politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Local By-Election Results : September 17th 2015

JWisemann said:

Presumably adding a VI question would be pretty straightforward though Ydoethur? It just might contradict the mood music they are aiming for, would be my cynical suspicion.

JWisemann said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

JWisemann said:

Of course it matters. People aren't going to be seeing Corbyn as a likely pm in his first week as an anti-establishment candidate when all of the media have been going guns blazing 24/7 saying he isn't, but we need to know if that actually affects VI in a real rather than implied sense. It smacks of another part of the Discredit Corbyn ASAP agenda rather than dispassionate analysis.

I don't think dispassionate analysis is necessary - he may gain some non voters but many, many more voters are going to be completely switched off by him and more determined then ever to keep him away from any form of power

Well we don't know unless we actually ask them how they would vote. Not wish washy 'more likely less likely agree disagree blah blah' stuff.

JWisemann said:

antifrank said:

JWisemann said:

Presumably adding a VI question would be pretty straightforward though Ydoethur? It just might contradict the mood music they are aiming for, would be my cynical suspicion.

It's possible that a voting intention question has been asked and the result is being held back for another day's news coverage.

In the meantime, we can only go on the polling information we have. Constructing mad conspiracy theories may be therapeutic but it isn't very informative.

I'm just going on two facts we do have -
1) the media are out to get corbyn
2) the only polls that have been released by the media, unusually, contain no VI questions.
I don't think it's completely batsh*t to suggest there is the possibility of a link?

EPG said:

AnneJGP said:

Ayr East on South Ayrshire (SNP defence)
Result: Conservatives 1,527 (39% +6%), Scottish National Party 1,507 (39% +7%), Labour 642 (16% -7%), Independents 218 (6% -6%)
SNP HOLD on the fourth count with a minority of 20 (0%) on a swing of 0.5% from Conservative to Scottish National Party

Please could someone explain this result to me? I've never come across a winner with fewer votes than another party.

STV election. The Green's transfers favoured the SNP by 26 votes; independent by 5; Labour by 24. The Green candidate was not listed above but won 76 votes.

HaroldO said:

I was on the Guardian last week when the usual anti-New Labour rants were going on and posted that this attitude was pretty much;

"Shoo voters, we need to attract non-voters"

I have seen nothing to change that view.

ydoethur said:

JWisemann said:

Presumably adding a VI question would be pretty straightforward though Ydoethur? It just might contradict the mood music they are aiming for, would be my cynical suspicion.

Well - it might be straightforward enough in theory. But I wonder if it might not look like a bit of a leading question. 'Do you think that the new Labour leader is terrible? Would you vote for a party led by him?' And given that opinion polling has taken a bit of a battering in recent months, I could understand if they wanted to treat these as separate issues.

Somewhere in Yes Prime Minister (I think it's in 'The Ministerial Broadcast') there is a wonderful clip of Humphrey getting Bernard to give opposite answers to the same question by asking a different set of questions leading up to it, noting 'The reputable polls don't do that - but there aren't many of those.' However, another disaster like May would surely finish opinion polling as a discipline for the foreseeable future, so I could see a very good reason there to play it safe at the moment.

glw said:

HaroldO said:

I was on the Guardian last week when the usual anti-New Labour rants were going on and posted that this attitude was pretty much;

"Shoo voters, we need to attract non-voters"

I have seen nothing to change that view.

Even if they think this "plan" can work — attract more non-voters than the voters they repel — there are several major elections (Europe, local, Scottish parliament, London mayor, EU referendum) that will act as warnings to the other parties before the next general election.

If they are to spring a surprise on "old politics" surely they would want to do that right before a general election, not have to pull it off several times in a row, providing years of advance warning to let the other parties come up with counter-strategies.

Anyway that assumes Labour will actually get to the election with Corbyn still leading a united party. One slip-up and the moderates will surely pounce.

JEO said:

If we estimate Labour has gone from 31% to 25% that's a six point drop. Let's imagine they take two points from the green, so an eight point loss to other parties. Give four to the Tories, two to Lib Dems, two to UKIP. Baxter predicts a 108 seat majority.

glw said:

Even if they think this "plan" can work — attract more non-voters than the voters they repel — there are several major elections (Europe, local, Scottish parliament, London mayor, EU referendum) that will act as warnings to the other parties before the next general election.

If they are to spring a surprise on "old politics" surely they would want to do that right before a general election, not have to pull it off several times in a row, providing years of advance warning to let the other parties come up with counter-strategies.

Anyway that assumes Labour will actually get to the election with Corbyn still leading a united party. One slip-up and the moderates will surely pounce.

EPG said:

Pong said:

EPG said:

Pong said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Pong said:

Who is ORB?

A pollster. They are part of the Gallup group.

