Westminstenders: "They are ahead in the polls"

[RedToothBrush]

The nominations are in!

A reminder about polling...

... And its significance in this election.

In 2017 YouGov got it right. They did two types of poll. One was a general poll which was done on regional polling. Early versions of this during the campaign discounted the don't knows. Later ones guesstimated how the don't knows would vote. This polling turned out to be close to the result but not exact.

The other poll you Gov did was on a constituency level. It was right before the election and it proved to be the most accurate of all, until we saw John Curtice's exit poll (which was spot on).

This time around YouGov have just switched to a constituency version of their polling because its much more complex this time with various pacts in action. They will be promoting respondents on the basis of who is standing in their constituency.

I'm not aware of other pollsters and their methodology but YouGov is interesting because of how close they were to the result last time.

This time around we are also seeing the active use of polling to lead voters, rather than necessarily reflect it. The Lib Dems and Remain have done a lot in what they see as key marginals to aid their credibility as realistic challengers. It's a more sophisticated version of their infamous, 'Only the LDs can beat X here' barcharts of shame. But it's unlikely they will be the only ones to try and use the technique. They probably will just be a little more transparent about it.

John Curtice has gone on record as saying there are only two realistic outcomes for the election: A Tory Majority or a Hung Parliament.

For the Tories to win they need a significant lead in the polls. To be sure probably 10% lead because of the regionality and constituency anomalies. Anything less than 6 or 7 percentage ahead and it tips to a hung parliament. YouGov currently have them on 13pt lead... BUT that's without fully accounting for the 1/5 of voters who are currently undecided. Last time around those who decided at the last moment tipped heavily in favour of Labour rather than the Conservatives.

Who stays at home, or who spoils a ballot could have particular significance this time around as disenchanted voters are made up of a higher number of voters who do usually vote than usual and a broken tribalism. Thus making it more difficult to predict than ever before.

So be a bit wary of polls and what they show - and what they don't show...

Labour were more active on social media

Where Labour is lucky is how young the majority of new members are, they have a more natural engagement with SM and so a Labour tweet/video goes viral in a matter of hours

"The Labour Party doesn't have to get more seats than the Tories, they just need to get Boris Johnson below 315"

Video of interview - I always find Curtice worth watching

https://mobile.twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1195408784769912832

So say the opposition parties contain BJ to below 315, aren’t we in exactly the same position as before?
Alliance? LD refuse to work with Labour. Unless Lab/SNP/Indies together get more than 320. That’d be a strange alliance. Bet it wouldn’t last long. But maybe it wouldn’t need to.

Been on these threads since the start. They’ve been generally good-natured, until recently. Is it ‘election stress’ or the presence of different posters?
I agree with cat. We need to be civil. Stop the goading. Engage positively. We’ll need this in 2020: it’s going to be a trial of a year. (Again.)

How can they lie so blatantly its disgusting, I'm sorry the Tories are gaslighting our NHS staff, Britain deserves better

Matt Hancock
@MattHancock
·
11h
False. There are more NHS staff than ever before - record numbers of doctors and nurses.

The only reason Jeremy Corbyn spouts lies like this is to try to distract from his chaotic and muddled position on Brexit
Quote Tweet

Jeremy Corbyn
@jeremycorbyn
· 12h
We can't treat our hardworking NHS staff like this.

Boris Johnson's Tories have deliberately cut staff and now the NHS is in crisis.

Labour will recruit the doctors and nurses we need.

mirror.co.uk/news/politics/nhs-staff-working-1-million-20892475.amp?__twitter_impression=true

It’s the presence of posters who are purposefully trying to disrupt conversation.

I’ve wondered though if they might be lonely or have special needs, like my daughter. She would keep repeating the same argument over and over expecting to change people’s minds that way. I have similar ‘discussions’ with her and they do raise the blood pressure.

Curtice was saying that if BJ gets under 315, the other parties would probably put Labour in just to get a PV
< then presumably another GE after the PV result has been implemented >

A PV didn't have the HoC support before a GE, but in a hung Parliament that could change,
as the non-Tory parties can claim Labour at least have a mandate for a PV and LDems for Revoke, if that is what the PV produces.

Meanwhile, there's a fire in a student block in Bolton. Which raises all sorts of issues - cladding, regulations not being tight enough, rip off private landlords, students seen as cash cows, the north.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-50438177

Stephen Bush
@stephenkb
·
1h
Bolton Cube fire not a surprise. Bob Neil has been rightly banging on about fact that while local authorities have stripped their cladding, private landlords and freeholders have not - and government has done little to compel them.

Gary Younge
@garyyounge
·
22h
"The rightwing press fear a Corbyn premiership as they have feared no other Labour leader before. Over the next few weeks their attacks on him will likely get worse as they grow ever more shrill and desperate."

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/15/tories-rightwing-press

Corbyn makes it so easy to criticise him. Free broadband for all? For. Fuck's. Sake.

Free broadband is a brilliant idea - to win votes. And that is sort of their objective.

