Check the LibDem spend?

[prasnee]

Yes, your reply in parentheses has clarified what you meant. That was all that you meant.

Good, I'm glad that's clear.

My point on that remains, the only recipient of a presented loss from the rounding on that Lib Dem leaflet bar chart was the Labour party.

So, if I understand you right, your complaint is that when this Lib Dem leaflet:

• Rounded the Lib Dems' 30.0% to 30%
• Rounded the Conservatives' 28.0% to 28%
• Rounded Labour's 19.2% to 19%

then this was "unfair" to Labour.

Really? That's what can happen when you do roundings - it's swings and roundabouts. Now, if Labour had secured (say) 19.7% and it had been rounded DOWN to 19%, then that would have been wrong, as 19.7% should be rounded up to 20%, but that's not what happened.

I really think you need to get a life!

[Desert Region]

Good, I'm glad that's clear.


So, if I understand you right, your complaint is that when this Lib Dem leaflet:

• Rounded the Lib Dems' 30.0% to 30%
• Rounded the Conservatives' 28.0% to 28%
• Rounded Labour's 19.2% to 19%

then this was "unfair" to Labour.

Really? That's what can happen when you do roundings - it's swings and roundabouts. Now, if Labour had secured (say) 19.7% and it had been rounded DOWN to 19%, then that would have been wrong, as 19.7% should be rounded up to 20%, but that's not what happened.

I really think you need to get a life!

Oh dear! It seems "nasty prasnee" is back in town!...

Originally posted by prasnee
You really are talking gobbledegook.

Originally posted by prasnee
The fact that it isn't easy doesn't stop what you said being gobbledegook.

Originally posted by prasnee
I really think you need to get a life!

By "nasty prasnee" I am referring to comments on the Forum thread Is it true that the Lib Dems have banned men from standing in Southport in June?

Originally Posted by prasnee
I happen to think that someone who makes inaccurate accusations against others, and then fails to correct himself, is "habitually nasty".

Originally Posted by prasnee
However it is quite clear from what you have said that you are a homophobe.

Originally posted by Desert Region
You call another poster a homophobe yet so far have provided nothing to suggest that was anything but an inaccurate accusation.

It seems that, by your terms, you are "nasty prasnee"?

Or maybe you're planning on upgrading further to "habitually nasty prasnee"!


For a writer of "gobbledegook", perhaps look no further than the scribe who penned beauties such as,

"More and more Labour supporters are switching to Sue McGuire TODAY to make sure the Conservatives are beaten."

"Voting Labour will just let the Conservatives win."

.



I refer to my previous answer,


My point on that remains, the only recipient of a presented loss from the rounding on that Lib Dem leaflet bar chart was the Labour party.


"What have I been trying to say", you ask me?!

I think it would be very charitable and perhaps downright naive to think that a rounding that only presented a loss for the Labour party on a leaflet featuring a bar chart that was a textbook example of data misrepresentation, featuring multiple elements designed to downplay the previous Southport constituency election vote share of Labour and which included the bullet point statement...

"More and more Labour supporters are switching to Sue McGuire TODAY to make sure the Conservatives are beaten."

...and which culminated in the concluding statement...

Voting Labour will just let the Conservatives win.

...was anything other than a deliberate design feature and part and parcel of the misrepresentation.


You seem to think this is a slight point (or a slight two-tenths of a point) and seem to be viewing it as a stand-alone neutral element.

I differ, seeing it in terms of the context as I have described above.


It seems events and results have provided much more significant figures.

General Election 2017: Southport

38.7%-----18,541 Conservative
32.6%-----15,627 Labour
26.4%-----12,661 Lib Dem

And a significant figure in Damien Moore, the actual MP of Southport, the Conservative MP for Southport.

And to a lesser extent in Liz Savage, who still has played her part in powering the Labour GE vote share in Southport up to 32.6% now in 2017, (it having been 19.2% in 2015, and 9.4% in 2010); with total Labour votes in Southport 2017 registering at 15,627, (up from 8,468 in 2015, and again up from 4,116 in 2010.)

A rapid and continuing upwards trajectory for the Labour party in Southport.



Whereas there is just steady, continuing decline for the Lib Dems in their GE results Southport

The Lib Dem GE vote share down to 26.4% now in 2017, (down from 31% in 2015, and again down from 49% in 2010); with total Lib Dem GE votes in Southport 2017 registering at 12,661, (down from 13,652 in 2015, and again down from 21,707 in 2010.)

