The underlying problems of pre-election polling have always been there. The most significant one is FPTP as a voting system –

All true points you make. I would say though that until recent years pollsters were pretty good at adjusting for factors like voting efficiency and so on and were reasonably good most of the time at making the right call. Recent years have seen them get it completely wrong, so something else is going on. The company I mentioned that I was reading about had got it right were the others have got it wrong so they are capturing something that others aren’t.

I reckon the BP will only field candidates in Labour strongholds and won’t contest anywhere that might result in a tory not getting/keeping their seat. Farage will be rewarded with a seat in the House of Lords as a thank you from Johnson. Drain the swamp indeed…

Hope you are correct.

Congrats. You’re the second person on here recently to compare the labour party to the nazis. And here I was thinking the other one was uniquely stupid.

Nope. I’m openly suggesting that a fair few ‘confused’ Labour voters who voted leave are basically erring towards National Socialism. What else would you call it when people basically want all the benefits of socialism but want to deny it to other people on the basis of nationality or dare I say it, race?

I can’t really compare the Labour Party to anything my dear. How can I when even they don’t know what they are?

In any case, I will probably vote Labour as it is my most effective way of registering an anti-Johnson, anti-Brexit vote, which is what you keep professing (usually after the mask has accidentally slipped a bit) to want. The trouble with you is that you won’t take ‘yes’ for an answer. Bit like our ERG friends.

<Rubs chin whilst wondering>

They do love their authoritarianism though, those lefties.

And they don’t seem to like our Jewish friends very much

To be fair, though, the USSR wasn’t exactly pro-Jewish either and they liked their authoritarianism there too. There you go, a bit of balance.

In any case, I will probably vote Labour as that is the most effective counter to Tory-driven Brexit nonsense. The fact that I will do so holding my nose should make daz happy, if he isn’t a pro-Brexit shill*, that is.

*He is.

They do love their authoritarianism though, those lefties.

And they don’t seem to like our Jewish friends very much

Why tarnish a few specific people when you can tarnish whole swathes of the electorate?

Not true, though. There is a creeping move towards authoritarianism on the left. You can witness it in action on this forum, where there are frequent calls by the more left leaning members for all sorts of things to be banned.

Labour’s proposed policy of seizing private property doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence in them.

JP

I don’t even know why you’re referring to ‘the electorate’

The fact of the matter is that the Labour Party has been, at best, disinterested in the whole issue of antisemitism.

The reality of that is that it has thrown away what was a rock solid labour seat. You can look for excuses as to why, but it comes down to antisemitism in the Labour Party which isn’t seriously addressed

But apparently that’s all fine because there isn’t a problem with antisemitism in the Labour Party.

Carry on excusing that if you like

*sits back and awaits ‘but, but, but… the Tory’s are islamophobic reply*

I don’t even know why you’re referring to ‘the electorate’

You said lefties. I presume a good chunk of the electorate are lefties?

Like I said…. excuse that if you like…

Then they trot out ‘ban public schools’ and the like and suddenly their swing voters (and they are going to need a lot of them) re just going to say thank you and good night, probably vote LD which just dilutes the anti-Tory vote and, voila, Tory back in power.

I say this with a leftie partner working at an Independent school…

They’re not banning them but integrating them into the state system. Again it’s the tabs they make these statements.

So yeah feel free to dig below the headline.

(Word is they won’t necessarily push that particular policy through, particularly how you phrased it.)

Wow – you really can’t see it, can you?

There are all sorts of opinions and things I don’t agree with on here but I don’t see a ‘leftie’ based clique demanding its authority.

Again there must be powerful examples as referred to on here?

What’s it like, being you?

What’s it like, being you?

New tactic from you Binners? Going the ‘complete hypocrite’ route?

Makes a change from you building straw men and waffling on about 6th Formers.

You can witness it in action on this forum, where there are frequent calls by the more left leaning members for all sorts of things to be banned.

Wow – you really can’t see it, can you?

I don’t believe that that really gets to the nub of rone’s question. Who “on this very forum” is calling for what to be banned now?

I know the feeling.

Nice of Donald Trump to give Jezza’s election campaign a boost

They said on Brexit cast (the podcast, not the TV show) yesterday that the BP might only fight 20 seats. If so I’m not surprised, splitting the leave vote was never a good idea from a Brexiteer POV.

Something I can actually add insight to!

The underlying problems of pre-election polling have always been there. The most significant one is FPTP as a voting system – what this means is that every seat is a separate election, and what happens in Mytown doesn’t affect the result in Yourtown.

For polling, proportional representation is easy: if 35% of Brits vote Tory, Tories will get something related to 35% of seats. You then pick a sample of 2,000 people across the country to survey, controlling for things like age, gender, socio-economics, do some analysis, and have an answer: Tories will win 35% of seats.

FPTP is much more difficult, because to do it right, you have to survey 2,000 people in EACH SEAT, controlling for age, gender etc. Which is basically impossible. Lord Ashcroft has tried, but his sample sizes are too small, and his results no better than the rest.
In the past, polling firms could cover this up by applying various rules of thumb, like landowners vote Tory, young people are more labour-leaning, etc. Politics now has fragmented to such an extent that the Tories aren’t “for those with money”, and Labour isn’t “for those who want redistribution”, but instead candidate personality is a huge factor, and views on Brexit, large-scale renationalisation, racism, anti-Semitism etc all play a part. And you just can’t model that across 400 individual seats.

The best polling companies can do is say “we were right, 35% of people voted Tory!!” – and you then point out “yeah, but that bears no relation to the fact that Lib Dems and Greens now have a majority in parliament, you cretins”.

Thanks, 100pc confirms my existing predudice which is always nice. 🙂

Yes and previously you could make assumptions about how voter tendency would translate to particular seats – however Brexit has totally blown that all up – not just changing party alignment between existing parties but also the introduction of a new one. Some strong Labour areas are pro-Brexit and some strong Tory areas aren’t.

This. It’s all to play for.

Then as if arranged in advance, Trump goes on the radio to slag him off.

The tories may not have enjoyed the trade deals comments but the papers have all covered it and the “Corbyn will be bad” part is being picked out. No details on what makes having a Corbyn government/Labour policies bad bad but to the voter who can’t see past a headline (Majority of them?) it has just added to Labour’s problems