The European Politics Thread

[Stapel]

I have money on Rutte's mob to get the most seats, would you recommend me topping up on that bet?

It's where my money would be!

The point is, even if Wilders' lot gain more seats than Rutte, Rutte (VVD, conservative liberals) will still form a coalition and stay PM. Unless one of the other likely coalition partners (CDA (christian democrats), D66 (progressive liberals), GreenLeft) will gain more seats than Rutte, but I don't think that will happen. Lots of speculation on it though! But in the end, this will only have impact on which party will bring forward the MP. Not so much on the coalition itself.

 

[Niall]

I have money on Rutte's mob to get the most seats, would you recommend me topping up on that bet?

Fuming I did not put more money on him now,pretty comfortable win for Rutte in the end despite all eyes on Wilders.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...boosted-by-spat-with-turkey-as-election-nears

 

[Spark]

Enormous turnout, apparently.

 

[Niall]

Enormous turnout, apparently.

Over 80% from all accounts.

Its another election where the betting industry and to a lesser extent polling has somewhat failed.

Hopefully it should be a reality check to those who rather naively assumed anyone that you could define as hard right is not a cert to win power because "Brexit and Trump~"

 

[Uppercut]

I don't think polling has "failed" in any of the last few elections, except possibly in the 2015 UK general election. Miles off in the French primary too, although that's a really tough one to forecast. Public polls are usually pretty frank about what constitutes a reasonable margin of error, and they've generally been within it.

There's no way of telling whether a political betting market is failing or not. The favourite losing definitely isn't a betting market failure.

Political gambling is quite a small market so I wouldn't expect it to be efficient, it's definitely possible to give it too much respect. I like them being reported anyway, purely because they're probabilistic, which is always better than random pundits saying "this will happen" then keeping their jobs when it doesn't.

 

[Stapel]

Over 80% from all accounts.

Its another election where the betting industry and to a lesser extent polling has somewhat failed.

Hopefully it should be a reality check to those who rather naively assumed anyone that you could define as hard right is not a cert to win power because "Brexit and Trump~"

year turnout

2017 80,8
2012 74,6
2010 75,3
2006 80,4
2003 79,9
2002 78,9
1998 73,3
1994 78,7
1989 80,3
1986 85,8
1982 81,0
1981 87,0
1977 88,0
1972 83,5
1971 79,1

So, nothing really special on turnouts....

 

[Furball]

Bucks a recent trent, but not majorly so.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

So, nothing really special on turnouts....

Got to wonder how Nijmegen managed to run out of ballots then...

Anyway, looking forward to VVD further hiking health insurance co-payments ahead of my imminent move to the low country.

 

[watson]

Erdogan's grip on power can't be that tenuous that he has to do this sort of stuff. One can can only assume that he has an irrational dislike of Europeans or non-Muslims.

Which just goes to show - having a significantly large diaspora in your country in generally a bad idea as some foreign despot will eventually exploit it to gain political leverage, destabilise the target society, enact revenge etc.

Erdogan accuses EU of 'crusade' against Islam

The Turkish president has also said Europe is regressing to the pre-World War II era. German Chancellor Angel Merkel called for an end to the exchange of "insults."

In a speech given to supporters in the western Turkish city of Sakarya, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan invoked the medieval religious wars between Christian Europe*and the Islamic Middle East*in the context of*present-day escalating tensions between the European Union and Turkey.

"My dear brothers, a battle has started between the cross and the half moon. There can be no other explanation," Erdogan*said on Thursday.

The Turkish president*also stated the European Court of Justice's (ECJ) Tuesday ruling, which*permits companies to ban the Islamic headscarf as part of policies barring religious symbols in*the workplace, was the start of a "crusade" by Europe.....

Erdogan accuses EU of ?crusade? against Islam | News | DW.COM | 17.03.2017

 

[GIMH]

I don't think polling has "failed" in any of the last few elections, except possibly in the 2015 UK general election. Miles off in the French primary too, although that's a really tough one to forecast. Public polls are usually pretty frank about what constitutes a reasonable margin of error, and they've generally been within it.

There's no way of telling whether a political betting market is failing or not. The favourite losing definitely isn't a betting market failure.

Political gambling is quite a small market so I wouldn't expect it to be efficient, it's definitely possible to give it too much respect. I like them being reported anyway, purely because they're probabilistic, which is always better than random pundits saying "this will happen" then keeping their jobs when it doesn't.

Surely it failed in the US election?

 

[Uppercut]

Surely it failed in the US election?

No not at all. The polls showed a close race, but were filtered through some perceived wisdom about blue walls into 'Hillary has this'. Hence the pre-election media consisted largely of poll aggregators (especially 538) insisting that Trump had a reasonable chance, and every other outlet relentlessly abusing them and questioning their integrity for not 'admitting' Hillary had it in the bag.

Similar to what happened with Brexit. Although with Brexit some of the, uh, political socialisers called it better than the polls, so it wasn't as big a victory relative to other means of political prediction.

