I notice that you haven't said a thing about French polls, which were nearly perfect in a 5-way race. The polls for the 2015 general election were off by a whole 3%.
Printable View
I notice that you haven't said a thing about French polls, which were nearly perfect in a 5-way race. The polls for the 2015 general election were off by a whole 3%.
Because the French pollsters have an excellent record, unlike many other pollsters in the last few years including ours.
A 3% error this year is the difference between a decent majority, a landslide and an unprecedented epoch shattering annihilation. That's before taking into account that there are still about six weeks to go.
Um, what? 3% would be the difference between the Tories getting 48% and 45%. Both of which would be a landslide.
And you seem oddly reticent to bring up the polling for the US Presidential election.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
45% which is what the most recent poll gives would put us on 381 seats. In comparison Blair got 418 and 413 in his landslide victories of 97 and 01.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Take 3% from there and you've got 42% and 32% for Labour which would by UNS give a majority of 44. Disappointing from here.
48/26 would give us a landslide of Blair style proportions
51/23 would set a post-war record and in fact beat all records since universal suffrage apart from the surely impossible to ever recreate 1931 I believe.
And why should anybody actually care? The only thing that this elections are about anyway is Brexit, and that will be mostly dictated by people you can't vote for.
The national polls were wrong by 1%.Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
And the state polls?
Fixed it for you. We can't elect those we negotiate with of course but we can elect who is best suited to represent our side in the negotiations. Do we want to be represented by May or Corbyn?Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
You have to remember, this is Hazir. It doesn't matter who you have negotiating for you, in his opinion, because everything will simply be as decided through dictat by acclamation from the European side. The Brits might as well not exist as far as Hazir is willing to grant people a role in Brexit.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
That reads like it should be an exaggeration but it's sadly not..Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
The polls in the UK have a history of underestimating the Tories. It's really quite pronounced when you look back over previous elections. If the polls are wrong, they're likely to have underestimated the scope of May's victory, rather than overestimate it. With Scotland now completely out of play, Labour are going to be reduced to a smoking crater. May will have free reign to do whatever the fuck she likes with Brexit and anything else.
Such is the folly of purity politics, Jeremy.
It's a shame the Liberals are dead, it would be good for the nation for Labour to die. A party on one side of the spectrum can only be replaced by another party on the same side of the spectrum, that's why no matter how bad the Tories did they would eventually have a comeback as the Lib Dems could never be a true centre-right party and UKIP were fruitcakes.
If the Lib Dems were still alive or if saner Labour MPs had the balls to leave Corbyn and set up SDP MkII then it could have been possible to displace Labour. Instead they'll get humiliated but like after 1983 they will recover eventually.
Unlike you I bother to inform myself about the process that is about to start. In that process it will be irrelevant if the UK has a minority government or a one party parliament. They will take any deal they can get because no deal will damage them so much that jumping of a cliff would seem like a mercy next to it.Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
The Lib Dems have no power base. The Tories have the rural middle class and bankers, Labour have the working class in the north and Londoners, the Lib Dems have... me and a few other people around the place? There's really no large block of core Lib Dem voters, and what there is too inefficiently distributed around the country to be effective. That is why without a) some pretty significant social and demographic changes and b) the end of first past the post, the Lib Dems will never be anything but a third party.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Although still early (disappointingly many Councils are starting their count today instead of last night) and complicated by local factors, the Local Election 2017 results so far are looking encouraging. Worth noting that the 2017 local elections cover mainly Shire councils so have a pro-Tory basis already as well as being the record best ever performance by UKIP when these were last held in 2013.
After 10 of 34 Councils declared:
Conservative 9
No Overall Control (NOC) 1
Seats:
Conservative: 433 (+105)
Liberal Democrat 101 (-9)
Labour 69 (-45)
Independent 34 (-15)
Green 10 (+5)
Residents' Association 1 (-2)
UKIP 0 (-39)
Wonder if anyone on this forum ever wrote RIP UKIP and was accused of being premature for writing that?
Unprecedented gains from a party of government, can't remember anything like this in my lifetime:
Twitter Link
UKIP down to one Councillor. Lost over 99% of their Councillors. They're as dead as John Cleese's parrot.
