Spread punters unimpressed by hung parliament talk
November 23rd, 2009SportingIndex
CON 352-357 LAB 208-213 LD 50-53
MORI moves the Labour spread by just one seat
The immediate reaction of the spread betting firms to the sensational MORI poll suggesting a hung parliament was to suspend trading while they took stock of the situation. We’ll have to wait until later in the day for the latest extrabet spreads but SportingIndex did produce revised figures yesterday afternoon and put Labour up by just one seat.
Before the poll came out Brown’s party had been on 202 - 207 207 - 212 seats. This has now moved to 203 - 208 208 - 213 seats where it has remained. So the main conclusion is that few punters were ready to change their positions or start risking money on Labour as a result of the poll.
Spread-betting on commons seats is a high risk high reward activity where you can win and lose a lot of money. I know one punter who bought Labour at £100 a seat at the 332 level just before Brown election U-turn in October 2007. If he’s still in the contract he’s facing a loss of his stake level multiplied by the difference - just under £13,000.
At the 2005 election the markets over-stated Labour and the Lib Dems while under-stating the Tories.
One of the great joys of spread-betting is that if you predict it right and the spread moves up or down by more than the difference between the buy and sell levels then you can close down your position pocketing a profit immediately.
Thus someone who bought Labour at its low point of 197 seats in early October could get out today and make eleven times his/her stake level without having to wait for the general election
My guess is that punters will want to see more evidence before pushing Labour up further. At the moment the mid-point Tory spread points to an overall Conservative majority of 55 seats.
Mike Smithson
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1st!
it is not the winning,it is the taking part.
I think SPIN moved their Spread *before* the polls were published.In one jump they went from 203-208 to 207-212 and I gave this a ‘wow’ at the time.
Could it have been they had already factored in a great poll for Labour? The bookies and Betfair only reacted *after* the event but they have moved. Betfair which is notoriously slow to react to anything, now has Labour at 7.2-7.6 for Most Seats and NOM is down to 3.95-4.0.
We had an apparently anomalous Yougov poll not that long ago if I recall. The next day we had a ‘back to normal’ poll from one of the other pollsters.
I suspect the key thing with polls is to step back and understand the trend over time and over multiple pollsters. The odd outlier (either way) should not drive an opinion.
Maybe we’ll get a strangely positive poll for Dave in the next few weeks. I’d ignore that too - or at least not read too much into it.
Underneath all of this there lies a self correction mechanism. If Labour start looking better, then people who would consider a vote for other than Tory (because they had felt Dave was safe) will become nervous again. You can call this the ‘Brown trap’ - the more apparently likely is another 5 years of Gordon the more people will vote Tory. Also the markets are assuming a Tory win. Polls like this one will start leading to credit rating,debt and IMF rumours in a big way - which also scare the shit out of people and negatively impact Labour in the polls.
Mike - your headline numbers for Sporting’s Labour GE seat spreads differ from those in the second para of the text by FIVE seats which frankly makes it read as something of a nonsense when you then refer to them having moved by “just one seat” as a result of the MORI poll!
4 There were a number of surprising aspects relating to this MORI poll, as highlighted on PB, which appeared to give rise to legitimate questions being raised and these must surely have appeared equally unusual to MORI. With pollsters, confidence in the numbers is absolutely everything. In view of the large disparity compared with other firms’ findings and indeed its own most recent previous poll, had I been the head poncho at MORI, I think I may have wished to extend the sample. After all it seems that it had virtually a full week between the initial field work having being completed and the publication date in which to have done so.
The mid-point of the above spread is 355 for the Conservatives which would be a majority of 60 not 55.
Same on the Betfair line market - Labour have barely moved on the Ipsos MORI poll.
Betfair’s website is down at the moment, but these were the spreads yesterday:
Betfair - Party Seats Line
Con 357-359
Lab 207-213.5
LD 51-51.5
SNP 13-14
PC 4.5-5.5
DUP 6.5-8.5
I have only had a quick browse of the Ipsos MORI detailed data, but from what I have seen, the word ROGUE just screams out from the data. The most blatant example of a totally unbelievable figure is the Greater London split (Table 4):
Lab 38%
Con 31%
LD 20%
BNP 5%
Grn 3%
UKIP 0
oth 3%
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/poll_Monitor_Nov09web.pdf
I’m sorry Bob Worcester, but that is quite simply a total load of pants. This preposterous London sub-sample has significantly skewed the Great Britain-wide headline figures.
What on earth went wrong with Ipsos MORI’s London fieldwork?
À propos nothing much in particular, I have noticed a strange, yet alluring pattern in the Conservative voting patterns in the member states of the Union. The evidence points to approx Con vote shares of:
England: 41%
Wales: 31%
Scotland: 21%
All we would need would be NI: 11% to complete the full set, however I suspect that the UUP(/Con?) are a tad higher than 11%.
Perhaps JohnLoony will like my discovery? He is the PB number-patterns guru.
What does this Con voting-pattern say about the future of the Union?
Sky news this morning:
Labour MP expenses scandal ( I did nothing wrong / could have claimed more he says)
Iraq war lack of preparedness
MOD spending shed loads of money upgrading vehicles armour protection when those vehicles will only be used for training purposes.
Just another day in the life of a decaying Labour government
10 A permanent Tory majority in England when Dave brings in English Votes for English Business
13 That sounds like a conspiracy theory to me. Surely London fieldwork cock-up is amuch more plausible explanation.
‘Whitehall agress to hand Holyrood power over airguns’
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6927700.ece
Nice to know that the Sunday Times journalists read the Daily Record:
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2009/11/22/exclusive-victory-for-andrew-s-parents-as-msps-get-right-to-outlaw-weapons-86908-21841042/
9 Stuart, we don’t know if this poll was an outlier, if it was a one off relecting a good week or what. Mori isn’t using a different method from its previous polling so while there may be issues on shares it does probably indicate a shift occurred (as ICM also showed). Need more polls to see if thats a permanent move or if its a blip.
I note that it’s not only punter who are unconvinced by any great Labour recovery. Reading the Times report on Cumbria floods I noticed that the leader of the Council said he had spoken to Gordon Brown and David Cameron, who had both pledged financial help.
“But we want a cast-iron, written guarantee this week that the Government will cover the cost of rebuilding the infrastructure,”
As with Northern Ireland we are seeing local politicians seeking Cameron’s sign off to Gordon’s decisions, an acceptance that anything Brown agrees now is likely to be delivered under a Conservative Government.
Some of the figures seem a bit odd, as has been pointed out.
The bottom of the market was 197?
I still think Labour will move to 225 by around Xmas before being sold off again.
Little risk reward in shorting Labour here.
16.Ted.
Only time will tell Ted, there may be some shift of course, however this 11 point shift appears very high.
Golden rule is always to wait a few weeks to see what other polls tell us, rather than reacting like hysterical children as some did at the weekend on here.
Labour leading in London by 7.
Did Hans Christian Anderson undertake this poll?
“The ‘Hung Parliament’narrative was generated in anger in response to Cameron’s new stance on the EU post-Lisbon, promising to negotiate repatriation of powers.”
Yes. No one ever mentioned it before.
Is it me, or has the BBC been saying we are heading out of recession for the last month?
21, let’s hope they’re right this time.
21 The Beeb bought a job lot of “Britain out of recession” headlines in October - rather than put them in storage until January (April??), they thought “May as well use them now…”
What we need is those who are convinced of a hung parliament to put their money where there mouths are and move the betting markets.
Then the rest of us can fill our boots.
@24:
How stupid do you think the “hungists” are?
24, the MORI poll actually illustrates nicely the difference between punters and commentators. A commentator can come out with any old nonsense provided it isn’t 100% insane (and here I feel the need to mention Jon Snow’s crying claim that not being allowed to tell the world where Prince Harry was amounted to Soviet censorship), but if a punter makes a bad call he pays the price.
Even though I only bet with small sums, I do quite like that. There’s little room in the world of gambling for a confident but inept buffoon. (Unless you’re fabulously wealthy, obviously).
Stuart Dickson @9, the London Con + Lab numbers put together come to a grand total of 63 people. Polling a population that size the numbers are bound to bounce around quite a bit.