Good news for German manufacturing / tech, but I also quietly feel sad / resigned to see

another example of Brexit losing the UK important investment & ^new tech opportunities.
^
.... this will probably continue for many years after Brexit

Faisal Islam@faisalislam

“Brexit [uncertainty] made it too risky to put a Gigafactory in the UK,”
perhaps worlds greatest entrepreneur Elon Musk told AutoExpress at launch of Berlin European electric car/battery plant ^
^
- NB Telegraph report PMs GE speech at electric car plant...^
^
Tesla Gigafactory Europe to be built in Germany, not UK,
as Elon Musk blames Brexit uncertainty^
^
https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/tesla/108395/tesla-gigafactory-europe-to-be-built-in-germany-not-uk-as-elon-musk-blames-brexitt^

Brand's European factory will be built near Berlin and produce the Model Y SUV, with Tesla R&D centre in Germany, too^
^
Teslaa^ boss and serial entrepreneur Elon Musk has revealed that the firm's new European Gigafactory production facility will be built in Germany on the outskirts of Berlin.

.... Musk also revealed that a European research and development base was also planned for Germany, in addition to the new manufacturing plant.^
^
Later on his Twitter account, Musk confirmed that the new plant would build "batteries, powertrains & vehicles, starting with Model YY^".
It's understood that the Model 3, that runs on the same platform as the Model Y will follow.

... Musk identified Brexit uncertainty as the reason why the UK wasn’t considered for the new site:
“Brexit [uncertainty] made it too risky to put a Gigafactory in the UK,”
...
Brexit might have something to do with Musk’s change of heart over the R&D centre, too.
Back in 2014, he told Auto Express that he planned to build an R&D base in the UK.
Those plans have since been shelved.

Why not offer us all a free trampoline - just as realistic a proposition.
It's just basically a bidding war of stupid with the Tories. More fucking unicorns.

There are 11,000 doctor vacancies and 26,000 nurse vacancies.
And you try and work a shift, or try and survive a winter night in A&E, you'd soon notice.
Already working a full rota, which can be up to 77 hours a week, I am asked almost every shift to cover more. They are shipping doctors from hospital to hospital at 10pm to try and cover it. I've been sent to hospitals I've never been in before in the middle in the night because there are no other senior medical doctors there. You can see these gaps coming on the rota - they are not unexpected - this is before people start calling in sick (and sick levels seem insanely high - I think everyone is burning out).

Every single HCP will tell you the same.

And people try to claim the death rate wouldn't be affected? What do they think we DO?

It’s the presence of posters who are purposefully trying to disrupt conversation.

It's quite effective too, or it was yesterday.

The answer is to scroll past bad faith posts, and just debate people who are genuinely interested in having a conversation. For example I thought Oakenbeach's interventions yesterday were interesting and open minded as are Louise's when she posts. But the endless promoting of specific talking points is done in bad faith, to disrupt the conversion. (There is big money being spent to achieve this; MN isn't exempt). Given that MN's antiquated software does not permit muting, your only weapon is the scroll button.

I like the broadband idea. Positive, clever, changes the narrative. Not overly important in the scheme of things, but labour have to be the positive party here. It's easy to call the Tories cunts till the cows come home. People are sick of the negativity.

I would definitely prioritise the 20 bn or whatever to go to the disabled

• abolish the cruel interviews by ignorant people working to targets to refuse applications;

instead, just have the person's own specialist doctors as expert opinion

However, it doesn't give me the rage, so long as there is money for the disabled as well

Agreed Mistriri I've decided just to count to 10 and then not answer.

I stalked for ages before I posted and I always liked Louise's posts even though I probably don't agree with her on much. They are interesting and genuine.

squid That sounds horribly dangerous for the patients, as well as very tiring and stressful for you.

I'm sorry I have to go back to that Matt Hancock tweet. I hope people are sending him there rotas. Mine is a sea of black boxes for vacancies

It must be frightening to be a HCP in these circumstances Squid, because you know very well who will be blamed if things go wrong. There will be a scapegoat and s/he will most likely be wearing a white coat.

Bellini, a trampoline is not infrastructure. It's a consumer good. A fibre optic communications network is part of national infrastructure and there is a sensible debate to be had about whether it would be more efficient to manage and fund it nationally from taxation. You look stupid when you persist in equating a kids' toy with a 5 year life that will blow away in strong wind with long-life comms infrastructure that is or should be a national asset.

Agreed Mistriri I've decided just to count to 10 and then not answer.

I type out exactly what I'm going to say unedited for decency and then refresh the page instead of clicking post message

yeah, there was basically a war in my hospital last year because some medical registrars were refusing to come to work with the staffing levels because we knew people would die and we'd be blamed

we asked our defence unions for advice and they said we could not refuse to work, and lack of staffing was not an excuse that would stand up in any court

Then lots of collegues quit! Senior doctors with years and years of experience

And now it is worse.

But the Tories would never destroy the NHS would they. That's just hysteria. That#s just a labour election soundbite.

Corbyn makes it so easy to criticise him. Free broadband for all? For. Fuck's. Sake.

According to YouGov poll 62% approve and 22% don’t... Seems like a popular move to me.

Doing it by nationalising, less so, but it’s the headline “free broadband for all” that will stick, not the mechanics of achieving it.

What I'd like the next gov to do is plan long term
a) for climate change impact
b) address wealth inequality and get our services up to a world leading standard
c) address happiness

As I see it climate change needs huge investment programs to develop technology, plant trees, reduce traffic, kill off coal, gas - that investment itself brings growth and leadership that gets us global opportunities

Inequality/happiness means junking a party that has brought us division and inequality

Funnily enough with a long term vision free fast broadband is a major help in cutting commuting, allowing everyone to be part of the new ways of working that are coming

(free broadband means the pipe - not the value added services - TV, films, games etc that will be delivered as now by service providers and the raft of startups enabled by free broadband)

I'm hoping this is part of a wide ranging, forward looking manifesto - on a par with the first blair/brown govt that did actually plan long term.