they are positioning for either getting eu to make concessions or the general election so this is their only politically viable play if they want to have a hope of getting back the brexit party votes
Yep. Boris needs to be seen as willing to leave on no deal to keep Farage from being a spoiler if the government is brought down. Boris also needs to be seen as wanting a deal in order to keep on the fence conservatives from defecting to the Lib Dems. I think we have 4 possibilities which I can't begin to rank since there are so many balls in the air and so much palace intrigue prediction is impossible.
1. No deal Brexit
2. EU blinks and Brexit on revised "no backstop" deal
3. Tory remainers team up with opposition to bring down government and a non Tory gets to form new government and sets up a new referendum
4. Tory remainers team up with opposition to bring down government and Boris gets to form government which leads back to 1.
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
― Marcus Aurelius
they are positioning for either getting eu to make concessions or the general election so this is their only politically viable play if they want to have a hope of getting back the brexit party votes
Yep. Boris needs to be seen as willing to leave on no deal to keep Farage from being a spoiler if the government is brought down. Boris also needs to be seen as wanting a deal in order to keep on the fence conservatives from defecting to the Lib Dems. I think we have 4 possibilities which I can't begin to rank since there are so many balls in the air and so much palace intrigue prediction is impossible.
1. No deal Brexit
2. EU blinks and Brexit on revised "no backstop" deal
3. Tory remainers team up with opposition to bring down government and a non Tory gets to form new government and sets up a new referendum
4. Tory remainers team up with opposition to bring down government and Boris gets to form government which leads back to 1.
I cannot even begin to consider 2 as a realistic possibility. Only in the wildest empire fetishists wet dreams.
This does remind me of the Not The Nine O'Clock News sketch with Rowan Atkinson at a Tory Party Conference:
"Now, I like curry. But now that we've got the recipe, is there any reason for them to still be here?"
Sturgeon said she can't recall a time when any visiting head of government has done so. So of course now people are calling him Back door Boris and asking how he intends to negotiate with the EU if he skulks off when faced with angry Scots. Good job limiting the bad press in a meeting that was ever going to go well Boris.
Apparently bookies are giving something like 55% odds that Nigel is going to be the next PM.
We were in the darkest timeline, this is now infra-black.
This is something I didn’t consider as even a remote possibility.
I really want to agree with you, but I'd have said that about a lot of things in the last few years and been wrong each time.
But the reality is that if Brexit doesn't implode massively and publicly before an election, the Brexit Party is probably going to get a large chunk of the vote (and the number of people who'll double down and say that any implosion is down to us not brexiting hard enough is probably a lot higher than any of us would like to consider), so we're probably looking at a coalition Tory/Brexit Party government.
I wouldn't be shocked* if BP got more votes than the Tories judging by how the MEP election went, which would put Nigel in Number 10.
Yeah, I scoffed at the idea of Farage becoming PM a couple of years ago but now there's a definite path to Number 10 for him, and all everyone else has to do is what they've been doing: Johnson promising the Earth and then delivering nothing, Corbyn being useless, etc.
It's not as impossible as it was a few years ago but I also think it's slightly hysterical to consider it a realistic possibility. EU elections are not good indicators of voting intention for GEs and giving UKIP more weight than it ever deserved is how we arrived at this mess in the first place.
Hugh is the political editor of the Irish Independent
Something else to note. This is from the CEO of a communications advisory firm in the UK. There’s nothing to go on but his word, but he’s claiming to have dined with several top Tory Party members and to have noticed a very particular attitude.
daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
What exactly are they expecting "the Irish" (which seems an insulting way of putting things, why not say "Ireland" or "the Irish government"? Rhetorical question, moving on.) to blink on? The backstop? The freaking thing that's there to minimize the economic pain to both Ireland and Northern Ireland, not to mention the whole murderous violence thing that left 3,500 people dead (mostly in NI). I mean what the hell? What possible reason would there be for Ireland to back off on the backstop? It's good for Ireland, it's better for Northern Ireland, and removing it hurts both countries with zero upside. Except for the idiot Brexit types who want to Brexit and don't care who dies in the process.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
Ireland is expected to do what it's told. Any attempt by Ireland to act like a real country is resented by Johnson and his ilk. It's there to be cowed, obedient and like it.
What exactly are they expecting "the Irish" (which seems an insulting way of putting things, why not say "Ireland" or "the Irish government"? Rhetorical question, moving on.) to blink on? The backstop? The freaking thing that's there to minimize the economic pain to both Ireland and Northern Ireland, not to mention the whole murderous violence thing that left 3,500 people dead (mostly in NI). I mean what the hell? What possible reason would there be for Ireland to back off on the backstop? It's good for Ireland, it's better for Northern Ireland, and removing it hurts both countries with zero upside. Except for the idiot Brexit types who want to Brexit and don't care who dies in the process.
