Categories
Options
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Betting on the Lib Dems getting 14% or higher with YouGov t
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Betting on the Lib Dems getting 14% or higher with YouGov this year
This year their average poll score with YouGov is 10.46%, out of the 169 YouGov polls this year, the Lib Dems have polled in double digits in 144 of them.
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
I'd be slightly surprised if the yellows didn't get 14% or more at some point.
Edited extra bit: on the prior thread I posted that I'd backed Wawrinka to beat Berdych at 3.15. He's out to 3.25 now. Incidentally, if those who are interested in such things would prefer them to be put on my betting blog and/or Twitter as well as/instead of here, do let me know.
Surely Labour would like to do better than "All parties are the same", they'd like to attack Conservatives over family ties, money, and tim's 'chumocracy'. A score draw would be a disappointment.
So basically they should be kept in conditions that they wouldnt be tempted to stay in?
That's a bit of a disingenuous statement. The refugee camps should be safe, secure and meet all their daily needs, but by their very nature they would be temporary because being a refugee is temporary in it's nature.
The aim of the world community is to bring peace to Syria right? So, the aim is that Syrians would go home after the conflict is finished.
If it continues beyond a certain point then longer term solutions should be considered of course, but then that would imply a failure of bringing an end to the conflict.
Welsh hospital bans smoking on whole site. (building, grounds, car park, the works)
Patients in need of a gasper will be prescribed nicotine patches. E-cigs also verboten, for some reason. Why do I have an image of people gathered just outside the gate wearing pyjamas and clutching drips. Can't be good for your health, that, especially in January.
[Actually, given the hospital's location, it's going to be a very brave porter who attempts to prise a ciggie from a smokers grasp.]
Also more interesting will be nicotine inhalers which have no smoke and don't require any power other than breath - especially one's shaped like a cigarette - may be difficult to ban these. BAT are investing heavily in one such product ...
http://www.theguardian.com/business/marketforceslive/2012/dec/03/consort-medical-british-american-tobacco
Prescott junior is 43 and has done other things before trying to become an MP. So I would exclude him from criticism - he may be good or useless - but he has some considerable life experience beyond simply being someone's son.
I have more of an issue with those barely out of school or university seeking to become MPs. Rare to find people that young with the requisite experience and judgment. I would prefer to see far more older people in Parliament.
In the meantime, according to the Guardian, Miliband has revised his stance yet again and has set out new conditions for Britain being involved in military action. Quote:
"A senior Labour source said: "There would need to be very significant change [for Labour to support military action]. There are two examples: if al-Qaida got possession of very large stockpiles of weapons or if there is a direct threat to national security."
It is difficult to know where to start with this. It fails in its own terms for want of clarity; are those the only two examples, or two of several? Presumably the latter, or else Labour has effectively ruled out intervening militarily for humanitarian reasons in any circumstance.
Doesn't Al Qaeda already have a very large stockpile of weapons? Does he mean chemical weapons? If so, why should we take military action if Al-Qaeda gets possession of a very large stockpile of weapons if they haven't yet used them, when we refused to take action against the Assad regime when it both possesed the weapons and (on the face of the evidence) used them against civillians? On what basis would we take military action in Syria (a sovereign nation) against the rebels? Would we seek the consent of the Assad regime before raining bombs on his enemies within his borders? There would be no basis in International law to act without Assad's consent in those circumstances. So would we fight side by side with Assad? Is that what Labour's position has come to? Is it only Al Qaeda Labour are worried about, or other Islamist (or indeed merely rebel-who-happen-to-be-muslim) groups? How is Al Qaeda defined for these purposes? What proof would Labour require before taking military action? Would it take military action in those circumstances without the approval of the UNSC? How does Labour propose to intervene miltarily in those circumstances? Tomahawks at dawn or a more targeted military effort involving special forces?
It is an utterly pathetic position.
The only thing more pathetic is that the Labour leadership is still changing its position on this, five days after it did so for the first time, and having in between times oscillated wildly within the spectrum of opinion. Miliband wants to be Prime Minister, a position that requires judgement and decisiveness. Heaven knows Cameron has struggled at times, but Miliband makes him look like Thatcher. This isn't prep for end of year finals, in which Miliband and his friends can casually debate philosophical veiwpoints over a few weeks before committing to paper in the hope of scoring 70%. If he becomes prime minister, the very next day he might be asked to support urgent military intervention, to decide what to do in the face of a terrorist threat or to lead the nation in a crisis. Does anyone think he is capable of doing that?
