Editor's Blog5 mins ago
For Old Times Sake?
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Mikey hasn't quoted EC since May 2015 so i thought I'd relive old times. Largely discredited of course but a bit of fun on back to work Tuesday.
Mikey hasn't quoted EC since May 2015 so i thought I'd relive old times. Largely discredited of course but a bit of fun on back to work Tuesday.
Answers
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Morning TTT.........Discredited ?
A bit I suppose, but they got the results for the LibDems, Greens, SNP and UKIP bang on the nail, so not everything that the Polls are predicting is necessarily untrue.
And don't forget, people have been known to lie to Polling companies....they lie to me on a regular basis !
A bit I suppose, but they got the results for the LibDems, Greens, SNP and UKIP bang on the nail, so not everything that the Polls are predicting is necessarily untrue.
And don't forget, people have been known to lie to Polling companies....they lie to me on a regular basis !
TTT....no, it wasn't completely right, as I have acknowledged on many occasions. Do keep up !
But neither were any of the other Polls , or the Bookies come to that.
People tend to lie when talking to Pollsters, especially when they asked a question that might prove embarrassing, like "are you going to vote Tory" or "are you a racist"
But neither were any of the other Polls , or the Bookies come to that.
People tend to lie when talking to Pollsters, especially when they asked a question that might prove embarrassing, like "are you going to vote Tory" or "are you a racist"
//especially when they asked a question that might prove embarrassing, like "are you going to vote Tory" //
That's not embarrassing. It just hasn't occurred to you that some people might prefer nosy pollsters to mind their own business. I might lodge a vote in a poll here, but I'd never answer questions on any topic elsewhere.
That's not embarrassing. It just hasn't occurred to you that some people might prefer nosy pollsters to mind their own business. I might lodge a vote in a poll here, but I'd never answer questions on any topic elsewhere.
Not that it really matters, but Electoral Calculus are not pollsters. They take national polling data that actual polling companies release and then process it in order to generate a prediction for how the raw polling numbers will translate into actual constituency seats. The problem they faced in 2015 was that the polling data turned out to be inaccurate, but if you feed the correct general election numbers then I think they could correctly call the result to within a very few seats (right now its showing an exact match but I suspect that they've retuned the model to allow for the 2015 result so I don't think that means the model is 100% accurate).
Some discussion here: http://
It's obviously wrong to pretend that any prediction of the 2015 election was right, but I think to target Electoral Calculus in particular and call it "discredited" smacks of misunderstanding what that site even is. No surprises there.
In terms of the current prediction, the model is probably a little vulnerable to the impending boundary changes so that will add an extra error, but yes, again, there is no point in pretending that Labour are doing well. The boundary changes just mentioned are expected to hurt them anyway, losing around ten more seats than you might expect, so that doesn't help matters. On the other hand there are still three years to go so any prediction made now is unlikely to reflect the situation in three years' time on the other side of Brexit. I tend to expect that the current prediction is a bit in between what will happen after that. Theresa May will be a hero of the people, or a villain who failed to deliver anything like what was promised and satisfied exactly no-one, so I'm generally expecting that there will be a huge victory off the scale of this prediction, or a crushing Tory collapse that leaves voters with little viable option but to turn to Labour. Which of those becomes more likely we'll have to wait and see.
But anyway: Electoral Calculus did rather well in some respects in 2015, but on the usual computer modelling rule of "Garbage in, Garbage out", suffered from errors in polling giving it the wrong data to feed on.
Some discussion here: http://
It's obviously wrong to pretend that any prediction of the 2015 election was right, but I think to target Electoral Calculus in particular and call it "discredited" smacks of misunderstanding what that site even is. No surprises there.
In terms of the current prediction, the model is probably a little vulnerable to the impending boundary changes so that will add an extra error, but yes, again, there is no point in pretending that Labour are doing well. The boundary changes just mentioned are expected to hurt them anyway, losing around ten more seats than you might expect, so that doesn't help matters. On the other hand there are still three years to go so any prediction made now is unlikely to reflect the situation in three years' time on the other side of Brexit. I tend to expect that the current prediction is a bit in between what will happen after that. Theresa May will be a hero of the people, or a villain who failed to deliver anything like what was promised and satisfied exactly no-one, so I'm generally expecting that there will be a huge victory off the scale of this prediction, or a crushing Tory collapse that leaves voters with little viable option but to turn to Labour. Which of those becomes more likely we'll have to wait and see.
But anyway: Electoral Calculus did rather well in some respects in 2015, but on the usual computer modelling rule of "Garbage in, Garbage out", suffered from errors in polling giving it the wrong data to feed on.
Well, perhaps. But if you want to vote out the current lot because they have failed, to whom else can you turn but the party in second place, realistically? It would have to be the case that May's failure would see Labour return power, not necessarily because anyone liked them but because that's how FPTP works.
Unless of course you are telling us that the Tories could pretty much literally start a policy of killing the firstborn child of every family and people would go "Meh, at least they sing the National Anthem."...
Unless of course you are telling us that the Tories could pretty much literally start a policy of killing the firstborn child of every family and people would go "Meh, at least they sing the National Anthem."...
Jim...two very good posts !
And thanks for reminding everybody that in British politics, there are only really two Parties that matter. As it stands at the moment, I don't think that Labour can easily get a working majority in 2020. But we have over 3 years to go, in order to see how Mrs May beggers up the process of leaving the EU, which she is doing at the moment. The very idea that people are going to flock to UKIP , the Greens, and the LiibDems, from Labour, just doesn't make any sense at all.
And thanks for reminding everybody that in British politics, there are only really two Parties that matter. As it stands at the moment, I don't think that Labour can easily get a working majority in 2020. But we have over 3 years to go, in order to see how Mrs May beggers up the process of leaving the EU, which she is doing at the moment. The very idea that people are going to flock to UKIP , the Greens, and the LiibDems, from Labour, just doesn't make any sense at all.
I think you're missing my point, which is to say that if the Tory party is seen as failing deliver it pretty much necessarily follows that voters will abandon them at the ballot box and turn... where? It's unlikely that they would swing to UKIP in large enough numbers to set up a Farage government, so the only viable alternative numerically would be a Labour government. No I am not saying I'd be happy with that -- although who knows, in three years, if after all the Labour party sort out their house by then? -- but yes I am saying that the present electoral system leaves no other option in practice to punish a failed government than the second-largest party.
You must know this -- The Tories can, perhaps, "get away with" more than they'd be able to with a more competent opposition, but this extra tolerance can only extend so far. My "killing babies" example was hardly meant to reflect expectations of future policy announcements, but the principle that there are things they can do in power that will lead to them losing in 2020 is obviously sound.
You must know this -- The Tories can, perhaps, "get away with" more than they'd be able to with a more competent opposition, but this extra tolerance can only extend so far. My "killing babies" example was hardly meant to reflect expectations of future policy announcements, but the principle that there are things they can do in power that will lead to them losing in 2020 is obviously sound.
Jim, I’m not missing your point. If the Tories fail to deliver, voters will doubtless have a dilemma on their hands. As things stand, Labour is entirely unelectable and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Therefore the choice just might come down to voting for what the electorate see as the lesser of the two evils.
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