Opinion polls are the methodone fix for unreconstructed politics addicts between elections.  Our resident pusher is Mike Smithson, the genial and analytically astute host of http://politicalbetting.com, a site which pulls together the rumour-mill, the important political; stories of the day and opinion polls, for the important task of facilitating the lucrative political betting market.

It’s a clear sign that political punditry has become lucrative when Ladbrokes offers guest podcast appearances describing their market methodologies, and is now sponsoring the site up to the General Election.  Obviously, as a tory I am delighted that oppotunities to establish new markets have arisen from politics, and that a few might make a small packet on the proceeds of their betting.  On the other hand, like many even completely obsessed political observers and participants, I find the sheer number of disparate polls is beginning to make the job of actually tracking trends extremely complex.

Too many fucking polls

Chief culprit is YouGov’s daily political tracker in the Sun and Sunday Times; it’s confusing people because of the very short delay between completion of polling and release of data; the afternoon news cycle is often completely missed in the polls, with the inevitable outcome that the results reflect the settled view of the people polled for the day before.

To illustrate this: (click to zoom)

I’m simply contending that the real actual polling window when people can and will talk to pollsters on a daily basis is in the evening after work.  Polling of people will vary according to what’s on the 6 o’clock news, which may be reporting the events of the day, but won’t provide any time whatsoever for the political significance of things said and done to sink in.  In addition, I’ll contend that any polling conducted before the 6 o’clock news is useless, reflecting only the stories stuck in the polled peoples’ heads for the day before.  I’m arguing that the YouGov poll is therefore ineffective at identifying real voting intention,a nd will be taken by the panel as much more a poll on the day’s media performance by the parties.

We’ve seen this in thedramatic rise and then slump in the LibDem polling as a result of their media exposure.  Since none of our political leaders are absolutely hateful people when interviewed. any media exposure they get will be positive unless it’s a serious gaffe.  We saw this in relation to Gordon Brown’s Bullygate fiasco.  Given an opportunity to speak to people, a significant number (though still a minority) of those people will decide they like what he had to say.

Then there’s the disparity between polls.  We’re told there’ll be 10 polling companies on the election trail.  Angus Reid for Political Betting has a Conservative Lead of 13% most recently, on a day when YouGov had a lead of just 3%.  That’s a difference between an overal Conservative Majority of between 30 and 80 and a Labour domination of a Hung Parliament.  Other polls report somewhere in between.

I’ll finally contend that the betting market is the one most likely to be right on the day, partially because those people betting on the election outcome will be a much larger polling panel than any of the pollsters have yet put together.  If you really want a poll that matters before election day, it’ll be the odds at Ladbrokes.com on 5th and 6th May.  After that the betting might begin on which party Nick Clegg will convince his sandal wearing surrender-monkeys to cosy up to.

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Dizzy, on his as-usual spot-on blog, has made a case for conservatives to prepare for the ground-war that will accompany the budget on March 24.   His reasoning is impeccable; March 25th is the last practicable date for an announcement of a May 6th General Election.  Controlling the media and government information service until it enters purdah the next day could give the government a serious upper hand for the start of the campaign.  It’s our job to ensure that can’t happen.

Dizzy suggests a serious and effective outsourcing of the work of rapid rebuttal.  The wisdom of crowds, along with the crowd’s ability to filter erroneous information and the speed by which rapid rebuttal can work online should all be persuasive.  The big benefit to CCHQ will be, of course, that we can do it ourselves and they can decide whether or not to use it.

Let’s get stuck in.

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Next week begins European Week Against Racism, a week when organisations opposed to racism host events to highlight racial prejudice and discrimination, and to celebrate the existence of societies where discrimination on the colour of a person’s skin or their ethnicity is considered unacceptable.

Normally, I mark the week by working much harder on promoting an understanding of diversity of beers in Dublin’s excellent Porterhouse bars, since the week always falls in the second half of the Rugby Six Nations.  This year, I was delighted to be asked to support the week with a bit of support in kind; I developed Ireland’s co-ordinating website, which will launch tomorrow.

Racism has always mystified me, though i know I do sometimes catch myself thinking moronic, stupid thoughts about people I sometimes encounter.  I was brought up in a deeply divided society where the personality characteristics of the other community was learned by rote in the playground,  and I suspect that the occasional brainfarts I have, which many people tell me they share, are hangovers from that.

