Oldham East and Saddleworth By-Election

Well, a couple of hours ago the polls opened for what will be the first parliamentary by-election since the formation of the Coalition government in May. There was, of course, the postponed Thirsk & Malton poll on the 27th of May, but by then the coalition dyanmics had yet to really come into play electorally speaking.

Here are the 2010 results for Oldham East and Saddleworth:

LAB - 14,186 (31.9%)
LIB - 14,083 (31.6%)
CON - 11,773 (26.4%)
(and others, although they are not numerically signficant)

A great deal of analysis has been done on this by-election and it is generally expected that Labour will win. The general trend of the opinion polls since the general election suggests the Labour vote nationally is up around 13% whereas the Liberal Democrat vote is down by around the same amount. Notably, the Conservative vote remains more or less unchanged.

Much has been made of local factors. The previous Labour MP, of course, had his result voided following a court ruling which showed that the Labour candidate had effectively told untruths about the Liberal Democrat candidate in his campaign literature - a factor which may have proved decisive given the extremely close result. I don't expect this will damage the Labour vote here too much, indeed, there has been some resentment at what is perceived as their result being decided by a distant court.

It is significant that the combined Liberal/Conservative vote here is as high as it is: 58% compared to Labour's 32%. Although these are pre-coalition figures, it does indicate that for Labour to guarantee victory they will have to shift a lot of these votes.

Despite the Conservatives' strong third-place performance here in 2010 it is widely expected that many Conservative voters will vote tactically, lending their vote to the Liberal Democrat candidate to stop Labour from winning.

I shall make a prediction:
LAB - 13,476 (46%)
LIB - 7,531 (26%)
CON - 4,538 (15%)
OTH - 3,837 (13%)

Turnout being roughly 40%.
Based on these figures, the old saying that this will be the 'first real test for the Coalition' is somewhat misleading, as it is not a test they are expected to pass. The expectation is with Labour, although this may harm them: first it may encourage even more tactical voting from Conservatives to boost the Libdem vote. Second, any increase in expectation will just make defeat all the more unstomachable. The Liberal Democrats will only be humiliated if they come third. Labour will be humiliated if they come second. The Tories... if they come fourth I suppose. Despite the BNP polling 11% here in 2001, there is no single significant fourth party presence here.

Polls close at 10pm and results are expected at 2am.

Also, we'll be expecting another by-election sometime early this year! The MP for Barnsley Central has stood down after admitting fraud over his expenses. He was elected as a Labour MP in 2010 with 47% of the vote, 30% more than the second place candidate. Consequently, it will be rather a different type of by-election to this one, and potentially less interesting. Oldham East and Saddleworth is rare in that it was a genuine three-way marginal in the General Election. Barnsley Central is a definitive Labour safe-seat and so there's not even much chance of a two-way scrap, let alone a three-way scrap. More signficant would be a by-election in a Tory held marginal (with Labour in second place): or better still, a Tory held marginal with the Liberal Democrats in 2nd and Labour in 3rd. Of course the next major electoral test (one whose date is non-negotiable) are the Scottish Parliamentary and Welsh Assembly elections in May, as well as the council elections of the same month.

Eye 1257

this fortnight's front cover

Is fairly amusing. But more importantly, it was taken along Brighton Beach. The Conservative Party Conference took place down here over the last weekend of February. I wasn't actually here at that time, but if you look carefully in the picture you can see a statue. From this distance it looks a bit like a hook, but if you look here you will see what the real shape of it is meant to be. This is the Peace Statue, which marks the border between Brighton and Hove and, back when I was running, was the starting/finishing point for my jogs.

I will be getting back to running shortly. Became rather unhealthy in February after my injury. Have realised that feeling unhealthy is not exactly to my liking, so am trying to eat better and just generally be healthier. Specifics may follow in later posts.

On the matter of electoral politics, I recommend this blog for all your opinion-poll needs. There seems to be a large number of pundits following the blog, and the discussion is for the most part non-partisan, which is a great relief.

Currently grinding my way through Seldon's Major: A Political Life. Is 700 or so pages but flows well, so shouldn't take me too long to read. Am still halfway through three other books.

WOT I DID DIS WEEKND

Hey stalkers.

Had a fun few days. On my return I was sometimes asked 'how it was', to which my usual, tired reply was 'pretty good. will write a blog post about it.

Well, here it is.

Woke up at 6.45am on Friday, and two hours later I boarded a train to London with my father. Our destination: Kensington Olympia, for the Who Do You Think You Are - Live event, where we were to man the stall for Deceased Online, with a team of around eight others.

