Westminster Politics

sun_tzu said:
So you recon Corbyn would rather let a hard brexit happen than allow an interim government lead by a labour MP take charge becuase said MP might be seen as a Blairite. (I thought they would do anything in their power to prevent a hard Tory brexit)

Is this Standing up not standing by or a straight talking honest politics... its so hard to keep track these days

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It's nothing to do with the blairite thing and more to do how it breaks the way Labour elects leaders and is run. You can't just appoint a leader without the memberships say and keeping Corbyn party leader with Starmer or Watson as a caretaker PM would in the end damage labour due to all the proceeding fallout and backstabbing. It's an obvious mistake.

Clarke and Grieve may as well be independents at this stage. It's neutral territory that doesn't impact any party for or against.
 
Grinner said:
I'm confused by the whole fecking lot of them now. Everybody just seems to be winging it with a vague plan on what to actually do.
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The only person who has a solid plan and the bloodymindedness to stick by it is Dominic Cummins. All other sides are headless chickens
 
RedSky said:
I honestly don't really know where my vote is going.

Tories - Never
Lib Dems - Seem to be buttering up a colation with the Tories
Labour - Bloody useless and hate Corbyns position on Brexit
Green - Throwaway vote

It's abysmal. I was probably going to vote Lib Dems but Jo Swinson's words since becoming leader doesn't strike me with any confidence. Sigh.
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It's with conundrums like this that I'm glad I'm from the land of haggis and pie in a roll.
 
Amber Rudd: Don't ignore Parliament over Brexit

She said she was "jealous" of "every single pound" of the £2bn of new money earmarked towards no-deal Brexit preparations and wanted to see more money going towards universal credit and ending the benefits freeze.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49337343

Did that ham sandwich at lunch transport me into an alternate reality, or are the Tories hoping everybody forgets about the last ten years and believes this bullshit?
 
Smores said:
Wish i hadn't wasted the last ten minutes looking at the comments against that article. We're largely a country of feckwits
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It's funny because for the last couple of days the highest voted comments on these articles have been pro remain. Suddenly the pro leave ones take over. Just when I thought people were starting to realise how fecked we were, the Brexit supporters or bots pop back up.
 
Outside Yougov (Comres, Opinium, Survation), looks like a consistent 4-point gap with the Tories at 30ish and Labour at 26ish. Very hefty numbers for the Brexit party (15ish%), which Boris hasn't fully swallowed up yet, and even bigger ones for the LDs(20+%).

4 points is a good gap but not a decisive or secure one. I think the only relevant question in the GE is if Labour can do a better job of mopping up LD votes (or if people vote strategically to beat the Tories), compared to Boris with the Brexit votes. I would put my money on Boris. Further, the Lib Dems have made their distaste for Corbyn's Labour very clear, and without a post-poll alliance, definitely no Labour govt can be formed. Even if they do well enough to exclude the Libs, they will need SNP help which will come with the poison pill of another referendum.

The first bunch of polls after Boris had a 10-point gap and I thought a leadership change was essential for Labour. But that big lead hasn't held, and now I'm not sure.
 
I think in the end, The LDs and Labour will come to some sort of understanding. Might not be something official.
 
Sweet Square said:
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So the regression model omitted an important variable - culture/history or whatever - and then he goes on to explain how if you ignore this one important variable, the other variables that were in the model can be used to predict probability of voting tory in the areas where the omitted variable is strong? Well, that is not good analysis, to put it nicely.
 
RedChip said:
So the regression model omitted an important variable - culture/history or whatever - and then he goes on to explain how if you ignore this one important variable, the other variables that were in the model can be used to predict probability of voting tory in the areas where the omitted variable is strong? Well, that is not good analysis, to put it nicely.
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He doesn't really ignore the important variable but say that these places are possible tory wins if the party ''de-toxifying'' its brand (Although in this case I image it actually means toxifying the party with One Nation Toryism)but the downside of this could be losing votes to the Lib Dems.
 
Sweet Square said:
He doesn't really ignore the important variable but say that these places are possible tory wins if the party ''de-toxify'' its brand (Although in this case I image it actually means toxify the party with more One Nation Toryism)but the downside of this could be losing votes to the Lib Dems.
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Yeah, I think he is: he is basically saying that a 55-year old plumber who lives in a semi in Wigan should (because of these demographics) really be a Tory voter if only he didn't live in Wigan. But being from Wigan is an important variable, probably more so than being 55, a plumber or living in a semi, because it essentially changes one's background. You would have to do an awful lot of de-toxifying to get over that one, whatever de-toxifying means.
 
