But the YouGov model should have been the focus of a really serious bout of analysis. It was obvious to most posters that its basic principles seemed correct. If people didn't believe the results, and yet the idea of the model seemed solid, it should have provoked extremely intense curiosity, particularly given the betting opportunities if it was even half-right.
(If it is the future, it might be time to learn some Python or R, or at least serious Excel wizardry...)
I can use pivot tables, does that count as serious excel wizardry?
Never knock your skills.
People pay me for training on pivot tables, even conditional formatting. Very effective tools with many uses. If you know how to use them, you've got a valuable skill.
(The older versions of Excel didn't come with pivot tables built in, so if I wanted one I had to custom-make one in Basic. Complete PITA. But Excel has lots of goodies so many people don't use - form controls are pretty nifty too.)
Several years ago, I had a client who wanted to know what his options were in dismissing an employee.
He had advertised a job via a major recruitment agency, and one of the pre-requisites was to have excellent excel skills.
Interview a few people, picked one person, within a week, it was clear what the successful candidate considered excellent excel skills, was different to his definition of excellent. His candidate thought using sum and sumif was excellent excel skills.
I advised him going forward, his interview should include an excel test.
But the YouGov model should have been the focus of a really serious bout of analysis. It was obvious to most posters that its basic principles seemed correct. If people didn't believe the results, and yet the idea of the model seemed solid, it should have provoked extremely intense curiosity, particularly given the betting opportunities if it was even half-right.
(If it is the future, it might be time to learn some Python or R, or at least serious Excel wizardry...)
I can use pivot tables, does that count as serious excel wizardry?
Never knock your skills.
People pay me for training on pivot tables, even conditional formatting. Very effective tools with many uses. If you know how to use them, you've got a valuable skill.
(The older versions of Excel didn't come with pivot tables built in, so if I wanted one I had to custom-make one in Basic. Complete PITA. But Excel has lots of goodies so many people don't use - form controls are pretty nifty too.)
I used to be an Excel whizz formulas, VB, charts, formatting, I could do it all - then they brought out pivot tables and they completely flumoxed me. Since then I have had to defer to the 'bright young things' in the office on matters Excel :-(
But the YouGov model should have been the focus of a really serious bout of analysis. It was obvious to most posters that its basic principles seemed correct. If people didn't believe the results, and yet the idea of the model seemed solid, it should have provoked extremely intense curiosity, particularly given the betting opportunities if it was even half-right.
(If it is the future, it might be time to learn some Python or R, or at least serious Excel wizardry...)
I can use pivot tables, does that count as serious excel wizardry?
Never knock your skills.
People pay me for training on pivot tables, even conditional formatting. Very effective tools with many uses. If you know how to use them, you've got a valuable skill.
(The older versions of Excel didn't come with pivot tables built in, so if I wanted one I had to custom-make one in Basic. Complete PITA. But Excel has lots of goodies so many people don't use - form controls are pretty nifty too.)
Hearing that Labour's membership has surged to 800,000. On course to be a million-member party for the first time since the 1950s.
Its the place to be fancy rejoining SO?
Wow. That is a real movement. Labour are on course to win the next election now, and tories won't be able to use the SNP threat because a small swing in Scotland will see labour gain back many seats from the SNP making a majority much easier.
Thanks May you complete idiot you have made it likely we will have a full blown socialist government in 5 years (if that).
The thing is - he reached out the second he was elected. He stuffed his Shadow Cabinet full of his critics and gave them a higher degree of autonomy than Blair or Brown ever did. But they chose to walk about en masse at a critical moment not only for the Labour Party but for the country as a whole, in line with an anti-Corbyn policy settled before he even won the leadership the first time (there were articles about how they would get rid of him before he even won).
Labour only dipped below Miliband's percentage in the polls after the coup-attempt. They caused months of constant bad press for the party, expelled thousands of activists on the most spurious grounds (the vast majority of which were soon invited to come back and set up new direct debits to the party by HQ...), changed the rules to ensure thousands more couldn't vote by putting an arbitrary nine month cut-off date on which members could vote (January to the election in September) when previously it had never been more than four weeks before the day the results would be announced (for Blair, Miliband, Corbyn's first time).
It would be folly to trust any of these people with positions which they could use to damage Labour again, now they've remembered they're supposed to be officers in the army rather than observer-critics - the day after the battle.
And let's not forget - Labour only dipped below Miliband's percentage after the coup attempt, but even those polls will have been subject to this over-correction. He was probably beating Miliband's score more substantially than the polls showed until the coup.
Its worth remembering that Corbyn beat Cameron in the 2016 local elections:
That seems very long ago! I struggle to interpret council elections to be honest, there's so much more to try and account for. People were saying Labour should have won by more, but also that it was difficult because those seats had been fought previously at a spectacular time for Miliband? I dunno.
Reminds me: met someone on polling day who didn't know the locals had happens yet and thought they were on the same day as the general!
Hearing that Labour's membership has surged to 800,000. On course to be a million-member party for the first time since the 1950s.
Its the place to be fancy rejoining SO?
Labour is a moral crusade or it is nothing. Corbyn's brought the moral crusade back after the emptiness of New Labour. In a different age he'd have been an Archbishop of Canterbury.
But the YouGov model should have been the focus of a really serious bout of analysis. It was obvious to most posters that its basic principles seemed correct. If people didn't believe the results, and yet the idea of the model seemed solid, it should have provoked extremely intense curiosity, particularly given the betting opportunities if it was even half-right.
(If it is the future, it might be time to learn some Python or R, or at least serious Excel wizardry...)
1) The YouGov model was subject to very serious analysis...unfortunately for purposes of discrediting it. The technique of examining every aspect of something, identifying its imperfections, characterising them as flaws, and then dismissing it, was applied most assiduously here, and even somebody as smart as BlackRook was caught up by it (although he had the sense to row back). PB is clever and quick and hard working, but it is not objective nor curious in the childlike sense.
2) Learn R. It's opensource and the defacto industry standard for data scientists. I've got over a decade of SAS and I can only just get thru the door for interviews. Say "Excel" and they'll laugh at you, tho if you learn Visual Basic enough to write Excel macros they might be more sympathetic.
On topic, surely it is the rest of the party that should be reaching out to him!
Foxes can rejoice.
Meanwhile, writing the next Labour manifesto will be an interesting challenge.
Why so? Just re-print the latest one - it seemed to go down quite well. The real challenge is going to be writing the next Tory one.... which might need to be costed next time too.
On topic, surely it is the rest of the party that should be reaching out to him!
Foxes can rejoice.
Meanwhile, writing the next Labour manifesto will be an interesting challenge.
Why so? Just re-print the latest one - it seemed to go down quite well. The real challenge is going to be writing the next Tory one.... which might need to be costed next time too.
Corbyn will not get away with his largesse at any future GE.
The day before the GE the IFS absolutely traduced the tax and borrowing figures as fantasy land. Also at the next GE labour are going to come under sustained attack on economic policy from not only the conservatives but Vince Cable and the SNP all of whom do not agree with his increases in corporation tax
This is where I agree with Southam, though. He needs to find new kinds of interpersonal skills to interact with his critics *in parliament*, which I'm sure isn't beyond him, as he's shown a huge improvement in public performance, during the campaign - otherwise he won't be able to form a properly functioning government and fulfil the potential he has summoned up pretty much all by himself. That doesn't mean some of his critics on the right of the party are at all free of some of the blame.
I think you underestimate how many of the MPs on the right are truly irreconcilable, and just how much many members dislike their MPs - even while campaigning for them heavily in this election for the good of the wider party. The reputation of the right-wing MPs within the party as a whole is very low indeed. They are not as talented or irreplaceable as they think they are and the members know it.
Members dislike them. The public doesn't know who they are. They are not the important political characters the kinds of Westminster-watchers we are might think them.
I don't think that is always true. Liz Kendall had lots of youngsters canvassing and seems genuinely popular. I think both ends of political spectrum within the party can see some merit in the other end. The Labour Party is a broad church as even McDonnell said in an interview yesterday.
