No change in the YouGov daily poll
March 18th, 2010| YouGov Daily poll | Mar 18 | Mar 17 |
|---|---|---|
| CONSERVATIVES | 36% | 36% |
| LABOUR | 32% | 32% |
| LIB DEMS | 20% | 20% |
| LAB to CON swing from 2005 | 3% | 3% |
The Tory lead remains at 4 points
So there’s not really a lot to say.
Peter Kellner has published a statement on revisions to their methodology which I plan to look at tomorrow.
Mike Smithson
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Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
yo
Joke!!!!!!!!
3rd
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night all
David Roe:
Why are you lot paying for this?
Lib dem bounce lastinga bit longer than expected.
We aren’t seeing much volatility in the polls, which is very surprising given the massive differences they show between pollsters.
These yougovs are all foreplay and no climax
Same here. I’m off - I bored with this nonsense…..
Toodle Pip!
Looks like a top operation by Greater Manchester Police.
Watching Liverpool is more interesting than these YouGov’s. Not much mind.
32% appear to be entirely happy with the fact that Brown lied to Chilcot
completely OT
but it took 2 hrs to fix this…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8571798.stm
Looks like my response was weighted down!
Off to watch Question Time… Prof Starkey is ALWAYS great value
Labour stuck in the mire, despite the fiddles.
The YouGov polls have supplementary questions that are significant. Possibly more so than the headlines.
re 9 You find it hard to swallow.
Meh… Out of interest I know it’s not officially a tracker, but YouGov PDFs are putting that into their titles…
Lib Dems seem to be stabilising at a higher level than last week. I think every poll this week has had them at 20 or 21
The Sun should just put this thing out of its misery.
19 - yellow card
Where’s that moderator.
Had to come back the Telegraph have an interesting story:
Telegraph: Unite has received £18m of public money under Labour
http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/6792/telegraph_unite_have_received_%C2%A318m_of_public_money_under_labour.html
Dirty rotten stinking Labour corrupt to the core!
“Peter Kellner has published a statement on revisions to their methodology which I plan to look at tomorrow.”
Is that the recent revisions or are they making other changes?
36% appear to be entirely happy with the fact that Hague lied about Ashcroft.
19 - Mike!!!!!!
I’m shocked.
Like Talleyrand I’m left wondering what they mean by this.
http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/6792/telegraph_unite_have_received_%C2%A318m_of_public_money_under_labour.html
From tomorrow’s Telegraph. The figure funnelled into Unite seems to be now at £18 million.
What are the odds of two successive polls producing identical results on a sample size of ~1500, assuming that there is no change in the underlying voting intentions of the general population? Got to be fairly small I think…
No change. Wibbler’s point at 8 is very apposite - the various polls do all seem to be measuring rather different things. The key question is who is measuring the actual opinion of the electorate?
TSE, FPT - you’re more than welcome. Will you be at Dirty Dicks? Should be irresistible for you, surely …
One thing this poll is showing, that there is an Angus Reid like stability with these yougovs, bar the the odd sub MOE change
BBC still have their Ashcroft OCD thing going on…
26 - He never got above 30% when he was leader.
have yougov been told that just to poll labour mps might not be a representative sample?!
Oh dear. Ashcroft returns.
24. I find no other word for it, then corruption. I imagine it will be one of the David Camerons first acts, to stop it, and democratise the political levy and put it in the hands of the individual members.
Mandy says more tax rises to come,
http://www.politicshome.com/images/1.3.10/tele1903.JPG
31 - Sadly I won’t be able to make dirty dicks.
I’ll be stuck in Leeds for all of the day.
According to Yougov the most popular Conservative Leader in almost 20 years only pushes up its vote by 10% since 2005.
DUH.
Shurely schome mishtake?
The question for our statisticians is whether under Yougov’s weighting systems it is possible for the Conservatives to get as high as 42%?
If the GE was called tomorrow according to Yougov, Labour would get 4 times as many voters to vote for them as they got in June 2009. Amazing stuff.
Yay! Ashcroft 2nd up on News at 10! To quote Hague drowning in the mire: “glug, glug, glug!”
33 Gives another chance for Chris Huhne to shine with a comment…..
Beeb News at 10 still leading on Ashcroft FFS and then admit he’s done nothing wrong!
Nothing on Browns Porkies to Chilcott of course
Almost one third of the electorate demonstrate that they are unfit to breed!
30. The probability of each of all possible results is small though. The question is whether it is significantly smaller than any other possible result, and the answer to that is no.
Amazing how the impartial BBC manages to forget about certain stories after a few hours and make others run for over a week. Their OCD over Ashcroft doing nothing wrong, reminds me of their coverage of Squeaky and Yacht-gate.
One in five of the electorate cant make up thier minds as to who they want to breed with or indeed if they want to breed at all!
Taxpayer £’s –> Labour Govt. –> £’s to UNITE –> £’s to Labour = Labour Govt.
And you wonder why Ashcroft doesn’t want to voluntarily pay taxes here?
40 - The fact that Hague is unfit for high office is not news.
BBC Bias!
Marquee Mark March 18th, 2010 at 10:07 pm BBC still have their Ashcroft OCD thing going on…
This is going to cost the BBC about £1 off the Licence fee for each day they run it. We could be back to a licence fee under £100 after the GE (I Hope).
Spoiler alert
It would appear that tonight we’ve seen a Twitter first, a Conservative party press officer tweeting from backstage as BBC Question Time is recorded
http://tory-politico.com/2010/03/a-twitter-first/
… And the Tories’ foolish and petulant decision to leave the European Peoples Party grouping in the European Parliament to cosy up to Waffen SS sympathisers looks set to do more damage!
41 – Toenails is doing his bit too, his blog has just had another two consecutive threads on Ashcroft to go with the other 5 already done– and yet 90% of the comments ask for his opinion on Chilcott and Brown’s dishonesty.
It’s Yacht-Gate all over again.
Tim Even you must admit that what matters more is Brown misleading Chilcott over defence spending to fund soldiers in conflict compared to Hague misleading Blair over a few million of tax?
YouGov is a great example of “Hope and Change”.WeCook.
Someone wake me up when Brown goes to the Palace. I’m sick of this boring phony way. Ashcroft. UNITE. Lord Paul. YouGovs dull tracker thats not a tracker. Time is just dragging so badly now….
50 - Any idea when Labour are going to take a principled stand over over the PES continued support for the banned Turkish terrorist mouthpiece? Or are they happy to be in the same European group as them?
A number of us have said it before:
A bloke who sets up Crimestoppers, save’s VC’s for the country and funds Help for Heroes is a bit of a hero himself.
Does the man on the street care about the same bloke funding the tories. Do they buggery.
As for labour being the political wing of Unite, the union that screws up peoples holidays, the bloke on the street gets that and doesn’t like it.
BenM Brown put at risk soldiers lives through underfunding.
Here’s Matt:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/
54 But 7 weeks time - and we’ll be waiting on that Sunderland result!
24 That cannot be true surely it would have been mentioned on the Beeb if that was the case as the top story!
Or maybe not?
There is a role for You Gov daily polls
1.Measuring change week to week based on the avearge of the five polls during a week
Results so far
Week comm 22Feb Con 38.2,Lab 33.0,Lib 17.4,Oth 12.4.Lead 5.2
Week comm 01Mch Con 38.4,Lab 32.4,lib 17.2,Oth 11.6.Lead 6.0
Week comm 08Mch Con 37.2,Lab 33.2,Lib 17.4,Oth 12.4.Lead 4.0
Week comm 14Mch Con 36.5,Lab 32.0,Lib 20.0,Oth 11.5.Lead 4.5
The last week is based on 4 out of 5 polling dates.Open tp interpretation!
2.A potentially valuable role for the polls is to aggregate the weekly figures which should provide large enough regional smples to be statistically valid.I would suggest that Youi GOV do that for each week to date and we might get some useful data.
Of couse all the absolute figures ideally require weighting by certainity to vote to give us figures thatt do not overepresent Labour and under represent Cons and Lib dems
Oth
I think the Tories are wonderful - now will you put up my post?
Ashcroft’s millions in avoided tax could have paid for equipment for Afghanistan.
re48
Why do people insist on paying it all when you know that it is subsidising the Labour Party propaganda and providing job openings for failed Trots!?
What’s the problem? Whatever Ashcroft’s tax status is, it’s legal and agreed with HMRC. He can donate what the f$ck he likes to any political party he cares to name.
The big corruption issue is that the Executive can appoint members of the Legislature in the first place, it would be great to see Cameron and Hague come out against that one.
62
88 get back to trot school you numpty
62 - So could Lord Paul and alike….So could all the people Lord Myners helped (including himself)….
