politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Three CON defences and a LAB one in tonight’s local by-elec

@hunchman

I don't "applaud high house prices based on debt based property speculation".

I support a gradual reduction in the ratio of house prices to income. A reasonable target might be to reduce the ratio from the upper quartile of OECD countries to around the median level over a decade.

This would require house prices to fall in real terms (but not nominal terms) over the course of the decade, preferably at a linear rate but practically with as little volatility as possible. The best way to achieve this would be to regulate supply of mortgage credit.

I would also like to see increases in private sector residential property construction, so that it meets demand and supports the goal of real terms pricing reduction as stated above, In this context,

I would also like to see private sector construction of low cost social housing to meet demand and construction supply profitability, but this will require a new business model to be established with implications for local council and housing benefits costs.

My approach to housing policy is pragmatic and managerial. Look at where we are today, decide where we want to be at a defined date in the future and define a policy to get there which is feasbile to implement, suitable to the UK economic environment, and acceptable to the target political constituency. This involves taking the most likely course of economic outcomes and environment as measured at regular stages through the project. This approach is of necessity gradualist and evolutionary.

I am not saying that your view of a global credit crash is invalid or unarguable. It is just not, according to a general consensus of economic and political opinion, most likely. I certainly don't believe that a UK government should implement policies on the basis of a 'least likely' outcome of global economic catastrophe It should however carry out contingency planning for worst case outcomes, but not adopt policies which make such outcomes self-fulfilling.

All; of which makes this post rather boringly sensible. So please do carry on with your Cassandra predictions.

TGOHF

I wish! That is the number register and not all registered. So there ends up being all this guess work as the Tories won't just publish the figures.

But the best guesses are that they are between 90 - 95k and they are losing around 40 members every day. Which may not sound a lot but if they don't stop that they will have only 70,000 members by the next election.


I am hoping Dave does something to really piss them off then by the time of the next leadership election they will have lost a full 200k under him.

TGOHF said:

AndreaParma_82 said:

Shebbear and Langtry - Torridge

Con 240
UKIP 217
Green 41
No Description (he's a LD. Possibly cocked up nomination papers) 10

Con hold

Tactical voting fail ?

LDs voting UKIP to keep the Tories out? Really?

I think a question that hasn't really been asked is how many European votes the BNP are likely to get, which I imagine is a question of how much it will fall from 6.2% and who that might help most.

Grandiose said:

What it means to be a political party and a member of a political party is changing.

They're not going to be mass-member organisations any more, not Labour, not the Tories, none of them. At least not like the past.

Carswell's right. Perhaps even charge them nothing at all to be members, save for proof of identity. Then at least they're there to call on. I expect we'll see much more ad-hoc donation campaigns.

ConHome has a good article on those lines today.

"A looser but better organised machine. An intelligent, dynamic understanding of a wider support base. And a whole-hearted integration with the community.

If you live in Welwyn Hatfield, every year you’ll be invited to the local Christmas Market at Hatfield House. Run by the Conservatives. You’re welcome to join in ‘Wel Hats’, a Wednesday knitting session to raise funds for Help for Heroes. Hosted by the Conservatives. You’ll be invited to a range of non-Conservative community events. Advertised by the Conservatives. You can attend the Summer Party of the Mixed Group, to fundraise for the Christmas Lunch of local elderly people in sheltered housing. Hosted by the Conservative MP. You can help your MP to solve real local issues by joining him knocking on doors every few weeks – no need to wear the rosette if you don’t want to and everyone’s welcome to pub lunch afterwards. Run by the Conservatives. You can attend a Q&A fish ‘n’ chips event twice a year to quiz your MP on anything and everything. Run by the Conservatives.

At these events, mirrored across the country, helpers are working shoulder-to-shoulder with Conservatives to serve the community. When it comes to election time, the same helpers will be motivated to help us out not because of some membership card but because of the shared community service. The technology and the data-handling that helps us to manage this efficiently is new, but the community-building approach is where this Party has almost always excelled."

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/08/from-benedict_mc.html

Mark Senior

One would think then that it is possibly sub 90,000 then?

@RodCrosby

What happened to your prediction that Obama would never become President because you said he was not born in the US?

You went on endlessly

tim said:

The Lebo and Norpoth debate is pretty simple.
Their model depends on a pendulum effect coupled with PM approval two months before the election.
Taking this into account before the last election they forecast a Tory seat total of 311 (central forecast) with a lead over Labour of forty odd seats.