We all judge people based on our initial findings of them, but racism, the idea that the characteristics and superiority/inferiority of an entire group of people can be ascertained in accordance with their ethnicity or the colour of their skin is a whole extra layer of stupid.  So that’s my basic injunction, and the argument I shall make to any children I may have about racism.  I’ll tell them how inefficient it is to discriminate against people, and how disregarding any person one might care to  because of their skin tone or accent is essentially a decision to not harness their talent.

I’ll point out that diversity leads to curiosity which leads to the acquisition and creation of knowledge. And finally I’ll point out that there isn’t one racist I know who isn’t also a dreadfully boring person.

And if they decide to be racist or sectarian or any analogous thing, I will stop feeding them, rent out their rooms to preferably foreign lodgers and withhold my love.  I don’t have time for stupid, boring children.

That is all.

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Dear ‘Gauleiter’ Dale,

I write to you as a regular reader of your Total Politics magazine, to complain in the starkest, clearest, most sincere and least obscurantist way I know how about your recent well-publicised and disgusting interview with the hated fascist would-be dictator Nick  Griffin.

Your decision to interview Nick Griffin should first of all not have been possible.  If my Private Member’s Bill ‘Fascists (Encasing in Perspex) Bill 1999′ had received support in the House of Commons and not have been laughed at by the fascist sympathising and enabling members of your party, fascists like Mr. Griffin would not be free to roam around, but instead would be placed as exhibits in museums to warn children of their fascist fascism.   Your party’s decision not to support the bill means that fascists like Mr. Griffin can be heard, are enfranchised and can exercise their freedoms, and in my view that is a bad thing for democracy.

Your interview with this hated piece of filth will undoubtedly mean thousands of disaffected people will join the BNP and destroy our country.  In addition, several hundred thousand of my constituents could be crushed in the inevitable rush to escape the vicinity of newsagents where Total Politics is sold.  I hope that you are prepared for the wave of extreme anger your decision to speak to Nick Griffin will generate, and will take responsibility in the long run for the third world war your decision to speak to the dangerous and potent political titan will undoubtedly spark.  Just yesterday I had to intervene to stop a group of anti-racist performance artists from petrol-bombing Patel’s Convenience Store on Leon Trotsky Street as a pre-emptive effort to stop him putting your interview on his shelves.

I have asked the Sickle East Women’s Anti Fascist Handcraft Co-operative to create a piece of community-inspired art to commemorate this sad day for the people of Britain, and have asked the Borough of Hammer Working Men’s Lurcher Display Team to slow handclap you if you ever visit their open-day.  In addition, a group of unemployed former Further Education lecturers has offered to follow you around until the general election with their arms folded, ready to turn their backs on you and dolefully shake their heads, occasionally murmuring ’shame’ every time you speak.

I am sorry, Iain, to have to take this extreme form of direct action against you, but your decision to speak to a man about the political views he has leaves me with no choice.  Your decision to become Nick Griffin’s Gauleiter will haunt you in the future.

Yours sincerely,

Geraldine Dreadful MP

Sickle and Hammer East

UPDATE:  Featured on Iain Dale’s website

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Conservative victory

The Conservative Party, led by David Cameron, won the 2010 General Election.  The party secured a majority of 23 seats in an election contest which turned out less close than had previously been predicted.

Controversy over election night count

Polling day for the 2010 General Election was Thursday 6th May 2010.  There was controversy as 43 constituency returning officers decided not to count the election results in their constituencies until the following day, Friday 7th May 2010.  David Cameron visited HM Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace at 4pm, later than had been the custom in recent years, and was asked by Her Majesty to form a Government, which he duly did.

Revival in Wales and North of England

Vote spread in the General Election marked a revival in the fortunes of the Conservative Party in parts of Wales and the North of England, though a straight fight between the Labour Party and the Scottish National Party limited the party’s recovery in Scotland.  An electoral pact with the Ulster Unionist Party in Northern Ireland was unsuccessful, resulting in the loss of the one Ulster Unionist Party seat in the country.

National Swing vs Marginal Swing

Whilst national opinion polling had suggested a Conservative lead of just 4% on 5 May 2010, the calculated swing to the Conservatives showed significant variance between ‘marginal’ and ’safe’ constituencies.  Conservatives in marginal constituencies gained 59 seats directly from Labour with swings of more than 9%, representing a significant margin of error for the main polling companies.   At one point on election night the BBC predicted a Labour dominance in a ‘hung parliament’, but this was not achieved.