There’s no reason to accuse anyone of pantsing up the fieldwork. Even assuming no shift in the underlying position at all, the results are perfectly explicable by sampling error.
…and for those interested in the conspiracy theory I have one of my own….it’s called the ‘Guido Gordon Bomb’..
Anyone reading Guido will have noticed a cross hair appear over someone he has something very nasty on - meaning they are a goner. Comment threads have asked that he save his Gordon ammo until the GE. I suspect that Paul Staines indeed has a plotter mentality and not a ’shoot from the hip as soon as you can’ one. I predict - with no other supporting back-up than my own intuition - that something devastating and truly horrible about Gordon Brown will emerge from his site during the GE.
22
Mad. Madder than Mad Jack McMad, winner of last year’s Mister Madman competition.
28 Edmund:
The raw London data showed that of the 129 sampled:
Voting Pref: 109
Did Not know: 8
Will Not Vote 10
Refused: 2
Thise expressing a voting preference were:
Cons: 30
Labour: 50
LibDem: 17
SNP: 2!!!
Green: 5
UKIP: 0
BNP: 3
Other: 2
Many of the above are way out of pattern.
31, you don’t want us to leave recession?
No- I just can’t count…….
Antony Wells on Mori:
“In MORI’s poll last month which showed a 17 point Tory lead, amongst those who voted in 2005 32% said they voted Conservative, 43% Labour and 16% Liberal Democrat. In this month’s poll which shows a 6 point Tory lead the figures of recalled 2005 vote break down as Conservative 29%, Labour 46% and 16% Liberal Democrat – so a 6 point change in the recalled lead from 2005. (For reference, ICM weighted their sample so recalled 2005 vote was Conservative 33%, Labour 38% and Lib Dem 22% – even they don’t weight to the actual figures because of false recall).”
Personally I’m amazed that on what is surely the most vital factor it can vary so much.
It seems likely that both the last two Mori polls overestimated Labour (the most recent by most), both underestimated the LibDems and the most recent underestimated the Conservatives.
Cons: 30
Labour: 50
LibDem: 17
SNP: 2!!!
Did they actually do any sampling outside the House of Commons tea-room?!?!
I tell yer, this is the work of Roguey McRogue from Roguesville…
Financier @32, so they got a couple of SNP voters living in London. Or a couple of people were taking the piss. Look at the internals of any poll and you’ll find a few little WTF’s. Doesn’t mean the polling company did anything wrong.
Is ultra reliable ComRes on the way tonight?
According to Kavanagh in the Sun today he doesn’t beleive the latest poll after all the Grim Labour news and he says knowone in the bunker believes them either!
Any posts casting doubt on the integrity of any pollster are potentially defamatory and will be deleted
39 If no-one in the Bunker believes the poll - does that mean Gordon is still at risk of being knifed by his MP’s? Booo!!
Outliers exist.
I suspect this poll is a mixture of genuine hardening of Labour likelihood, combined with Con oversampling last time, combined with Lab oversampling this time.
On that basis, the move in the spreads mentioned by URW at 3 seems very reasonable.
Mike S
I don’t think there’s any question about integrity, I think there’s a question that needs answering about competance.
With Mori wild and varying past voting weightings and also use of a 100% certainty to vote figure any results they produce need to be treated with great doubt.
Labour’s price to get Most Seats is roughly 13-2 and that is too short.At one point yesterday it brushed 6.8 which is 29-5 and that was downright silly.
The key market is the Betfair Overall Majority mkt. which showed last at 3.95-4.0 which is more or less 3-1 in bookie speak.
This one is by far the sharpest indicator.The Spreads with their five point margin are far too blunt and to beat them you have to be a political genius with timing. Even then the rewards might not be that great and certainly not in the short term.
Against the grain I have Backed a Tory Overall at 1.46 and am prepared to go in again before the next polls are published.
40 Mike, obviously I wouldn’t want anyone here to defame any polling organisation, and I don’t think anyone is seriously suggesting that a poll is deliberately skewed to give a party political advantage. However, there is a valid question which needs to be asked of the pollsters, alluded to elsewhere.
If a poll is undertaken which - despite using similar techniques from previous polls - is so out of line with what has gone before, then is the instinct of the pollsters to go out and do further work to back that up? Or do they think, we can justify our initial methodology - and we are the first with spotting a new trend, so we want to get that out there and get the glory? Can anyone offer insight into whether there is a cautious approach taken - because as has been suggested upthread, in this case there was plenty of opportunity to question this outcome.
Not sure if this was already posted.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/6631239/Hostility-between-British-and-American-military-leaders-revealed.html
re 41. There have been posts both yesterday and today suggesting that this was part of a conspiracy. This is total nonsense and defamatory. Anybody who repeatedly tries to post such comments will be yellow carded.
Pollsters have in the past, and no doubt will in the future, sue when such allegations are made. If you want to do that then please find some other channel rather than PB.
Just to clarify….
NOM IS 3.95-4.0
TORY MAJ is 1.46-1.48
LAB MAJ is 13.5-15.0
The Lab Maj price is downright silly but then again I said that on Friday when it was even sillier. The NOM price is not silly but merely questionable.I wouldn’t endorse it ever…but then again I said the same thing on Friday when it was much higher.
The Tory Overall Majority price…aah, that’s the one I like ! The ONLY caveat is that you might get better for waiting.
Well I’m no conspiracy theorist but I would like to know about the MORI past voting weighting and why it changes and why it differs from the one ICM use.
Just from educated interest and as someone who makes political bets it is important.
Anyway, off to work now, have fun everyone while I’m no
re 43. We can certainly question methodology as I have repeatedly done so on PB for nearly six years.
What we cannot say is that this is part of a deliberate plot. That is when things step over the line.
Watching the Tory posters on here rubbish an unfavourable (to them) poll reminds me of Sir Alex Ferguson after an unexpected defeat. I’m always surprised that he doesn’t realize how inelegant he looks.
I think this whole post and thread casts doubts as to something going wrong with the pollster’s output.
While attempting to avoid casting doubt on a pollster’s integrity, polls are not without political effect, and do surely need to be set in a political context.
Perhaps not here on PB. OK. Technical analysis only.
I think MORI is an excellent pollster - though I am sceptical about the motivations for their harsh turnout filter (I wonder if I am allowed to say that?).
Big swings generate big headlines. MORI’s methodology make it more prone to such swings than the others. That is a good business decision, and doesn’t necessarily compromise accuracy when it comes to the crunch in real elections, because momentum is momentum. Indeed, beneficial flip side is that it often enables shifts in public mood to be picked up earlier than the other pollsters.
This is all in general, not regarding this particular poll. As it happens, on this data using a 6-10 turnout filter the Conservative lead would have even lower - but then my gut sense is that this poll is an outlier (at least in large part).
re 47. MORI does NOT past vote weight. It is the only pollster which does not aim for a politically balanced sample.
They have strong arguments to back up their case for doing it this and indeed I’ve been in correspondence with MORI figures over the weekend.
BUT THIS IS NOT A PRO-EU PLOT.
42 - I know you ar bullish on a Tory Maj, but 16/1 on Tory seats 275-299 looks a bit overpriced don’t you think.
43 As I’ve said before, I do think that MORI’s system picks up on very short term changes in sentiment. Their poll was taken at a time when a lot of people felt sorry for Brown, and when Labour supporters had their morale boosted by the Glasgow NE result, which strengthened their certainty to vote. One week on, those issues have now faded away.
ICM’s methods smooth out such changes in sentiment.
“BUT THIS IS NOT A PRO-EU PLOT”
Haven’t you learnt, Mike? Everything is a pro-EU plot. They control our minds, you know…..
“If a poll is undertaken which - despite using similar techniques from previous polls - is so out of line with what has gone before, then is the instinct of the pollsters to go out and do further work to back that up? Or do they think, we can justify our initial methodology - and we are the first with spotting a new trend, so we want to get that out there and get the glory?”
When Millikan first measured the charge on an electron, he used an erronous value of air resistance, and got an answer lower than the true value.
Subsequently, scientists measuring the charge of the electron tended to discard data than led to anomalously higher results than the Millikan value. It took some time for this effect — “peeping at the answer” — to go away and the result to converge on the modern value of the charge of the electron.