However they make it very clear in their papers that it is the proximity to the election of PM approval is key as it is a better guide than govt approval which falls away as a guide with the approach of an election whereas PM approval does not.
That is a specific point they make regarding the specific timing of their model forecasts
It is A CONDITION of their entire work that the PM approval, while being generally a better guide to VI than Govt approval throughout the parliament is specifically useful as a predictor two months before the election.

So the bastardisation of this model making a prediction using the 2008 July polling led Rod to find

Con lead vote share 17.7%
Con lead in seats 187

For May 2010

Utter bollocks of course because the election wasn't timed for September/October 08

Then to run simulations on that model which result in 0% chances of Labour Majority for 2015 (or 100% chances of a Con Maj in 2008) is of course facile.

As said earlier, the model would work for an election 'in three months time', with the added condition that the polling data has not been generated by respondents who know the date of the election and may therefore not be as reliable as running the model using data three months before a known election date.

You have to argue that lack of awareness of an upcoming election date is likely to distort the findings to such an extent that they become completely invalid. I doubt you could make such a case persuasive. An argument that the findings should be treated with additional caution would probably prevail.

IOS said:

You don't join the Labour party unless you want something changed. There will always be people who want to see things done differently.

There's an argument that it was the centralisation of political power in Westminster/EU that killed participation in local politics, as you could no longer get things changed.

Amazingly, just heard Feel No Pain by Sade for the first time, and thought it was a new song. It's actually from 1992.

Congratulations to Miss Cyclefree and young Mr Southern Observer on their exam results.

fitalass said:

Congratulations to Miss Cyclefree and young Mr Southern Observer on their exam results.

I feel bloody ancient.

edmundintokyo said:

carl said:

In other words, pseudoscientific claptrap. RodCrosby, another sorry PB charlatan.

... I don't really understand why Rod's using it the way he is.

As I remember, Sir Roderick ran the model without any expectations and was very surprised by its initial results.

Once he established it produced a contrarian prediction of a Tory most vote share and seats victory, he was in his element.

Sir Roderick likes nothing more than to argue against the majority, be right and annoy the doubters in the process.

RobD said:

fitalass said:

Congratulations to Miss Cyclefree and young Mr Southern Observer on their exam results.

I feel bloody ancient.

Exactly what I said earlier tonight when I congratulated my oldest nephew on his 26th birthday, seems like only yesterday he was a little page boy in his first kilt at my wedding!

Still have Sade on vinyl in the loft somewhere, I think it was a present, as I have to be honest and say I was never a big fan.

Andy_JS said:

Amazingly, just heard Feel No Pain by Sade for the first time, and thought it was a new song. It's actually from 1992.

tim said:

@Avery

Run a thousand simulations on the July 2008 figures and you'll come up with a 99% plus chance of a Tory majority in 2010.
But you may as well have spent your time feeding Seth O'Logue, fitalass and ScottP a hundred Angus Reid polls while they played a drinking game with Highland Malt and see what they came up with (a 99% plus chance of a Con Maj)

Sir Roderick will no doubt answer for himself but his swingback theory and the L&N model produce different predictions.

The L&N model predicts the result based on polling data (principally leadership approval) two to three months before the (known) date of election. So a run on the July 2008 figures would predict a GE held in October 2008.

Sir Roderick's swingback theory predicts a GE result on the basis of by-election results during the previous term. It is not a 'three month forward' forecast. I expect the GE can fall at any time but best results come if it comes at the end of a 4 or 5 year term.

If both models are valid then you would expect convergence of predictions provided both followed their correct methodologies.

Would be interesting to hear from Sir R on whether he expects convergence and, if so, when.

Some of Sade's music from the late 80s and early 90s sounds ridiculously ahead of its time in my opinion. I'm not a huge fan of that style of music actually, but I say that all the same about it sounding new.

Rod - please can you remind us exactly what your model is actually now predicting.

I've read so many posts on here tonight about your model but none actually refer to the actual prediction!

Avery

At least you are aware of your own weaknesses

Good to see Avery on form tonight and welcome back AR - I too hope HL comes back so he can suggest some good talks at Gresham College.

Just to add that I think a 6.4% vote lead appears like a highly realistic forecast.

Lab is currently approx 6% to 7% ahead. Then factor in:

- Swingback
- Improving economy
- Pre-election mini-boom
- Some pre-election giveaways
- The press absolutely hammering Miliband
- Conservative tax bombshell campaign

...... and I think it's perfectly plausible to think Con could get a vote lead of 6.4%.

