Election 2019 - Week 5

Originally Posted by Mick

Westminster voting intention:

CON: 41% (+2)
LAB: 32% (-1)
LDEM: 14% (+1)
GRN: 4% (-1)
BREX: 4% (-)

via
@BMGResearch
, 04 - 06 Dec
Chgs. w/ 29 Nov

Quick, Jezza, promise a new swimming pool for every house...

And another one:

Westminster voting intention:

CON: 45% (+3)
LAB: 31% (-2)
LDEM: 11% (-)
BREX: 4% (+1)
GRN: 2% (-2)

via Survation, 05 - 07 Dec
Chgs. w/ 30 Nov

What happened to that Labour surge?

Originally Posted by Mick

No, the guardian like I said originally!

The Guardian article was based on the Times information - from Mr K’s link.

But responses to freedom of information requests, published by the Sunday Times

The good thing for the Tories is Labour won't learn. They won't think it was their inability to reach out beyond their base but that the BBC/Tabloid Press/establishment cost them the win despite their unquestionable goodness and continue down the same path.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Hugh

The Guardian article was based on the Times information - from Mr K’s link.

It may be inconvenient for some. But to its credit, it looks like the Murdoch-owned The Sunday Times was first off the mark here.

---------- Post added at 08:58 ---------- Previous post was at 08:54 ----------

Originally Posted by Damien

The good thing for the Tories is Labour won't learn. They won't think it was their inability to reach out beyond their base but that the BBC/Tabloid Press/establishment cost them the win despite their unquestionable goodness and continue down the same path.

The election was Labour's to lose. Thanks to no-win Corbyn it is likely they will lose it. Will Corbyn lose his leadership role? I can only seeing this happening if he does so of his own volition.

Article from a Tech site (in October).

https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/24/al...y-health-data/

In another section of the blog post, responding to questions about what Amazon will do with the data and “what about privacy”, it further asserted there would be no health profiling of customers — writing:

We have worked with the Amazon team to ensure that we can be totally confident that Amazon is not sharing any of this information with third parties. Amazon has been very clear that it is not selling products or making product recommendations based on this health information, nor is it building a health profile on customers. All information is treated with high confidentiality. Amazon restrict access through multi-factor authentication, services are all encrypted, and regular audits run on their control environment to protect it.
Yet it turns out the contract DHSC signed with Amazon is just a content licensing agreement. There are no terms contained in it concerning what can or can’t be done with the medical voice query data Alexa is collecting with the help of “NHS-verified” information.

Per the contract terms, Amazon is required to attribute content to the NHS when Alexa responds to a query with information from the service’s website. (Though the company says Alexa also makes use of medical content from the Mayo Clinic and Wikipedia.) So, from the user’s point of view, they will at times feel like they’re talking to an NHS-branded service (i.e. when they hear Alexa serving them information attributed to the NHS’ website.).

But without any legally binding confidentiality clauses around what can be done with their medical voice queries it’s not clear how NHS Digital can confidently assert that Amazon isn’t creating health profiles. The situation seems to sum to, er, trust Amazon. (NHS Digital wouldn’t comment; saying it’s only responsible for delivery not policy setting, and referring us to the DHSC.)

Asked what it does with medical voice query data generated as a result of the NHS collaboration an Amazon spokesperson told us: “We do not build customer health profiles based on interactions with nhs.uk content or use such requests for marketing purposes.”

But the spokesperson could not point to any legally binding contract clauses in the licensing agreement that restrict what Amazon can do with people’s medical queries.

[Ramrod]

I still can't get my head around the fact that there are 31% who would vote for Labour!

What will happen if Jeremy Corbyn wins? France provides a useful parallel of what prime minister Jeremy Corbyn might mean for Britain. And it doesn’t make happy reading for the Labour leader.

It’s Spring 1981 and France, the fifth largest economy in the world, elects the most left-wing administration since before the Second World War following eight years of conservative rule. The government immediately begins implementing its radical manifesto: nationalisation of 11 industrial conglomerates and most private banks, higher tax-rates at the upper levels and a special wealth tax. There is also a 15 per cent rise in the minimum wage and a 25 per cent boost for social benefits. A 39-hour working week is introduced. So, too, are five weeks’ paid holidays as standard and retirement at 60, increased old age pensions, greater workers’ rights, free prescription charges and regularisation of illegal immigrants.

And, of course, massive government borrowing. The country’s new socialist leader lays flowers on the tomb of a great socialist hero. Culture minister Jack Lang proclaims the country to have ‘moved from the shadows into light.’

Fast forward to Spring 1983. Two years of spiralling budget deficits, uncontrolled national debt, three currency devaluations, falling exports and a dramatic increase in unemployment have left the economy in a parlous state.

Bowing to the European communities’ demands for financial rigour, the country’s socialist leader implements an austerity policy. Economic difficulties and cuts provoke cabinet divisions, key ministerial resignations and widespread anger at the left’s betrayal of its electorate. The reshuffled socialist government suffers badly in the 1983 local and 1984 European elections. That socialist government is finally defeated in the 1986 general elections when a conservative prime minister is elected.

link

Some people will vote for a monkey so long as it's in a red rosette, so the saying goes. As it happens I think a troop of chimpanzees would be less likely to run the country into the ground than Comrade Corbyn.