So, if the poll methodology has been tested, and re-tested and re-tested, of course the pollster should publish all results — whether anomalous or not — without doing further work.
53 tim. Absolutely ! I had a nightmare time yesterday trying to take big prices on certain LAB Seat Bands.
You have to understand that almost all my action is short term with a view to making small profits every single day.
My view about a Tory overall majority is a *long-term * view, not just for Xmas.
I take we’re still allowed to call MORI a big pile of crap?
It’s Kerry.
The £143,000 bill to protect BNP leader on Question Time
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23773418-the-pound-143000-bill-to-protect-bnp-leader-on-question-time.do
One thing that emerges is very clear - making reliable predictions of future events is fraught with uncertainty. People lie to pollsters, they may or may not bother to vote on the day, the weather, all sorts of things can have big effects on the real outcome on GE day. No doubt the 2010 will not be exactly in line with some poll of polls either.
I prefer to notice only the slowly emerging trend of polls over time and otherwise to get my own feel for ‘mood’ through other issues.
Right now the mood driving stories are all working against Labour: debt, military covenant, expenses, EU, etc.
Italy, what a country!
Why don’t we have scandals like this? Now that would really get the Turnip Taliban going.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/22/silvio-berlusconi-patrizia-daddario-book
Still I have every hope for Dave and Co.
Looks as if the leaked Climate Change Results Manipulation Story is not going to run away. Nigel Lawson was interviewed on Today and called for an inquiry.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/6634282/Lord-Lawson-calls-for-public-inquiry-into-UEA-global-warming-data-manipulation.html
Mike. The poster ‘Travesty’ is so obviously insane I can’t imagine anyone successfully suing for libel.
On the topic of two “London” respondents saying that they will be voting SNP, i can think of at least a couple of explanations:
a) Scottish students at London universities/colleges: are allowed to vote in their “home” constituency (in practice nearly always their parents’ adress)
b) people like Willie Bain MP (Glasgow NE), who lived and worked in London, but (for some unexplained reason) were registered to vote at their mum’s flat in Springburn
Good Morning MORI London Voters For Nick Palmer Worldwide
Meanwhile …. Mike is correct about the seemingly casual defamation of some pollsters. Indeed not just the pollsters. It’s Mike’s neck on the block and PBers should use a little caution when casually flattening the integrity of individuals to make a cheap point …. but perhaps not so cheap for Mike !!
“Critics are calling for the BBC to pay for the cost of police keeping the right-wing leader safe when anti-fascist groups protested outside the corporation’s studios in White City, west London, last month.”
Surely the UAF should be presented with the bill….
Willie Bain at London South Bank University’s website:
http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/php4-cgiwrap/ahslaw/cm/content/phonebook/curriculumvitae.php?id=5206&template=ahs&divtemp=law
62 - Nigel is publicising his new think tank.
Fair enough.
Melanie in fine fettle.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1230109/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-Cynicism-cheap-stunts-voters-dont-trust-Tories.html
Hmmm couple of things there, (on polls) you’d probably disagree with Mike, I’d point it out to her if I was you: Nah! shouldn’t bother.
58. “I take we’re still allowed to call MORI a big pile of crap?”
Writing for the Sun of course you are. I’m sure no one would expect anything else.
Was Willie Bain entitled to vote in Glasgow, and if so, he has a number of questions to answer:
http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:Yler3fcVLhkJ:wardogblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/has-willie-bain-been-ripping-off.html+Willie+Bain+registered+vote+mother&cd=1&hl=sv&ct=clnk
65 - People cast doubts on the integrity of poor Nick regularly and have done on mine personally a couple of times. One rule for pollsters and one for everyone else?
70 See that is what I mean..
I write here on a personal capacity. Just because I don’t hide what I do for a living doesn’t mean I am told what to write. I was not a Sun staffer when I came to the MORI crap conclusion. I was watching ITV News.
Now here’s a funny thing of interest to esoteric gamblers only.
The rest of you may skip this post !
I have built up two large conflicting positions on whether on not Gordon Brown will lead Labour into the next GE. On the ‘Party Leaders I say “yes he will” and on the ‘Next PM’ I say “oh no he won’t.”
The beauty of these offsetting positions is that now I have considerable hidden equity via the prospect of a Labour victory under Gordon Brown.
I know it sounds daft but if it’s in the game, it’s in the game.
73. They obviously choose staff who fit in with their house style. Keep it up!
Talk of conspiracies is silly, the issue at stake here is much more prosaic. It’s about how pollsters - which after all are commerical organisations - try to sell their product. Do they see the natural volatility created by sampling errors and flawed methodology as an opportunity or a problem?
If we are in ‘conspiracy’ mode, however, I think yesterday’s Clegg interview might be the more appropriate focus. Could plan B for the EU elite be to try to broker a Tory-Lib Dem coalition, now that Labour are out of the game?
This’ll get the Turnip Taliban jumping.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230112/Tories-live-couples-married-rights.html
How rarely does the BBC news mention polls on its main news when Labour are not improving, but yesterday’s 10pm news had the narrative that Tory lead was now reduced to 6% and that the voters may not take kindly to the Tory message of ‘meaner and leaner’ expenditure.
Roger, Another Richard, Mike and Others
Mike is quite right that suggestions of bias or rigging by any polling company is deflamatory and should be avoided. However it is appropriate and in most cases acceptable to question methodology. It is always wise to wait 2/3 weeks after we receive a shock poll, that may appear to be an outlier. Then after the other companies have reported we can observe any trend etc.
I suspect this time next month we will be back to figures seen over the last six months or we may see a hardening of the Labour core and a narrowing Tory lead, who knows… Best wait and see!!
72 David R. It’s the difference between what might be judged as reasoned critisism through to satirical abuse against defamation.
Clearly some skins are thicker than others but Mike is correct to take a prudent course when the existance of the site might be put in doubt.
63. Insanity is only a defence to a charge of murder as I understand it. It sounds like I’d be more likely to get away with that, than theorising about pollsters having political motivations.
Meanwhile the Hung Parliament narrative is getting increasingly desperate for some polling information to back it up. That is not theory but fact.
80. Sorry. Badly worded but I hope you get my drift.
78
P Collinson
Yes. Saw that. Not a normal BBC decrier but it was strangely out of place. I suspect the BBC fear a big cut in the licence fee. As BBC News id grossly (>50%) overmanned in my view…
(what do they all do?)
83. Well it showed that this poll certainly made a ’splash’.
78, 83 - The BBC has a policy on the reporting of opinion polls:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editorialguidelines/edguide/politics/reportingopinio.shtml
If you think that it breached this, and it frequently does (normally through ignorance rather than malice, in my judgement), I suggest you make a complaint.
73. Idiot cunning syndrome at work (i.e. thick people who think they will look like clever people if they detect supposed and non-existent bias in a news source).
A lot of it about.
madasfish: Yes. Saw that. Not a normal BBC decrier but it was strangely out of place. I suspect the BBC fear a big cut in the licence fee. As BBC News id grossly (>50%) overmanned in my view…
(what do they all do?)
Each bod is part of a (biased) multicultural sample (which excludes older, wrinkly, females).
Every stastistical bell curve needs a bell end - and that is what this poll looks like.
Yes, I do.
I was just making a point that pollsters are the only people who seem to be defended. Which is very odd.
As Bill said to Monica: ” One swallow does not make a summer.”
But it is as ridiculous to pretend that the present poll levels will automatically linger on for the next six months as it is to pretend that they will automatically swingback.
78/83 PC/Mad. Might we put this old chesnut to bed !!
Outwith elections the Beeb doesn’t routinely cover polls unless they are considered newsworthy. Clearly the MORI was (whether or not you subscribe to the narrative). Further the Beeb report, such that it was, could not be called anything other that neutral in its reporting.
The Sun is the second biggest media client of MORI.
Just check this list here.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/voting-intention/mori
If we have another poll with a 12% Tory lead, I look forward to seeing the BBC run the “Tory poll lead doubles on back of Labour’s unpopular Queen’s speech” line…
Although I’m more likely to see Gabble cross the floor of the House
30 - You express surprise that two people in a London sample have an SNP voting intention. There are a lot of Scots who live, work or study in London but who may well vote SNP at their main home in Scotland. Two cropping up in a sample is quite reasonable.