Seems pretty clear that the reduction in Tory lead has now stopped, and that the lead has now stabilised. Difficult to know what the lead actually is - depends on your preferred pollster I guess - but whatever the lead it isn’t moving much at the moment.
Key question is what event will shift things again (Cashcroft, Sam’n'Dave, Chilcot) appear to have had little effect), and in which direction will it go. I guess we need to wait for the budget - surely that must shift things again one way or another.
56 Here is a list of the VC’s sold recently - you can see how many Ashcroft has bought for the nation - and how many millions he has spent doing so.
http://www.victoriacross.org.uk/aaauctio.htm
These will all go to the nation.
Thank you, Lord Ashcroft.
Here is the Unite story in the Telegraph (complete with fetching picture of Charlie Whelan),
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7473683/Union-behind-BA-strike-receives-18m-from-taxpayers-in-money-laundering-deal-with-Labour.html
64 - They already have but there are one or two things further up the list of priorities such as making sure Britain doesn’t go bust.
66 And so could all the billions wasted on pointless crap by the Labour government.
Given how many wars we have been fighting, if defence spending has risen by only 12% in real terms since 1997 that is pitiful. Of NuLab wants to fight wars, it should have the balls the raise taxes for them and to tell the electorate that’s what it’s doing.
Anything repeated becomes meaningless and the Ashcroft stuff passed this point a while ago, it’s just passing by without even registering any more. Expenses mattered because it developed over the time that it was news and had a link to people’s representatives in parliament. There is a world of difference.
Things which *directly* affect voters will sink in, a party that sticks to that will win the message war, a media outlet that does so will win the viewer/reader/listener battle.
Reporting the news that exercises those inside the bubble just increases contempt for those inside the bubble, it’s self harming behaviour for any party or media outlet that does it.
Reading changes its mind:
http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/s/2067711_reading_election_count_to_run_overnight
67. Last two Budgets have been terrible for Labour in the polls and both have been the start of a downward decline thats taken them into two disasterous election drubbings.
Will this year be three in a row?
62
So could the millions corruptly laundered to Unite under the “Union Modernisation fund”
Aberdeen to count on election night:
http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/CouncilNews/ci_cns/pr_votenight_160310.asp
A new nationwide Conservative poster campaign to be revealed within days will show the party adopting a more negative message.
Gordon Brown and his handling of the economy are the main targets of the second billboard campaign by the Tories, according to insiders.
The new blitz, considerably larger than the first, is intended to help the Conservatives to regain the initiative in the run-up to the election.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7067798.ece
70 Really? What’s the Tory party on the HoL then?
69 - Hmm that picture makes him look like a country farmer.
tim = charlie whelan and I claim my modernisation fund
78 Party = policy
I blame the beer, it was that last pint of Arkell’s Kingsdown.
62 Or 100 more Quangos filled with non-jobs.
Isn’t it your bed time yet?
re62
It might have if Brown had a basic grasp of Arithmetic, which he doesn’t!
72. “Things which *directly* affect voters will sink in, a party that sticks to that will win the message war, a media outlet that does so will win the viewer/reader/listener battle.”
Agreed. This is why the UNITE stuff hasn’t really caught fire yet amd won’t as long as the strike gets called off. If it doesn’t get called off and voters start having their holidays cancelled….
However theres so much a stake that Labour can’t allow this strike not to get called off.
Seems from Whelan’s tw@ttering the Rant on Sunday is digging for dirt on him…
42: IainM March @ 22:10
“Almost one third of the electorate demonstrate that they are unfit to breed!”
Sounds about right, if perhaps a tad on the low side, at least where I am. However, I cannot imagine any of that group registering with You Gov or being capable of reading, let alone understanding the questions in poll. Who are these people that You Gov find?
by
62. Or they could have been paid into the Trade Union Modernisation fund.
why are the torys 4% ahead in the polls,they are the same old tory party….nasty,take a long hard look at the tory party.
78 - Fully elected House, I can’t find it online but know it is there somewhere.
68
Ah! patriotism the last refuge of the scoundrel.
All that VC stuff who does that remind me of: I know!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Bottomley
43: That wasn’t the question I asked. To simplify, if the MOE is 3% then +/-1.5% lies within 1 s.d. with a ~2/3rds chance. With 4 party groups (including others), there are 3 independent party measurements, so the chance of the poll showing changes of less than 1.5% for all parties is 2/3rds cubed, or ~30%. For each poll result to lie within +/-0.5% of the previous one, the answer is under 6.5% chance.
PB is going down hill. Smithson is peddling a political narrative for change and the narcistic and hysterical pro Tory comments on here do the web sitea disservice.
I see many intellectual posters have stopped. PBC is in danger of people turning away.
Derek Hatton on This Week. Now we’ll get some sense
87 ***t
78 - Because they are more popular than your tired, vacuous, dispiriting, divided, noxious, nauseating and hopeless excuse for a government.
92….and from Starkey!?
91 ‘I see many intellectual posters have stopped.’
I’m still here!
92 - I thought he was too busy for politics these days, as he playing at being a big shot property developer in Cyprus. Or has that gone down the pan?
95 PB village needs you.
94 was for 87
91 - Are we supposed to know who you are or something?
74 - Yes that’s true.
I suspect how Darling performs might just be the defining moment for this election. Goes badly and all downhill - goes well and it puts Labour back on the front foot. It is certainly possible that Darling (and possibly Labour hopes) may crash and burn on budget day.
But it is perhaps very significant that just this week we have seem both unemployment, and crucially claimants falling. Also the report today indicating that the deficit this year wont be as bad as forecast. This might allow Darling to give a cautiously optimistic budget and use the less than expectedly bad budget deficit as a lever to say that he will follow with his plans which will have greater effect on deficit reduction while protecting support for the fragile recovery.
This puts Osborne in the difficult position of trying to continue to justify earlier and deeper cuts for a deficit which we now know is not as bad, and not growing as much as expected. If he doesn’t adjust his plans it begins to look as if he is cutting because he wants to, rather than cutting because he has to.
Now the economics behind this is clearly up for debate (and I don’t you’d get much consensus if you picked 100 eminent economists at random), but the politics is about the message and the plausibility of the approach and Darling/Osborne as chancellor.
Why can’t we have some David Starkeys in the Shadow Cabinet?
Common sense views, sensible solutions, gravitas, and the boot in to Labour.
Sigh…
Question Time audiences have continually mocked Labour for weeks. Yet YouGov thinks they’ve not lost ground since 2005.
95 - Any report on the Ipswich game? Where you there?
we love starkey
100 - I think it depends if Darling reads out his own budget or the one prepared by the crazed spendaholic that lives next door to him!
Of course we all know that this poll, boring as it might be, really means a Tory landslide with a majority of 140.
It also means that 64% of the electorate are not willing to vote for a Tory government, and 68% will not cast an X for a NuLabour Government.
So whoever wins [?] the forthcoming election is going to be hated by an awful lot of people, that is, of course on the basis of this boring poll.
With 32% voting for the minor parties it would seem that first past the post will lead to a similar result to PR.
Democracy - where nobody wins. Now that’s a slogan I can live with.
103 ave it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
no i was in the pub!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes the great escape!!!!
95 - Vicarage Road, your intellectual is missing.
David Starkey is good fun and usually much more right wing than the actual conservative on the panel but I don’t think he does the tories any favours. Awful start from Marg!
62 88
Ashcroft’s millions in avoided tax could have paid for equipment for Afghanistan.
All avoided tax could pay for additional state provided services.
The problem is that it is not illegal to avoid tax. Most sensible taxpayers pay the minimum tax that they are legally required to pay. If they wish to contribute further to the community in which they pay tax, they can and do make charitable contributions.
Unless some evidence to the contrary emerges, it would be safe to assume that Lord Ashcroft has paid all tax that he is legally required to pay in the United Kingdom. In addition, he has made very substantial contributions to worthy charitable causes in the UK.
Properly funding British troops at war is a responsibility of the government. The Labour government have both failed in their responsibility and lied about their failure.
108 **n*
Lightweight Lansley
434 Tim
“26 - He never got above 30% when he was leader.”
Would you please explain what this is supposed to mean?
Thank you
I’m beginning to think that YouGov have already factored in all those dodgy postal votes.
113
Sorry, 434 = 34
PB is in rude health, just more banter now as the labour tribe seem to have got their confidence back and the Tories are still here. In the past it has been more dominated by one side or the other.
Lots of quality now, BenM excepted.
111,thank god you missed the letters out,I got banned for that,I had to become a lib dem to get back on
Starkey is, as usual, quite brilliant. More please
113 - Hagues approval ratings never reached 30% while he was leader.
36% quoted as supporting his Ashcroft positioning is actually a triumph for William.
