The Ladbrokes Election Forecast
February 25th, 2010
A guest slot by Matthew Shaddick (Shadsy)
Here at Ladbrokes, we’ve now had prices available for all GB constituencies for a few weeks. A first in the world of political betting. Indeed we’ve been betting on some of these contests for over a year now. What are these 632 individual markets telling us about the overall election result? We thought we’d make an attempt to predict the election from the constituency level up with all of this useful information, which of course is driven by the thousands of bets we’ve been taking across all of our seat markets. Real money from real punters, you might say.
Our odds can quite easily be converted into a probability for each party in each seat. Lets take an example of Watford where we currently bet, in decimal odds
A probability can be calculated by dividing 1 by each of the prices, getting us to
Mathematicians will notice that these add up to 1.11, instead of 1.0. That extra 0.11 is usually referred to as the over-round and can be thought of as the bookies profit margin. To arrive at raw probabilities, strip this out by dividing each of the figures by 1.11. Hence
So there we go. Ladbrokes prices actually imply that the Conservatives have a 47.1% chance of winning Watford. For the purposes of our prediction, we award the Tories 0.471 of a seat here.
Repeat the process for all 632 constituencies in Great Britain, add up the totals, and you’ve got a seat forecast for each party. Before we got there, we made a couple of other tweaks.
1. We’ve actually awarded the seat in full in any situation where there’s a favourite of 1/100 or shorter. Why do we do that? Because we’re guessing that a lot of these “certainties” are actually over-priced, but we don’t think many punters will be rushing to grab a 1% return or smaller when the election is still a few weeks away. Some of these may actually be good bets the night before the election, for those with deep enough pockets.
2. We discount the chances of any party at 100/1 or bigger. The reverse of tweak 1 applies here. Almost all of these probably have effectively zero chance. Why don’t we just make them a bigger price? We don’t think we’ll take much extra money, certainly not enough to compensate us for the day we get it wrong.
We don’t have prices yet for the Northern Irish seats, but we will be counting the joint Conservative/Unionist candidates in the Tory Column. I’m giving the Tories an extra 3 seats for that, which is an informed guess.
The Ladbrokes Election Forecast
Conservatives 333
Labour 219
Liberal Democrats 62
Others 36
Tory Majority of 16.
To be honest, I was quite surprised how low the Tory figure was, given that I thought we’d been fairly bullish with their chances when pricing seats up. Part of the reason lies with the high Liberal Democrat total; quite a bit higher than our seat bands would imply. I think that’s a reflection of the higher propensity of Liberal Democrat supporters and activists to back themselves in any seat that they have a chance in.
The forecast will change fractionally every time we change the prices in any seat, and of course if the polls move significantly, we can expect punters to follow
If any PBers are attending the Tory Spring Conference in Brighton this weekend, Ladbrokes have a stand and I should be there most of the time. Or in the bar. Come and say hello.
Matthew Shaddick (Shadsy)
Ladbrokes are the official sponsors of the general election coverage on Politicalbetting.com
MessageSpace Advertising
First hidden thread?
Second, and last!
Fascinating stuff! Very interesting to see the process you use fully worked through. Thanks Matthew.
Where is everybody?
We’re here now!!
New First ?
*tumbleweed*
Oh! Back again!
‘I think that’s a reflection of the higher propensity of Liberal Democrat supporters and activists to back themselves in any seat that they have a chance in.’
Indeed. It would be very interesting to compare the closing odds in a number of the Lib Dem target/marginal seats in 2005 with the actual outcomes.
FPT:
Many thanks for the replies - my assumption was that 350 seats = 50 seat majority, so thanks for confirming. It leaves a tiny gap in an otherwise good value bet;
******Betting Post******
2 Paddy Power Markets:
A. Conservative Majority of 50+? = No (majority of 49 or less) = 2.00 (Evens)
B. How Many Seats Will The Conservatives Win? = 351 - 400 = 3.25 (9/4)
Good prices, especially on the first bet. Or take both bets and cover yourself up to a Con Maj of 150.
*****
Ah yes, URW - Sorry i didn’t acknowledge your kind post the other day. Thanks!
Qu’est-ce qui se passe?
A brilliant approach.
The high LD figure is the most surprising feature.
On his podcast yesterday Shadsy suggested this could possibly be because LD candidates were most willing to back themselves - not sure I buy that entirely.
For those who missed on his podcast you can hear it here
http://bit.ly/d3MtWW
Reply to Bob’s post on the prior thread.
The concerns raised regarding the Labour Disloyal category have been backed as substantial by Mr. Smithson (154, prior thread), and suggested by Mr. Caveman as creating an artificial floor of Labour support higher than the reality and limiting the lead to 6-7 points.
People aren’t saying “Boo, the Tories aren’t doing well enough”, we’re saying “Look, you’ve introduced a new Labour Disloyal category, with no similar measure for the Tories or Lib Dems.”
On thread: I maintain my forecast of a Tory majority ranging from 50 to 70 seats will occur.
yougov data up. http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/TheSun-results-02.24.pdf
before adjustment, the shares were: Con 42; lab 28; lib 18.
so adjustment resulted in a lead reduction from 14% to 6%!!! con -4%; lab +4%
for E&W only (brackets unadjusted): con 41 (45) Lab 30 (27)
so this time an 18% lead became a 11% lead.
Im not saying there doesnt need to be some adjustment, but a reduction by over half is surely ridiculous!!!
Great post. Going to SF so will try and say hello!
fpt 438 I worry that you have become part of the Tim collective, Martin.
by voreas February 25th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
As I was saying last night, the key is to see some post-bullybrown polling from other pollsters. If there is a move away from Labour then we can start to look more critically at YouGov’s new methodology.
The assertion that BullyBrown has not benefitted the Tories/damaged Brown is predicated entirely on YouGovs new methodology.
456.Your right. But more importantly offering IHT cuts means we can’t offer top rate tax cuts. From an economic point of view these taxes, like the hike in National Insurance will be most harmful to Britain’s future prosperity.
@16:
An observation, from speaking to tim, that he’s at his most effective when he’s poking at a raw nerve. For us, it’s the “party of the rich” meme, which is what makes IHT such a great stick to poke us with.
A Watford Thread !! …. well almost.
Get on the Watford Free Money Express - Yellow Peril Gain
19. Who cares what he thinks?
Shadsy, this is a fantastic post, one I shall return to several times. While Ladbrokes are the only bookies to cover all 632 seats on the mainland, we could do similar exercises by proxy with other bookies by treating the selected seats as proxies. That also would be worthwhile.
This highlights what a good bet the Paddy Power bet that Armitage Shanked notes in post 10 is. 6/5 that the Tories will have a majority of under 49, where shadsy (the Tory optimist among bookies on constituency betting) reckons that a majority of 16 is an evens shot? I’m on!
19 Well I can certainly say that I have no idea why Tories are being twitchy over this.
It’s not an immediate committment, it’s funded when it is introduced by the non-doms, it psychologically pulls home owners towards the Tories and only effects dead millionaires as Marquee Mark so succinctly put it.
Majority of 16! Ouch.
21. Did you not nominate him for poster of the year ?
19, if you scratch a wound you’ll just make it worse.
The Tories want only millionaires to pay death tax. Labour want the many, not the few, to pay it. It’s a good policy for the latter stages of a parliament.
14, sounds similar to earlier adjustments. I remains somewhat dubious of this tracker poll.
This is a fascinating methodology for working out seat totals. It’s hard to estimate how accurate it’s likely to be, since odds are determined by sentiment rather than hard numbers.
But it’s always nice to have a new source of bits into our entropy pool.
What a larf
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2010/02/gordon-gets-wistful-about-managing-a-great-team.html
Armitage
That is a good bet. With the obvious risk that the tories might get exactly 350…you can still bet say £30 and £20 for a guaranteed return. Good spot that man.
19: He’s still yet to give any reason at all for Gordon Brown Five more years!
Still, par for the course for labourists which can only go negative.
Fascinating, Shadsy. Thanks for the post.
I think the LD figure is high because they have SOME chance of winning a lot of seats but seats are not REALLY split and if they do poorly, those .25s will all become 0.
You can look at this two ways; either local knowledge informs these bets, and therefore any discrepancy with the seat bands indicates there is value in the bands. In particular, buy the higher LibDem bands (or buy them on the spreads).
Alternatively, you might think keenness to support the local team (again, especially in the case of the LibDems) is distorting the odds, in which case there should be value in the seats markets betting against local over-enthusiasm.
Make your choice and pay your money over to Shadsy. I’m sure he’ll be happy to take it either way.
(BTW - The Other figure looks a bit high as well, no?)
19 Sure, Tim will make stuff up and on the face of it the iht thing will have problems if you:-
1) disclude the fact that it is fully funded by non doms.
2) Disclude the fact that the Tories have already said NI reduction will come first and that won’t be for a while.
3) Disclude the fact that vast areas of the south have 3 bed homes worth over £350,000
4) disclude the fact that the 3000 richest is a Brown/balls lie.
5) disclude the fact that the rich avoid inheritence tax anyway. So the bulk was unfairly falling on those who were in the £325,000+ group.
If you ignore all those facts as Tim and now you do IHT reduction is not a winner.
However as a tory try arguing the case instead of giving in to every little porkie pie argument put forward by Tim.
This should be fascinating. If using the marginals polling data of Angus Reid we can bank on about 160 Tory gains.
32
Yes, that others total looks very high. I’m expecting about 20-25 excl NI.
Shadsy
Thanks for an interesting and easy to follow thread. It is tempting to put a small amount on every seat just to add a bit of fun to election night.
Can you explain to a betting novice why it doesn’t appear possible to do accumultor bets on constituencies? I used to enjoy the odd Heinz 57 bets on sporting events in the past.
@33:
Stop being so bloody naive. This is politics. Perception is everything, and the perception around the IHT proposals has the possibility to be bloody terrible.
Great stuff, shadsy. It follows that one group of prices must be a bit “wrong” (though not necessarily wrong enough to warrant a bet, given the over-round).
My guess is that, as you say, the LDs are too short in a number of seats, probably the ones they are defending from the Tories. It might be possible to structure a series of Tory constituency bets with a chunky “over” bet (say 75% of your total outlay on the constituencies) on the Lib Dem total as a hedge.
Obviously LD/Lab and LD/Nat marginals complicate things a little.
Shadsy,
How often do you plan to calculate this forecast between now and the election?
28. What a parody. I wonder what it must feel like leading the worst UK government in 300 years.
This thread also highlights that no one really knows anything about the Lib Dems. Ladbrokes’ own seat bands make 60-69 a relative longshot of 4/1 - both 40-49 and 50-59 are shorter priced. Either the individual constituency prices are seriously wrong or the seat band prices are seriously wrong.
34 - has the Angus Reid marginals data been released yet ?
Very interesting piece Shadsy, and thanks for the analysis.
Personally, I think the Lib Dems are a bit high, probably as a result of the way the overround can work. There are a lot of very safe seats where the Lib Dems are 20/1 to 50/1 (against a Tory or Labour price shorter than 1/100). These, as Shadsy explains, are awarded in full to the safe seat holder. However, any which get a little longer than 1/100 - even though they’re still very safe - are likely to have the Lib Dems no longer than 20/1 and probably less than that. I would guess that in reality, they will pick up fewer of these seats than their odds would suggest - almost by definition, all the overround is with the party less likely to win.
That said, I don’t think the overall figures are far off the mark. It certainly makes me feel better about the 325-349 Tory seats bet I have.
If nothing else, this is a great experiment in figuring out how efficient betting markets really are.
You would expect that a percentage point move in the polls would translate into movement in individual seats - but as Martin Coxall says, individual seats are driven by sentiment rather than data, whereas for overall party seat totals it is the other way around.
Combining the two is a brilliant, brilliant idea.
13- fair enough, only caught the end of the thread.
Thanks,shadsy and thanks to Armitage Shanked.
I’ll go
LAB 220
CON 345
LD 52
Incidentally, will Mr. Shadsy be about on election night here?
Only 323 valid applications received for the 60 public seats to watch Gordon Brown at #iraqinquiry. Still overshadowed by Tony
37 If perception is everything then go about changing the perception not giving in.
Actually this if anything is the reason the Tories are in trouble(if they truly are). If you are prepared to accept Browns lies then you have no chance. The nly way to actually win the election is to argue every single point, over and over and over again. Not doing this has led to 13 years of disasterous labour government.
45, np, I was moderately surprised by your post but if you’d only caught the last few bits about YouGov I can see where you were coming from.
Anyway, a 14 point lead becoming 6 points is a drastic change. Could YouGov be a recidivist Labour over-stater? [Copyright Mike Smithson, 2010].
14 - what?!
I’m not getting into ‘it must be rigged’ territory here, but is that actually normal? To adjust so much that you more than halve the lead?
32,35 The Others total includes the remaining 15 N.Irish seats (after i gave the Tories three of them).