The irony here is that we can’t blink even if we wanted to. If we gave in completely, if we scrapped the backstop... it would solve nothing. The UK leaves in less than three months. Free movement of goods, services and people ends in less than three months. Businesses both sides of the border start losing transport routes and markets in less than three months.
Boris Johnson and his cronies are waiting on Varadkar to budge, but they haven’t noticed they haven’t actually left him anywhere to go.
+6
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
The irony here is that we can’t blink even if we wanted to. If we gave in completely, if we scrapped the backstop... it would solve nothing. The UK leaves in less than three months. Free movement of goods, services and people ends in less than three months. Businesses both sides of the border start losing transport routes and markets in less than three months.
Boris Johnson and his cronies are waiting on Varadkar to budge, but they haven’t noticed they haven’t actually left him anywhere to go.
As far as I can tell, blinking wouldn't even get Ireland anything. No Deal and No Backstop would seem to have very similar impact on the Republic of Ireland, with No Deal being even worse for the UK as a whole (never mind NI getting rekked by it). The RoI backing off on the backstop would just seem to be getting nothing in return for sorta keeping the pain concentrated in the general area of Ireland.
The UK (or at least Tory) position on this seems to be an even stupider version of the thinking that had them pushing the threat of no-deal in order to try and get concessions from the EU.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
Apparently bookies are giving something like 55% odds that Nigel is going to be the next PM.
We were in the darkest timeline, this is now infra-black.
This is something I didn’t consider as even a remote possibility.
I really want to agree with you, but I'd have said that about a lot of things in the last few years and been wrong each time.
But the reality is that if Brexit doesn't implode massively and publicly before an election, the Brexit Party is probably going to get a large chunk of the vote (and the number of people who'll double down and say that any implosion is down to us not brexiting hard enough is probably a lot higher than any of us would like to consider), so we're probably looking at a coalition Tory/Brexit Party government.
I wouldn't be shocked* if BP got more votes than the Tories judging by how the MEP election went, which would put Nigel in Number 10.
*Horrifically depressed, yes. Shocked, no.
FPTP to the rescue!
The folks at Electoral Calculus model potential results given current polling. Not just in terms of number of votes, but also where those votes are - which obviously matters right now. It appears from the generic polling that if BXP split the Tory vote, they also gain a total of...zero to one seats. Current numbers also have the Tories 15 short of a majority.
Make of that prediction what you will.
That said, they also have a section on polling error/swing further down, which is absolute nightmare fuel.
Apparently bookies are giving something like 55% odds that Nigel is going to be the next PM.
We were in the darkest timeline, this is now infra-black.
This is something I didn’t consider as even a remote possibility.
I really want to agree with you, but I'd have said that about a lot of things in the last few years and been wrong each time.
But the reality is that if Brexit doesn't implode massively and publicly before an election, the Brexit Party is probably going to get a large chunk of the vote (and the number of people who'll double down and say that any implosion is down to us not brexiting hard enough is probably a lot higher than any of us would like to consider), so we're probably looking at a coalition Tory/Brexit Party government.
I wouldn't be shocked* if BP got more votes than the Tories judging by how the MEP election went, which would put Nigel in Number 10.
*Horrifically depressed, yes. Shocked, no.
FPTP to the rescue!
The folks at Electoral Calculus model potential results given current polling. Not just in terms of number of votes, but also where those votes are - which obviously matters right now. It appears from the generic polling that if BXP split the Tory vote, they also gain a total of...zero to one seats. Current numbers also have the Tories 15 short of a majority.
Make of that prediction what you will.
That said, they also have a section on polling error/swing further down, which is absolute nightmare fuel.
Between Brexit, Trump, and the Australian elections, I've already got enough polling error fueled nightmares.
Worst thing about the risk of the Brexit Party getting Tory votes in a GE is that it might spur Boris to pull some sort of a Brexit at the end of October, on the quasi-logic that it'll be tough for the Brexit Party to get votes if Brexit has already happened.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
Apparently bookies are giving something like 55% odds that Nigel is going to be the next PM.
We were in the darkest timeline, this is now infra-black.
This is something I didn’t consider as even a remote possibility.
I really want to agree with you, but I'd have said that about a lot of things in the last few years and been wrong each time.
But the reality is that if Brexit doesn't implode massively and publicly before an election, the Brexit Party is probably going to get a large chunk of the vote (and the number of people who'll double down and say that any implosion is down to us not brexiting hard enough is probably a lot higher than any of us would like to consider), so we're probably looking at a coalition Tory/Brexit Party government.
