United Kingdom General Elections: December 12th, 2019
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  United Kingdom General Elections: December 12th, 2019
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Author Topic: United Kingdom General Elections: December 12th, 2019  (Read 135698 times)
Arkansas Yankee
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« Reply #550 on: November 15, 2019, 12:07:05 PM »

Forget the Tory gain in the Panelobase poll.  Note your magnificent Campaigner Corbyn gained nothing. 

Please note most Conservative Remainers are not going to vote Labour this election even tactically.

I guess you think large numbers Conservative Leavers who were going to vote Brexit in the Tory held seat will not vote.   Stop dreaming.
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The Free North
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« Reply #551 on: November 15, 2019, 12:32:19 PM »

Given the chart posted on the previous page, it would seem that Labour's continued rise is contingent on the Lib Dems shedding a significant amount of their support. Is that likely given their Brexit posturing and the importance of that issue this time around vs 2017?
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parochial boy
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« Reply #552 on: November 15, 2019, 12:53:36 PM »

Some polls recently showing big Tory headline leads also have a near tie in their basic findings before likelihood to vote is taken to account.

That would seem to indicate that the pollsters' sampling collectively is still crap, and they know it, and are trying to re-weight to get a "credible" looking score. Which makes it impossible to know who might be the "most" accurate; and tbh, just means they are going to continue coming out with crap until they can address the root problem which is their inability to get the sampling right.

Incidentally, would it be possible to like, ban anyone with a US IP address from posting in this thread or something?
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Fubart Solman
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« Reply #553 on: November 15, 2019, 01:02:55 PM »

Incidentally, would it be possible to like, ban anyone with a US IP address from posting in this thread or something?

How about you just ignore drivel from Americans you don’t like and let others be?
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DaWN
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« Reply #554 on: November 15, 2019, 01:23:31 PM »

Incidentally, would it be possible to like, ban anyone with a US IP address from posting in this thread or something?

That's not entirely fair as quite a few Americans have made some good posts in this thread. We shouldn't lump these good posters in with MillenialModerate etc. who clearly are talking out of their arses.
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cp
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« Reply #555 on: November 15, 2019, 03:31:29 PM »

Incidentally, would it be possible to like, ban anyone with a US IP address from posting in this thread or something?

That's not entirely fair as quite a few Americans have made some good posts in this thread. We shouldn't lump these good posters in with MillenialModerate etc. who clearly are talking out of their arses.

Agreed. The place for mindless venting and baseless speculation is the general discussion forum. Or the Telegraph.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #556 on: November 15, 2019, 04:21:27 PM »

That would seem to indicate that the pollsters' sampling collectively is still crap, and they know it, and are trying to re-weight to get a "credible" looking score. Which makes it impossible to know who might be the "most" accurate; and tbh, just means they are going to continue coming out with crap until they can address the root problem which is their inability to get the sampling right.

This almost certainly relates to the issue I was complaining about yesterday: if you have a society marked by strong socio-economic disparities, one in which these are an observable driver of a very high proportion of voter-behaviour no less, but you persist in failing to bother to measure them in appropriate manner, then, well, your surveys will probably be a bit shit won't they.
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Silent Hunter
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« Reply #557 on: November 15, 2019, 05:19:57 PM »

worth noting that New Labour was many things, but it wasn't what Tony Blair thinks it is now (i.e. a socially liberal version of Thatcherism). If anything it was the most naked form of populism we've ever seen the party go down, given it mainly consisted of focus grouped targets and catchy slogans that polled well with non-ideological types.

Arguably built on pillars of sand with all the PFI borrowing.
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Silent Hunter
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« Reply #558 on: November 15, 2019, 05:20:24 PM »



In a surreal turn, here we see Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn photographed holding a blu-ray of a fanmade spinoff movie of an obscure Doctor Who villain from the 1980s. I wish this was fake.