I do feel that if a company has a methodology that is more volatile that it may attract a media company overly eager to run a splash to try and desperately get readers.
91. Jack. You might also have pointed out that as all the BBC news programmes are run by different producers so who do they think is coordinating this conspiracy?
How were the BBC supposed to report Cleggs remarks without reference to the poll.
Also Camerons slap of Clarke.
Congratulations to David Roe for his attack on his employers choice of pollster by the way.
Very brave.
93 MM. But would yet another poll with a 12% tory lead (stiffles yawn ….) be quite as entertaining as the MORI !!
Ye olde Mr Worcester must be chortling away at all the coverage !!
93. Don’t be silly - the Beeb is merely following the great British tradition of rooting for the plucky underdog.
95. There’s plenty of desperation all round as the polling marketplace is getting very crowded as well.
96 Roger. Someone in Blue Peter is clearly calling the shots in conjuction with all those CBeeBies wallers. Dangerous pinkos at Balmorey, don’t yer know !!
‘Ye olde Mr Worcester must be chortling away at all the coverage !!’
Yes Jack, exactly.
“95.Is it possible for a pollster to produce two consecutive rogue polls?
by The Screaming Eagles October 20th, 2009 at 5:04 pm ”
How about 3 or 4?
The last 4 polls by MORI have had the conservative share at 37, 43, 36 and 43. I’m getting motion sickness watching it. Surely it’s clear that there must be some some fault in their methodology to produce such wildly fluctuating results over such a short period of time?
I don’t think there’s anything sinister about their results, but I do think there’s something very wrong with the way this poll has been reported in the MSM. I wonder what we’d be talking about now if the Guardian/Observer had published the two polls the other way round…
98 Another poll with a 6% Tory lead could certainly play about with the individual constituencies markets…
11. “Labour MP expenses scandal ( I did nothing wrong / could have claimed more he says)”. Mr Dismore is as safe as houses because he is a FLIPPER. That means that Tories will leave him alone since a number of their own upper echelons, Osborne included) included are among those who profited by the system IN A TOTALLY LEGAL WAY AND ‘WITHIN THE RULES’. What the politicians do not seem to ‘get’still, which the Telegraph does, is that the public despises many of the MPs whose massive self-rewarding was ‘within the rules’ as they do other MPs who broke the rules. Firstly, because the disgraceful rules were written by MPs and secondly because there were hundreds of other MPs who could have perfectly easily exploited their rules for private gain but, due to greater moral fibre, did not. The same apples to the disgraced and disgraceful Lords. Apparently it has always been within the rules for a noble peer to claim their main home was a chicken coop in the Isles of Scilly but, thankfully, few of them did. I presume that the Telegraph will be reminding voters, as we come up to election time, how all three main parties have tolerated, if not lauded such noble troughers. A boost then for UKIP, the BNP and the nationalists.
If you paid more attention and read links you would see MORI last did a poll for The Sun in early 2008. That particular newspaper now tends to run polls by YouGov.
It’s always nice to be mocked by you, Tim.
I still maintain that Mike’s law about rogue polls is not especially useful.
Most of us who dismiss polls as rogue do so because they’re out of whack with the trend. The only time the trend can’t be relied on is when some obviously game-changing event occurs. Dave being filmed kicking and punching the Queen, perhaps, or aliens landing and refusing to deal with anyone except Broon.
Nothing like that has happened, ergo no reason to think polling might genuinely have changed, ergo it’s a rogue, and hence the completely relaxed reaction of the spread markets. Contrast this with the hysterical euphoria of Labouroids, who think they’re back in the game, the losers.
A poll that shores up Brown’s position is a good poll for the Conservatives.
runnymede @ 99
Don’t be silly - the Beeb is merely following the great British tradition of rooting for the plucky underdog.
This could perfectly explain it, though Marquee Mark’s suggestion at 93 would prove their impartiality.
However on this occasion the plucky underdog is the boxer who resorts to below the belt tactics to make up for lack of size or skill.
103 MM. Absolutely. You should consider MORI as an integral part of your pension plan and cheer them on accordingly !!
102 - Forgot to note that TSE’s comment was on the last MORI poll thread (on which many Tory leaning posters commented that the 17 point Tory lead was distinctly rogueish)
96 “all the BBC news programmes are run by different producers”
Ah but Roger, you don’t get to be a producer there in the first place unless you are comfortable being enfolded within the Beeb’s bosom…
107. I was joking
62 - No, Climategate is not going away. Nigel Lawson has an article in The Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6927598.ece
In contrast, the Guardian interviews a Government scientist (and former IPCC head) who says it’s really the wicked sceptics who, “far more” than climate change, “put the world at risk”: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/22/climate-change-emissions-scientist-watson
103. And we must leave David Dimbleby in the Election 2010 studio for the next declaration from….
http://tinyurl.com/4p3mwq
85, 93, 97, 99 and others
RE: Alleged BBC Bias !
I don’t know where people get this idea from that the BBC is in anyway biased ?
People always suggest bias when they hear something they don’t like hearing that concerns someone they favour themselves, its as simple as that !
101 runnymede. You wrinkled old cynic !! …. think happy circumstance and wonderful irony. Smile and MORI smiles with you !!
115. Oi less of the wrinkles…I only have a few…
114 Their late night radio coverage of Remembrancephotogate was a corker on Sat/Sun morning.
The coverage went from 100% nasty opportunist Mr Cameron to > oh maybe Gordon was there too > then ah, better report it as 50/50 each.
This transformation of editorial bent took about 6 hrs - the amusing thing was that they cited the Mail’s story which dobbed them both in it equally.
I notice this quite regularly during the night shift programmes
106.
All polls are rogue polls because of the little army of rogues who make more of them than the bare data entitles them to. Really useful stuff can normally only be gleaned by comparing the same poll over at least 3 to six months. So much of what people hype up week on week and month on month is within the real (as opposed to the published) margin of error.
Ohhhhhh……………. it all makes work for the pollsters (and pundits) to do!
And, of course, it fuels the betting markets, allowing profits for the wise. 
110.
Do you know how many BBC producers are and have been active in Tory politics?
118. But as someone observed upthread, poll results should be s distribution curve and distributions have outliers. I dismiss all polls showing the Tories 17% ahead or even 9% ahead. The area to look in is the head and shoulders of the curve.
Wayne @ 114
People always suggest bias when they hear something they don’t like hearing that concerns someone they favour themselves, its as simple as that !
So Bias doesn’t exist? Ever?
I happen to think that the BBC is biased, I might be wrong. However the behaviour of the BBC’s defenders suggests that I might not be. Rather than indulge in discussion, they simply suggest that all of the BBC’s critics are loons, or incapable of rational assessment, or lack acceptance that not everyone sees the world as they do.
119. We’ll find out from the champagne bottle count in Broadcasting House after the GE.
I’ll be watching the BBC coverage just to cry with laughter.
119 - Its the newsreaders that worry me.
Every single safe Tory seat seems to have a BBC newsreader on the shortlist.
And they expect us to believe is Fina Bruce in every seat?
121 - “they simply suggest that all of the BBC’s critics are loons, or incapable of rational assessment, or lack acceptance that not everyone sees the world as they do”
Well, if the cap fits…
Sky talking up Cable as “possibly the next chancellor” in the event of a hung parliament…
119
Roger Gale, he was in charge of the sticky paper and pritt-stick drawer at Blue Peter.
Ah! Nannies for the BNP
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/5563086/tories-wake-up.thtml
The hand that rocks the cradle……
Has it come to this?
http://blogs.news.sky.com/boultonandco/Post:9c645536-5861-4743-a240-34904fc7d17e
Now that she’s left the Jungle will Katie declare for Dave?
123 Eh? Cite some examples!
121.
Of course it exists, I’m talking to people on here how they view the BBC’s alledged political bias !
look at it this way,
From Wikipedia
“Labelling someone as bias in some regard implies they need a greater and more flexible perspective in that area”
I don’t believe this applies to the BBC in any arae of what they report, politics included.
125: That should scare enough people into ensuring a non-hung parliment one way or another.
125. I thought Clegg ruled out a pact with Labour ?
125.Great.
125, 129.
Vince is always spot on ….. stating the bleeding obvious after the event !