We arrived at 10am, and as I did not hold a staff pass but, rather, a standard ticket, I had to walk all the way to the back of a several-hundred yard queue along the frontside of the building. I was surprised and encouraged to see such a high turnout. It seems that the anecdote I heard about genealogy being the second most searhed-up thing on the internet was no joke, and that curiousity about ancestry and heritage is, and always has been, considerable. 

Indeed, the number of resources for finding out about ones ancestry are increasing every day, and Olympia was filled with all manner of stalls. There were some video displays, workshops, and even a one-hour talk about DNA in one of the side parts of the venue. Most of the people were in their fourties or fifties and, as you might expect at a genealogy conference, basically everyone was English. After all, Parish records from the 1890s would not be much use to the man whose ancestors were from, say, Spain or Bangladesh. That said, there were some stalls catering for earlier-twentieth century groups, such as Anglo-Itialians, Anglo-Germans, Anglo-Jewish and even Anglo-Huguenots.

Some stalls were larger than others. One of the largest genealogy companies, Ancestry, had their own speaking area with around a hundred chairs for the audience. I heard Tony Robinson (of Blackadder fame) give a talk about the various companies.

I spent most of the time walking around. Though I was there to represent DOL, there was no shortage of staff, despite the business. My father reminded me, however, that the expo would get even busier in the afternoon, and especially busy on Saturday, where the 15,000 tickets had been sold out.

After having a 20cm pizza from the Pizza Express fast-food outlet connected to the Olympia hall on one side and to the street (to serve the public) on the other, I was told I was no longer needed, and headed off into the night sky.

Or should I say afternoon sky. It was only 1.30pm. I had a good hard look at this, which was on an advertising board over looking the passageway between Olypmia and the train station. I then walked about for a bit, stopping in a West Kensington pub for a large coke. At around 3.30pm I met David. Walked to his flat in Hammersmith and watched some TV (including Deal or No Deal, which I had not seen for years... I am glad to say it has not got any worse). Then at 5pm we went all the way to Camden Town to Josés flat.

Marco was there already, staying with Jose. Later arrived Ben, then Aidan. We sat down to a game of poker. We were using Josés loose change for chips, playing £0.01/£0.02 with £1 stacks. All completely casual, and we didn't stake any money on the game, despite using coins for chips. Around eight o'clock we left and took the tube to Liverpool St. wherefrom we walked to Brick Lane looking for a curry house. We were spoilt for choice, but eventually settled on one which had offered us two free rounds of drinks and 30% off the final bill.

For those who have not been to Brick Lane, it is a veritable chaos. But one worth seeing. Every restaurant had a man outside to draw customers in, making offers and generally being persistent and annoying. At first we thought it was only the lower-end restaurants (who did not have name recognition) who had to employ this strategy, but it turns out that every single place does it. It's just part of healthy, capitalist competition.

I had a chicken dopiaza and a pint of Tiger. Or was it Cobra. I get the two mixed up.

We returned home after a brief walk, and got to sleep at some time after midnight. I volunteered to sit on the floor. Sure, it's hard on the back, but better than trying to sleep on a sofa only to fall off, which, of course, is hard on the whole body.

However, not even the most comfortable, embracing bed would have made the night's sleep any longer. Several of us had set an alarm for 4 o'clock. I set a backup one for 4.30.

After a brief wash and no breakfast, we were out. Aidan was driving, José sat at the front. In the back was myself, Ben (in the middle) and David. Marco, who had never been planning to come anyway, stayed at home. We left Camden at around 5.10am, and then the long drive began.

It was about an hour till dawn began to break. All the while I was nervous about what lay ahead, as we had been promised gale force winds for our sea passage. On arriving at Dover, however, things seemed fairly calm. We had a light breakfast (a Gingsters peppered steak pie for me) and then boarded the boat. I was apprehensive about seasickness at the start of the voyage, despite never having been seasick in my life. However, I was infitinetly relieved when it turned out there was an area for standing outside. The fresh sea air makes you forget about any groginess (what an awful word) you might feel and being able to see land (often on both sides, England and France, at the same time) gives your coordination something to anchor on to, thereby minimising the disorientation of life on the wave.

Arrived at Calais. There followed a two hour drive to Lille. José, having somehow torn his trousers, set off on a quest to find some new ones. In the mean time, the rest of us toured the surrounding area. I was very happy to see a chocolatier which I had last seen in Le Touquet back in 2006 - Le Chat Bleu. I ate one of their famous chocolate golf balls, as did Ben.