"Hasan Syed, who uses the Twitter handle @HVSVN, wrote on the social networking site: "Don't fly @BritishAirways. Their customer service is horrendous." He purchased the promoted tweet through the site's self-service ad platform and followed up his initial message with a series of posts criticising the loss of the luggage and the airline's delayed response.
British Airways responded to Syed's tweet, which now appears to be deleted, by asking him to message his bagging reference to them.
spokesperson for the airline said: "We would like to apologise to the customer for the inconvenience caused. We have been in contact with the customer and the bag is due to be delivered today."
Conference season has a habit of re shuffling the cards (although temporary) and may well produce that illusive one off bounce, - all they need is a little luck and an Elvis impersonator.
FPT
Thanks to SeanT for his response to my musings on the practicalities of shale oil. The point about the new abundance of shale gas and the impact that will have is well taken and I'm sure correct in as much as demand for crude oil may not rise as sharply as some suspect.
That said, there are large areas of the world (Africa) which have yet to really see the prosperity that would lead to increased energy usage. The supply of energy becoming available needs to keep with the demand and I just wonder if SeanT is being optimistic where crude is concerned and whether we may not yet still have several years of concern over oil prices because either a) sufficient quantities of shale gas come on line to lower demand or b) as he opined, the presence of a mass market of hybrid vehicles will also make crude less essential or c) emerging nations see an exponential increase in demand for crude.
As is often the case with emergent technology, the long-term is positive but the short to medium term arguably less so.
But the national figure matters less and less; council results and by-elections are increasingly showing the LDs holding their own where they care about the parliamentary seat (with good organsation) and dropping like a stone where they don't. The LD market I'd be on is lost deposits for 2015 - I think there will be at least 150 as in non-target areas the motivation to vote for the Lib Dems has gone.
Joe Chamberlain's sons Austen and Neville -both cabinet miisters, one led Conservatives, the other became PM.
Sir John Benn, Wedgewood Benn, Tony Benn - Hilary Benn all MPs - 3 Cabinet ministers.
Charge of nepotism can be unfair, but some sons and daughters can be or were mediocre politicians.
As shown by Charles rubbing his hands together- this market is new and a lot of devices will come out which will have the health police scratching their heads.
Of course I'm excluding stories such as this because that wouldn't be fair...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2101565/Tom-Holloway-suffers-horrific-burns-exploding-electronic-cigarette-knocks-teeth.html
The alternative is the Nicoventures product that TGOHF so kindly highlighted to everyone. It has completed clinical trials and will be launched as a regulated product, to pharmaceutical standards. Question is whether the e-cig lobbyists manage to bamboozle MPs into ignoring the MHRA's recommendation that e-cigs have to be approved...
(* disclosure: my family has a financial interest in the company that invented Oxette)
What about the Churchills...??? Lord Randolph, Sir Winston (senior and Junior)
There's a debate on that? Centuries of anecdote and hard evidence show how difficult many people find giving up. For that sizeable chunk of people then harm reduction is surely preferable to the status quo.
E-cigs may not be perfect, but it's early days and I'd guess a measured nicotine dose (i.e. the same as a patch) is better than the cocktail of particulates, carcinogens, poisons and odours which come from a normal fag. But yet again the pious, overbearing bansturbators are in full spittle-flecked flow...
EDIT: following on from Charles' comment, I have no issue with improving quality or safety of products - e-cigs or anything else - but the banning of a class of products just because they are perceived in some areas as being undesirable or unpleasant really gets my goat.
"If at first you don't bomb Syria, try, try again. That seems to be the attitude of the pro-war camp in Britain, who are now urging a second parliamentary vote on military action. You get the impression that they'd happily hold a vote for war every 24 hours for an entire year until they get the result they want. Call it democracy by attrition.
