Let’s all pat ourselves on the back
March 9th, 2010
“….But the kind of scrutiny to which certain punters subject opinion polls now is useful — and greater than that of some political obsessives. When Kellner appeared for a live online discussion on politicalbetting.com last week, he was grilled by dozens of punters probing the finer points of YouGov’s weighting system. It was, compared with much of the vitriol that passes for political debate on the web, a remarkably polite and well-informed discussion.
The reason politicalbetting.com has become a must-read website in the Westminster village is not because the commentariat trust Ladbrokes or William Hill: it’s because Smithson’s blog contains some of the sharpest analysis around of polling and electoral trends.”
This is from a great two page article about PB in tonight’s London Evening Standard.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
I’m Spartacus!
grats and first
firstish?
Did you get written about much before I started posting Mike?
Great stuff.
FPT
342 Mark Senior
Fascinating. There are some rather strange looking results there.
For one, contrary to pretty much all other recent surveys, more women seem to prefer the Tories than men (41% to 36%).
Also seems to suggest that the Tories and Labour are pretty much neck and neck on C2s.
Also Labour’s bedrock seems to be the young - they are actually ahead of the Tories amongst 18-24 and 25-34 year olds. This doesn’t square with my preconceptions about the state of the electorate, but is genuinely interesting.
Finally, Lib Dem vote is concentrated amongst 55-64 year olds, not the young, as I naively expected. This too I find strange.
——————
The TNS survey has really interesting second choices too
L: C 8 LD 25
C: L 8 LD 23
LD: C 13 L 23
——————
The second choice data suggests that appealing to anti-Tory LDs might still help Labour, but not very much.
re 4. Much more in fact Tim
I agree that much of that is just subsample quirks, but the gender anomaly contrasted with other polls is genuinely interesting.
We’re going to look damned fools if the election result is massively different from what the markets predict come polling day…
Hi Villge people.
9. remember Glenrothes…
Like Omnium (or whatever - stupid name), TNS is not showing geographic sub samples.
Great news, well done.
For those with a scientific interest, there is a live debate now being webcast between the three (Con, Lab and LD) science spokesmen / minister (Lord Drayson) at http://www.rsc.org/SAGE2010/index.htm
Hmmm
Deserved kudos to Mike but is this really a good thing? Is the site prepared for the deluge of new posters that may well follow on the back of an article like this? I don’t mean necessarily on terms of the servers but more in terms of what several dozen or hundred new posters might do to the threads.
Sorry just being selfish of course
But it is worth considering whether the place might become rather impenetrable leading up to the election.
7 - Don’t worry, I’m geared for a big pre election push.
FPT 367 “It relies on analysis from across the spectrum”
The one thing you never ever provide is analysis. I think you should change it to:-
“It relies on excellent analysis from people like Andy Cooke and is besmerched by smears and innuendo from Labour posters like tim.”
Which would be much closer to reality.
by voreas March 9th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
6 Labour usually poll well in the 18-24 age group . I agree LibDems polling well in 55-64 age range is odd . Perhaps just a blip due to subsample error . I recall a series of pb.com articles a couple of years ago on the gender effect in the polls at that time , it all lost significance after a couple of months .
FPT - 381.Crist is very much outside the Republican establishment too(moreso given the way it’s going). Crist is also governor running for senate, not an unknown, and is putting himself before the same electorate.
Lieberman became the de facto Republican candidate, polling suggests that Crist would be much more balanced in where he got his support. It’s a risk but the upside is high for him.
Last Quinnipiac was +14, last Ras. was +7, that’s quite a difference (and ratings will fluctuate as more Republicans see him as not being their man).
15- The burden of success.
Well hey ho, apparently Downing Street reads PB.com. Well at least they’re doing something right.
So, that being the case; calling Gordon, calling Gordon. Are you there ?
Call the blinkin election and you might win it. Stop faffing around.
If you wait until May, you might be on the slide again. If you wait until June, you’ll be up against the world cup. And that my friend, is an unwinnable battle.
April 8th. Do it. You know it makes sense.
Imagine how much better this place would be without the welcher polluting the discussion.
Nonetheless, congrats Mike.
15 “Richard Tyndall advocates strict immigration controls for PB. ‘Keep these damn newcomers out’, he cried!”
4 I thought you were off to do your own blog, if you are so important, surely that is the perfect medium for you to bask in the adulation of the press.
PB.com a must-read in the Westmister village eh?
OK then:
OI! TORIES! STOP BEING CRAP AND SAVE US ALL FROM BROWN
Thanks for listening
19
No I can believe that - 55-64 is prime bobble-hatted rambler age group, who surely ALL vote Lib Dem…
15 – Richard, are you suggesting Mr Dancer’s genetically modified enormo-haddock should be employed as bouncers at the door ?
Well done Mike, you’ve hit the big time
So, any news from the Bunker on the budget?
Oh, and another thing. All this talk of wanting to combine the national election with the locals on May 6th.
F*ck the locals. They’re irrelevant.
April 8th. Jupiter is in line with Uranus, leading to Cosmic Bliss.
Puns, bluffs and double entendres, all intended.
LOL
24
Oh you cruel heartless beast Oldnat. Never more will I raise the banner of Scots Nationalism in your honour
If it gets too bad we can all emigrate of course.
28
I was thinking more of his space cannon to get rid of trouble makers.
Any polls due out?
Is there a proper PMQs tomorrow?
34, no, Brown’s meeting the Junior Foreign Minister of Madagascar.
29. GIN
faisalislam
Big Gordon Brown speech on the economy tomorrow morning, clearly have to announce the Budget aswell … almost certainly 24th March.
Well done Mike. You are the ringmaster that keeps this circus on the road!
20- “Crist is very much outside the Republican establishment too(moreso given the way it’s going).”
Crist is running with the endorsement of the National Repubican Senatorial Committee! That’s a far cry from Lieberman, who had to run for re-election with his own party coming after him with torches and pitchforks, as his reward for straying from his party’s ideological marching orders (not too different, actually, from former Democratic Rep. Massa, who says that a naked Rahm Emanuel chased him down in the congressional showers to scream at him for not voting with Obama on some legislation or other!).