36. Mike, no you are correct you can’t do multiple bets on the seats. “Related Contingencies” is the term we use. Bcause each event is non-independent of each other event, you can’t just multiply the odds to give a true reflection of the price of more than one of them happening. If the Tories win Scunthorpe, then they are pretty nailed on to have won Croydon Central.
There is another possible angle to this - I wonder whether there is a systematic over-pricing (i.e. lower probability) of the favourites in the seat markets?
I’ve taken the 4/1 Ladbrokes are offering on DC mentioning Boris during his spring conference speech and the 3/1 on him mentioning Haiti. DC mentioned Boris in both conference speeches I’ve heard him make, I don’t expect him to break the pattern now. Only a tenner on each but enough to make the speech (more) exciting.
51, the other tracker polls have had revisions of a similar scale.
With any luck one of the stats chaps here can answer your query about other pollsters.
37. Martin you are caught in the old perception vs reality trap. When people go into the polling booth they care about lower taxes. When answering polling questions they feel under pressure to say they are ok with high tax.
Labour lost in 1992 on a high tax platform. Through attacking the Conservatives on lower IHT they are just giving the Conservatives and extra 1-2% in polling booths at the next election.
49 Spot on - the people who don’t like the idea of an IHT cut are unlikely to be a) homeowners b) natural or even leaning Tories.
Some Tories appear to be scared of the myth Labour has created about them. IHT was a great idea then and it’s still a great idea - the factor is implementation of it and provided they go hard on reducing NI [a tax cut that applies to the vast majority] first, I really don’t see the problem.
Even with 15 of the others attributed to NI, that’s still quite a hike in the number of SNP and PC seats isn’t it? Are there any others out there that might win?
54, when is the speech?
Good luck, incidentally. Read Appian yet? I’m making good headway with Tacitus, although the similarities between Nero’s world where vice is praised and virtue censured rings eerily true sometimes.
49.Your missing the point. If the tories go into the election promising IHT cuts on estates of over £300,000, we cannot then promise to cut the top rate of tax as it will be creating an open goal for our opponents. It will be the tories looking out for the interests of the few not the many.
Since vast areas of the south are already tory, perhaps we need to go after the midlands and the north-west, just an idea.
FPT 452 Sir Norfolk
The Westmorland and Lonsdale Conservative Association may well benefit from the fire at their offices.
They can now knock on a door and start the canvass with: “Have you heard about the fire at … . We have lost all our records and would need to ask whether you are now or have even been a member of … .
It’s a cold canvasser’s dream!
For me the labour loyal/disloyal means there is a signifigent level of labour voters which are waviering or have a much lower turnover chance to vote, and You-Gov are trying to work out how to measure that support.
Didn’t know that every seat was up for betting on.
Might be tempted on some “dead certs”!
A very good post voreas. One of the most irritating things is when so called Conservatives start posting Labour propaganda for them. The point is to rebut the lies, not rehash them as if they were truth.
39. Martin, I expect we might update it every day. Just have to press a button, but it’s likely to be quite stable compared to the polls. We change several seat prices every day, but unless they all start moving in the same direction (which of course they might) the movement will be fairly glacial.
50- lol, I have raised the question before, I reckon there must be a fair few shy Labourites knocking about now. I can’t see any reason why the lead has fallen so much recently, except that the whole shadow cabinet including DC seem to have been MIA for ages, but I suppose like in 07 DC could just be keeping his powder dry.
53 Richard Nabavi
Interesting. You could use the favourites as a rough measure of the “uncertainty” of the election.
For example, one rough model could work as follows. Take the favourite in each seat, divide by overround as in the Watford example above, and add up all the resulting numbers. This will give you a number less than 632.
The more it is below 632, the less certain the election.
Recession may never have ended…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/feb/25/uk-could-still-be-in-recession
41. Yes Antifrank there appears to be a big dissonance there.
I’ll see if I can break down the Others, but I’d guess it would probably be about
15 N.Irleand (exc Con/UUP)
12 SNP
5 PC
4 Indies
So yes, it probably does look a bit high.
Shadsy,
“I should be there most of the time. Or in the bar”
Can we place a bet on the more likely location?
Interesting article. Personally I think the tory number is too low, but then again there aren’t many poor bookmakers around!
What’s the betting that snow will be the reason Britain went back into/stayed in recession.
60 “Your missing the point. If the tories go into the election promising IHT cuts on estates of over £300,000, we cannot then promise to cut the top rate of tax as it will be creating an open goal for our opponents. It will be the tories looking out for the interests of the few not the many.”
If they promise to cut National Insurance as top priority (which they have done many times) and IHT is fully funded(which it is) then I don’t care if Labour start making things up. The answer is to reply as I have.
“Since vast areas of the south are already tory, perhaps we need to go after the midlands and the north-west, just an idea”
One of the reasons vast areas of the South are Tory is because of the House price bubble in the south and the IHT promise.
52. That leaves 21 non NI others which, given that Plaid Cymru are extremely unlikely to win more than 5-6 seats and other minor parties will be unlikely to win more than 1 between them implies an SNP figure of 14-15 seats. Is this accurate, and if so what do our scottish p[osters think of the likelihood of it?
59- I haven’t actually, I’m in the middle of a 7 month period of constant exams and revision (hence the minimal posting recently) I don’t have time for large books at the moment. I’m looking forward to reading it over the summer though.
Tacitus is an excellent historian, very readable. I’m reading a book about the American Civil War by John Keegan at the moment. He’s apparently our greatest millitary historian, but I’m not that impressed. He repeats himself constantly and he seems to prefer the North to the South. We all have our own preferences but I think you shouldn’t be able to tell which side a historian favours.
Similarities between Brown and Nero? I don’t know what you mean…
2. We discount the chances of any party at 100/1 or bigger. The reverse of tweak 1 applies here. Almost all of these probably have effectively zero chance. Why don’t we just make them a bigger price? We don’t think we’ll take much extra money, certainly not enough to compensate us for the day we get it wrong.
This is probably why the lib dems are overstated. There is (I would expect) a large number of seats in which the lib-dems have effectively a low probability of winning being in 3rd place, however when the ‘expected’ seat total is worked out, then it equates into actual seats which in the ‘real world’ are unlikely to happen.
For example, say you have 100 seats at which the lib-dems are 20/1. At a actual election, it would be reasonable to say that very,very little of those would be won. However in a probabilty model it equates to actual 5 of those seats won.
The ‘real’ probability and the ‘betting’ probability are probably slightly, though importantly different.
If all odds over say 20/1 were removed, rather than 100/1, I expect the lib-dem figure would be the one which dropped the most.
59- oh and I think that the spring forum is this weekend.
61…….but they haven’t lost their records, so they would be telling porkies and we can’t imagine that happening, can we?
I think Labour are closing the gap commensurate with the amount time remaingbefore the election.
The public loathe Labour, but to switch to the Tories is going to require a sea-change.
And i just don’t sense it yet.
68 - That would be the end of Brown. The End.
I do love some of these odds - 1/500 on the Tories in Richmond. You’d have to bet a lot to make not a lot!
75, hope your exams are going well.
Actually, I was more comparing the predominance of vice in political leadership and the attack on the virtuous to the modern age, rather than specifically Nero and Brown.
Hard to find a direct comparison for Brown. He’s moody and withdrawn like Tiberius, but without the extreme vices. He’s delusional like Caligula, but without the incest. He’s as mad as Nero, but not as gluttonous.
Just getting to Vespasian’s rise to power. Decent Roman emperors are few and far between, it seems. Tacitus reminds me slightly of Polybius and Thucydides.
76. “If all odds over say 20/1 were removed, rather than 100/1, I expect the lib-dem figure would be the one which dropped the most.”
Shadsy, would it be difficult to run that to test the hypothesis?
73.No, the south is not tory because of a bubble in the housing market.
Why you want to give Labour such easy targets is beyond me. It should be so easy 1.Guaranteed Nat Insurance cut then as resources allow 2. Income tax cut then as resources allow 3. IHT cut. We don’t need to box ourselves in, this election should be a referendum on Brown.
I thought that the accumulation of lots of LD 2/3%s might be the explanation, but looking at the prices shadsy has been perfectly happy to go 100/1 LD in clear two-way Lab/Con marginals. There are plenty of seats where they are 33/1 but that is usually against a dead-cert which is taken care of by rule 1.
Therefore, I think there is an real overstatement of LD chances in seats where they have a genuine chance. In addition to my hedge idea @ 38, it is also an indication of where to go if you have an opinion - if you think LDs will do better than expected, back them on the total (or buy on the spreads), whereas if you think the Tories will outperform, look for a portfolio of seats.
FPT Martin Coxall
There is a very simple solution to the Tory IHT pledge causing electoral disadvantage.
All Osborne needs to do is defer the raising of thresholds either for a fixed period (say 4 years) or until some benchmark figure has been reached in deficit reduction or GDP growth.
He should then agree to make the raising of thresholds apply retrospectively to the day that the enabling bill is enacted.
This would have no negative impact on Government cash flow in th period in which the relief was deferred. In other words it would not increase the deficit but cash receipts from any non-dom tax would.
This wouldn’t stop tim squealing but it might convert the squeal into a squeak.
OT
faisalislam
Hester says that the average pay for an RBS banker outside its invesment bank is ‘less than a bus driver’
faisalislam
Chairman and Chief exec of RBS are trying to work out how much a bus driver earns: ‘£15,000 or £21,000?’
faisalislam
Good question to RBS’ Hester on why on earth a taxpayer-owned bank has a giant branch in the Cayman Islands…
70. Four indies is really pushing it (does that include the Speaker?). I can see Blaenau Gwent as very likely but beyond that, I can’t think of any that would be favourites though all the bits might add up to another one.
The Greens should probably be on 1 though and perhaps UKIP and BNP a further 1 between them, so I’d agree with all minor parties (i.e. not Con / Lab / LD / SNP / Plaid / NI) at four.
Martin Coxall hits the nail on the head in the last thread -”People don’t vote Conservative because they want to love the party. They vote Conservative because they want them to be right.
That’s why Dave’s massive loss of nerve on the deficit has been so damaging to the party’s standings in the polls.”
I won’t trust any party at the moment that says that things are looking pretty good because it’s a downright lie. The message that we need to retrench is the right one, unfortunately a proportion of the electorate have no brain and think that they can have what they want today, tomorrow and for all eternity, without having to pay the price. In my opinion it’s best to try and get their votes if they aren’t necessary because they will only turn against you in a short space of time anyway.
Nice article Shadsy. Enjoyed reading that.
82. Surely Brown is Otho? Everyone would have thought him worthy of becoming emperor had he not become emperor.
This is brilliant shadsy. As is your podcast. Many thanks.
I would agree that both LibDems and Others look too high.
With shadsy calculator and Andy calculator both being reported here, PB.com is really making the political weather.
OK, a quick look gets us to
SNP 11.37
PC 5.54
Ind 4.09
There have been a few Independents who’ve been quite well backed and there are several knocking around at about the 10/1 to 20/1 mark.
Shadsy, many thanks for a fantastic article and a major contribution to the debate as the election draws closer.
Just out of interest, what seat totals would be produced if you awarded a whole seat to the favourite in each constituency (with maybe half a seat each if there are joint favs at say 5/6?)
Have you (or anyone else) done that analysis? - might be interesting to see if it varies significantly from the figures produced via the fractional methodology.
91, no no no no. Brown is absolutely not Otho.
Otho seized power a little like Brown did, but the emperor relinquished is in almost the best possible way, and spared the lives of soldiers who would’ve willingly fallen to defend him.
Brown is clinging desperately to power.
Bercow’s chances go in the Tory total
82- not bad so far, passed 2 but I have the worst ones in May, so I’m preparing for those now.
Yes I see what you mean, there’s also the general contempt our society shows to people who are intelligent, and the praise for those who are good looking and athletic (I am, I confess, neither). We live in a society that sees Jedward, Jordan etc as being important.
I think that Brown most resembles Tiberius, with his paranoia, and Balls as his Sejanus! It really is amazing how the Romans managed to produce so many appalling emperors, you’d think that by the law of averages they should have had more good ones. I reckon that the standard of Byzantine Emperors was slightly higher, but mainly because the weak got killed very quickly.
Got to back to work now alas
OT, for all those arguing yesterday we need to hold on to bank shares until they recover their losses…
we as taxpayers put in £25.5bn of new equity into this bank last autumn, the second instalment of the £45.5bn we have invested in total; but over the past year, the equity of this bank has increased by less than £16bn to £80bn.
