UK General Election - May 7th 2015

[You kip if you want to...]

SNP problem isn't about left or right, the SNP are actually too the right of the current labour party (Ed M) They just seem to attack New labour. If labour came out in favour of rail nationalization, no auserity and scrapping Trident the cybernats would still accuse labour of betraying Scotland by siding with the tories,

The SNP situation is ing messed up

All from a party backed to the hilt by the Murdoch press and whose blueprint for independence was to, basically, turn Scotland into an oil dependent, corporate tax haven.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The rubber ball that is Ashcroft's national poll returns with: Labour 36, Con 32, UKIP 11, Greens 8, LDem 7

Meanwhile Populus (which has changed its methodology *again*) is: Labour 32, Con 32, UKIP 15, LDem 9

[Phony Moderate]

And Labour are 6% ahead in England with Ashcroft, representing an 8-9% swing.

[You kip if you want to...]

And Labour are 6% ahead in England with Ashcroft, representing an 8-9% swing.

Again, can we really trust a pollster as volatile (to say the least) as Ashcroft national?

I wonder who he uses. ICM or ComRes judging by the wild swings.

[ObserverIE]

Who knows? Respect have (already!) fallen apart in Bradford somewhat (for the usual reasons), but the so-called party is rather less important to Galloway's appeal than the loathsome half-genius himself.

Is it too cynical to assume that the biraderi element in the local party, faced with an all-woman shortlist imposed from Head Office, decided to make the choice most likely to give them the chance to choose a favourite son in 2020?

[Хahar 🤔]

Who knows? Respect have (already!) fallen apart in Bradford somewhat (for the usual reasons), but the so-called party is rather less important to Galloway's appeal than the loathsome half-genius himself.

Is it too cynical to assume that the biraderi element in the local party, faced with an all-woman shortlist imposed from Head Office, decided to make the choice most likely to give them the chance to choose a favourite son in 2020?

Is there any evidence to that effect?

[ObserverIE]

Who knows? Respect have (already!) fallen apart in Bradford somewhat (for the usual reasons), but the so-called party is rather less important to Galloway's appeal than the loathsome half-genius himself.

Is it too cynical to assume that the biraderi element in the local party, faced with an all-woman shortlist imposed from Head Office, decided to make the choice most likely to give them the chance to choose a favourite son in 2020?

Is there any evidence to that effect?

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http://www.asiansunday.co.uk/who-will-rid-bradford-of-the-biraderi-stain/

[Phony Moderate]

Are they going to place bets on Galloway too?

[YL]

And Labour are 6% ahead in England with Ashcroft, representing an 8-9% swing.

Again, can we really trust a pollster as volatile (to say the least) as Ashcroft national?

I wonder who he uses. ICM or ComRes judging by the wild swings.

As I said in November:

The high volatility of the Ashcroft polls is probably simply down to having a fairly small effective sample size.  The "headline" sample size may be 1000, but the actual voting intention figures in this Monday's poll are based on just 522 respondents.

ICM's polls have similar effective sample sizes, and are also quite volatile.

[afleitch]

Here's the thing. With the two main parties neck and neck, then strictly speaking polling should be more volatile than it actually is. There's a safety in numbers mentality with the pollsters right now which is why they have been static since late last year.

Truth is, no one knows what the turnout is going to be. No one knows how many non voters are going to make an appearance, or how the demographics are. Such things are not known until a campaign is almost finished (and then the pollsters can apply better turnout filters). What ICM is doing is saying, we think it'll all end up the way it always ends up, and so applies that to it's polls. Given it only polls once a month it's not a good guide to trends; it's a mathematical toy.

[You kip if you want to...]

I seem to remember a similar effect last time out with 1 or 2 pollsters still insisting on a 10-15% Tory lead right up until the day of the 1st debate.

Funny that Angus Reid hasn't been heard of since the last election.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Opinion polling now resembles a prediction informed by a survey rather than a survey.

[MaxQue]

I seem to remember a similar effect last time out with 1 or 2 pollsters still insisting on a 10-15% Tory lead right up until the day of the 1st debate.

Funny that Angus Reid hasn't been heard of since the last election.

Last poll from them was from April 2013, but they do issues polls in Canada/USA/UK once in a while, last time in May about Ukraine crisis.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Rifkind is to stand down as a result of current newspaper headlines. Majority of 24.5% with a very high Tory floor.

[DL]

Its interesting that the conventional wisdom is that UKIP mostly takes votes from the Tories and yet in the last few weeks polls that have UKIP lower do not seem to have the Tories any higher - if anything Labour is often a bit stronger when UKIP drops a bit...I have a hypotheses that there are a couple of "tranches" of UKIP support. When UKIP is down at 10-12% its support is almost entirely rightwing disaffected Tories. When UKIP goes up to the high teens that extra layer is often more of a mix of soft Tories and working class Labour voters attracted to UKIP's populist style and message.

For Labour the "sweet spot" is for UKIP to be around 12% - that way they do maximum damage to the Tories and are less likely to eat into the Labour vote.

[YL]

Rifkind is to stand down as a result of current newspaper headlines. Majority of 24.5% with a very high Tory floor.

The current incarnation of Kensington is actually quite a bit less safe than the old Kensington & Chelsea was -- it might well have gone Labour in 1997 had it existed -- but this is still a nice late vacancy for some Tory to get.

Rifkind's behaviour over the last couple of days has not made him go up in my estimation.

[joevsimp]

Historically its been reperesented by very high profile tories though, but who's still looking for a seat this close to the poll?

[Phony Moderate]

Another car crash interview from Natalie Bennett...

http://youtu.be/zKhWvogL9dc

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The current incarnation of Kensington is actually quite a bit less safe than the old Kensington & Chelsea was -- it might well have gone Labour in 1997 had it existed

Though notably safer than the 1974-97 Kensington which would certainly have gone Labour in 1997 (and might have been held in 2005, even). Basically it extends further south.

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It's infinitely more damning than the actual trumped-up 'scandal', yes.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Historically its been reperesented by very high profile tories though, but who's still looking for a seat this close to the poll?

Oh there are always people out looking for a seat. And there are always late retirements.

[Blair]

Another car crash interview from Natalie Bennett...

http://youtu.be/zKhWvogL9dc

It's assume, because as a labour supported I admire the Greens but she just can't seem to get her act together. One bad interview is fair enough but she's had two where she's just failed completely

[Insula Dei]

I seem to remember a similar effect last time out with 1 or 2 pollsters still insisting on a 10-15% Tory lead right up until the day of the 1st debate.

Funny that Angus Reid hasn't been heard of since the last election.

Last poll from them was from April 2013, but they do issues polls in Canada/USA/UK once in a while, last time in May about Ukraine crisis.

AngusReid's post-2010 polls had a tendency to show larger Labour leads than other polling companies, incidentally.

[YL]

George Galloway finally has a Labour opponent in Bradford West, Amina Ali, a Tower Hamlets councillor.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/02/21/george-galloway-amina-ali_n_6727514.html

It appears that she may have stepped down, although there is some confusion:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/02/25/galloway-amina-ali-bradfo_n_6749798.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's odd, but entirely in keeping with the history of this seat. Almost tempted to wonder whether she didn't actually intend to win the selection?

[StateBoiler]

SNP pro
blem isn't about left or right, the SNP are actually too the right of the current labour party (Ed M) They just seem to attack New labour. If labour came out in favour of rail nationalization, no auserity and scrapping Trident the cybernats would still accuse labour of betraying Scotland by siding with the tories,

The SNP situation is ing messed up

well it's Labour's job to counteract the SNP with their own message and they've been unable to.