After much walking we settled down for lunch at Cafe Leffe, named after the Belgian beer of which they served several varieties. As you can see from this map, the Belgian influence is not by accident. I had a beef burger which, instead of buns, had what seemed to be hash browns. I washed this weird stuff down with some forest-fruit-flavoured Leffe.

More walking continued. At around 5-something (French time) we realised that time was short and that if we wanted to go somewhere else, we should do it now.

Thus off we went, northwestwards, as the sun set. The only place we stopped in the end was a Carrefour 'hypermarket'. The others bought all manner of things...well, mainly cheese, wine and beer. I only bought some more forest-fruit-flavoured Leffe.

We had a little trouble finding Calais. There were lots of narrow roads and Flemmish placenames, but eventualy we stumbled upon the motorway home. The boat journey was calm and fairly relaxed. We all had some expensive ferry-food. As on the way there, the journey took one and a half hours. We were all pretty tired by now, having been up around sixteen hours, a full day, on minimal sleep. But Aidan, who was doing all the driving today, ensured he was alert for the last leg of the voyage.

Dover to London. It took about two hours, and involved driving through East London and under the Thames via the Blackwall tunnel. I never get to see much of East London, and so I made a special effort to keep my curious eyes open.

Back at around midnight, and after unloading the car we all went to bed. Not the same bed. In my case, the floor, where I had left the sleeping bag, pillow et al anyway. Most of us got up at 9.30am the next day to go to our various parts of the country. I was back in Brighton at around one o'clock.

Not that the adventure ended there. At Victoria station I had bought a copy of The Times, to see what had gone into the shock headline Gordon Brown on course to win election. It turned out that the Conservative Party conference was happening in Brighton while I had been away. I saw Cameron's speech live via BBC News, even though the actual thing was being given only a few miles away.

The election race really is getting tight/heating up/reaching fever pitch... whatever metaphor you wish, really. The latest poll from ComRes offers the following statistics.

Conservatives: 37%

Labour: 32%

Liberal Democrats: 19%

Others: 12%

Due to the way the electoral system works in practice, this five-percent lead basically translates to a hung parliament and a neck-and-neck race between the two sides.

Some people were suggesting Brown should call an election on Monday (yesterday) as things weren't going to get any better for him in the polls. I was secretly excited at this prospect, but realise that Brown has no intention of calling anything before the universally agreed date of May 6th. After all, he bottled it in 2007 and he'll keep bottling it again and again if he has to.

Hand History - Part 1

Just watched BBC4's On Expenses, a one-off drama focusing on the fall of Michael Martin (Speaker of the House of Commons) and Heather Brooke, the author of Your Right to Know.

It had the feel of a period drama except, erm, it all happened within the last year or two. Indeed, the scandal is still not resolved! Beautifully done, though a slightly longer show ('twas an hour) might have been better suited to the gravity of the scandal. According to Wikipedia the 2005-10 Parliament is already being historicized as 'The Rotten Parliament'.

But I'm not going to talk about politics tonight, although I had been thinking about it. You know, some general opinions I have on the state of democracy and the upcoming elections. The usual sort really: empty, armchair punditry that wouldn't hold up for a second in a debating chamber or, for that matter, on the street. But I'll save that for another time when I'm feeling more prosaic.

Instead I will talk about something completely different: poker.

And it is completely different, by the way. If anyone ever tries to compare a poker game to high stakes politics, they clearly don't understand either of them.

ANYWAY

I shall now discuss my poker life, from its start right up until its present.

I should warn you know that it is pretty long. I don't abridge my stories for anyone.

When I was six (!) we had this little Video Poker game on our computer. It's not as exciting as it sounds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_poker

As this wikipedia article attests to, it's basically just an advanced sort of slot machine.

It did give me a fairly good idea of hand rankings from an early age, though.

Later in my childhood, around aged 11 or 12, I was fascinated with the subject of gambling. We had a large, illustrated hardback book on Casino Games. The games which interested me most were the poker variants. It mainly focused on Stud and Draw (the book was from the 90's) but also had a little bit on No Limit Hold'em. I remember my juvenile, untrained poker brain thinking that NLHE was completly stupid game. I'd never played it, of course, but it stood to reason that only having two downcards and five community cards was just chaotic. And to make matters worse, it was played with no limits on the betting!

Around this time I also had a computer game which allowed me to play 7 card stud against computerised opponents. I usually won, but it wasn't much of a challenge. It wasn't meant to be a challenge.

It wasn't until December 2004 that I started playing poker against friends. I won against three of my friends, outchipping second place, Jose, by a margain of just one: 106 chips to 105. It wasn't for money, though. I would have had reservations about gambling 106 pence, let alone 106 pounds!

