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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Electoral Calculus now giving LAB a 79 percent chance of a
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Electoral Calculus now giving LAB a 79 percent chance of a majority with CON a 4 percent one
In seat terms Electoral Calculus is projecting a LAB majority of 80 which is seven up on a month ago. The seat breakdown is CON 231 (-76): LAB 365 (+107): LD 23 (-34): SNP/PC 12 (+3): UKIP 0 (=)
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I have generally been a fan of Baxter over the years. Eg. he had a surprisingly good UK GE 2010. Baxter's strength is his blinkered focus on mathematics, doing his best to ignore politics. That in itself is a valuable contribution to the fields of electoral prediction and odds betting. Being too focussed on politics per se actually makes most people atrocious at both electoral prediction and at betting. Which is of course why bookies love political punters, because most of them are total mugs (witness the 4/6 Shadsy is offering on Danny Alexander holding his Inverness seat: oh, how he must chuckle).
By the way, for all you folks out there who profess to hate Scottish sub-samples (except, oddly, when they occasionally show the Tories doing well), please take note that Baxter has started to use them.
The markets are not "being irrationally kind to Con maj". Rather, certain Tory punters are being irrationally optimistic.
Lab 42 (+1)
SNP 10 (+4)
Con 4 (+3)
LD 3 (-8)
This neatly illustrates one of the key problems for the Scottish Liberal Democrats: with no money, decimated ground troops and councillor numbers slashed they are fighting on three very different fronts (four if you include the Greens, who have also been taking significant chunks of the SLD vote).
The Lib Dem losses would be:
- East Dunbartonshire, to Labour
- Argyll & Bute, to the SNP
- Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross, to the SNP
- Gordon, to the SNP
- Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, to the SNP
- Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, to the Tories
- Edinburgh West, to the Tories
- West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, to the Tories
The impending SLD massacre could be so profound that Baxter has them not just being beaten in certain seats, but actually slipping into 3rd or even 4th place (in Argyll & Bute and in Edinburgh West).
As polls are swinging back and forth faster than my dining room clock pendulum at present, only someone either with too much money to burn or Teflon nerves would bet on the outcome of GE2015. Maybe by this time next year once the IndyRef and Euro elections have taken place, we might begin to have a clear idea what may happen at the GE in 2015.
I was intrigued by this article from BBC online, that young ethnics living in England shun the word English for themselves and prefer to be known as British. There is also a regional variation which struck me more: the fact that populations living in the Eastern side of England have a much greater preponderance to call themselves English.
Now the Eastern side of England also shows greater support for UKIP. Could these facts throw the Electoral Calculus right out of the window - where it belongs - because there is not going to be a universal swing in the 2015 GE.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24302914
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3277/No-such-thing-as-society.aspx
"Ipsos MORI tested two versions of Margaret Thatcher’s famous “no such thing as society” interview, each with representative samples of the population – one with just that simple statement, and one with a much longer excerpt from the interview. And there is a dramatic difference in results: 74% disagree with the bald statement, but 63% agreed with the longer excerpt (only 24% disagreed with the longer statement). "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/10343241/Ukip-could-be-bigger-than-Tories-by-2018-says-think-tank.html
The collapse of public finances under PM Redward and a gilt market meltdown will see living standards set back a generation - and line up Boris for a 2020 adminsitration to reset the public / private sector debate.
Even then, for reasons discussed in various threads it probably over states the carnage for the Lib Dems although I agree with Stuart that they are in a very bad place in Scotland.
"WHY A TORY/UKIP ALLIANCE WOULD BENEFIT LABOUR"
http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/09/27/why-toryukip-alliance-would-benefit-labour/
http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/Analysis_Frontiers.html
"In every election since 1983, the Labour party has lost ground over the two years before the election. Generally, the Conservatives have gained ground over the same periods, but this has not been true at the two most recent elections. Some of these elections may have lessons for today, in terms of judging whether the Conservatives will recover their lost ground or whether Labour will cement their lead."