Nick Clegg has said that it's off the table, other voices seem to disagree – and the editorial board of The Times seems about ready to parachute into Damascus. But aside from the fact that a second vote would be an effective repudiation of the Government's promise to rule out military action, it also misses the point of what happened in Parliament last week. The case for another debate is that evidence is mounting of Assad's guilt in the Damascus chemical weapons attack. But his guilt is neither here nor there: the public are overwhelmingly against war because they simply don't want war – and many of the MPs' speeches focused on that rather important fact..." http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100233993/syria-assads-guilt-is-beside-the-point-people-dont-want-war-because-they-dont-want-war/
The harm reduction strategy is just a question of educating health professionals. Cessation is better, but harm reduction is a good step on the road
Western military intervention is unlikely to improve matters; it will more likely be like the ineffective interventions which occurred periodically in the Lebanese civil war. There is no strategy. Nor is there any sign of the intensive long-term commitment needed to remake a country, let alone several countries (a la WW2/Marshall Plan). The most interesting thing the US general on R4 said was that the Middle East simply had not been discussed or considered or thought about in US public life - and a few days chatter now is not going to change that underlying reality. There are no (or very few) good guys in Syria and matters are likely to get worse before (if) they get better. Tunisia, Libya and Egypt are hardly shining examples, after all.
Practical help for the refugees and the countries assisting them is probably the best course of action for the West. The Middle East is going to have to grow up and sort out its own affairs. The results are not going to be pretty and not likely either to be friendly to the West.
I can;t help thinking that Assad is more a symptom than a cause. Russia and Iran are backing him.
SeanT said:
Good of you to admit your ignorance. But you are only halfway there. What do you think a huge glut of new cheap hydrocarbon energy is going to do to the price of similar hydrocarbons?
Yes, crude might still be the preferred fuel source for cars - shale oil will take time and it's dirty - however there may be a switch to hybrid cars that use gas and petrol, or cars that use gas entirely, as it will be cheaper.
What is inevitable is that many of the other myriad ways where oil is now used - heating, power stations, chemicals - will be replaced by cheaper gas, if at all possible. This will dampen down global demand OVERALL for conventional oil (and coal), especially as wealthy populations age (as the Saudi prince notes, older people *use* less oil)
Hitherto expectations had been for the price of oil to go nuts. This now looks unlikely. The FT guy probably gets it right: prices of oil will plateau, OPEC's position will therefore, relatively, weaken, as their reserves run down. The Arab chokehold on our fuel resources is nearly at an end. Hooray!
Now REAL work. REALLY.
....
Fracking, both conventional and unconventional (primary fraking as we are now seeing used in gas) has been used in the oil industry for at least 80 years. It is a major secondary recovery technique in conventional oil fields and is also used to a lesser extent as a primary form particularly in north and south America.
The problem with it - and the one very big thing that Sean forgets - is that it is very very expensive. Gas is great for fraking from shales as it is a small molecule. Oil is not and the recovery from shales is still hugely difficult and not showing any signs fo getting easier.
With the oil price at around 100 dollars a barrel of course oil from shale becomes attractive. But at the same time Statoil are running their whole conventional Norway oil operation at an average cost of a lot less than 10 dollars a barrel. As long as the discrepancy exists between the costs of extracting oil conventionally and oil shales then I am afraid Sean's dream of oil shales changing the world are just fantasy.
That said he is right on one thing. Fracking gas plus the huge increase in conventional oil recovery in the US is going to make them energy independent in a very short time - I believe 2016 is the current estimate for them to start exporting oil. At the same time the Japanese developments with Methane Condensates is going to change their whole economic energy outlook completely.
So yes, I agree with Sean that (for different reasons) the days of Middle Eastern energy hegemony are numbered.
Sad man.
He has been Vice Chair of Greenwich & Woolwich CLP in the past and lives in the area. So his attempt to be selected there is not out of blue.
And he has strong competition in the form of Assembly Member Len Duvall and Cllr Matthew Pennycook.
"The OECD economic agency has sharply increased its growth forecast for the UK economy this year to 1.5% from an earlier estimate of 0.8%.
It said UK growth had gained momentum through the first half of the year."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23944091
It's in my Hall of Fame of Labour names along with
Philomena Muggins
Emilie Oldknow
Oliver de Botton
Nigel de Gruchy
Mike Le Surf
Sab Dance
Tosca Sofia Antonia Cabello-Watson
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0At91c3wX1Wu5dFkzTjFrRmJRN3F6ODBTTEs4NGFhcUE#gid=0
OK, let's not go there!