 

[GIMH]

No not at all. The polls showed a close race, but were filtered through some perceived wisdom about blue walls into 'Hillary has this'. Hence the pre-election media consisted largely of poll aggregators (especially 538) insisting that Trump had a reasonable chance, and every other outlet relentlessly abusing them and questioning their integrity for not 'admitting' Hillary had it in the bag.

Similar to what happened with Brexit. Although with Brexit some of the, uh, political socialisers called it better than the polls, so it wasn't as big a victory relative to other means of political prediction.

Fair enough. I guess the main things hat spring to mind are the 'Hillary has a 92% chance of winning' style pieces

 

[Pothas]

2015 British election was definitely the most obvious one and it warped the whole campaign. There was almost nobody talking about a Tory Majority, although I think some less known polling had them doing much better, and yet it seemed so obvious once the result came. Matthew Parris wrote an article a couple of weeks before the election saying that everything he knew about politics suggested that the Tories should win but that the polls were just not saying it.

 

[GIMH]

2015 British election was definitely the most obvious one and it warped the whole campaign. There was almost nobody talking about a Tory Majority, although I think some less known polling had them doing much better, and yet it seemed so obvious once the result came. Matthew Parris wrote an article a couple of weeks before the election saying that everything he knew about politics suggested that the Tories should win but that the polls were just not saying it.

As you say, it made a difference. The polls enabled the Tories to go on the 'well you don't want an SNP coalition do you?' offensive

 

[Tom Halsey]

Fair enough. I guess the main things hat spring to mind are the 'Hillary has a 92% chance of winning' style pieces

This is missing the key point. Saying something has a 92% chance of winning doesn't make you wrong if the 8% chance comes in.

You can argue polling is or is not wrong based on methodology or whatever, but not based off the result (unless, hypothetically, something happens that the pollsters had as a literally 0% chance).

 

[Furball]

Fair enough. I guess the main things hat spring to mind are the 'Hillary has a 92% chance of winning' style pieces

Which still isn't wrong. That would only be wrong if they said Hilary had a 100% chance of winning.

 

[GIMH]

Of course I get the point the two posts above are making, but would challenge the assertion that Hillary was ever actually a 92% chance, as would sugggest the percentage was based upon flawed data to begin with.

 

[watson]

Only the pollsters at the LA Times and Fox predicted a Trump win - the LA Times on 9 separate occasions and Fox once.

What set the LA Times apart was that it gathered its data on-line rather than by telephone conversation.

So it appears that two emotional needs skewed the results for the telephone pollsters - the need to be polite and the need not to feel shame when interacting with another person.

Which just to show that politics is a process driven primarily by the irrationality of human emotion. And so the anonymity of the the LA Times on-line survey, and the anonymity of the ballot box, allowed the people to vote according to their deeper feelings of patriotism and nationalism over and against their superficial feelings of politeness and shame.

Overall conclusion: The psychological warfare that the PC propaganda machine wages on the inner feelings of people is a blight on the process of democracy as it stifles the freedom of expression. So what maybe useful in day-to-day social intereactions is not very useful during the political process which exists not to make us feel comfortable emotionally, but rather to guide the nation in the right direction by formulatiing coherent long term policy.

 

[watson]

The diplomatic row between Turkey and Germany is not going away just yet after another angry exchange.

Erdogan Warns Europeans on Their Safety as Tensions Rise With West

KASTAMONU, Turkey — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey warned Europeans on Wednesday that they would no longer be able to walk safely in the street if Western politicians continued with perceived provocations against Turkish leaders.

Mr. Erdogan’s warning turned out to be awkwardly timed, coming hours before a deadly attack outside the British Parliament.....

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/22/world/europe/turkey-erdogan-referendum-europe.html?_r=0

It appears that Europe itself is now part of the Middle Eastern conflict, and is unlikely to escape its general insanity for generations to come.

 

[watson]

Why would you want to belong to an organisation run by Vogons?

EU to fine countries 'hundreds of millions of pounds' for refusing to take refugees

The European Commission will impose fines of hundreds of millions*of pounds on countries that do not take in refugees.

Jean-Claude Junker is tomorrow expected to unveil plans to impose a penalty of around €250,000 euros per rejected refugee, in a bid to salvage his botched*migration quota scheme.....

Eastern European states opposed the scheme for two reasons: because they said refugee admissions should be a sovereign national decision; and because many of their voters are virulently opposed to Muslim immigration. Britain is exempt due to its historic opt-out on justice matters.

The Commission has blamed*national governments for failing to offer enough places for migrants.* But the statistics back up the testimony of aid workers and EU officials who say the scheme has flopped migrants have no desire to be “relocated” to poor eastern European states when they would rather go to Germany or Sweden.

Indeed, under current offers of places, there are 5,989 spaces unused, including *40 in Slovenia, 480 in Romania, 1,298 in Bulgaria and 100 in Poland.....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/03/eu-to-fine-countries-that-refuse-refugee-quota/matters.*