One thing Jezza has got right, and by belief, is to not interfere in local parties, to move away from central control. He genuinely believes in localism, even when it disagrees with him.
Definitely, but party HQ doesn't and the Labour Right don't, and we know it. Many of the people we're talking about only have their jobs because they were parachuted in under the New Labour model of internal party feudalism - like Angela Eagle, imposed on her party after it voted against having her as the candidate.
Their power bases are in Labour HQ, NEC factions that the vast majority of members don't know much about or consider when voting for the NEC, with the big donors, and in small cliques, not in the broader Labour movement.
Even the socially conservative DUP have a female leader! When will the so-called "progressives" in Labour elect a woman as their leader?
If you're going to copy/paste spam comments, try better ones than that. I'll repeat my point you didn't reply to while you're just repeating this - Labour members will happily vote for a woman leader, but the particular women who have put themselves forward recently (Cooper, Kendall, Eagle) ran rubbish campaigns.
Plus Tory members have never elected a woman leader.
I was ready to be suspicious of the polls but the real reason that I thought the Tories would get a substantial majority was the sense of dread amongst Labour MPs. Many clearly expected to lose their seats. Now there wasn't much marginals polling done so why was that? Why weren't they able to see that the situation for them was much better than it seemed? Did they just ignore the young voters who they assumed couldn't be relied upon.
Turnout was only up by 2.6%. Was that enough to generate the huge youth turnout? Perhaps, if turnout was down amongst some other groups.
It seems to have been up about 5% in the London constituencies.
I do suspect that turnout was down among older voters.
My local Momentum group is applying pressure to Chris Leslie to stop talking about Saint Jez in public, the civil war rumbles on unabated.
I don't think I'd call it civil war - constructive pieces like Joff's are what's needed now from the centre. I think it's reasonable to ask Chris to restrain himself for a few months while we see how things work out.
They are being very, very aggressive about it. I have a few friends that take part and as far as they are concerned this election was an endorsement of Corbyn, not the Labour party.
The Labour only dipped below Miliband's percentage in the polls after the coup-attempt. They caused months of constant bad press for the party, expelled thousands of activists on the most spurious grounds (the vast majority of which were soon invited to come back and set up new direct debits to the party by HQ...), changed the rules to ensure thousands more couldn't vote by putting an arbitrary nine month cut-off date on which members could vote (January to the election in September) when previously it had never been more than four weeks before the day the results would be announced (for Blair, Miliband, Corbyn's first time).
It would be folly to trust any of these people with positions which they could use to damage Labour again, now they've remembered they're supposed to be officers in the army rather than observer-critics - the day after the battle.
The points about the attempted coup from the right of the party, counteracted by what has sometimes appeared like a takeover-like approach from Corbyn's team, are well taken. If the right of the party want him to reach out, there'll somehow have to be much more cast-iron guarantees and obligations built in, and they'll have to work mutually, in both directions.
To be honest, I don't think it's in Corbyn's gift to bring these people back into the fold. It's the members they have to win back and that will be more difficult.
This is where I agree with Southam, though. He needs to find new kinds of interpersonal skills to interact with his critics *in parliament*, which I'm sure isn't beyond him, as he's shown a huge improvement in public performance, during the campaign - otherwise he won't be able to form a properly functioning government and fulfil the potential he has summoned up pretty much all by himself. That doesn't mean some of his critics on the right of the party are at all free of some of the blame.
It's worse than that, though. Just as May has suffered from not having the skills you need to lead an election campaign, Corbyn's critical weakness is not having the skills necessary to lead in parliament, particularly in a low majority/minority government situation. Quick thinking, clever use of procedure, communication, co-ordination, dealing with dissent and keeping people on board, teamwork, building working relationships with other opposition parties, intellectual flexibility - few of these are areas where Corbyn has any obvious skills to offer. Having returned from battle a hero, he is going to find life in the Senate most challenging indeed.
On topic, surely it is the rest of the party that should be reaching out to him!
Foxes can rejoice.
Meanwhile, writing the next Labour manifesto will be an interesting challenge.
Why so? Just re-print the latest one - it seemed to go down quite well. The real challenge is going to be writing the next Tory one.... which might need to be costed next time too.
Corbyn will not get away with his largesse at any future GE.
The day before the GE the IFS absolutely traduced the tax and borrowing figures as fantasy land. Also at the next GE labour are going to come under sustained attack on economic policy from not only the conservatives but Vince Cable and the SNP all of whom do not agree with his increases in corporation tax
And the IFS swayed a lot of real live voters did it?
Hearing that Labour's membership has surged to 800,000. On course to be a million-member party for the first time since the 1950s.
Its the place to be fancy rejoining SO?
Labour is a moral crusade or it is nothing. Corbyn's brought the moral crusade back after the emptiness of New Labour. In a different age he'd have been an Archbishop of Canterbury.
My local Momentum group is applying pressure to Chris Leslie to stop talking about Saint Jez in public, the civil war rumbles on unabated.
I don't think I'd call it civil war - constructive pieces like Joff's are what's needed now from the centre. I think it's reasonable to ask Chris to restrain himself for a few months while we see how things work out.
1 Ring round, and see who will serve in Shadow Cabinet. Appoint on merit. 2 Tell PLP bygones are bygones. Get behind popular manifesto. 3 Discipline anyone making statements/ snarky tweets like Leslie and Phillips today. 4 If they persist, suggest another Party. Last resort de-selection.
Shit got real on Thursday. There is a very real prospect of a Labour government now.
This is where I agree with Southam, though. He needs to find new kinds of interpersonal skills to interact with his critics *in parliament*, which I'm sure isn't beyond him, as he's shown a huge improvement in public performance, during the campaign - otherwise he won't be able to form a properly functioning government and fulfil the potential he has summoned up pretty much all by himself. That doesn't mean some of his critics on the right of the party are at all free of some of the blame.
I think you underestimate how many of the MPs on the right are truly irreconcilable, and just how much many members dislike their MPs - even while campaigning for them heavily in this election for the good of the wider party. The reputation of the right-wing MPs within the party as a whole is very low indeed. They are not as talented or irreplaceable as they think they are and the members know it.
Members dislike them. The public doesn't know who they are. They are not the important political characters the kinds of Westminster-watchers we are might think them.
I don't think that is always true. Liz Kendall had lots of youngsters canvassing and seems genuinely popular. I think both ends of political spectrum within the party can see some merit in the other end. The Labour Party is a broad church as even McDonnell said in an interview yesterday.
One thing Jezza has got right, and by belief, is to not interfere in local parties, to move away from central control. He genuinely believes in localism, even when it disagrees with him.
Definitely, but party HQ doesn't and the Labour Right don't, and we know it. Many of the people we're talking about only have their jobs because they were parachuted in under the New Labour model of internal party feudalism - like Angela Eagle, imposed on her party after it voted against having her as the candidate.
Their power bases are in Labour HQ, NEC factions that the vast majority of members don't know much about or consider when voting for the NEC, with the big donors, and in small cliques, not in the broader Labour movement.
They are safe for the present, and Corbyn seems to have no interest in deselection as a philosophy.
All 3 Labour MP's in Leicester are not local, but each has also built up local roots, as Nick did in Broxtowe. In a place like Leicester where so many are from somewhere else, going native is easy. It is accepted and loads of precedent.
1) The YouGov model was subject to very serious analysis...unfortunately for purposes of discrediting it. The technique of examining every aspect of something, identifying its imperfections, characterising them as flaws, and then dismissing it, was applied most assiduously here, and even somebody as smart as BlackRook was caught up by it (although he had the sense to row back). PB is clever and quick and hard working, but it is not objective nor curious in the childlike sense.
2) Learn R. It's opensource and the defacto industry standard for data scientists. I've got over a decade of SAS and I can only just get thru the door for interviews. Say "Excel" and they'll laugh at you, tho if you learn Visual Basic enough to write Excel macros they might be more sympathetic.
