Excellent. I think we should start calling him Dunning-Kruger now. :D

Excellent. I think we should start calling him Dunning-Kruger now. :D

 

 

No, a lot can happen in 16 months. :lol:

No, a lot can happen in 16 months. :lol:

You've changed your tune.

After writing a long-arse article which during research involved parsing the difficulties that the Conservatives face in winning the next election, I have considered and am now certain enough that I'm going to place this foolhardy bet sixteen months out from the election:

 

I bet Craig that the Conservatives will not win an overall majority in 2015. If they once again do not win an overall majority, Craig is to change his name permanently to Dunning-Kruger :D

 

If they do win an overall majority, I will do likewise. (But that will probably be the least of my concerns if that happens.)

 

Deal

 

Enjoy your name change in May 2015 :teresa:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-25...e-finances.html

 

More bad news for Red Ed, despite the disreputable source it is also in other papers too

 

His only card left to play is 'cost of living' and that is going to improve a lot in 2014

 

As things stand atm David Cameron has a royal flush in his hand and Ed a pair of sevens

Only card? Not the Bedroom Tax, NHS privatisation or the botched recovery?

Only card? Not the Bedroom Tax, NHS privatisation or the botched recovery?

 

No one cares about the bedroom tax though unless they are directly affected by it, those people vote labour anyways

 

The recovery is getting stronger by the day, consumer confidence is gaining a head of steam, number of new jobs is going through the roof

 

NHS privatisation is a myth, sure some private companies are involved in things like IT etc but i have never had to pay for NHS treatment, i had an appointment with a orthapaedic guy only yesterday, never asked for my card numbers

If it's on other sources can you not just post them instead of that vile rag?

Yeah, I have to say, Labour campaigners really do shoot themselves in the foot when they just refer to greater private sector involvement as privatisation. I think these particular NHS reforms are a load of toss but it really does just make it easier for the public to tune us out if the NHS ever DOES get privatised - and if the Tories win in 2020, I could see that being very likely from the current lot dominating that party intellectually.

 

And Craig, if it's such a disreputable source and other papers have it, why do you keep reading it?

If it's on other sources can you not just post them instead of that vile rag?

 

It was in the FT and Times, both are subscription only online so its impossible

 

But the articles (in the physical paper) said that consumer confidence had trebled compared with the last year in terms of households optimistic about their finances

Great news that inflation has finally hit 2%, although RPI was actually up from 2.6% to 2.7% though which makes me a little suspicious of the figures. :P One key thing is though that inflation continues to out-strip wage inflation by just over 1%.

 

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/resources/awechart_tcm77-346384.png

No one cares about the bedroom tax though unless they are directly affected by it, those people vote labour anyways

 

The recovery is getting stronger by the day, consumer confidence is gaining a head of steam, number of new jobs is going through the roof

 

NHS privatisation is a myth, sure some private companies are involved in things like IT etc but i have never had to pay for NHS treatment, i had an appointment with a orthapaedic guy only yesterday, never asked for my card numbers

You not caring about the Bedroom Tax =/= no one caring. It's generated a lot of press, and very little of it positive.

 

The recovery was completely botched in that Osborne has unequivocally failed in what he set out to do. Maybe I'm overestimating how much attention people paid to this but the cornerstone policy of the Tory manifesto last time out was to have the deficit gone within one parliament. The fact that it's so far off is bound to attract attention.

You not caring about the Bedroom Tax =/= no one caring. It's generated a lot of press, and very little of it positive.

 

The recovery was completely botched in that Osborne has unequivocally failed in what he set out to do. Maybe I'm overestimating how much attention people paid to this but the cornerstone policy of the Tory manifesto last time out was to have the deficit gone within one parliament. The fact that it's so far off is bound to attract attention.