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/current/match/566939.html
I couldn't see anything reported. I checked the twitter account of the 2010 candidate (who is now an MSP) and she doesn't mention it at all. I wonder if it has been pushed to a later date or if the September 1 date was a mixed up and refered to another stage of the selection meeting and not the voting phase.
As there is no hot tip there is no need to hold an e-cig as if you are Clint Eastwood or Joe Strummer.
The logical way to hold an e-cig is like a lollypop. Together with the fact that many people smoke to be "cool" this will, I think, inhibit take-up.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/p480x480/1011423_527259880662797_491281902_n.jpg
OECD's updated forecast for other European economies include:
Italy ........... -1.8%
France ...... +0.3%
Germany .. +0.7%
elsewhere:
U.S. .......... +1.7%
Japan ....... +1.6%
China ....... +7.4%
http://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2013/08/britain-and-syria
"The vote of shame
The only people who should celebrate Parliament’s vote are Bashar Assad and Vladimir Putin"
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/09/tony-abbott-not-kevin-rudd-should-become-australias-next-prime-minister/
http://news.sky.com/story/1136599/syria-defector-exposes-assad-chemical-attack
Note that it is also apparently evidence of a chemical attack in Aleppo during March, not the one earlier this month.
Labour 1.85
Con 2.2
Maj
Lab 2.82 (!)
NOM 2.42
Ireland now faves to win cricket - 1.55 vs 2.74.
Eng/Ire/Zimb select 25/3 !
All I am saying is that the record of such defections and the intelligence they provide is poor to say the least. Our intelligence agencies do have a record of hearing what they want to hear and ignoring anything to the contrary. Unless of course you believe Iraq was full of chemical weapons at the time of the last invasion and we just missed them all?
"There was a moment when it seemed Niki Lauda had morphed from the silver screen and into the room. Close your eyes and the voice was not just a spooky imitation of that familiar declamatory tone with the clipped Austrian accent, it was Lauda.
German journalists at a preview showing thought so, too. They wanted to know when Lauda, now chairman of the Mercedes Formula One team, had time to record voice-overs for a near two-hour movie.
He didn’t; he left that to Daniel Bruhl, his Doppelganger in Rush, which has had its premiere in London..."
There is literally no reason to make electronic cigarettes have to reach higher standards than NRT or cigarettes.
These forecasts are not exactly something to put the mortgage on. In the OECD case politics also seem to play something of a role.
"Local TV may be coming to a screen near you soon - but not for the first time, as the UK already has a rich history of local television, writes social historian Joe Moran. But did viewers really want to watch pub darts and barber shop singers?
Last week, the Local TV Network launched an awareness campaign, beginning with a session at the Edinburgh International Television Festival on Local TV: The Next Big Thing?, ahead of the first stations going live this autumn.
What is less well known is that back in the early 1970s, residents of south-east London, Sheffield and Milton Keynes were already enjoying a diet of hyper-local entertainment..." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23906703?ocid=socialflow_twitter_bbcnewsmagazine
It's worth noting that BAT bought over an e-cigarette company a couple of years ago, and immediately approached the MHRA practically begging them to regulate it as a medicine. The market would be nicely sewn up for them.
e-cigs can be sold off the back of a lorry.
Tobacco is always a controversial point...
I don't smoke. I just don't think products should be legislated in a way that makes sure more people die.
http://jscms.jrn.columbia.edu/cns/2007-02-13/millstone-coldturkeyquitters.html
Failure and death ought not be controversial.
http://wowpics.us/14-tips-for-taking-the-perfect-cat-selfie/so-you-ve-decided-to-take-a-cat-selfie-this-is-a-good-choice-for-any-cat-to-make-if-you-follow-these-few-important-guidelines-all-of-the-other-cats-will-love-your-new-pic-on-cat-facebook-let-s-walk-through-it
As for your assertion: what is the track record? Have you had visibility of the intelligence coming from all defectors? Or are you concentrating on one or two stories from Iraq?
Let the guy tell his story, present his evidence and then we can make up our minds. He may be lying; he may be telling the truth (or at least as he perceives it). The first question in my mind is how authoritative is his evidence? How and why does he know what he claims? We can move on from there.
Instead, you've made up your mind already.
Ie obfusticated and gone out of their way not to be helpful ?