Recent Posts

I don't think that interview will have done much to advance 'the Russian message'. 

The RTE interviewer David McCullagh confronts him with clear facts, and the ambassador just sounds ridiculous. 

www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/rte-viewers-praise-masterful-david-26334080

johntel

Here is the BBC Breakfast clip of Starmer's comments on Swift. 

I don't think that this in any way supports your claim of being 'devious' and can't see how anyone would reach that conclusion.

Can you enlighten us as to what leverage the US had over Germany on this ? What were the threats the US made to Germany - and where are they reported?

Or perhaps we can just agree that you made this up. 

...As was decimal curency

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1351563/The-day-Britain-lost-soul-How-decimalisation-signalled-demise-proudly-independent-nation.html

Some classic DailyMail stuff in this article;

"Yet like so many of the ­transformations of the late Sixties and early Seventies, from the ­demolition of the old city centres to the abolition of hanging, decimalisation went ahead in the face of widespread public opposition. Polls showed barely four out of ten people liked it; in London’s West End, so-called ‘anti-decimal terrorists’ handed out leaflets denouncing the government’s ­failure to consult public opinion."

Should read : 'Burnside, a former Ulster Unionist MP...'

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Burnside

Note in particular: "David Burnside was revealed to have taken a group of prominent Russians, including a close ally of Vladimir Putin, to the 2013 Conservative summer fundraising party and introduced them to David Cameron"

@jimjam

If you have not seen it, Opinium's own explanation of their methodology changes is well worth a read - particularly point 4, which explains the turnout/Don't Knows issue.

www.opinium.com/resource-center/uk-voting-intention-27th-january-2022-2/

Luckily, they will be publishing 'old' figures alongside the new for their next three polls. We also know, per their article, that the effect of voters not giving a VI would have been enough in otself to reduce the Tories'lead by 5 or 6 points at GE2019. So the 7 point difference, as seen in their poll 9 days ago, is not set in stone.

As you say, the difference is likely to disappear in the run-up to a General Election. It's also worth noting that if the Conservative2019 DKs come off the fence and form a choice, that will almost certainly benefit Labour. This is because they are currently weighted in line with those Con2019 voters who do give a VI, of whom maybe 75% say Con, 10% Lab, 15% others. So now if these respondents break (say) 6-to 1 for Con over Lab, the headline Lab VI would rise.

graham

It's probably clearer if we just look at the number of seats that Labour won (or would win) in England.

In GE2005, this was 286 out of 529 - so a majority of English seats.This was with 35.4% of the vote to the Tories 35.7%.

Now a Con>Lab UNS of 6.6% on the 2019GE - so parity between Con and Lab in English votes - would give Labour just 238 of 533 seats. That's 48 seats less - so a larger number than Labour has ever won in Scotland.

As for the idea that recent GB polls support the idea of 15 Lab gains in Scotland: you need to look at Scottish Westminster polls, none of which show Labour closing the 26% lead that the SNP had in 2019. 

Also - what is your source for Labour leading the SNP in late 2017? Looks to me like the SNP was still around 10 points ahead even then.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2019_United_Kingdom_general_election#Scotland

If anyone still thinks that an LD tactical vote is 'toxic' to potential Labour voters, then please take a look at what happened to the Labour vote in the close Con/LD contests in GE2019.

www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/liberal-democrat

I've taken a look at the Labour vote share in those seats where the LDs were challenging the Tories, and Labour were not in contention. So that's numbers 4-11 on this list. Labour 2019 vote shares - and the relative loss compared to the Lab vote in 2017 are below:

Carshalton 12% (-33%)
Cheltenham 4.9% (-50%)
Winchester 4.6% (-52%)
Cheadle 12.2% (-36%)
Cambs South 11.7% (-60%)
Esher & Walton 4.5% (-77% )
Lewis 5.8% (-50%)
Guildford 7.7% (-60%)

Labour were down by about 20% in overall vote share in 2019 (from 41 to 33% of total GB votes cast), but it must be clear that a significant proportion of Labour voters are willing to switch. Some of these seats are long-term LD-Con marginals, and in these it is likely that some squeeze already applied in 2017. However, the results in those where the tactical position changed from 2017 to 2019 is remarkable. In fact, it is rare to find a Con/LD contest where the Lab vote did not drop by more than 20% compared to 2017.

As for Tw's "Once again, well played Davey and LDEM. They'll have a much better chance of being 'kingmaker' to Starmer-New LAB govt" - as I pointed out yesterday there are only really three LD target seats which are also viable targets for Labour - these being Wimbledon, Cities of L&W and Finchley & Golders Green. Even if these are 'unprioritised' by Labour (which I doubt) the effect on potential Lab gains would be minimal.

