The Hung Like a Donkey General Election December 2019 Thread

[snowychap]

2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

I think it's pretty unlikely as well, but at those odds and with an electorate this volatile that's probably worth putting a tenner on. 

16s is much too short a price.

Edited November 5, 2019 by snowychap

[blandy]

1 hour ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

Agreed,  I think she and her party have made an error of judgement. 

I don't. It's the clearest position anyone's taken. "Elect us and we'll revoke A50" is a very compelling message for an election that is happening because of Brexit and is significantly about Brexit. It won't work with everyone, but it'll massively increase their vote.

[snowychap]

2 hours ago, ml1dch said:

It's very easy to see dozens of seats that are say, 15,000 Labour, 12,000 Conservative and 3,000 Lib Dem suddenly becoming 9,000 Labour, 10,000 Conservative, 7,000 Lib Dem, 4,000 NF.

Why is it very easy to see this?

Sure, it's very easy to write those numbers (as it is to write any set of numbers) but does any analysis actuallly support that kind of across the board change in vote share?

[Vive_La_Villa]

5 minutes ago, snowychap said:

You just opined on how 'costly' the pledges of the Labour party were and said that you'd given equal consideration to the supposed pledges of the Tories.

Well I did actually say how costly they ‘seem’ rather than ‘were’.

5 minutes ago, snowychap said:

I mistakenly assumed that this had involved some analysis and comparison of the costs of these pledges by you. I apologise for assuming that you'd actually done that before you made the claims you did.

Didn’t think I made any claims. Sorry if it came across that way. 
 

6 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Suffice to say, I think we should view your opinions on both pledges in this light.

Yes please do. General discussion rather than a debate. 

[snowychap]

1 minute ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Well I did actually say how costly they ‘seem’ rather than ‘were’.

How did they 'seem' anything to you unless you just guessed?

[snowychap]

1 minute ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Didn’t think I made any claims.

You claimed that you had 'read through Labour's pledges' and that as a result of this 'reading through', they 'seemed ridiculously costly'.

[Vive_La_Villa]

Just now, snowychap said:

You claimed that you had 'read through Labour's pledges' and that as a result of this 'reading through', they 'seemed ridiculously costly'.

I had and I did. But it was just a general opinion on what it seemed to me. I didn’t expect such scrutiny so I would like to take it back.  I will ensure I do thorough analysis before I post my opinions on how something seem to me in the future.

You could just try and tell me why my assumptions of the pledges are incorrect if my so called claims bother you that much.

[snowychap]

11 minutes ago, Risso said:

So you don't think the Labour proposals will be costly?

I wasn't making any claims about them as I haven't 'read through Labour's pledges' - that was the other poster who said he had had done that.

I'm sorry if, to you, asking questions about claims other people make doesn't appear appropriate for a politics thread. I suggest you might have the wrong idea about how discussion and debate works if you don't believe that questioning the basis on which other people make claims and statements is relevant.

I'll make my own judgment on Labour proposals when I've read them and Tory ones when I've read those - the best way to do that would be to wait for the manifestos and look at the wider analysis of them.

In the meantime, the Resolution Foundation did produce a report last week (which I also haven't read so I can't comment on what I think of its content) which claimed that the plans that they think are being put forward by both major parties suggest large increases in public spending under both of them:

Quote

The Resolution Foundation thinktank said spending sprees aimed at ending austerity and increasing public investment were central to the plans of both major parties and would drive spending above the average for the 20 years up to the 2008 financial crash of 37.4% of GDP.

Pledges already made by the chancellor, Sajid Javid, will increase the proportion of annual government spending to 41.3% of GDP by 2023, and likely to beyond the 42% average recorded between 1966 and 1984 once extra outlays on the NHS are taken into account.

Meanwhile, Labour is expected to commit to the £48.6bn of extra current spending announced in its 2017 manifesto, coupled with shadow chancellor John McDonnell’s £250bn 10-year capital investment plan, which would mean government spending as a share of GDP rising to 43.3%.

Grauniad story link

If we take their headline figures at face value there would not appear to be a considerable difference in the increased cost of the plans of each of the major two parties.

[snowychap]

18 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

 I didn’t expect such scrutiny...

People ought to expect scrutiny of their opinions and their claims otherwise there's no point.

[ml1dch]

40 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Why is it very easy to see this?

Sure, it's very easy to write those numbers (as it is to write any set of numbers) but does any analysis actuallly support that kind of across the board change in vote share?

Have I done / read an in depth analysis on a granular, seat-by-seat basis, taking into account local factors, popularity of the sitting MP and strength of local activism? No.

