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Sporting Index have a market up on the referendum turnout. Alastair Meeks tipped it when it was 62, but I still think at its current mid price of 68 it is still a buy for the following reasons
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the last one was getting so twisted I was heading down the dockside to spend the morning Goldman Sachs
Off to Aberdeen today. Be interesting to see if there is any more sign of the referendum there. Not expecting it. I would guess Scotland will be sub 65%, possibly sub 60, but unless I am getting a really distorted view (from PB? surely not) there seems quite a lot of interest in England.
Looking at historical political assassinations in the UK then apart from the IRA sponsored violence, they are mercifully rare. I cannot easily find any outside of the IRA ones in the recent past.
I think we all need to refocus on what's happened.
A mentally ill person (and all current reports are pointing in this direction) has killed a local MP. Whatever else happened is irrelevant. There is no connection to any political 'agenda'.
I'm pleased to see that politicians of all stripes can rally round and condemn a truly horrendous act, I think both Teresa May and Jeremy Corbyn's statements were heartfelt and genuine.
In the UK we have a wonderfully open and approachable political class. The envy of the world. We should remember that and try to ensure we keep it.
I don't see much point in buying or selling Leave/Remain either given how close it may be.
My impression of mostly overheard conversations that I have not tried to influence is a reasonably clear Leave win, perhaps even 60/40.
Ethnic minorities here (and we have plenty) seem fairly split. Even one of my naturalised British but also Greek colleagues is undecided.
On turnout I would think less than the GE. Many are not that bothered about Europe and it has been a particularly bad tempered campaign on both sides, in line with PBers.
First time voters, those who are not the sharpest-tool-in-the-box, or simply don't know when it is, or decide they don't care too much, may not or decide they have better things to do.
Both of these campaigns have struggled to get much traction on the ground despite the huge amount of media attention. And I suspect that the fact it has largely been a blue on blue affair has left a significant percentage of the population pretty cold. I'm not betting in this market but if I was it would be a sell at 68%.
Two reasons for this. Our electoral system actively discourages people from voting. Unless you vote for the winning MP who goes onto be part of a government which actually does what you voted for it to do, then you are ignored. So many see politics as no real choice, "you're all the same". But not this referendum, all votes are equal and it's a binary choice. I know very few people who haven't engaged with this debate, and all the non-voters heading for the polls tell me they plan to vote Leave
And the other factor. The assume was you could weigh Labour votes for remain yet reportage from both the media and MPs is that in Labour heartlands the mood is for leave. Much scratching of heads from people who haven't got a clue how people live. Yes the EU protects workers right and the likes of Boris threaten them. So why aren't they voting to remain ask the political managers?
Because rights don't matter when you have no hope. What use EU protection of workers right when your job now is minimum wage minimum security have your baby in the toilet or get sacked? Or you don't have a job because even if you ignore that it wouldn't pay the bills there's no childcare and no public transport there's 100 other people applying. And even if you get it the job is minimum wage minimum security used and abused.
When things are that bad where is the risk in an out vote. When you have nothing there is nothing to take away. Party managers and the commentaries scratch their heads - aren't things better? Heseltine came to Teesside with his post-Steel report and proclaimed everything to be fixed because more jobs have been created than have been lost. That they'd just interviewed skilled steel man now driving buses for £1,000 a month less who couldn't keep the roof over his family's head didn't phase Hezza - he has "a job" and apparently that means he's ok.
"But he has never expressed any views about Britain, or shown any racist tendencies.
"I am mixed race and I am his half-brother, we are in regular touch and see each other at my mum's.”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/man-arrested-after-jo-cox-8213363#rlabs=1 rt$category p$4
TSE's 3rd point about the denominator is pertinent, under registration will push up relative turnout. On the other hand I am registered twice and Fox jr 3 times but will of course only vote once.
This is taken from the Telegraph piece and is reported to be a quote from him
He told a local newspaper: "I can honestly say it has done me more good than all the psychotherapy and medication in the world. "Many people who suffer from mental illness are socially isolated and disconnected from society, feelings of worthlessness are also common mainly caused by long-term unemployment.
"All these problems are alleviated by doing voluntary work. Getting out of the house and meeting new people is a good thing, but more important in my view is doing physically demanding and useful labour..."
This review on ConHome is informative:
http://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2016/06/vote-leave-versus-stronger-in-how-the-referendum-campaigns-ground-operations-measure-up.html
For example did he have pre existing casework with the MP and what was it about?
Did the police have him on their radar?
Where did he get a gun?
Who were his friends who could have influenced him?
Who did he see in the days leading up to this crime?
All of the above need to be established before jumping to any conclusions.
However, we are in truly unchartered waters now and I expect a narrow Remain win.
- IER has removed many entries from the register that should not have been on it. Mostly these are people who have died or long since moved away but got left on the register under the looser old system, but they will also include people who never existed, or are ineligible. During my years of canvassing I have come across a small number of children on register, people from countries that aren't eligible, several duplicated entries, and one dog. Basically there used to be no checks so whoever the resident listed on the form got registered. Aside from any registration fraud (which we believe in the UK to be negligible) none of these "people" will have voted, so removing these entries reduces the divisor whilst leaving the numerator the same: hence recorded turnout increases.