Well done Mike
29 - Announcement tomorrow, calm down.
35 Morris
No i think you’ll find he’s at a Village fete in the Cotswolds, hosting the Tombola, telling the local community about the fiscal responsibility they have shown over the past year in not selling too many raffle tickets and encouraging gambling.
The exchequer is very grateful. Because what starts out as a harmless flutter on a raffle to win some of Mrs Miggins homemade marmalade, can soon develop into a global economy searing trade in credit default swaps.
29. Gordon dropped it off for Darling to read.
Fitches talking down Britain again - disgraceful.
Congrats Mike.
@27 55-64 is prime bobble-hatted rambler age group, who surely ALL vote Lib Dem…
by Jon C March 9th, 2010 at 7:51 pm
I count some of those people amongst my close friends, it keeps the knitting needles busy.
6. If your right about labour being ahead for 18-24 year olds i wander if they are actually registered because a lot are not and that could cost labour some seats.
How do we know which opinion poll to believe?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/09/opinion-polls-general-election
Could have been a fantastic article, but pretty devoid of content
Remember some tax rises already announced..
“Next months road tax will be around £5-£10 higher for all cars except the tiniest {announced 2009}.
For new cars bought after 1/4/10 the tax is between £70 and £500 more.
The showroom tax ”
http://cityunslicker.blogspot.com/
45. Unsurprising, it’s in the soon-to-be-bankrupt Grauniad
44 Only problem is( IIRC) less than 50% of 18-24 yrs olds are registered to vote according to the Electoral Commission , so its worth a lot less than on first view.
I assume this ES article mentions the really important stuff:
1. Swingback theory or slingback rubbish?
2. Latvian SS loving ruddy countenanced non-doms?
3. Scottish nits working night-shifts?
4. IFA’s loving IHT not DMT?
5. Ave it & Sean T (non-wobble mode) as the PB enforcers/bouncers?
6. OGH golden rules on Labour polls and DC on Telly?
7. A guide to spot red team trolls?
8. NPMP’s alice through the looking glass ‘on the doorstep’ reports.
9. The PB guide to poll interpretation - Labour mid-30’s = Fantasy rogue island, ICM = gold standard (provided Tories shown 38+)
10. PB is aka The home of Labour over-stating recidivist poll haters/lovers
11. tim and MTF’s legendary double-act
Well done, Mike.
I’d like to see some more polling evidence before we pontificate too much on subgroups - as Mark S says at 19, we spent some time brooding on the gender difference until it neatly reversed. What I do think is true is that younger voters switch more.
And yes, Budget announcement in the morning.
http://blogs.reuters.com/ross-chainey/2010/03/09/a-thomson-reuters-newsmaker-with-gordon-brown/
“With a general election just weeks away, Prime Minister Gordon Brown will join us for a Thomson Reuters Newsmaker on Wednesday March 10, during which he will give a speech on the UK economy.
The latest opinion polls indicate Britain is heading for a hung parliament after an election expected on May 6. A YouGov poll for the Sun newspaper puts David Cameron’s Conservatives five points ahead of Brown’s Labour Party with 39 percent of the vote, a result which could leave Labour as the largest party in parliament but short of an overall majority.
You can follow our minute-by-minute updates, watch a live stream of the PM’s speech and send us your comments during the event, all via our live blog. Live coverage will start at 0830 GMT — join us then.”
40. So if the budget announcement is tomorrow i guess we will know when the election will be pretty much tomorrow?
Well done everyone! Hooray for us! Let’s put the show on right here!
*group hug*
*excluding “smelly” Mark Senior*
Cameron in Heckle Shock.
David Cameron was startled to find himself confronted by a heckler during a speech today in Notting Hill. The Tory leader had been waffling insubstantially - and without notes of any description - with utter transparency and openness for several hours when a man began waving a Belizean flag and shouting, ” Get a policy, for God’s sake.” Cameron, somewhat flustered, was whisked to safety by his aides but was later able to confirm that it was the mention of a “policy” that had shocked him as the concept was entirely outside his experience. Quickly recovering his usual decisive poise, he pronounced the matter “all cleared up. Right? OK!” and demanded to “Move on. Right? OK? Right!”
A person identified as “richard dodd” was briefly detained on suspicion of being offensive, charmless and wholly lacking in subtlety, but later released into the custody of his mum on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
40. Perfectly calm thank you.
52. 8th April requires a dissolution this Thursday. It would be somewhat quixotic for Brown to announce a peremptory dissolution with no time to tidy up ongoing legislation, but perhaps he realises it’s all rubbish anyway and wouldn’t be missed. 15th April requires a dissolution on Friday 19th March, and may appeal to the bunker because they assume that a few Tory voters will be away on holiday (though arguably fewer than on the 8th). There is absolutely no point in 22nd or 29th April in preference to 6th May, so if tomorrow morning Brown announces a Budget date of 24th March it means an April GE is out of the reckoning. On the other hand, it would be a sensible occasion to announce 15th April and a bizarre time to announce the 8th.
48. What really matters though is what proportion of the sample is registered to vote though.
Maybe this is a good supplementary question for AR polls, Mike:
Are you registered to vote at the upcoming general election? a) Yes, b) No, but I will definitely do so, c) No, d) Don’t know.
52.
Budget - 24th March
Election called - 6th April
Dissolution - 8th April
Election - 6th May
Nailed on.
fpt 359. Mark Senior “Nope , it would become an endless stream of Conservative posters all agreeing Cameron/Osborne were wonderful and the Conservatives were heading for a landslide victory.”
What a strange thing to say. Are there any conservative posters who are in fact saying anything remotely suggesting they think C/O are wonderful, or that the tories are heading for a landslide victory - if so, link please. If you aren’t suggesting that, do you think we would like to be posting that sort of stuff but are so in awe of tim’s legendary powers of satire and invective that we are cowed into silence?