Using the logic and phrasing of the Lib Dem Southport campaign literature, it can now be stated that in Southport,

The Lib Dems are in a distant third place.

...and that...

Voting Lib Dem will just let the Conservatives win.

[Desert Region]

I really think you need to get a life!

On that day you issued me that advice, it was Tim Farron who decided to “get himself a life” in the sense of deciding to quit as Liberal Democrat leader, wherein he could be free from the tensions that had gotten too much for him.

The relief of keeping his seat in parliament after his majority was cut by 8, 172 votes must not have been enough of a fillip.

The timing of his decision (hot on the heels of Lib Dem shadow home affairs spokesman Lord Paddick himself quitting, citing concerns about Mr Farron's "views on various issues") to quit (though remaining in place until a successor is chosen) maybe could have been better. As Miranda Green, former Press Secretary to then Liberal Democrats party leader Paddy Ashdown, tweeted,

“Farron statement issued while a tragedy is still unfolding is a bloody disgrace. Myopic. Self-obsessed.”


Another ex-Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, was offered a new life of sorts, after losing the Sheffield Hallam constituency,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/articl...ed-job-as-a-dj

“A bar has offered the former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg a job as a DJ.

“The ex-Liberal Democrat leader lost his Sheffield Hallam seat in last week's general election to Labour's Jared O'Mara.

“O'Mara is the co-founder of local bar West Street Live, and used to DJ there twice a week.

“Now its owners have offered Nick Clegg the chance to fill his shoes and put on a night called "Cleggers Plays Pop".

“In one of the biggest upsets of the election, Nick Clegg came away with 2,000 fewer votes than Jared O'Mara - in the seat he'd held since 2005.

“So the job offer could be perfect timing.

"We want him to put on a student night," West Street Live owner Tam Ali has told Newsbeat.

"I heard he's popular with them so I think it would make a great job for him to come into.”




I’ve been reading that Nick has become a fortnightly columnist for “i” instead, but hopefully he could still fit in a few sessions at West Street Live, laying down the odd remix,


<iframe width="854" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KUDjRZ30SNo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Desert Region]

Just had a proper chance to review the Lib Dem election literature and it is a rib-tickling read.

There's many highlights but I think my favourite presents itself atop the bottom half of a leaflet, with a header proclaiming with fabulous certainty, "Only a vote for Lib Dem Sue McGuire can beat the Conservatives TODAY:" and concludes with the forecast "Voting labour will just let the Conservatives win."

As it transpired, the opposite proved the case, i.e. Voting Lib Dem let the Conservatives win Southport.

But it was the bar chart-based evidence presented that amused. As misleading bar charts / graphs go, this was a beauty.

The 2015 GE Southport constituency vote share for the Lib Dems, the Conservatives, and Labour was presented, as 31%, 28% and 19%, respectively. The sole loser in this unlabelled, unspecified rounding-down was Labour, whose actual vote share was 19.2%.

Either side of the vertical Labour (vote share) "bar" was a caption and a large arrow, which were pitched below the mid-point of the Labour bar and so had the visual effect of making the Labour bar seem lower still.

But the piéce de résistance was the total absence of a vertical axis, trying to disguise the fact that if one had been included it would have been obvious that the bars as presented were starting nowhere near 0 on a vertical axis. As it was the Conservatives' 28% appeared as good as treble the size of Labour's 19%!

Standard tactics for Lib Dem leaflets but then there is a yet more naughty feature: the Conservative vote share has been inflated in its representation as to the Labour vote share.

The difference on the leaflet between the Lib Dem bar and the Conservative bar measured by a ruler is 1 cm, which means 1 cm equals 3 percentage points (the gap between 31% and 28%); yet the difference between the Conservative bar and the Labour bar is over 5 cm! which visually represents that gap between those vote shares as equating to over 15% (when the actual gap is 9%, the difference between 28% and 19%), placing the Labour vote share, visually, at below 13%!

Hence, two accompanying chart-side bullet points are calculatedly and misleadingly reinforced:
Elections here are always close between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives."
"Labour...are in a distant third place."


Given that at the next Southport constituency election, even the Lib Dem leaflet designers will struggle to misleadingly declare and present Labour as not being able to win, what angle will be pressed then?

My forecast: they will present a bar chart featuring an average of the vote share for the Lib Dems, Labour, and the Conservatives that work combines Southport Constituency GE results since 2005, or 2010, but that this nugget of information will be presented in the tiniest of fonts.