100 “Unemployment” hasn’t fallen at all, as the Economically Inactive figures are rising. Here is one thing that has caused the claimant count to drop. From 1 April, you will only need 30 years’ NI contributions for a full pension, formerly it was 44 years for men and 39 for women. So a lot of people whose Contribution Based Jobseekers Allowance runs out after 6 months and are not entitled to Income Based JSA (because they have a partner who works, or too much savings) would have continued to claim to get NI Credits. Now they don’t bother, and become classed as Economically Inactive instead, although they are just as much unemployed and looking for a job.
Ooh Charlie looks to have aged a lot since I last saw him.
Caroline Lucas speaks rather well but it would be better if she knew what she wanted to say rather than reading it.
BBC gives in to right wing pressure.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ashcrofts-lawyers-silence-panorama-1923210.html
no surprise there.
Lansley.
I want more Lansley on TV.
121 - Or had anything sensible to say at all. State funding of political parties is an insane idea.
Is Starkey actually Harvey Denton?
http://www.lunacynet.com/league/char_dentons.html
YouGov is either being very stupid or very clever in saying the Labour vote is hardly down on 2005.
We’ll know on May 7th.
re100
Only thing wrong with your analysis is that nobody believes the figures! Except for those who intend to vote for Labour and I dont think that even they believe them!
Although Osbourne is clearly a lightweight and I dont understand why Cameron does not replace him! As for Darling being Chancellor post the GE, well thats not going to happen! Labour are not going to get an overall majority and in the event of a hung parliament then I think that the price of a coalition with the Lib Dems is going to be Cable as Chancellor?
117 hahahahahahahahaha!
But mike didnt make you become a huddersfield fan then?!
123. A shame though that he can’t answer a straight question - namely whether he’d support BA if it was to go bust. Ducked the question completely.
Looking forward to Starkey getting very annoyed about this question (GB misleading Iraq Inq)!
119 36% was an opinion poll Party voting intention - not approval rating.
I have counted over 90 opinion polls during Hague’s leadership when the Tories got over 30%.
You were being deliberately obtuse, methinks.
100 Professor Davey
This puts Osborne in the difficult position of trying to continue to justify earlier and deeper cuts for a deficit which we now know is not as bad, and not growing as much as expected. If he doesn’t adjust his plans it begins to look as if he is cutting because he wants to, rather than cutting because he has to.
Now the economics behind this is clearly up for debate (and I don’t you’d get much consensus if you picked 100 eminent economists at random), but the politics is about the message and the plausibility of the approach and Darling/Osborne as chancellor.
You have read the political tactics of Brown and Darling correctly. It is the manipulation of public expectations.
The problem with this approach is that it is the real size of both the deficit and the national debt that is critical and not its size relative to the Chancellor’s last forecast. Similar caveats should be applied to claiming that unemployment is falling: the headline job claimant figure is falling but the real underlying position is that long-term employment is rising, total in employment is falling and the difference between ‘real’ and ‘recorded’ unemployment is artificial short term employment stimulated by additional and - over the long term - unfundable borrowing.
On the 100 Economics Professors all disagreeing, that is far less relevant than a similar number of foreign currency traders and bond speculators. The financial markets and not academics will deliver the true verdict on a budget that fails to address the medium term deficits, long term debt and the need to structurally rebalance the economy.
124 James, could I suggest that individuals’ contributions to Political Parties should (up to an agreed limit) be exempt from Income Tax? I can donate to charities, and they get the tax back; I do so by filling in some basic facts on my Tax return. This shows that “society” approves of charitable giving. I do not want to make Parties into Charities, but a little bit of support from the State in those narrow circumstances would make local parties go and get new members.
128
never,I rather go to lib dem voice,before that 
I thought QT was coming from Wythenshawe ? This is natural Labour territory surely ?
127 - It only take a small proportion of the key swing voters to believe this for the election result to be completely up in the air, or even turned on its head.
The point about this is that many people are likely to want to believe it - because (except for those hard core Tories) most people want to believe we are not f****d and want to see the fragile recovery nurtured and supported.
Actually all this does it focus on the key issue for Osborne - he needs to convince the public that he is cutting because he has to and it is the last and only option - rather than cutting because he wants to for idealogical reasons.
129 Well I shall watch QT on iPlayer tomorrow.
But I can quite see why Lansley might duck that question.
The correct answer is that it is a vital part of capitalism that cr*p companies are allowed to go bust, as inefficient corporations should not be supported - instead they should be replaced by efficient ones.
In fact, it does not take much imagination to accept that we would all be better off if BA went bust and its routes were taken over by the likes of Ryan Air, Easy Jet, Air Berlin and Jet Airways.
BUT it takes a politician will real cullions to express an opinion in favour of real capitalism on national TV.
133 - I think that that would be a potential route through it.
This QT audience really dislikes Gordon Brown, doesn’t it?
A really hostile audience for Labour on QT tonight.
From Manchester. The sea of red that is Manchester.
Granted, folk from Altrincham and leafy Cheshire may have ventured forth to Wythenshawe, making it a bit more Tory than on the ground - but will their wheels still be there when they come out?
123 tim
I want more Lansley on TV.
You wash will come true from May 7th 2010.
Chill.
Lamentable QT.
Lansley is a boring dork.
Starkey is a mentholated primadonna.
Beckett is a lying hag.
The Green woman is just a Trot with eco-sensitive cheekbones.
Kennedy is a visibly tiring sot.
At least the audience hate Gordon.
134
7 weeks time….
Con gain Sunderland Central
Cheerio tim!!!
137 This is one episode of QT that Gordon Brown should watch on iPlayer; it’s turning out to be rather interesting.
139 - Yes
141 tim
wish even
Broadland DC Taverham North LibDem gain from Conservative
LibDem 630 Con 471 Green 54
2007 result Con 497/478 Libdem 344/307 Ind 295/240
An excellent win for Nich Starling aka NorfolkBlogger
132 - ‘that is far less relevant than a similar number of foreign currency traders and bond speculators.’
Hmm - and of course post-credit crunch we really put financial traders at the top of our trust-worthy league!
The position seems fairly clear at the moment - the Tories are only slightly ahead without certainty to vote being counted, but have a lead of 8 or so with current voting certainty. That fits with our canvass data in marginals with sitting MPs and seems reasonably consistent. Like Prof Davey I don’t expect drastic change till after the Budget (if then) - neither Unite nor Ashcroft are interesting voters much. The leader debates may turn out to be decisive in the end.
Broxtowe’s been persuaded after some hesitation to count on the night so Tories here can look forward to their “Palmer moment” - perhaps.
147 - nice to see a blogger triumph! Still hope Iain Dale gets a candidacy somewhere.
142. genius. are your books that funny?
Goody, yet more strikes on the way according to the times front page: trains are next. Now that really will get under peoples skin. Thanks labour!
Re Wythenshawe - from Wikipedia:
“It is still considered a safe Labour seat, with Labour securing over 50% of the vote (and more than twice as many votes as its nearest rival) in the past three elections. … Wythenshawe typically returns all Labour councillors in local elections, although in the 2008 elections the Liberal Democrats gained a seat in Northenden.”
There must have been a mass invasion of the Cheshire Set if tonight’s crowd is anything to go by…
Rather a Balls eruption than a NPMP moment.
Beckett goes on QT a fair bit, my impression is cabinet members go on a lot less… fair to say?
When did Ed last go on? I gather Gordon hasn’t done QT since 1997!!! Ok not as PM but why not as Chancellor - scared of facing the public?
Tony Blair has earnred 20 million since leaving office.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1259030/Blairs-fight-oil-cash-secret-Former-PMs-deals-revealed-earnings-2007-reach-20million.html
Mike knows my thoughts on YouGov…
And until this poxy election is over you won’t be hearing much from me
Good night campers
147/149 - Any chance of the Lib Dems getting him as a candidate in a winnable seat?
QT audiences in Labour areas seem to be stridently anti-Labour. Last week Dewsbury, now Manchester.
When is QT coming to Nottinghamshire so we can see if your claims that Labour support is holding up well in your area is borne out on TV, Nick?
Brown (being caught) lying to the Iraq Inquiry is a game changer, in my opnion.
Two contradictory thought on Brown to ponder.
1.If Labour had a popular leader, this election would see in a fourth term comfortably, such is the ineptness of the Conservative Party.
2.Brown is more popular than Blair in 2005 but is likely to lose.
153 - Well he did so well when he met the public on the Politics Show last Sunday. The last time before that he took live questions was the infamous R4 car crash (and that is putting it nicely)….
brown’s toast already if the Wythenshaw mob are laughing at him as on QT tonight
ps Nobody from Altringham will go anywhere near Wythenshaw
152: Bob Sykes @ 23:10
Have you considered the alternative? Waht would it mean if ther had not been an invasion of the “Cheshire Set”?
live questions -> live questions (from real members of the public)
147 all about the big results!!!