So almost £10bn of the £25.5bn we’ve only just put into RBS has already been wiped out by losses.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2010/02/poor_rbs_poor_britain.html
OT, but if anyone doubts the impact of immigration as an issue, the TV ratings for last night show that BBC1’s documentary on the subject last night (which you would have expected to bomb against the football) had a surprisingly large audience of 5.3m viewers - and ended with over 6m when the football finished on the other side. These worthy midweek public service documentary specials on BBC1 rarely manage more than 2.5-3m, perhaps 4m on a good day. Panorama, for example, rarely passes the 3m mark. And the massively hyped Piers Meets Brown the other week didn’t break the 4m mark either.
Noteworthy, I think.
‘In my opinion it’s best [not, Paul?] to try and get their votes if they aren’t necessary because they will only turn against you in a short space of time anyway.’
I agree entirely, hence my previous comment about a majority won on a false prospectus nor enduring.
89 - Fundamentally, I vote Conservative because I think I pay far too much tax. There are other strands to it (libertarianism, belief in the market etc.) but it boils down to, and is expressed in, the amount of money the state thinks it should take off you (and how it then spends that money).
If the Tories are too wet to actually try to change anything fundamental (by which I mean, medium-term, getting the state spending as % of GDP back under 40) then I expect I’ll look elsewhere in 2014/15.
However I’m giving the Tories the benefit of the doubt for 2010; as Martin and chris_g00 suggest to expect brutal honesty before an election is more unrealistic than it’s ever been.
73. Hi DC. We did try that, but I can’t find the result. I think it only made a small difference to the main party totals. It would knock Inds down to 2, I reckon - Brighton Pav & Blaenau Gwent.
I think Tim Montgomerie went through them that way on a ConHome post somewhere.
95. True. I’m not sure Rome is the best place to look for parallels with Brown. I’d say King John is about on the money: overshadowed by charismatic predecessor with penchant for causing trouble in Middle East, spent years plotting to take top job, ruthlessly destroyed any opposition (Miliband as Arthur of Brittany?) and then systematically alienated anyone who might possibly support him.
Has anyone done any work on how much or how many market participants there need to be for the “wisdom of crowds” to achieve a certan level of accuracy?
I suspect huge numbers of these seats don’t have enough money staked for the odds to have moved much, if at all, from the Ladbrokes initial guesstimates, presumably based on national opinion polls.
97, ha, I wonder if he’ll end up replacing Sejanus with Macro.
Don’t know anything about Byzantium really, but I hope to remedy that at some point.
84 “No, the south is not tory because of a bubble in the housing market.”
No the bubble is because of immigration and lack of house building, but people no longer have pensions(because of Brown) and see their houses as surrogate pensions for down sizing later and giving the rest to their children. The IHT promise means that people do not fear dying and their children being forced into downsizing. The IHT promise is effectively an insurance policy.
“Why you want to give Labour such easy targets is beyond me. It should be so easy 1.Guaranteed Nat Insurance cut then as resources allow 2. Income tax cut then as resources allow 3. IHT cut. We don’t need to box ourselves in, this election should be a referendum on Brown.”
This is pretty much what the Tories have said except they have said that IHT is fully funded.
the other change and playing around with the numbers would be to completly filter out any 3rd place parties (apart from some exceptions), it’s extremely rare for a party to come from 3rd place, and will possibly only happen in a very small number in this election.
106. ‘People no longer have pensions(because of Brown) and see their houses as surrogate pensions for down sizing later and giving the rest to their children’
Voreas - absolutely correct. This is the critical point that is so often missed in these debates.
80 - ‘That would be the end of Brown. The End.’
He’d certainly have to scrub his ’secure the recovery’ slogan as either false or meaningless (depending where you stand on the old Russellian chestnut of propositions containing names that refer to non-existent objects).
I see gaps are opening up between the bookies’ definition of a majority. FPT Bet365’s definition.
“Majority betting
A majority is defined as one party obtaining over half the total seats, based on the total seats contested on the day of the election; if no party achieves this (including obtaining exactly half) then this is classified as “No Majority” or a “Hung Parliament”. The size of the majority is the winning party’s seat total less the number of seats they did not win. (e.g. if the Conservatives win 350 seats out of 650 then their majority is 350 - 300 = 50 seats). These calculations shall apply even if some MPs (e.g. Sinn Fein) choose not to take their seats. If all 650 seats are contested on the national polling day then the number required for a majority is 326; if one or more seats have polling postponed then this number will be reduced accordingly.
Northern Irish seats
For the avoidance of doubt, no seats won in Northern Ireland will count towards the Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat totals regardless of any electoral arrangements they may come to with Northern Irish parties.
Speaker’s seat
The Speaker (John Bercow) will not count as a Conservative MP should he be returned as MP for Buckingham.”
I read this as meaning the Tories actually need a majority of 4 before they are deemed to have a majority by Bet365.
According to Bet365, the Tories need “more than half the contested seats” i.e. 326. However Bercow is not included.
But the Tories would have to provide one deputy speaker, and Labour two, leaving 325 Tories in a voting house of 646, which is a Tory majority of 4.
Labrokes are including any NI UUs in the Tory column (are you also counting SDLP as Labour, if not why not?), so in the example Shadsy gives, the Tories might only need 322 or 323 GB seats (depending on how they treat Bercow: how are you treating Bercow?)
103, I’m afraid I’m adrift in a sea of ignorance when it comes to that period of history.
You’re probably right, Roman emperors tended to have bloody enormous vices, like eating their sister’s (and their own…) foetus or murdering people on a whim.
Sorry, shadsy, I’ve thoroughly derailed your thread, albeit in an interesting and civilised discussion regarding classical history
68 That article was seriously scary. Is Larry Elliott correct to say the dramatic fall in business investment could cause the Q4 figures to drop by 0.5 percent?
Fascinating, Shadsy. Can I make a couple of points, though?
1. Is there not a bias in favour of the second and third favoutites? I would expect you to keep these quite a bit tighter than fair value to cover poll or sentiment shifts, something you are less concerned with among the favourites, many of whom are already at long odds-on
2. The election is first-past-the-post, of course. Would it not be better - or at least another method - simply to count the favourites rather than cumulate probabilities? 50 LibDem candidates on polling day each at 9/1 would imply 0 or 1 winner to me, rather than 5.
112, if that happened the Tory election posters could feature a big graph with a red line declining sharply.
“Labour’s economic credibility is in terminal decline.”
96. I take it you mean you are treating Bercow as Tory for majority purposes. Are you treating the House as being 650, irrespective of whether the Shinners sit?
87: faisalislam
Good question to RBS’ Hester on why on earth a taxpayer-owned bank has a giant branch in the Cayman Islands…
There are plenty of good reasons (and not, for the avoidance of doubt, to facilitate tax evasion). They are, however, complicated and require thought.
112. Yes but not until the March revision I think.
113: Indeed. Although I’m no betting expert, on ‘long’ odds, I expect that the ‘real’ probability is somewhat different from the ‘betting’ probability.
112. As business investment is about 10% of GDP, a 5% quarterly drop should indeed cut GDP by 0.5%. But the overall outcome will depend on what happens in other categories as well.
This data is so weak I’m sure it will be revised up - but it will have to be revised up an awful long way to be anything other than terrible.
112 - Benji, this is one of the traps Brown has boxed himself into. He has basically bet the farmy farm on figures being good.
113. Shadsy is taking probabilistic forecasting into the betting arena, which is entirely logical. Probabilistic forecasting, as opposed to simple UNS, was used successfully in 2005 to correctly predict the election outcome.
28 Another cracking quote from Brown in the Shortlist magazine interview -
“Ten years ago, I was running about five miles a day, but now it’s a lot less.”
109
No.
Brown would point to the disappointing growth figures for Germany (at least they ****** have growth) and say: “See how fragile the recovery is going to be? It’s the same the World over. Now is not the time (insert whatever specious claptrap you wish from the vast Labour Library of bogus assertions)”
99
I saw some of that. Absolutely amazing and shameful how lazy and short-tempered the Brits were, the young ones anyway. The guy who nearly lost it when someone told him that people in the restaurant might need plates to eat their food off was just jaw-dropping. Worse, he was the only 1 of 4 to even bother to turn up!
3 angry young men in that programme, all getting very angry about virtually nothing and clearly thought their anger was justified and undertsndable. I found it slightly chilling.
Testing
A sociological question rather than a numerical one: why do Lib Dems seem to bet on themselves more than Tories or Labour?
124. Labours welfare state has created a sense of entitlement for doing f-all.
124. The programme was carefully structured to support the New Labour case for unlimited immigration, and to reinforce prejudices about the uselessness of the native working class.
126 Rights without responsiblities
124, in the restaurant situation the boyfriend and girlfriend who didn’t turn up were genuinely ill.
The worst example was prick with stupid hair, 26 and unemployed for 5 years and clearly not fussed about getting a job.
I was unemployed for a time post-university, but didn’t sign on because I wasn’t actively looking for a job and considered it immoral to sponge off the state in that situation.
80 Would it be the shortest period of Boom and Bust on record?
Rod, we’ve counted Bercow and the Unionists for the Tories mainly because I’ve been told that the media will be doing the same. I sympathise with the points made about that, but the nightmare scenario for us is if the BBC are telling everyone that Cameron has a majority, whilst we’re settling all those bets as losers.
Bet365 have done a good job of trying to make everything watertight in their rules imo, even though they are different from ours.
The most chilling aspect of the GDP quandry is Big Merv talking up the possibility of renewed QE.
We are utterly scuppered thanks to Labour. No other major economy is as weak as us, no other major economy has so little in the way of manufacturing base that drives profit inwards, such a lack of natural resource and such a ruined agricultural sector.
81 ChrisM
1/500 for the Tories in Richmond
That doesn’t reflect the real probabilities.
It is Ladbrokes plc vs Aspinall, Goldsmith & Birley.
118 - Converting 100% probabilities into (say) 110% books is part of my stock-in-trade and you are right that bookies like to build a bit more (in relative terms) into the outsiders for the reasons you give.
One method that can be used is to raise each probability to a power of c. 0.9 and then find the nearest standard price.
e.g. 50% / 30% / 18% / 2% converts to 53.6% / 33.8% / 21.4% / 3.0% which would give something like 6/5 v 2/1 v 7/2 v 33/1.
Correction - 5/6 not 6/5! You won’t find many bookies offering 6/5 about 50% chances!
68. Plato, what I wonder is if the news channels will make their lead story - ‘WE ARE STILL IN RECESSION’ and blame it on Brown’s economic policies, as they did when the pathetic 0.1% growth was published.
I haven’t posted detailed economic analysis for a while due to time contraints. Nevertheless the analysis of a few years ago still holds.
Britain is a full-blown victim of the ‘Japanese disease’ c/o Gordon Brown.
Labour’s obssession with high house prices and high consumer debt will cause decades of economic stagnation and relative economic decline. There is no escape.
As vast economic resources have been poured into consumption (on inflated house prices, consumer durables, etc) so there has been less money available for export-driven manufacturing investment and therefore real economic growth.
UK growth data has always been distorted by bad accounting - where a foreign nations exports to us, as imported goods paid for with debt, are reported as ‘UK Economic Growth’ and ‘UK GDP’. It’s not. The UK economy was always much smaller than Labour’s fake figures implied.
High house prices are a major cause of the economic stagnation we are experiencing right now, itself caused by a combination of impossible planning permission restrictions on greenbelt land (made much harder by Labour and first introduced by Labour in 1947) and a secret Labour plan for unprecedented mass immigration.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1249797/Labour-threw-open-doors-mass-migration-secret-plot-make-multicultural-UK.html
The economic effects will be massive economic decline.
One of the main reasons that the education system has collapsed is Labour’s handover of control of state schools to militant left-wing teaching unions, that have successfully lobbied for policies to destroy all standards, testing and performance requirments in schools. Many gullible politicians and even some parents have been fooled by their devious propaganda.
We are now near the bottom of most educational league tables within the developed world. Only 50 years ago when grammar school existed we where at the top.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/school_league_tables/article7039032.ece
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7149127/Grammar-schools-should-be-expanded.html
To say Labour have destroyed the country and it’s economy is one of the under-statements of the century.
123 I don’t really see how he could spin that. It could easily be pointed out that the collapse is because Britain is such an unattractive place to do business right now,and who is responsible for that?
127:
Hmmm not sure about that - but I admit I only saw the last half.
If I was an employer choosing out of those shown, it was a no brainer. Do you really think there is a hidden army of willing, able, enthusiastic and hard-working Brits?? Why then would so many employers want East Europeans?
Free movement of labour across borders is surely a right wing type of policy anyway?
First rate piece of work.
The betting will have a bias to local knowledge although also a bias to the party allegiance of those betting (more Tories?).
On the whole I go with people who put their money where their mouth is - assuming that Ladbrokes odds reflect actual betting by punters.
The differences between the bookies on the majority question will also apply to the largest party question.