That Liberal Democrat campaign literature bar chart and its surrounding claims.

As I have said and explained, a textbook example of data misrepresentation.

[Desert Region]

Below is a selection of remarks from the Liberal Democrat Voice’s "How we lost Southport" op-ed and its thread.

(Full piece available here,)
http://www.libdemvoice.org/how-we-lo...ort-54590.html

[N.B. So far it hasn’t been mentioned that Southport was the only Conservative gain from the Liberal Democrats at the 2017 General Election; nor mentioned that Labour with Liz Savage achieved a 32.6% vote share, which is Labour’s highest ever recorded vote share for the Southport constituency; nor mentioned that more people voted for second place candidate, Labour’s Liz Savage, in this 2017 General Election than for former MP, John Pugh, in the 2015 General Election.]


John Pugh:
...

Lots of help from outside (some incredible shifts put in), bigger canvassing teams, good literature, armies of stuffers, IT & Connect sophistication...

All the clever campaigning techniques and marketing sophistication in the world is as nothing unless you have a compelling social message and the policies to deliver it.


Eddie Sammon:

I know three people who voted Lib Dem in Southport who are voting Labour next time because the Lib Dems came third and they don’t see the point in a tactical vote for them now.


Andrew T:

I think where Labour were not distant we did badly. Labour beat us everywhere. Compare the Labour vote in Eastbourne and Southport. It would have been much easier to get Labour tactical votes in Eastbourne. I suspect the seat will be comfortably red next time.


Dave Orbison:

Coming from Southport Simon perhaps you would be better able to figure out why the LibDems came from 1st to 3rd, especially with Corbyn as leader – a man you have no regard for whatsoever.

I looked back through some previous comments of yours and found:

Simon Shaw 23/8/16 – “As for “people identify with him” [Corbyn] clearly 15% or 20% of the population do, and that amounts to many millions of people. The problem is that 15% or 20% (or even 30%, for that matter) doesn’t win you a General Election. But as we all know, “Corbyn and his backers aren’t particularly interested in that.

The difference is that we don’t pretend that we could replace the Conservatives as the government at the next general election. In contrast the Labour Party do, although with rather too much emphasis on the “pretend” under Corbyn.”

Well it turned out to be 40% a wide of the mark. When looking as to why Southport lost perhaps the answer is nearer to home than you realise.


Little Jackie Paper:

...Swings and roundabouts of course...


David Raw:

@ S. Shaw. “Perhaps you would care to explain how you think Labour did well ? “………… well, if it wasn’t on the issues I mentioned…….perhaps you could tell us what it was, or do you maintain that they didn’t do well ?

Don’t you think that for Labour (with the dreadful Corbyn lurking under every bed) to quadruple their vote since 2010 amongst the leafy and well trimmed hedges of Southport does rather fill the definition of doing well….. in fact very well ?

Being on the receiving end of it as a local Councillor, you are surely well qualified and well positioned to tell us why it happened instead of asking your usual socratic questions.


Dave Orbison:

Simon Shaw[...]

As for Liverpool in the 1980’s. My family are from Liverpool and I lived close by. I remember the Liberal dominance of the city in the 70’s. Whatever the issues of the 80’s to which you refer, over 30 years ago, the city now has 80 Labour and just 4 LibDem councillors. If the people of Liverpool have moved on perhaps it’s time you followed their example.

If you think smearing opponents,as some on here have re Corbyn, is a winning strategy based on something that took place 30-40 years ago and events that had no involvement of Corbyn, then that is a matter for you. I’m just wondering why you think the LibDems lost Southport.


Hywel:

Southport, Eastleigh, South Lakeland – these are the places that have been talked about as the best campaigning local parties. It didn’t look that way on June 8th as they were just blown away.

[Desert Region]

Southport Councillor's 'spectacularly ill-informed' claims refuted by Sefton Leader

"Cllr Shaw often likes to boast of his accountancy skills, however, it seems he needs to brush up on his history and politics at the very least. It's high time he stopped this sort of wrong information about Sefton, it sets a very low bar and our councillors should be better than that."

https://www.qlocal.co.uk/southport/ne...r-55027935.htm

Poor Simon. I feel that criticism of him is a bit harsh.

He may not be reliable in some ways but in others he is.

For example, there are certain subjects and topics that Councillor Shaw, a qualified Chartered Accountant, can be relied upon to absolutely have to repeatedly comment upon.

Even when it gave the game away...

Go figure.

.