I'm left distinctly underwhelmed by this Vince Cable story frankly. I was all geared up to wade in and it's just such an anti-climax. After all the hype of Cable as a tax dodger, avoider, evader and possibly invisible ninja I read through the sun article and find this (later on of course, the later something is in an article the less attention people pay to it):
"They said an error was discovered by his personal accountants in January while his tax return for the previous financial year was being finalised. The accountants immediately alerted HMRC officials"
Now I'm a long way from being any sort of accountant, let alone an expert on any sort of elusive manoeuvring on the grounds of tax. But I'd have thought that one of the main rules to do it would be to well, not call up Revenue and Customs to tell them you haven't paid enough tax. Seems a bit of a giveaway, maybe it's one of those double-bluff things.
Really the most interesting thing is the Sun's line on it, namely that the knives are out for Vince Cable and I suspect Lib Dems in general. Not a surprise certainly, hostility from the newspapers generally and especially the tabloids is mostly part and parcel of being a Lib Dem, but still a concerning indicator. We're clearly well above the parapet for the rest of this parliament (a good thing) but while the other two usually have at least some of the press fighting their corner (although there doesn't seem to be much enthusiasm in the Red-Ed corner) we may have to face down years of being fired upon from all sides.
The Huhne story seems to be going nowhere very slowly and repetitively, this is likewisea very small spark fanned into an awful lot of smoke, but all mud hurled leaves a little bit on its target and another 3 1/2 years of this could build up enough to make a difference.
Or in short the story doesn't worry me, its delivery does.
Cable fails to pay tax bill
Showing posts with label rules. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rules. Show all posts
Wednesday, 26 October 2011
Monday, 13 June 2011
The importance of context
An awful lot of 'voodoo' polls get thrown around by people seeking to make points. Notably about traits and attributes of the party leaders and what this might be said to mean. It makes for good newspaper copy, but if you want to understand polls then the first thing is that context is crucial.
If for example we'd taken polls of one US congress we might find great significance in low approval ratings and speculate accordingly about re-election prospects, because we have polls of many of them we find that low approval ratings are normal.
The lesson is simple, for any poll it is meaningless without context and a baseline, instead of thinking about high or low think of better or worse than. No matter how good a poll looks, don't put too much faith in it unless you have repeat results to compare with.
If for example we'd taken polls of one US congress we might find great significance in low approval ratings and speculate accordingly about re-election prospects, because we have polls of many of them we find that low approval ratings are normal.
The lesson is simple, for any poll it is meaningless without context and a baseline, instead of thinking about high or low think of better or worse than. No matter how good a poll looks, don't put too much faith in it unless you have repeat results to compare with.
Sunday, 12 June 2011
The first rule
The first thing you learn (or should learn) in politics is that people don't care. Or if they care they don't pay much attention. If you want a demonstration of that fact you can either wade through the libraries of political science literature examining this phenomenon or spend a day asking random people about politics.
If you are reading this (then thank you firstly) or any other political blog you are far far far more interested in following politics than the average person. But because people who follow politics tend to group together, whether on blogs, journos, party members, the Westminster bubble or whatever we forget this sometimes. To our cost frankly.
Most people never hear about the day to day things we obsess over, drops in a lake, at best people feel slight ripples and it with other similar stories builds up to a slight change, but that is really all. To switch up the metaphors you're trying to understand shifting sand dunes by examining each gust of breeze. On their own they only move a small number of grains of sand. Sometimes you'll get a major story/gale that'll cross over into the wider public consciousness and make a big move, but they're rare.
If you want so see any effect don't score leaders on PMQs, score leaders on the segments of PMQs that get shown on the 10 o'clock news. Or how the other media says that they are doing (often at best tangentially related to how you believe they're performing). Then apply this same methodology to all political stories. If you want to predict how people will act and react in the future to politics, you must first be realistic about what they perceive and what they're reacting to.
If you are reading this (then thank you firstly) or any other political blog you are far far far more interested in following politics than the average person. But because people who follow politics tend to group together, whether on blogs, journos, party members, the Westminster bubble or whatever we forget this sometimes. To our cost frankly.
Most people never hear about the day to day things we obsess over, drops in a lake, at best people feel slight ripples and it with other similar stories builds up to a slight change, but that is really all. To switch up the metaphors you're trying to understand shifting sand dunes by examining each gust of breeze. On their own they only move a small number of grains of sand. Sometimes you'll get a major story/gale that'll cross over into the wider public consciousness and make a big move, but they're rare.
If you want so see any effect don't score leaders on PMQs, score leaders on the segments of PMQs that get shown on the 10 o'clock news. Or how the other media says that they are doing (often at best tangentially related to how you believe they're performing). Then apply this same methodology to all political stories. If you want to predict how people will act and react in the future to politics, you must first be realistic about what they perceive and what they're reacting to.
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