I wouldn't be shocked* if BP got more votes than the Tories judging by how the MEP election went, which would put Nigel in Number 10.
*Horrifically depressed, yes. Shocked, no.
FPTP to the rescue!
The folks at Electoral Calculus model potential results given current polling. Not just in terms of number of votes, but also where those votes are - which obviously matters right now. It appears from the generic polling that if BXP split the Tory vote, they also gain a total of...zero to one seats. Current numbers also have the Tories 15 short of a majority.
Make of that prediction what you will.
That said, they also have a section on polling error/swing further down, which is absolute nightmare fuel.
Between Brexit, Trump, and the Australian elections, I've already got enough polling error fueled nightmares.
Worst thing about the risk of the Brexit Party getting Tory votes in a GE is that it might spur Boris to pull some sort of a Brexit at the end of October, on the quasi-logic that it'll be tough for the Brexit Party to get votes if Brexit has already happened.
Neither Brexit or Trump were polling errors afaik. Trump for sure wasn't.
Apparently bookies are giving something like 55% odds that Nigel is going to be the next PM.
We were in the darkest timeline, this is now infra-black.
This is something I didn’t consider as even a remote possibility.
I really want to agree with you, but I'd have said that about a lot of things in the last few years and been wrong each time.
But the reality is that if Brexit doesn't implode massively and publicly before an election, the Brexit Party is probably going to get a large chunk of the vote (and the number of people who'll double down and say that any implosion is down to us not brexiting hard enough is probably a lot higher than any of us would like to consider), so we're probably looking at a coalition Tory/Brexit Party government.
I wouldn't be shocked* if BP got more votes than the Tories judging by how the MEP election went, which would put Nigel in Number 10.
*Horrifically depressed, yes. Shocked, no.
FPTP to the rescue!
The folks at Electoral Calculus model potential results given current polling. Not just in terms of number of votes, but also where those votes are - which obviously matters right now. It appears from the generic polling that if BXP split the Tory vote, they also gain a total of...zero to one seats. Current numbers also have the Tories 15 short of a majority.
Make of that prediction what you will.
That said, they also have a section on polling error/swing further down, which is absolute nightmare fuel.
Between Brexit, Trump, and the Australian elections, I've already got enough polling error fueled nightmares.
Worst thing about the risk of the Brexit Party getting Tory votes in a GE is that it might spur Boris to pull some sort of a Brexit at the end of October, on the quasi-logic that it'll be tough for the Brexit Party to get votes if Brexit has already happened.
Neither Brexit or Trump were looking errors afaik. Trump for sure wasn't.
In the last moments, no. But a couple months out, they were pretty much seen as a forgone conclusion the other way. So much so, that more than a few people are on record as sitting out 2016 because it wouldn't matter, or voting FOR Brexit as a protest vote.
While that doesn't take away from the last minute polling, most people don't follow polling closely, and the media have proven to be negligent, if not complicit, in keeping the public less informed. By pushing narrative (horserace!) over providing facts.
People should be more informed. But they're not going to be.
Well! Johnson and Varadkar finally had their phone call. It went about as well as you’d expect. Here’s the coverage from Ireland’s public broadcast news.
Apparently bookies are giving something like 55% odds that Nigel is going to be the next PM.
We were in the darkest timeline, this is now infra-black.
This is something I didn’t consider as even a remote possibility.
I really want to agree with you, but I'd have said that about a lot of things in the last few years and been wrong each time.
But the reality is that if Brexit doesn't implode massively and publicly before an election, the Brexit Party is probably going to get a large chunk of the vote (and the number of people who'll double down and say that any implosion is down to us not brexiting hard enough is probably a lot higher than any of us would like to consider), so we're probably looking at a coalition Tory/Brexit Party government.
I wouldn't be shocked* if BP got more votes than the Tories judging by how the MEP election went, which would put Nigel in Number 10.
*Horrifically depressed, yes. Shocked, no.
FPTP to the rescue!
The folks at Electoral Calculus model potential results given current polling. Not just in terms of number of votes, but also where those votes are - which obviously matters right now. It appears from the generic polling that if BXP split the Tory vote, they also gain a total of...zero to one seats. Current numbers also have the Tories 15 short of a majority.
Make of that prediction what you will.
That said, they also have a section on polling error/swing further down, which is absolute nightmare fuel.
Between Brexit, Trump, and the Australian elections, I've already got enough polling error fueled nightmares.
Worst thing about the risk of the Brexit Party getting Tory votes in a GE is that it might spur Boris to pull some sort of a Brexit at the end of October, on the quasi-logic that it'll be tough for the Brexit Party to get votes if Brexit has already happened.
Neither Brexit or Trump were looking errors afaik. Trump for sure wasn't.