131, just imagine Chancellor Cable, trying to claim he’d foreseen everything coming but had buggered up anyway. Be like Brown, but with a human being.
Dr. Cable’s prescription is always the same as Brown’s too: spend more money.
Cable and Brown running the economy and tax sytem together fills me with dread.
Surely we can just ask Vince if he becomes chancellor - he will have forseen it either way..
“Gordon Brown will today demand that Europe unites in a common policy to push for growth that will help pull Britain out of recession.”
=
HEELLPP!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6631157/Gordon-Brown-to-call-on-Europe-to-help-push-for-growth.html
Given his history, I can’t see Cable serving under Cameron.
Jack who are these “CBeeBies wallers”. Do you mean wallah’s? Or is there some sort of conspiracy being cooked up by the building industry that we should know about?
In all the excitement nobody has mentioned the implications for the Lib Dems of Labour’s rise in the polls.
In theory it should be good for them but that figure of 17% is worrying.
I would like to bet that Labour take at least one Seat from them at the next GE.
136. Surely Europe has growth - is he looking for a hand out ?
130 - Not quite. His line, which in my view is correct and overdue, is that the party with the largest number of votes has earned the right to try to form a Government. That still leaves two main routes to a Lib Dem-Labour pact, either Labour win most votes or the Tories do so but either refuse to or cannot form a government in coalition or as a minority.
Given the London regional split from MORI, are we sure Vince Cable will retain his seat from the inevitable Labour landslide in London?
139, is the Lib Dem weighting sound?
I find it hard to take the Lib Dem polling situation seriously. They’ll gain more in the GE campaign due to more exposure, but there’ll also be a squeeze on them as people flock to the Tories to axe Labour.
As the Bank of England prints even more money, the odds are by the time of the election the FTSE100 will be back over 6000 and house prices will be at 2007 levels. Will voters then prefer the devil they know or take a risk with the Tories cutting away the green shoots of recovery……
of course real wages will be falling, unemployment will still be rising and investors will run away quite soon afterwards…..
136. Seem to remember Callaghan did something similar in 1978. Has Labour got the history book out from that time and using it as a manual for today?
Cable will not be Chancellor if the tories get most seats, so they’re talking about a Lib-Lab pact. Vote Yellow, Get Brown.
Though Chancellor Cable to PM Bean is so delicious a prospect it would almost be worth it. Almost.
112 - This will be fought tooth and nail, too many vested interests with too much to lose.
Those vested interests include the current government (are they complicit?), the incoming government (what price their emergency budget?) and what are the LibDems for now anyway?
There is also the risk that the ambulance chasers will smell blood and take out a class action against the warmists for libel against car/4×4 drivers etc.
This will run and run and run. Someone is going to blink and fess up out of financial self-preservation.
140, doubtlessly he’ll swap £10bn from the EU for control of the City, or some such insane bullshit.
142, it’d be ****ing hilarious if Mystic Vince got axed and never saw it coming.
119 - I don’t know any stats but a couple of examples off the top of my head are that Richard Bacon MP’s wife is a BBC producer (though she might have left now to start a family?) and was active in Major’s Government before joining the BBC. Chris Grayling was also a BBC producer. I’m sure there are others knocking about - the balance might be the other way but it isn’t an apparent bar on employment.
133.Morris Dancer, the more the media hype the idea of a hung Parliament, the more that it helps us Tories North of the Border. Especially if they start focusing on jobs for the Libdems in government, we have had a Labour/Libdem coalition in Scotland in the recent past.
A couple of BBC points (from a former BBC News Programme Editor). 1. Assuming the contracts have not changed, BBC Prog Eds are forbidden from active politics - this does not apply to producers.
2. Although individual Prog Eds are autonomous, they all attend morning editorial meetings, where the day’s agenda is set, and they are all subject to review by their peers and superiors.
3. Chris Grayling used to work as a BBC news producer.
4. The BBC’s head of public affairs used to work for the Conservative Party.
5. Nick Robinson used to be head of the YCs or their equivalent.
6. In my decade at the BBC, only two of my producers were ever openly Conservatives, against an uncountable number of Labour supporters and anyone-but-the-Tories supporters.
7. My announcement that I had voted for Mrs T led to jaws hitting the floor and stony silence at a BBC Christmas Party in 1989.
Black and White can sometimes end up as grey.
151, 3. Grayling is such a plank he could be a leftist insider (
)
5. Robinson was nicknamed Red Robbo. Hardly a rightist.
Interesting post, Mr. Baskerville.
For those interested in the developing ClimateGate story…
The bloggers are now pouring over the code/computer models that were leaked having exhausted the juiciest emails.
Things are looking rather grim for the CRU, here’s a snippet that was uncovered overnight. This was a note left by a programmer who was brought in to make the computer model work again…
“The problem is that the synthetics [made up data as they'd either lost the source or the real stuff didn't suit their agenda] are incorporated at 2.5-degrees, NO IDEA why, so saying they affect particular 0.5-degree cells is harder than it should be. So we’ll just gloss over that entirely ;0)
ARGH. Just went back to check on synthetic production. Apparently - I have no memory of this at all - we’re not doing observed rain days! It’s all synthetic from 1990 onwards. [Yup - despite weather data has got much easier to source and process, we'll make it up instead] So I’m going to need conditionals in the update program to handle that. And separate gridding before 1989. And what TF happens to station counts? [stations are jargon for each data collection point around the world]
OH **** THIS. It’s Sunday evening, I’ve worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done I’m hitting yet another problem that’s based on the hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform data integrity, it’s just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they’re found.”
And we’re about to change the whole world economy on this stuff?
And this is just the first file of 14000 lines of code that’s been unpicked. No wonder they didn’t want it released under FOI.
If you want to read more - Devil’s Kitchen has a good summary, he’s taking it so seriously that he’s not even swearing
http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/
Other good sites that are fairly jargon free are
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
http://camirror.wordpress.com/
148 - I think Mr Cable will safely retain Twickenham. But would be funny if he did.
73. They obviously choose staff who fit in with their house style. Keep it up!
by Roger November 23rd, 2009 at 9:28 am
Interesting that Roger makes this comment as it probably explains the so called BBC Bias better than anything else. I love the BBC and know many people who work there. As I have said before, they are some of the brightest and nicest people I know and they make some great programmes. The problem is that a disproportionately large number of them share certain similar values: liberal, lefty, Guardian reading, politically correct, and so on. Nothing wrong with these values but they are not balanced within the BBC by those of different values. Sure, in an organisation that big they have all types, but the balance has become inappropriately distorted and Roger’s explanation is probably correct.
Plato - your comment on the night shift is especially pertinent - I notice this time and time again. They take a lot of care during peak hours not to show any obvious bias (it comes out in more subtle ways) but the night shift get it badly wrong far too often.
154 - Did = Didn’t
151
And what percentage grey?
151.”7. My announcement that I had voted for Mrs T led to jaws hitting the floor and stony silence at a BBC Christmas Party in 1989.
Black and White can sometimes end up as grey.”
Considering that a lot of other voters did the same, why the jaw dropping stony silence at the news that a member of staff had voted for her as well?
157
77: That fits intriguingly with the Shadow Home Secretary’s view that tim picked up, that the Government should ask on forms whether people are married. In view of this new policy, will they instead ask them if they’re sleeping with someone, and how often?
On topic, there are reasons to niggle at the MORI poll approach (I think their public sector correction is a bit of a bodge, as I’ve argued here before - for other points see my post at the end of the last thread), but peculiar subsamples is not one of them. Speaking as a mathematician rather than a politician, some subsamples are ALWAYS peculiar. The numbers are so small that there’s a huge margin or error, there is no attempt to make them a representative sample, and as there are half a dozen of them one will be an outlier.
My personal guess is that the real Tory lead was down to about 8% at the nadir after a good Labour week, but will now have crept up into low double figures. It’s obvious, though, that the lead is fragile - if it wasn’t, a single good Labour week wouldn’t shift it - and that makes the spreads look risky if you’re backing the Tories, since you will only make any money at all if there are about 160 Tory gains.
With respect to the floods in Cumbria, it might be pertinent to ask if the Army have bridging equipment, and wonder if it is going to be used to bridge the river in Workington?