Share of the vote

CON – 41%

LAB – 36%

LIB-DEM – 13%

UKIP – 2%

BNP – 1%

OTHERS AND NATS: 7%

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The announcement of proposed cuts to BBC services has been overwhelmingly welcomed by commercial broadcasters and judged as too timid by many conservatives. Yet the proposed changes and the timing represent serious challenges for the Conservatives as a party, and we should be immensely wary of too wholehearted an appetite for the cuts.  Unless we want to contribute to Gordon Brown’s dividing lines strategy and alienate the entire staff of the BBC, we need to be very careful.

Broadcast wing of the welfare state

That the BBC is an institution fundamentally biased in its coverage in favour of the Labour party is established and common ground; a pseudo Marxist organisation paid for in an enormous tax, it truly is the broadcasting arm of the welfare state. It does some things exceptionally well; the nature documentaries, the provision of regional and national radio relevant to local communities etc. But it is enormous, it stifles the emergence of new media commercial broadcasters and provides a haven for daytime and weekend mediocrity.

So it must be cut. It really does need to lose lots of its fat, in order to make way for programming with real value to the people who pay for it. Out need to go the Jonathan Ross and Graham Norton phenomena. Out needs to go the commissioning bias in favour of mediocre crap just to feed the daytime schedules. Back in needs to come educational content, documentaries and adaptations of literary classics. The BBC should be unashamedly high-end, and should leave commercially viable forms of programming to those who wish to turn a profit making it.

6Music and Asian Network are not the areas to cut

But cutting BBC 6 Music and The Asian Network is a mistake, pure and simple. These channels provide outlets which simply are not available or viable for commercial or regional stations, and support the BBC’s key mission as a public broadcaster to meet the needs of the public.

The introduction of new and unknown talent to a listening audience, an enthusiastic audience who participate in the cultural life of the nation all the time is clearly a role for the national broadcaster. The 6Music brand is a brave, credible and respectable motif, a celebration of our culture and a resource for lovers of music.

Some argue that’s the role of Radio 1; isn’t it supposed to be the vibrant arm of the BBC? On some shows it is, certainly. The excellent ‘introducing…’ does some of the job of showcasing new talent, but it’s a shining beacon of a show on the station essentially dedicated to providing the national background noise. 6Music is a whole station for music lovers, and with no commercial obligations it provides an essential freedom to its broadcasters. Tories can certainly support that.

That the BBC is seriously considering scrapping the Asian Network seems even sillier to me. An inoffensive network broadcasting nationally to the varied and diverse Asian communities, it is exactly the sort of broadcasting which just wouldn’t come from a national commercial station. Asian Network particularly aims to provide quality access to radio to groups we’re too often quick to label ‘disaffected’ and ‘voiceless’. It seems to me to provide a function worthy of maintenance. It seems to me to provide a more valuable political and economic function than the execrable ‘One Show’ and provides about 700 times the value of the combined daytime TV output.

Suspect timing

I am suspicious of the timing of the announcement from the Trust.  Whilst they may have felt it was necessary to pre-empt any cuts which the future government might wish to impress upon the broadcaster, announcements like this which clearly have a whiff of political controversy about them are likely to be damaging to the impression BBC staff have of the Conservatives.   We need to be clear that these are not tory proposals, they are BBC Trust proposals.   We need to be clear that, although the direction of travel is one of which we broadly approve, the route to destination is one we should feel less than comfortable with.

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Is Gordon Brown a Bully whose temper is problematic for the staff surrounding him?  Will the sun rise tomorrow?  Does a bear shit in the woods?  Is the pope a catholic?

In addition, the forces of hell, erections and Louise Bagshawe gives up on writing about hard polling.  (Some of this might not be in the podcast)

Links mentioned in the podcast:

Mike Smithson’s excellent Political Betting website, http://politicalbetting.com

Getting the podcast

This podcast is available on iTunes (http://itunes.apple.com/ie/podcast/nabidana-com/id349247817)  and here on the site.

M4A link – Itunes and Mac Friendly direct stream  Podcast Feb 2010 – Dude, where’s my lead?

MP3 link – plays in a flash player on the site ?

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I’m watching the rugby today, and as Ireland’s most obnoxiously proud England supporter, despite having been born in Londonderry, brought up in Co. Down and educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution,(whose former head coach is now the Ulster Rugby coach), I am not allowed out of the house as I refuse to remove my England shirt.

So I’m sat in with my MacBook Pro and Garageband, waiting for Tesco, which should be delivering a frankly ridiculous quantity of beer soon.  The result is likely to be a podcast, on its way hopefully before the kick-off at Twickenham.  It’ll be available as usual on iTunes and the site.

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