In the last moments, no. But a couple months out, they were pretty much seen as a forgone conclusion the other way. So much so, that more than a few people are on record as sitting out 2016 because it wouldn't matter, or voting FOR Brexit as a protest vote.
While that doesn't take away from the last minute polling, most people don't follow polling closely, and the media have proven to be negligent, if not complicit, in keeping the public less informed. By pushing narrative (horserace!) over providing facts.
People should be more informed. But they're not going to be.
Nah. Even months and months out Trump was plausible, just unlikely.
The thing to remember is that the edge of the margin of error is still within the margin of error.
Polling, assuming the data is actually available, has generally been fairly solid.
shryke on
+7
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ChanusHarbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered Userregular
Apparently bookies are giving something like 55% odds that Nigel is going to be the next PM.
We were in the darkest timeline, this is now infra-black.
This is something I didn’t consider as even a remote possibility.
I really want to agree with you, but I'd have said that about a lot of things in the last few years and been wrong each time.
But the reality is that if Brexit doesn't implode massively and publicly before an election, the Brexit Party is probably going to get a large chunk of the vote (and the number of people who'll double down and say that any implosion is down to us not brexiting hard enough is probably a lot higher than any of us would like to consider), so we're probably looking at a coalition Tory/Brexit Party government.
I wouldn't be shocked* if BP got more votes than the Tories judging by how the MEP election went, which would put Nigel in Number 10.
*Horrifically depressed, yes. Shocked, no.
FPTP to the rescue!
The folks at Electoral Calculus model potential results given current polling. Not just in terms of number of votes, but also where those votes are - which obviously matters right now. It appears from the generic polling that if BXP split the Tory vote, they also gain a total of...zero to one seats. Current numbers also have the Tories 15 short of a majority.
Make of that prediction what you will.
That said, they also have a section on polling error/swing further down, which is absolute nightmare fuel.
Between Brexit, Trump, and the Australian elections, I've already got enough polling error fueled nightmares.
Worst thing about the risk of the Brexit Party getting Tory votes in a GE is that it might spur Boris to pull some sort of a Brexit at the end of October, on the quasi-logic that it'll be tough for the Brexit Party to get votes if Brexit has already happened.
Neither Brexit or Trump were looking errors afaik. Trump for sure wasn't.
In the last moments, no. But a couple months out, they were pretty much seen as a forgone conclusion the other way. So much so, that more than a few people are on record as sitting out 2016 because it wouldn't matter, or voting FOR Brexit as a protest vote.
While that doesn't take away from the last minute polling, most people don't follow polling closely, and the media have proven to be negligent, if not complicit, in keeping the public less informed. By pushing narrative (horserace!) over providing facts.
People should be more informed. But they're not going to be.
Nah. Even months and months out Trump was plausible, just unlikely.
The thing to remember is that the edge of the margin of error is still within the margin of error.
Polling, assuming the data is actually available, had generally been fairly solid.
i think the main difference would be the giant blind spot in 2016 where the Midwest and Rust Belt were taken for granted as reliably Democrat-leaning when that clearly was no longer the case and had been trending away from that for at least a decade before
i don't know if there are similar electoral oversights in the UK right now, especially considering recent national voting results showing pretty consistent trends
not saying PM Farage couldn't happen, but i don't think it's likely we'd see the same kind of "coming out of nowhere" like we did with Trump where it went from "laughably unlikely" to "holy shit we fucked up" almost literally overnight
Allegedly a voice of reason.
0
Options
MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Well yeah, Boris Johnson and co. believe that anything that's not their rich white English Eton boys are colonial subjects who exist only to enrich the imperial masters like himself. This especially goes for the Scots, Welsh, Irish, and anybody else with a drop of non-English blood. Probably goes double for Varadkar since he's half-Indian in ancestry.
Apparently bookies are giving something like 55% odds that Nigel is going to be the next PM.
We were in the darkest timeline, this is now infra-black.
This is something I didn’t consider as even a remote possibility.
I really want to agree with you, but I'd have said that about a lot of things in the last few years and been wrong each time.
But the reality is that if Brexit doesn't implode massively and publicly before an election, the Brexit Party is probably going to get a large chunk of the vote (and the number of people who'll double down and say that any implosion is down to us not brexiting hard enough is probably a lot higher than any of us would like to consider), so we're probably looking at a coalition Tory/Brexit Party government.
I wouldn't be shocked* if BP got more votes than the Tories judging by how the MEP election went, which would put Nigel in Number 10.
*Horrifically depressed, yes. Shocked, no.
FPTP to the rescue!
The folks at Electoral Calculus model potential results given current polling. Not just in terms of number of votes, but also where those votes are - which obviously matters right now. It appears from the generic polling that if BXP split the Tory vote, they also gain a total of...zero to one seats. Current numbers also have the Tories 15 short of a majority.