152: QT audiences are the a significant extent by invitation to the local political parties, and in Manchester I’ve heard that not only the Tories but the LibDems are very anti-Labour?
152 - Having lived in Cheshire for a little over 3 months, I can say with some certainty, the Cheshire set wouldn’t be seen dead in Wythenshawe.
162 everyone’s anti-labour!!!!
(except on yougov!
)
This audience REALLY hates Gordon.
People wonder if this election is gonna be 92 or 97 all over again, I think it’s gonna be 92, but with the Tories of 92 led by a fat, silly, scotch-pie-eating Lev Beria.
Used to live in Cheshire for 20 years and only went near Wythenshaw on the motorway. A bit like Baltimore at times
90. “For each poll result to lie within +/-0.5% of the previous one, the answer is under 6.5% chance.”
I think you will find the answer is considerably smaller. More like 0.15%. You need to take account of rounding (censoring) of the the polls as well as sampling error.
164 - Too many dealers?
But he’s suspended now.
O/T - I can see some posters moving to France
Bring back the brothel, says female French MP
Chantel Brunel, of ruling party, says licensed bordellos would protect women from violence – and polls say the public agree
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/18/france-brothel-prostitution-female-mp
Having family who live on the Wythenshawe no one there would ever admit to being a Conservative and expect to survive…
163, 166 - I don’t disagree; but there look to be more than a sprinkling of folk in that audience who haven’t just stepped off the set of Shameless. Which, of course, is filmed in Wythenshawe.
Perhaps the Beeb bussed them in with a police escort?
154 - Given some of the Labourites screams about Ashcroft up thread, be interesting to know how much tax Tony pays on those earnings! We already know his money disappears into a black hole of a network of 12 (non)companies.
168
163 - One thing about N.Cheshire is that the coke in Alderly Edge travels over the M/CH postcode border given the high demand.
162 - Even people who previously voted Labour will pause to vote for a man who has admitted lying to an Inquiry into the conduct and funding of a war.
QT audience doesn’t seem to know that 32% of them are supposed to be backing Gordo.
Has anyone asked what Blair’s tax status is these days? Is he resident for >91 days per year?
168 tim
On your increasingly frequent forays into Cheshire society, do your hosts demand that you leave your voting intentions outside the door?
@170, I think what it tells us that perhaps they had problems getting a politically balanced audience from the surrounding area.
162 - Nick P.
Most Tories in Manchester, like in Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield vote Lib Dem
171 - Shameless is filmed in Gorton.
Lansley just has to start talking, and by his second sentence I am having a diabetic hypo and lapsing into unconsciousness.
41.”Beeb News at 10 still leading on Ashcroft FFS and then admit he’s done nothing wrong!”
And yet Nick Robinson noted almost as a little footnote on the DP’s that Charlie Whelan (Political director of UNITE), wanted to be Brown’s official spokesman during the General Election campaign!!
Has he ever reported on the government using taxpayers money for the Trade Union Modernisation Fund while the Unions pour money into the Labour Party? It still amazes me that Union members pay their subscriptions, the taxpayer gives this fund millions, and no one puts these Union donations to the Labour party under more scrutiny.
Caroline Lucas on QT wants us to go down the route of taxpayer funded parties, we are already doing that right now, its called the Communications allowance. But again, by far the biggest beneficiary of that money is the Labour party and their MP’s.
Only one party is giving the Unions taxpayer money right now, and they are this Labour government. And only one party are being funded to the tune of millions by the Unions, and that is the Labour party. Which politician instigated the Trade Union Modernisation Fund, who is benefiting directly from Unite funded employee’s in the heart of Downing Street?
And to listen to NickP&Co bleat about Ashcroft’s role in targeting the marginals for the Conservatives while he picks up UNITE money and that Communications allowance is absolute hypocrisy! He complained a while ago about the Conservatives getting a funded party agent. Yet Margaret Beckitt tonight didn’t want to discuss the UNITE funded agent in her area.
And where is the MSM on this isssue? The BBC goes again on a non story about Ashcroft and we have about the 8 Guardian front page on this too. The Telegraph have done a couple of nasty and personalised attacks on Nadine Dorries today, and because she stood up to them and incurred the wrath of the owners. But has the BBC been feeling sore about Ashcroft causing problems for their Panorama programme? IIRC, he was quite relaxed about this programme being made and it was being put out that it was going to be aired after the GE. But today, I read somewhere that they had wanted to show it in the run up to the GE? Were they planning an equal campaign coverage programme about the funding of the Labour party or the Libdems and their donors too? Or was the mystique about Ashcroft just too hard to resist?
front pages,
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Fridays-Papers—Newspaper-Front-Pages-For-Friday-March-19-2010/Media-Gallery/201003315576771?lpos=UK_News_Left_Promo_Region_0&lid=GALLERY_15576771_Fridays_Papers_-_Newspaper_Front_Pages_For_Friday_March_19%2C_2010
174 - Tim, in Styal I’m surrounded by Chief Executives, Bankers, Lawyers, Footballers and WAGS, all the above, they drink Champagne, not coke.
Can I say Dimitar Berbatov is a god, he’s got me tickets to the match on Sunday
@177 Has anyone asked what Blair’s tax status is these days? Is he resident for >91 days per year?
by It doesn’t add up… March 18th, 2010 at 11:21 pm
Actually the taxman says that doesn’t matter anymore, you can move abroad and have to pay back UK tax 30 years later.
167: So what is the chance that YouGov are fixing their polls? Even if you look at the run for a party on its own over several days, there’s rather less variation than might be expected I reckon.
135- Wythenshawe and Sale East straddles Manchester and Trafford, its a rotten borough where Labour win on low turnouts.The TV programme in which Fergie (sarah not Alex) built a community centre was filmed here.There are some tory councilors from the Sale bit.It also contains a Manchester council ward which is the most likely to return a tory councilor( the sole tory on Manchester council is a lib dem defector).It also has the highest tory council votes of any of the Manchester constituencies.
182 - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7473683/Union-behind-BA-strike-receives-18m-from-taxpayers-in-money-laundering-deal-with-Labour.html
Good times! Hopefully Brillo has a go tomorrow on the Daily Politics!
The Tories must be praying Margaret Beckett plays a central role in the election campaign for Labour. She must be worth a point or two for the Tories, at least. She’s even making Lansley look good…
178 - I suspect that TSE has more contact with the plus four, four by four polo set than I do, tending myself towards the more stylish, conversational corners of Osborne County.
189 - Why did I back Margaret Beckett to become speaker?
I don’t generally partake in silly conspiracy theroies about the BBC. That said I listened to the news while in the car and was just absoluetly gobsmacked. The first item was Ashcroft delivered in tones and with pauses that were reminiscent of a national disaster. Then having dwelled and egged up the issue repeatedly for days they then ludicrously and cynically had a bloke on saying in effect that people were sick of the negative way the parties were concentrating on counter allegations!!!
185 - Berbatov is definitely a God, he rests on Sundays.
184: Presumably the coke is for snorting, not drinking or burning.
190 ‘On your increasingly frequent forays into Cheshire society, do your hosts demand that you leave your voting intentions outside the door?’
And the silver next to the front door when he leaves.
I have made this poll up…
Con 42 (352)
Lab 29 (230)
LDs 18 (42)
Others 10 (28)
tim 1 (-2)
Con maj 54
and I’m sending it to yougov to see if they will put it in saturday’s sun!
Wythenshawe is indeed a crap hole. But it is still better than Adswood which is where I suspect tim actually lives, failing that he may really be at rock bottom and come from Brinnington.
167 I can’t be a**ed to work it out but it is rather greater than 6.5% . The key is that the figures of the 4 parties/groupings are linked not totally Independent , if 1 is up 1% then another must be down 1% , if 3 are unchanged then the 4th must be unchanged etc .
Wythenshawe and Sale East
Labour
Paul Goggins
Maj 10,827
Lab 18,878 (52.2%)
Lib 7,766 (21.5%)
Con 8,051 (22.3%)
Oth 1,489 (4.1%)
Tot 36,184 (100%)
Ele 74,542
Anthony Wells 2005 Nominals
What did you say about Shameless?
194 - Oh, I’m a pepsi man myself.
196. They’ll process that into a labour lead
199 - Now, that is a seat ripe for the Lib Dems to be squeezed.
Vote Yellow, Get Brown.
186. No provable chance. You just don’t have enough data to draw any reliable conclusion. The same issue was raised over ARPO.
In any case, it should be noted that few if any pollsters now do truly random sampling, so the sums we are both playing around with are purely theoretical…
196 - Applying my Labour Loyal Disloyal weighting that comes outs as
Con 22
Lab 49
LDs 18
Others 10
tim 1
Oooh we might find some people who still plan to vote Labour next week in Glasgow.