50. So thaty confirms its going to be May 6th doesn’t it NPMP?
52 - I doubt it. If the budget is 24 March, they’ll debate the finance bill, break for Easter recess before Good Friday, and parliament will be dissolved by 12 April for a 6 May poll. But no reason to announce the election before then - he’ll keep the Tories guessing.
Andy Coulsons period at News International was a very expensive period.
Max Clifford drops News of the World phone hacking action in £1m deal
The case had potentially important implications for Andy Coulson, media adviser to the Conservative leader, David Cameron, who edited the News of the World at the time of the illegal activity and who has said that he does not remember any of his journalists breaking the law.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/09/clifford-news-of-the-world-phone-hacking
But more costly to his employers than Graylings promotion and the airbrushed poster, amongst other things?
Well done Mike. So how long before it is Baron Smithson of Bedford?
Are we getting an announcement tomorrow of a budget date or is it just another “well placed” rumour?
While I have been showing a Brazilian friend round Glasgow today has anything exciting happened? Has David Cameron eaten a baby live on Ulster TV? Has Sarah Brown weeted that she is married to a charming man? Has Nick Clegg established that he is not Vince Cable’s glove puppet? So is it just as you were!
40. How did you know that Tim…
62, all quiet from Magda. Presumably she’s having a quiet night in with her close personal friends like McBride.
27. Surely these are the people who first got interested in politics in the Great Liberal Revival in the mid 60’s, and were responsible for the massive (and totally surprising to the pollsters) Liberal vote in ‘74?
Liberal vote went up then significantly but has stayed fairly level (around 20%) since.
57 Kratz
I do hope you are right, I doubt anyone has the appetite for 12 weeks of spun out non-stories, which is what the present political agenda has become.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YtouwsadWE&feature=related
If any of you guys dig really cool music, check out the above link.
You’ll love it.
50- Nick, if your colleagues are fixated by the goings on at PB.com, why don’t more of them have the Palmer-like courage it takes to openly post here?
61.
Andy Coulson - Check.
Chris Grayling - Check.
Air brushed poster - Check
How come you didn’t get William Hague, Lord Ashcroft and Latvians in?
65. Yes, they have a good deal to answer for
.
Well deserved Mike
Tory plan to cut MP numbers ‘undemocratic’ says Straw
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8558727.stm
58 - There are posters on here who think Dave on telly is good, but also that Dave hiding from telly is good, that poll leads widening are good, but not as good as poll leads narrowing, which keeps activists on their toes.
If polls continue to narrow though, the default position is a focus group of their next door neighbour’s which delegitimises all pollsters methodology once they produce a result which is bad for the Tories.
Congratulations, Mike.
Yay this is the pre-eminent place for unique insight, it has some of the finest analysis anywhere, admittedly it also has the odd troll and tim but then you need the shadow to contrast with the light.
BNP member rules discriminate indirectly, court told
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8558044.stm
73. Don’t be bitchy Timmy.
69
Just reply “99%” to tim, It says everything thats required. 99% bull.
72. Gerrymandering my eye. Gerrymandering UNWIND more like. Simple equality of representation and a highly sensible policy at that, considering the ridiculous size of our legislative assembly.
Analysed you Tim.. You are several people.. it took a while but it all changes several times a day… You boys have got to smarten up.. all those degrees and this is the result.. Pathetic.
Mike, the ES article is well deserved recognition for PB which is by a mile the best political blog going. Congratulations to you and all the other guys in your team.
The tone on here amongst the comments is marginally better than some other political sites although I still find something of a rightwing bias, the articles on the otherhand tend to be spot on. WELL DONE MIKE ET AL.
69 - I’ll work Hague, Ashcroft and the Tories choice of allies into a post about their Ulster misjudjment later, which will undoubtedly include the words.
“Well no one saw that one coming William”
67- That’s pretty cool, but it can’t top this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnlXSOKJXPs
I think their is no point in suprise now everyone is ready for the election. Both brown and cameron will believe they can win if the next few weeks go well. Clegg will hope to gain votes in the debates so all parties will welcome starting the ball rolling now.
82. I can hardly wait.
82 The evening shift Tim..
Some new information on when counting will take place:
(a) Suffolk South, which was down as a Friday count if the election were held on May 6th, is now in the “undecided” category.
(b) Bracknell has moved from “undecided” to “counting on the night”.
(c) Rushcliffe, Ken Clarke’s seat, has moved from “undecided” to “counting on the night”.
72, hahahahaha.
Epic hypocrisy given the union modernisation fund, AV, referendum reneging etc ad nauseum.
I expect the price value of your site Mike as just gone up !!!!
78.
tim doesn’t pay up on 99% of bets ?
99% of tims Coulson resignations stories are gash ?
84. Yeah, lets just get on with it.
Congratulations Mike. Well earned plaudits.
You can get 1.14 on May 6th on Betfair.
40 tim, never mind the fantasy budget, when will Brown produce some reasons for voting Labour?
must be getting crowded in the bunker right now..sweaty all those useless 3-1 degrees in political science just liike a six form common room only smellier
If 24th March is announced as the budget date tomorrow, Brown can use the Easter recess to see what public reaction is to the budget.
It gives him two weeks to look at the polls and decide whether to go for the expected May 6th or whether he feels he needs time to let any bad news delivered in the budget to fade away for another month.
If I were him, I would not be holding an election a week after the expected poor Q1 figures are issued, but if there is a wrong decision to make, we can always rely upon Gordon to make it!
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/janetdaley/100029286/latest-twist-in-my-debate-with-danny-finkelstein-over-polling/
…Danny Finkelstein has added a further note to our blogging contretemps over whether voters were inclined to reject political policies of which they had previously approved when told that they were “Labour policies”, just as they did with ones that were described as “Tory policies”.
The information on which I based my claim was given to me by an expert pollster in a private conversation so I will not reveal his name publicly, but I have contacted him through a third party to ask if he would be interested in going public with the details…
94. See 46 - Gordon plans to hammer the evil car speculators.
*** GLOATING BETTING POST ***
A fortnight ago I noted that the Betfair Labour Date and Most Seats Market - i.e. a Labour plurality in 2010 - was at 7.4
I said this was VALUE.