Yes, childlike "break it apart and see how it works" kind of curiosity would have been handy. Could have given us the new swingback!
I speak R and it's very handy, but a lot of folk who call themselves "data scientists" rather than "statisticians" seem to be using Python notebooks these days. I just do odds and sods of basic consultancy work as a side income, so it doesn't really bother me (though I use R for my personal projects though). If I wanted to work in industry I would have to look very carefully into whether it's worth brushing my Python up to a higher standard.
For beginners who have never coded before I think R is probably easier to learn than Python. For people who code already, but are new to data/stats/modelling, it's probably easier to go with Python, rather less idiosyncratic than R!
But for someone who just wants to toy around and doesn't have the time to learn to code, you can do an awful lot in Excel, even without macros. And it has the advantage of familiarity to more people.
On topic, surely it is the rest of the party that should be reaching out to him!
Foxes can rejoice.
Meanwhile, writing the next Labour manifesto will be an interesting challenge.
Why so? Just re-print the latest one - it seemed to go down quite well. The real challenge is going to be writing the next Tory one.... which might need to be costed next time too.
Corbyn will not get away with his largesse at any future GE.
The day before the GE the IFS absolutely traduced the tax and borrowing figures as fantasy land. Also at the next GE labour are going to come under sustained attack on economic policy from not only the conservatives but Vince Cable and the SNP all of whom do not agree with his increases in corporation tax
And the IFS swayed a lot of real live voters did it?
The Tories didn't go with the economy at all for some reason, it was all Brexit until the Manchester attack.
On topic, surely it is the rest of the party that should be reaching out to him!
Foxes can rejoice.
Meanwhile, writing the next Labour manifesto will be an interesting challenge.
Why so? Just re-print the latest one - it seemed to go down quite well. The real challenge is going to be writing the next Tory one.... which might need to be costed next time too.
Corbyn will not get away with his largesse at any future GE.
The day before the GE the IFS absolutely traduced the tax and borrowing figures as fantasy land. Also at the next GE labour are going to come under sustained attack on economic policy from not only the conservatives but Vince Cable and the SNP all of whom do not agree with his increases in corporation tax
Meanwhile the Tories have a little time to:
- work out what their economic policy now is; - explain why the absolutely necessary long-term economic plan is no longer necessary; - come up with some proposals that actually have costings attached,
and then they might be in a position to take advantage...
On topic, surely it is the rest of the party that should be reaching out to him!
Foxes can rejoice.
Meanwhile, writing the next Labour manifesto will be an interesting challenge.
Why so? Just re-print the latest one - it seemed to go down quite well. The real challenge is going to be writing the next Tory one.... which might need to be costed next time too.
Corbyn will not get away with his largesse at any future GE.
The day before the GE the IFS absolutely traduced the tax and borrowing figures as fantasy land. Also at the next GE labour are going to come under sustained attack on economic policy from not only the conservatives but Vince Cable and the SNP all of whom do not agree with his increases in corporation tax
And the IFS swayed a lot of real live voters did it?
The Tories didn't go with the economy at all for some reason, it was all Brexit until the Manchester attack.
After 7 years of austerity, relative stagnation and doubling the debt, I am not surprised the tories steered clear of the economy.
They are safe for the present, and Corbyn seems to have no interest in deselection as a philosophy.
All 3 Labour MP's in Leicester are not local, but each has also built up local roots, as Nick did in Broxtowe. In a place like Leicester where so many are from somewhere else, going native is easy. It is accepted and loads of precedent.
I know Corbyn isn't interested in deselections, and I certainly don't think it's impossible for MPs to become popular and connected to constituencies they weren't born in.
But it isn't up to Corbyn, it's up to the members and they might be - especially if the boundary review forces CLPs to elect candidates for the new constituencies. If those elections happen, parachuted-in imposed candidates of the past and many of those who have been trying to undermine the Corbyn project will not win those votes and the problem will sort itself.
This might be the wrong time to ask but what's so bad about the Dementia Tax? Right now your house gets taken off you and sold if you go into care, and you keep about £25,000 or something.
On topic, surely it is the rest of the party that should be reaching out to him!
Foxes can rejoice.
Meanwhile, writing the next Labour manifesto will be an interesting challenge.
Why so? Just re-print the latest one - it seemed to go down quite well. The real challenge is going to be writing the next Tory one.... which might need to be costed next time too.
Corbyn will not get away with his largesse at any future GE.
The day before the GE the IFS absolutely traduced the tax and borrowing figures as fantasy land. Also at the next GE labour are going to come under sustained attack on economic policy from not only the conservatives but Vince Cable and the SNP all of whom do not agree with his increases in corporation tax
And the IFS swayed a lot of real live voters did it?
Because no one highlighted it. You cannot attack corporation tax at a time when we are leaving the EU. Even tonight on the paper review the IFS was highlighted and the fantasy land of Corbyn's economics.
The next GE McDonnell will have a lot more questions to answer and will have a lot of opposition on it, unlike this election where he was dealt a free hand
It is the worst take on the election I have seen since I saw a Nat on twitter argue the results in Scotland was an overwhelming endorsement of Scottish Independence, that if Mrs May didn't give Indyref2 then Thursday's results give Nicola Sturgeon the mandate for UDI.
This might be the wrong time to ask but what's so bad about the Dementia Tax? Right now your house gets taken off you and sold if you go into care, and you keep about £25,000 or something.
I think a big part of the problem was it was a bolt from the blue and badly presented. Then the u-turn completely undermined the 'strong and stable' message. Can you imagin Thatcher u-turning on something in the manifesto? (Or on the budget NI change for that matter)
They are safe for the present, and Corbyn seems to have no interest in deselection as a philosophy.
All 3 Labour MP's in Leicester are not local, but each has also built up local roots, as Nick did in Broxtowe. In a place like Leicester where so many are from somewhere else, going native is easy. It is accepted and loads of precedent.
I know Corbyn isn't interested in deselections, and I certainly don't think it's impossible for MPs to become popular and connected to constituencies they weren't born in.
But it isn't up to Corbyn, it's up to the members and they might be - especially if the boundary review forces CLPs to elect candidates for the new constituencies. If those elections happen, parachuted-in imposed candidates of the past and many of those who have been trying to undermine the Corbyn project will not win those votes and the problem will sort itself.
We will see, but the members that turn up for selection meetings, and otber active things like canvassing tend to be more longstanding ones. Momentum itself is not monolithic.
On topic, surely it is the rest of the party that should be reaching out to him!
Foxes can rejoice.
Meanwhile, writing the next Labour manifesto will be an interesting challenge.
Why so? Just re-print the latest one - it seemed to go down quite well. The real challenge is going to be writing the next Tory one.... which might need to be costed next time too.
Corbyn will not get away with his largesse at any future GE.
The day before the GE the IFS absolutely traduced the tax and borrowing figures as fantasy land. Also at the next GE labour are going to come under sustained attack on economic policy from not only the conservatives but Vince Cable and the SNP all of whom do not agree with his increases in corporation tax
I don't think it will do much good. The Cult Of Corbyn is only going to grow - Unless the Tories find there own anti-politics populist leader (and that can be only Boris really) Corbyn WILL be Prime Minister whenever there's a new general election and even then the Cult Of Corbyn may be more popular ultimately.
The only way to truly stop him now is to let him seize power and let people experience the true horror of his brand of "pure" socialism I'm afraid.
Why is everyone certain Farage will return to head UKIP? Is UKIP really worth his time at this point? It's going to be very hard to regain some of its lost momentum, and Farage could instead be paid lots of money by Fox News and have his last political job being a win (Brexit).
This might be the wrong time to ask but what's so bad about the Dementia Tax? Right now your house gets taken off you and sold if you go into care, and you keep about £25,000 or something.
It was a much better system as it increased the figure from £23,250 to £100,000 and importantly assured your home could not be sold before you die, unlike today.