Make of that prediction what you will.
That said, they also have a section on polling error/swing further down, which is absolute nightmare fuel.
Between Brexit, Trump, and the Australian elections, I've already got enough polling error fueled nightmares.
Worst thing about the risk of the Brexit Party getting Tory votes in a GE is that it might spur Boris to pull some sort of a Brexit at the end of October, on the quasi-logic that it'll be tough for the Brexit Party to get votes if Brexit has already happened.
Neither Brexit or Trump were looking errors afaik. Trump for sure wasn't.
In the last moments, no. But a couple months out, they were pretty much seen as a forgone conclusion the other way. So much so, that more than a few people are on record as sitting out 2016 because it wouldn't matter, or voting FOR Brexit as a protest vote.
While that doesn't take away from the last minute polling, most people don't follow polling closely, and the media have proven to be negligent, if not complicit, in keeping the public less informed. By pushing narrative (horserace!) over providing facts.
People should be more informed. But they're not going to be.
Nah. Even months and months out Trump was plausible, just unlikely.
The thing to remember is that the edge of the margin of error is still within the margin of error.
Polling, assuming the data is actually available, had generally been fairly solid.
i think the main difference would be the giant blind spot in 2016 where the Midwest and Rust Belt were taken for granted as reliably Democrat-leaning when that clearly was no longer the case and had been trending away from that for at least a decade before
i don't know if there are similar electoral oversights in the UK right now, especially considering recent national voting results showing pretty consistent trends
not saying PM Farage couldn't happen, but i don't think it's likely we'd see the same kind of "coming out of nowhere" like we did with Trump where it went from "laughably unlikely" to "holy shit we fucked up" almost literally overnight
I have the impression - which might have become very inaccurate over the past couple of years! - that UK political polling is massively amateurish compared to the USA's at the best of times. Certainly in a situation like we have right now where all assumptions should pretty much be left at the door then polls are going to be hugely prone to error.
One obvious example of something that's going to make polling models dodgy is the existence of the Brexit party. Do you just assume that all UKIP voters will migrate to it? But UKIP still exists. Maybe a percentage? What if their support amongst the electorate collapses just before the election for whatever reason? Do you base their level of support on their performance during the MEP elections? That's an issue because the relationship between performance in those elections and general elections has never been hugely strong.
There are a lot of variables, a lot of blanks to fill in, and for a lot of them the best guess is "fuck knows".
Apparently bookies are giving something like 55% odds that Nigel is going to be the next PM.
We were in the darkest timeline, this is now infra-black.
This is something I didn’t consider as even a remote possibility.
I really want to agree with you, but I'd have said that about a lot of things in the last few years and been wrong each time.
But the reality is that if Brexit doesn't implode massively and publicly before an election, the Brexit Party is probably going to get a large chunk of the vote (and the number of people who'll double down and say that any implosion is down to us not brexiting hard enough is probably a lot higher than any of us would like to consider), so we're probably looking at a coalition Tory/Brexit Party government.
I wouldn't be shocked* if BP got more votes than the Tories judging by how the MEP election went, which would put Nigel in Number 10.
*Horrifically depressed, yes. Shocked, no.
FPTP to the rescue!
The folks at Electoral Calculus model potential results given current polling. Not just in terms of number of votes, but also where those votes are - which obviously matters right now. It appears from the generic polling that if BXP split the Tory vote, they also gain a total of...zero to one seats. Current numbers also have the Tories 15 short of a majority.
Make of that prediction what you will.
That said, they also have a section on polling error/swing further down, which is absolute nightmare fuel.
Between Brexit, Trump, and the Australian elections, I've already got enough polling error fueled nightmares.
Worst thing about the risk of the Brexit Party getting Tory votes in a GE is that it might spur Boris to pull some sort of a Brexit at the end of October, on the quasi-logic that it'll be tough for the Brexit Party to get votes if Brexit has already happened.
Neither Brexit or Trump were looking errors afaik. Trump for sure wasn't.
In the last moments, no. But a couple months out, they were pretty much seen as a forgone conclusion the other way. So much so, that more than a few people are on record as sitting out 2016 because it wouldn't matter, or voting FOR Brexit as a protest vote.
While that doesn't take away from the last minute polling, most people don't follow polling closely, and the media have proven to be negligent, if not complicit, in keeping the public less informed. By pushing narrative (horserace!) over providing facts.
People should be more informed. But they're not going to be.
Nah. Even months and months out Trump was plausible, just unlikely.
The thing to remember is that the edge of the margin of error is still within the margin of error.