The differences essentially revolve around three questions.
i) Do you count Bercow as a Tory? (unlike Bet365, they should)
ii) Do you count any of the NIs with mainland parties? (either No, or UUs and SDLP counted with Con and Lab respectively. No would be simpler)
iii) Do you treat the House size as 650, even if the Shinners continue to abstain? (Yes or No)
133. I meant Richmond, Yorks. The REAL Richmond!
136
Agree with most of that.
What I don’t understand is why the tories cannot bring themselves to go for Brown’s jugular on these issues. Labour have been an utter disaster, really terrible, yet they footle about and don’t ram home to everyone that he has RUINED the country.
142, could be saving it for the campaign, but they should hammer him now.
138. ‘choosing out of those shown, it was a no brainer’
yes, that is the conclusion you were supposed to reach.
142 I suspect Cameron is waiting for the Budget to do that. He really has tohit Darling’s statement out of the park-he will have no shortage of targets to aim at!
74. Random. It is very hard to gauge the real position in Scotland. The media are so anti-SNP you never get a good picture of where they are and most of the polls are such small sub-samples that they fluctuate wildly and you can take any view from them. Personally speaking I think the SNP are at least as popular if not more than they were winning the 2007 Scottish election. However given past Westminster voting patterns it is hard to say what the trend will be and given that they need a huge swing to really make inroads the likelihood is that they will gain ground but may not get the same gain in seats. Personally I think 12 is a reasonable number, but if people were to vote based on Scottish views it could be many more. Very hard to call.
142. Tommorrow 9.31am ?
110 - As far as I can recall, Mark Durkan sits on the opposition benches so is not formally a member of the Labour group. This is entirely different to the position of the UU who will be full members of the Conservative group in the Commons.
145, are we actually getting a Budget? Maybe shady will open a book on Crazy Darling’s Mad Forecasting.
“Will the Chancellor forecast 27% growth for the UK in 2011?”
http://www.uup.org/news/economy/economy-archive/alliance-party-prove-they-are-not-the-party-for-hardworking-families.php
AAARRGGHGHH
Quick, get rid of the UCUNF alliance! They are using Nu Labour speak.
Thanks Shadsy, this is the most useful guest post for months.
The tosh of UNS and UNTW which show huge Tory gains in Scotland or unlikely Labour holds in the midlands is best taken apart by this sort of method.
On the Lib Dem seats total everyone knows that the usual calculators are rubbish as they always show Westmorland and Eastleigh at the top of the Lib Dem losses, this is a logical approach that irons out lots of the glitches.
Can I ask you one specific question.
I’d expect your markets to be most accurate where they have been most active.
If you wanted to give us a betting challenge and drum up business at the same time why not give us a list of the LEAST active 50 seat markets where the odds on the favourite are longer than 1/2.
Or preferably do another post containing that info.
Top effort.
FPT, SeanT ahead of the herd?
So back to those core simple understandable issues, what do Conservatives represent…..we are
- The Party of Enterprise & tax cuts to stimulate wealth for all
- Committed to reducing the size of the state and leaving individuals to make their own decisions
- Passionate believers in Privatisation and transferring more state assets to the private sector
- The Party that is tough on crime and the causes of crime. Tough sentences. Tough prisons. Making the criminal think twice & fearful at the punish they would incur.
- The Party that is tough on immigration and tightening border control
- The Party that is for European free trade & enterprise BUT the Party that believes decisions should be taken by Westminster not Brussels. Powers to be reclaimed back from Europe.
Sounds like a recipe for electoral success!!!!
http://trueblueblood.com/2010/02/conservatives-election-strategy-some-advice/
Have we had a sample size on the Scottish Poll yet?
No biscuits this week for the poodle !
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100027397/et-tu-barack-america-betrays-britain-in-her-hour-of-need/
FTSE and other markets looking weak this afternoon. Will be a big mess tomorrow if GDP is revised downwards. Gilts quite resiliant on talks of QE, but imagine they could crack too.
148. No he sits on the Government benches and takes the Labour whip, and calls Labourites “my honorouble friend…”
130 “Would it be the shortest period of Boom and Bust on record?”
Would certainly be the longest period of bust on record…especially if (as seems quite possible) Q1 2010 is going south too.
What that would also do is give an incoming Cameron Govt. the fillip of actually overseeing an early return to growth. Which would cause Gordon to punch someone/break something in a rage, as in the background, we hear “Oh-oo, should’ve been me…”
FPT, SeanT ahead of the herd?
So back to those core simple understandable issues, what do Conservatives represent…..we are
- The Party of Enterprise & tax cuts to stimulate wealth for all
- Committed to reducing the size of the state and leaving individuals to make their own decisions
- Passionate believers in Privatisation and transferring more state assets to the private sector
- The Party that is tough on crime and the causes of crime. Tough sentences. Tough prisons. Making the criminal think twice & fearful at the punish they would incur.
- The Party that is tough on immigration and tightening border control
- The Party that is for European free trade & enterprise BUT the Party that believes decisions should be taken by Westminster not Brussels. Powers to be reclaimed back from Europe.
Sounds like a recipe for electoral success!!!!
Thanks Shadsy, very interesting.
My thoughts on the party seat totals calculated in this was, is that it would be a good estimate if the probablities in each seat were independent and not correlated.
Take 4 seats with L at 25%. Adding up the probabilities would give 1 seat. However, if they are correlated, the total seat distribution may be more like 0 60% 1 10% 2 10% 3 10% 4 10% (averaging 1 seat overall). Is it more accurate to say to count this as 1, or 0?
There would the opposite effect for parties with odds on percentages in each seat.
152 - I’ve just checked my work emails to find the guy I asked for the results last night is off work for the week but Anthony Wells responded to Mr Dickson by saying that it was 667, properly weighted.
Caught in the spam trap, SeanT’s manifesto by another Tory blogger
http://tinyurl.com/y9ulw79
158 - Thanks David so a proper poll and given the yellow cards handed out on similar issues Stuart Dickson proved himself to be worthy of one spreading made up crap this morning.
Stuart - Polls like this affect peoples bank balances if they are betting.
Please keep your mouth shut in the future.
156 et al - sorry if this has been asked but, if Q4 is revised upwards, does that make it more likely that Q1 will be negative? Or is it not that simple?
OT for info
gabyhinsliff
liking sound of @bbcquestiontime tonite. Peter Hain, Liam Fox, Elfyn Llwyd, Nigel ‘yr a damp dishrag’ Farage & Janet Street-Pawwwter.
137
But the mechanisms for informing the electorate of tha state of the country’s finances - the media - have not done so. In fact I would go as far as saying that they are complicit in hiding the true state of the economy from the voters.
They are hardly going to turn round and say “Everything we told you was a lie. We are ****** big time!”
I expect them to report Brown’s assertions unquestioningly. The BBC will fall over themselves to broadcast the opinions of Labour fellow-travellers and if a Conservative spokesman dares to show their face, then the line will be “As the economy isn’t out of recession then there can be no question of ‘Savage Cuts’ this year - so you and your party are wrong, wrong, wrong”.
Basically it is all done by concentrating on the now and near future - short termism - forget the past and blame the ‘world in general’ for present circumstances, while ignoring ministerial promises.
Long shots in individual seats do win and so should be counted as their implied odds suggest -at the last election the following spring to mind
Bleanau Gwent (would have got long odds 3 mths out)
Hornsey and Wood Green
Enfield Southgate
Bethanal Green and Bow.
I’m pretty dubious about the summing of individual seat probabilities. Numerous problems:
a) liquidity is so low, partly cos of lack of interest, partly cos…
b) transaction cost (overround) so high. makes hedging to a truer position less likely.
c) unlike spreads or betfair, money is locked up for a while, further discouraging hedging.
d) long term winners at any european book get limited to pennies, so odds movements are unlikely to be terribly rational
Seat markets at SI are always going to be far more realistic.
155 - In that case, the UU and SDLP MPs should probably be included in party lists.
131. “the nightmare scenario for us is if the BBC are telling everyone that Cameron has a majority, whilst we’re settling all those bets as losers.”
You may yet have to face that if the Shinners abstain, e.g.
GB Tories 320 (including Bercow)
UCUNF 3
Shinners 5
Bet365: “Hung Parliament”
Ladbrokes: “Hung Parliament”
Media: “Tory majority of 1″
161 Yes. If Q4 is revised up it’s easier for Q1 2010 to show a gain and vice versa.
I wonder if Brown would prefer the bad news now? I guess probably not as never out of recession is perhaps worse than double dip recession.
Why aren’t you flagging up the juicy value bet of 25-1 on Alistair Darling being the next Labour Leader ?? Or has that shortened on being backed in after Simon Hoggart’s piece on Radio 4 PM yesterday ?
Shadsy
Is there any method of obtaining from Ladbrokes website a data feed of constituency markets and prices that could be used to populate a spreadsheet or database?
Shadsy.
I don’t know whether you store the info, probably not as it’s not long since you had all seats priced, but for what its worth a back of the envelope calculation on seats I bet on in the autumn and prices now shows roughly a move of plus 30 Labour, plus 5 Libe Dem and minus 35 Tories.
Very rough calculation as the prices vary across the bookmakers.
151. Thanks Tim. Getting that list of least active (but seemingly competitive) seats would be interesting, but would involve quite a bit of work, so I’ll have to get back to you on that.
My 168 obviously meant “if Q4 is revised DOWN”
‘You ruined my life, a ‘demented’ Brown repeatedly yelled at Blair’
‘Titanically demented’ Brown also rang PM at Balmoral
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1253653/Gordon-Brown-yelled-ruined-life-Tony-Blair.html#ixzz0gYbLNKJc
168, but isn’t Q1 screwed anyway becauseof :
1) tons of snow
2) the VAT rise meant everybody who could spent in Q4 rather than Q1?
Afternoon All,
Woolas cannot be serious. From Paul Waugh:
Woolas says his own kids “suffered” from immigration
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2010/02/woolas-says-his-own-kids-suffered-from-immigration.html
and he calls other people ‘prats’.
@163 ono publico February 25th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Evidenced nicely today by the ONS stats re slight fall in immigration reported
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8536194.stm
I’m still looking for the investment stats, I’m sure they wouldn’t have forgotten that, would they ?
176, didn’t Woolas claim that having soldiers in Afghanistan helped the immigration situation?
The man’s a class A dipshit.
175 A very large downwards revison to Q4 could possibly rescue Q1s figure. Not really sure about the estimates for Q1 currently. My hunch is that we’ll get a downwards revision tomorrow and then we’ll get a negative figure for Q1 too, but that’s just a pure guess.
I’m starting to wonder if I should beg my parents to vote for Woolas. He’s a serious boon for the Tory Party.
YouGov adjustments - as pointed out above every single day YouGov is weighting Lab up significantly.
As I understand it this is because not enough Lab identifiers are responding to the surveys so Lab identifiers are under- represented.
On the face of it that sounds fair enough. But if they can’t be botherered to respond to these surveys could it be that they won’t actually bother to vote?
ie these Lab identifiers will abstain so the upward weighting will not prove to be necessary in practice?
Afternoon all and just catching up on last thread.
Sean T: I rather like your 5 short Tory messages and hope CCHQ have noted them.
Tim: You are one sicko. I wonder if your family keep wandering around how much money they will get when you are dead? IHT requires someone to die and I suspect that in most of the super-rich families in the UK, people would rather their parents, spouse etc lived a few years longer. You keep claiming to be a farmer. If you were a farmer you would know how much damage Estate Duty/IHT has done to the rural economy and why so many formerly successful landed and agricultural estates have been broken up creating unemployment for the “ordinary” people who have relied on the folks in the “big house” for their jobs.
The fire at the Westmorland Tory office may be a poisoned chalice for our LibDem friends. I would not be surprised if CCHQ sends in a hit squad to blitz canvass the seat for the PPC and offers excellent financial support to the local association members who have not thrown their toys out of the pram.
68 So Plato, with the great probability that Britain never even left recession, what will our Great Leader do?
I’ll tell you he will go on until the end and June 3rd will be his end game………BUT, and it’s a big but, if the news is still gloomy then Brown will call a” State of Emergency” to cling to power, citing the awful state Britain is in and that “we must all pull together”.
It’s a nightmare scenario I’m presenting, but with that maniac in power, who knows?
179. There could be a bit of expectation management going on. The only thing that is clear is that the economic situation is not clear.
181 Perhaps there just aren’t that many ‘Labour identifiers’ left.
@176 - jsfl it was a classic, it’ll be up on iplayer soon I expect.
There is a problem with this analysis, it assumes proportional representation. Can you please re-calculate using the first past the post system? Many thanks.
The latest extracts from the Rawnsley book are an amusing read:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/feb/25/gordon-brown-tony-blair-you-ruined-my-life
”Rawnsley describes how in a two-hour morning meeting in early September 2006 Brown insisted not only that Blair step down, but that he fix it so no one stood against him.”
”The book also says that Ed Balls, then City minister and Brown’s closest ally, was the driving force behind the coup launched in autumn 2006.”
