Interesting Links for 21-09-2013

[andrewducker]

• Who uses Twitter in the UK?
  (tags: twitter uk demographics )
• The _real_ reason people queue up for an iPhone
  (tags: advertising money iphone )
• Ukip conference: Controversial MEP Godfrey Bloom calls room full of women 'sluts' before branding news reporter 'racist' and hitting him over the head with brochure
  (tags: politics ukip )
• CBT: No better

Comments

[danieldwilliam]

I think it’s very difficult to predict the result of a close election when it is using single member plurality voting. The thing is a crap shoot with two parties. With 3 or 4 or 5 it very non linear. Unless you have very fine grained polling information very very hard to predict the outcome. Labour could poll relatively well and still not win or poll badly in the popular vote and still come out with a small majority.

Labour’s recent detereoration in the polls isn’t great news for them obviously, but the whole of the 2015 general election is massively uncertain. The Tories start from several percentage points behind because of the way the constituency boundaries are drawn, they don’t need to lose many votes to UKIP to finish second in a bunch of constituencies, or more pertinently to not win in seats where they are already second.

My prediction, for what it’s worth, is that we will end up with a hung parliament again with the Lib Dems ending up with a surprising number of seats i.e. converting a higher proprotion of their popular vote in to seats.

As for Balls, his personal qualities aside, I think he has a real problem with a narrative. He can do lots of very marginal stuff which might be the right thing to do and popular with marginal voters but he has one really big issue with two massive effects that, so far, no one in the Labour Party has touched. The deficit and the debt and perceptions of them make it very difficult for Balls, or any Labour Shadow or Actual Chancellor to do big things with the economy or public services. The first effect is that he can’t really find large amount of money to invest in capital projects or an industrial policy. The second is that he will still need to either cut public spending or raise taxes significantly - probably all the way through his first term as Chancellor.

Hopi Sen goes on about this a lot. In my view rightly.

The whole thing, the election and the economy and the public purse is a game of inches.

[gonzo21]

Saddest thing about Labour I feel is that I felt genuinely hopeful about Ed, but maybe that was just because at the time he was the best of a bad bunch.

Not that I think it really makes much difference anymore, Tory or Labour, I'm fairly certain they've all now been bought off by the special interest groups, and government is now run for the benefit of the elites.

But yes, I agree, I think it will probably be a hung parliament again too. Unless Scotland goes Independent, in which case the Tories will win a majority.