely because I am a leftie.

As I said, the commenters below the line have always been nuts.

I would not have published that feisty remark in, say, a Telegraph blog.

There's nothing new in the self-righteous nonsense some on the left indulge in. It's been the same for as long as I can remember. Same with the vitriol. It has its roots in direct confrontation with the state. We now know the police in the 70s and 80s were often violent liars, but back then the activist left and trade unionists were routinely physically assaulted and harrassed, and nothing happened. It fostered a violence of language and outlook that is unfortunately still with us today.

kle4 said:

Casino_Royale said:

foxinsoxuk said:

tyson said:

@Casino and @Seant

Enjoy your lefty, love in bashing while it lasts. Labour lost the last two elections because of terrible, terrible, terrible leadership choices. Provided it doesn't make another terrible choice I fully expect the political gravity to return shortly to the centre progressives, i.e. Labour.

With the right leader (and no one can doubt Liz Kendall's ambition!) Labour can make a quick comeback. While 100 seats are needed for a majority, 50-60 would put The Tories on the opposition benches. Very do-able, particularly if the LDs make a recovery too. Remember: when Labour gain seats, so do the Lib dems (and vice versa). It has been true for decades.

Come on comrades! There is work to be done!

This election had a lot of fairly half-hearted Tory voters. The last 5 years were OK, not great, for many people. Combined with the leadership factor this put a lot of crosses in Con boxes. This election was 2001 rather than 1992, with Ed Miliband as William Hague. The difference is that Tony Blair had a 180 seat majority, not 6 seats.

I can't work out whom you support or why!

If only I could achieve such enigmatic quality - sadly, people hardly ever accuse me of being a Labour supporter thesedays, despite all those predictions of Labour victory, certainly not compared to those who accuse me of being Tory.

Happens to us all. It was suggested I might be a Kipper abuse throwing Tory earlier on here, or at least not understand why that was a problem with some Tories.

Me!!!

Carola said:

Carola said:

'Labour's election pollster says public polls "showed a much more favourable position for Labour than we were finding in our internal data" both before the campaign and during it.'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32606713

"The main difference between our polls and the newspaper polls is that we don't ask the voting intention first... we first ask respondents to think about the country, the economy, their top issues, the parties and the leaders. We think it gets them closer to their ballot box mindset."

Now that is very interesting. It might prove to be Labour's most useful contribution over the last 5 years.

Tissue_Price said:

Carola said:

Carola said:

'Labour's election pollster says public polls "showed a much more favourable position for Labour than we were finding in our internal data" both before the campaign and during it.'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32606713

"The main difference between our polls and the newspaper polls is that we don't ask the voting intention first... we first ask respondents to think about the country, the economy, their top issues, the parties and the leaders. We think it gets them closer to their ballot box mindset."

Now that is very interesting. It might prove to be Labour's most useful contribution over the last 5 years.

Very interesting.

Dair said:

Carnyx said:

Dair said:

Carnyx said:

<
2. On the lsit vote, on current performance, again, SLAB are going down to about a quarter of the vote - whereas the Tories have a pretty solid core vote of about a sixth. But don't forget the LDs and UKIP will be squeezing each a little, and the Tories will find it more worthwhile to vote for their own. The Greens and SSP will also be hitting Labour, and I think our PBer colleagues are right in suspecting that a SNP constituency-Green list vote will be a significant factor.

SLAB were on 26% of the List vote IN 2011.

They aren't going down to 25%. They are going down FROM 25% perhaps to less than 15%.

If that's the case the 'Pouter tactical voting wheels will often be better off urging Labour voters to vote tactically for the Tories ... doesn't really compute, does it?

One thing computes.

Labour are finished in Scotland.

Why? Do you think the SNP are going to win all the seats for ever and ever?

HYUFD said:

Dair In Kirckaldy in 2011 for instance the SNP won 45% Labour 44% the Tories 7%. In Aberdeen Central the SNP won 40%, Labour 37%, the Tories 12%. Both seats Tory tactical voting could win

But. That's. Not. Where. The. SNP. And. Labour. Start. From. In. 2016.

Tissue_Price said:

isam said:

Tissue_Price said:

Really it's a shop job - if anyone can get £20/£50 on @ 500/1 at a local Paddy Power I'll buy it off them for a 25% markup!

If it is still there tmrw morning I will try in my local PP

Cheers! I expect you want some for yourself too :-)

Worth a nicker!