”Talking about it afterwards to close allies, Blair described this confrontation with Brown as “ghastly” and “terrible” and told them: “He [Brown] kept shouting at me that I’d ruined his life.”
183 - alternativley he might provoke the Argies’s so that we have to fight them.. oh Crikey, I actually really believe he’s do that.
186. Already available via the link at 176
I can’t help wondering if the economy will not really start to recover until public spending is axed. The sooner the patient takes the medicine the sooner he starts to feel better.
Um, what?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8536684.stm
Hasn’t she learnt her lesson yet? I remember she got in trouble a while back for using a blog with username “Harriet” and password “Harman”.
169 - Eric.
I backed Darling at 66/1 for next leader and have him at odds of up to 100/1 for next PM so I won’t be taking the 25/1.
However, as I’d assess his odds at about 8/1 I still think its decent value.
Particularly after last night Scottish poll.
Blair looks increasingly pathetic the more of Rawnsley’s book come out. When you have a key minister plotting your downfall, constantly briefing against you, destabilising the government for years on end, they must be sacked.
That’s even without letting someone so clearly inept and psychologically capable near the office of PM - where was Blair’s responsibility to country and party? (yes, that’s rhetorical). He must have known what would happen.
131 - ta, Matthew. As you suggest, it’s having rules that really matters; I wouldn’t want to be in another bookie’s shoes if the Tories get 325 seats + Bercow, for instance. Betfair should certainly be looking to make things more watertight.
Hopefully none of the rules will make any material difference so everyone can settle without recrimiantions. However last time the postponed seat made a difference to Ladbrokes’ handicap IIRC - brilliantly set by J.S. it ended up a 2-way deadheat between the Tories and Lib Dems with Labour 1 seat back in third. Had they held Bethnal Green then it would have been a triple dead-heat!
Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill (ie the Bill containing AV and GE overnight counts) - Report Stage and 3rd Reading set for Tuesday 2 March. That’s the final Commons stage (except for dealing with amendments which come back from the Lords).
The Bill then goes to the Lords. No dates set yet for any Lords stages. Lords timetable appears full up to Thursday 11 March so approx 3 weeks left for all Lords stages.
So appears to have no chance of going through.
182 - Everyone dies Easterross.
If theres a sickness here it’s George Osborne deciding that thousands of children should lose their trust fund so George Osborne and his brother can fill their pockets.
Its no secret here that i am UKIP through and through.
But what the hell is Farage playing at insulting Van Rompuy like that.
Groan.
If we want to become a serious player in the years to come, then our leaders have got be statesmanlike.
Ye gods, what a thing to have to read.
Nigel my man, you’ve ballsed up.
‘Business investment collapsed at the end of last year, casting fresh doubts over the fragile economic recovery…’
‘The decline was led by manufacturers but covered most of the economy and left business investment down 24.1% on the same period of 2008 — the biggest annual fall since records began in 1967…’
‘Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight, said the figures were “truly dire”. “This is a horrible surprise and extremely disappointing. It even raises the spectre that the minimal growth in the fourth quarter could be revised away.”’
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-business/article-23809955-recovery-shadow-as-firms-spend-less.do
181. Mike L
I agree
The other related point is Yougov are using 5/6 year old figures to decide the ratio of Party ID. It is fine if peoples view of who they support has not changed significantly but if it has changed then it could be that the sample is skewed.
Now there is some evidence that it has changed (the latest BSAS survey) so it will be interesting to what Peter Kellner will say about this.
Furthermore, did Mike get a response from Kellner about his ‘disloyal Labour’ category?
Also isn’t a wee bit off describing voters as being ‘disloyal’. Its hardly a PR masterpiece IMO.
191 - Convenient that she should claim to have been hacked… trying to back up Wright’s ridiculous story-telling/lies
196 tim, far far worse, was Gordon Browns decision to change the 10p tax band and make the poor pay more, so that his family could be better off whilst he is still alive.
193
He probably thought it better to keep his enemies close. Still, he should have moved Brown after the 2001 GE from the treasury. That goes for any PM, don’t leave chancellor’s in place too long.
186. kristin it’ll be up on iplayer soon I expect.
It already is. It’s linked on the Waugh article….
198 - With Farage as the party’s poster boy, there is no hope for electoral breakthrough.
That was shocking stuff and it’s not the personal abuse, it’s the mocking of every small European country that’s the worst thing.
194. If Blair looks pathetic, what about Brown? He looks increasingly like an unstable narcissist who should be on medication.
183. The markets are beginning to take a beating today. Is it news of:
1: Not getting out of recession in the first place
2: A double dip recession.
3: A triple dip recession, or…
4: Continuous recession for the next few years.
The mind boggles.
194. “As you suggest, it’s having rules that really matters; I wouldn’t want to be in another bookie’s shoes if the Tories get 325 seats + Bercow”
As I pointed out earlier, that is a majority of at least 2 seats…
It’s your shoes you should be looking at…
196 tim, old bean, you really are debasing yourself even by your standards. You seem a bit obsessed by George at the moment - is this the latest bunker strategy? Or is it another example of your antipathy to anyone who went to a slightly better minor public school than you did? Or is it that while he isn’t quite as posh as you he has more money?
193 Brown should have been sacked after the 2001 Election. It was clear even then what a roadblock he would be to genuine reform of the public services.
96. MikeL.
Unless of course Gordon sees it as so vital that he goes the full distance to June 3rd.
Terrific piece Shadsy - you and Ladbrokes making all the pace as usual.
Is one allowed to ask whether you ever place political bets with other bookmakers/Betfair/spreadbetting firms? With your keen eye as well as a good brain for assessing value, I imagine you would be well able to turn a profit. However, perhaps your employers’ rules prevent you from betting.
196. Will George rise from the deadafter his estate is settled and his ghost will go to the cashpoint, withdraw £20, dig up his corpse and stuff the money in his pockets ?
197. Any reason why you are now mentioning George Osborne’s brother when discussing IHT other than the fact that his brother has recently been in hot water and you are pathetically trying to tie Osborne to that? No? Thought not. You really are a piece of work.
206. “He looks increasingly like an unstable narcissist who should be on medication.”
Surely not. The cream of the PLP crop. Crowned unopposed. Survived 3 coup attempts because he is the best they have got. World Statesman of the Year. Single handed saviour of the world.
Recant, before the forces of hell are unleashed upon you!
205. David, some of those countries deserved to be mocked.
The EU is becoming more than a farce; it is getting to be a danger to other countries outside the union, that do business with it.
204 - jsfl - he was even more entertaining on the Daily Politics today, I mean seriously entertaining.
Number of foreigners given British passports surges
The number of foreigners given UK passports jumped by more than half last year.
A total of 203,865 people were granted British citizenship in 2009 - an increase of 58% on 2008.
Tens of thousands more immigrants were also given the right to settle in the UK - the total was up 30% to more than 190,000.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7316184/Number-of-foreigners-given-British-passports-surges.html
211 - I’m not going to bother, Rod, we’ll be here all afternoon.
180 He was uncharacteristically quiet on Newsnight, usually he just talks over Damian Green and others. But as someone pointed out on here a while ago, if you’re a Tory supporter you probably want him to talk as much as possible.
200. Please don’t try to derail this thread on to IHT as well. There’s a good chap.
I am seeing this but struggling to even comprehend the thinking or believe what I am reading particularly on the anniversary of the death of samantha’s son.
What on earth are Labour thinking???? and how much lower can they actually get. I am not allowed to put how much I lo@the and h*te Labour but it now knows no bounds and has no restrictions. They have to be ousted from office and fast.
Not content with smearing political opponents, apparently it’s now fair game to have a go at their families as well. Words do not describe how repulsive this is to me. It’s not surprising, considering the nest of vipers that is Brown, Mandelson and Balls, but it is revolting that they have chosen (or allowed) to attack someone who has done nothing other than manage to hold down a career while looking after her family which, until recently, included a profoundly disabled child.
http://cogitodexter.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/despicable-and-beneath-contempt/
203. Labour Disloyal = Lab identifiers who did not vote Lab at 2005 GE.
204 - jsfl - he was even more entertaining on the Daily Politics today, I mean seriously entertaining. Also from today’s figures -
Number of foreigners given British passports surges
The number of foreigners given UK passports jumped by more than half last year.
A total of 203,865 people were granted British citizenship in 2009 - an increase of 58% on 2008.
Tens of thousands more immigrants were also given the right to settle in the UK - the total was up 30% to more than 190,000.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7316184/Number-of-foreigners-given-British-passports-surges.html
Just watched the immigration documentary and felt it was about right. In my experience, lazy workers are usually not really lazy - they just have the wrong idea about what hard work is - when they are put in a situation when it’s as plain as day what it really means, they buck up their idea and get on with it.
The older blokes/skilled sorts were behind the curve but eventually got it after some moaning. The chef who couldn’t cope with being a waiter and a novice on Indian food was a bit of quitter but tried and gave in a bit quick IMHO - if he’d been given a job that was more commis chef then I think he’d have done okay.
The three who picked asparagus at least turned up and did back breaking work two days on the trot - if they’d been paired with a fast worker - I think that’d have done it.
So one the whole - it’s damning that productivity levels are so crap from unemployed Brits until given a kick up the arse and that the kid who’d never worked [IIRC Lewis] needed to be sent on National Service
All in all, depressing evidence that an awful lot of people have no idea what working hard is like.
197
lol tim, you managed to get George Osborne’s brother in there after all.
This is hilarious, Ive always liked Frank Field:
From Rawnsley:
In the middle of the coup, the former welfare minister Frank Field went to No 10 to plead with Blair not to give way to Brown. “You can’t go yet. You can’t let Mrs Rochester out of the attic,” he said.
Rawnsley writes: “Blair roared with laughter.”
215. Thanks PfP. I am not prevented from betting with other firms by Ladbrokes. The other firms do that themselves
223. MacBridism is alive and well. Unsurprising as it clearly originated within Sauron himself rather than his foul little minions.
“Announcing the outcome of the public ballot for places at the hearing on Friday 5 March, the inquiry said it had received a total of 323 valid entries, compared with the 3,041 entries for Tony Blair’s appearance in January.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/feb/25/300-people-apply-gordon-brown-chilcot-inquiry
Below is the unweighted Yougov data over the 6 polls- 2 before bullying revelations and 4 afterwards for the UK and E&W. Firstly, these figures show greater variation than the adjusted headline figures. Secondly the Tories are above 40% and labour below 30% in all the polls. Thirdly pre-bullying the tories were 15/16% ahead in the UK and 19/20% in E&W. Post-bully the UK lead and E&W lead both fell by 4% to 12/11/12 and 16/15/17 respectively. However, the first poll after darling’s ‘fire of hell’comment have both the UK and E&W lead increasing by 2% to 14% and 18% respectively. Fourthly Labour have retained its pre-bullying boost in support, rising +2% in the UK to 28% and +3/4% in E&W to 27%. Fifthly the tories lost 2% in the UK and ~2% in E&W post bullying but have now recovered to pre-bullying levels of 42% in the UK and 45% in E&W.
UK Con Lab Lead E&W Con Lab Lead
18th 41 26 +15 42 23 +19
19th 43 27 +16 45 24 +20
————Bully Reports————-
22nd 40 28 +12 43 26 +16
23rd 40 29 +11 42 27 +15
24th 40 28 +12 43 26 +17
———-Darling’s Comments———–
25th 42 28 +14 45 27 +18
So in summary, labour initially benefitted from the bullying allegations, increasing their share of the vote and the tories reducing theirs. However post darling the tories have recovered to pre-bullying levels whilst labour have retained the support it gained. Of course this can all be explained by margin of error, but at least it shows variation
Itll be interesting to see the results of tonights poll after cameron used darlings comments in PMQs.
Based on the above, id go for tonights yougov being 39-32 ie tories back to pre-bullying level and labour retaining its latest ‘bounce’.
So, Tim’s a farmer is he?
Well, if he is, he’ll know that most farmers don’t pay inheritance tax at all on death because of Agricultural Property Relief on farmland and woodland.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/svmanualnew/SVM112010.htm
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/svmanualnew/SVM112030.htm
Hypocrite.
229 a rueful LOL here
Great article from Brogan on how both sides of the climate change can agree on energy security and how Labour are about to let the lights go out..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/benedict-brogan/7309946/Labour-has-pushed-us-to-the-brink-of-a-blackout.html
Labour Disloyal = Alister Darling.
so bewarned you other disloyal labourites Gordon and his demonspawn will chasing you down.
DOW JONES now down over 150 points in first 10 minutes of market opening.
222 - I was responding to a point rageted at me, and I see posters who are happy to talk about the underserving poor and their benefits are uncomfortable talking about the underserving rich and their tax cuts.
Last mention from me on that subject as this is the best betting thread for ages.
232. “We cant find any labour voters - lets bump up their share anyway”
Perhaps a fellowship at the UEA awaits..