It was the crass way it was sold but also showed Corbyn as someone who wants to protect the wealthy home owners at the expense of the young. Indeed it was such a progressive policy that Corbyn should have adopted it himself
It is the worst take on the election I have seen since I saw a Nat on twitter argue the results in Scotland was an overwhelming endorsement of Scottish Independence, that if Mrs May didn't give Indyref2 then Thursday's results give Nicola Sturgeon the mandate for UDI.
Oh, are we doing bad Zoomer takes on Twitter?
I don't believe you will be able to better this effort...
@Albotron2084: Newsflash for yessers. This election was an orchestrated campaign to put us back in our box, and close down debate. But the SNP still won.
@Albotron2084: Now is not the time to sit down. Now is the time to turn it up to 11. Despite the mediagasm, Ruthie and Kezia are actually on the ropes
The Tories fought the most indescribably poor and inept campaign imagineable and still won 56 more seats than labour. The election was not about whether May or Corbyn governed the UK, it was about how big the Tory majority was. In that respect voting against May was a free hit for many people. The dynamics of the next election, whenever it is will be very different. At the next election Labour's programme for government will be scrutinised a 100 times more than at this election.
I'm enjoying pouring over the results tonight and have to spare a moment for the indestructible Jackie Doyle Price who has now held Thurrock for three elections on majorities of 92, 536 and 345!
This might be the wrong time to ask but what's so bad about the Dementia Tax? Right now your house gets taken off you and sold if you go into care, and you keep about £25,000 or something.
Actually there wans't anything particularly bad about the policy )that I could see)
The problem was all in the timing (in the middle of an election campaign) and the messaging (you just can't "sell" a policy like this on the doorsteps in the middle of an election campaign)
All they had to say in the manifesto is that they were committed to "looking" at various funding models for social care and we'll get back to you with the details after a consultation.
That's it. That would've covered everything and nobody would've thought any more about it.
The Tories fought the most indescribably poor and inept campaign imagineable and still won 56 more seats than labour. The election was not about whether May or Corbyn governed the UK, it was about how big the Tory majority was. In that respect voting against May was a free hit for many people. The dynamics of the next election, whenever it is will be very different. At the next election Labour's programme for government will be scrutinised a 100 times more than at this election.
Problem is that Labour's response will be the perfectly reasonable "there you go again". The Tories need to find a positive reason or two for people to support them.
But the YouGov model should have been the focus of a really serious bout of analysis. It was obvious to most posters that its basic principles seemed correct. If people didn't believe the results, and yet the idea of the model seemed solid, it should have provoked extremely intense curiosity, particularly given the betting opportunities if it was even half-right.
(If it is the future, it might be time to learn some Python or R, or at least serious Excel wizardry...)
1) The YouGov model was subject to very serious analysis...unfortunately for purposes of discrediting it. The technique of examining every aspect of something, identifying its imperfections, characterising them as flaws, and then dismissing it, was applied most assiduously here, and even somebody as smart as BlackRook was caught up by it (although he had the sense to row back). PB is clever and quick and hard working, but it is not objective nor curious in the childlike sense.
2) Learn R. It's opensource and the defacto industry standard for data scientists. I've got over a decade of SAS and I can only just get thru the door for interviews. Say "Excel" and they'll laugh at you, tho if you learn Visual Basic enough to write Excel macros they might be more sympathetic.
Incidentally, one of the reasons I don't want to get a job in industry, other than the fact the pay seems low even for senior roles (there was a role like head of statistics advertised for Sky Europe, if I recall correctly, requiring two European languages plus oodles of technical and statistical expertise plus years of management experience, for about 75k - people with more limited skills and experience than that must surely be able to make more elsewhere?) but how easily outsourced a lot of these roles seem to be.
Found a rather depressing Indian statistics and data science jobs site, where people with pretty serious levels education and skills were being hired for just a a few grand per year. No idea what the quality of those candidates would be like compared to early career British/European/American equivalents, but it would largely be for outsourced work. The really plum top-of-the-tree jobs which had much stricter entry requirements were paying about 15k/year and featured a couple of months' rotations in New York or London, on the kind of temporary visas that seem to tick off commenters on IT industry websites...
I say it was depressing. Actually the way that well-educated Indians are competing in the global economy with their skills, and getting richer, was rather heart-warming. But I'd rather focus on work that doesn't put me directly in competition with them! Did make me wonder whether it was suppressing your pay somewhat, @viewcode - in principal someone with such in-demand STEM skills should be paying paid a princely ransom, but you don't seem to be on the receiving end of one!
I thought that this link would be helpful in explaining who Mrs may thinks we should be having in government; this isn't what Conservative voters were voting for
They are safe for the present, and Corbyn seems to have no interest in deselection as a philosophy.
All 3 Labour MP's in Leicester are not local, but each has also built up local roots, as Nick did in Broxtowe. In a place like Leicester where so many are from somewhere else, going native is easy. It is accepted and loads of precedent.
I know Corbyn isn't interested in deselections, and I certainly don't think it's impossible for MPs to become popular and connected to constituencies they weren't born in.
But it isn't up to Corbyn, it's up to the members and they might be - especially if the boundary review forces CLPs to elect candidates for the new constituencies. If those elections happen, parachuted-in imposed candidates of the past and many of those who have been trying to undermine the Corbyn project will not win those votes and the problem will sort itself.
We will see, but the members that turn up for selection meetings, and otber active things like canvassing tend to be more longstanding ones. Momentum itself is not monolithic.
Sure, but I doubt many Momentum members will be voting Liz Kendall or Chris Leslie over a left-wing candidate if the option came up. Depends on how easily they can be assimilated into the party structures if Momentum tries to educate them about all the ins-and-outs before these potential selections. I'd be surprised if they're not doing it already with Lansman at the head, as that was what the CLPD was all about and quite good at for a while, but I've had nothing to do with Momentum so I couldn't say.
On topic, surely it is the rest of the party that should be reaching out to him!
Foxes can rejoice.
Meanwhile, writing the next Labour manifesto will be an interesting challenge.
Why so? Just re-print the latest one - it seemed to go down quite well. The real challenge is going to be writing the next Tory one.... which might need to be costed next time too.
Corbyn will not get away with his largesse at any future GE.
The day before the GE the IFS absolutely traduced the tax and borrowing figures as fantasy land. Also at the next GE labour are going to come under sustained attack on economic policy from not only the conservatives but Vince Cable and the SNP all of whom do not agree with his increases in corporation tax
I don't think it will do much good. The Cult Of Corbyn is only going to grow - Unless the Tories find there own anti-politics populist leader (and that can be only Boris really) Corbyn WILL be Prime Minister whenever there's a new general election and even then the Cult Of Corbyn may be more popular ultimately.
The only way to truly stop him is to let him seize power and let people experience the true horror of his brand of "pure" socialism I'm afraid.
On topic, surely it is the rest of the party that should be reaching out to him!
Foxes can rejoice.
Meanwhile, writing the next Labour manifesto will be an interesting challenge.
Why so? Just re-print the latest one - it seemed to go down quite well. The real challenge is going to be writing the next Tory one.... which might need to be costed next time too.
Corbyn will not get away with his largesse at any future GE.
The day before the GE the IFS absolutely traduced the tax and borrowing figures as fantasy land. Also at the next GE labour are going to come under sustained attack on economic policy from not only the conservatives but Vince Cable and the SNP all of whom do not agree with his increases in corporation tax
I don't think it will do much good. The Cult Of Corbyn is only going to grow - Unless the Tories find there own anti-politics populist leader (and that can be only Boris really) Corbyn WILL be Prime Minister whenever there's a new general election and even then the Cult Of Corbyn may be more popular ultimately.
The only way to truly stop him is to let him seize power and let people experience the true horror of his brand of "pure" socialism I'm afraid.
I am not at all sure about that though I do remember the IMF being called in under labour
If May cements herself in place, is there actually going to be much commons business?
Seems to me like we could end up with a year or two of stalemate in Westminster, while May does her dance with Brussels.
An executive without a legislature.
We're going to have a lot of legalisation in the next two years, probably more than ever
The great repeal bill (sic) needs to happen for Brexit to happen.