BPC registered

Interesting decision not to do headline VI's. Frustrating.

Until the polling industry announces it has fixed itself, vote intention figures are a substance of uncertain quality that is nonetheless craved by the addict. Like a bad batch of, ahem, "antimalarial tablets". (If that claim is true and not just a way to avoid admitting drug use, then one would be looking for a Labour MP on the right of the party who used Lariam, which was notably commissioned by the MoD. Draw your own conclusions)

Not sure what you're getting at re: lariam. Have you ever taken it, or do you know anyone who has? The hallucinations/dreams are legendary.

As for polls, the headline VI's did an awesome job of measuring the SNP surge, didn't it?

Dismiss at your peril.

All I am saying is that it would be a good way to make a joke about a bad trip while not getting a reputation for talking about illegal drug use!

EPG said:

another_richard said:

EPG said:

AnneJGP said:

Ayr East on South Ayrshire (SNP defence)
Result: Conservatives 1,527 (39% +6%), Scottish National Party 1,507 (39% +7%), Labour 642 (16% -7%), Independents 218 (6% -6%)
SNP HOLD on the fourth count with a minority of 20 (0%) on a swing of 0.5% from Conservative to Scottish National Party

Please could someone explain this result to me? I've never come across a winner with fewer votes than another party.

STV election. The Green's transfers favoured the SNP by 26 votes; independent by 5; Labour by 24. The Green candidate was not listed above but won 76 votes.

So none of the Green voters switched to the SCONs on second preference ?

Surely those 'hug a husky' and 'cycle and chauffer' photostunts weren't in vain ?

The Green votes split 33-12-9-7 SNP-Labour-Independent-Conservative. 15 Green voters had no second preference.

ydoethur said:

JWisemann said:

But surely the questions aren't leading, but are supposed to be neutrally asking opinions of Corbyn. If not, then that is also suspect, no?

Well - yes and no. Neutral questions can become leading if you use them as part of a sequence, which is why I had reservations about 'tacking on' a VI question to this poll. For example, if I ask somebody, 'do you like or dislike animals?' that's hardly a leading question. If I ask, 'Are you for or against cruelty to living things?' that's also not a leading question. But if I ask both questions and follow up with 'Do you think eating meat is right or wrong?' I am leading them (assuming answers to previous questions were 'like' and 'against') to say that eating meat is wrong - even if they don't really think that.

So let's think about this poll. It asks, is Jeremy Corbyn a PM in waiting (now that is, in my view, a potentially loaded question, but let's leave that for the moment). It then asks, 'Is Labour more or less electable?' Harmless enough. Then it asks, 'more or less likely to vote Labour/Conservative'. Again, not too bad. BUT, if you then go on to say, 'How will you vote at the next election,' after that prompting, you would have been led to your answer regardless of the reality of what you would say. You would hardly say, Corbyn is more electable, a PM in waiting, makes you more likely to vote Labour and then say, however truthfully, that you never vote at all so you will not be voting Labour. (Problem - that does seem to be his strategy as has been noted above.)

Perhaps you're right and it's all mood music, but I would certainly not trust a VI added on to the basis of this poll.

SquareRoot said:

How many times did Fiji turn over England possession??

EACAWNWTWCITPLKAA

flightpath01 said:

SquareRoot said:

How many times did Fiji turn over England possession??

EACAWNWTWCITPLKAA

Saints 18 Wigan 14 , last minute try to saints is the real disaster. And the better rugby.

Big_G_NorthWales said:

In all of this doesn't it strengthen David Cameron's majority not least of which Corbyn has lost the DUP and maybe disgruntled labour MP's will just concentrate on their constituents and avoid votes in the HOC

AnneJGP said:

Ayr East on South Ayrshire (SNP defence)
Result: Conservatives 1,527 (39% +6%), Scottish National Party 1,507 (39% +7%), Labour 642 (16% -7%), Independents 218 (6% -6%)
SNP HOLD on the fourth count with a minority of 20 (0%) on a swing of 0.5% from Conservative to Scottish National Party

Please could someone explain this result to me? I've never come across a winner with fewer votes than another party.

ydoethur said:

@JWiseman, yes, and I wonder if that is one of the things that will go with the March report. It always struck me as very foolish to combine them all and I strongly suspect it was one of the things that was skewing the results.

@Pauly, yes, but then it makes the other questions equally loaded.

On the whole, I would be inclined to make political polls single question polls for that very reason. It will be interesting to see what the BPC comes up with.

JWisemann said:

ydoethur said:

@JWiseman, yes, and I wonder if that is one of the things that will go with the March report. It always struck me as very foolish to combine them all and I strongly suspect it was one of the things that was skewing the results.

@Pauly, yes, but then it makes the other questions equally loaded.