Polling, assuming the data is actually available, had generally been fairly solid.
i think the main difference would be the giant blind spot in 2016 where the Midwest and Rust Belt were taken for granted as reliably Democrat-leaning when that clearly was no longer the case and had been trending away from that for at least a decade before
i don't know if there are similar electoral oversights in the UK right now, especially considering recent national voting results showing pretty consistent trends
not saying PM Farage couldn't happen, but i don't think it's likely we'd see the same kind of "coming out of nowhere" like we did with Trump where it went from "laughably unlikely" to "holy shit we fucked up" almost literally overnight
I have the impression - which might have become very inaccurate over the past couple of years! - that UK political polling is massively amateurish compared to the USA's at the best of times. Certainly in a situation like we have right now where all assumptions should pretty much be left at the door then polls are going to be hugely prone to error.
One obvious example of something that's going to make polling models dodgy is the existence of the Brexit party. Do you just assume that all UKIP voters will migrate to it? But UKIP still exists. Maybe a percentage? What if their support amongst the electorate collapses just before the election for whatever reason? Do you base their level of support on their performance during the MEP elections? That's an issue because the relationship between performance in those elections and general elections has never been hugely strong.
There are a lot of variables, a lot of blanks to fill in, and for a lot of them the best guess is "fuck knows".
UK polling might be amateurish but the British Public are a pretty fickle bunch.
We had one election decided by a picture of a man eating a sandwich, and one by a nonsense slogan on a bus.
Its hard to accurately predict what the hell the people will vote for.
+3
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ChanusHarbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered Userregular
It's entirely possible there are other confounding factors. I only mean to say Trump's victory doesn't guarantee a need for concern about a potential Farage PMship. I don't think the situations are all that comparable outside of the "how the fuck could we let this happen?" similarity.
Apparently bookies are giving something like 55% odds that Nigel is going to be the next PM.
We were in the darkest timeline, this is now infra-black.
This is something I didn’t consider as even a remote possibility.
I really want to agree with you, but I'd have said that about a lot of things in the last few years and been wrong each time.
But the reality is that if Brexit doesn't implode massively and publicly before an election, the Brexit Party is probably going to get a large chunk of the vote (and the number of people who'll double down and say that any implosion is down to us not brexiting hard enough is probably a lot higher than any of us would like to consider), so we're probably looking at a coalition Tory/Brexit Party government.
I wouldn't be shocked* if BP got more votes than the Tories judging by how the MEP election went, which would put Nigel in Number 10.
*Horrifically depressed, yes. Shocked, no.
FPTP to the rescue!
The folks at Electoral Calculus model potential results given current polling. Not just in terms of number of votes, but also where those votes are - which obviously matters right now. It appears from the generic polling that if BXP split the Tory vote, they also gain a total of...zero to one seats. Current numbers also have the Tories 15 short of a majority.
Make of that prediction what you will.
That said, they also have a section on polling error/swing further down, which is absolute nightmare fuel.
Between Brexit, Trump, and the Australian elections, I've already got enough polling error fueled nightmares.
Worst thing about the risk of the Brexit Party getting Tory votes in a GE is that it might spur Boris to pull some sort of a Brexit at the end of October, on the quasi-logic that it'll be tough for the Brexit Party to get votes if Brexit has already happened.
Neither Brexit or Trump were looking errors afaik. Trump for sure wasn't.
In the last moments, no. But a couple months out, they were pretty much seen as a forgone conclusion the other way. So much so, that more than a few people are on record as sitting out 2016 because it wouldn't matter, or voting FOR Brexit as a protest vote.
While that doesn't take away from the last minute polling, most people don't follow polling closely, and the media have proven to be negligent, if not complicit, in keeping the public less informed. By pushing narrative (horserace!) over providing facts.
People should be more informed. But they're not going to be.
Nah. Even months and months out Trump was plausible, just unlikely.
The thing to remember is that the edge of the margin of error is still within the margin of error.
Polling, assuming the data is actually available, had generally been fairly solid.
i think the main difference would be the giant blind spot in 2016 where the Midwest and Rust Belt were taken for granted as reliably Democrat-leaning when that clearly was no longer the case and had been trending away from that for at least a decade before
i don't know if there are similar electoral oversights in the UK right now, especially considering recent national voting results showing pretty consistent trends
not saying PM Farage couldn't happen, but i don't think it's likely we'd see the same kind of "coming out of nowhere" like we did with Trump where it went from "laughably unlikely" to "holy shit we fucked up" almost literally overnight
I have the impression - which might have become very inaccurate over the past couple of years! - that UK political polling is massively amateurish compared to the USA's at the best of times. Certainly in a situation like we have right now where all assumptions should pretty much be left at the door then polls are going to be hugely prone to error.