- in making it more difficult to register, IER has disenfranchised some people who haven't managed to jump through the necessary hoops. These are more likely to be younger more mobile people, the very elderly or mentally infirm, and people for whom English is not their language of birth. Whilst the registration drives for the Referendum (and in London the mayoral election) will have recovered many of these, there will still inevitably be people who haven't managed to re-register, for example those on long absence from the country. I met one such unregistered young woman in May who had sent her forms back but had not filled them out correctly, so had been rejected from the register. Although some of these people may have voted before, it is very likely that these are groups with very low turnout, hence IER will have reduced the denominator much more than the numerator: hence recorded turnout increases.
Therefore this year there are good reasons for expecting a small upward shift in recorded turnout, even though "actual" turnout may not have changed that much. What is undeniable is that IER has had a significant effect on the total size of the electoral register, particularly in London and other cities: most London Boroughs lost thousands of entries, some over 10,000.
We saw a bit of this in the London mayoral election: there was reported surprise at the uptick in turnout despite the fact that "Sadiq versus Zak" wasn't seen as as 'sexy' a political contest as "Boris versus Ken". Most of the post-election commentary concentrated on the nature of Zak's campaign as a potential explanation - I suspect the first use of the IER registers was the more central reason.
Therefore expect the Referendum turnout to be a point or two higher than it would have been under the old system.
I'd probably buy, were I a spread bettor [NB I may dabble next year in the F1 market].
The messages from LabourLeave and the likes of John Mann hit many nails on the head - those have been for too long largely unspoken truths, that many of the middle-class Left find too uncomfortable or alien to deal with.
Mental illness is a very broad term, as it has to be - obviously the potential illness this individual (Or the Orlando shooter) may be suffering from is as different as ebola is to a broken wrist if say someone was to be described as having a 'physical illness'.
Nuance is very tricky, and mental health has an awful stigma attached to it in this country - the brain is an almost infinitely complex organ it's range of conditions must (to my mind) be vast yet because we don't understand it that well they're boiled down to a few common ones with a nasty stigma attached to depression in particular.
Even when all the facts emerge, precisely what lead that individual to take his own horrendous course of action may well be truly unknown. It will be for the courts (relying on the evidence of pychiatrists) to decide whether he serves his inevitable sentence in a secure psychiatric hospital or a secure prison.
I suppose what I really mean is that I believe in the rule of law. I'm not very happy with a police force which thinks rule of law is a one way street.
It's a truism to say Scotland has become more politicised since our referendum, and there will be motivated groups of voters: convinced EUrophiles & EUrosceptics of course, but also Unionists who see Brexit as the road to another Indy referendum, Nats who want to make sure Scotland's politics are differentiated from those of the rUK, and the apparatchiks of all the main parties who will follow their party lines. How big and committed all these groups and their subsets are is moot naturally.
It is utterly inconceivable that our individual vote will have the remotest impact on the final result, bearing in mind that upwards of 32,000,000 of us are expected to exercise our democratic right by entering a cross on the ballot slip.
In the case of Parliamentary constituency elections, its just possible, in a small minority of seats, that our individual vote along with others, might result in the excitement of a recount, but there's no chance whatsoever of that happening next week.
BBC News at Ten played footage of a witness who claims he heard 'Britain First' being said. They didn't play footage of the witness who said he never heard that. Not exactly rocket science...
Incidentally, some evidence in yesterday's Ipsos than Remainers are more likely to be unregistered to go with TNS' evidence that 18-24 registration was far less likely than 55+.
Something like 14% of the TNS sample of under 25's was unregistered.
The register was down nearly 3m in December though from last May, and there will be a great many barred from voting due to EU citizenship - we are talking 2-3m - and this will primarily impact London.
1) actually elected
and
2) I can actually vote out
See OKC we can all write anything we like on a website to prove our point particularly an attempt to smear all Leavers with this brush. A few other posters were doing such last night as well. Please don't infer that " aggression " is from one side only because it most certainly isn't and you should avoid making inaccurate and frankly insulting connections to suit your own particular ends.
Meanwhile a promising and rising star has been struck down in and appalling way when she only tried to help. Her family is left devastated by the loss of a deeply caring person and loving mother. We will never ever truly understand why people do these extreme things but we do know that the world was a better place with Jo Cox within it than it is this morning without her.
May she and the principles she stood firmly behind never be forgotten.
- 80% MPs had suffered intrusive or aggressive behaviour
- 20% of 239 MPs who responded to the survey had been attacked/experienced attempted attacks
- 36 MPs reported feeling fearful of going out in public
On the BBC, Hithem Den Abdullah is quoted as saying:
"There was a guy who was being very brave and another guy with a white baseball cap who he was trying to control and the man in the baseball cap suddenly pulled a gun from his bag."
After a brief scuffle, he said the man stepped back and the MP became involved.
Mr Abdallah said the weapon "looked handmade" and a man who had been wrestling with the gunman continued even after seeing the gun.
He said: "The man stepped back with the gun and fired it and then he fired a second shot, as he was firing he was looking down at the ground.
"He was kicking her as she was lying on the floor," he said.
From that description, one interpretation is that Jo Cox intervened in a dispute between others. Other interpretations are also possible.
The other possibly significant thing is that she was not attacked in her surgery. The attack took place outside in the street, presumably as she was walking to the surgery.
Stephen Timms and Nigel Jones were attacked in their surgeries.
A virtual punch-up at the virtual wake is unedifying, to say the least.
Now this isn't the same (It is actually here as opposed to being 1000 miles away) but Oldham was nice in the sense that the terrorists there didn't seem to change anyone's vote here !
The main risk to Leave is that it simply kills its momentum.