If the broad trend is some Labour and Conservatives voters from 2017 moving to Lib Dem and NF Ltd, but greater numbers of Labour moving than Conservative, is my scenario above a likely consequence in some seats? Yes.

Edited November 5, 2019 by ml1dch

[snowychap]

12 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

If the broad trend is some Labour and Conservatives voters from 2017 moving to Lib Dem and NF Ltd, but greater numbers of Labour moving than Conservative is my scenario above a likely consequence in some seats? Yes.

Why do you suppose greater numbers of Labour moving than Conservative?

Is this based on current polling versus 2017 election results?

Or are you supposing that more Labour voters will defect to Lib Dems than Tories and at a bigger rate than the more that are likely to defect from Conservative to NF than Labour to NF.

Edit: Or are you even saying that you think more Labour voters will depart for each other party than Tories will? If so the analysis I've seen doesn't support that (obviously it could be wrong and equally obviously it isn''t a sure guarantee of future choices)?

Edited November 5, 2019 by snowychap

[Sam-AVFC]

2 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

Have I done / read an in depth analysis on a granular, seat-by-seat basis, taking into account local factors, popularity of the sitting MP and strength of local activism? No.

If the broad trend is some Labour and Conservatives voters from 2017 moving to Lib Dem and NF Ltd, but greater numbers of Labour moving than Conservative, is my scenario above a likely consequence in some seats? Yes.

Answering your 2nd point, I'm pretty someone posted the other day that 2017 was the Conservative's highest proportion of vote for a century. Also there was an interesting thread with well-reasoned logic for why Labour are likely to have lost most of their voters in the 2017 election and probably wont lose many more.

[bobzy]

46 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I had and I did. But it was just a general opinion on what it seemed to me. I didn’t expect such scrutiny so I would like to take it back.  I will ensure I do thorough analysis before I post my opinions on how something seem to me in the future.

You could just try and tell me why my assumptions of the pledges are incorrect if my so called claims bother you that much.

If you're claiming that Labour's policies are "extremely costly", "unrealistic" and you'd "fear for the state of the country" I think it'd be expected that you'd get some querying on those views.

Which policies do you think fit with the above?

[ml1dch]

12 minutes ago, Sam-AVFC said:

Answering your 2nd point, I'm pretty someone posted the other day that 2017 was the Conservative's highest proportion of vote for a century. 

That was me - highest in a third of a century, since Thatcher in 1983.

[lapal_fan]

White noise.

Edited November 5, 2019 by lapal_fan

[snowychap]

An interesting thread on Brexit Corp v Lab/Con (obviously it doesn't factor in Lib Dem v Lab/Con):

 

[blandy]

21 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Or are you even saying that you think more Labour voters will depart for each other party than Tories will? If so the analysis I've seen doesn't support that

What analysis have you seen, Darren? to help with understanding. Thansk.

[snowychap]

5 minutes ago, blandy said:

What analysis have you seen, Darren? to help with understanding. Thansk.

There are quite a few things by Rob Ford (I posted a twitter thread of his in the last week, I think - I can try and find it again later but I'm just reading something else at the moment) and there's the one above, for example (though I accept it doesn't factor in the Lib Dem/Remain side of the argument).

Edited November 5, 2019 by snowychap

[blandy]

5 minutes ago, snowychap said:

There are quite a few things by Rob Ford (I posted a twitter thread of his in the last week, I think - I can try and find it again later but I'm just reading something else at the moment) and there's the one above, for example (though I accept it doesn't factor in the Lib Dem/Remain side of the argument).

Ta. On the twitter thread above the same statistical argument/factors, but in the reverse direction applies to Labour and Cons switching to LDs, I believe. It is likely that remain Labour migration to LD will in some seats outnumber remain tory to LD, particularly in that there down south, and that this will lead to some pretty large swings but tight results in previously safe-ish Tory seats - Like Johnson's for example. I know the Europ elections are not a reliable guide for a GE, but what happened there, even if it is to a notable lesser extent could still see big gains for LDs and BNPs and Labour and the Tories getting walloped in some places where they didn't expect to.

I suspect also that the credibility of all the leaders is going to take a pasting in this election. People don't trust any of them and revelations and propoganda efforts are likely to make that situation worse.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

The data on that tactical voting site people were looking at is now out-of-date:

A circumstance in which Labour are 4-10 points ahead of the Lib Dems is not the same as one in which they are 10-16 points ahead. Obviously that could change again between now and the election, in either direction. I would strongly recommend not using one of those sites. 

There's a take on it in this twit thread which says it's pretty decent