N.B. we were playing 5 Card draw with caps on the betting - not NLHE!

For the next sixteen months or so we would occasionally convene for a poker game. But it was never the express purpose of the meeting. We might just be hanging around and decide to play poker. Often the main feature would be the drinks and ensuing conversation, rather than the cards. Worse, sometimes people would bring a girlfriend along and constantly show them their (poker) hand. Inbetween embraces, of course. On one evening, where two couples were present, we only managed to get seven hands dealt over the space of an hour.

It wasn't until April 2006 that one Mr. Edge of Ryle House brought in some poker chips after the end of the Easter Holidays. Well, to be fair, on the first day he had not brought in any chips: only a deck of cards. We played with imaginary chipstacks of 'subjective' value. By Tuesday (the second day) we had chips. By Wednesday, we were playing for money.

Not for serious money, obviously. 20p buyins were the usual stake, sometimes more, seldom less. I do think I once lost my bus fare in a poker match, but that's ok. It was spring after all, and the walk home did me good.

We didn't have a 'table'. We played in our study which, despite the name, was not a place particularly condusive to learning or working. Instead, our 'poker table' was a chair. We sat around it, some on the sofa, some on other chairs.

The format was always a freezeout. We started the bets at 1-2, and increased them if we had to. The chipstacks themselves were often only between 20 and 30. The tournaments were short and were a excellent way to wile away the hours which might otherwise have been wasted on revising or playing sport.

Our first serious game was on the 19th of May. As was the annual tradition, we had a House Dinner that night. We decided we should hold a poker tournament beforehand.

Let me set the scene: It was a mild evening, the sun still up as we set out the chips in and old geography classroom. We didn't want the sun, however, to intrude on our game. Jason, who had a reputation for being a lucky player (unsurprisingly, I had a reputation for being tight) suggested that we pull down the blinds (on the windows) because in real casinos, you're not meant to know whether it's light or dark outside. (I can attest from my later experiences that this is indeed the case.) Eleven people had entered the tournament. Felts were lain out, extra chips were brought in for the occasion. Stacks were distributed, around sixty chips each. We didn't bother having different colour denominatons - each chip was simply worth '1', a simple system which we all agreed with, although it didn't allow for very deep stacks. Still, for the beginning player thirty big blinds seems like a veritable treasure trove.

It did to me, anyway. Not that it lasted very long, anyway. I was the third person out. 9th out of 11. Basically, I got over excited with top pair with a marginial kicker in a pot where there had already been two much action. I was called by Jason of all people. I can't remember whether the had two pair of a flush of what, but as soon as the cards were turned over it was clear that I was crushed.

I felt that awful sort of 'uuurgh, why did I do that' feeling. I never tend to get too frustated about getting unlucky. There's nothing you can do about a run or instance of bad luck. But when get knocked out as a result of making a bad play, there's no excuse. There's nothing you can legitimately back yourself up with. It's your fault. Worst of all, it's very lonely. Once you're out, you're out. Not only have you lost your buy in, but you've also lost your seat and your evening's entertainment. All at once!

The buy in was £5, which was by some distance the highest amount we had ever played for. It didn't represent a particularly large segment of personal wealth for any of us; bear in mind I probably spent around £15-20 a week in the context of school (i.e. bus fares, snacks).

I think top prize was £40, second prize was £10 and 3rd prize got their money back. I was around for the final four, who I vaguely recall as being Ben, our Head of House, Rikesh, Jason and a tutor, whose name I shall not mention. Rikesh was knocked out after slowplaying his flopped set of fours only to run in to the rivered higher set of the tutor. I remember thinking 'wow, [the tutor] played that really well!'.

Ben came third, getting his money back. Jason came second and our tutor won it all. He was a good sport, though, and when we went down to Kemptown for drinks, he bought us all a round.

This all took place on the night before my eighteenth birthday, a sort of affirmation, a rite of passage. I had gambled and lost, and I was now entering the age at which that was accepted as one of the many rights and responsibilities that charectarise the ascent into adulthood.

And so that is how I, one Sebastian Evans, came into the poker world. But, as you may have guessed from the 'Part 1' in the title, it was only the beginning.

Some dreams

I don't mean some wavy aspirations. I mean those things that go on when you go to sleep.

Dream I

I was in what appeared to be the living room on the top floor of my house, but the dimensions of the room were a lot bigger than in real life. Furtheremore, there appearead to be a number of desks in the room (c. 20) as if it were a quiet study room, classroom or exam hall.