Sil. Arguably a parody of the sort of capitalist Thatcher made common...
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DaWN
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« Reply #559 on: November 15, 2019, 05:22:00 PM »



In a surreal turn, here we see Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn photographed holding a blu-ray of a fanmade spinoff movie of an obscure Doctor Who villain from the 1980s. I wish this was fake.

Sil. Arguably a parody of the sort of capitalist Thatcher made common...

I know perfectly well who it is lol. Doctor Who has a proud history of political analogy but I'm not sure Sil was one of its strongest examples.
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DaWN
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« Reply #560 on: November 15, 2019, 07:01:22 PM »



Ah, good, something about trains. I can finally get into my element. And its a distraction from all the depressing Brexit sh!t.

TL;DR: This is a very stupid idea from a very stupid person in a very stupid party who doesn't have a leg to stand on when accusing Comrade Useless of ill-considered spending plans.

Beeching was an exceptionally unfortunate inevitability of years of mismanagement of the railways. Did it go too far? Absolutely. Was it, in the end, necessary? Absolutely. Reversal of Beeching in itself is therefore immediately impractical because that would involve reinstating thousands of miles of track that serves nobody and sets money on fire. (I'm sure the 20 people in one of those tiny hamlets in Cumbria that had a branch from the Settle & Carlisle line are delighted though.)

That, of course, assumes the infrastructure is still there. Which it isn't. Most of it was built over in the years immediately following the closures, and what wasn't built over is now either nature walks or heritage railways.

Now obviously Mr Shapps is not suggesting the government will reinstate every line closed (as a side note, while Wilson's government did nothing to slow down or reduce the scope of the closures, which is a black mark against it, they were started under the previous Tory government, partially engineered by Transport Sec. Ernest Marples, who had a considerable business interest in motorway construction; such a conflict of interest would hopefully never be allowed today but times being as they are...) but such a vagueness is not appreciated. There's a massive difference between reopening beneficial links and ridiculous branch lines that were only built because setting money on fire was a passtime of Victorian railway companies. Where is the line drawn? What would be economic insanity to rebuild and what would be a worthwhile investment? Does he know? Does he care? I suspect not.

But then we come to the basic problem that the railways that were closed in the 1960s were railways that served the market of the 1960s. The closure of the Great Central Main Line was a huge mistake for instance, but there's no doubt that had it remained open the services provided would have changed with the times - reopening it like for like would do nothing except relieve congestion on a few select journeys out of London (mainly to Rugby, the East Midlands and Sheffield) while doing nothing else for the overall network. It wouldn't even be any good for freight on the West Coast Main Line as that mostly goes to Birmingham and Manchester, which the GC didn't serve. Tolerate it or loathe it, HS2 has the same benefits, except its a high speed route so comes with faster journey times, and actually serves Birmingham and Manchester instead of swerving off in completely the wrong direction. What would be served by spending money on reopening the GC instead of building HS2?

Also, £500m builds you barely anything in this day and age (it cost £85 million to build a couple of bridges and a viaduct in Manchester). Unless Grant here has an idea to drastically reduce the cost of railway construction, which somehow I doubt he does. So what is this? A cynical voter-attracting ploy or is this just Shapps being an idiot? Or both?

There's no doubt the UK rail system needs to plan itself a post-Beeching network (only 50 years too late...) and that will probably require some reopenings. But it needs careful strategic planning, a decision of what new lines will be worthwhile and not just pledging money for a nice shiny policy that everyone can get behind because Beeching is a name that's synonymous with dog sh!t nowadays.  Just a reminder that as idiotic as Corbyn is, 'pledging to throw money at stuff without a real plan or thought to how it'll work' is not unique to Labour.


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Lord Halifax
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« Reply #561 on: November 15, 2019, 07:17:41 PM »

worth noting that New Labour was many things, but it wasn't what Tony Blair thinks it is now (i.e. a socially liberal version of Thatcherism). If anything it was the most naked form of populism we've ever seen the party go down, given it mainly consisted of focus grouped targets and catchy slogans that polled well with non-ideological types.