It is now…. 4.
Even the basic Most Seats market has Labour at 5.5, down from 7.4 when I commented on the VALUE.
I reckon that 5.5 is still VALUE… just about.
*** END OF SENSIBLE POST ***
87 - I can confirm that Dundee is counting East and West on election night. From speaking to the Leader of the council today an announcement was in the local press last week but I did not see it.
88. Morris D - I can’t even be bothered to comment on half the sheer delerium coming out of the Labour party. Bryant was at it as well today. I’m starting to think it is some sort of infectious paranoid schizophrenia that has infected the whole Parliamentary Labour Party and is becoming increasingly more pronounced.
I’m expecting one of them to accuse the Conservative Party of being alien invaders from Ursa Major in the not too distant future.
Someone ought to examine the PLP though just in case it turns out to be terminal…..
Imagine the panic on Betfair tomorrow morning if Gordon announces 14th April as the budget date!
re 89. I’ll have to renegotiate the sponsorship deal with Ladbrokes!!
83 Stars and Stripes
That was awesome.
Thanks.
Have a banana.
Excellent achievement Mike, you can’t buy publicity like that
Just flicking through the last thread there has been some very special quality bulls**t written about my part of the world.
Let start at the beginning…you poll any section of the UK and ask ‘Do you want the politicians to stop bickering and deal with bread and butter issues’ you are going to get a massive yes.
Secondly, the blunt fact is that the Unionist population isn’t particularly enthusiastic about the devolution of policing and justice. Its positively ambivalent and frankly doesn’t see the big palava about why its so important. NIO comedy polling aside, this has been borne out by a number of polls.
Thirdly. So the UUP vote against the devolution of P&J and this is somehow wrong? Its called a democratic right in democratic politics to act as an opposition. Some of the reaction is getting on to the hysterical, that their vote the equivalent of going out and shooting 50 people. Its it politics. So thats ok for people in Westminster but not ok for people here? Hypocrites.
As to any half-wit who believes that vote somehow is a threat to the ‘peace process’, wise up. There is no peace process, its already passed on to a plain old political process. Is anyone sitting the NI Assembly threatening to go back to violence at all? Who would that be? The ultimate threat to peace and stability in the country lies with the people and their attitudes. Their representatives merely reflect fact.
Most of all though the current threat to stability is down to two things, One, those who still fancy a bit of physical force and two a parliamentary system that is the most absurd thing this side of anywhere. The system is built to lurch from deadlock to deadlock, crisis to crisis and its time is up. It will have to go before we can get anywhere.
For all the Cameron project may fail with the UUs somebody has had the balls to try to bring to some normalisation into politics. It is possible to hold a basic unionist stance without being sectarian, its possible to hold a nationalist stance without being sectarian. Anyone who looks at how the Tory/UU are trying to line up candidates will tell you that the Tories have worked their beaks off to get those less ingrained in the old politics into position. Sometimes its worked, sometimes it hasn’t.
But hey thats democratic politics, no?
I understand there are some people in the mainland who feel that us unionists here are some kind of alien species. I look at it this way. People have tried bombing us, shooting us, threatening us and perhaps worst of all patronising us out of our wish to be British.
They failed and you know what, it frustrates the hell out of people that we just exercise a democratically expressed wish and don’t do what we are told.
Get the hint, we’ve made up our minds.
Good stuff Mr Smithson. The only political blog I ever read, and one that you can make a few quid on if you follow some very sound advice
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/09/british-airways-network-rail-strike
All out bruvvers - Labour’s masters flex their muscles. If they do go out I expect they’ll put the kybosh on an April election….
100 - thanks very much. I’ll do a search for the article.
106. “special quality bullsh1t” - it’s what tim does..
72: how on earth is cutting the number of MPs ‘gerrymandering’?? The boundary commission will decide as ever onthe boundaries. Arguing that the cost of politics should not be cut is what Sir Humphrey might have described as courageous…
betfair NOM market movements in last hour - poll news ?
106 Yokel
despite some of the comments, I think Cameron will get credit for a brave attempt at breaking the mould. It is to be hoped that he doesn’t give up and that some of the other parties may also get the message.
108 Well said that man..
Forget about tim.
He’s just jealous.
Congratulations Mike.
106: Yokel @ 20:40
Top post.
115 Seth
He’s also jealous of Hague.
109 - you won’t find it on the online edition of the ‘Courier’. I tried that earlier.
Mike can we have Tims postings in Red please, so we know not to read them by mistake.
Andy JS
Do you have any information on order of declaration on General Election Night. Or know where someone might be storing the information on the net?
This is information we all should get in advance as some of the best bets on the night will come from being able to anticipate later results from the early declarations.
The earlier we work out the algorithms the better.
Quoted for accuracy: “In the end I’m not going to trust the bookies over my own reading of the polls. But put it this way: if four Cabinet ministers lose their seats, the drinks are on me”. I think we should hold Mr. Neather to that!
On topic, congratulations to Mike. He really does an outstanding job producing several quality and interesting threads a day and keeping a check on things. It is close to a 24/7 operation and having been part of the group who ‘minded the shop’ while Mike was on holiday last Summer, I’m in awe of his stamina as well as his ability!
Ref the Budget date and election, I’d like to thank whoever took the remaining money today I’d laid at 10/1 on an April date. I don’t believe it’s credibly possible to hold the election earlier than April 22 and that being the case, there’s no point holding it earlier than May 6.
The crucial fact now is that the Budget has to be enacted before the election. If it’s not, the government can’t collect income tax, VAT, corporation tax and a whole lot else from the start of the financial year or the dissolution (whichever’s later) until one has been passed. Therefore, there has to be time for the announcement, preparation for budget day, for it to be delivered, debated and voted on.
121: Is it Sunderland Central first? (although there may be a recount
)
106. Well said Yokel!
106 Yokel, great post.
Shame that the Guardian and whichever tim was on day release today try to use anything as a Cameron basher. Shame that US politicians who support invasion to bring democracy don’t show any signs of supporting it in NI.
120. or white - even better ?
