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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Final tally of local by-election changes for 2013 sees the
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Final tally of local by-election changes for 2013 sees the Tories as the main losers
From Labour: Leashowe and Moreton East (Wirral), Earls Barton (Wellingborough), Disraeli (Wycombe), Arbury (Nuneaton and Bedworth)
From Liberal Democrat:
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This nervousness and instability also is a reflection of a complete surfeit of turkey and trimmings over the past few days rather than what should be the new British traditional immigrant ghoul-lash over Christmas served by one of the 29 million new restaurant waiters from Budapest and Bucharest.
I rest my madeira glass M'Lud ....
To paraphrase my first experienced lady friend of some many decades ago ....
LAB 28 (+15)
UKIP 20 (+7)
CON 17 (-9)
LD 1 (-10)
GRN 1 (-1)
SNP 2 (-)
PC 1 (-)
BNP 0 (-2)
Cheers for the article, Mr. Hayfield. I do wonder how much can be read into it considering the Conservatives have far more seats to lose than anyone else and are in office.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25407119
I agree with much of the gist, but this bit is utterly mad:
"The same punishment should be handed out for the destruction of human cultural heritage and memory as for genocide."
Destroying ancient buildings, books and so forth should be punished, but you can't compare it to genocide.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/dec/26/fury-mps-not-voting-poll
Every politician who is apt to think that the public doesn't understand them should stop to consider whether the public understands them only too well.
There's a good front page article in the Guardian this morning. I completely agree with it. It's about the reasons for voter apathy.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/dec/26/fury-mps-not-voting-poll
http://www.espn.co.uk/redbull/motorsport/story/140333.html
To be fair, 2010 and 2012 were close, but he walked to victory in 2011 and 2013.
I wonder if that's reflecting a concern that Renault's engine might not be able to match the others. If Renault have the best engine then Vettel will enjoy a near effortless victory. If Ferrari have the best then Alonso will be challenged by Raikkonen. If Mercedes have the best (as some are saying) that would be good for spectators, as we'd see Rosberg and Hamilton fight for the title, McLaren resurgent and Hulkenberg/Perez with a boost to their hopes.
Edited extra bit: http://www.espn.co.uk/fia/motorsport/story/140313.html
Ecclestone wants someone else to take over the New Jersey Grand Prix. Hopefully, no-one will. We don't need another tedious street circuit, particularly in a country that already has a race (at probably the best new circuit there is).
For example, Rutherglen South would, in Eng&Wal terms, be classified as LAB HOLD, not as Lab Gain from SNP:
Rutherglen South by-election, 2013
Labour 39.9% -3.9
Lib Dem 29.5% +4.8
SNP 21.0% -2.9
Conservative & Unionist 3.8% -1.1
UKIP 3.3% -
Green 1.7% -
Independent 0.9% -
ie. an unspectacular Lab Hold, with a modest Lab to Lib Dem swing, yet you present it as a Lab Gain from SNP. There was even a small swing TO the SNP from Labour.
You either have to explain that basic difference for readers, or else omit the Scottish results, just as you have omitted the Northern Ireland results.
Heldon and Laich, Moray IND Gain from SNP
Govan, Glasgow LAB Gain from SNP
Even then, the Govan result is misleading, as the SNP vote in 2012 was boosted because we had 3 candidates whereas Labour had only 2.
So, Harry presents "Scottish Nationalists -6" when in reality it was -2.
So, a terrific performace midterm for the governing party. Just compare to the Tories in England.
Last time they seemed pretty feisty, but (I think) in the Autumn/Winter internationals they seemed to get a bit of a beating.
Wales are still at 5.5 for the Triple Crown. That seems a bit mad to me. Backed it (and tipped it) a month or two ago at those odds.
As Stuart said, referring to Scottish seats is misleading. A Scottish council by-election is usually held for a seat by a candidate who did not win last time out but came 2nd, 3rd or even 4th and got elected under STV in the multi-ward system we now have.
But even with that epithet, a Happy New Year to you and yours, and all on PB, together with their families and friends.
Conservatives defended 145 held 98 gained 17 lost 47 won 115
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/10524840/Councils-waste-millions-on-ineffective-wind-turbines-that-will-take-190-years-to-repay.html
Clearly, wherever they stand or lay, they are costing us, literally, the earth.