Agree absolutely. If one looks at both their Rethoric and their Actions on things such as Counter-Terrorism/civil liberties, welfare claimants, "antisocials", drug users etc. they were anything but social liberals. I would perhaps coin the term "liberal authoritarians". "Liberal" only in the sense that anyone who didn't fit in their model liberal depoliticized society was treated very illiberaly.

They prefer communitarian. Tongue
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #562 on: November 15, 2019, 07:51:59 PM »

Ah, Ernest Marples! Hilarious man. Not the only notable Conservative minister of the period to raise eyebrows because of ties to the construction industry: there was also Keith Joseph, though in his case there doesn't seem to be any evidence that the (radical, socially disastrous, much regretted) policies he championed were linked to that. Though the possibility does seem to have aided his relations with the various local government rogues he had to deal with: 'one of us!' they, incorrectly, assumed.
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Pericles
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« Reply #563 on: November 15, 2019, 10:32:46 PM »

I think the combined result of the two main parties will be a lot better than people expected. Despite strong dissatisfaction with both parties, most people have a party they clearly dislike more, so people are starting to panic about the possibility of their 'greater evil' party winning and moving to the lesser evil (on both sides of the Brexit debate). The stakes being so high for this election are also increasing the momentum for a shift to the two main parties. The exception will probably be in Scotland where the SNP is the best chance to stop either the Tories or Labour in most seats and they are a good outlet for dissatisfaction with the main two.
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Perlen vor den Schweinen
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« Reply #564 on: November 15, 2019, 11:21:53 PM »

As an American train enthusiast, I just want to see the railways nationalized so we can no longer see the many ugly brands and liveries that plague the current UK network.
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cp
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« Reply #565 on: November 16, 2019, 02:44:54 AM »

Something a bit different today. A couple of political scientists constructed an election forecasting model around the concept of pendulum swing, with a little extra weighting given to party leader approval/popularity.

As I understand it, the conceit here is that whenever a party wins an election (i.e. has a 'swing' toward it) its popularity automatically starts decaying away. Over time, the residual popularity of the initial win decays enough that the party loses (i.e. has a 'swing' against it). Notably, the size of the initial win (or a larger win for the incumbent in its first attempt at reelection) determines the 'half life' of the party's decay rate. So, a big win means greater likelihood of winning subsequent elections; a small win means the party will likely lose power more quickly.

The popularity of the incumbent party leader can accelerate/arrest this process, and third party performance is factored in as well; the model doesn't seem to take into account opposition leader popularity, though there's some evidence to say such un/popularity can help exaggerate existing trends.

So what does the model predict for 2019?

Tory: 311
Labour: 268

It's worth keeping in mind these numbers are a function of a distribution; 311 is the most likely result, with a bell curve of possibilities on either side. A Tory majority is, all told, about a 1/3 possibility.

I kind of like this model (no, not for its hopeful result) because it tries to quantify a gut feeling I think a lot of people have about governments wearing out their welcome. It's also reassuringly predictive. In the paper this article was based on, the model predicted the eventual 'winner', i.e. the party that got to form the government, in every election but once since 1929 (the model called the 1951 election wrong. Go figure.)
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Silent Hunter
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« Reply #566 on: November 16, 2019, 03:04:41 AM »

Ah, Ernest Marples! Hilarious man. Not the only notable Conservative minister of the period to raise eyebrows because of ties to the construction industry: there was also Keith Joseph, though in his case there doesn't seem to be any evidence that the (radical, socially disastrous, much regretted) policies he championed were linked to that. Though the possibility does seem to have aided his relations with the various local government rogues he had to deal with: 'one of us!' they, incorrectly, assumed.

Also fled the country to avoid tax evasion charges... via the Night Ferry sleeper train.
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Blair
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« Reply #567 on: November 16, 2019, 03:13:01 AM »

What a boring election.