26. Your comment is duly noted.
106. Yours is noted even more. Excellent post.
124. I’m expecting that seat to go very close. Could cause some jittery headlines, but of course under new boundaries it takes in Tory areas that have polled well in the local elections.
62 - If Cameron HAD eaten a baby on UTV, it probably wouldn’t be shown in Scotland as STV would have decided to put some repeat on instead of showing the ITV coverage.
The ITV/STV war is almost that funny
107. Yokel - excellent post. And good luck.
Congratulations, Mike!
124 - Will Torbay be the first “Ashcroft Gain” ?
+++ BETTING POST +++
I know that it is likely that the date announced early tomorrow morning is likely to be March 17th or 24th, but I would advise anyone waiting to get bets placed on Betfair for a May 6th election, not to leave their bets up overnight.
In the unlikely event of a budget date of April 14th being announced, it would be advisable to take your bets down overnight.
There is a grand up for a March election at 1.14 and that would almost certainly be lost of April 14th was to be announced.
128 Except that 106 has now become 107…well I meant Yokel.
Well done to Mike too. You might get a gong one of these days.
Pay Labour 1 million and, of course, you’d get it now.
Oh and many congratulations, Mike. Your commitment to this site over the past few years has been commendable.
Nancy Pelosi’s latest rationale for passing Obamacare, as stated during a speech today: “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”
http://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/pressreleases?id=1576
A classic case of ‘curiosity killed the cat.’
Also, the House majority leader has signaled that the White House’s timeline to pass Obamacare before the two-week Easter recess is not going to be met, which kicks the can into April:
http://www.politico.com/livepulse/0310/Hoyer_rebuffs_Gibbs_on_Mar_18_deadline.html
83:S&S
Yes very professional. Here’s the original:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFDOI24RRAE
130 DR
nah, Salmond would have demanded the right to also eat a baby live in the interest of balance.
Will you still be able to bet on Polling day?
Only I could see some smart guys doing a few stings as they start to count the polls.
121. I asked a few weeks ago what other stats people would like to see on this thingumyjig.
http://hungparliament2010.blogspot.com/2010/01/i-undermentioned-hereby-give-notice.html
I was thinking of average swings by marginality plus a summary statistic
[#marginals won above trend - #marginals lost below trend]
I’ve got a few data entry volunteers for the night, but need more!
107: ‘…there has been some very special quality bulls**t written about my part of the world.’
An excellent and enlightening post. Far better than anything I’ve seen in the Guardian today, which after all these years has suddenly decided to become cheerleader in chief to the DUP and George W Bush.
A suggestion to rationalise Labour’s inner city rotten boroughs and Jack (my chauffeur can drive at 103 mph, just don’t you try it, pleb scum) Straw starts screaming ‘Gerrymandering!” Ah, well, maybe we should listen, as his party are the experts at that, and at introducing a postal voting “system” that would shame a banana republic. Lost any good registers, lately, Jack?
106 - I was pretty much with you there, Yokel
17 - “Don’t worry, I’m geared for a big pre election push.”
Dear god, another 10,000 posts from the smearleader in the offing….
123 and as Polly pointed out today Jack Straw’s bloated Constitutional bill is still going through its stages (the implementation of expenses reforms, changes to rules on peers including throwing out remaining hereditaries and no non-doms, AV referendum). No time to wash up legislation & get a budget through so it looks like 6th May.
72 - I think we can safely say that Jack Straw has finally lost the plot.
What he really hates is the idea of semi-rotten boroughs like Aberavon and Cynon Valley finally being brought up to democratic standards in terms of the number of electors.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8558727.stm
142 SD
yes, it was almost as funny as listening to Jeffery Donaldson on R4 berating the UUP for not voting with Sinn Fein.
133
Tim, What will be the first “Unite” loss
101 / marcia:
Can you give my an idea which newspaper it might have been reported in? I can’t find anything online at the moment.
107 - great post Yokel, it makes a refreshing change to read a bit of common sense on NI politics.
134. A March election is now an impossibility short of legislation being passed in the next few days shortening the defined length of time between the dissolution and the election.
An April 14 budget would imply a June 3 election or possibly May 27 (though the earlier date would mean the locals would be just three weeks before).
Cathy Newman has fact checked the crime stats
cathynewman
We’ve FactChecked Tory v Labour claims on crime here http://bit.ly/bnH1TN
150 - this was sent to councillors last week - from the LD councillor Fraser MacPherson’s website
* The Chief Executive of Dundee City Council e-mailed me late today as follows :
“I am writing to advise you, as a matter of courtesy, that after careful consideration of a wide variety of factors , I have decided as Returning Officer that the count for the 2010 General Election shall occur immediately after the poll closes, with the declaration as soon as practicable thereafter.”
121. Seth - Mr Crosby’s election simulator, I believe, has the constituencies ordered in the approximate order they might declare (Sunderland Central is first on the list). Here is the list in isolation.
http://tinyurl.com/yg3b2cm
Mr Crosby would you like to confirm?
153 - Cathy Newman’s verdict
Because the Tories are quoting from recorded crime figures and Labour are using the British Crime Survey, they’re both coming up with different snapshots that suit their own political agendas. There’s no doubt the Conservatives gaffed originally when they failed to take into consideration the new counting rules, so today’s figures are a definite improvement. But the statistics watchdog boss Sir Michael Scholar hasn’t finished with the Tories yet. He warned the shadow home secretary yesterday that the “selective quotation” of one series of crime statistics without the other “could prove misleading”. But that’s unlikely to stop either party spinning the figures as polling day approaches.
The Tories refused to publish the document in full.
138- That’s one appetizing banana!
What a frakking GOAL.
tim 73
“There are posters on here who think Dave on telly is good, but also that Dave hiding from telly is good, that poll leads widening are good, but not as good as poll leads narrowing, which keeps activists on their toes.”
Certainly there is an element of fallacy here - like saying no one is fat because either you are thin, or if you are fat you are the equivalent of a thin bloke carrying 3 stone of cement everywhere he goes, so the additional exercise must make you thin.