One obvious example of something that's going to make polling models dodgy is the existence of the Brexit party. Do you just assume that all UKIP voters will migrate to it? But UKIP still exists. Maybe a percentage? What if their support amongst the electorate collapses just before the election for whatever reason? Do you base their level of support on their performance during the MEP elections? That's an issue because the relationship between performance in those elections and general elections has never been hugely strong.
There are a lot of variables, a lot of blanks to fill in, and for a lot of them the best guess is "fuck knows".
Part of the issue is that there's way more game theory with UK elections. Because they have multiple parties, and those parties all contest, it matters not just who you want to vote for, but who you think will win.
In AU, we have instant runoff, so I can vote for the party I want first, but if I'm wrong in picking a winner, my vote still counts towards the party I prefer, rather than the party I oppose. Our major conservative coalition takes it a step further, by having the two parties that make it up, not contest each other's seats, at least for the most part.
The US get around it, because they accept that FPTP doesn't really work for third party candidates (with a few exceptions), and so have settled onto the two-horse race, with third party votes most often being used to protest the two party system.
It's hard to predict a UK election, where 60% of the electorate are liberal and 40% are conservative, if there's one conservative candidate, but two liberal ones. If the electorate don't vote for one liberal over the other by more than double, the conservative wins.
So polling is a lot swingier, because any movement in polling or general sentiment might see people move towards the person they think is more likely to win, that reflects SOME of their values, rather than the candidate they'd prefer, because that's better than letting the candidate they don't want, because the votes got split.
It's entirely possible there are other confounding factors. I only mean to say Trump's victory doesn't guarantee a need for concern about a potential Farage PMship. I don't think the situations are all that comparable outside of the "how the fuck could we let this happen?" similarity.
Not to mention political inertia is a thing, people don't vote in large numbers for brand new political parties, I would be a lot more worried if Farrage had managed to sieze control of the Tory party like trump did with the republicans.
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The Telegraph can exclusively reveal that... no-deal Brexit might be a bad thing after all. Thanks, Telegraph. Thanks.
You know, like uh... Hmm...
Yep. Boris needs to be seen as willing to leave on no deal to keep Farage from being a spoiler if the government is brought down. Boris also needs to be seen as wanting a deal in order to keep on the fence conservatives from defecting to the Lib Dems. I think we have 4 possibilities which I can't begin to rank since there are so many balls in the air and so much palace intrigue prediction is impossible.
1. No deal Brexit
2. EU blinks and Brexit on revised "no backstop" deal
3. Tory remainers team up with opposition to bring down government and a non Tory gets to form new government and sets up a new referendum
4. Tory remainers team up with opposition to bring down government and Boris gets to form government which leads back to 1.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Northern Ireland should get an increased demand for fencing and small booths.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Innovative jams!
MUH FREEEDUM SOVEREIGNTY!
I cannot even begin to consider 2 as a realistic possibility. Only in the wildest empire fetishists wet dreams.
We were in the darkest timeline, this is now infra-black.
Fuck me.... When you thought the world has hit rock bottom, some people just break out the shovels.
also:
350m pounds for the NHS per year week.
No immigrants and anyone that isn't up to snuff will be deported.
Oh, but those *****s who run the corner chip shop, they're all right, they can stay. They're "good ones."
Fuck.
"Now, I like curry. But now that we've got the recipe, is there any reason for them to still be here?"
This is something I didn’t consider as even a remote possibility.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
(Lynsey Bews is a BBC Scotland Correspondent)
Sturgeon said she can't recall a time when any visiting head of government has done so. So of course now people are calling him Back door Boris and asking how he intends to negotiate with the EU if he skulks off when faced with angry Scots. Good job limiting the bad press in a meeting that was ever going to go well Boris.
Sturgeon doesn't even have to try with this fool.
I really want to agree with you, but I'd have said that about a lot of things in the last few years and been wrong each time.
But the reality is that if Brexit doesn't implode massively and publicly before an election, the Brexit Party is probably going to get a large chunk of the vote (and the number of people who'll double down and say that any implosion is down to us not brexiting hard enough is probably a lot higher than any of us would like to consider), so we're probably looking at a coalition Tory/Brexit Party government.
I wouldn't be shocked* if BP got more votes than the Tories judging by how the MEP election went, which would put Nigel in Number 10.
*Horrifically depressed, yes. Shocked, no.
He's quite into infosec
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For the record, that’s not at all normal. Every Prime Minister speaks with the Taoiseach within two days of being elected.
Hugh is the political editor of the Irish Independent
Something else to note. This is from the CEO of a communications advisory firm in the UK. There’s nothing to go on but his word, but he’s claiming to have dined with several top Tory Party members and to have noticed a very particular attitude.
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Ding ding ding, we have a winner.