233 - bunnco tim’s not a farmer, well not in the agricultural sense.
225. And people wonder why Labour’s poll figures are improving.
238 tim - So, if I’ve understood correctly, we now think the poll showing very good Labour support in Scotland was pukka?
240 Absolutely he is though a muck spreader.
Re my posts 186/210.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/35558503
238 ‘Last mention from me on that subject as this is the best betting thread for ages.’
That’s unlike you. I suspect the real reason is that you don’t like the comments about Brown enriching himself through tax increases on the poor, and wish to move the thread along.
Betting threads are fun - especially if you never pay out.
Con majority coming in today - back to 1.55.
Still value IMHO.
233. It’s remarkable how much Labour are weighted up by YouGov.
But what did the figures look like in say, October last year or June 2008?
I’m happy to talk about tax cuts, tim. A tax cut is not a refund, it’s simply the state taking very slightly less of what is already a very large amount of money. Usually tax cuts tend to be of most benefit to those who are paying far more than their share in the first place.
248 Remarkable indeed - surely there can be no benefit in YouGov getting is ‘wrong’ but it does seem very positively weighted in Labour’s favour.
IIRC Mr Kellner is on here next week to explain how it all works - I’m looking forward to it.
228 MTF I have just forwarded an interesting email to you
106 “No the bubble is because of immigration and lack of house building”
No that’s not true, or is only a small part of the story.
The main cause of the housing bubble is the vastly increased and historically totally unprecedented supply of money in the form of easy credit, that is all, in a nutshell.
Reckless lending of ever higher multiples of salary and ever higher %ages of the value of the house by bankers fuelled by short term bonus-led greed, coupled with the greed of all of us in the UK caused the bubble.
If lending had been restricted to 3.5x joint salary with a minimum 5% deposit, preferably 10%, there would have been no housing bubble, and no, or a much less severe, credit crunch. This is the greatest single failure of NuLabour, all the more inexcusable given what Brown said in his first budget speech, in May 1997
“I will not allow house prices to get out of control”
Epic fail. And so here we are…
243 - Richard.
According to David Roes post at 161 its a proper poll.
Slightly off topic, but do we have tables yet from the recent Harris and Angus Reid polls?
245 - weathcock scary stuff.
Apols if already posted
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2010/02/woolas-says-his-own-kids-suffered-from-immigration.html
I wonder if Mr Smithson is considering including this calculation as part of his “The money says” index?
It’s certainly quite a different result to that indicated by the spreads, though at first glance it looks as though optimistic [or well-informed?] wagers by local SNP and Lib Dem supporters are skewing the results.
Perhaps a subset looking at the number of Tory gains from Labour would be interesting?
233. Very useful analysis - I really do think Peter Kellner needs to be asked about this.
Why does he think Lab identifiers are failing to respond to the surveys EVERY single day?
If it was a one-off then of course the adjustments would not be questioned. But if it is happening every single day it must surely call into question whether adjustments on this scale are required.
I asked this before,don’t think there was a response. Is there any way the government could influence the figures tomorrow,if so how would they do it?
213. If only should Blair had sacked Brown in 2001. Then a halfway decent and honest human being nmight have taken over at Number 11, someone not intent on maxing the nation’s credit card so he could wing his way into Number 10 on a false wave of goodwill.
It was Brown’s public spending spunkfest after 2001 that has left us where we are now.
He is PERSONALLY responsible for ruining the country’s finances, for saddling our children with this grotesque debt, etc. I sometimes find it hard to understand why Gordon Brown isn’t lifed away in Wormwood Scrubs.
WTF????
http://www.conservatives.com/News/News_stories/2010/02/Almost_fifty_thousand_patients_dying_with_malnutrition_in_the_NHS.aspx
252 - Jon C - spot on.
I had a sudden thought. What if Blair had moved Brown out of No.11 into the FCO…
261 - I saw that Plato, and on this occasion I seriously hope they have the decimal point in the wrong place. I wish they had linked to the report.
252 I wouldn’t say it is a small part of the story. Housing supply is not meeting housing demand(another cause may be buy to let), Which increases prices, granted stupid credit has meant a big debt bubble but if houses were plentiful i.e lots more built, or people were less(i.e. less immigration) then there would be a far smaller bubble.
260 - That might constitute a cruel and unusual punishment of the other prisoners?
A sympathetic account of George Osborne in the Evening Standard
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23809744-the-liberal-lives-of-the-teflon-osborne-family.do
261 - Hope they’ve checked those decimal points…
I think Easterross on 182 above may have touched on the reason why tim goes on and on about the Tory IHT cut. He tells us he is a wealthy farmer with wife and family etc. Maybe he knows that his family are all waiting for the Tories to get in and cut IHT and he will then have a tragic accident in the combine harvester and everyone’s happy….you can see why he may not be thrilled about it though
ftwestminster
Exclusive: Labour letters to Mrs Pratt http://bit.ly/d7f3Ib
267. Nice wife
269
Especially with the increased use of flour improvers nowadays…
261 - “Dying with malnutrition” or “Dying from malnutrition”
Please tell me the Tories have not decided to claim that anyone dying, for instance of stomach cancer who is unable to eat at the end of their life has “Died with malnutrition”.
Well, quite…
http://order-order.com/2010/02/25/when-spinning-doesnt-work-just-lie/
270
273. Just think tim : 50,000 x £20,000 (death tax) - you could pay a lot of benefits with that !
273 - Actually having re-read the article they are careful to say “with” in every instance.
260 Exactly. According to Jeff Randall,Brown’s economics left us around 170 billion in the red,and that’s before the credit crunch started to kick in. And Blair couldn’t do a thing about it because he had foolishly agreed to give Brown carte blanche over domestic policy,and was too weak to remove him.
If you’ve got six hours to kill, you can watch the “healthcare summit” live right here:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/02/25/watch_live_president_obamas_health_care_summit.html
273 - they are pointing out that the report was highly critical of the government and that the published figures do not tell the whole story. Are you implying that someone who dies from stomach cancer has malnutrition on their death certificate ? Wow that would improve cancer mortality rates no end.
274-Nobodys surprised are they?
280 - I’m not claiming anything, after the crime and pregnacy stats nothing would surprise me about their claims.
When you post the links I’ll read them.
258 - Is it really only Peter Kellner who puts together the YouGov polls?
cathynewman
I understand the Cabinet Office won’t be appealing the Information Commissioner’s ruling on Lord Ashcroft
cathynewman
So the undertakings Lord Ashcroft gave when he got his peerage have to be disclosed by March 4…
282 - I refer you to mu first post on the subject.. I will also reserve judgment:-
261 - I saw that Plato, and on this occasion I seriously hope they have the decimal point in the wrong place. I wish they had linked to the report.
by Kristin February 25th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
285 - Fair enough.
Maybe Plato will post the links.
282 So groundless accusations by you then tim, I must say I am surprised.
280 - No, he is saying that you can die of stomach cancer and then be found to have had malnutrition as well.
Are we expecting any polls tonight other than YouGov?
Mori or ComRes perhaps?
264 Link is here Relevant point is here
239 patients were reported to have died because of malnutrition in English hospitals in 2007; 2,656 were reported to have died from malnutrition in hospitals and care homes since 1997 (Hansard, 1 April 2009, Col 1225-6W). However, we believe that these statistics can be very misleading. They represent less than 0.5% of the number who died in hospital with malnutrition. We know that malnutrition predisposes to disease, it delays recovery from illness and it increases mortality (3, 4). It follows that the effect of malnutrition on mortality rates is substantially greater than the number reported to have died because of malnutrition.
Government Response is here.
Tim,
I don’t want to be rude but, really, you have the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk and the question I want to ask is: Who are you? I’ve never heard of you. Nobody in Britain has ever heard of you.
I would like to ask you, Mr Tim: who voted for you? And what mechanism - I know democracy is not popular with you lot - what mechanism do the people of Britain have to remove you? Is this British democracy? Sir, you have no legitimacy in this job at all, and I can say with confidence that I can speak on behalf of the majority of the British people in saying that we don’t know you, we don’t want you, and the sooner you are put out to grass, the better.
I have no doubt that your intention is to be the quiet assassin of British democracy and of Britain’s home nations. You appear to have a loathing for the very concept of the existence of democracy; perhaps that is because you are a supporter of New Labour, which of course is pretty much a non-party!
286 tim, what’s the problem? Brown continually makes up facts and figures and you’ve never felt the need to criticise him.
I guess you admire him anyway, for enriching you and your family at the expense of the poor.
‘Islamic preacher who called Jews ‘filth’ to speak at London university’
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23809775-islamic-preacher-who-called-jews-filth-to-speak-at-kings-colleges.do
In both France and Sweden nearly all anti-Semitic attacks are now carried our by Islamists.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/7278532/Jews-leave-Swedish-city-after-sharp-rise-in-anti-Semitic-hate-crimes.html
Is Britain heading the same way?
288 - I knew that SO
224: Batch File - I quite agree. What sort of people are Labour that they can even think of gunning for Samantha Cameron (who has no public role at all), given what she has had to go through AND make it known on the first anniversary of her son’s death?
Nick P: perhaps you could tell us?
243. On 16th Nov 09 http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/ST-results_NOV09.pdf
The unweighted data 43-27 became 41-27.
On 30th Nov data was 41-27 which became 39-29
http://www.yougov.co.uk/corporate/archives/press-archives-pol-Main.asp?dID=2009
On 14th Dec The unweighted data 42-30 became 40-31
http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/ST-results_DEC-11.09.pdf
On 1 feb, the last yougov before the tracker and method change 41-30 became 38-31
http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/D%20Tel%20results%2010.01.29.pdf
So, whilst the unweighted data was More favourable to labour than currently, the weighted data was weighted figures were more favourable to the tories than presently.
Using the 16th of Nov unweighted result of 43-27 which is similar to now, then back then the result wouldve been 41-27… maybe
279- And on this topic, a new CNN polls shows a whopping 25% of Americans in favor of the Dems passing their current version of healthcare reform:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/02/24/cnn-poll-health-care-provisions-popular-but-overall-bills-unpopular/?fbid=wR636367q_u
tim
“This is the best betting thread for ages.”
tim, tim. You are losing your sense of fun and humour.
You have said your constituency betting strategy can be summarised as Labour in the North, Tories in the Midlands and Lib Dems in the South.
A reasonable strategy which may well pay out on May 7th.
But that doesn’t mean that only the threads that agree with your outcome are to be praised. “best for ages” is timspeak for saying that you disagree with Andy Cooke’s work and believe the ARPO marginals poll is wrong.
A proper appreciation of Shadsy’s effort would be to say that it is one of a number of great betting threads that OGH and pb.com have provided all of us with over the past few weeks. That leaves some of us to find solace in Andy’s work, some in Angus Reid’s and some in shadsy’s.
Now, if you have made the right choice, perhaps you should spend a little time thinking about how all those winnings might be taxed away before your children can spend them.
Love and kisses
Seth
288 - The figure for people dying “from” malnutrition released last year by the Conservatives was 240.
291 - post of the day Sunil.
Well here is one Comserative MP who syas that up to 50K may have died BECAUSE of malnutrition.
David Gold [Con] “RT @TimMontgomerie: How many people are dying in UK (yes, UK) hospitals because of malnutrition? 10,000? 20,000? No, it could be 50,000
296.
Should be ‘So, whilst the unweighted data was More favourable to labour than currently, the weighted figures were more favourable to the tories than presently.’
299 see 290
Guido understands that Andy Burnham is about to be in some deep trouble. Yesterday he said he “did not believe that a lengthy, adversarial inquiry would be in the best interests of health care in Staffordshire.” Today it has emerged that in 2007, as a Junior Health Minister, he signed off on one of four stages of the Mid-Stafford Hospital’s elevation to Labour’s coveted Foundation Trust status. This was despite four formal alerts about the hospital’s dangerous practises.
http://order-order.com/2010/02/25/why-burnham-didnt-want-an-inquiry/
301. Ahh.. dom’t think David GOld is an MP. Picked it up on Tweetminster.
301 - http://www.nursingtimes.net/whats-new-in-nursing/acute-care/conservatives-publish-figures-on-hospital-malnutrition-deaths/5000370.article
240 becomes 50,000
He’s not a Conservative MP he’s a candidate for Eltham I think
299 - well as this report was supressed I guess they had to get them from official sources, only a guess, you always have NHS stats right at your fingertips.
233 I have a detailed post about the impact of YouGov’s weightings on the Conservative lead due to go on PB Channel 2 while Mike is away - the results are striking but I shall not say more at this stage.
305 - He’s a candidate in Eltham I think.
So he’s inflating 240 to 50,000.
301, 306 see 290 for the report and response
309. Thanks fitaloon. SO it’s WITH malnutrition rather than dying BECAUSE of malnutrition.
Pretty misleading.