In my mind it is inconceivable that the Conservatives won't pick up up some support between now and the election - the question is how much Labour will retain. I'm sure Clegg will be hoping that the 2015 campaign will be good for the Lib Dems because at the moment most people have written them off but may take a fresh look at election time.
"Teachers are split over performance-related pay, with most backing the principle behind it but a third saying that they would avoid working in schools that implemented it, according to a survey. The 1,002 teachers who were questioned by YouGov for the think-tank Policy Exchange were asked if they would work in a school where pay was more explicitly linked to performance.
The idea that the quality of their teaching should be a key determinant of pay and progression was supported by 89 per cent, and 66 per cent thought that progress made by their students should determine salary and seniority.Thirty-three per cent said they would be “less likely to”; 22 per cent said “more likely”; but 45 per cent said it would make no difference. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/education/article3882443.ece
Ipsos-MORI (Evening Standard) has Con 34, Lab 37, Lib 10, UKIP 11 (Labour lead 3)
ICM (Guardian) has Con 32, Lab 36, Lib 14, UKIP 9 (Labour lead 4)
ComRes (Independent on Sunday) has Con 28, Lab 36, Lib 10, UKIP 17 Labour Lead 8)
Opinium (Observer) has Con 29, Lab 36, Lib 7, UKIP 17 (Labour lead 7)
Populus has Con 34, Lab 37, Lib 12, UKIP 9 (Labour lead 3)
YouGov (Sunday Times) has Con 31, Lab 42, Lib 9, UKIP 19 (Labour lead11)
So their conclusion is:
"Overall the average is Con 31 (unch), Lab 37 (unch), Lib 10 (-1), UKIP 14 (+1)."
As these polls were taken at different times and using different methods (and does not allow for outliers), this "average" does not look to be statistically valid.
The 23 seats that the LDs would retain are:
Yeovil, Devon N, Torbay, Portsmouth S, Bath, Thornbury, Cheltenham, Lewes, Twickenham, Kingston, Carshalton, Colchester, Norfolk N, Sheffield Hallam, Leeds NW, Hazel Grove, Southport, Westmorland, Ceredigion, Brecon, Ross & Skye, Orkney & S, Fife NE.
Does not seem to allow for incumbency??
Look at this article for an example: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/georgeosborne/10343237/George-Osborne-says-that-welfare-claimants-will-have-to-work-for-their-dole-money.html
Firstly, it has people wearing bibs with the title "Community Payback". This is of course people serving a criminal sentence not welfare recipients. Then you look at what George is actually going to say:
“No one will be ignored or left without help. But no one will get something for nothing,” Mr Osborne will tell the conference. “Help to work – and in return work for the dole.”
He will add: “For the first time, all long-term unemployed people … who are capable of work will be required to do something in return for their benefits to help them find work.”
Mixed messages. What he in fact seems to be proposing is a modest extension of existing schemes by which the long term unemployed are given work experience to help them become more employable. There are also to be specific programs to attack illiteracy and drug issues. Who could argue with this?
IMO this is both compassionate and right. The way that society abandons so many people at the present time is immoral. I clearly remember Nigel Lawson saying that unemployment is a moral problem, not an economic one. It is not an economic one because we can afford to pay the benefits (or at least in we could in the late 80s) but it is a moral one because so many of our fellow citizens are not being helped and left with miserable lives. So many years on and we still do not do enough to help the long term unemployed.
Will this be the message today or will it be the usual scrounger rubbish? It is all about tone. Osborne is generally socially liberal. I really hope he gets it right.
"...For the official Opposition to return to the anti-free-market rhetoric of 1982 could be damaging even if there was little likelihood of them being returned to power. The warnings of future price-freezes, of confiscation, of higher business taxes, of punitive regulation create the sense of a culture in which enterprise and inward investment would be unwise to venture. The new Miliband revivalism brings back the threat of nationalisation and state seizure that did so much to wreck the prospects of post-war British industry.