If the PM is so good at ordering checks on the integrity of bridges over troubled waters, would he and his numerous followers like to tell us if the Royal Engineers still have the ability to erect temporary bridges. At what point will the excuses be trotted out that there are no available units or no suitable bridging equipment, or that there is a freeze on spending at the MOD.
151 - I though Grayling was on the Baltimore Sun crime desk.
160, fragile? It’s been in double figures for 70-80% of recent polls. It’s been borne out in by-elections, locals and the mayoral election.
Jackie Ashley’s latest column.
The next election winner will be a Harold Wilson, not a Tony Blair
The latest poll shows a narrowing gap between the parties: for the new prime minister it will be 1974 rather than 1997
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/23/polls-parties-wilson-blair
158. ChristinaD. It might also have had something to do with my additional comment that she was the best thing that had happened to the country in my lifetime.
Nick, looking at the polls over the last 12 months, wouldn’t it be fairer to suggest that any Labour recovery is fragile instead?
MORI part of an pro-EU plot? lol
But I agree with runny.
The methodology is what it is. And it can lead [independently] to extreme results.
Mori is a private company [like any other] and it wants to sell its polls.
As Anthony says, results out of kilter with no obvious reason should be treated with caution. But that is not the way the news works. So MORI had an increased opportunity to sell/publicise its poll because it came out the way it came out.
The question remains as to whether it is sensible to take that course.
In the long run, surely its better for a pollster to be seen to be ‘correct’ rather than newsworthy. I think it was Martin Coxell who suggested to Bob W that he should follow the Wells school of thought rather that hype a poll in these circumstances.
Other memorable MORIs = 28 point Tory lead and Labour only one behind near Xmas. These polls caused sharp intakes of breath- until the next polls contradicted them or massively evened them.
It remains to be seen if this is the case here. Although had the ICM come out second, I suspect we would already be most of the way there.
Is this good in the long run for the MORI or for the reputation or polling generally? In between the extremes, there could be numerous polls which ‘fit’ from MORI. But if its oddities that go on to be ‘dispproved’ that catch the headlines, couldn’t Mori be seen as the pollster who crys wolf.
The next poll may well back this, but I think the point still stands. There are only so many times you can afford to attract attention to yourself and for people to conclude you are wrong.
How many memorable ICMs do you..remember?? Personally, none.
151 Baskerville, that seems a fair summation of the state of things. The BBC is clearly dominated by left wing anti-Conservative people becuase they make up the bulk of the types hired. They do not act in concert, they just attract and appoint “like” people. To coin an infamous Dyke phrase “the BBC is disgustingly left wing.” The few folk that are not, do stick out.
If the BBC had less money and did less things its influence would be smaller and any bias would be kept more in check by the fact that it would have to compete harder.
What we have today is a dominant oligopolist funded by tax payers.
160 - Its the opening shots in Graylings leadership bid.
Those “Are you married forms” mark a policy wedge with Number Tens “Are you shagging” forms.
165.Baskerville, I did wonder if you had added some tinsel to your admission that you had voted for Maggie to get such a response.
92. Perhaps you mean that MORI WAS the second biggest media client of the sun, Mike.
It seems acording to the chart that the SUN hasn’t used MORI since 01-10-2008.
Thats a long, long time in poll statistics.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23773356-tories-make-jedward-jibe-at-brown-and-darling.do
The petty & nasty posters campain continues !
170. There’s nothing quite like spluttering, splenetic lefty outrage to liven up a dull tinselfest.
133.
“Dr. Cable’s prescription is always the same as Brown’s too: spend more money.”
I think you will find Dr Cable has identified major specific cash savings which he is prepared (unlike GideO or Khammy) to share with the country. I would point you to links but i think you’ve been far too lazy so far so could do with expending the effort yourself.
160 “In view of this new policy, will they instead ask them if they’re sleeping with someone, and how often?”
Will there be, er, “home visits” for those who are failing to meet the average quota? Now there’s an election-winning policy!
FPT 249 “The alternate idea is much more fun but I can’t imagine that someone could function that doped up for that long.”
You should watch the “Spinners and Losers” episode of the “Thick of It”. The more the series goes on the more it feels like a fly on the wall documentary.
172, wouldn’t say it’s nasty, but it is petty.
Not a particular fan of either parties’ Jedward posters.
174: But ok…Cable wants rid of trident…Brown wants to keep it.
Who wins in that situation? I can’t see Brown going…hey Vince, do whatever you like./.
173.I know what you mean.
126.
“Now that she’s left the Jungle will Katie declare for Dave?”
Nah, she has far too many policies to align herself with CallmeDavebutnotatthewarmemorial.
Mind you, according to Pete Andree. she is a bit of a Chameleon!
It’s an interesting scenario though, isn’t it? In the shape of Cable, for the first time the third party has a widely-respected heavyweight with no baggage. The LibDems should maximise his exposure in the election.
The phrase “hung parliament” has a resonance about it that voters might find attractive. After the expense crimes, “hanging” MPs sounds like a popular option.
I’m sure such subliminal messages can affect some voters…
A couple of Boris related stories
First story: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23773539-one-ticket-for-trains-tube-and-buses-in-oyster-card-rail-revolution.do
Much of this (though not all) was done during Ken’s reign - but that is irrelevant. Boris will have ‘delivered’ so he will get credit/blame.
Second story: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23773522-boris-deputy-peddles-story-of-his-credit-fraud-shame.do
171.
“the SUN hasn’t used MORI since 01-10-2008.”
just about when they decided that Gordo was a sinking ship with no bailer? Not that the two things are remotely connected.
180, people don’t want to risk Brown getting in. The Lib Dems have 0 chance of a majority. And Cameron is a better lead than Clegg or Brown by far.
David Roe be not alarmed. One of the ways to make a site less influential is to drive away the reasonable posters such as yourself.
No-one should think that the McPoinson RedTooth plan is dead. There are the core such as tag-team-tim and volunteers who follow the leader such as Roger.
re 180. “Well hung” might have greater resonance
For those fans of Moira Stuart, she might be back at the BBC, well the radio, but still.
Chris Evans lines up Moira Stuart to read news on Radio 2 breakfast show
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/21/chris-evans-lines-up-moira-stuart
66.
“Critics are calling for the BBC to pay for the cost of police keeping the right-wing leader safe…. ”
Wow! How much DID the Beeb spend on security to Tony Bliar?
180 I disagree. Hung Parliaments frighten voters.
The LibDems seem to have thought they did in the past and banned talk of them. I think they were hoping a hung parliamnet would sneak up on the voters.
You see it as a means to bring about voting reform and excited. Most voters don’t think about voting reform from one birthday to the next. They are more concerned about its other possible side effects.
Certainly, there will be plenty of people talking about market/currency uncertainty if the prospect becomes more real than the current weekend storm in the Observer teacup.
184 - Well that might explain Nick Clegg’s and Lembit Opik’s success with the ladies
US F1 may soon sign Lopez (Renault test driver):
http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2009/11/10235.html
Also, ‘Argentinean’ is awful. Surely Argentine?
“Cameron is a better lead than Clegg or Brown by far.”
Securing tiles on a church roof would be an excellent job for Mr Callmeirresponsible. And you don’t need any policies to do that either.
Argentinean is the Americanisation/Bastardisation of the English language?
189 - Have you ever posted anything worth reading?
144. “As the Bank of England prints even more money, the odds are by the time of the election the FTSE100 will be back over 6000 and house prices will be at 2007 levels.”
Meanwhile, the rate on gilts doubles, the Uk’s credit rating is slashed, and the £sterling collapses. Labour has to have an emergency budget in January with massive “negative investments” and huge tax increases. The BBC are not happy. Should form an interesting backdrop for a general election.
Actually, no.144, you need Economics101.
185 That’s good news - wish he’d taken Richard Bacon instead though.
He is such a pr1ck - I had problems watching that episode of TTOI.
190, it’s like Afghani. No! Just Afghan is correct.
Damned people. Ironical is especially awful.
[191] - See [90]. I admit I had to do a double-take when I saw the poster’s name.
192. Surely the market has priced in a Conservative win - if Labour do begin to close in the polls what effect will that have on the gilts market and the FTSE ?