The Andy Burnham thing is interesting, that whole mess in Stafford is just incredible. How did things get this bad.
I also understand Mandy has gone quiet, have we heard any peeps from the Govt, sounds like complete silence on the recession figures, must be bad if they are not trumpeting stuff by now.
I’ve been thinking about the Lib/Con marginals poll from Angus Reid and I’m start to feel a little dubious of what they show. Because I wouldn’t be surprised if the exceedingly low Scotland figures for the Lib Dems are dragging them down overall. I’d possibly say the same for their South West marginals. Because what we’ve seen is that they’re holding up exceedingly well in London and in the North which will help them re-secure some of their closest marginal seats. I think we will have some extremely surprising results.
311. Mandy not completely invisible
saramojtehed
people looking hard at the #tories see ‘wibbly-wobbliness as soon as they are put under pressure’ says Lord Mandelson
310 I find it rather worrying that 50k people will die in a malnutrioned state frankly whatever is wrong with them.
They all can’t be dying of stomach cancer surely?
308: No tim…a report issued by the government is saying it…
Get it right.
304. If it’s true Burnham should be sacked!
304
Just about to post that. No wonder Burnham wanted a secret inquiry.
314 - which they obviously do not want repeated a second time.
313. I agree, it is concerning.
315 Yeah right. When was the last time a Minister was sacked or resigned? None of them have any honour, and the only sense of duty is to themselves.
Keynes is dead but has Blanchflower noticed ?
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_en&sid=a5t.xQdllnbo
“Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) — The U.K. has produced notable economists over the years, but John Maynard Keynes, the guru of government intervention, was one of truly global significance.
So it may be fitting that the U.K. will also become the deathbed of Keynesian economics.
Britain has been following the mainstream prescriptions of his followers more than any developed nation. It has cut interest rates, pumped up government spending, printed money like crazy, and nationalized almost half the banking industry.
Short of digging Karl Marx out of his London grave, and putting him in charge, it is hard to see how the state could get more involved in the economy.
The results will be dire. The economy is flat on its back, unemployment is rising, the pound is sinking, and the bond markets are bracketing the country with Greece and Portugal in the category marked “bankruptcy imminent.” At some point soon, even the most loyal disciples of Keynes will have to admit defeat, and accept that a radical change of direction is needed. “
tim, please remember I spent most of last year taking food into my son in an isolation ward whilst he was receiving chemotherapy. I do have some experience oh how important nutrition is in cancer cases. He is here because of the medical care he received AND because we made sure he was received proper nutrition.
**Pats his Ed Miliband beer tokens**
313 - By its very nature illness often precludes people from eating and the more severe the illness the less people are able to eat - which is why so many ill people lose weight. You can put them on a drip, but that will not prevent them becoming malnourished as you cannot get all the nutrients the body needs from a drip.
296. ryans - would you like to post an analysis comparing the effect of weighting on YouGov polls back in Nov and Dec to now on the UK Polling Report blog to see what Anthony has to say about it?
Any doctors lurking who might be able to shed some light on this malnutrition story? Is it as shocking as it sounds - or is malnutrition (dare i say it) to be somewhat *expected* when elderly people are at the end of their lives?
Just wonderin’……
*disclaimer - I’m nominally a lib dem!*
‘Fear and Filth at Brown’s Number 10′ Nick Cohen
http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/1511/full
321 - The Report foolows on from one in 2007.
It does not just include Hospitals it covers care homes, residential homes, people who live in poverty and poor housing conditions.
Indeed it says..Only 150,000 of the 7 million vulnerable people are in the direct care of the NHS at any one time.
If the Tories are going to put stuff like this out
David Gold [Con] “RT @TimMontgomerie: How many people are dying in UK (yes, UK) hospitals because of malnutrition? 10,000? 20,000? No, it could be 50,000
would you have a problem with interpretation like that?
323 - exactly, however where there are close relatives or a partner willing to put the work in and fight, it can make all the difference. Not everyone has that.
So far no points scored in the epic healthcare summit/wrestlemania event. The problem is that we’ve heard it all before. One’s ears quickly being to glaze over, as the two camps begin to attack each other with the same old lines. However, at least one can say that the event-opening phony bonhomie is quickly fading into predictable sniping.
“‘In my opinion it’s best [not, Paul?]”
Late reply, I’ve been busy teaching, yes, I missed out the ‘not’.
321 - too many twitters make a …. DC was right.
Back on topic. I think it’s entirely possible for the individual seat markets not to add up to the total seat markets and there still not be to any mis-pricing.
As Shadsy says above when asked about accumulators, it’s all about the correlation. Whilst in a simple way, the the markets should match if you consider just the averages, in reality markets, of all forms, take into account the full shape of the distribution and real investors are not “risk neutral”. To a certain extent that’s an explanation as to why single event odds do not need to be truely extreme (if the true odds of something happening are 1/1000, chances are a layer of that market won’t need to, want to nor should they optimally offer such wide odds). A similar thing applies in (spread or financial) markets. If there’s a chance of 1 or 1000 as the outcome and the expected value is 1.01, it’s very unlikely that the market will be 1-1.02.
Anyhow one way that that skewing can be explained by looking at the whole distribution of outcomes (should you be lucky enought to know it!) and discarding the idea that everyone is risk-neutral. Equivalently we sometimes talk about a risk-premium.
What this means in essence is that if you created a set of outcomes from the individual seat markets, whilst it would indeed have the appropriate mean, different correlation assumptions would lead to different distributions around this mean. They could quite easily be priced with a noticable skew away from the average.
This might be a bit technical, and is a bit more related to markets rather than betting per se, but there’s no reason why the same concepts shouldn’t apply. And of course, it may be that it doesn’t explain the full difference anyway which could just be that the market is inefficient and we’re (well) inside the cost of transacting both sides.
Now I have written a relatively long post, I am certain there will be new thread up before I click submit! For those interested much of this is relevant to pricing that most hated of financial instrument, the CDO.
328 I did the same for my mother who had cancer and just couldn’t face the slop she was offered.
Although she eventually died - it kept her going for a while longer and it made eating a lot more pleasureable if nothing else.
The ward fridge was packed with stuff brought in by relatives.
Via Old Holborn, this seems to be what is going to get Burnham into so much trouble:
http://nbyslog.blogspot.com/2010/02/exclusive-bailey-says-burnham-signed.html
In an exclusive interview with The Slog this afternoon, Julie Bailey the Head of
campaigning site Cure the NHS blew the lid off The Big Secret behind Andy Burnham’s refusal to hold a public enquiry: as Junior Health Minister in June 2007, Baily claims, Burnham signed off Stafford’s third-stage process of elevation to Foundation Trust Status.
For some reason, if he did do this, Burnham signed off stage three of the four-stage process despite the hospital having FOUR high-alerts for negligence against its name.
Julie told us:
“We have the document he signed. And we have proof that the Stafford Strategic Health Authority CEO David Nicholson lobbied hard for this to happen”.
Nicholson is now CEO of the whole NHS. And Nicholson’s Deputy at the time Cynthia Bower now runs the Care Quality Commission.
‘Darling had told my Guardian colleague Decca Aitkenhead that we were facing the worst recession in 60 years. If Darling was guilty of anything, it was understatement. But Brown could not tolerate his clear-headed assessment, because it revealed that his supposed economic miracle was an illusion and implied that his failures to regulate the banks and balance the budget would have catastrophic consequences. So out went his attack dogs to undermine the chancellor at every moment.’
http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/2774
Is Gordon Brown pure evil sent by the devil to torture us all for being stupid enough to vote Labour?!!
331 - cont .. hit enter too soon
That doesn’t mean there isn’t an issue here that needs discussed instead of shut down by a Government response to a report it doesn’t like.
Please don’t upset Andy Burnham I’d hate to see his mascara run in public….
Lansley needs to show he’s not as useless as I think and really sink his teeth into this scandal.
334 Oh dear - David Nicholson’s role then and now are going to be tricky to talk away - very tricky.
335. History will not be kind to Mr Brown. As soon as he is no longer PM the fear factor will be gone.
Rawnsley is wise to get his book out now - before the deluge.
319. EdP I know but at least it should still be said. We shouldn’t just accept that Labour has no integrity or honour and just let them get away with it….
336 - There’s a very wide issue that need to be discussed.
More than seven million people in the UK are vulnerable to malnourishment - around 150,000 people in hospitals, 600,000 people in care homes, 700,000 people in sheltered accommodation and six million who are dependent on others for their food and water needs, today’s report said.
Malnutrition affects more than 10% of older people, with 93% of people suffering from malnutrition living in their own homes, according to the British Association for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (Bapen), which studies the issue.
Malnutrition is also likely to affect patients recently discharged from hospital and those with conditions like dementia or cancer.
Pensioners aged over 65 make up around 1.3 million of the three million people in the UK at medium or high risk of being malnourished, despite accounting for only 16% of the population, according to Bapen.
but claims such as the one mad by the Conservative candidate are disgusting misrepresentaion.
Portsmouth confirmed as going into administration tomorrow by Sky.
Oh dear.
Re 340 I said yesterday that Burnham seems to be making a claim for Jacqui Smith’s crown as the most incompetent and dubious Labour Minister. Well it looks like he is making a real push for it……
342 will their results be forgotton?
265/252
It is interesting to compare the experience of Eire and Spain in terms of housing bubbles. In both those cases there was a massive oversupply due to a building boom, but it completely failed to prevent the property bubble from occurring.
Re 334. Yep more corruption (jobs for the boys and girls) at the top of Government.
Another good story for HMG
Record numbers not in education, work or training
Almost 15% of young people are now ‘neets’, official figures show
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/feb/25/further-education-colleges
304. That does look ominous for Burnham…
tim, while your on. How would you describe this?
http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2010/02/claire-ward-is-debasing-politics.html
You are arguing misrepresentation by a tory is disgusting, how do you feel about a naked lie?
325. Reduced appetite does tend to go hand in hand with serious illness, and there will be some weight loss.
However, for years now there have been complaints that staffing levels on wards are such that very few patients get help with feeding. Not only that, some patients are so debilitated that they cannot even reach the plate when it’s placed on the over-bed table, no matter how hungry they are. And if it isn’t touched it gets taken away and ‘Poor appetite’ gets entered in the nursing notes. And the patient gets weaker….
There was a consultant geriatrician making a fuss about it last year, but nothing got done. It’s not one of the targets.
The fire at the Westmorland Tory office may be a poisoned chalice for our LibDem friends. I would not be surprised if CCHQ sends in a hit squad to blitz canvass the seat for the PPC and offers excellent financial support to the local association members who have not thrown their toys out of the pram.
by Easterross February 25th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
There were 50,000 voters at the last election, DIV 2 = 25,000 properties to call on. How many will it take to canvass those properties?
Out of interest when you call on a property do you ask every body in the house, or just the person that answers the door?
Hat-Tip Old Holborn but why are Tessa Jowell and Fiona McTaggart highlighted on Google Maps?
http://tinyurl.com/yl73cu3
Some more details about the very poor business investment data released today.
As well as Q4 being 6% lower than expected Q3 has also been revised downwards from -0.6% to -1.8%.
Perhaps significantly there was a huge drop of 24.5% in construction industry investment during Q4.
This could be important because the construction industry data is one of the last to be received by the ONS and so has a large effect on any revisions from their first release.
For example the slight upwards revisions in Q2 and Q3 GDP were principally because of better than initially estimated construction data while the downward revision of Q1 was similarly partially down to lower than initially expected construction data.
In its initial release the ONS estimated construction industry output to have been flat in Q4.
Now compare construction industry output and construction industry investment:
Output
2008Q1 +1.0%
2008Q2 -0.7%
2008Q3 -2.0%
2008Q4 -4.9%
2009Q1 -7.2%
2009Q2 +0.6%
2009Q3 +4.9%
2009Q5 0.0% est
Investment
2008Q1 +3.7%
2008Q2 -9.9%
2008Q3 -15.3%
2008Q4 -20.9%
2009Q1 -8.4%
2009Q2 +1.6%
2009Q3 +9.2%
2009Q4 -24.5%
With such a strong correlation it would be highly surprising if the construction industry didn’t have reduced output in 2009Q4 thus increasing the likelihood of GDP being revised downwards.
345. Much the same in the US, too. And in that case, the bust has been worse as well due to massive oversupply of homes. So maybe our planning controls aren’t such a bad thing after all.
Up to 270,000 civil servants will stage a 48-hour strike on March 8 and 9 in a row over redundancy pay - PCS union
Sky News Breaking
it just gets better for Brown, does’nt it.
Pound is going down against the EURO !
http://news.bbc.co.uk/news/business/market_data/currency/11/13/intraday.stm
Nice if you can get it……..
