politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Local By-Election Preview: July 25th 2013

zeroth

Best of luck to JohnO in Weybridge!

Mr. K, are you suggesting Mr. O is set to become the representative of Olympus Mons?

F1: Allison's going to Ferrari:
http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2013/07/25/allison-to-join-ferrari/

Could be a very significant move.

IanB2 said:

@sunil I believe back on planet Earth the candidates are named Richard, Ian and Gillian...

My understanding is that JohnO is on Elmbridge council so even if he isn't personally standing, good luck to his local colleagues!

This is a local election for local people! There's nothing for you here!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p006vm6j

Manchester Cllr Amina Lone selected by Labour in Morecombe & Lunesdale. She beat 2 local Cllrs among others.

Blackpool North Labour shortlist:

Matthew Hood (economy teacher...http://www.matthewhood.org.uk/
Michael McLaughlin (doctor... drmike.org.uk/
Penny Martin (Cleveleys Park Cllr and 2010 candidate)
Adam Mohammed (Criminal and Family Court Lawyer; shortlisted for Warrington South and Nottinghamshire PCC)
Chris Webb (former Labour North West organizer) www.christopherwebb.co.uk/

Horrendous scenes at that rail accident in Spain, looks like driver error. Took the bend far too fast.

Your Blairite claws are showing, tim!

AveryLP said:

JosiasJessop said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr, Jessop, live, but not on TV.

Whilst the Judas Iscariot approach to F1 continues to rankle, at least this year the BBC has a much better selection of races. Hungary is an ideal race for radio, because it's too hard to pass on.

Cheers. Mrs J will be happy then.

Off-topic: the excellent Shakespeare in Cambridge festival is on for another month. The festival sees Shakespeare plays performed in the beautiful grounds of Cambridge colleges. Well worth a visit on a dry evening if you enjoy Shakespeare.

http://www.cambridgeshakespeare.com/

JJ

Thanks for the interesting paper on the 'worm'. As it is simultaneous with the original political messaging it is going to have a much greater effect than printed polls disconnected in time from specific messaging.

Still it proves the existence of polling influence and I agree with your later comments that the same effect should exist to diminished scale in traditional polling.

Thanks, and I agree that any effect will be smaller in traditional polling.

I wonder if there might be an effect with smaller, newer parties such as UKIP. People may be hesitant to consider voting for them until they reach a critical mass where they do well in the polls and become mainstream. Could this effect last even if they later dip back down in the polls?

A more complex (and vastly larger) experiment was done during the 2012 US elections using Facebook. The results could be very useful to political parties and are worth perusing. The Huffington Post have a report at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kare-anderson/insight-from-massive-soci_b_1896914.html and on nakesscientists: http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/interviews/interview/2244/

@RichardNabavi

tim doesnt care what Labour is doing so long as he gets to attack the Tories!

Neil said:

@RichardNabavi

tim doesnt care what Labour is doing so long as he gets to attack the Tories!

tim: "As a troll..."

Plato said:

FPT

fitalass said:

Terrible politics from the Labour party, especially at a time when they are receiving a bumper trench of taxpayers money as the only main Opposition.

» show previous quotes

Precisely, terrible politics. When your Party gets about the same funding as the Tories but they pay £500k in tax and you pay nothing - it really doesn't matter if its 'all within the rules'

Google etc were all within the rules too and have an obligation to their shareholders to be fiscally prudent. They also don't go round ticking others off for it.

Man in the Street will just think Hypocrites. And they'd be dead right, it's no good for Labour to try to explain this way with accounting rules - that just looks shifty.

Stop rubbing it in plato,you know tim's upset ;-)

"We're all in this together" politics.

Keoghs Solicitors ‏@KeoghsSolicitor 6h

RT @TelegraphNews Three-quarters of over-50s say they are opposed to MPs' pay rise http://ow.ly/1ZWZ9n

Crikey! etc. ;^ )

tim said:

Oh lord here they come


23,400 needless deaths on the Tories watch.

Repeat until numb.

lol

On the day two senior nurses at Stafford were struck off after falsifying records to meet Labour's death targets you might think some people would keep quiet for a bit, but no

@tim - Well, I'm impressed to see you are magnanimously giving the Mail the benefit of the doubt and assuming the article is correct. I tend to discount stuff in the Mail and it's alter ego the Guardian.

Anyway: on a night like this, with JohnO in full magnificent battle, there are bigger fish to fry. Is there a sweepstake on where he ends up?

Neil said:

Scott_P said:

Stop pretending to be too dim to understand this Neil

Noone seems able to explain the hypocrisy, Scott_P. How can I understand if no-one will teach me?

"When your Party gets about the same funding as the Tories but they pay £500k in tax and you pay nothing - it really doesn't matter if its 'all within the rules'

Google etc were all within the rules too and have an obligation to their shareholders to be fiscally prudent. They also don't go round ticking others off for it."

Sorry, Sunil, not seeing the hypocrisy!