Boris Johnson and his cronies are waiting on Varadkar to budge, but they haven’t noticed they haven’t actually left him anywhere to go.
As far as I can tell, blinking wouldn't even get Ireland anything. No Deal and No Backstop would seem to have very similar impact on the Republic of Ireland, with No Deal being even worse for the UK as a whole (never mind NI getting rekked by it). The RoI backing off on the backstop would just seem to be getting nothing in return for sorta keeping the pain concentrated in the general area of Ireland.
The UK (or at least Tory) position on this seems to be an even stupider version of the thinking that had them pushing the threat of no-deal in order to try and get concessions from the EU.
FPTP to the rescue!
The folks at Electoral Calculus model potential results given current polling. Not just in terms of number of votes, but also where those votes are - which obviously matters right now. It appears from the generic polling that if BXP split the Tory vote, they also gain a total of...zero to one seats. Current numbers also have the Tories 15 short of a majority.
Make of that prediction what you will.
That said, they also have a section on polling error/swing further down, which is absolute nightmare fuel.
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Between Brexit, Trump, and the Australian elections, I've already got enough polling error fueled nightmares.
Worst thing about the risk of the Brexit Party getting Tory votes in a GE is that it might spur Boris to pull some sort of a Brexit at the end of October, on the quasi-logic that it'll be tough for the Brexit Party to get votes if Brexit has already happened.
Neither Brexit or Trump were polling errors afaik. Trump for sure wasn't.
In the last moments, no. But a couple months out, they were pretty much seen as a forgone conclusion the other way. So much so, that more than a few people are on record as sitting out 2016 because it wouldn't matter, or voting FOR Brexit as a protest vote.
While that doesn't take away from the last minute polling, most people don't follow polling closely, and the media have proven to be negligent, if not complicit, in keeping the public less informed. By pushing narrative (horserace!) over providing facts.
People should be more informed. But they're not going to be.
Nah. Even months and months out Trump was plausible, just unlikely.
The thing to remember is that the edge of the margin of error is still within the margin of error.
Polling, assuming the data is actually available, has generally been fairly solid.
i think the main difference would be the giant blind spot in 2016 where the Midwest and Rust Belt were taken for granted as reliably Democrat-leaning when that clearly was no longer the case and had been trending away from that for at least a decade before
i don't know if there are similar electoral oversights in the UK right now, especially considering recent national voting results showing pretty consistent trends
not saying PM Farage couldn't happen, but i don't think it's likely we'd see the same kind of "coming out of nowhere" like we did with Trump where it went from "laughably unlikely" to "holy shit we fucked up" almost literally overnight
I have the impression - which might have become very inaccurate over the past couple of years! - that UK political polling is massively amateurish compared to the USA's at the best of times. Certainly in a situation like we have right now where all assumptions should pretty much be left at the door then polls are going to be hugely prone to error.
One obvious example of something that's going to make polling models dodgy is the existence of the Brexit party. Do you just assume that all UKIP voters will migrate to it? But UKIP still exists. Maybe a percentage? What if their support amongst the electorate collapses just before the election for whatever reason? Do you base their level of support on their performance during the MEP elections? That's an issue because the relationship between performance in those elections and general elections has never been hugely strong.
There are a lot of variables, a lot of blanks to fill in, and for a lot of them the best guess is "fuck knows".
UK polling might be amateurish but the British Public are a pretty fickle bunch.
We had one election decided by a picture of a man eating a sandwich, and one by a nonsense slogan on a bus.
Its hard to accurately predict what the hell the people will vote for.
Part of the issue is that there's way more game theory with UK elections. Because they have multiple parties, and those parties all contest, it matters not just who you want to vote for, but who you think will win.
In AU, we have instant runoff, so I can vote for the party I want first, but if I'm wrong in picking a winner, my vote still counts towards the party I prefer, rather than the party I oppose. Our major conservative coalition takes it a step further, by having the two parties that make it up, not contest each other's seats, at least for the most part.
The US get around it, because they accept that FPTP doesn't really work for third party candidates (with a few exceptions), and so have settled onto the two-horse race, with third party votes most often being used to protest the two party system.
It's hard to predict a UK election, where 60% of the electorate are liberal and 40% are conservative, if there's one conservative candidate, but two liberal ones. If the electorate don't vote for one liberal over the other by more than double, the conservative wins.
So polling is a lot swingier, because any movement in polling or general sentiment might see people move towards the person they think is more likely to win, that reflects SOME of their values, rather than the candidate they'd prefer, because that's better than letting the candidate they don't want, because the votes got split.
Not to mention political inertia is a thing, people don't vote in large numbers for brand new political parties, I would be a lot more worried if Farrage had managed to sieze control of the Tory party like trump did with the republicans.