167 Rod Crosby. “You need to take account of rounding (censoring) of the the polls as well as sampling error.”
A question on rounding. I notice that pollsters only show whole numbers in their headline figures.
If the data from a voting intention survey shows Labour on 29.5%, does the pollster usually round it DOWN to 29%, or UP to 30%? (Leaving aside YouGov, who would round it up to 33%, of course)
202
Is Labour Disloyal the new name for Blairites?
198. Nope. The OP said that underlying opinion didn’t change, so there is no correlation to consider…
Someone get the procotologist, there is a frozen narwhal’s spear up Caroline Lucas’s puritanical butt.
203 Vote blue get boy George and financial disaster for all .
Seems that slogan is proving rather more successful than yours .
212 - Mark, you mean we’ve not already had financial disaster for all?
Remind me, did you win that bet, when you said, there would be no recession? as recessions only ever happened up the Tories?
It appears we have just seen an audience full of labour-loyally disloyal…
212 Yes Mr Senior, as the Lib Dems trail in the third place.
212 - and financial disaster for all.
Mark, you didn’t see the worst economic recession in history coming nor do you seem to be aware we are still in it..!
You are best ignored on matters fiscal.
198: Are you assuming that there is some underlying change to be accounted for? I’m assuming no underlying change at all, with all the variation due to sampling errors. Sampling errors on each party are independent, but one degree of freedom is lost because the sum (including others) must be 100%.
209 scrapheap
Aren’t ‘Labour Disloyal’ postal votes?
I think Mark Senior should pay a special rate of personal VAT!
215 True but increasing whereas the Sleazy Ashcroft Conservatives are slipping .
Its Derek Hannon live on TV.
207. I think they round up, which would be the convention. But the “Alabama paradox” means that the totals in some cases could come to 101%. In which case I don’t know how they handle that…
Mark Senior =
Degsy on Castle Street, outside the finest Town Hall in the country…
guidofawkes
YouGov: Majority think BA strike is ‘unjustified’ http://cot.ag/9W5RYr
7 weeks time:
Cheltenham…Con gain from LD!!!!
Evening all.
There shouldn’t really be tracker polls until the election campaign formally gets under way IMHO.
re206
For a bit of snow they will tell you whatever you want to hear dude!
Derek Hatton on the telly…
fantastic end to the week for the blue team,
wraps up the best week this year for the blues!
Crosby
Is that you in the background stalking Derek Hatton?
I wasn’t around for Hatton in the 80s. Did he always come across as such a charmless little c**t?
227 There are no tracker polls now !!!!!
207: 0.50% rounds upwards. 0.49% rounds downwards (we actually had that in a poll the other day, IIRC).
Hatton is 62.
Never trust anyone who spends that much on number plates and plastic surgery.
His nose has had so much work, he’s a helium revolutionary.
227 – Evening Sunil, for the summer hols, have you thought about photographing all the railway stations within the M25 that were closed by Mr Beeching..?
You mat have to do some walking tho.
233. That’s what selling your soul does for you.
230. No, I thought he was stalking me last week when I saw him in Crosby.
Maybe he’s moved to Blundellsands.
Never mind Hatton, who’s the big bloke in the black dress sitting next to Portillo?
Diane Abbott speaks sense on UNITE.
224 - From where he nearly destroyed the Labour Party and was one of the key reasons for the death of British socialism.
Huzzah! Medal for Degsy.
188.Max, just caught up with this story, and I am gobsmacked! Guido did this story a few years ago, and the MSM totally ignored it. I knew about the Trade Union Modernisation Fund, but what the hell is this Union Learning Fund??!! Again, who created this second Fund that seems to have been totally ignored, this is a complete racket. I am just at the point where words totally fail me.
238 Diane Abbott spouts the Whelan smokescreen line on UNITE.
233 - I sold* my soul a few years ago. Best thing I ever did.
*More of a complicated lease buyback, than an actual sale.
Simon St Clare.
Well I’ve a London Railway Atlas handy (Ian Allan, naturally!), so I’m familiar with their locations. Nearest closed BR line to us is literally a few minutes walk away, between Newbury Park and Ilford. There are bridges on the roads crossing the former cutting that are still in situ!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairlop_Loop
I would have to go further afield for nearest closed station, though Stratford Market is being resurrected as a DLR station.
ChristinaD - are you aware that the only taxpayer-funded parties in Parliament are the Conservatives and LibDems? I’ve always thought the Short Money grant was quixotic (the theory is that the governing party has the civil service, so the opposition need grants to help them keep up).
Hatton made his millions in Browns property bubble, with his buy to let empire
241 - Ed, I know you post on things you don’t know about (outside of the Oscar season) but you really need to understand the internal dynamics of UNITE to post on this stuff.
A clue.
Woodley does the Car factories stuff, Derek Simpson does the stuff that falls apart.
Start from there and you may have a clue what you are talking about.
Does anyone know if it is possible to get the 2005 Rawlings and Thrasher notionals in digital format?
148 - thanks for the Broxtowe information. I’ve updated the Tory targets spreadsheet:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0At91c3wX1Wu5dC1xYVZtRklRVzZrMTNON0dRXzJ2Nnc&hl=en_GB
Latest numbers:
84 of the Tories’ top 117 targets are declaring on the night so far = 71.8%.
146 / 200 “” “” “” = 73.0%.
464 of the 650 constituencies are counting on the night so far = 71.4%.
Quite a lot of seats made announcements today, including Stoke-on-Trent, Reading, Aberdeen, York.
Oh I see why Hatton is back on our screens now…
http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/hatton-s-cyprus-property-dream-over
244 - I doubt very much that Christina has heard of Short money, Shortbread money perhaps.
DEREK HATTON’S Morpheus Investments Limited has filed for insolvency - owing creditors nearly £400,000..!
PODHWAS
248 Andy JS
I think on election night, I’ll listen to the exit polls, then go for a nap till 3am!
222 Rod, 232 It doesn’t add up. Thanks guys!
I looked up that “Alabama paradox” on Wikipedia. Aren’t numbers weird sometimes!
You know, I am absolutely livid!! Labour have being making hysterical claims about Ashcroft’s influence in the Conservative Party, and yet this Labour government is bunging millions of taxpayers money at the Unions, they are then donating millions to the Labour Party. Labour MP’s are running around shouting we are UNITE members and proud, they get direct constituency funding from UNITE who are funding and running a direct GE campaign aimed at voters as well. And then all these Labour politicians claim that Unions like UNITE have absolutely no influence on this Labour government and its policies with a straight face!!
The UNITE Political Director is wandering in and out of Downing Street and around Westminster as if he has any individual right to even be there. He even wanted to be Brown’s official spokesman in the run up to the GE, and this despite being employed by a Union.
And this has all been going on without any real comment at all. And now thanks to the sterling situation, its even going to cost more to frigging leave the country if Labour get back in. We are well and truly screwed!
247. I’ve got em somewhere. Do you need the actual notional votes, or will percentages do?
250 tim
Is it anything to do with shorting the pound?
I would have thought even Labour would agree that needs properly funded opposition.
252 - I thought the Scots stayed up all night.
CF Past Pb.com overnight threads
“Aren’t numbers weird sometimes!”
Yes, but beautiful.
And deadly.
Like women.
254 - Christina.
Last year the Conservative part received over £4.5 million in Short money.
I realise that you’ll have to Google that.
Hague is now holed below the water by Ashcroft.
255 Rod
I have the Wells figures in a spreadsheet and wanted to do a comparison. There is a cost-benefit though and am only inclined to go ahead if the R&T figures are easily input. I keyed the Wells figures!
199 - there have been no boundary changes in Wythenshawe and Sale East.
252 - it depends whether all the predictions of large numbers of postal votes being handed in at the last minute turn out to be correct. I’m a bit sceptical about that myself.
If that doesn’t happen, the results might not actually take any longer than usual to declare.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2261307/Toddlers-who-dislike-spicy-food-racist-say-report.html
The Zanu left says only white people are racist.
This is anti-white racism.
Zanu anti-racism is a code word for anti-white.
Seth. Did you get my e-mail?
244.NickP, UNITE, Trade Union Modernisation Fund, Communications allowance, Trade Union Learning Fund. And lets not even get on to your non doms.
South Norfolk performs an about-turn:
http://www.south-norfolk.gov.uk/democracy/1906_363130.asp
259.We dine out on fish and chips while the Labour party gets caviar.
The public sector wastes at least £25bn a year because of a failure to reform outdated procurement and outsourcing practices, business leaders say.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8575606.stm
256 - I do agree with a properly funded opposition, I’ve always believed in state funding.