But that is a far cry from the straw man position attacked by Mark Senior. People reason like this not because they think DC is wonderful but because they think he is possibly good enough to scrape a working majority but also possibly not quite good enough. Whereas Brown has only one talent, that of Getting Away With It. Unhappily he has that talent in epic, historic, record-breaking quantities, and if you have that you don’t need anything else.
156 tim
and LABOUR HAVE REFUSED TO PUBLISH THEIR NON DOM DETAILS
Message to Peter from Putney…. I said this morning that I’d do a mea culpa on the April 8th Election Data following a 10th March budget, which looks like it will now pass.
But I’m gripped by the live coverage on BBC Parliament of the Local Government Restructuring debate :eyes roll: relating to Norfolk & Devon and I couldn’t concentrate on writing a think-piece and the verbal jousting from Charles Clarke, who is taking on all comers from the countryside in a bruising encounter.
It gets better…. and now Tony Wright Labour’s member from Yarmouth is on his feet. Gotta go.
It will have to wait until tomorrow.
152. Indeed David H. Which is why I say it would be silly to leave large sums betting on a May election up on Betfair overnight.. just in case he calls a budget for the first wednesday after return from Easter recess.
162. No, you said March.
160 you should have heard Bill Rammell on 5 live this evening.. a masterclass in obfuscation.
107 Yokel, excellent comment. As someone on the spot, do you think the stance of the UUP might move some DUP floaters into the Con/UUP camp?
Marcia, any sign of Labour adopting their sitting MP in Dundee West? Indeed is there any sign of Labour in Dundee?
163, David, when I said March, I was referring to the announcement tomorrow morning about the date of the budget.
158. Which goal??!! They’ve all been brilliant! COME ON YOU GUNNERS!!!
“snatch landrove ALL BUT phased out in combat areas” according to Sky.
so, they are still in use then……
Perhaps the generals didn’t ask that nice Gormo to cough up for new improved vehicles.
167. Nasri. That was special.
re 121 Well Seth you could hazard a guess from here which has the order of declarations for the 1997 and 2001 elections, but there could still be surprise. Watch the 1997 broadcast on Youtube, it’s about the 6th part and the Beeb have Kate Adey rabbiting away in Torquay about the returning officer is clearing his throat and the candidates are gathering, and up pops a newsflash on the bottom of the screen “Labour hold Sunderland South”. They beat everyone else by 20 minutes and everyone except Hamilton by almost an hour, and yet the Beeb didn’t have anyone covering it.
107. Great post Yokel
‘Naked’ Rahm Emanuel adds twist to President Obama’s health reforms
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7055645.ece
Yes!
Best site in the world!!
Ave it!!!
165 - the sitting MP is standing. Labour Councillors are phone canvassing but apart from that I haven’t seen anything else. Complete contrast to 2005. I might move into Dundee West from next week as the East looks fine.
156 So the Tories are being criticised for using real statistics as opposed to pretendy best guess, straw in the wind ones which Labour is using. The Crime Survey keeps telling us crime is going down but I have yet to meet anyone who thinks that is the case.
Thanks jsfl & Chris A for links.
Question for RodC.
Have you stress tested your servers for Election Night peak and average loads?
169. Yes that was brilliant as was Eboue’s!!
165. I think at this point any UUP success will be delivered off areas where they still hold some base and put big personalities in. An awful lot of DUP voters are just as comfortable in the UU camp so cross decking is possible.
The problem is that the party is giving the impression of being all over the place.
hmmmmmmmm
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1256663/First-woman-soldier-killed-Afghanistan-killed-unlawfully-rules-coroner.html
“Wiltshire and Swindon Coroner David Masters highlighted equipment shortages and pledged to raise his concerns with the Ministry of Defence.”
“The coroner heard evidence that soldiers had not been shown how to use metal detectors in the UK due to an equipment shortag”
“An Ebex metal detector became available only four months into the deployment, until which point the soldiers had to scan the ground for improvised explosive devices (IEDs).”
“The inquest heard that the commander of the four soldiers had requested a replacement for their Snatch Land Rover but was refused due to equipment shortages.”
doesn’t quite fit in with Brown’s ramblings to Chilcot
121/124:
Sunderland Central hasn’t even decided whether it’s counting on the night yet! It’s in the “undecided” category at the moment.
There is no such thing as an official order of declarations in advance of election night. All you can do is estimate from previous elections what might happen. Seats which are compact, where no local election is taking place, and where postal votes are not very large will be the first to declare this time.
My guess is that Battersea and Tooting will be the first marginals to come through because Wandsworth is usually the first London borough to declare.
Remember 2005 when Putney was the first marginal seat to change hands?
141, Rod,
“I was thinking of average swings by marginality plus a summary statistic
[#marginals won above trend - #marginals lost below trend]“
Good idea - it’d be a valuable indicator. I’d like to volunteer to help collate on the night, but there’s a very real chance I won’t be available.
re 175 Easterross in case you weren’t reading earlier because the troll BenM so annoyed me yesterday I did a straw poll at work today on whether think crime has gone up or down in the last 5 years. results 30 up and 5 down.
Seth one caveat on using those times is that Scottish seats are of course how considerably bigger.
I dont understand how any Gordon Brown fans can claim the tories are indecisive.Gordon Brown was meant to have an election in 2007, Brown says he wants investment then cuts then investment er em cuts er spend er cut back. Talk about differing.
180 - of course London is having local elections this year, but I stick by my prediction about Battersea and Tooting.
Other marginals which usually come through quickly include Vale of Clwyd, Wirral South, Angus, Southport, Dudley North, Torbay.
The Populus tables are very interesting. Bits to mine:
Before the spiral of silence adjustment, Cons ahead in these seats by 38.5 to 36.3 (an extra 1.4% swing - taking to 8.05% and 117 Labour seats rather than 97. Labour had better hope that the Bashful Blairites are there and turn out, otherwise this poll would indicate a Tory majority pretty much on gains from Labour alone). As an aside, the Conservatives seem to be doing notably better in the C1 demographic (and not as well in the C2 demographic) as previously indicated - which could simply be an illustartion of the variability of such small subsets of the polls. This caveat should be borne in mind throughout the rest of this comment. Unfortunately, if we want to look to see indications of tactical voting (etc.) we’ve got to take them at face value.