I was referring to movement during the campaign rather than on the previous election, although it is entirely fair comment that the Tories have been able to plunder the UKIP/BXP/RefUK vote, and would presumably do so again next time. It's part of the reason why I keep an eye on the relative Ref and Green polling shares, as both are likely to be squeezed in an actual GE.

Incidentally, the polling average at the time when T May called GE2017 were Con 43, Lab 26. So Labour probably made up around 10 points in that campaign (final polls averaged around a 7 point Tory lead), compared to the 6-7 points they gained during the 2019 campaign. You have to look back to 2001 and 1997 for elections where the  Labour VI has gone down during the campaign itself. 

For what it's worth, I think that 'hedging your bets' may be wise here.
 
Opinium are quite right to say that treating the Don't Knows as non-voters produces a turnout model that looks very unlikely. On the other hand, those who respond 'Don't know' can easlily end up not voting. I've noted that the old ICM 50% reversion would typically narrow the Labour lead by 3-4 points in recent polls, and think this is still more realistic then the 6-7 point adjustment that Opinium's new model produces. 

CB / JJ

It was only 12 days ago that we had some polling by R&W in which they pressed the current 'Don't Knows' as to who they could see themselves voting for. This produced surprising results which differed from those by the same pollster just a month earlier. I've quoted my post from then below.

"Feb 3, 2022 at 11:34am jimjam said:
Redfield and Wilnfield.
Among Britons who say they don't know how they would vote in a General Election, for which parties could they see themselves voting?

Labour: 31%
Conservative: 22%
Liberal Democrat: 15%
Green: 14%
None: 14%
Don't know: 38%
11:00 AM · Feb 3, 2022·Hootsuite Inc.

James - we may have to reassessed our rough DK reallocation?

Possibly not as the Labour 31% may well include more typical non-voters whereas the Con 22% is more 2019 Tories miffed at present."
That's quite surprising, as it implies the opposite to the received wisdom of 'Don't Knows' being most likely to revert to how they voted in the previous election. And Con 2019DKs are running at around double the level of Lab 2019 DKs.

It's also very different to what R&W found on 3 Jan - at least for the 'DK> Lab figure.

"Among Britons who say they don't know how they would vote in a General Election, for which parties could they see themselves voting?

Conservative: 22%
None: 18%
Labour: 17%
Liberal Democrat: 16%
Don't know: 40%"

Don't think this poll has been reported here yet.

Understanding of basic probability seems not to be required for our MPs.

jib

The 90 day rule for people from non-EU countries visiting the Schengen area is a longstanding policy which long predates the UK's leaving the EU. And it applies to people from almost all non-EU countries. See below the ec.europa document from 2013 explaining how it works. 

Its application to the UK is an entirely forseeable consequence of our leaving the EU: you clearly didn't realise it, but it's what you voted for.   


ec.europa.eu/assets/home/visa-calculator/docs/short_stay_schengen_calculator_user_manual_en.pdf

The main difference between Opinium's new and old methodology is that they will now upweight the responses of people who do state a VI in line with the rest of the sample. So it will not damage the Con, or LD VI figure when large numbers of their 2019 voters respond 'Don't Know'. This is actually a much larger adjustment than the old ICM method of 50% reversion of Don't Knows.

From Opinium's website:

"At the moment, if a voter says they are undecided they are removed from the headline figures and treated as if they wouldn’t vote in an election.

We are currently seeing a lot more 2019 Conservative voters moving to undecided and this is having a large impact on those who “count” towards voting intention. If only the people currently being included in headline voting intention questions had voted at the last election, then the Conservatives would have won by only 6 points, rather than 11.

Our new methodology fixes that, because it weights up the 2019 Conservative voters who do give a voting intention to account for the fact that others are undecided. This is the main reason our Labour lead is smaller than it otherwise would have been.

We believe this is the more accurate way of reflecting voting intention midterm, although no method is perfect. The main reason for this is because, when we squeeze the voting intentions of those 2019 Conservative voters who are undecided, the majority say they would still vote Conservative if they were forced.

However, it will mean a shift is required in the way our polls are analysed. For the past few months people have generally considered the high number of Conservative don’t knows to be a caveat against the high Labour poll leads. In our case, the opposite is now true. The existence of the high number of 2019 Conservative undecided voters is more likely to increase the Labour lead at a later date rather than decrease it. Our tables will still release all this information so people can see for themselves the number of undecided voters and where they are coming from."