PS the pond moved 0.0004 of a cent afte the last YouGov.
Can you handle the excitement?
244 - “ChristinaD - are you aware that the only taxpayer-funded parties in Parliament are the Conservatives and LibDems?”
Wrong Nick, ALL opposition parties with more than two seats get short money. Maybe you’ll try and get your facts right before patronising other posters next time?
And are you seriously saying that paying the wages of the likes of Alistair Campbell and Damian McBride didn’t amount to the taxpayer funding a political party?
257.Eagles, I think that we have been embarrassed into going to bed earlier these days.
252 TSE
The posturings of politicians with nothing to talk about would send me to sleep anyway!
Talking of which …. Nytol.
Can Gordon Brown handle the real world, honestly?
Supermarkets, traffic wardens, house keys… the Prime Minister will struggle with everyday life after No 10
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/hugo_rifkind/article7067725.ece
266 - I presume that was an attempt at irony.
268 tim, you’re up late. Don’t you have an early start for the school run in the morning as per usual?
247 - they are online, although I realise that’s probably not what you mean by “digital format”:
http://election.pressassociation.com/constituencies.html
260. It’s a tribute to AW that his figures are virtually identical (in aggregate at least) to those of R&T.
Why would you need to key them, if you get them in digital format?
I’ll see if I can post them to a google doc.
In fact, the R&T percentages are already there, in my “Election Night Computer”…
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tjmgaOdUE7G6D-Z5KkGK3bQ&gid=0
look under “Engine”
155 “results”, so far - Tories on the slide…
http://hungparliament2010.blogspot.com/2010/01/i-undermentioned-hereby-give-notice.html
259. And is only allowed to use it to carry out their role as the opposition. The accounts are audited and the Conservatives have to show that none of the money was used for party behaviour.
Its to make up for the Opposition not having 2 million civil servants at their call.
244 - Any chance you could have a word with your colleagues at Holyrood Nick. Seems they’ve got their begging bowl out to get their hands on more of my cash!
http://allowancesreview.scottish.parliament.uk/submissions/ar_101.pdf
Aren’t the YouGov polls tracker polls? I meant daily polls if they are a specific type of poll.
*FREE MONEY ALERT*
Stan James are offering 50/1 on the Liberal Democrats in York Outer. If you bet on Cons and Lab at other sites you can guarantee a very healthy return…
http://www.oddschecker.com/specials/politics-and-election/york-outer/winning-party
277: ‘…the Conservatives have to show that none of the money was used for party behaviour.’
That’s ironic, when you consider the party thugs and propagandists Labour installed as ‘civil servants’.
The Telegraph story is the deadliest yet as it talks of money laundering from the taxpayer to Labour via the unions.
This truth needs driving home. It is the corruption behind the unions relationship with Labour.
A good article from Mike leading the previous thread.
In particular Yougov could get embroilled in one of the first polling scandals, where the allegations is that they have deliberately reported false headline figures.
The proof is found in looking at Yougov’s own detailed data as published on it’s website and comparing like with like between past years when they polled accurately and currently when they are badly out-of-line with everyone else, and have confessed on this forum to adopting highly controversial new ‘adjustments’.
Look at the raw data on the website.
After weighting to the profile of the population according to age, sex, occupation, etc, the Conservative lead has widened, not got smaller, over the last 15 months on Yougov’s panel, between Jan-Feb 2009 and March 2010. It’s shocking.
Comparing like with like, Yougov’s own data shows, the lead is getting bigger not smaller. Specifically, on the Yougov panel FEWER people are saying they will vote Labour, and about the SAME are saying they will vote Conservative. Therefore the Conservative lead has actually got bigger.
So why then are Yougov reporting much smaller Conservative leads?
Poll manipulation is becoming the emphatic answer of anyone who looking impartially at the evidence.
Furthermore if we compare like with like, Yougov’s raw data, weighted by population characteristics only, shows a Conservative lead almost identical to that shown by Angus Reid, with the Conservatives on about 39% and Labour on about 26%.
The above reported Yougov ‘headline figure’ is utterly bogus. Using the same weights as Yougov used 15 months ago their raw data produces a headline Conservative lead of more than 10%! (Mike has been saying something similar)
Check for yourself.
http://www.yougov.co.uk/corporate/archives/press-archives-pol-intro.asp?submenuheader=1
More to follow.
Interesting QT tonight.
Not sure Starkey does the Tories many favours; he might be great entertainment but he is also rude and obnoxious. I mean, come on: 25% of kids are feral?
That said, Lansley was boring boring boring but solid. Caroline Lucas’ fairy-tale economics was revealed, Beckett was awful. Charles Kennedy did well.
I’m still slightly surprised to see anti-Labour feeling expressed so starkly.
Yes, councillors and local party members go along to QT but presumably the majority of the audience is composed of ordinary local people.
how much uk tax has tony blair paid on the £20million earned since 2007? and hes going to be carted onto our tv screens during the GE as labours secret weapon, all this talk of Ashcroft is cat kettle black imo
Wow, these daily YouGov polls are more exciting than… than… well, they must be more exciting than something… (?)
273.An attempt at irony? The Gordon Brown handbook on accountancy is still a rich source of irony. A true modern day fairy tale that still surprises and shocks, and he got away with it. Indeed, he can mislead Chilcott, finally admit it while still being deliberately dishonest at PMQ’s yesterday and not even bother with an apology. He has lots of practice with those budgets. But he did at Chilcott what he has always done in his budgets, and he still gets away with it. And the Guardian and the BBC go on Ashcroft and Hague. But what does it say about us, the opposition parties and our MSM? That’s the truly depressing fact in all of this.
282. Already looking for excuses for “Can’t-Make-It Cammo”?
YouGov hypnotised people into voting Labour…
Your middle name not “Baldrick”, by any chance?
263 Paul Lloyd
Yes I did. Many thanks.
I will get back to you when I have some value to add.
On a different subject, what does everyone think about LD chances in the North East and North West?
Have just had a first look at the constituencies and - a few seats excepted - they are much further away from Labour than the Tories/Lid Dems are elsewhere in England. The argument that LD losses in the South (if this happens) will be compensated by gains from Labour in the North doesn’t appeal. The Labour vote would really need to crash for that to happen.
It seems the North is full only of tims.
you really need to understand the internal dynamics of UNITE to post on this stuff.
by tim March 18th, 2010 at 11:58 pm
I understand. I was brought up in the union miasma. Mother a shop steward. Me briefly a shop steward- before I came to my senses and went away and made a real career.
So yes, the system is simple.
The unions are given taxpayer cash for ‘modernisation’ and for ‘training DfiD targets’ and they pass 95% of that to the Labour party with menaces.
Simple really. Anything else you would like to know tim?
268 tim
It is being fattened for slaughter.
And I thought you were a farmer!
281. Labour government funding of unions who in turn fund the Labour Party using taxpayer’s money, was always going to be the biggest political scandal of the last 13 years.
This could be the one that really get Labour into trouble.
The £18 million diverted to Unite makes it four times bigger than the Parliamentary expenses abuses.
How many hospital operations could have been paid for with that £18 million?
287. RodCrosby are you drunk?
292. Frequently, but never “in company”.
284. Wouldnt it be delicious if Blair was outed as a nondom. I am sure all that money he has made in America would be sheltered in the most tax efficient way.
294. It’s probably with Banco Ambrosiano…
283. I don’t think enough people watch Question Time to really make much differance whoever the guests are.
287. You comment much more about YouGob than ICM don’t you Rod? I wonder why?
294. Now that would be delicious.
Mike S I look forward to your comments on the Kellner post on method. I have just read it again and it seems even more devoid of meaning.
Just why change the method again if, yet again, it has no impact. That is simply crazy logic.
So all the changes make no difference to the top line figures but make the day to day figures more ’stable’.
Car owner in a garage:
So it is working fine, runs like a top, fuel efficient, comfortable, smooth on the road. So can you change the engine for an unproven one, soften the suspension and make the brakes jam on so it uses more fuel please.
“287. You comment much more about YouGob than ICM don’t you Rod? I wonder why?”
In a purely technical sense you may be right.
IIRC, that is the FIRST time I have ever mentioned YouGov, and I have NEVER mentioned ICM.
Get a friggin life!
294 ‘Wouldnt it be delicious if Blair was outed as a nondom.’
It wouldn’t be too much of a surprise. Google the Guardian investigation into the ‘Windrush Companies’ that were set up by Blairs lawyers and through which his earnings are channelled.
Daily Telegraph - Union behind BA strike receives £18m from taxpayers in ‘money-laundering’ deal with Labour
“The Union Learning Fund was set up in 1998 in order to encourage union reps and members to improve their education and training.