Lib Dem “not-really-sure’s” lean more toward Labour than the Conservatives (32% to 21%), as well noted by SthLondon Nick on the previous thread. However, that’s probably not “tactical voting” but rather real churn. Unfortunatelyt the “probably will vote Lib Dem but may change” and the “only leaning Lib Dem and quite possible will change” (51% and 14% respectively) are lumped together, so we can’t say whether these groups will behave differently. Best to assume they’d behave similarly.
On Table 7 we’ve got the classic tactical voting question “If you concluded that your party had no chance of winning and you had to vote Lab or Con to keep the other out, woould you?”
In this, it’s a lot more evenly spread, with (surprisingly) there being (very) slightly more of a desire by Lib Dems to vote Conservative to stop Labour than the other way around. Labour have to turn this around - they banked a lot of “loaned” votes from Lib Dems keeping the Conservatives out in the past (a major source of the UNS distortion); losing these is not survivable. Former Tories who’ve defected (presumably to the Lib Dems or small parties) are more eager to change their vote to stop Labour than former Labourites who’ve defected. Former Lib Dem’s who’ve defected are still more likely to step up alongside Labour, however (which, to my mind, suggests a good deal of churn between the 2005 Lib Dem voters and the prospective 2010 Lib Dem voters).
Table 8 is the preference one: 49% want the Conservatives to win or be biggest party versus 41% for Labour. A good 33% actually prefer a hung Parliament.
Of those who want a majority, 32% want a Tory one against 25% who want a Labour one. Of Lib Dem voters (ie potentially “squeezable”), 54% want the Conservatives to be at least largest party (29% want them with a majority) as against 41% who’d prefer Labour to be at least largest party (18% want them with a majority). That’s not encouraging for Labour.
The most encouraging bit for Labour (apart from the prospective pick-ups from the Lib Dems mentioned by SthLondon Nick) is in Table 10 - which exposes a real uncertainty by these Lib Dems over whether it’s time to change to the Conservatives. Even 17% of indending Conservative voters are either unsure or really believe it’s not time to change (conversely, 10% of Labour voters actually believe that it is time for a change to the Conservatives) and crititcally, 63% of intending Lib Dem voters are unsure over whether it’s time for the Tories. Only 24% of them consider it toime to change over to Cameron. There is still plenty of doubt out there, and that’s where Labour really have their best chance.
Re the “British Crime Survey”…note “British”, doesnt it make you feel proud?!
A box ticker from the “British Crime Survey” came to my house. I sent him away with a flee in his ear because of the loaded questions. As he left, he said he would put me down as “refused to answer” which was definitely NOT the case.
Labour removes crime against old people and crime committed by young people and the stats go down. Who’d thunk it?
And WHY exactly is crime against OAPs not worth recording?
Hope Mikes ready and waiting with tonights YouGov.
What a great thread.
I must congratulate Mike Smithson on his editorship of PB especially these last few weeks of hectic and and narrowing daily polls.
The Standard article must bring hundreds of Londoners (at least) to click on to PB for the first time. Let’s welcome them with a big hello.
Perhaps the “British Crime Survey” is outsourced to YouGov(?)
The daily poll all set to be published at 10pm
The daily poll all set to be published here at 10pm
What’s going to happen tonight?
192 “The daily poll all set to be published here at 10pm
What’s going to happen tonight?”
More Fairy Tale Bedtime Stories from YouGov
186. Very interesting. Looks like it really will come down to the campaign and particularly the TV debates?
192 - I wonder
Front pages
http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/6411/front_pages_wednesday_10th_march_2010.html
According to the Indy, Labour think it’s a good idea to have a pop at Joanna Lumley!
Good to hear Mike. I reakon 39/33/16.
God knows with YouGov voodoo. UKIP lead?
192. Someone will make a comment about the weightings no doubt?
192. Well, since confidence in the Tories is dropping quicker then the share price of a crooked northern Tyneside bank, i would say Labour either level or slightly ahead.
[52] - Kratz:
Budget - 24th March
Election called - 6th April
Dissolution - 8th April
Election - 6th May
Nailed on.
Or:
Budget - 24th March
Awful Sunday dissection of budget - 28th March
Polls slide as reality permeates the national consciousness - 30th March
Brown decides not to call the election as planned, but wait for the polls to turn [again] - 5th April
Minders remind Brown that he can’t procrastinate any further - beginning of May
Election - June
Can easily envisage Brown being spooked into delaying again.
We love Arsenal! XXXXXXXXXOOOOOOO
196. Surely Labour aren’t daft enought to go there again? :O
There seems to be an assumption that the Tories will struggle to win more than about 10 LD seats.
I’m slightly puzzled by this assumption. If the Tories are getting a big enough swing to win nearly 100 Labour seats, it just seems odd to suggest that they won’t be able to win more than 10 LD seats.
Some polls are showing the LDs down on 16% at the moment. If their vote really did fall by 7% compared to 2005, it would be very difficult for tactical voting / personal votes for LD MPs to be so strong that they can counterbalance such a sharp drop in their national support.
There’s only so much you can do to counterbalance the national swing in the majority of seats, although I’m sure there will be a few exceptions.
182. Chris A
“I did a straw poll at work today on whether think crime has gone up or down in the last 5 years. results 30 up and 5 down.”
I can’t find a specific name for it but there is a huge tendency to portray the past as crime-free compared to the present. e.g. statements that when I were a lad no-one ever locked their door - whereas in fact we wouldn’t have had door-locks for so long if they weren’t necessary. I am not sure this bias exists over shorter time scales like 5 years but you need to be very cautious with your straw poll.
196. Yep Labour will never put common sense before a demonstration of gratuitous revenge and spite…..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7407716/Joanna-Lumley-irritates-minister-over-Gurkhas.html
Perhaps she should stand as an independent in his seat?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article7055813.ece
204. As long as rent-a-quote Chris Huhne is sent packing I’m not fussed.
150- Or I might just go bananas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA8VcrqeGuU
172 Plato
“Do you know how awkward it is to have a political argument with a naked man?”