Dair Yes it is, that was the last Holyrood result and Tories will be more likely to vote tactically in a Labour v SNP battle where there is no risk of electing a Labour government

George Zimmerman 'shot in the face' in Florida

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11598391/George-Zimmerman-shot-in-the-face-in-Florida.html

ThomasNashe said:

Dair said:

Carnyx said:

Dair said:

Carnyx said:

<
2. On the lsit vote, on current performance, again, SLAB are going down to about a quarter of the vote - whereas the Tories have a pretty solid core vote of about a sixth. But don't forget the LDs and UKIP will be squeezing each a little, and the Tories will find it more worthwhile to vote for their own. The Greens and SSP will also be hitting Labour, and I think our PBer colleagues are right in suspecting that a SNP constituency-Green list vote will be a significant factor.

SLAB were on 26% of the List vote IN 2011.

They aren't going down to 25%. They are going down FROM 25% perhaps to less than 15%.

If that's the case the 'Pouter tactical voting wheels will often be better off urging Labour voters to vote tactically for the Tories ... doesn't really compute, does it?

One thing computes.

Labour are finished in Scotland.

Why? Do you think the SNP are going to win all the seats for ever and ever?

There's a difference between thinking they're going to hold most of their seats next time and thinking their going to win all the seats for ever and ever. The first is quite likely, the second not so.

Pulpstar I was talking about Westminster

MP_SE said:

https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/597840696247222272

Will UKIP lose any Short Money if Carswell goes 'independent'? Would Farage be able find a convenient Polish neo nazi to be a stand in?
Will Carswell resign and stand again, er because Farage did not resign and stand again?

foxinsoxuk said:

nigel4england said:

Alistair said:

I can get £7.28 (10 Euros I presume) on UKIP most seats online.

Now 250/1

HYUFD said:

Dair In Kirckaldy in 2011 for instance the SNP won 45% Labour 44% the Tories 7%. In Aberdeen Central the SNP won 40%, Labour 37%, the Tories 12%. Both seats Tory tactical voting could win

ThomasNashe said:

foxinsoxuk said:

JonnyJimmy said:

AndyJS said:

To win the next election on the current boundaries Labour needs a swing in England & Wales just 0.9% less than the one Blair achieved in 1997. 9.4% vs 10.3%. (Assumes Labour won't win back any Scottish seats from the SNP).

Who's the Blair in the Labour leadership election?

Liz Kendall. The ambition and vision of Blair, before Tony went over to the dark side to become (in)Vader.

Btw. Well done for your spot. I think you were the first on this board to bring our attention to her.

We shall see if it is a good tip when the race is over!

It is possible that her ambition is just a little bit too naked, but give me Liz Kendall's directness rather than Chuka's pretended coyness.

It's a great tip already, I'm laying Liz on Betfair right now

Backing that crucial contender in any leadership election "The field"

HYUFD said:

AndyJS There was a swing in the marginals above UNS this election, no reason there could not be a swingback larger than UNS if the circumstances are right, especially given the marginals are the focus of most campaigning

That's correct. The electorate does seem to be becoming more volatile so a big swing back to Labour isn't impossible in certain circumstances.

isam said:

Philip_Thompson said:

isam said:

Philip_Thompson said:

isam said:

nigel4england said:

isam said:

Think if all the PBers that were going to vote Ukip under a new leader but now will have to stick with their old party! #missedopportunity

For all the stick Farage is getting for being reinstated at the behest of the money men )and I think he should stay out) I have seen little criticism of Ed Balls alleged grubby attempt to get back in.

If he had won Thanet South by 1 vote and UKIP had got 8% you would have been happy for him to stay?

Basically unless Carswell wanted the job, it was going to be a non MP, so Farage's reason for stepping down (not being in Westminster) was bogus.. as it stands he is the best man for the job, and he is in he job

Rejoice!

The issue is one of credibility. He set a condition he'd resign by if he failed - and he failed. If he'd won South Thanet by 1 vote then that would have been a success not a failure.

The mistake was saying he'd resign if he didn't win in the first place. But once said, he should honour his pledges.

So even though it is worse for UKIP, he should resign to keep other parties supporters happy? OK

Anyway, he did resign, but they didn't accept it

Everyone's happy!

Though he made clear in his "resignation speech" that he didn't want to go.