RodCrosby said:

The model doesn't go down to a constituency level and doesn't involve UNS. It is a high level autoregressive model (contains 'memory' of the two previous overall general election results), forecasting simple seat leads and vote leads. I will have to check, but I understand the model has some overall 'incumbency' weighting, which decays the longer the incumbent government has been in power...

OK Rod, thanks a lot - fair enough.

All I would say is that a 3% vote lead gave Lab a majority of 66 in 2005 whereas Kellner reckons Lab needs a 7% vote lead for a majority of 1 in 2015.

So if the 2005 votes to seats conversion is reflected at all in the model that may be a distortion.

But the above doesn't really matter. I personally would be very confident that Cameron would remain PM with a 6.4% vote lead as it would almost certainly mean at least a few Con seat gains, even if no majority - ie Con shouldn't lose any seats to Lab due to incumbency and Con should pick up at least a few seats from LD - even if only say 5 to 10. So I think Con should get 312 at the very least and probably 315 to 317.

fitalass said:

RobD said:

Exactly what I said earlier tonight when I congratulated my oldest nephew on his 26th birthday, seems like only yesterday he was a little page boy in his first kilt at my wedding!

My nephew's 8th birthday was yesterday (or still today, if you allow for time zones). So, when your nephew was having his 18th birthday, mine was lying in his cot fast asleep, wriggling his fingers and making little squeaks, and then, when it was my turn to hold him, yelling his head off to let me know that he didn't like me and wanted to go back to his mummy.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Garethofthevale said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Oooh a couple of resignations, decent scandals I hope?

http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/local/under-fire-manor-house-councillor-angie-wilcox-resigns-from-hartlepool-council-1-5835600

http://www.northdevonjournal.co.uk/Torridge-council-investigates-inappropriate/story-19606195-detail/story.html

Thanks, the first one is a bit boring, second one is interesting

Really? The first is a councillor who, in their day job apparently (a) didn't people the minimum wage (b) deducted tax and NICs without paying them to HMRC and (c) lied to the courts about it. The second is a councillor who resigned because another councillor said something rude to them.

tim said:

The Lebo and Norpoth debate is pretty simple.
Their model depends on a pendulum effect coupled with PM approval two months before the election.
Taking this into account before the last election they forecast a Tory seat total of 311 (central forecast) with a lead over Labour of forty odd seats.

However they make it very clear in their papers that it is the proximity to the election of PM approval is key as it is a better guide than govt approval which falls away as a guide with the approach of an election whereas PM approval does not.
That is a specific point they make regarding the specific timing of their model forecasts
It is A CONDITION of their entire work that the PM approval, while being generally a better guide to VI than Govt approval throughout the parliament is specifically useful as a predictor two months before the election.

So the bastardisation of this model making a prediction using the 2008 July polling led Rod to find

Con lead vote share 17.7%
Con lead in seats 187

For May 2010

Utter bollocks of course because the election wasn't timed for September/October 08

Then to run simulations on that model which result in 0% chances of Labour Majority for 2015 (or 100% chances of a Con Maj in 2008) is of course facile.

I suppose it does have *some* value. Not so much as a predictor of outcome as a clear indication that unless Miliband improves on the PM approval question then he's toast. (Does the model include Miliband as well i.e. is it relative approval or just Cameron's absolute approval?).

That's pretty much the consensus only - that Miliband is a drag on the ticket and that his weaknesses may be significant enough to offset Labour's structural advantages.

So, helpful but not very insightful

Latest YouGov / The Sun results 15th August - Con 34%, Lab 39%, LD 9%, UKIP 11%; APP -27

Another halluginogenic article from Polly in the Guardian.

Labour people are kind and gentle and wise and when they cup their hands together heavenly white pigeons are born.

Tories have evil, blackened hearts and kneel at the altar of money. Roughly treading on the heads of innocent newborns as they do so.

And the debt-crisis is a figment on the imagination of people who dare read a newspaper other than the Guardian.

Surely Guardian readers are bright enough to identify nuance and grey areas, and don't see the world through the prism of prejudice that Polly sees it through. She's as pointless as Dan Hodges.

Polly Toynbee's article is not especially supportive of Ed Miliband. In order to keep her readers to the end, she has to indulge in some ritual Tory-bashing.

Get to the end and this is what her message is:

"The most alarming response to Miliband's egging this week was the people who asked, "But why?" – utterly bewildered that anyone should have a strong feeling about him one way or the other. If he needs friends, he needs enemies too, as he needs definition.