But basically everyone has no one to blame but themselves

Labour for not ditching Corbyn

LibDems for a ridiculous policy of defying the will of the people regardless of what they might say in a second referendum

Brexit - for not fighting the Tories nationwide. If they did I think they could actually win a handful of seats. But not fighting a full campaign has definitely discouraged voters and Farage not running was a putrid mistake because most Brexit party voters look up to him a lot and would be more motivated to vote for them knowing they’d be led by Farage in parliament.

Yawn

Yawn this shows you don’t know a lot about British politics.
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #568 on: November 16, 2019, 09:20:40 AM »

For reasons that genuinely escape me, the LibDems seem to have endorsed the same "permanent government surplus" plan that went down like a cup of cold sick when Liz Kendall put it forward in the 2015 Labour contest.
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Oryxslayer
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« Reply #569 on: November 16, 2019, 10:05:08 AM »
« Edited: November 16, 2019, 11:12:11 AM by Oryxslayer »



Good chart. The tories are standing three more than labour because 4 NI conservatives are running in safe unionist seats and won't get their deposits back, and of course team blue are not standing in the speakers seat.

Sourced from the BBC.
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #570 on: November 16, 2019, 10:13:26 AM »

Its actually the first TV debate (a straight Johnson v Corbyn one) just this Tuesday (on ITV)
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Cassius
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« Reply #571 on: November 16, 2019, 10:46:09 AM »

For reasons that genuinely escape me, the LibDems seem to have endorsed the same "permanent government surplus" plan that went down like a cup of cold sick when Liz Kendall put it forward in the 2015 Labour contest.

As I understand, the proposal is for ‘current spending’ (welfare payments et al) to be covered by taxation, whilst ‘worthwhile investment’ will be funded by borrowing, so not quite a British version of a balanced budget amendment.

Of course, it’s just posturing for the ‘fIsCaLlY cOnSeRvAtIvE but SoCiAlLy LiBeRaL’ technocracy crowd that the Lib Dem’s have been gunning full bore for since Swinson took over. Not that most of them will understand the distinction between current and investment spending.
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Oryxslayer
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« Reply #572 on: November 16, 2019, 10:46:39 AM »

Its actually the first TV debate (a straight Johnson v Corbyn one) just this Tuesday (on ITV)

Anyway, the SNP have now joined the LibDems and filed a legal suit with ITV over their decision to make the first debate 1v1. The SNP is citing their position as 3rd largest party, the LibDems cited their competitive poll numbers, numbers that are similar to what Clegg had before the surge. Essentially ITV needed to set out SOME parameters for getting into their debate, they could have been high AF and restricted it to the top two, but setting out none and saying top two looks like you're playing favorites.
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Silent Hunter
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« Reply #573 on: November 16, 2019, 11:05:53 AM »

For reasons that genuinely escape me, the LibDems seem to have endorsed the same "permanent government surplus" plan that went down like a cup of cold sick when Liz Kendall put it forward in the 2015 Labour contest.

As I understand, the proposal is for ‘current spending’ (welfare payments et al) to be covered by taxation, whilst ‘worthwhile investment’ will be funded by borrowing, so not quite a British version of a balanced budget amendment.

Of course, it’s just posturing for the ‘fIsCaLlY cOnSeRvAtIvE but SoCiAlLy LiBeRaL’ technocracy crowd that the Lib Dem’s have been gunning full bore for since Swinson took over. Not that most of them will understand the distinction between current and investment spending.

That seems a rather reasonable stance to have with allowances for recessions.
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Oryxslayer
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« Reply #574 on: November 16, 2019, 11:08:28 AM »



Good chart. The tories are standing three more than labour because 3 NI conservatives are running in safe unionist seats and won't get their deposits back.

I can't see the image. Can you upload it to an image host (such as imgur)?

fixed.
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