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All the agencies have the same survey panel?

I'm not convinced. You're filtering the sample for those with fast response times, leading to an unrepresentative sample. If I sample those in a race, & stopped counting people who happened to have a similar demographic as someone in front, I'm sampling the most athletic, not the whole population.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 32m

The sample sizes flag a warning to me too. To get round hundred numbers always you're either not trying to fill demographic holes in your sample, or you're picking & choosing which people to include in your sample from overrepresented demographics.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 32m

I think it's blatant herding. The idea that in a country of 60 million different pollsters are using the same people in their samples of 800 or 1000 is beyond credibility. Perhaps their methodology has changed to include the previous poll as a poor man's variance stabiliser?

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 46m

I don't understand samples of 800 - 1200 being quoted to one decimal place. The margin of error is 2.5-3% at p=27. It is ridiculous there's so little variance. Why are the samples almost all multiples of 100?

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 54m

I'm sure the parable of the Good Samaritan was about not letting in foreigners.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 1h

Averaging 19% & change.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 17h

I think you might have achieved hyperfocus.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 17h

Do they have to believe it's still alive? Maybe they believe that St Columba encountered a fierce water beast & through the powers of miracles/ Christian magic, scared it away? Maybe the beasties' predatorial habits caused the extinction of the wading haggis that once populated the loch shore?

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 18h

Believing in the Loch Ness monster in particular isn't violating all natural laws. Believing it to be a prehistoric dinosaur or reptile is highly unlikely. But they found those ancient worms that grab people from underground in that isolated town in the American desert, didn't they?

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 19h

There are approximately 2500 mixed descent (mixed Spanish, Amerindian & Spanish Jewish peoples from North Peru) converts to Judaism from the 1950s & 60s, & their descendants, called the B'nai Moshe, & colloquially known as Incan Jews. B'nai Moshe - Wikipedia share.google/rusOsEJAFkji...

share.google

B'nai Moshe - Wikipedia

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 20h

If everyone local lives in flats, I want an MP who's going to protest government policy to charge tenants for fireproof cladding. If most local people work or study in University, I want someone who cares enough to stop Unis going bankrupt. Knowing they've already shown these attributes is a plus.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 20h

I don't really understand what people find difficult. In this particular byelection, the fact that the people in the area had experience of her representing local people well in council was the *third* most significant issue that drew them to her. How is that not understanding what an MP does?

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 21h

Just done the eat a packet of crisps thing. If I complain of being in pain over the next 24 hours, it's my own stupid fault.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 22h

It seems pretty normal & relatively consistent, apart from top issue terrorism. Maybe he lost someone in a terrorist attack.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 23h

Lovely supermarket mascot.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Every party has places they are weak in. Reform attracts predominantly working class and old white people, with individualistic tendencies. Reform doesn't do well in a constituency with very few old or working class people, only 55% white, where 90% live in flats. Surprise!

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

What website is this from? It looks stylistically like BBC or Guardian, not the usual suspects (Mail/Telegraph/Times)?

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

I'd be frustrated if it was used to refer to roughly 3 million. I'd think you're an untrustworthy <expletive> if it referred to 2-3 million. I'd think you're a lying <expletive> with zero respect for anyone else if it was less than 2 million. If it referred to less than one million, insta block.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

It's like she thinks a hedgehog is an imaginary animal made up for children, like the bogeyman, the gruffalo or the haggis.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

I don't understand the purpose. The top right gentleman is going to spend an awful lot of time explaining why his id pictures a completely different person.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

The A1 hasn't even finished being dualled in North Northumberland because it's so sparsely populated, there is no even vague need for a motorway. Dualling so tractors & lorries can be overtaken easily, not a motorway to add extra lanes to speed, & need for frontage-style roads for farm traffic.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Your conference coinciding with the tail end of a byelection campaign is a brilliant opportunity to get a spotlight on your politics & raise the profile of your party in people's consciousness. Accusing your opponents of giving you that opportunity with foreknowledge that you will self sabotage...