191. No he hasn’t.
wage slave, obviously no one can make you stop posting your drivel. But could you at least do us the courtesy of putting your name at the start of your posts. It would save a lot of time being able to scroll straight over your post rather than having to filter them. Thanks.
192.That brings us nicely onto Jackie Ashley’s pontificating about the fall out and back room deals in a hung Parliament.
Guardian - The next election winner will be a Harold Wilson, not a Tony Blair
Sifting through the article, its this bit that I found interesting.
“The prime minister is at least as likely to cite the narrowing gap as evidence that his determination to plug on is being vindicated. He may be hugely unpopular, but he remains a bigger and more determined figure than the rest of them. We must assume that, with the pre-budget report, Copenhagen and then a final budget to oversee, he stays until he determines the election date.”
184 It could certainly help Tripod’s re-election prospects in Montgomery.
Leave Wage Slave alone! He single-handedly makes pb.com the home of the most contorted, tenuous, word-mangling “puns” on the internet.
Not that anyone reads them, mind…
Richard Spring, MP for Suffolk West, to stand down at next GE. MP since 1992 (1992-1997 for Bury St Edmunds)
Never heard of him before today. Is it a big offence?
I wonder what would happen if Gabble and Wage Slave had a love child?
194 add ‘billions’ to the list which Brown has been spouting again this morning
27 billions of new lending
Brown committed to maintaining the ’stimulus’ until we recover.
Apparantly we can’t grow without spending money we don’t have. Firm footings for the economy there then.
Repeats the idiocy of legislating for deficit reduction making his own ‘necessary’ stimulus in recession illegal - better hope there is no downturn over the next 4 years.
202: Only a misunderstood genius could mangle Cameron into Khamorononon
203 That’s what Dr. Who is there to save us from…
Interesting LabourList article: http://www.labourlist.org/thatchers-generation-can-win-the-next-election-for-labour
This in particular struck me:
“It’s fair to say that we’re going into this election as underdogs – David Cameron’s “compassionate Conservatives” appear to have given the Tories a facelift, the public no longer see an “evil job-cutting, strike-breaking, milk-stealing” political party.”
Strike-breaking was bad?
However, the article does make the correct observation that saying “We aren’t evil Tories” is as much use as trying to discipline a lion by punching it in the face.
Janet Daley doing her best to wind us up:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/janetdaley/100017544/has-cameron-left-it-too-late-to-get-serious/
“For what it is worth, I do not believe the Ipsos Mori poll showing the Tory lead down to six points…
“This rogue poll should be less worrying to CCHQ than their more usual poll results which still fail to show the kind of dramatic lead over Labour which an effective Opposition should be achieving against such a broken government…”
196 Harry Flashman: if Labour do begin to close in the polls what effect will that have on the gilts market and the FTSE ?”
Hmmm …. CATASTROPHIC
209 - Which would in turn lead to labour falling back, a self fulfilling prophecy :p
153 - re Climategate, an excellent site is http://bishophill.squarespace.com/
It amazes me that so few commentators here seem interested. “The fight against climate change”, supported by all the UK’s main political parties, will impose massive burdens on our already shattered economy, cause real misery – especially to some of the world’s poorest people – and ruin much of our countryside in the process. Yet these leaked data suggest that some of the key scientists involved (at public expense) exhibit political activism, arrogance, intolerance of dissent and personal prejudice – all likely to impact on the way they do their professional work. The truth and implications of this are matters of huge global economic, political, environmental, social and ethical importance. Surely that’s worthy of rather more discussion?
211, aye, but I’m just not surprised enough to write much about it here. The zealous nature of many supporters of the theory always made me more suspicious than the theory itself.
209.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/6635027/IMF-boss-Strauss-Kahn-warns-that-global-economy-remains-highly-vulnerable.html
Mr Strauss-Kahn told annual gathering of the CBI, Britain’s biggest business lobby, that “it is difficult to claim that the crisis is over when unemployment is at historic highs and getting higher still.”
201.
“Not that anyone reads them, mind…”
Marquee Mark must, therefore, be tuning into my mind!
And there I was thinking there were no new frontiers in spyware technology.
Greece in some trouble - so bad that commentators are comparing their leaders to our own..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/6630117/Greece-tests-the-limit-of-sovereign-debt-as-it-grinds-towards-slump.html
“Athens squandered its euro windfall. For a decade, EMU let Greece borrow at almost the same cost as Germany. It was a heaven-sent chance to whittle down debt. Instead, the country dug itself deeper into a hole by running budget deficits near 5pc of GDP at the top of the boom.
Like Labour under Brown, idiot leaders mistook a bubble for their own skill. But the consequences in EMU are more dreadful”
208. Guido did a good number on Daley a few months back, showing that she contradicts herself persistently and in effect simply opines what she’s read in other opinion pieces that week.
I am baffled by this claim that the Tories’ lead isn’t big enough. The silly moo simply cannot have done the maths.
With Dave on say 42% that leaves 58% up for grabs. The LDs have about 18% of that so that leaves 40% up for grabs. The various nits, UKIPpers etc have another 10% (taking the lower end of the usual ‘others’ range), so that leaves up to 30% for Labour. Dave would have a lead of 12 to 14%, say.
That is in fact roughly what the picture is. I wish these people who think Dave should be have a bigger lead over Labour would explain whose votes he should be converting.
Labour’s payroll vote? Er, not really.
Left-leaning racists? Er, no, they’re BNP.
Lefty ecofascists? Er, no, they’re Green.
Nits? Er, no, the Conservatives are unionists and most nits are lefties.
The pool of available support for Dave is thus the Lib Dems - or rather, that element that thinks both they and Dave are in the centre. He noticed this years ago and has campaigned accordingly.
He’s doing brilliantly.
198.
Don, from your postings drivel would obviously be so far above your normal reading level that it would be a charitable act to send you the collective works of the Krankies. Still, as long as we can stimulate your comatose frame into action our living will not, as they sing, have been in vain.
Roger: “all the BBC news programmes are run by different producers”
But that suggests that the deputy DG Mark Byford has no influence despite being in charge of the news operation and being the ‘head of journalism’ at the BBC, and that Helen Boaden is no at all influential as Director of News.
Then there are one or two people ‘directing’ the producers. A ’short’ list of those with direct influence are here.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/running/bbcstructure/journalism.shtml
We shouldn’t forget the Andrew Marr, a class one luvvy, saying openly that “The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It’s a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities, and gay people. It has a liberal bias, not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.”
Liberal in the American sense, perhaps?
This quote has never been challenged by Marr who is not wont not to take out secret injunctions you may recall.
The BBC itself reports It’s a bit like walking into a Sunday meeting of the Flat Earth Society,” said the Daily Telegraph’s Jeff Randall about his time as the BBC’s business editor.
As they discuss great issues of the day, they discuss them from the point of view that the earth is flat.
“If someone says, ‘No, no, no, the earth is round!’, they think this person is an extremist. That’s what it’s like for someone with my right-of-centre views working inside the BBC.
Nick R sticks his toenail into the murky water of polls
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2009/11/reasons_to_be_c.html
“Poll leads are the difference between two large numbers which are themselves only accurate within the range of + or - 3%. So poll leads are only accurate within a range of + or - 6% ”
Thanks Nick
215.
“Greece in some trouble - so bad that commentators are comparing their leaders to our own..”
Which is the rapidly-balding Greek politician with a smile and no policies? Is there a floppy-haired mayor of Athens who has twice his ability?
wage slave, for the love of god, please put your name at the START of your posts, that’ another 30 seconds of my life I will never get back inadvertently reading your drivel.
Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease, name at the top, it’s not hard to do.
220. Is Cameron our PM ? Your post is 6 months too early.
221.
“that’ another 30 seconds of my life I will never get back inadvertently reading your drivel”
I am on piecework from Tory Central Office to upgrade the average IQ level of their supporters by wearing out the neurones of the brain-dead.
223. wage slave.
Too many words there.
I think what you meant to write was “I am brain-dead.”
Re the Beeb, I met a science and history producer who swore he was the only Tory left in the BBC.
“Khamorononon”. Tom Knox should have that for an incantation, or a name for a baddie who dies horribly.
Sorry if I missed it, but why was Mori released a week after ICM when the field-work was about the same time?
’she contradicts herself persistently and in effect simply opines what she’s read in other opinion pieces that week.’