Neil said:

Noone seems able to explain the hypocrisy, Scott_P. How can I understand if no-one will teach me?

Now you're just taking the piss.

Labour’s accounts reveal that could have faced a tax bill of £561,000 but a series of tax deductions meant they paid nothing

The Labour leader has repeatedly rejected the ways that companies use deductions to minimise or eradicate their tax bill

Non-story. Nothing to see here.

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Neil said:

Sorry, Sunil, not seeing the hypocrisy!

Why can't you see it?

Because it's not there.

Nice front page for labour on front of the Guardian ;-)

http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/82635/the_guardian_friday_26th_july_2013.html

Mick_Pork said:

"We're all in this together" politics.

Keoghs Solicitors ‏@KeoghsSolicitor 6h

RT @TelegraphNews Three-quarters of over-50s say they are opposed to MPs' pay rise http://ow.ly/1ZWZ9n

Crikey! etc. ;^ )

Pork

You missed the juicy acorn nestling under the pile of ground nuts.

The survey found that pensioners would only support a pay increase if there were fewer MPs in Parliament.

MPs only have themselves to blame.

Usual good summary by Harry .
Worth pointing out that the Braintree East seat had a previous by election in Mar 2012 , result was Lab 554 Con 388 UKIP 131 Green 76 Ind 32 a Labour hold .

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Neil said:

Sorry, Sunil, not seeing the hypocrisy!

Why can't you see it?

There is no place for hypocrisy in an hippocracy, Sunil.

Neil said:

When did he ever reject offsetting losses in calculating corporation tax?

Unlike you to fall for one of tim's spurious red herrings

Ed criticised Google for using perfectly legal means to minimise their tax bill, while Labour use perfectly legal means to minimise their tax bill

Nowhere, other than Farmer tim's febrile imagination, was the method of tax minimisation mentioned in Ed's criticism

But of course, it's a non-story...

Scott_P said:

Ed criticised Google for using perfectly legal means to minimise their tax bill, while Labour use perfectly legal means to minimise their tax bill

No, he didnt, your own quote in the previous thread showed that he criticised them for going to extraordinary lengths to avoid corporation tax. Labour didnt do that.

We're all adults here, there are no votes to be swayed on pbc, baiting our opponents can be fun for a while but dont ever just want to stop the bs and call a spade a spade?

Guido Fawkes ✔ @GuidoFawkes

Balls says he never predicted a double or triple dip. CCHQ will be going through their video archives for the next attack advert #Newsnight

Mick_Pork said:

AveryLP said:

Plato said:

FPT

fitalass said:

Terrible politics from the Labour party, especially at a time when they are receiving a bumper trench of taxpayers money as the only main Opposition.

» show previous quotes

Precisely, terrible politics. When your Party gets about the same funding as the Tories but they pay £500k in tax and you pay nothing - it really doesn't matter if its 'all within the rules'

Google etc were all within the rules too and have an obligation to their shareholders to be fiscally prudent. They also don't go round ticking others off for it.

Man in the Street will just think Hypocrites. And they'd be dead right, it's no good for Labour to try to explain this way with accounting rules - that just looks shifty.

How many lives could be saved if the tax avoided by Labour were spent on additional nurses and carers?

That is the real question.

Actually Seth O Logue, the real question is why you've given up spinning Lansley's incompetent reforms or touting him as a future PM.

Yes, it was hilariously inept and out of touch spinning from you as usual, but it did at least keep you from making a fool of yourself over Osbrowne.

The primary reason for the shifting polling clearly still eludes you. So try concentrating really hard on this graph instead of your amusingly counterproductive spinning to the effect that the public has 'never had it so good'.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/96/UK_opinion_polling_2010-2015.png

It's all there if only you had the wit to see it, Seth. So I fear you never will.

That's very pretty, Pork.

I love the colours.

Did you do it all yourself?

Well done.

Scott_P said:

This is just painful.

On that we are in violent agreement!

@Sunil

I've always said your mum is a very wise woman

I hope you're not posting from the dinner table!

Question for Neil - one of the supporters of another candidate at a hustings tonight claimed that if that candidate was chosen, the Green Party had promised not to stand against him. The audience was a bit "meh" about that but I was curious anyway: do the Greens actually follow this kind of interventionist policy?

AndreaParma_82 said:

Weybridge South

Con 274
LD 150
UKIP 140

John O Hold

Paternity suits to follow.

Tories also hold Felsted

Sam Coates Times @SamCoatesTimes

HMRC: "The taxable profits or surpluses of these organisations are subject to Corporation Tax." Lab accounts (p2) say it has a £3m surplus


Sam Coates Times @SamCoatesTimes

On Labour & tax party accounts say it is a "unincorporated association". HMRC rules on Corp tax liabilities: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/ct/clubs-charities-agents/clubs.htm

Braintee East

Labour 461
Conservative 267
UKIP 194
Green 67

turnout 18.96%

AndreaParma_82 said:

Braintee East

Labour 461
Conservative 267
UKIP 194
Green 67

turnout 18.96%

*rubs eyes* Labour? In Essex????