Now administered by a body called Unionlearn with the help of the Trades Union Congress, it hands out more than £15m a year to unions who bid for local projects. Its aim is to help unions improve the skills and education of their members, particularly by training Union Learning Reps who encourage colleagues in the workplace to take up new courses and gain qualifications.
Mr Brown announced increased funding for the scheme at the TUC conference in September 2007, just months after he became Prime Minister, calling it “the biggest transformation of trades unions since the growth of the shop steward movement”.
But details of where the money goes are not published while annual evaluation reports ceased several years ago.”
How on earth was this situation allowed to happen without anyone flagging it up or reporting it before now?
I knew about the Trade Union Modernisation Fund, but this separate Trade Union Learning Fund is complete news to me, and its been on the go since 1998!
And Gordon Brown increased spending to this fund back in 2007, he cut funding to the MOD in 2006/07!!
I wonder if he was as ignorant of that increase to this Trade Union Learning Fund and he was about the claims he made about MOD funding to Chilcott a few weeks ago?
“On a different subject, what does everyone think about LD chances in the North East and North West?”
I think the Labour vote will be well down among in wwc areas and at the same time sizeable chunks will go LD, Tory, Ukip or BNP or whoever else might be standing so i think in theory there’s *some* scope for odd results where whoever wins, wins on a smaller percentage than usual e.g a seat that’s normally 50% Labour, 25% Tory, 25% LD might go closer to 36/32/32 or something like that.
Rod
Many thanks for your spreadsheet. Should do the trick.
———
A question I have been meaning to ask (I am sure I am not the first).
With your swingback correlation to by-elections, have you tried weighting the by-election results to the original GE base? This seems logically the way to avoid the criticisms that the by-elections are usually unrepresentative of the overall electorate.
297.Witan, I read the Robert Kellner article earlier, I don’t usually comment on the intricacies of polling. But I have one question, if I have got this correct, YouGov have been struggling to get Labour ID’s for their polling while being Tory ID rich in that regard, and they have adjusted their weighting in accordingly in recent weeks? But when it comes to turnout at this particular GE, isn’t there a risk of Tory ID’s being more likely to vote than their Labour counterparts as well as filling in online polling surveys?
Where we had shy Tory syndrome before in polling, could we be about to see shy Labour voters?
302. I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “weighting the by-election results to the original GE base…”
Swing does that intrinsically, doesn’t it?
“Hung parliament still most likely: new poll”
http://www.examiner.com.au/news/local/news/election-2010-tasmania/hung-parliament-still-most-likely-new-poll/1780943.aspx
If it can happen there, why not here?
And for SeanT if you watched Brown disaster on the Politics Show I am sure you would have noticed that he claims the Iraq war cost ‘very few lives’.
The sort of accounting he uses for the MoD budget in reverse.
ChristinaD March 19th, 2010 at 1:04 am
Yes. My inexpert thinking goes the same way. Lets see what the experts say.
304. I think it means weighting the individual by-election results so that (in the case of this parliament) the Lab/Con marginals weigh more and the Scottish seats weigh less - i.e. so that the Scottish by-elections will be about 9% of the total rather than 4 out of 12 (or 5 out of 14, whatever).
Robusticus Surprised to see Huhne’s only been an MP since 2005. What accounts for his swift and dazzling rise within the Lib Dems?
He used to be an MEP, and is a cleverclogs who can speak about 8537 languages.
RodCrosby I think they round up, which would be the convention. But the “Alabama paradox” means that the totals in some cases could come to 101%. In which case I don’t know how they handle that…
The Alabama paradox has got nothing to do with rounding errors.
Off topic, but this modern take on nursery rhymes over at the Mash is just priceless:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2568&Itemid=81&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailymash+%28The+Daily+Mash.+It%27s+news+to+us.%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
My favourite:
Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard
To get her poor doggie a bone,
When she got there the cupboard was bare because she had spent 13 years creating public sector non-jobs for people with worthless degrees.
So the poor little doggie shat in her bed.
Is Gordon Brown Old Mother Hubbard and is the electorate a poor little doggy?
308. “The Alabama paradox has got nothing to do with rounding errors.”
I never said it did, but rather with “rounding” per se…
307.Witan, I have followed all the debate over YouGov and polling data avidly on here for years. But I do wonder if we have got to the odd situation where the pollsters are battling two different problems as they seek to perfect their methodology so they can predict the outcome of our elections? We know who has got it right or nearly so on the day. But Mike Smithson in the past mentioned those missing Tory voters who disappeared between 92′ and 97′, turnout in the last three GE’s has been lower and we discussed voter apathy.
But I know from canvassing etc, that older Conservative voters are the most reluctant to tell anyone on the doorstep who they are going to vote for, even if they are members of the party and being canvassed by Tories! But I do wonder if part of the problem with Labour overstatement, and possible Others in the polls, is down to the fact they are just as reluctant to admit that they are not going to vote at all?
309. That reminds me of Harry Perkins in “A Very British Coup”, who said:
Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard
And found there was nothing left to privatise…
308. Perhaps, it could be a refinement. Why doesn’t someone try it, right back to 1945…
The unrefined Swingback theorem has never claimed to be “exact.” No model can be. It’s a ball-park estimate…
311.Oops, that should have read “Witan, I have followed all the debate over YouGov and all polling data debate avidly”.
323 Rod. “It’s a ball-park estimate…”
A bit like car manufacturers’ MPG figures.
(especially those bar-stewards at BMW)
315. “(especially those bar-stewards at BMW)”
Don’t I know it? (530i Sport)
304 & 313 Rod
John Loony has explained what I meant in 308.
I am not a statistician, but the ‘random’ distribution of by-elections in any one parliament makes the basic assumptions about your swingback correlation questionable. Weighting them would at least remove this line of attack.
PS Am playing with the R&T figures so my attention is distracted from the thread.
Caledonian Mercury - SNP rules out post-election pacts
“The SNP will not do any deals after the election to prop up minority Tory or Labour administrations, SNP business manager Bruce Crawford declared today.
In an interview with The Caledonian Mercury, Mr Crawford – who is effectively the SNP party chairman – explicitly ruled out any formal post-election coalition pacts at Westminster.
Mr Crawford said the SNP block would operate on an “issue by issue” basis and would not get involved in any official coalitions, even if Labour offered a referendum on independence as an incentive.
The SNP business convener also insisted that Alex Salmond’s 20-seat target for this election was achievable.
“It is ambitious but realistic,” he said.”
This is a very sensible position for the SNP to take, and to spell out before a GE. Its also exactly the same position that Annabel Goldie, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, took back in the 2007 Scottish election campaign. For all the crap written about Goldie in the Scottish media at one time or another, and usually from right leaning journalists, she got it right and set the current precedent in Holyrood. Well done.
On the Kellner statement (which I must admit I found almost exquisite - the Tories haven’t been understated but the SNP have been!) my question would be, has the mistake applied to Holyrood polls as well as Westminster ones? I can’t see any obvious reason why it wouldn’t have done, and if so, Labour’s five-point lead in the most recent Holyrood poll for Scotland on Sunday (greeted with much glee by Kenny “True Brit” Farquharson) has essentially just been wiped out at a stroke.
Just for once - *puts on Canadian accent* - it’s a truly terrrr-ible night for Labour. But only north of the Tweed.
Caledonian Mercury - Very late finish looms for election watchers
“The traditional election night ritual of staying up to watch the results come in from round the country is going to be longer and more tiring this year.
Political watchers could usually guarantee the first result from Scotland before midnight – usually from Hamilton or somewhere else in solid Labour Lanarkshire.
But this year, the first results are not expected before 2am, at the earliest, and election experts admit that may be a very optimistic forecast.
The likelihood is that most results will not start coming in before 3am and although most may well be in by 6am on the Friday morning, some of the more rural seats may not declare until well into the Friday.
The reason for the delay this year is a tightening up of the postal vote proces”
319.”the Tories haven’t been understated but the SNP have been!”
I read the Kellner article, can you provide a link to where he states that fact? IIRC, he mentions adjusting the Labour and the SNP weightings, but nothing about the Conservatives.
The real Alabama Paradox, is how they got anyone to live there in days before air conditioning!
316 Rod. At least your car is a good ‘un. (A VERY good ‘un, in fact)
I make do with a weedy 2 litre diesel!
I need to make some serious money via political betting and get myself some decent wheels. I think I’ll stake all my money on the Green Party to get an overall majority as a desperate gamble.
321. I presume if he felt the Tories were being understated or improperly weighted, he’d have taken the opportunity to say so - he hasn’t been shy about doing so with the SNP.
On a point of pedantry, I’m not sure how any link I provide could possibly be to anything other than the entire article, which is here -
http://today.yougov.co.uk/commentaries/peter-kellner/weighting-system-changes
323, Dis - perhaps you should contact Malcolm re: inveting in fine North Dakota beachfront property?