The great repeal doesn't have to happen for Brexit to happen. Brexit will happen by March 29(?) 2019 even if every MP died in an unfortunate chess accident. That bit is automatic.
The point of the great repeal bill is to fix that legislation that assumes membership of the EU. If it isn't enacted than we have legal vacuums and badly-formed law. That would be bad (how do you enforce a legal agreement if the law is nonsense or absent? To which court would you appeal, and which law would you quote in your argument?) but would not prevent Brexit.
You don'r need legal permission to hit the ground if you jump off a cliff. Gravity will do it for you.
My local Momentum group is applying pressure to Chris Leslie to stop talking about Saint Jez in public, the civil war rumbles on unabated.
I don't think I'd call it civil war - constructive pieces like Joff's are what's needed now from the centre. I think it's reasonable to ask Chris to restrain himself for a few months while we see how things work out.
1 Ring round, and see who will serve in Shadow Cabinet. Appoint on merit. 2 Tell PLP bygones are bygones. Get behind popular manifesto. 3 Discipline anyone making statements/ snarky tweets like Leslie and Phillips today. 4 If they persist, suggest another Party. Last resort de-selection.
Shit got real on Thursday. There is a very real prospect of a Labour government now.
This is absolutely right. Labour needs a swing of under 4% to won the next general election. It has to be seen as a government in waiting. That means discipline on all sides. If Corbyn does extend the hand of friendship, woe betide anyone who refuses it.
I'm enjoying pouring over the results tonight and have to spare a moment for the indestructible Jackie Doyle Price who has now held Thurrock for three elections on majorities of 92, 536 and 345!
And Tim Akers saw his UKIP vote stand up well, is that far and away the best UKIP performance of the night?
If May cements herself in place, is there actually going to be much commons business?
Seems to me like we could end up with a year or two of stalemate in Westminster, while May does her dance with Brussels.
An executive without a legislature.
We're going to have a lot of legalisation in the next two years, probably more than ever
The great repeal bill (sic) needs to happen for Brexit to happen.
The great repeal doesn't have to happen for Brexit to happen. Brexit will happen by March 29(?) 2019 even if every MP died in an unfortunate chess accident. That bit is automatic.
The point of the great repeal bill is to fix that legislation that assumes membership of the EU. If it isn't enacted than we have legal vacuums and badly-formed law. That would be bad (how do you enforce a legal agreement if the law is nonsense or absent? To which court would you appeal, and which law would you quote in your argument?) but would not prevent Brexit.
You don'r need legal permission to hit the ground if you jump off a cliff. Gravity will do it for you.
On topic, surely it is the rest of the party that should be reaching out to him!
Foxes can rejoice.
Meanwhile, writing the next Labour manifesto will be an interesting challenge.
Why so? Just re-print the latest one - it seemed to go down quite well. The real challenge is going to be writing the next Tory one.... which might need to be costed next time too.
Corbyn will not get away with his largesse at any future GE.
The day before the GE the IFS absolutely traduced the tax and borrowing figures as fantasy land. Also at the next GE labour are going to come under sustained attack on economic policy from not only the conservatives but Vince Cable and the SNP all of whom do not agree with his increases in corporation tax
And the IFS swayed a lot of real live voters did it?
Because no one highlighted it. You cannot attack corporation tax at a time when we are leaving the EU. Even tonight on the paper review the IFS was highlighted and the fantasy land of Corbyn's economics.
The next GE McDonnell will have a lot more questions to answer and will have a lot of opposition on it, unlike this election where he was dealt a free hand
Him v Osborne would have been fun, sadly for us all we never go to see it.
The Tories fought the most indescribably poor and inept campaign imagineable and still won 56 more seats than labour. The election was not about whether May or Corbyn governed the UK, it was about how big the Tory majority was. In that respect voting against May was a free hit for many people. The dynamics of the next election, whenever it is will be very different. At the next election Labour's programme for government will be scrutinised a 100 times more than at this election.
Problem is that Labour's response will be the perfectly reasonable "there you go again". The Tories need to find a positive reason or two for people to support them.
SO, you must be concerned that Corbyn is unstoppable now? OK, that may give you a temporary buzz of seeing Labour returned to government and the Tories out on their arses, but you know in your heart of hearts that Corbyn is unfit to be Prime Minister and in office will quickly prove to be a disaster that will destroy the Labour Party.
I'd have thought you'd be depressed at this electon result because it means sensible Labour people like yourself can't get Corbyn out and it seems almost inevitable now that he will be Prime Minister?
I thought that this link would be helpful in explaining who Mrs may thinks we should be having in government; this isn't what Conservative voters were voting for
The Tories fought the most indescribably poor and inept campaign imagineable and still won 56 more seats than labour. The election was not about whether May or Corbyn governed the UK, it was about how big the Tory majority was. In that respect voting against May was a free hit for many people. The dynamics of the next election, whenever it is will be very different. At the next election Labour's programme for government will be scrutinised a 100 times more than at this election.
Problem is that Labour's response will be the perfectly reasonable "there you go again". The Tories need to find a positive reason or two for people to support them.
You are right, and I expect they will. They'll also do a much better job of dissecting Labour's manifesto. As an example, how many voters who were concerned about May's social care policy understood Labour's policy on IHT? Very few is the answer. Next time I expect it will be different. Don't you?
Why is everyone certain Farage will return to head UKIP? Is UKIP really worth his time at this point? It's going to be very hard to regain some of its lost momentum, and Farage could instead be paid lots of money by Fox News and have his last political job being a win (Brexit).
The referendum was a Win. Brexit may not be. To win the referendum but to lose the war afterwards, so that Brexit does not even happen at all (which is what some pro-Remain MPs will be hoping for), would be a calamitous failure. From a former UKIP press officer on the perils of letting your guard drop:
The Tories fought the most indescribably poor and inept campaign imagineable and still won 56 more seats than labour. The election was not about whether May or Corbyn governed the UK, it was about how big the Tory majority was. In that respect voting against May was a free hit for many people. The dynamics of the next election, whenever it is will be very different. At the next election Labour's programme for government will be scrutinised a 100 times more than at this election.
Problem is that Labour's response will be the perfectly reasonable "there you go again". The Tories need to find a positive reason or two for people to support them.
You are right, and I expect they will. They'll also do a much better job of dissecting Labour's manifesto. As an example, how many voters who were concerned about May's social care policy understood Labour's policy on IHT? Very few is the answer. Next time I expect it will be different. Don't you?
Only if the cabinet is allowed out, recently they haven't been apart from cameos.
I'm enjoying pouring over the results tonight and have to spare a moment for the indestructible Jackie Doyle Price who has now held Thurrock for three elections on majorities of 92, 536 and 345!
And Tim Akers saw his UKIP vote stand up well, is that far and away the best UKIP performance of the night?
I think it must be at 20%. Conversely the deposit was only just held in Thanet South where the circumstances were surely more favourable to UKIP.
The Tories fought the most indescribably poor and inept campaign imagineable and still won 56 more seats than labour. The election was not about whether May or Corbyn governed the UK, it was about how big the Tory majority was. In that respect voting against May was a free hit for many people. The dynamics of the next election, whenever it is will be very different. At the next election Labour's programme for government will be scrutinised a 100 times more than at this election.
Maybe the more people hear , the more they will like? A little bit of listening might not hurt?
Why is everyone certain Farage will return to head UKIP?
Because he was on telly again today (yes, I know) and said so
Didn't he say he'd think about it over the next week? He could just be wanting to generate attention and feel flattered when people fawn over him before he decides against it.
I don't think it will do much good. The Cult Of Corbyn is only going to grow - Unless the Tories find there own anti-politics populist leader (and that can be only Boris really) Corbyn WILL be Prime Minister whenever there's a new general election and even then the Cult Of Corbyn may be more popular ultimately.
The only way to truly stop him is to let him seize power and let people experience the true horror of his brand of "pure" socialism I'm afraid.