@NickPalmer

It's down to the local party but I cant imagine many circumstances in which a local party would stand down against a Labour candidate. We had an argument in London about standing down in Barking because of the risk of the BNP getting in but thankfully the sensible side won and that ridiculousness (on so many levels) didnt go ahead. Other than that the discussion is usually about standing down for the latest front of the SWP / SP / etc in various seats where they might be strong. But not Labour (or not very often in my experience anyway).

I obviously have no information one way or another and circumstances can be very different in other parts of the country but a statement like that would set off my bs detector enough to want to check it out.

Ps you know my strong view that the Green party wasnt the difference between you and Anna Soubry in 2010 anyway!

So you can get elected these days on less than 10% of the vote.

Something is very broken.

AndreaParma_82 said:

Braintee East

Labour 461
Conservative 267
UKIP 194
Green 67

turnout 18.96%

Sam Coates Times @SamCoatesTimes

Labour spox "corporation tax is paid on taxable profits and we made no taxable profits". Tories & Libs did pay tax, tho

@SamCoatesTimes
Labour spox "corporation tax is paid on taxable profits and we made no taxable profits". Tories & Libs did pay tax, tho

@SamCoatesTimes
HMRC: "The taxable profits or surpluses of these organisations are subject to Corporation Tax." Lab accounts (p2) say it has a £3m surplus

If I were a desperate wine spin merchant, this is the point at which I would say, find us a quote where Ed said that Google's taxable profits were just a surplus, right?

foxinsoxuk said:

So far as I can tell the Lansley reforms seem to be going along ok

Which is presumably why Lansley is still doing such a 'fine' job as Health Secretary and why Seth has tipped him as a future PM. ;^)

More seriously, the Lansley reforms certainly pleased some people a great deal.
Why is that do you think?

One in Ten Liberal Democrat Peers have financial links to Companies involved in Private Healthcare

The Liberal Democrats have been instrumental in helping the Conservative party realise their dream of passing through the Health and Social Care bill. A bill that failed to appear in either party’s manifesto and thus had no mandate to the voting public. The bill, which has been wholly rejected as acceptable by the health professionals who work in the NHS, citing competition and privatisation as being the major area of concern.

One in Ten Liberal Democrat peers have financial connections to companies involved in private healthcare. That is to say ten out of the 90 Liberal Democrat peers have direct financial links. This is considerably less that the One in Four Conservatives and the One in Six Crossbench Peers with such connections, with Labour Peers still to be calculated.


However, that is not to say this number is acceptable. It is not. Why are any peers with connections to companies that could benefit from the bill allowed to vote on it?

The Liberal Democrats as a party are heavily funded by a company called Alpha Healthcare, which have been donating to the party since 2004. The company has donated more than half the money the Lib Dems have taken in major donations since the start of the election campaign. The amount they have been giving has steadily increased over time, but last year it accelerated up to £400,000. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to make the connection. Research conducted by Dr Éoin Clarke on his Green Benches blog revealed how this company had changed its company registration number and business premises after the 2010 lection, which meant their most recent donations didn’t show in the Electoral Commission’s website.

Is this what we want from our democracy?

http://socialinvestigations.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/one-in-ten-liberal-democrat-peers-have.html

Tykejohnno said:

Mike Smithson @MSmithsonPB

LAB hold Braintree E council by-election with increased majority
Labour 461
Conservative 267
UKIP 194
Green 67
turnout 18.96%

Mike Smithson @MSmithsonPB

When last fought in 2011 LAB had majority of just 3 in Braintree East. Tonight that's 194

Also a small swing from Con to Lab from the 2012 by election in this ward

NickPalmer said:

Not clear to me what they got out of it though

Political parties contest elections, Nick! Personally speaking the Green party is the only left-of-Labour vehicle that's shown any sign of being in it for the long haul and an important part of that is being an option on the ballot paper in as many elections as possible in as many parts of the country as possible (without ever dropping the focus on targeting of course).

MarkSenior said:

Tykejohnno said:

Mike Smithson @MSmithsonPB

LAB hold Braintree E council by-election with increased majority
Labour 461
Conservative 267
UKIP 194
Green 67
turnout 18.96%

Mike Smithson @MSmithsonPB

When last fought in 2011 LAB had majority of just 3 in Braintree East. Tonight that's 194

Also a small swing from Con to Lab from the 2012 by election in this ward

Mike Smithson @MSmithsonPB

Braintree %ages
Lab 47% +5
CON 27% -15
UKIP 20% +20
GRN 7%
So big switch to UKIP at CON expense

RichardNabavi said:

Tykejohnno said:

When last fought in 2011 LAB had majority of just 3 in Braintree East.

Not according to Harry's figures above. This was a three-member ward, remember.

I agree Richard,blame mike Smithson tweet ;-)

MarkSenior said:

Weston Super Mare is an Independent gain from Conservative

Correction not yet as that is the Town Council result from the same ward