Labour defended 117 held 108 gained 30 lost 9 won 138
Lib Dems defended 42 held 23 gained 15 lost 19 won 38
UKIP defended 3 held 0 gained 15 lost 3 won 15
Ind/Ratepayer defended 17 held 8 gained 16 lost 9 won 25
SNP defended 6 held 0 gained 0 lost 6 won 0
Plaid defended 1 held 1 gained 0 lost 0 won 1
Greens defended 5 held 2 gained 1 lost 3 won 3
Kidderminster Health and Liberals 1 gain each
Eng Dems 1 loss
FPT flouridation - although it's mainly done in Anglo-Saxon countries, Germany has flourided salt instead, and France has water that is naturally fluorided anyway. In general most governments are keen to deliver it one way or another:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation
I think it is in part that increasingly people do not see themselves as part of society, and therefore do not think it important to participate. Voting is a social act, in that to elect a government takes many votes collectively.
On the Guardian polling I think one of the major problems is that our so called national parties are so irrelevant in so much of the country. If you live in the south east your views on the merits of Labour's economic theories are really completely irrelevant and of course the same applies to tory supporters in Scotland and in northern English cities.
There are simply too many safe seats where people feel powerless, disengaged and unpersuaded that their views are of any interest to the political class. Alienation and anger at the political class is an inevitable consequence. Politics was a lot healthier when our national parties were indeed one nation. I think older voters remember those days which is one of the reasons that they are more engaged.
What to do about it? Maybe larger multi seat constituencies where all the major players get a prize? If UKIP are not a flash in the pan and England is moving to 4 party politics the current system is not fit for purpose.
Happy New Year !
One of the alienating features of politics for me was the steady increase of party power over individuality.
The rise of the party machine, the demand from media of unity and therefore uniformity has made politics and politicians sterile and irrelevant.
The concept that a voter votes for a party and therefore agrees with every detail in the manifesto is risible.
For me the party manifesto should cover the major national issues. Everything else is local and personal to the candidate.
The British Parliament is no longer sovereign in the same way as it was before European integration and governments are able to bind their successors far more than they ever used to be. Ho hum.
And what's more, the current crop of politicians are very, very happy with that situation.
In fact what we should be doing is rolling back the party system and severely curtailing their ability to influence, bribe and threaten their MPs. For me this means neutering the power of the whips and effectively banning the ability of party managers to force MPs to vote a particular way. Ideally we would see the threats and bribes used to influence votes become viewed in the same way as external parties bribing MPs or buying influence.
MPs are elected to represent the best interests of their own constituents and any other influences on their votes should be viewed with the deepest suspicion.
Anything politicians do these days only serves to underline how powerless they are.
Cameron's three month ban for claiming benefits for Romanians and Bulgarians.
May's ludicrous contortions in getting Qatada out.
Osborne's frantic efforts to stop people outside the country from slaughtering the goose that lays Britain's golden eggs.
It does seem that euroenthusiasts are less inclined to vote in these elections than europhobes, so I cannot see Labour doing that well. I think Mikes tip of the Tories coming top may well still be a good bet.
I am not sure I agree with this. The purpose of a general election is to elect a government. A government should have a coherent and agreed policy program. Whilst I agree that this should not go as far as to squeeze out all individuality it is important that the party has an agreed position on the main points and that the candidate is undertaking to implement them.
At the end of the day I think it makes my vote more meaningful, not less, if there is an agreed economic policy that I can vote for. The views of the individual candidates are not so important because they cannot deliver them anyway. It requires a majority and a consensus for the policy to be implemented.
I would be open to other ideas that challenged the machine such as open primaries which might well do much to engage voters. It is indisputable that our politicians are being drawn from too narrow a class and have far too little experience of the real world. But a Parliament of 650 interesting mavericks who did not agree on anything would be no improvement, no improvement at all.
I think you are inadvertently agreeing with me.
A manifesto that sets out national issues would cover economic principles and direction.
650 maverick mps is a fictitious fallacy. There would be two or three common views on most issues, with a smattering of added madness that would be irrelevant in votes in the house.
Like any set of statistics, you can choose to read what fits best with your world view:
So LibDems will conveniently ignore the fact they simply have few seats to lose (and still managed net losses)
Labour voters will choose to forget that at this point in the cycle, they should be doing much, much better
Ukippers won't notice the 100% loss rate in seats they are defending
Etc.