 

The next election won't be that though, Ed will undoubtedly in the tv debates make some soundbite about bedroom tax but i very much doubt it will be a vote changing matter, can't see it making the top 10 issues at the next election, as for the last bit again i don't think people will be bothered too much as long as they see progress and all the key indicators like GDP/jobs/first time buyers/car sales/retail sales etc suggest there is plenty of progress being made

Craig - it's not about the bedroom tax as a policy, it's about what it says about the Conservatives as a party. The biggest roadblock to a lot of people who probably would consider voting Tory otherwise is that they're perceived as the 'nasty party' which hits less well-off people the most. Most of the point of the modernisation project was to try and rehabilitate that image, and there are a lot of people out there who will have noticed that despite all of the bluster leading up to the last election, once they were in the Conservatives just reverted to type and brought in policies like that.

Craig - it's not about the bedroom tax as a policy, it's about what it says about the Conservatives as a party. The biggest roadblock to a lot of people who probably would consider voting Tory otherwise is that they're perceived as the 'nasty party' which hits less well-off people the most. Most of the point of the modernisation project was to try and rehabilitate that image, and there are a lot of people out there who will have noticed that despite all of the bluster leading up to the last election, once they were in the Conservatives just reverted to type and brought in policies like that.

 

But the people who feel that way about them will have already made up their mind not to vote for them. The nasty party stuff whether true or not preaches to the converted

 

The election will be decided by floating voters, the economy and state of those floating voters finances will be by far the biggest factor

As much as I enjoy disagreeing with Craig, the latest figures show that support for Labour is slipping away (making a hung parliament the most likely option IMO).

 

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/j...covery-icm-poll

 

Support for Labour is sinking as faith in the UK's economic recovery builds, according to a new Guardian/ICM poll.

 

Ed Miliband's party drops two points on the month to stand at 35%, which is just three points ahead of David Cameron's Conservatives, who stand still on 32%. Labour's lead in the Guardian's respected 30-year polling series is thus squeezed to three percentage points, down from five last month and eight points in November.

But the people who feel that way about them will have already made up their mind not to vote for them. The nasty party stuff whether true or not preaches to the converted

 

The election will be decided by floating voters, the economy and state of those floating voters finances will be by far the biggest factor

But it DOESN'T preach to the converted - there are loads of swing voters who have these concerns! Are you really disputing that there are a group of people who would've voted for a modernised Conservative Party that was more moderate in how it chose to spread the economic burden but who don't like the choice of this Conservative Party? As a hint, that group is why you didn't win the last election.

And dear lord, can we ALL stop citing individual polls one way or another (the Labour lead is huge!/the Labour lead is soft!). The overall trend is what matters, not an individual poll which is subject to sample variation.

 

And this goes double if the movement is within three points, at which point presenting a single poll as evidence one way or another becomes basically irrelevant as it's within the margin of error. If there are five polls in a row showing a jump of around 3 points, fine, but one poll showing a shift of two points in a month where not very much has happened is worse than meaningless in the broad scheme of things.

And dear lord, can we ALL stop citing individual polls one way or another (the Labour lead is huge!/the Labour lead is soft!). The overall trend is what matters, not an individual poll which is subject to sample variation.

 

And this goes double if the movement is within three points, at which point presenting a single poll as evidence one way or another becomes basically irrelevant as it's within the margin of error. If there are five polls in a row showing a jump of around 3 points, fine, but one poll showing a shift of two points in a month where not very much has happened is worse than meaningless in the broad scheme of things.

 

A trend of 8 point lead in November 2013 to 5 points in December to 3 points in January 2014 is pretty clear, no?

A trend of 8 point lead in November 2013 to 5 points in December to 3 points in January 2014 is pretty clear, no?

It shows a likely decline, yeah - but then that Labour's lead is smaller now on average than it was in October/early November (which is when the ICM fieldwork would've been done) doesn't tell us anything we didn't know already (i.e. Labour were popular when energy prices were dominating the agenda, and are a little less so now there's no particular topic dominating the headlines), and extrapolating a trend from just three monthly polls is a little dodgy. It's unlikely, but that could equally be showing us a consistent five point lead, with three and eight points being within the margin of error. Far better to deduce the state of play by looking at the weekly trends across all polling companies.