Either way I'm amused that 12%, no new seats and only one of the defectors is considered a win now. Before the election we were being told that the vote share would at least be high teens and there would be a number of seats. Looks like both expectations were undershot. Rather than rewriting history to make that look like a success a reflection on what went wrong seems more credible if the party was intending to be serious.

"Before the election we were being told that the vote share would at least be high teens "

Who is rewriting history?

Are you claiming that no Kippers here weren't claiming there'd be a share in that high?

I distinctly recall a few people suggesting at least 16-18% as a vote share. No link though, but just off memory.

EDIT: I definitely DO NOT recall any Kipper (or others) suggesting a share in the single digits, so any comparisons of what was achieved against that don't work.

Flightpathl said:

LucyJones said:

I'm guessing Ed and Nick aren't going to be forced into un-resigning?

Richard_Tyndall said:

Flightpathl said:

Cobblers to your bollocks. !
Cameron has plainly said we do not want to be part of any ever closer union. 'Not want'. Given the Euro and Eurozone, that is the way the EU is going. We have to negotiate around that. 'That' being the non single market - the closer financial and political union.
Being in the EEA is one option, but really as far as the single market and movement of labour it will not make much difference to us compared to now.
But you come close to grasping the point. The EU is there even without us. A changing EU. It is not going to go away. Even the Euro, much to my amazement is not going to go away. We need renegotiation, we need a referendum.
Inevitably there will be much hysteria on the way. Clearly it has started now.

So you accept what I said then. The Single Market is only one small part of the EU and we would be far better off out and just part of the EEA trading bloc. Only Europhiles like yourself are still trying to convince us there would be no difference between the two.

And as to negotiation it was always going to be and always will be bollocks. Right now Cameron is going on about repealing the HRA - which would mean leaving the ECHR. Which is funny given that the EU as a whole is currently in the latter stages of joining the ECHR in its own right which will just bring us straight back to where we are now.

I have said on various occasions that being in the EEA would not bother me. I've also said it would not make much difference but keep us out of the political stuff. I've said it above. I repeat - Cameron does not want closer union, very few Brits do. We are not in the euro and not likely to be.
All of this means negotiations. Its likely we can get to stay in and be outside of the political and monetary bit. ie just like in the EEA bit with some say.
Either way - the EU is still there and we will be in the single market. In or Out thats what European trade means
The ECHR has nothing to do with the EU.

Wrong. The EU is the final stages of becoming a signatory to the ECHR in its own right. At that point all members will be bound by the convention whether they are independently members or not. You have been told this often enough over the last year and still ignore it as you appear to ignore anything that does not conform with your warped world view.

Are we expecting a YouGov poll this evening?...innocent face....

No tweet from Loud Howard, must be a bad one for the Tories.

Fox Because obviously the main topic at Holyrood next year will be the possibility of a second independence referendum

Casino_Royale said:

JEO said:

SeanT and Casino_Royale,

What most surprises me about many of the comments from left-wing activists on social media is how ashamed many of them seem to be to be British. I had always thought the accusation of being unpatriotic was an unfair smear from those on the hard right, as all the Labour voters I know in real life are very proud of their country. But many of these people seem to be openly attacking this country and its people. If they express this view in pubs and bars, it doesn't surprise me that so many working class voters ticked the UKIP box.

Now is the chance to truly and radically reform the governance of this nation, and change its political centre of gravity for good, so that such people (the hyper anglo-hating Left-wing activists) never get their hands on the reigns of power again.

When the Left do regain power again (which they will) I want it to be by a Leftist party that's a patriotic liberal social-democratic party. In the English reforming radical tradition.

Not a highly unionised, metropolitan sneering elite party, focussed mainly on social engineering, that is led by people who hold this nation and its voters in borderline contempt.

Very well said. The pity about the current Labour Party it seems to me is that it has lost touch with the best of its own history and traditions and with the best of British liberal reforming and radical traditions.

Hence the cul de sac of a sort of Top Trumps identity politics, an internationalism which seems to value foreigners over those in these islands and a slavish corporatist sucking up to the rich and powerful which seems to me to exemplify the worst of New Labour.

For all Mandelson's bile, New Labour was only successful because it had enough money from the City to spend like mad without having to tax the middle classes. Once the money ran out, what - really - did New Labour amount to?

Neither Brown nor Mandelson had the answer. Nor did EdM. Does anyone else in Labour? Do they even know what questions they should be asking?

Scott_P said:

Carola said:

'Labour's election pollster says public polls "showed a much more favourable position for Labour than we were finding in our internal data" both before the campaign and during it.'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32606713

That matches the story that Labour had really bad internal polling, but decided not to tell any of the ground troops or other campaign staff.