And yes, Mr Cameron makes it clear that he sees all this. He also appears to appreciate how truly backward-looking and reactionary it is. This is a belief system that collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions a generation ago. So definitively discredited was the statist solution that it did not even enjoy a renaissance after the spectacular financial crash of 2008: failed banks may have been taken into public ownership but everybody agreed that this should be a temporary measure for the duration of the present emergency. Nobody wanted the government to control the financial institutions for a moment longer than was necessary. If mass public opinion didn’t revert to socialist theology then, it never will.
Yet here it is, flickering into life again: the Old Religion with its seductive dream of a perfect, state-controlled economy in which no one makes “too much” profit and no one ever earns less than he needs. The Tories need to go after this argument at full throttle: to make a well-defined, unambiguous fight over state power versus individual liberty. >> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/10339667/Socialisms-return-is-a-gift-for-the-Tories.html
Don't tell Rod crosby this news. He will have a attack of some sort !
This includes how both those on the Left and those on the Right think of her.
Unless some idiot Blairite announces that Labour too supports workfare (as it has done in the past) this will drive wavering LibDem supporters into Mr Miliband's arms.
On the one hand, he is extending current practice. But he thinks he needs to satisfy his Tory audience. Therefore, he ramps his voice by tens of decibels. He needs to sound tough on the spongers because that is what the baying mob wants to hear.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/29/conservatism-spreading-tories-cant-fathom
"Aside from Eric Pickles and the transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin, the upper reaches of the Conservative party no longer contain anyone who understands non-metropolitan, working-class conservatism as a matter of instinct. Indeed, there is an abundance of people like Osborne who probably feel very awkward about it. Thatcher, Tebbit et al sold the population neoliberalism because they combined it with an innate understanding of ordinary people's values and prejudices"
The new group "Renewal" might be interesting
"A former advisor to President George W. Bush has warned the Tories of the dangers of courting Mr Farage. Drawing parallels with the Republic Party’s relationship with the Tea Party movement, David Frum says: “The danger the Conservatives now face is they’re so mesmerised by the fear of losing 3–4 per cent of votes to the Right that they end up overbalancing and losing 8, 10, 12 points to the Left.”
As Plato says this is not how it will be reported on the whole but the message should be that we care, not that we condemn.
Nearly 300 children aged 11 or under were admitted to A&E units across the UK last year after drinking too much, a BBC Radio 5 live investigation shows.
Revealing UK-wide data for the first time, it said a total of 6,500 under-18s were admitted in 2012-13.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24301379
Wonder how many of these children are still allowed by Social Services to live with their errant parents or do they come from children's homes? Social Services would be quick enough to act on suspicion of 'racism' or 'a disciplinary slap' - have they acted on any of these cases?
Intuitively this feels wrong, and a number of posters have suggested why. I think they're right, up to a point, but the punters on here have been suggesting for a while that Betfair is offering some value and I think they too are right, up to a point.
I made my first serious investments in this market over the weekend, on the general assumption that the Tories were way too short at 4.1 (Betfair) and the other options were therefore value. I think the best value now offered is the 2.8 Red Overall, but I can see the case for NOM too.
Is this simply Conference froth or is it the tories that have been kidding themselves? Really hard to say right at the minute but my view (hope) is that there was a clear link between the tory recovery and the increase in economic optimism in the polling. If that reasserts itself after the Conference season and the good news continues (there will be very strong growth figures for Q3 in the next week or so) then it is all to play for with Labour presently in the box seats.
But simply requiring people to attend JobCentres every day smacks more of victimisation.
Asking people to spend all day searching for jobs shows a lack of awareness of technology. In the old days, it might have taken hours to leaf through newspaper advertisements and compose applications. Now, you set up a search query on the major job sites which email you the results each day. A Google search for jobs on company's own sites takes care of the rest.
Rebuilding the Tory brand so anyone could feel comfortable voting for them takes time and he was going about it the right way.
With the economy apparently improving it's perverse for the mood music of the conference to be that the nasty party are back.
However instantly popular this music might seem it feeds an image the Tories have to shake off to stand a chance of winning. It is a problem unique to the Tories which Hilton alone seems to have understood.