On the whole, I would be inclined to make political polls single question polls for that very reason. It will be interesting to see what the BPC comes up with.

That's interesting food for thought, but I'm yet to be convinced these polls aren't asking VI because they are quite likely to show no negative change in labour VI, and that isn't what the people running the polls want to show. It's human nature.

Pauly said:

JWisemann said:

ydoethur said:

@JWiseman, yes, and I wonder if that is one of the things that will go with the March report. It always struck me as very foolish to combine them all and I strongly suspect it was one of the things that was skewing the results.

@Pauly, yes, but then it makes the other questions equally loaded.

On the whole, I would be inclined to make political polls single question polls for that very reason. It will be interesting to see what the BPC comes up with.

That's interesting food for thought, but I'm yet to be convinced these polls aren't asking VI because they are quite likely to show no negative change in labour VI, and that isn't what the people running the polls want to show. It's human nature.

I don't agree. Looking at empirical evidence (Polling after David Cameron's leadership election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2010_United_Kingdom_general_election#2005) the polls rapidly changed almost immediately with record polling for the year ranging from 36%-40%. I suspect that a more plausible reason is that there are enough cock-up stories that they don't feel they need to waste the money buying a national poll based story just yet.

MikeK said:

JEO said:

SeanT said:

antifrank said:

Utterly unsurprising poll. Note that Jeremy Corbyn seems to help the Conservatives quite separately from the damage that he does to Labour. He brings a cohort of kippers in play for them.

Yes. I said this a week ago. Lefties seem to forget or ignore that Corbyn will galvanise and polarise the right, by frightening the floaters. Good for the Tories, as Kippers return.

I'm glad the Kippers aren't thinking it's safe to vote purple because the Tories will win easily

This years UKIP Conference from Doncaster, should prove interesting if nothing else.

rottenborough said:

US finally starts to focus on the election:

"Fall officially begins Thursday. The leaves will begin to change -- at least in Iowa and New Hampshire. The tests will become harder, the voters more focused on long term relationships.

Maybe the summer romances will endure, the beguiling outsiders will evolve to meet the heightened challenges and this already strange year will defy past experience.

But don't bet on it."

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/18/opinions/axelrod-gop-campaign-is-getting-serious/index.html

MikeK said:

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/091715-771617-obama-hero-bergdahl-slapped-with-stiffer-charges.htm

Obama 'Hero' Bergdahl Slapped With Stiffer Charges

RodCrosby said:

Tim_B said:

Trump has birther issues again...

http://news.yahoo.com/trump-under-fire-failure-rebut-anti-muslim-backer-152032039.html

Obama's eligibility question will never go away. It's a valid question, even if he was born in Hawaii...

Tim_B said:

Volkswagen has been naughty - it had software in 500,000 VW and Audi diesel cars that turned off the emission controls, only turning them on during the emissions test.

The Environmental Protection Agency accused the German automaker of using software to detect when the car is undergoing its periodic state emissions testing. Only during such tests are the cars’ full emissions control systems turned on. During normal driving situations, the controls are turned off, allowing the cars to spew as much as 40 times as much pollution as allowed under the Clean Air Act, the E.P.A. said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/19/business/volkswagen-is-ordered-to-recall-nearly-500000-vehicles-over-emissions-software.html?_r=0

NickPalmer said:

Plato_Says said:

WIN/Gallup Int @WINGALLUP
57% in #Syria think their country is heading in the wrong direction. Public opinion #Iraq . New poll @ORB_Int pic.twitter.com/OiSnCvuLo2

REMARKABLY phlegmatic verdict - much the same level as, say, in the USA. The country's torn in three parts, thousands are dying, thousands more are fleeing, and...well, a slim majority think it's not very satisfactory. Quite incredible.

As for the ORB, I share the reservations expressed in the thread but it would be odd if the turmoil hadn't done some damage. The figures are a bit better than during the leadership election, but still early days.

edmundintokyo said:

NickPalmer said:

Plato_Says said:

WIN/Gallup Int @WINGALLUP
57% in #Syria think their country is heading in the wrong direction. Public opinion #Iraq . New poll @ORB_Int pic.twitter.com/OiSnCvuLo2

REMARKABLY phlegmatic verdict - much the same level as, say, in the USA. The country's torn in three parts, thousands are dying, thousands more are fleeing, and...well, a slim majority think it's not very satisfactory. Quite incredible.

As for the ORB, I share the reservations expressed in the thread but it would be odd if the turmoil hadn't done some damage. The figures are a bit better than during the leadership election, but still early days.

I guess when half the population leaves a country the ones who are left are the ones who like the way the leadership is taking it.

Islamicist nutjobs have their own country, people who don't like it move somewhere less nutjob-dominated like Germany, Islamicist nutjobs from Britain move to Islamicist Nutjobistan, everybody wins.