RedChip said:
Yeah, I think he is: he is basically saying that a 55-year old plumber who lives in a semi in Wigan should (because of these demographics) really be a Tory voter if only he didn't live in Wigan. But being from Wigan is an important variable, probably more so than being 55, a plumber or living in a semi, because it essentially changes one's background. You would have to do an awful lot of de-toxifying to get over that one, whatever de-toxifying means.
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He's not ignoring it, he's isolating it. He's saying that that is precisely the variable that the Tories have to overcome (He says as much in post 7/16).
 
Ekkie Thump said:
He's not ignoring it, he's isolating it. He's saying that that is precisely the variable that the Tories have to overcome (He says as much in post 7/16).
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But that's not how predictive models work. The regression model would not predict a 55 year old plumber who lives in Wigan as likely to vote Tory if the living in Wigan part was included in the model. To arrive at his conclusion, you first have to ignore the Wigan part. They are referring to these areas as 'unders' because all the demographics suggest they should vote Tory but that only makes sense of you ignore that key variable, i.e. the area itself.
 
RedChip said:
But that's not how predictive models work. The regression model would not predict a 55 year old plumber who lives in Wigan as likely to vote Tory if the living in Wigan part was included in the model. To arrive at his conclusion, you first have to ignore the Wigan part. They are referring to these areas as 'unders' because all the demographics suggest they should vote Tory but that only makes sense of you ignore that key variable, i.e. the area itself.
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The model works very well even as it excludes area. (which he shows in the initial tweets). And given that most welfare and tax schemes will affect people more based on their income than their geographic location (the comparison is between Wigan and another moderately sized place, not London or Manchester or some village), it makes sense that that is what is included in the models.
 
Sweet Square said:
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Had a quick skim at that earlier and thought it was interesting - I wonder how much of this is due to the sheer toxicity of Thatcher's legacy in some parts of the country?

I'm thinking of Scotland specifically here: it wasn't exactly a bastion of Toryism before she came into power and after she left, but the extent to which her legacy damaged the Tory brand up here meant you had Labour/Lib Dems winning seats which, demographically and economically, would go to a conservative party that tends to win in rural areas in most countries. And even though they mounted a recovery in 2017, they were often just about winning seats a conservatively minded party should ideally be sweeping up. I'd imagine it's the same in parts of England where some Labour voters may be willing to defect to BXP (and formerly UKIP) but still can't bring themselves to vote Tory.
 
berbatrick said:
The model works very well even as it excludes area. (which he shows in the initial tweets). And given that most welfare and tax schemes will affect people more based on their income than their geographic location (the comparison is between Wigan and another moderately sized place, not London or Manchester or some village), it makes sense that that is what is included in the models.
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It clearly doesn't. It misclassifies voters based on the demographics, if the area is excluded from the computation. Hence the false conclusion that areas that should be voting Tory don't vote Tory.

A better model would be hierarchical, taking into account the 'area' effect for each constituency as well as the demographics at individual level. You cannot make good predictions on how people are going to vote without accounting for this area effect, which implies the effects of different demographics vary by area. Basically, being 55, a plumber and living in a semi doesn't not influence your likelihood to vote Tory in Wigan in the same way it does in, say, Surbiton.

Also I don't think the 'area' effect is simply economic, as you mention. Here, I agree with him that the area effect is more to do with history and culture than economics.
 
berbatrick said:
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Are you really convinced by that chart? What is it actually showing? What is being predicted and what is the predictor? Have they plotted probability to vote Tory against what? voted Tory? How is the voted Tory on the vertical axis being measured? Shouldn't this be 0 or 1 (didn't vote Tory, voted Tory)?

Seems to me one would be predicting probability to vote Tory in this situation. One would then set a threshold probabality, beyond which one would assume an individual with that probability would vote Tory. If so, then the right way to measure accuracy would be a confusion matrix or a ROC, not an R-square. R-square does not make sense for a binary variable such as this one.
 
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RedChip said:
Are you really convinced by that chart? What is it actually showing? What is being predicted and what is the predictor? Have they plotted probability to vote Tory against what? voted Tory? How is the voted Tory on the vertical axis being measured? Shouldn't this be 0 or 1 (didn't vote Tory, voted Tory)?

Seems to me one would be predicting probability to vote Tory in this situation. One would then set a threshold probabality, beyond which one would assume an individual with that probability vote would Tory. If so, then the right way to measure accuracy would be a confusion matrix or a ROC, not an R-square. R-square does not make sense for a binary variable such as this one.
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If I had to guess the 0-1 represents voteshare and each point represents a constituency. They are predicting Tory voteshare given their mix of demographic predictors excluding the geographic location, and the thread describes the outliers in the graph and their relation to geographic location.
 
Smores said:
I imagine they'll be a lot of politics played over this and it'll be who backs down first. If the Lib Dems refuse to block no deal because it would be Corbyn leading a caretaker government they'll be wiped out.