That said, by this time in 2017 the polls were tightening alarmingly, and that is not happening this time. The closet lefties at the BBC were very quick to declare the Tories' campaign had stalled last weekend when a couple of polls came in suggesting the gap was narrowing, but they have had to row back on that this weekend as polling for the Sunday papers and then again this morning shows the Tories' lead is stubbornly around the 10-point mark. Electoral Calculus reckons this to be worth a 40-plus majority. YouGov will issue its own seat projection later in the week, and then we will have the joys of Prof. Curtice and his massive exit poll on Thursday night.

I absolutely love John Curtice, and not just because Scottish Nationalists hate him (apparently his correct predictions about the outcome of the 2014 referendum were biased in some way, and they've never forgiven him). There are few things more entertaining than watching a Nat blow a gasket. But I digress.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by Chris

Some people will vote for a monkey so long as it's in a red rosette, so the saying goes. As it happens I think a troop of chimpanzees would be less likely to run the country into the ground than Comrade Corbyn.

That said, by this time in 2017 the polls were tightening alarmingly, and that is not happening this time. The closet lefties at the BBC were very quick to declare the Tories' campaign had stalled last weekend when a couple of polls came in suggesting the gap was narrowing, but they have had to row back on that this weekend as polling for the Sunday papers and then again this morning shows the Tories' lead is stubbornly around the 10-point mark. Electoral Calculus reckons this to be worth a 40-plus majority. YouGov will issue its own seat projection later in the week, and then we will have the joys of Prof. Curtice and his massive exit poll on Thursday night.

I absolutely love John Curtice, and not just because Scottish Nationalists hate him (apparently his correct predictions about the outcome of the 2014 referendum were biased in some way, and they've never forgiven him). There are few things more entertaining than watching a Nat blow a gasket. But I digress.

I understand that the Scottish Conservative vote appears to be holding up well, so with luck Nicola Sturgeon will get a black eye come Thursday.

It'll be interesting to see how many former Labour strongholds move to the Conservatives on Thursday. I expect to see a fair few surprises here.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

I understand that the Scottish Conservative vote appears to be holding up well, so with luck Nicola Sturgeon will get a black eye come Thursday.

It'll be interesting to see how many former Labour strongholds move to the Conservatives on Thursday. I expect to see a fair few surprises here.

The most recent poll in Scotland:

Scottish Westminster voting intention:

SNP: 39% (-1)
CON: 29% (+1)
LAB: 21% (+1)
LDEM: 10% (-1)

via Panelbase, 03 - 06 Dec
Chgs. w/ 22 Nov

A month ago, most people expected the SNP to retake almost every seat in Scotland (where they were after 2015), but on these figures nothing much will change at all. They may take one off the Tories and one off Labour. With one final push it is possible the Tories could even increase their vote. I am hearing anecdotally that many SNP candidates aren't even mentioning Scottish independence on their local leaflets, despite Sturgeon trying to turn this election into a referendum on a referendum.

The Tories, however, are being absolutely explicit about it. I have had three Tory leaflets in the last week to 10 days, all of them warning that voters should vote Tory to stop the SNP and so-called "Indyref 2". The one I got this morning has more photos of Nicola Sturgeon on it than of the actual Tory candidate.

[tweetiepooh]

Pork pies with integrity unlike those emanating from those who want to run the country.

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by tweetiepooh

Pork pies with integrity unlike those emanating from those who want to run the country.

Pretenders!

This is the pork pie with integrity!

Originally Posted by tweetiepooh

Pork pies with integrity unlike those emanating from those who want to run the country.

At £3.50 a throw, those are pork pies for the few, not the many ...

Pretty bad story developing for the BBC. BBC (and some others including ITV) reporters tweeted that a Labour activist punched a Conservative staffer outside a hospital. They were apparently told this by Senior Tory sources.

However it turned out there was a video of the incident showing a Tory staffer walking into someone's arm: https://metro.co.uk/2019/12/09/labou...iser-11583590/

https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1204100056762265600

It is completely clear from video footage that
@MattHancock
's adviser was not whacked by a protestor, as I was told by senior Tories, but that he inadvertently walked into a protestor's hand. I apologise for getting this wrong.

The question is why did the BBC and ITV reporters just happily report this as if it were fact?

The Tories, for their part, seem to have planted the lie to deflect from this video: https://www.itv.com/news/2019-12-09/...ospital-floor/

But that political parties will lie is almost a given - reporters taking them for their word them isn't.

Wales, Westminster voting intention:

LAB: 40% (+2)
CON: 37% (+5)
PC: 10% (-1)
LDEM: 6% (-3)
BREX: 5% (-3)
GRN: 1% (-)

via YouGov, 06 - 09 Dec
Chgs. w/ 25 Nov

Source: https://t.co/vWAkZbIcOF

Labour has almost succeeded in turning Wales Tory.

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by Damien

Pretty bad story developing for the BBC. BBC (and some others including ITV) reporters tweeted that a Labour activist punched a Conservative staffer outside a hospital. They were apparently told this by Senior Tory sources.

However it turned out there was a video of the incident showing a Tory staffer walking into someone's arm: https://metro.co.uk/2019/12/09/labou...iser-11583590/

https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1204100056762265600




The question is why did the BBC and ITV reporters just happily report this as if it were fact?

The Tories, for their part, seem to have planted the lie to deflect from this video: https://www.itv.com/news/2019-12-09/...ospital-floor/

But that political parties will lie is almost a given - reporters taking them for their word them isn't.

More to the point who in the Tory party planted the lies? The least the inept reporters can do is name and shame the sources (bet one of their initials is DC...).

All to try and deflect from pictures of a kid getting treatment for pneumonia on a hospital floor, and Boris not wanting to know about it. A sick party and anyone that votes for them isn't much better.