Even where Tories - such as that soldier - vehemently disagree with the party leadership they typically do it politely.
I am as true blue a tory as you are likely to meet (but with a heart of gold...) and I cringe when the lead item is benefits-related. As do I when we hear of yet another OE posho appointed to No.10 policy unit (to address @Fat_Steve's point above).
The Cons need to focus on economic competence, slow but sure recovery, extending the reach of the recovery downwards (this trickier to finesse but a necessity), and then, come early 2015, a nicely judged bribe that will make people think:
"if I stick with this not only are all the economic indicators turning up, which means eff-all to me, but I will directly benefit, extra pounds in my pocket by Policy X which that nice Mr Osborne just announced."
"Len McCluskey, the Unite general secretary, said: ‘My message to the private health companies who are lining up like vultures is that we will take everything back when we have a Labour government.’
However, all of this huffing and puffing would be a lot more convincing if these trades unionist zombies actually practised what they preached.
Tucked away on the same website, the union is selling private medical insurance to its 1.1million members. They can, for a fee, of course, access Unite’s ‘critical illness plans’.
These are private insurance contracts which give members lump sums for illnesses such as ‘heart attack, coronary artery bypass graft, stroke, multiple sclerosis, cancer, kidney failure, liver failure and accidental paralysis or loss of limb as defined in the policy conditions’.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2437931/Go-private-pro-NHS-Unite-tells-members.html#ixzz2gMMdVwSS
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Lesson observations are also problematic. A teacher will typically teach about 1500 lessons year. The school will probably only have the resources to conduct observations 4 or 5 lessons a year per teacher. So a teachers salary will depend on observing about 0.3% their total work in a year. Clearly wholly unrepresentative, and again, a particularly well or badly performing class would have an undue impact.
As I said, it doesn't float my boat but it does reflect the peoples' wishes.
Sean Fear's comments on this issue are very relevant.
As a blanket policy it is absurd. It would need more DSS staff to cope for a start.
71 per cent supported the idea of putting a limit on the amount of time someone can be unemployed, by providing work of social value, paid at the minimum wage, for anyone out of a job for more than 12 months, and requiring them to take it or lose access to benefits (with 13 per cent against).
http://www.ippr.org/?p=1087&option=com_wordpress&Itemid=17
So I expect that the Tories will campaign on the basis that Labour will increase debt and costs to business, which will make cost of living even more expensive. I can see the Tory posters already warning about the tax rises to come under Labour. It will be pretty negative stuff, which is why Labour are wise to have some independent review of their plans.
If I were betting on the election outcome in 2015, I would put money on Labour winning, but being just short of a majority. I think they will win about 320 seats, which will just be enough to govern as a minority, without needing the Lib Dems.
On that thought, and to be serious for a minute, perhaps Mr Gove should look at whether drama schools could help teachers with presenting and performing skills. There are many online lectures on youtube and elsewhere and (anecdote alert!) the most engaging professors even in dry, technical subjects seem to have the same speech patterns as would be used for telling a story or even in stand-up comedy.
RADA offers communication skills courses to businesses. I can hardly wait for Charles's Hamlet.
http://www.rada.ac.uk/rada-enterprises
Isn't Michael Gove himself a frustrated thespian?
" I don’t think I have ever told you about my last official meeting with Ed Miliband...It took place a few years ago, and my City Hall team was very excited in the run-up. We had an absolute corker of a plan, you see...
We were going to launch a huge drive to improve the energy efficiency in the capital’s homes. We were going to hit all sorts of nails pretty smartly on the head: we were going to cut CO₂ emissions, and thereby stop the polar bears from plopping off the ice floes. We were going to cut NO₂ emissions from our noisome old boilers, and so improve air quality. We were going to help get thousands of people into work as retro-fitters – people who went around helping to insulate homes... Above all, we were going to achieve the number one objective of the scheme: we were going to help cut the cost of heating people’s homes and help stabilise fuel bills.