I hope you’re not going to claim experience in this area.
192 - Gordon Brown FIVE MORE GLORIOUS YEARS or LibDems reduced Eastern Whereshire or TORIES on 20%. Goodness knows! Suspect it will all be MOE. Interesting to see if the Tories continue their movement towards 40. Want to see the tables with YouGov as usual…
I’m sure that this has been discussed but I haven’t got time to read two threads. Will Cameron’s humiliation in Ulster damage him more than the Ashcroft affair? Hard to say but it certainly shows the pitfalls of choosing a potential Prime Minister with so little experience.
208 - I wouldn’t count any chickens against any of the yellow peril. Huhne will, staggeringly, be helped by his high profile.
I know, I know.
200. I now expect the gap to start gradually widening in the Tories favour from now on.
Not for anything the tories have done, but horror at what Gordo has done to this country seeping back into the collective conscious. Even YouGov cannot weight any more for Labour, surely.
From 196, looks like lab are believing the polls and are starting to reek revenge upon anyone who has had the affrontary to challenge the leader and his all powerful party.
Do they want Lumley to pistol whip them again?
Some things don’t change…
KUQI = KU**!!!
194, GIN,
Yep - I think that there will be a lot of attention to the reporting of the debates (even if the debates themselves don’t garner a large audience) and the outcome of those could do a lot to increase or decrease that uncertainty.
155. If it’s from the Excel spreadsheet I posted a couple of years back that actually generates its own results I think I took the list from 2005 (with recounts randomly delayed of course), but would have to check.
Again for your delectation, to get you in the mood…
http://www.titanictown.plus.com/electsim.xls
204 - | think some polls are understating the LDs and overstating Labour; this will become evident when people put their X on the paper after taking account of their local situation.
That said, I’m expecting c15-20 net losses to the Tories.
211 - It will register on the radar of about 4 voters.
Two of whom are you and Tim. I don’t think you were planning on voting for him.
On topic:
Have we actually had any new posters tonight? I haven’t noticed any.
212 - care to provide evidence of his humiliation beyond what you and Tim keep telling us and the weird erection the Guardian currently has for the peace-making skills of Dubya?
[204] - The Lib Dems benefited form a big swing towards them in 2005, but didn’t pick up very many seats, because of where the new votes were.
It’s entirely possible for them to lose loads of votes next time and not lose many seats, depending on where the votes are lost.
Conversely, if Patrick is right, and the main movement of voters has been between the Tory and stay-at-home parties, then the Lib Dems could gain vote share at the next election, and still be swamped by the Tory electoral tsunami.
I can’t say I have a very strong opinion, except that the switching information from, for example ICM, does indicate fairly substantial Lib Dem to Tory switching, so the Lib Dems will probably lose many seats to the Tories, but not nearly as many as predicted by UNS using the worst Lib Dem poll score.
206 - “Yep Labour will never put common sense before a demonstration of gratuitous revenge and spite…..”
Yep, nothing but consistant Labour.
How big will the gap be between the raw data lead and the headline figures? I’m going to opt for 9 points between the two.
Oh and Roger, if you did read the thread you would see Tim started on the ‘Cameron humilated in NI’ and was shut up by people telling him, rightly, to stop talking about things he knows bugger all about.
174. “the sitting MP is standing” - got to love the English language.
220. For a newshound you don’t spend much time listening to the news. I’ve been in a car all afternoon and it’s the only story in town. I almost felt sorry for him.
176. No I haven’t. I’ve kept asking people to
i) add “declarations”
ii) volunteer to do so on the night with real results
iii) keep an eye out for any free “feeds” that might appear to help automate the process.
I can only assume that the Google Docs architecture has already been tested sufficiently. I don’t think we’ll have a problem.
224 - Labour attacking Joanna Lumley will shore up the Ghurkha vote.
And you thought there was no master plan..!
204, AndyJS,
Yes - it does seem pretty much accepted these days as received wisdom. It’s not at all certain, IMHO - considering that a 1.7% Con to LD Dem swing last time ended up with a net loss of 2 seats to the Conservatives, the apparent current status of a 4%+ swing from LD to Con would seem to imply that quite a few Lib Dem seats will be swept away despite the construction of standard “Yellow Peril” flood defences.
Chris A.
Ask people if they think child killings have risen since the early 30’s and I bet you they’ll say yes.
Wrong of course.
Our irrational fear of child-killers
Fewer children are dying violent deaths today than at any time since records began. So why do we fear the issue more than ever?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/mar/04/childprotection-bulger
early 70’s
232 We fear it more because it is made public much more widely
Interesting that Neather reports Kellner as rubbishing the idea that the punter’s verdict on elections is more reliable than that of the pollsters. What’s important in betting is not the content of form book, but the punter’s interpretation of the form allied to any inside information that may be available. That is why I prefer to be guided by the betting market rather than the opinion polls.
Wheres that poll?
re 123 the budget does not have to be enacted in full before the election. A simple Finance bill could be swiftly enacted with the Tories’ support.
So for example Darling/Brown could propose in the budget a re-introduction in the 10% rate funded by an lowering of the starting rate for the 40%/50% bands. He could then taunt the Tories into supporting this before the election and use their reluctance against them as a “friends of the rich” party.
And whilst you are right that any resolution passed under the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968 lapses on prorogation or dissolution I imagine that the funds the government voted itself in the Consolidated Fund Act 2009 “The Treasury may issue out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom and apply to the service of the year ending with 31 March 2011 the sum of £219,011,739,000″ will tide it over the election period.
212 Roger
If you read no other post today read Yokel’s at 107.
An insider’s view of the current political developments in NI including the Cameron deal with UUP. A first rate post.
It might help you to see behind the media reportage.
re 232 well tim yes they would be. But that’s not the issue is it? Here’s you and BenM bleating on for all your worth about how this wonderful Labour government has cut crime and they don’t believe you. And there’s not much you can do to change that perception, is there?