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I have voted Green before, & I was leaning Green in 2026 before those Polanski fumblings. The Zionism is Racism thing is vilely antisemitic. It's not a small thing that's going away. It's not just people who never voted Green before & Green MPs. It, & the obtuse denial, are hygiene issues.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

There are the issues that they've not taken up as well: Liberal is not just a random word the party uses in its name to many Lib Dems.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Shaun Woodward defected to Labour while he was Witney MP.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Green vote held up from the 2024 locals high, indicating their demise might not be so high in London. On the other hand their vote was only marginally higher than theirs + Feinstein's 2024 vote, so their vote may have fallen back to Green & already indie left 2024 levels. So not very definitive.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Let's just wait and see who wins the FIFA peace prize this year.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

He's starting with 2019 Labour.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

A Labour conspiracy to make him lie on his nomination papers. To take advantage of him sending out election information claiming he lived in the constituency. It's all there in plain shite.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I have no idea if it was a good forecast, but it certainly wasn't orders of magnitude out & devoid of the concept of compound interest like the headline suggests.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

That's not different from back in the day though?

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

But isn't that generally in line with national polling, rather than an unknown/byelection factor? (That is a real question, what comes to mind is New Labour's string of byelection wins when they were popular, but that's just vague vibes on that point, not data driven)

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

His constituency was one of few Labour seats to lose votes at GE2024, so did he actually have much incumbency bonus that famous & powerful MPs tend to have? I don't know enough to make any prediction, but I also don't know whether any result short of Labour landslide gives any national insight.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Byelections tend to favour the challenger because often they're being held because the incumbent is disgraced. I'm not sure whether that applies to Starmer or not - yes he was a useless PM, but does that make him a disgraced MP?

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

You can't be old enough to have voted in a municipal borough election in England, wouldn't that make you at least 70? (Municipal boroughs abolished 1974) Was it a district council election? And what about a PCC election & the other type of mayoral election (presumably a local authority mayor?).

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

There are many things to hate autocorrect for, but one of the most enraging for me is it always changing correct "its" to "it's". If the techbros can ai that away, instead of concentrating on new ways to make porn, then maybe my dislike of it's shitty implementation might subside.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I'm in the process of watching it for the first time. I found the first series a bit of a slog, but the quality improves a lot in the second series.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Spain bucking the trend there. Need to export hillphilic Spanish pigs to the rest of Europe.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

From that graph the change seems roughly a third of Tory voters quickly escaping from the unknown quantity of Kemi to the known quantity of Farage, then slowly getting back only roughly 10-20% of those voters as they all fleed Farage's sinking ship.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The government's "Budget 2010" document (HC61, June 2010, page 41, line item 48) states the costs of introducing the triple lock in 2011-12 as 2010-11 0 2011-12 0 2012-13 £195million 2013-14 £420million 2014-15 £450million Ie it was initially forecast to cost £1.065billion over it's first 4 years.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

To be fair to her, she was squeezed quite effectively by the Labour party's immigration policies to an extreme right immigration position. To be even fairer to her, she doesn't have a clue what she's doing, & purges anyone who disagrees with her current opinions.

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Reposted by James

Paula Surridge @psurridge.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Apparently now they back FPTP - at least until their vote share falls below the Conservatives I suppose. Assuming the quoted Tice remarks are actually policy now. (H/t @politico.com )

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

None of the others (seem) to have been elected under non-FPTP PR. Lib Dems are also the last GB Westminister party to have a leader never elected to public office (Mark Pack! 2020). (Previous with 2+MPs appears to be William Wolfe, SNP 1969-79)

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

David Steel was elected to a PR top-up seat under AMS in 1999 to the Scottish Parliament. He hadn't been elected under a Fptp system prior to or during his leadership which ended in 1988. He also unsuccessfully stood for the European Parliament in Italy in 1989 under CLPR.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I have never received anything like that much election bumph. Do you normally get anything like that much? In the recent Manchester mayoral byelection I received the official booklet and my polling card.

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James @mcjamesz.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

A kingfisher was literally the name and emblem of a popular series of British children's factual books. A magpie was literally on the badge a top football club! But its national cultural significance is more from the common rhymes, omens & hoarding association, & 70s children's TV series.

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