Awesome decision...

Well that ties in with Nick Palmer "overegging" his canvas returns.. and IIRC that Soubry had given up. Why that was posted is a mystery, but not as mysterious as the IIRC failed Labour candidate IOS and his marvellous Labour ground game that was going to win it for Labour.

@MrHarryCole: Awesome FT splash. http://t.co/ITJbq4Pc8Y

Imagine Carswell called yet another bloody election in Clacton.. he might start to annoy people!

But on a day of talented people making comebacks

K.Pietersen 326no...

Pulpstar said:

WOuldn't that trigger a by-election.

Clacton voters might get a bit fed up with it all, they aren't all saddoes who live by "the polls" :P

Yes. I think they might get a bit upset having voted for him twice in the last year.

SquareRoot said:

Scott_P said:

Carola said:

'Labour's election pollster says public polls "showed a much more favourable position for Labour than we were finding in our internal data" both before the campaign and during it.'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32606713

That matches the story that Labour had really bad internal polling, but decided not to tell any of the ground troops or other campaign staff.

Awesome decision...

Well that ties in with Nick Palmer "overegging" his canvas returns.. and IIRC that Soubry had given up. Why that was posted is a mystery, but not as mysterious as the IIRC failed Labour candidate IOS and his marvellous Labour ground game that was going to win it for Labour.

The only thing that doesn't add up...

#1 - Labour crapped themselves when postal votes started to come in and hence when Eddie met Russelly. LabourList said it was total panic.

#2 - They genuinely thought they had won on the night.

Now, either somebody didn't tell Kim Jong Ed how bad things were or somebody isn't quite telling the whole truth.

I'm BAAAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCKKKKKK

isam said:

Imagine Carswell called yet another bloody election in Clacton.. he might start to annoy people!

But on a day of talented people making comebacks

K.Pietersen 326no...

He should probably just relabel as independent and try to create a little North Down enclave by the sea

BBC Breaking News ‏@BBCBreaking ·
Kevin Pietersen told he won't be selected for England again, @Aggerscricket understands http://bbc.in/1IxurUN

dyedwoolie said:

Actually Farage might be setting a precedent. I'm going to ungraduate and have another three years on the sauce constantly.

Farage said he would resign if he did not win his seat. It was a cast iron promise set in stone.

Tykejohnno said:

BBC Breaking News ‏@BBCBreaking ·
Kevin Pietersen told he won't be selected for England again, @Aggerscricket understands http://bbc.in/1IxurUN

Thank God

Tykejohnno said:

BBC Breaking News ‏@BBCBreaking ·
Kevin Pietersen told he won't be selected for England again, @Aggerscricket understands http://bbc.in/1IxurUN

Not exactly surprising...Andrew Strauss in now in charge.

I hope tonight's Newsnight interviews the team behind the "Newsnight Index" to get their thoughts on what went wrong.

4 million Kippers now demanding they be allowed to unvote for the clown party

Nick Sutton ‏@suttonnick ·
Tuesday's Guardian front page:
PM hops on the fast-track to EU referendum in 2016
#tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers

Polling companies now planning to use the Farage Imperative to unpoll the sample for their final predictions and come back with new figures.

I see Cameron has left the Europhile Lidington as Europe Minister.

Miliband (David) with that ridiculous semi- moustache looks like a character out of Midsummer Murders or Miss Marple.

Richard_Tyndall said:

I see Cameron has left the Europhile Lidington as Europe Minister.

That's probably Cameron's "I've just won so I can do what I like" moment.

Tykejohnno said:

BBC Breaking News ‏@BBCBreaking ·
Kevin Pietersen told he won't be selected for England again, @Aggerscricket understands http://bbc.in/1IxurUN

If Pietersen is one of the best 6 batsmen in the country he ought to be selected IMO. That's what would happen in Australia or South Africa.

Oblitus The only leaders who have significantly shifted the centre ground in Britain since the war are Attlee and Thatcher. Cameron, after all, was initially proclaimed as the 'heir to Blair' and in many ways has governed on those lines

Scott_P said:

Ok, that's it, I am resigning from PB.

Hurray!!!! Dallas Superbowl nailed on, as a fan would say

Tim_B said:

Hurray!!!! Dallas Superbowl nailed on, as a fan would say

Two words...

Tim

Tebow