Allies know him as clever, decent and determined, but the public hardly knows him yet. His messages vanish into air when he makes a key speech as if it were a dissertation to be marked, with no team follow-up."

"Labour needs an autumn bounce, not just a brilliant leader's speech forgotten in a day, but the start of a warm engagement with voters' hearts and minds that has been lacking until now. And it needs to keep its nerve."

My point with Polly Toynbee is that it's lazy journalism. She's one of the UK premier opinion writers, but I can't remember the last time I gleaned anything from her articles.

I'm not up with who's who in opinion writing these days, but I read a Rafael Behr article the other day and was impressed. I came away feeling that I'd learned something. It was constructive and probing.

Three and a bit years in and the basic reality of where we are is that the economy hasn't gone as well as George Osborne hoped, Labour are not as far ahead in the polls as most people thought they would be, the coalition has been sturdier and less fraught than most thought it would be, the rise of Ukip is a enormous electoral threat to the Tories, Nick Clegg faces an extremely unenviable, arguably impossible task in winning back 2010 Lib Dem supporters and most interestingly of all, Ed Miliband has to find a formulation of policies that are bullet-proof and attractive to voters, against a backdrop of having no money to spend.

That all makes for a very interesting few years of politics - so there is plenty to write about. A less lazy writer would wrestle with those issues rather than resort to Tories are evil, Labour are good pieces. Any intelligent person knows the reality of the current finances (and we can argue till the cows come home over whose fault that is) mean that whoever is in power would be struggling not to displease millions of people.

Fenster said:

My point with Polly Toynbee is that it's lazy journalism. She's one of the UK premier opinion writers, but I can't remember the last time I gleaned anything from her articles.

I'm not up with who's who in opinion writing these days, but I read a Rafael Behr article the other day and was impressed. I came away feeling that I'd learned something. It was constructive and probing.

Three and a bit years in and the basic reality of where we are is that the economy hasn't gone as well as George Osborne hoped, Labour are not as far ahead in the polls as most people thought they would be, the coalition has been sturdier and less fraught than most thought it would be, the rise of Ukip is a enormous electoral threat to the Tories, Nick Clegg faces an extremely unenviable, arguably impossible task in winning back 2010 Lib Dem supporters and most interestingly of all, Ed Miliband has to find a formulation of policies that are bullet-proof and attractive to voters, in the midst of having to money to spend.

That all makes for a very interesting few years of politics - so there is plenty to write. A less lazy writer would wrestle with those issues rather than resort to Tories are evil, Labour are good pieces. Any intelligent person knows the reality of the current finances (and we can argue till the cows come home over whose fault that is) mean that whoever is in power would be struggling not to displease millions of people.

I read the piece as saying that there is less reason for Labour to panuc than most commentators are claiming.

Seconded. Plus is anyone's kids' exam results were less successful than expected, remember, they are 18 and they have the world ahead of them.

fitalass said:

Congratulations to Miss Cyclefree and young Mr Southern Observer on their exam results.

Thanks.

Plato said:

old_labour said:

I miss Mr Llama's tales of the "the beast" and trying to get books through the front back door.

Neil said:

Good to see Avery on form tonight and welcome back AR - I too hope HL comes back so he can suggest some good talks at Gresham College.

He's on Twitter now instead as @HurstLlama - you can find Chrisg000 as well - he's @chrisg0000 and still has his fighting trousers on. I think I've seen Socrates too.

RobD said:

fitalass said:

Congratulations to Miss Cyclefree and young Mr Southern Observer on their exam results.

And to the elder Ms Wheatley who got exactly what she wanted yesterday and out performed her supposedly brighter peers (not that I am competitive or anything, heaven for-fend). She benefits from the degree of specialization you get with A Level, not a fashionable view I appreciate

Fingers crossed for Number 2 daughter next week

Foxinsox jr is also off to uni after making his offer (only just!) to do Geography. I am going to miss the young fella in a few weeks.

SouthamObserver said:

Alanbrooke said:

SouthamObserver said:

GeoffM said:

SouthamObserver said:

...and supports immigration and welfare only in order to increase its vote.

That's more than just an opinion.

Of course it is. Deeply held Tory prejudices about Labour are facts; Labour ones about the Tories are deluded.

SO a couple of us were asking what young Observer is off to study.

Sociology!! But mainly rugby, I reckon. We're going up to look around the campus this morning.