I am not at all sure about that though I do remember the IMF being called in under labour
Corbyn is waaaaaaayyyy more extreme than anything we experienced in the 1970's.
My local Momentum group is applying pressure to Chris Leslie to stop talking about Saint Jez in public, the civil war rumbles on unabated.
I don't think I'd call it civil war - constructive pieces like Joff's are what's needed now from the centre. I think it's reasonable to ask Chris to restrain himself for a few months while we see how things work out.
1 Ring round, and see who will serve in Shadow Cabinet. Appoint on merit. 2 Tell PLP bygones are bygones. Get behind popular manifesto. 3 Discipline anyone making statements/ snarky tweets like Leslie and Phillips today. 4 If they persist, suggest another Party. Last resort de-selection.
Shit got real on Thursday. There is a very real prospect of a Labour government now.
This is absolutely right. Labour needs a swing of under 4% to won the next general election. It has to be seen as a government in waiting. That means discipline on all sides. If Corbyn does extend the hand of friendship, woe betide anyone who refuses it.
The people Westminster-watchers like are not the people who actually have talent, though. I think all the years of yearning for the utterly mediocre David Miliband shows that. The Jess Phillipses who play well with journalists are just not the cream of the party. And they simply will not get behind a left-wing leader, they've shown they would rather plunge the party into months of bitter infighting to try and get him out when anybody should have known Owen Smith had no chance.
And they chose to do it at a critical moment in British history when we were all scratching our heads going 'what did we just vote for?'. If they had any sense at all, Labour could have given the country a lead, defined what Brexit even meant while the Tories fought amongst themselves for months. We wouldn't even be speaking in terms of 'hard Brexit' and 'soft Brexit', it wouldn't necessarily have been driven by the ideas of the Tory Right.
And it's unclear who that plan applies to. Corbyn? Well de-selections are nothing to do with him, and it's true he would never call for them. The members have a great deal of influence here, at least potentially if not actually for now. I don't see a route back for the right-wing MPs that ends with 'and Chris Leslie worked constructively with his colleagues to implement a socialist program'.
Excellent article SO. I'm not as sure as you are that this election was a victory for Corbyn personally as much as a victory for Remain.
For those of us who were appalled by Theresa May's Brexit plans and her disrespectful behaviour towards our EU partners there was nowhere else to go.
As strongly Remain areas proved a vote for the Tories wasn't an option and with little fear that Corbyn would be PM we could effectively vote to neuter May by voting for Corbyn without too much risk.
Speaking for myself in the last few days my feelings towards Corbyn have improved a lot. Why should we feel safer with someone who cowtows to the Saudis rather than an old hippy peacenik? At least the old peacnik is honest.
On topic SO tells Corbyns critics to lay off for the good of the party.
Wonder if SO will vote Lab under Corbyn next time for the best opportunity to get rid of the Tories?
I have some very serious thinking to do. I have to admit that Corbyn has surprised me hugely over the last six week, as has the fact that voters have clearly warmed to him and been willing to overlook a back story that I found - still find - very unpleasant. What I very much hope is that Corbyn, too, may have learned a few things while on the road these last six weeks. There is no doubt that the whole Labour movement pulled together and worked together over the course of the campaign. Momentum and Progress organised members and supported MPs and candidates from across the party. I also sense that this may have engendered comradely feelings that may not have been there before. I now live in a Labour marginal. That was not the case before. My kids are all energised and so excited about what has happened. I have not slept much since Wednesday and at times I feel close to tears thinking about their enthusiasm and the fact that they have seen their hopes turned into something real. That is a wonderful thing to observe. I kind of feel that I owe it to them to give it another go. Especially as the alternative is just so awful.
Didn't he say he'd think about it over the next week? He could just be wanting to generate attention and feel flattered when people fawn over him before he decides against it.
This might be the wrong time to ask but what's so bad about the Dementia Tax? Right now your house gets taken off you and sold if you go into care, and you keep about £25,000 or something.
Actually there wans't anything particularly bad about the policy )that I could see)
The problem was all in the timing (in the middle of an election campaign) and the messaging (you just can't "sell" a policy like this on the doorsteps in the middle of an election campaign)
All they had to say in the manifesto is that they were committed to "looking" at various funding models for social care and we'll get back to you with the details after a consultation.
That's it. That would've covered everything and nobody would've thought any more about it.
The current policy is crap: it is essentially self-funding of dementia care until you're down to £23k, unless you have a spouse or dependent at home. The proposal was crap: removing the exemption on the house would have transferred even more of the burden from the state to the individual.
Dementia is an illness. We should be collectivising its costs. Mitigating random catastrophic social costs is the natural business of government. Given that the state is necessarily underwriting costs for individuals who cannot meet them, it makes a lot of sense to collectivise fully and in a controlled manner. A thorough consultation (perhaps as a Royal Commission) is needed, as you say.
it seems almost inevitable now we will not leave the EU
it seems almost inevitable now Hilary will be President
it seems almost inevitable now May will get a landslide
it seems almost inevitable now the inevitable is bollocks
1. Anti establishment won.
2. Anti establishment won.
3. Anti establishment (almost won)
Corbyn is anti establishment and the political pendulum/cycle is with him and Labour. I can't really see any way to stop him (Boris might have a chance but I'm certainly not confident)
My local Momentum group is applying pressure to Chris Leslie to stop talking about Saint Jez in public, the civil war rumbles on unabated.
I don't think I'd call it civil war - constructive pieces like Joff's are what's needed now from the centre. I think it's reasonable to ask Chris to restrain himself for a few months while we see how things work out.
1 Ring round, and see who will serve in Shadow Cabinet. Appoint on merit. 2 Tell PLP bygones are bygones. Get behind popular manifesto. 3 Discipline anyone making statements/ snarky tweets like Leslie and Phillips today. 4 If they persist, suggest another Party. Last resort de-selection.
Shit got real on Thursday. There is a very real prospect of a Labour government now.
This is absolutely right. Labour needs a swing of under 4% to won the next general election. It has to be seen as a government in waiting. That means discipline on all sides. If Corbyn does extend the hand of friendship, woe betide anyone who refuses it.
Cheers SO. Coming from you that means a lot. I hope you can see your way to taking a full part in the process. I have just joined the Party for the first time ever. (I am neither a Corbynite or a Blairite, just a patriotic, leftish British citizen who thinks we deserve better than the shit show we have been given over the past 2 years of Tory toddler squabbling).
I was ready to be suspicious of the polls but the real reason that I thought the Tories would get a substantial majority was the sense of dread amongst Labour MPs. Many clearly expected to lose their seats. Now there wasn't much marginals polling done so why was that? Why weren't they able to see that the situation for them was much better than it seemed? Did they just ignore the young voters who they assumed couldn't be relied upon.
Turnout was only up by 2.6%. Was that enough to generate the huge youth turnout? Perhaps, if turnout was down amongst some other groups.
I was about the post that, the youth vote did surge but other groups fell back.
I will be interested to note if YouGov? last poll vote which showed by age, and the Tories were only winning with the oldies was the case.
Did some oldies sit it out, middle aged did vote more for Labour than Tories, or it was student surge.
Would particularly be interesting to know whether the middle-aged Labour majority was due to a lot of late Labour-Tory switching in that demographic, or because (as I suspect happened with older folk) people who would have tempted Tory were so untempted by what was on offer that they didn't show up...
It is the worst take on the election I have seen since I saw a Nat on twitter argue the results in Scotland was an overwhelming endorsement of Scottish Independence, that if Mrs May didn't give Indyref2 then Thursday's results give Nicola Sturgeon the mandate for UDI.
Oh, are we doing bad Zoomer takes on Twitter?
I don't believe you will be able to better this effort...
@Albotron2084: Newsflash for yessers. This election was an orchestrated campaign to put us back in our box, and close down debate. But the SNP still won.
@Albotron2084: Now is not the time to sit down. Now is the time to turn it up to 11. Despite the mediagasm, Ruthie and Kezia are actually on the ropes
Is that better or worse than the effort that insisted that the Brexit vote justified a second Indy ref and Scotland voting for independence? If only we had the zoomer with that hot take around to tell us.