You think I jest . . . but note that large chunks of ND real estate are currently on their way via the Red River, Winnipeg, Lake Manitoba, etc to the sunny shores (at least 6 mon of the year) of Hudson Bay!
So if PM Dave cancels all government funding towards the unions and enforces the Political Levy to go to the party of the individual member’s choice – that would be the financial end of Labour wouldn’t it? They could survive on meagre scraps of membership fees and Harry Potter royalties but they’d be basically skint. The unions themselves would be tremendously weakened also.
He could cancel all non-jobs waste-of-oxygen advertising in the Guardian and kill the paper too.
The BBC and Channel 4 could be made to share the public sector squeeze and to have political balance in its governance structures.
It’s like early winter outside Moscow in 1812, or early spring 1945 – the forces of evil are about to be brought low.
re321 Christine
I have been reading the Caledonian Mercury. Superior to anything that the Scotsman or Herald produce. Read the articles you mentioned in your previous posts! But I get impression that not many seats will change hands in Scotland. Lib Dem vote has collapsed, Tory Party are doing nothing and that the only real battle is between SNP and Labour and due to the size of most of the Labour majorities and what can only be described as electoral vagaries, that SNP prospects of getting 20 seats are a bit ambitious to say the least!
re324 James
Having read the article in question! I get impression that Kellner is being a little disingenuous James!
325 Dakota. There’s a name……Name of a great airplane and two states.
I wonder if North & South Dakota will ever be united in my lifetime? (or North & South Carolina).
I also wonder if I should stop drinking at this late hour and go to bed……yes, I think that I will.
Goodnight all!
323 - If you won, the Greens would ban cars.
I’m beginning to think that YouGov have already factored in all those dodgy postal votes.
by martin tupper March 18th, 2010 at 10:46 pm
Glad I am not the only one to strongly suspect we are being lined up for a Zimbabwean type election result. A result that will suit the establishment and ALL of the leaders of our major political parties, whether they say, or know that it would or not.
Call me a conspiracy theorist if you wish, I do not see such a description as either negative or unfair.
It is surly self evident that we live in truly world changing times. It would be best for all concerned not to discount anything whatsoever these days, or any other days in the future.
This country is not, and never has been run by the people our media constantly pretends that it is run by. Namely elected politicians. It is not run by the MSM either. However this collective and highly controlled entity is far closer to the top of the pyramid of power then then likes of Cameron, Brown, or Clegg could ever hope to be.
Ignorance is bliss, being part of a crowd or team is comforting and reassuring. However first understanding and secondly dealing with the real truth is only for those wise enough, and above all brave enough, to want to try.
I could be wrong on this one. However I progressively less doubt that I am the longer You-gov continue with this self-apparently statistically corrupted nonsense. A hung parliament is exactly what the establishment want to happen, and they very much have the power to make it so. This is clear for all to see, but will only be seen by those willing to simply open there eyes, and clear their tribally, and utterly confused minds, for the very FIRST time in their entire lives.
I leave you with this thought.
If the world seems politically upside down, it is not because you are looking at modern politics while standing on your head. It seems upside down because the people who control your world and mind have deliberately have been systematically turning just about everything up-side down for a very long time. They also did not bother to tell you that they have, for a very good reason.
They know for an absolute certainty that none of us are going to like what they intend on giving us, and would never stand a chance of getting us to vote for it. Far simpler and quicker to just lie, and then lie, and then lie a bit more while doing all possible to fiddle, corrupt and propagandise us into submission. Which means until such a time that we give up caring, or indeed voting at all. That particular time is now fast approaching.
328, Dis - the Dakotas WERE united, as the Dakota Territory. Division was a Republican plot to increase number of GOP senators!
Situation re: Carolina’s bit more complex. For moment, sufficient to note the old Tarheeler’s description of NC: “a vale of humanity between two mountains of conceit” (that is, VA & SC!)
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2898871/61-say-Gordon-Brown-lied-on-Iraq.html
This is HUGE.
3/5 of the public think the PM is a deliberate, calculating liar.
That’s pure electoral poison.
332. And yet the Tories have a lead of just four points in the exact same poll. Imagine what position they’d be in if three-fifths of people didn’t think the Prime Minister was a liar.
re332 Lucian
That means that at least 40% of the public are either gullible or mentally challanged!
Its quite clear that Conservatives will not win this election. Labour will recover more points during the campaign. Nobody wants the Consevatives - currently on 36% after everything and labour to be largest party in hung parlisment
Timesonline - Ashcroft controversy fuels voters’ poor opinion of politicians
“Labour’s campaign to turn the Lord Ashcroft saga into a campaign issue is having limited success in marginal constituencies — despite signs that the Conservatives are finding the issue difficult to deal with on the doorstep.
Most voters in the marginal seats of Tynemouth and Swindon visited by The Times were aware of the controversy. The row did not appear to change the way that any will cast their ballot, and very few were able to recall the details. However, it did appear to reinforce negative perceptions of politicians in general.”
The Times had a well documented and long running fight with Lord Ashcroft, did they carry out a similar doorstep challenge over Brown’s bullying allegations or the UNITE funding of Labour right at the heart of government. I suspect that both the Times and the Guardian are going to have egg on their face when they read the Telegraph today.
333 - It’s very very strange.
Benedict Brogan at his Telegraph blog - We have had a preview of the election this week
“In my Telegraph column today I’ve looked at how David Cameron and Gordon Brown responded under pressure this week, and what that tells us about the campaign ahead and its outcome. The Prime Minister’s uncomfortable appearance on the Politics Show on Sunday led to fireworks between the BBC and Downing Street – and in Mr Brown’s car afterwards I’m told. There’s going to be more of this in the weeks to come, and how the leaders respond will shape our judgment. Here’s an extract”
“Paul Goodman has written an excellent piece on this theme on ConservativeHome this morning. The choice, he says, will be between Authenticity and Artificiality.”
ConHom - Paul Goodman on their Tory Diary - Authenticity
“But while artificiality is dying authenticity is reviving. Asking for a definition is another of those questions that get a thousand answers. Beliefs. Convictions. Principles. Ideas. “Values”. And so on. I’ll offer not so much a definition as an interpretation: authenticity is a politician facing the voters directly - as politicians usually did before the 1979 election, which introduced the managed event and selected audience. Authenticity is a politician being probed, being tested. Authenticity is coping without the autocue. Authenticity is an audience finding out what a politician’s really made of.”
And yet the Tories have a lead of just four points in the exact same poll. Imagine what position they’d be in if three-fifths of people didn’t think the Prime Minister was a liar.
by James Kelly March 19th, 2010 at 2:55 am
James my dear child why do you not par any attention to the facts?
You-govs figures are weighted in such a manner that it would be virtually impossible for them to get under 32% even if their true support did not muster more then 20%. The same can not, be said for You-govs other findings. Which are apparently raw data.
As I have stated above, this does not mean that You-gov will not get the actual result reasonably correct. British elections have been corrupted before, but this next general election will by common consensus undoubtedly brake all past records by several country miles.
Also my dear chap, do you really want a hung parliament? Would you not rather have a long period in opposition. The change would do you good. People may start liking and trusting you again. You might even score with that nice young lady you have had you eyes on. Just think of the advantages of blaming Cameron’s blue team for all of the bad things that are to come. Instead of being personally responsible for them all, as well as unimaginably hated by the vast majority of the public at large.
Give up on party politics, apart from being a mugs game, it long since gave up on you, whether you have the wits to understand that it did, or not.
However if you really are a deep down murderously heartless fascist on a mission from hell, please be so kind as to disregard my honest and heartfelt advice.
338. “James my dear child why do you not par any attention to the facts?”
I don’t really want to be forced into revealing my age (which is clearly not quite what you think it is), but you’re making it tough!
Also my dear chap, do you really want a hung parliament?
Yes. Absolutely, categorically yes. It’s the only way meaningful political reform will ever happen.
Would you not rather have a long period in opposition. Would you not rather have a long period in opposition.
Not at all. I note your touching concern for the SNP’s wellbeing, but I can assure you we’re enjoying being in government for the first time in our history, and will be going all guns blazing to be re-elected in May 2011.
Politics aside, posters who think that they are witty when they patronize - you only give the impression that you’ve got a boat oar lodged up your fundament.
Stay away from true rudness unless like SeanT and tim you’ve got the talent to pull it off.
[348] Authenticity is not air brushing your photos…
Even as an anti-Labour poster, I think getting a fit of the vapours because Gordon Brown “lied” is a bit maiden aunt. The voters don’t expect politicians to tell the truth- more’s the pity.
-”I am shocked- shocked- that there has been lying in this establishment”
-”your winnings Captain Smithson”
-”Merci.”