She’s hardly the only one guilty of that, mind.
224.
“Too many words there.”
You have the same reading problem as Don? He says it took 30 seconds to read what takes me just under four. Is this site where CCO sends all the remedials? The deep-immersion in the environment of political debate does not seem to be working too well.
228 - please stop
226. The results were worth holding back for the Sunday Observer
226
They didn’t believe their results?
211. Crichton and Lomborg were right all along.
Crichton argued that the meta-features of warmism proved it to be a religion.
That is, as with all religions, it has an ancient state of grace, a fall, heaven and hell, predictions of things you must avoid after you’re dead, dogma, orthodoxy, heresy, excommunication, a priesthood, sale of indulgences, and of course good and evil, usually personified. It’s all there and it’s anthropologically predictable. “Consensus” was always meaningless - all you need in science is one person with reproducible results. AGW has never had this because the data kept trashing the theory.
Lomborg argued that even if you accept AGW and the proposed solution hook line and sinker, the money required could be spent to better net effect on things like vaccines, clean water, and treating everybody’s cancer. All could be achieved at least as easily as emissions control, with existing technology, and with benefits that are beyond argument.
Both viewpoints are a mortal threat to the AGW industry. Of course most MSM climate correspondents are completely signed up to the AGW viewpoint so they’re not about to report something that destroys them.
It’s like socialism - even post-Thatcher you can still find people who profess to believe in it. It’s less painful to do that than to admit they’ve been wrong about everything important for their entire life.
What will happen is that it will steadily fizzle as an issue. In about 10 years’ time the AGW industry will be a lot smaller and they’ll be banging on about it largely to each other. If one thinks of the TUC in British public life 1979 to 1989, it’ll be about like that.
227.
She’s hardly the only one guilty of that, mind.”
No, but I think she is truly the Terry Wogan of the paid punditocracy
226. Sunil.
Mori do their polls on spec and then try to sell them.(*) Presumably the Observer bought the results and then had to sit on them for the best part of a week.
(*) As opposed to doing them when commissioned by a publication, like all the other pollsters.
[226] - why was Mori released a week after ICM when the field-work was about the same time?
MORI do a monthly survey. They don’t always have a customer for this survey. In this case they were able to sell it to the Observer. Consequently publication had to wait until the Sunday.
Simple, really.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8374042.stm
236. alex.
The UK was the only G7 country not to grow in the quarter. The eurozone grew 0.4%, while the US expanded by 0.9%.
[...]
Comparing GDP with the same quarter a year earlier as opposed to the previous quarter, the UK economy contracted by 5.2%, again more than any other G7 economy for which data was available.
Best-placed.
236 - How depressing is that link? The only G7 country not in growth, the G7 country with the biggest shrinkage over the last 12 months.
209
Hmmmm
http://www.ft.com/home/uk
Not yet then, will it be back to 3500 I wonder?
234,235
Interesting.
so the poll is subject to market forces?
If people don’t like the look of the poll, then they won’t buy?
Still if things don’t go Daves’s way, there’s always.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23773522-boris-deputy-peddles-story-of-his-credit-fraud-shame.do
243: I think we’re getting onto Mikes dodgy ground there.
237. Contemplate the pattern of incentives such a situation creates.
[235] Why do you think all religions are, in fact, Roman Catholicism? Are you on piecework from the Pope?
243.
Well, yes, but Mori’s not shy about publishing their figures themselves.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/voting-intention/mori
Numbers jumped!
Ah, the Observer, I got you.
Daily Politics covering the Iraq story.
I think this could have a very long fuse… Chilcott might easily make Iraq a huge election issue again.
242 As soon as there is any serious reason to question a pollster’s integrity,Bono, nobody will buy.
Fortunately, the intimations on this Site that MORI’s work lacked integrity have come only from the Site’s Sillier Sods - so their repuatation and Mike’s financial well being have not really been jeopardised.
251 Number changes? My previous comment was for Bono at 243.
251 PtP, what if it becomes apparent that there’s a serious reason to question a pollster’s accuracy and methodology? I mean, how many “rogue” polls does it take?
Broon’s strategy is clearly to do whatever is necessary to manufacture growth in one quarter, then go for a GE on the basis that he’s now “fixed” the economy.
It will then collapse as the country goes bust, but at that point either he’s back in power or the Tories are, and in either case he couldn’t care less. It’s either five more years for him or scorched earth for them.
I wonder to what extent this is obvious to the wider pubic (© SallyC)? A lot of Labour whistling in the dark seems to hinge on the pubic not noticing this. Have Labour thought about what happens if the pubic are smarter than that? Are they worried?
They should be. Post-GE who’s going to be listening to Labour? Whose account of 1997-2010 is going to be the dominant one? I think Broon’s behaviour is going to damage his party for a decade.
253. There’s a market for rogue polls though.
I wasn’t questioning the results - I was wondering if Mori had a Packet of Strands or a Ford Edsel on their hands…
247. Roman Catholicism and Warmism are both western religions. If warmism had been invented in India or Arabia, it would no doubt look slightly different, but still self-evidently a religion.
There’s not a lot of disagreement among anthropologists about the tendency of human societies to create religions.
Amusingly, anthropologists can claim to have predicted the onset of climate alarmists far more accurately than climate alarmists can claim to have predicted anthropocentric warming effects.
How many people were questioning that this was a rogue when it came out in September 2008?
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2008/09/17/ipsos-mori-figures-corroborated/
There’s a big difference questioning a pollsters methodology [they all have their flaws] and their marketing decisons [the big splash might not be such a good idea if it all comes to nought] - and making insinuations about their integrity.
If MORI’s poll had been boring - it would have been boring - end of.
Surely any pollster’s methodology must be prone to producing occasional outlier results.
If one accepts there’s a distribution curve of accuracy, then arguably you should be concerned if your methods don’t produce outliers.
Most of the time you should be in the same ballpark as everyone else. Occasionally you’ll over- or under-read the position. In aggregate you have a normal distribution. Isn’t this what MORI has?
260: You would need to really look at the whole range of polls not just one….
New thread
253 Questioning somebody’s accuracy and methodology is one thing, Jonny: questioning their integrity is quite another.
258 Quite a few people in that thread said it was an outlier Mike. Perhaps there’s a difference between that and a ‘rogue’ but I think most people would take them as meaning the same thing?
258. OGH.
As I recall it was pretty much universally laughed at at the time.
To be be fair, I think it was so over the top - you didn’t need to.
Within days, after the hilarity had passed, most people were saying they thought it was seriously OTT.
But they [we] enjoyed its effects.
Less so with this one. Obviously.
But what I also don’t see with that thread is any serious attempts by right wingers to analyse it and try to justify its accuracy and indeed, go further and by using selectively extracted info, try to make it look exaggerate it further.
Which is what some notable left wing posters did with this one.
There’s a difference between standing back and having a laugh and spinning.
139 Try East Dunbartonshire and Dunfermline West. That is 2 seats Labour is likely to regain from the LibDems as things stand at present.
On this poll malarky, of course if the Tories are really at 40% then MOE shows a range of 37-43% and if Labour are really on 28% then MOE shows a range of 25-31% so actually the Mori poll might really mask a Tory lead of 18%
I thought the most telling remark of the weekend was “Sir” Michael White 1st Baronet of Guardianistaville who when asked about the Mori poll said he expects David Cameron to win the GE with an overall majority.
Don’t Sir Bob Worcester and Prof John Curtice both belong to the “I could never say anything positive about the Cosnervative Party” group of psephologists? Maybe Curtice will get his knighthood from Gordon Brown before Labour loses power.
258 Mike, on the thread before that one when you first broke the figures I found this interesting comment -
“24.Poor MORI. They used to be such a respected pollster
by Roger September 17th, 2008 at 4:05 pm”
Sky making the classic mistake of thinking that the FT are pro-capitalism. On Sky news they set up Maguire and George Parker to discuss the Conservatives economic ideas. A pair of anti-Conservatives now hammering into Cameron.
263. Meanwhile the ‘Hung Parliament’narrative is looking for Polls to act in support. This one appeared to do so, but is in fact an outlier, or a poll based on poor methodology.
Who’s next?
It’s interesting that The Sun and MORI parted company a while back. I didn’t know about that.