Didn't he say he'd think about it over the next week? He could just be wanting to generate attention and feel flattered when people fawn over him before he decides against it.
Or did he say more than that and I mis-read?
You're right, he's thinking about it.
I believe that means yes.
I believe it probably means yes, but I was just wondering if I missed something which made it more certain. It's just a differing interpretation I think, which is fair enough.
I don't think it will do much good. The Cult Of Corbyn is only going to grow - Unless the Tories find there own anti-politics populist leader (and that can be only Boris really) Corbyn WILL be Prime Minister whenever there's a new general election and even then the Cult Of Corbyn may be more popular ultimately.
The only way to truly stop him is to let him seize power and let people experience the true horror of his brand of "pure" socialism I'm afraid.
I am not at all sure about that though I do remember the IMF being called in under labour
Corbyn is waaaaaaayyyy more extreme than anything we experienced in the 1970's.
1976 would be a small glitch compared to Corbyn's Venezuela manifesto
I don't think it will do much good. The Cult Of Corbyn is only going to grow - Unless the Tories find there own anti-politics populist leader (and that can be only Boris really) Corbyn WILL be Prime Minister whenever there's a new general election and even then the Cult Of Corbyn may be more popular ultimately.
The only way to truly stop him is to let him seize power and let people experience the true horror of his brand of "pure" socialism I'm afraid.
I am not at all sure about that though I do remember the IMF being called in under labour
Corbyn is waaaaaaayyyy more extreme than anything we experienced in the 1970's.
1976 would be a small glitch compared to Corbyn's Venezuela manifesto
While here in the real world, Labour's manifesto was less left-wing than Harold MacMillan's.
The Tories fought the most indescribably poor and inept campaign imagineable and still won 56 more seats than labour. The election was not about whether May or Corbyn governed the UK, it was about how big the Tory majority was. In that respect voting against May was a free hit for many people. The dynamics of the next election, whenever it is will be very different. At the next election Labour's programme for government will be scrutinised a 100 times more than at this election.
Problem is that Labour's response will be the perfectly reasonable "there you go again". The Tories need to find a positive reason or two for people to support them.
SO, you must be concerned that Corbyn is unstoppable now? OK, that may give you a temporary buzz of seeing Labour returned to government and the Tories out on their arses, but you know in your heart of hearts that Corbyn is unfit to be Prime Minister and in office will quickly prove to be a disaster that will destroy the Labour Party.
I'd have thought you'd be depressed at this electon result because it means sensible Labour people like yourself can't get Corbyn out and it seems almost inevitable now that he will be Prime Minister?
Yep - these are all very real risks. But there is a also a huge risk that this government will cause major long-term damage to the UK in the way that it handles Brexit. A united Labour party in which there is a communal approach to policy making has a better chance of winning power and then governing effectively than one in which policy is created by a few Marxist-Leninists locked away in an office in the House of Commons. Given that the choice is now clearly Labour or Conservative, those of us who are not Tories maybe have the duty to give Labour our best shot. If we are rebuffed, then at least we have tried. We can do nothing if we just stand by and watch.
The Tories fought the most indescribably poor and inept campaign imagineable and still won 56 more seats than labour. The election was not about whether May or Corbyn governed the UK, it was about how big the Tory majority was. In that respect voting against May was a free hit for many people. The dynamics of the next election, whenever it is will be very different. At the next election Labour's programme for government will be scrutinised a 100 times more than at this election.
Maybe the more people hear , the more they will like? A little bit of listening might not hurt?
Dixiedean makes a good point. Labour's popularity increased during this election because of the manifesto not in spite of it. I honestly think a large number of non-partisan voters are open to new ideas and are beginning to believe austerity isn't working for them.
I don't think it will do much good. The Cult Of Corbyn is only going to grow - Unless the Tories find there own anti-politics populist leader (and that can be only Boris really) Corbyn WILL be Prime Minister whenever there's a new general election and even then the Cult Of Corbyn may be more popular ultimately.
The only way to truly stop him is to let him seize power and let people experience the true horror of his brand of "pure" socialism I'm afraid.
I am not at all sure about that though I do remember the IMF being called in under labour
Corbyn is waaaaaaayyyy more extreme than anything we experienced in the 1970's.
In the 1970s Pickfords and Thomas Cook were in state ownership, how is anything in the Labour Manifesto more extreme than that?
...Did make me wonder whether it was suppressing your pay somewhat, @viewcode - in principal someone with such in-demand STEM skills should be paying paid a princely ransom, but you don't seem to be on the receiving end of one!
The problem with a tech job (and the reason why I got out of it and entered statistics) is that a) tech dates rapidly, and b) the required skillset is infinitely large. I've seen job ads that require C++, Javascript, VB, R, SAS and Hadoop, despite all six of those things reflecting different computer disciplines. Every year there is something new: for example Microsoft Azure is this years' new black that all the hipsters wear, and my tech skills date faster than my capacity to acquire new ones.
This is why I prefer maths and stats: it doesn't date and every new job adds to my skillset instead of replacing it.
I was ready to be suspicious of the polls but the real reason that I thought the Tories would get a substantial majority was the sense of dread amongst Labour MPs. Many clearly expected to lose their seats. Now there wasn't much marginals polling done so why was that? Why weren't they able to see that the situation for them was much better than it seemed? Did they just ignore the young voters who they assumed couldn't be relied upon.
Turnout was only up by 2.6%. Was that enough to generate the huge youth turnout? Perhaps, if turnout was down amongst some other groups.
I was about the post that, the youth vote did surge but other groups fell back.
I will be interested to note if YouGov? last poll vote which showed by age, and the Tories were only winning with the oldies was the case.
Did some oldies sit it out, middle aged did vote more for Labour than Tories, or it was student surge.
Would particularly be interesting to know whether the middle-aged Labour majority was due to a lot of late Labour-Tory switching in that demographic, or because (as I suspect happened with older folk) people who would have tempted Tory were so untempted by what was on offer that they didn't show up...
My local Momentum group is applying pressure to Chris Leslie to stop talking about Saint Jez in public, the civil war rumbles on unabated.
I don't think I'd call it civil war - constructive pieces like Joff's are what's needed now from the centre. I think it's reasonable to ask Chris to restrain himself for a few months while we see how things work out.
1 Ring round, and see who will serve in Shadow Cabinet. Appoint on merit. 2 Tell PLP bygones are bygones. Get behind popular manifesto. 3 Discipline anyone making statements/ snarky tweets like Leslie and Phillips today. 4 If they persist, suggest another Party. Last resort de-selection.
Shit got real on Thursday. There is a very real prospect of a Labour government now.
This is absolutely right. Labour needs a swing of under 4% to won the next general election. It has to be seen as a government in waiting. That means discipline on all sides. If Corbyn does extend the hand of friendship, woe betide anyone who refuses it.
The people Westminster-watchers like are not the people who actually have talent, though. I think all the years of yearning for the utterly mediocre David Miliband shows that. The Jess Phillipses who play well with journalists are just not the cream of the party. And they simply will not get behind a left-wing leader, they've shown they would rather plunge the party into months of bitter infighting to try and get him out when anybody should have known Owen Smith had no chance
When everyone's written their memoirs we'll find out what really happened. The plan can't have been for Owen Smith to be the candidate so someone heavyweight must have been in line to challenge but got cold feet at the end and left Owen to take the blame. Shades of Purnell quitting only for DMiliband to abandon his coup attempt at the last moment.
Comments
He had advertised a job via a major recruitment agency, and one of the pre-requisites was to have excellent excel skills.
Interview a few people, picked one person, within a week, it was clear what the successful candidate considered excellent excel skills, was different to his definition of excellent. His candidate thought using sum and sumif was excellent excel skills.
I advised him going forward, his interview should include an excel test.
Thanks May you complete idiot you have made it likely we will have a full blown socialist government in 5 years (if that).