It's the Tories who may not bend as they'll lose their seats. If it takes a Clarke led government to stop Brexit i hope Labour concede but they should try and force a Labour led government first.
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Why would it be Corbyn leading a caretaker government though? Why would the Lib Dems refuse to block no deal? :wenger:

I don't think Corbyn has a strong claim to be leader of a caretaker government. No Tory would vote for Corbyn. So a Corbyn led caretaker government is a no-show.

When Italy had their equivalent of a hung parliament, with the two largest parties (centre-right party "League" and anti-establishment party "five star") not getting enough support to form a government without the other, they eventually settled and put an independent candidate in as PM. (Of course that might be about to collapse, but that's neither here nor there). Corbyn (was) a Eurosceptic and now he's a Euro-gives-a-feck. I give my cat's opinion on Brexit more weight than his.

If there was ever to be a "Stop-No-Deal" caretaker government, it would have to be run by someone respected by enough Labour and Tory MPs (and SNP, and Lib Dems) to temporarily govern.

Keir Starmer, Jo Swinson, Philip Hammond, Rory Stewart, Ruth Davidson, Tom Watson, Yvette Cooper, Justine Greening, Oliver Letwin all have various claims to being the best candidate, all with their own flaws.

Or possibly they could pick a Lord to become PM for the first time in 100 years.
 
berbatrick said:
If I had to guess the 0-1 represents voteshare and each point represents a constituency. They are predicting Tory voteshare given their mix of demographic predictors excluding the geographic location, and the thread describes the outliers in the graph and their relation to geographic location.
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Well, the analysis is even worse than I figured then. Since it must be self evident that the so-called outliers would probably not be outliers if the model added data regarding, for example, historical voting patterns. They are trying to predict an area variable using only data based on the individuals that live there, as if the areas themselves have no important differences. I mean, you wouldn't try to predict the economic growth of towns based only on aggregated data on their residents whilst ignoring important differences in the structure of the economies across the towns, would you?
 
RedChip said:
Well, the analysis is even worse than I figured then. Since it must be self evident that the so-called outliers would probably not be outliers if the model added data regarding, for example, historical voting patterns. They are trying to predict an area variable using only data based on the individuals that live there, as if the areas themselves have no important differences. I mean, you wouldn't try to predict the economic growth of towns based only on aggregated data on their residents whilst ignoring important differences in the structure of the economies across the towns, would you?
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The analysis does a good job as the graph shows.
Do you understand the underlying basis of that argument? It is that the Tory party (the guy who released it is a Tory) will not try to change people's conditions to make them into Tory voters. People with more wealth generally tend to vote Tory, but giving poorer people money isn't what they will do. Instead they will focus on the outliers instead of the underlying model, so they will try and change the culture of a place, getting rid of anti-Tory stigma before trying their hand at economic policy.
 
berbatrick said:
The analysis does a good job as the graph shows.
Do you understand the underlying basis of that argument? It is that the Tory party (the guy who released it is a Tory) will not try to change people's conditions to make them into Tory voters. People with more wealth generally tend to vote Tory, but giving poorer people money isn't what they will do. Instead they will focus on the outliers instead of the underlying model, so they will try and change the culture of a place, getting rid of anti-Tory stigma before trying their hand at economic policy.
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Seems like we could argue all day about the bolded part, even if the rest of your post makes sense. So I am going to leave it at that.
 
rcoobc said:
Why would it be Corbyn leading a caretaker government though? Why would the Lib Dems refuse to block no deal? :wenger:

I don't think Corbyn has a strong claim to be leader of a caretaker government. No Tory would vote for Corbyn. So a Corbyn led caretaker government is a no-show.

When Italy had their equivalent of a hung parliament, with the two largest parties (centre-right party "League" and anti-establishment party "five star") not getting enough support to form a government without the other, they eventually settled and put an independent candidate in as PM. (Of course that might be about to collapse, but that's neither here nor there). Corbyn (was) a Eurosceptic and now he's a Euro-gives-a-feck. I give my cat's opinion on Brexit more weight than his.

If there was ever to be a "Stop-No-Deal" caretaker government, it would have to be run by someone respected by enough Labour and Tory MPs (and SNP, and Lib Dems) to temporarily govern.

Keir Starmer, Jo Swinson, Philip Hammond, Rory Stewart, Ruth Davidson, Tom Watson, Yvette Cooper, Justine Greening, Oliver Letwin all have various claims to being the best candidate, all with their own flaws.

Or possibly they could pick a Lord to become PM for the first time in 100 years.
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That is probably nonsense as he would be the next person asked and I don't think anyone else could form a government if he doesn't. If he is pushed to allow someone else to do it the pro Corbyn MP's would probably abstain or vote against any one else. Pro BJ + DUP + Corbynistas+ brexit/honour the vote Labour Mp's is most likely more votes than any other coalition. Even an emergency all woman cabinet.
 