Isn't the purpose of a general election to appoint a constituency MP? The collective of MPs are then empowered to appoint a government and the executive.
Taking the EU which has been such a problem for the tories as an example I think it is ok for the candidate to say that he or she will argue for greater reform or leaving or whatever but they should also undertake to comply with the agreed party position until that is changed. That way the public know what they are voting for.
Not now with whipped parties, and national, simultaneous, presidential campaigns.
For the record, and going by the figures Mark Senior posted, the success rate in defences for the "major" parties is as follows -
Labour - 92%
Conservative - 68%
LibDem - 55%
Obvious conclusions are that Labour has most reasons to be happy pretty much regardless of the metric used and the party that's supposed to specialise in local council elections is in deep trouble. Oh, and if UKIP really do do best where they don't have a sitting candidate, then it's worth noting they start 2015 with 0 MPs...
It's also interesting that the default position of the British electorate now seems to be to return a centre-right Eurosceptic majority to the EU Parliament.
In simpler terms a society cannot exist without something to define itself against. Societies need to do this and politicians have to respect and reflect those choices. When they do not do so well we have the kind of alienation the Guardian was talking about.
PR is a benchmark, not a system...
But it's also worth remembering that throughout this year, UKIP has outpolled the Libs by around 50% (say 15% for UKIP against 10% for the Libs). Yet, UKIP *won* only 15 seats, against 38 for the Libs.
This shows how - currently - inefficiently spread the UKIP vote is. They're 50% higher in the polls, their activists are enthused, and yet they managed to win barely more than a third of the number of seats the Libs got. The danger for UKIP (as I think we all know) is they manage a 1983 scenario - but on 15% they might only get 1 or 2 (or even none) seats. If the Libs get the same vote, they might have 40 seats.
beware of extrapolation from small data-sets
I think that's incorrect. Most people, even on here, support the free movement of workers. But the employer is not negotiating in good faith because he has the taxpayer on his side.
In addition to the salary he is offering the employer can attract overseas workers with immediate access to a full suite of first world benefits as soon as they arrive (extremely well funded education for as many children as you like , free healthcare for all)
When you think of it, its no wonder that our house prices are so high when we are so generous with our social provisions to all and sundry. I suppose you could argue that the one offsets the other.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10258081/Two-million-quit-Britain-in-talent-drain.html
Hmmmm ....
Now its what we all do to a greater or lesser extent but what you're doing is effectively no different to a low skilled worker opposing immigration.
I am well aware that my utopian vision (which I shall not repeat), demands at the very least a significant rolling-back of the welfare state.
There's no doubt what 95% of British people would chose.
I would also point out that I have founded four or five companies, employing well over 100 people in the UK, and one of the attractions to creating a tech company in Shoreditch (the excellent PythonAnywhere or CrowdScores) is the fact that, like in Silicon Valley, you have the depth of tech resource that has come from all over Europe.
The founder of PythonAnywhere has been offered jobs by Microsoft in Seattle, and many VC funded Silicon Valley start-ups. He will go where the opportunity is, and fortunately for this country, the opportunity is in the UK. If the area wasn't so full of great (young) developers, the European tech-hub would be somewhere else.
Now, I know there is the 'oh, but we always want the smart people, it's the others we don't want' argument. But I think that's a terrible one: if your artist girlfriend can't come to London, you won't want to. And who knows what areas will be 'hot' in the future. As I've said before, the goverment should always err on the side of caution by doing less, not more. And adding a layer of beauracracy seems a bad idea.
And yes, there is no doubt that increased competition will tend to lower wages. But it will tend to lower costs too. And that means more work for all.
And I'm increasingly gviven to believing that this country can't support a higher population environmentally (we seem to alternate between floods and droughts with increasing rapidity) let alone on infrastructure and economically.
Ultimately free migration is another factor in globalisation, the advantages of which massively accrue to the wealthy and advantaged on the 'pay eastern costs, charge western prices, pay monaco taxes' system.
And I'm fully aware that I would be classed as 'wealthy and advantaged' by much of the world by the mere fortune of my birth. But its increasingly not the top 10% who are making the gains or even the top 1% but the top 1% of the top 1%.