Reminds me: met someone on polling day who didn't know the locals had happens yet and thought they were on the same day as the general!
2) Learn R. It's opensource and the defacto industry standard for data scientists. I've got over a decade of SAS and I can only just get thru the door for interviews. Say "Excel" and they'll laugh at you, tho if you learn Visual Basic enough to write Excel macros they might be more sympathetic.
It looks to me like we could end up with a year or two of stalemate in Westminster, while May does her dance with Brussels.
An executive without a legislature.
The great repeal bill (sic) needs to happen for Brexit to happen.
The day before the GE the IFS absolutely traduced the tax and borrowing figures as fantasy land. Also at the next GE labour are going to come under sustained attack on economic policy from not only the conservatives but Vince Cable and the SNP all of whom do not agree with his increases in corporation tax
Their power bases are in Labour HQ, NEC factions that the vast majority of members don't know much about or consider when voting for the NEC, with the big donors, and in small cliques, not in the broader Labour movement.
Labour 2015 = 21463
Labour 2017 = 30859
Tories 2015 = 20874
Tories 2017 = 20950
And the IFS swayed a lot of real live voters did it?
2 Tell PLP bygones are bygones. Get behind popular manifesto.
3 Discipline anyone making statements/ snarky tweets like Leslie and Phillips today.
4 If they persist, suggest another Party. Last resort de-selection.
Shit got real on Thursday. There is a very real prospect of a Labour government now.
All 3 Labour MP's in Leicester are not local, but each has also built up local roots, as Nick did in Broxtowe. In a place like Leicester where so many are from somewhere else, going native is easy. It is accepted and loads of precedent.
I speak R and it's very handy, but a lot of folk who call themselves "data scientists" rather than "statisticians" seem to be using Python notebooks these days. I just do odds and sods of basic consultancy work as a side income, so it doesn't really bother me (though I use R for my personal projects though). If I wanted to work in industry I would have to look very carefully into whether it's worth brushing my Python up to a higher standard.
For beginners who have never coded before I think R is probably easier to learn than Python. For people who code already, but are new to data/stats/modelling, it's probably easier to go with Python, rather less idiosyncratic than R!
But for someone who just wants to toy around and doesn't have the time to learn to code, you can do an awful lot in Excel, even without macros. And it has the advantage of familiarity to more people.
- work out what their economic policy now is;
- explain why the absolutely necessary long-term economic plan is no longer necessary;
- come up with some proposals that actually have costings attached,
and then they might be in a position to take advantage...
My history in next leader markets has been total 100% failure so I've probably just guaranteed him the job.
But it isn't up to Corbyn, it's up to the members and they might be - especially if the boundary review forces CLPs to elect candidates for the new constituencies. If those elections happen, parachuted-in imposed candidates of the past and many of those who have been trying to undermine the Corbyn project will not win those votes and the problem will sort itself.
Even tonight on the paper review the IFS was highlighted and the fantasy land of Corbyn's economics.
The next GE McDonnell will have a lot more questions to answer and will have a lot of opposition on it, unlike this election where he was dealt a free hand
That's why he is pitching an alternative reality
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/five-cabinet-ministers-urge-boris-10602085
The only way to truly stop him now is to let him seize power and let people experience the true horror of his brand of "pure" socialism I'm afraid.
It was the crass way it was sold but also showed Corbyn as someone who wants to protect the wealthy home owners at the expense of the young. Indeed it was such a progressive policy that Corbyn should have adopted it himself
*Can we not talk about he Rebecca Long-Bailey bet, it brings back bad memories.
I don't believe you will be able to better this effort...
@Albotron2084: Newsflash for yessers. This election was an orchestrated campaign to put us back in our box, and close down debate. But the SNP still won.
@Albotron2084: Now is not the time to sit down. Now is the time to turn it up to 11. Despite the mediagasm, Ruthie and Kezia are actually on the ropes
The problem was all in the timing (in the middle of an election campaign) and the messaging (you just can't "sell" a policy like this on the doorsteps in the middle of an election campaign)
All they had to say in the manifesto is that they were committed to "looking" at various funding models for social care and we'll get back to you with the details after a consultation.
That's it. That would've covered everything and nobody would've thought any more about it.
Found a rather depressing Indian statistics and data science jobs site, where people with pretty serious levels education and skills were being hired for just a a few grand per year. No idea what the quality of those candidates would be like compared to early career British/European/American equivalents, but it would largely be for outsourced work. The really plum top-of-the-tree jobs which had much stricter entry requirements were paying about 15k/year and featured a couple of months' rotations in New York or London, on the kind of temporary visas that seem to tick off commenters on IT industry websites...
I say it was depressing. Actually the way that well-educated Indians are competing in the global economy with their skills, and getting richer, was rather heart-warming. But I'd rather focus on work that doesn't put me directly in competition with them! Did make me wonder whether it was suppressing your pay somewhat, @viewcode - in principal someone with such in-demand STEM skills should be paying paid a princely ransom, but you don't seem to be on the receiving end of one!
I thought that this link would be helpful in explaining who Mrs may thinks we should be having in government; this isn't what Conservative voters were voting for
The point of the great repeal bill is to fix that legislation that assumes membership of the EU. If it isn't enacted than we have legal vacuums and badly-formed law. That would be bad (how do you enforce a legal agreement if the law is nonsense or absent? To which court would you appeal, and which law would you quote in your argument?) but would not prevent Brexit.
You don'r need legal permission to hit the ground if you jump off a cliff. Gravity will do it for you.
Edit: at a GE I mean.
I'd have thought you'd be depressed at this electon result because it means sensible Labour people like yourself can't get Corbyn out and it seems almost inevitable now that he will be Prime Minister?
https://capx.co/why-we-ukippers-should-be-ashamed-of-ourselves/
it seems almost inevitable now we will not leave the EU
it seems almost inevitable now Hilary will be President
it seems almost inevitable now May will get a landslide
it seems almost inevitable now the inevitable is bollocks
Or did he say more than that and I mis-read?
And they chose to do it at a critical moment in British history when we were all scratching our heads going 'what did we just vote for?'. If they had any sense at all, Labour could have given the country a lead, defined what Brexit even meant while the Tories fought amongst themselves for months. We wouldn't even be speaking in terms of 'hard Brexit' and 'soft Brexit', it wouldn't necessarily have been driven by the ideas of the Tory Right.
And it's unclear who that plan applies to. Corbyn? Well de-selections are nothing to do with him, and it's true he would never call for them. The members have a great deal of influence here, at least potentially if not actually for now. I don't see a route back for the right-wing MPs that ends with 'and Chris Leslie worked constructively with his colleagues to implement a socialist program'.
For those of us who were appalled by Theresa May's Brexit plans and her disrespectful behaviour towards our EU partners there was nowhere else to go.
As strongly Remain areas proved a vote for the Tories wasn't an option and with little fear that Corbyn would be PM we could effectively vote to neuter May by voting for Corbyn without too much risk.
Speaking for myself in the last few days my feelings towards Corbyn have improved a lot. Why should we feel safer with someone who cowtows to the Saudis rather than an old hippy peacenik? At least the old peacnik is honest.
https://twitter.com/samcoatestimes/status/873666419430494208
I believe that means yes.
Dementia is an illness. We should be collectivising its costs. Mitigating random catastrophic social costs is the natural business of government. Given that the state is necessarily underwriting costs for individuals who cannot meet them, it makes a lot of sense to collectivise fully and in a controlled manner. A thorough consultation (perhaps as a Royal Commission) is needed, as you say.
I wrote in greater detail about this here: https://alex-adamou.github.io/dementia-tax/
2. Anti establishment won.
3. Anti establishment (almost won)
Corbyn is anti establishment and the political pendulum/cycle is with him and Labour. I can't really see any way to stop him (Boris might have a chance but I'm certainly not confident)
This is why I prefer maths and stats: it doesn't date and every new job adds to my skillset instead of replacing it.
That really does lay bare the generational dynamic.
The tories are the old peoples party.
https://twitter.com/alantravis40/status/873594813513433089