I was interested in the plan as a way of helping the planet and helping people in tough times. As for Ed – well, it was, frankly, a bit disheartening. He wasn’t remotely interested. He didn’t want to talk about retro-fitting and, as I gabbled away about a new legion of “boiler bunnies” bouncing up to your door, I was aware that a deep tranquillity had settled on the minister.
He didn’t want to talk about cutting the cost of living. He just wanted to trade jokes about the forthcoming general election; and as one of my team put it later: “He was only vaguely in command of his brief and had no interest in achieving anything.” We wrote a long and optimistic follow-up letter, hoping that perhaps he had been taking it in. Nada. Not a peep. > http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10343099/Ed-Miliband-in-power-like-a-turbine-on-a-windless-day.html
In fact you could make a very good case for Cameron being an arrogant but insecure metropolitan liberal who has infiltrated the Conservative party.
One thing that Militant was accused of was selecting unsuitable but cultish candidates which is exactly what Cameron did as well.
I suppose you could argue that what Frum is talking about happened decades earlier, which opened up the space for the SDP then the LibDems to eat away at a party that used to win the votes of closer to half the voters...
Ah yes:
http://www.nasuwt.org.uk/MemberSupport/NASUWTPublications/LessonObservation/index.htm On the face of it, this seems absolutely crazy. How can a head really see how any teacher is doing, if he can only study how (s)he performs in the class for a maximum of three hours a year? How can any manager tell how their employees are doing under such constraints?
And does he really want to be put in a position where he has to defend the combination of UKIP's pension and tax policies? It might be quite possible for the coalition to paint him as irresponsible for promising more money for retirees (more spending!) and workers (lower taxes!)
Worse, just the very act of being on stage defending policies in the same format as the Libs and the Cons and the Labs make him... just another politician.
UKIP's best chance surely has to be "we are different". The debates run the risk of making them appear on the same level as other politicians.
(Of course, this only works if UKIP is excluded from the debates. They can't really refuse to go if they get an invite.)
I thought she was the medicine required at the time - times have changed and think Mr Cameron is the best on offer by a long chalk despite being agin him on greenie/nannying stuff
I do find your grievance agenda rather peculiar - I'm from a working class but very aspirational Geordie background - that you choose to indulge in name calling rather a lot makes me wonder who you'd be happy with.
I've no idea what you would do with ~16 million hours of labour every day that wouldn't undermine the rest of the labour market, but it would be a damn sight better than the demeaning crap the Tories are coming up with.
"I don't think it will add on any votes never mind a lelluva lot . It will confirm the votes of those like Charles and Plato who do not comprehend how a compassionate and civilised society should be like ."
You've hit the nail on the head. A policy in the hands of a party with a reputation for being nasty has to behave quite differently to one that is seen as compassionate. Their motives look different and even people who might support the policy feel uncomfortable
The BBC says 'work placements' which doesn't sound full-time to me.
The idea that someone is living a comfortable life on £3600 a year is laughable.
What's demeaning about work? Why pay people who haven't a job the minimum wage when those who are employable get no more because the minimum wage has created a defacto baseline that used to be fluid and demand driven?
Oh - its weirdy entitlement culture where those who try are taken the pee out of so those who get it handed to them on a plate are treated *fairly*
It's a Conservative policy, not a Labour one.
Given your stated beliefs about abuse of women in the workplace, I think you should be arewful before throwing accusations of 'nasty' about.
Or perhaps they should just get jobs in hairdressers?
It could be that confounding local factors even out across the country and it performs pretty well for the national totals, given the correct vote share.
Those complaining about the variable nature of school pupils or their motivation levels appear to be totally unwilling to accept that exactly the same human nature traits exist in private sector companies or their clientele. And perf pay rewards across very many jobs because it works well.
I did not say work itself was demeaning - in fact I think it would do people a lot of good to be offered a job by the government instead of simply subsistence benefits in return for meeting a bunch of often meaningless bureaucratic targets.
Also, I think that if people knew they could get work at the minimum wage working for the government, it would force private companies to pay more as they would have to compete for labour.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24302914