One of the guys I played poker with at Warwick, Richard King, was scuffling around, as there appeared to be a miniature tornado above his desk. The tornado was about twelve feet in the air and three feet high, so not a particularly large object but for some reason I was able to gauge its speed of rotation at around 600 mph.

Richard ran out of the room and so did I, although we had a little trouble opening the door. This only added to our anxiety. We ran down two flights of stairs to safety, but once we had arrived at the ground floor it seemed that this friend of mine had changed from Richard King to Daniel Mumby (who I am sure reads this blog. Hello Daniel!)

Dream II

The building I was in seemed to be a hybrid between my old school sports hall and swimming pool hall. The main part of the building itself seemed more like the sports hall, and there was no pool to be seen. However, the changing rooms were identical to the ones in the swimming pool hall. Furthermore, there were wooden benches along the side in the same style as the swimming pool hall.

There was some sort of finger buffet to start with. Nothing too fancy, just sandwiches really. I do not recall eating very much.

Everybody around me had been a pupil at my school. There were no university friends or acquaintences to be seen, but there were a few people who did not exist in real life. The room was very crowded, and a football game emerged. Yet at the same time, people were casually walking around the 'pitch' as if the progress of the game wasn't really that important. The more concientious people were walking along the 'out of touch' areas around the perimiter.

I occasionally got involved in the football match, passing or shooting the ball, though I did not contribute very intently or significantly - I merely kicked the ball when it came to me. It was only when I stood in the corner afterwards to talk wtih some friends that I was criticized for getting involved, because apparently it was a team match, and I had not been selected for either of the teams. I tried to be nonchallant about it like "oops. yeah. easy mistake to make" but they kept criticising me. Not in the needling way, e.g. "you're such a fucking idiot", but more in the sort of "no look, you've done something really wrong here.", the sort of look you might get if you accidently broke a family heirloom or something... as if to create some sort of lingering guilt.

I didn't really do much talking beyond this. As I walked along the 'out of touch' area a Japanese boy/man/whatever grabbed my shin as if to trip me over. On regaining my balance I took him by the neck and, without any resistance on his part, dragged him to the toilet and threatened to lower his head into the basin. I did not threaten with words, merely with action and suspense.

I did not pursue my vengance any further and let him go. He smiled and apologised as if he were a Toyota executive and then slid off.

--------------------

And this was more or less the time I woke up, which was around 10.45am, even though I had set my alarm for 8. Basically I have to be up at 6am on Friday and 4am on Saturday, so I need to force myself to get up earlier in preperation.

Have to do some sorting out this weekend. Some serious sorting out. Yesterday was an extremely lazy day. Sure, I got up at 8.45am, but that was only so I could watch the Election 1974 (Feb) coverage, which started at 9.00am. Will definitely leave the house today though, otherwise I will go mad.

On the topic of elections, Gordon Brown is currently at my old university (I actually recognise the windows and trees behind him) right now, although by the time you read this the page will probably be a static news story. At the time of my posting it, Gordon is being shown live.
"Mr Brown was welcomed by supporters but there were some hecklers as he arrived at the University of Warwick, Coventry."

I know some of those hecklers very well!

I am still not convinced that a Conservative Majority Government is inevitable. After all, "nothing is inevitable until it has happened". And happened it has not!

Over the course of my lazy day yesterday I played a $8 Rebuy on Pokerstars. Won a few flips... until the very last one, where I called all in with 88 versus AK. Fortunately I was already in the cash stages by then, and for my $24.80 buyin I scored $67.70. Top prize was over $9K though. I almost wilt at the idea of winning that much.

That was the only tournament I played. Often in the past when I played tournaments I would insist on playing several at once, but I was glad just to play one yesterday.

"Take a second look at us. Take a long, hard, look at them."

Gordon Brown, 11.35am

He recieved quite some applause for this.

"How can they be the party of change, when they haven't even changed themselves."

Gordon Brown, 11.38am

No applause for this.

I'm not a Brown hater, but I do believe in individual responsibility and freedom of thought and enterprise. And that's why I'll be voting Conservative. As for the 'national economic scene', I am not convinced either party knows any better than the other, so I am voting for a philosophy rather than a practical plan. I'm not going to try and convince others to follow my lead though. I'm voting in my self-interest. If everybody else does the same, then we'll get as accurate a picture of the nationial interest as we can.

Come to think of it, will a Hung Parliament really be so bad? At least there'll be concensus, even if it is forced. I do fear that, at the moment, there seems to be an almost deliberate party-poltical agenda to make sure no concensus of any sort emerges. Slime.

I think this will be quite an exciting election.