Jesus Christ what an epic turnout. Shining bacon of democracy :haha:
I've never cared about low turnout, so long as everyone who is entitled to vote is able to do so - if people don't bother it's because they don't care not because they couldn't. If they don't care, I don't care.
Though these are local elections and turnout was above expectations. General Election turnout will be more than double this.
That's a hell of a lot SNP seats.
While primarily only the "shire" seats in England were fought, every seat in Scotland and Wales was.
Seems my exuberance over the death of UKIP really wasn't premature. They're so economically as well as morally and politically bankrupt that they've failed to stand candidates in about half the constituencies this General Election. :haha:
Labour is up 5% since May called the election. You guys are lucky a nutjob managed to become leader of the second largest party and not the first.
That's an optimistic valuation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Reversion to mean, its to be expected and another reason your blind faith in polls is odd.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Twitter Link
Loki are you prepared to accept yet that UKIP are dead?
I'm certain Loki thinks the UKIP lives on in the Conservative Party.
That has already been made very clear in previous discussions.
Not to me it hasn't. I've just searched for the term UKIP posted by Loki and apart from a post he analysed the polls in (no judgement) his prior post from a few months ago was where he was calling me premature for pronouncing the death of UKIP.
Something tells me UKIP is not going to get anywhere close to 12% in four weeks time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
They have taken a huge beating, no denying that (it is disingenuous to talk about their number of seats, their influence was always as a spoiler). We'll see what happens when May has to make sovereignty and immigration-related concessions as part of an EU deal.
They're split between the Tories, Labour, and Lib Dems/Greens ("protest vote"). Mostly Tories though.Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
The importance of how many seats they're standing in is not how many seats they'll win (none no matter what), it is that they are so weak as an institution now they lack the resources both human and financial to even put in paper candidates.
It costs £500 per seat deposit to stand in a seat, that money is refunded if you score at least 5% which any major party is expected to do. The Lib Dems famously in 2015 lost their deposits in a majority of seats costing them £170k. The Green Party lost £221k but that was to be expected for them. UKIP now are so unpopular they'd lose more deposits now than the Lib Dems did last time and they're so bankrupt that they can't afford to do so. Hence they're not even putting paper candidates in like the Greens do.
They're not even spoilers anymore.
They're not spoiling they've passed on! This party is no more! They have ceased to be! They've expired and gone to meet their maker! They're stiff! Bereft of life, they rest in peace! If you hadn't nailed them to the ballot they'd be pushing up the daisies! Their psephological processes are now 'istory! They're off the twig! They've kicked the bucket, they've shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-PARTY!!
UKIP doesn't usually put up enough MPs contest every seat. 2015, when they were only a handful short, was unusual for them. 377 is a new low, though. At least if you don't count them back in the 90s when they were just getting started. About 100 down on what they usually manage to field.
So, yeah, it's not unusual for a political party to go through rough patches like this, though whether they can actually recover or reinvent themselves with their raison-d'etre (it is funny to use french words when talking about UKIP) taken away remains to be seen. As I said, we'll see what happens with Brexit before we can determine their final fate.
UKIP only became a 'major party' after 2012/3 according to Ofcom and before 2013 it was lumped in with "Others" in the opinion poll results. That you don't just have to look back to elections early in the century but back to the 90s (when it was playing second fiddle to James Goldsmith's Referendum Party) to see so few candidates just shows my point, UKIP is fast becoming an "Others" party once more. Yes it is possible that they will recover but it will be from ashes like a phoenix if they do.
This is by far the worst performance candidate-wise that UKIP has put in this century.
2001: 428
2005: 496
2010: 558
2015: 624
2017: 377
1997 UKIP was still nascent but the Referendum Party put up 547. In 1992 neither party existed so this is the lowest since records began for Referendum/UKIP.
I'm sure China will be taking careful notes.
:|Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
The UK is going global :downcast:
I guess that's about their obsession with nekkid pictures. Freedom of speech doesn't cover what they named 'the naughty parts'. So of course they want an internet that keeps a close eye on who's watching those.
My days of not voting Tory are certainly coming to a middle.
I don't think Labour will fret too much about the Tories doing their work for them:
https://www.google.se/url?sa=t&sourc...ThCQVATtoygoxA
:o