Euro MPs approve an extra 1,500 euros (£1,300) a month for their staff costs and 150 new administrative posts.
http://bit.ly/cFsOSO
@350 by b. February 25th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Inadequate Staffing levels = Stafford
355. And as those 270,000 stop working the economy takes a tiny step back towards recovery.
355 To be fair,if Cameron gets in and is true to his word on reducing the deficit,we’re going to see plenty more of this stuff.
353. Richard - the apparent collapse in construction investment in Q4 is a real eyebrow-raiser. I do wonder if it can be right, though, as construction orders data for Q3 and Q4 just don’t show such a pattern. The survey data doesn’t really tally with this massive drop either, although it does point to a weak quarter.
355 - I wonder if the unions are going before the election as they think they have more chance of success ?
352. jfsl you can enter her straight into google maps:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=fiona mctaggart&sll=51.514102,-0.121295&sspn=0.009615,0.01929&ll=51.499334,-0.124629&spn=0.001202,0.002411&t=h&z=19&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl
350/358 I was shocked that patients hadn’t been washed in a MONTH.
That’s no minor oversight - it’s revolting. The poor people who didn’t have relatives to look after them/take home sheets to launder etc must have endured a living hell.
357. and the dollar.
355. Will anyone notice ?
355 not sure how we will cope without a quarter of a million civil servants producing reports, assesments and making up nannying adverts
300. Thank you, Kristin - I do my best
351 - I work on 30 doors knocked on per hour with 50% having someone in. That takes you to 833 person hours to get a 50% canvass (not including travelling etc)
358. Yup.
But it happens more and more in better run hospitals too. If you’ve got say, 40 beds in cubicles on a ward and perhaps 8 or 10 can’t feed themselves, plus other nursing demands, some of them seemingly more urgent, with maybe 5 or 6 staff on duty, what do you think is going to happen?
350- And if the oldsters die more quickly because of malnutrition, there’s big cost savings. It’s win-win.
361 Yes that plunge in investment is unbelievable on the face of it-investment has really slumped worse than at any time during the credit crunch?
355 they don’t type quick enough for gordo anyway. he will welcome the opportunity to do his own i think
369 And you don’t need nurses to help someone to feed a patient either - perhaps all those class room assistants could do that instead…
BBC still to notice investment figures, and Sky have not mentioned it either.
356: GBP down 2.5% against JYY today - EUR is small beer.
374. Tomorrow @ 9.31 could be the key moment of the election campaign.
Are we still in a technical recession if growth is downgraded to 0.0% ?
370. Naughty.
370. Perhaps fewer Tory votes as well. You can see why the Guardian isn’t bothered.
362. Almost certainly, Labour will not want a series of strikes just before the election so they will be more than happy to cave into the demands of their major donor.
375. Are international traders starting the dumping of their British assets in expectation of a bond auction failure, itself caused by high inflation expectations (a covert bond default)?
Shadsy great article.
One I will refer to often during the campaign.
Your LD prediction looks about spot on to me.
376. yes
376. I was leafing through some reports yesterday and found one quoting the government of Montenegro starting ‘the economy will be successful in 2010 with 0% growth’ - is Brown moonlighting?
320. This is massively misleading. The UK hasn’t really had much of a fiscal stimulus, and monetary stimulus is as monetarist as it is Keynesian.
As for “Keynes was British, so if Keynesianism doesn’t work here, it won’t work anywhere”, it’s such a ridiculous argument it undermines the credibility of the author in his entirety. It might be worth noting that the US, which had a pretty comparable economy to the UK, has had a much bigger stimulus and a much stronger return to growth.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/news/business/market_data/currency/11/12/intraday.stm
One has to feel sorry for one Richie Rich, who said he was betting on a stronger pound at 1.65…
Possibly one of the worst tips ever given on this site.
tim in fails to answer direct question shocker!
tim, while your on. How would you describe this?
http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2010/02/claire-ward-is-debasing-politics.html
You are arguing misrepresentation by a tory is disgusting, how do you feel about a naked lie?
by don(the other one) February 25th, 2010 at 4:15
Labrokes:
Spring Conference Specials
Selection Odds
Eric Pickles to be seen in Harry Ramsdens 3/1
George Osborne to be photographed drinking Champagne 6/1
William Hague to be photographed in baseball cap 10/1
David Cameron to fall over on beach 20/1
Confirmed sighting of Philip Hammond on Dodgems 33/1
385.
Poor Richie Rich, poorer.
384. On the other hand, read what the US Sec to the Treasury had to say about the New Deal stimulus in the 30’s. He was the guy who over-saw it, but in retrospect he believed it actually delayed the recovery by between 2 - 4 years.
349 - don.
I tend to get annoyed by “local hospital will close” campaigns wherever they occur, most research indicates that for trauma for instance lives are cost by going to a local hospital rather than a regional trauma centre.
In this case however it is impossible to say whether Ward is lying or not as the conservative policy is to hand the running of the NHS over to a Quango so Lansleys assurance is meaningless.
I find it interesting that whilst the police have not established what caused the fire at the Westmorland Conservative Office, they have nevertheless managed to rule out a political motive. http://bit.ly/bCUI2P
384: One has to remember when talking about ‘keynesianism’ that the flip side is that one has to in times of growth tackle the deficit and debt in order to make enough room for borrowing and stimulus when needed.
Brown increased the borrowing and increased the deficit during the boom, and therefore failed to follow what was needed in the first place.
349.
Not quite sure we want Tim to express how he feels about Clare Ward naked lying here.
OMG - will the country come to a standstill during these civil servant strikes ?!?!?!
” The walkout will involve Jobcentre staff, tax workers, coastguards, border agency officials, courts staff and driving test examiners “
385. Get Roger to give you share tips and Richie to organise your currency hedges and penury is guaranteed!
tim, you’re a betting man, what are the odds against closure?
From Guido site
anagram of Labour’s new slogan – A Future Fair for All is
Our Fearful Fat Liar
384 - ‘As for “Keynes was British, so if Keynesianism doesn’t work here, it won’t work anywhere”, it’s such a ridiculous argument it undermines the credibility of the author in his entirety.’
Sorry, but as far as I can see, the quotation you attribute to the article doesn’t appear in it nor does anything remotely resembling its sentiment.
@387 As I said yesterday Sunil - Eric Pickles is a steal.
Guido’s a bit late, we had that up here by last Saturday afternoon.
394 - I imagine it would be better not to have the coastguards on strike.
All those jobs seem pretty essential to me if the country is going to function normally. But I am sure we won’t miss most of them for a day or so.
” The walkout will involve Jobcentre staff, tax workers, coastguards, border agency officials, courts staff and driving test examiners “
by The Ghost of Harry Flashman February 25th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Standstill probably not but
Job Centre staff, newly unemployed will not receive benefits.
Court Staff, will result in procedural errors which will result in people who should not be, being freed and probably compensated.
Driving test examiners, if you have taken the day of work to sit a test which you subsequently have to rebook, at the cost of another day off, how much has that cost the economy?
392 - Westmorland and Lonsdale Conservative Party records, three years of election work, computers and other electrical equipment were lost in the blaze.
Is that all it would have taken in 2003 to lose all the work put in by Hague and IDS?
They must’ve been tempted.
297 - No idea, don’t know the hospital and no idea how Lansleys quango will function.
Well it doesn’t bode well for Scottish recovery..
DouglasGE2010
In Scotland. PM making speech. Nats publishing draft referendum bill. On day of RBS results we’re talking about new jobs.
Talk is cheap… oh wait
390. Figures ambivalent. It all depends how long it takes to get to a major centre. There’s what’s known as ‘the golden hour’ when medical intervention has the best chance of being most effective.
Where I live it’s between 40 minutes and an hour and a half to the nearest trauma unit, depending on the time of day - and the hospital within the town was closed about 12 years ago. Not a happy thought.
At the very least a local hospital will have sufficient medical expertise to try to stabilise a patient before shipping them off elsewhere, even if they don’t have a full whistle-and-bells trauma centre. But if there are no local hospitals then you’re on the clock.
Good luck.
392: Exactly
Brown paid lip service to true Keynesianism (is that a word?) when he talked of borrowing only to invest over the cycle, implying surpluses in good years which allow for deficits in bad years without problems.
However, he ran deficits in the good years (which are worse than the offical stats even tahnks to PFI and the non-counting of Public sector pension liability growth).
For this he should be taken to the Tower if you ask me. He has screwed us all for a generation. He will be long gone before most people realise though, and people will probably have turned against a hapless tory government of the future as it struggles to pick up the pieces of our broken economy. I foresee lots of tory wailing and gnashing of teeth about the unfairness of it all, with a good deal of justification.
391.
The headline is:
“Hunt for Tory HQ arsonists”
I wonder where all these Tory arsonists are hiding who like to burn down HQs?
Of course anyone hunting for Tory ars’n need look no further then HoC cloakrooms.
Some posts off Guido site ref Burnham
Today it has emerged that in 2007, as a Junior Health Minister, he signed off on one of four stages of the Mid-Stafford Hospital’s elevation to Labour’s coveted Foundation Trust status. This was despite four formal alerts about the hospital’s dangerous practises.
Julie Bailey mentioned this on the C4 news yesterday – glad it’ll get the prominence it
Deserves
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid62612474001?bctid=68393621001
o “We have the document he signed. And we have proof that the Stafford Strategic Health Authority CEO David Nicholson lobbied hard for this to happen”.
Nicholson is now CEO of the whole NHS. And Nicholson’s Deputy at the time Cynthia Bower now runs the Care Quality Commission.
If true, this might represent what New Labour tends to call ‘rewarding failure’
Just off to do a 12 hour night shift on my non important civil service job. Sleep safe everybody.
408 - Of course it varies from region to region.
Most campaigns aren’t to keep A & E’s open because the alternative is more than an hour away, but I agree journey time must be taken into account.
408 - Jon C - and that is why Osborne is right to want a full audit first. He doesn’t trust them and neither do I.
411
What job? Are you going on strike?
328. Blimey!
That’s a devastating article by Nick Cohen in Standpoint, on Brown and his henchmen.
Nick Cohen, is, I understand a well respected political journalist? I’m pretty sure OGH rates him.
390. If you lived in or close to Wyre Forest you would almost certainly feel differently having experienced the effects of the Kidderminster Hospital closure. Yes Regional Trauma Centres are great, but having to travel significant distances can mitigate any benefit whilst in any case serious casualties have always been directed to the regional centres.
However, most A&E arrivals are far from life threatening. The impact of all the additional travel is overlooked. In fact, I understand the closure of Kidderminster Hospital actually cost money as, for example, the additional ambulance travel was not included in the closure assessment neither was the development of a Minor Injuries Unit. It was a bad decision all round and one which would have been compounded if the Alex at Redditch had also been closed.
415.
Cohen has a point. But do people actually pay someone who writes that badly?
An article that Sunil might be interested in.
In the current edition of the prospect magazine, there is an article looking at the constituencies on the Thameslink rail line.
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/02/my-day-out-with-the-thameslink-tories/
Unfortunately it is subsciption only on the website.
Is this a way of linking up similar constituencies (although looking in detail there are a wide spread variation between them)?
363. runnymede
I think part of the big drop in construction investment must be a countereffect from the surprise increases in Q2 and Q3 - those weren’t expected and didn’t tally with survey data and job losses in the construction industry.
Construction does appear though to be continuing to struggle - see the Travis Perkins trading statement yesturday as an example.
What’s your take on the retail sales figures? As the ONS have now changed how they calculate them its difficult to know how they will affect Q4 GDP revisions.
Apart from them we know that manufacturing came in better than intially estimated and the trade deficit was worse.
New thread now up - more from Andy Cooke
Ladbrokes:
Some seats down my way:
Ilford North
C 1/50, L 9/1, LD 100/1
Ilford South
L 1/5, C 10/3, LD 25/1
Barking
L 1/8, BNP 9/2, C 20/1, LD 100/1, UKIP 100/1
Dagenham & Rainham
L 4/6, C 6/5, BNP 33/1, LD 100/1, Gordon Kennedy 100/1
Romford
C 1/500, L 16/1, LD 100/1
Leyton & Wanstead
L 1/4, LD 5/1, C 6/1
Chingford & Woodford Green
C 1/500, L 20/1, LD 100/1, “None of the Above” (Ind) 100/1
#386 A neutral stance of fiscal policy implies a balanced budget where G = T (Government spending = Tax revenue). Government spending is fully funded by tax revenue and overall the budget outcome has a neutral effect on the level of economic activity.
An expansionary stance of fiscal policy involves a net increase in government spending (G > T). Expansionary fiscal policy is usually associated with a budget deficit.
The authors are taking the wider view that the defecit [forecast 12.6% in 2010-11] is the stimulus, although we don’t directly see much of that as reduced taxes etc.
[For comaprison the US defecit is forecast 9.6% in 2010-11].
Why are the Labdrokes prices so different from Betfair’s in some seats? Particularly the ones where the Liberals are in contention there seem to be some big differences.