Cheesy said:
Had a quick skim at that earlier and thought it was interesting - I wonder how much of this is due to the sheer toxicity of Thatcher's legacy in some parts of the country?

I'm thinking of Scotland specifically here: it wasn't exactly a bastion of Toryism before she came into power and after she left, but the extent to which her legacy damaged the Tory brand up here meant you had Labour/Lib Dems winning seats which, demographically and economically, would go to a conservative party that tends to win in rural areas in most countries. And even though they mounted a recovery in 2017, they were often just about winning seats a conservatively minded party should ideally be sweeping up. I'd imagine it's the same in parts of England where some Labour voters may be willing to defect to BXP (and formerly UKIP) but still can't bring themselves to vote Tory.
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Agree. I image the only way the tories could appeal to these people is through One nation toryism/British nationalism but

. If pisses off more liberal tories

. The one nation stuff at the moment is all noise, there not any actual policy. And just looking at who is in and working for the cabinet. Thatcherism is still a live a kicking(May did the same thing during her time).

. Even with a image change the tories are still appealing to old voters.
 
Workers Seize the Shipyard That Built the Titanic, Plan to Make Renewable Energy There
The closure of the last shipyard in Belfast would end centuries of ship building in the city. A group of workers are demanding the U.K. nationalize the yards.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/...VbFZn9qnWzZasv4QWnHCCmYeh3a0OO-BuWlJ6JDzpCLBw
Late last month, 130 ship builders, steel workers, welders, and riveters seized control of the storied Belfast shipyard that built the Titanic in 1909. More than two weeks later, they're still there, and say they won't be leaving until the docks are nationalized and are used to produce renewable energy infrastructure.

The docks had moved to shut down after their troubled Norwegian parent company, Dolphin Drilling, failed to find a buyer, but militant workers have refused to relinquish the site, including its two towering yellow cranes, known as Sampson and Goliath—landmarks that dominate the Belfast skyline.


The closure of the shipyard, once an emblem of Britain’s industrial power with over 30,000 workers, would mark the end of centuries of shipbuilding in the city. But workers from Harland & Wolff are demanding that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson nationalize the shipyards and create new jobs in renewable energy there.

Some activists involved in the occupation have cited Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Green New Deal as their inspiration. In recent years, the workers at Harland & Wolff have built parts for wind turbines. They argue that renewable energy jobs would serve not only as a sustainable solution, but also a practical one because of their skill set.
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2016:
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell will also advocate giving workers the first chance to buy a company that is being dissolved, sold or floated
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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/20/labour-backs-employees-right-own-shares-workplace

...

[Trump] delivered during a rant about how construction workers would hate having to build computers, explaining, “You don’t want to make widgets, right? You don’t want to make those little things, with your beautiful hands.”
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All power to the S̶o̶v̶i̶e̶t̶s̶ workers' councils of plants that are shutting down
 
Don't Kill Bill said:
That is probably nonsense as he would be the next person asked and I don't think anyone else could form a government if he doesn't. If he is pushed to allow someone else to do it the pro Corbyn MP's would probably abstain or vote against any one else. Pro BJ + DUP + Corbynistas+ brexit/honour the vote Labour Mp's is most likely more votes than any other coalition. Even an emergency all woman cabinet.
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I should have said, I don't think Corbyn has a strong claim to be leader of an anti-no-deal-brexit caretaker government.

He will obviously have the strongest candidacy to form a government after a Conservative government collapse - but I don't believe for a second he'd get the numbers.
 
parliament is run by an algorithm designed to keep the worst people in power
 
berbatrick said:
Workers Seize the Shipyard That Built the Titanic, Plan to Make Renewable Energy There
The closure of the last shipyard in Belfast would end centuries of ship building in the city. A group of workers are demanding the U.K. nationalize the yards.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/...VbFZn9qnWzZasv4QWnHCCmYeh3a0OO-BuWlJ6JDzpCLBw


...
2016:


https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/20/labour-backs-employees-right-own-shares-workplace

...


...

All power to the S̶o̶v̶i̶e̶t̶s̶ workers' councils of plants that are shutting down
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:devil::drool:
 
Sweet Square said:
Agree. I image the only way the tories could appeal to these people is through One nation toryism/British nationalism but

. If pisses off more liberal tories

. The one nation stuff at the moment is all noise, there not any actual policy. And just looking at who is in and working for the cabinet. Thatcherism is still a live a kicking(May did the same thing during her time).

. Even with a image change the tories are still appealing to old voters.
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Tories appealing to the masses in Scotland looks to be impossible at the moment. We're too feral militant sophistimacated.
 
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