UK General Election - May 7th 2015 (The Official Campaign Thread)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Murphy's way of phrasing things is not always perfect, but it's hardly an unreasonable point.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Bunch of polls today.

YouGov: Labour 35, Con 34, UKIP 13, LDem 8, Greens 5, Others 6

Populus: Labour 34, Con 32, UKIP 15, LDem 9, Greens 4, Others 6

ICM: Con 34, Labour 32, UKIP 11, LDem 10, Greens 5, Others 8

And also a Cashcroft/Rubber Ball which I'm adding here purely out of completeness: Con 34, Labour 30, UKIP 13, LDem 10, Greens 4, Others 9

The last figure does not inspire confidence.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Actually the national polls do show a fairly consistent pattern when you remember all the disclaimers. Trouble is, when it comes to seats there's a large difference between a national swing of 2% and a national swing of 5%.

[Lurker]

Yes, I am somewhat surprised at just how (relatively) stable and consistent the polls are, rather than the opposite.

[Bacon King]

So what is Jim Murphy's strategy, exactly? It's like he's already written off all the voters Labour has lost to the SNP, so now he's just trying to salvage what he can by blatantly pandering for pro-union tactical votes from the Tories

[YL]

There are, however, some definite house effects in the polls, not that this should be surprising.  YouGov poll every day, and haven't had a Tory lead in their last 10 polls, and Populus poll twice a week and haven't had a Tory lead all year, while ICM, Ashcroft and Opinium are producing Tory leads more often than not.  It's not just a phone/online divide: Opinium are online, and MORI do phone polls and also haven't had a Tory lead this year (though they've only had four polls).

[afleitch]

Murphy's way of phrasing things is not always perfect, but it's hardly an unreasonable point.

Why would a pro independence party ever rule out a referendum on independence?

[bore]

I'm sympathetic to the argument that if the UK leaves the EU then the facts have changed sufficiently to justify another referendum. That said, the obvious answer as to why the SNP should rule out another vote is because they basically promised to during the referendum campaign. It seems a little rich to castigate the unionist for rowing back on devo max promises if they're going to do the same.

[traininthedistance]

538 asks, "Is Constituency Polling Worth It?" (Spoiler: yes, more or less.)

Curious to hear what Sibboleth thinks of their analysis.

[Clyde1998]

YouGov/Times Scotland Poll:
SNP - 49% (N/C)
Lab - 25% (N/C)
Con - 17% (-1%)
Lib - 5% (+1%)

[Simfan34]

It's the 1880s again, I want to say, and just give up.

[Diouf]

The 12 seats that right now looks to be the Kingmaker seats; those median seats which could decide who becomes PM. Harrow East, Wirral West, Northampton North, Cannock Chase, Ipswich, City of Chester, Stockton South, Ealing Central and Action, Brighton Kemptown, Keighley, Nuneaton, and Croydon Central. Like most of the opinion polls and election models, they currently point towards Ed Miliband as the next PM as Labour have a lead of 4/5 % in most of them. However, these are typically seats which the Conservatives won by 4-6% in 2010, and they probably need to hold at least half of them, if Cameron is to stay on as PM.

http://www.britishfuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/The-new-Kingmaker-seats-that-could-decide-the-next-Prime-Minister.final_..pdf

[Filuwaúrdjan]

538 asks, "Is Constituency Polling Worth It?" (Spoiler: yes, more or less.)

Curious to hear what Sibboleth thinks of their analysis.

They are certainly correct to suggest that many of the changes between different batches of constituency polls of the same set of constituencies is most likely statistical noise. The article is wrong to suggest the constituency polling is new to the UK; it had a long and erratic* history here but had largely died out by 2010. What's new about Cashcroft is the scale of his constituency polling operations and also (as the article does correctly observe) the frequency.

Anyway, I'm not actually opposed to constituency polling; it's just that I'd like to see people treating them with appropriate levels of scepticism rather than (as is often the case) far less than is applied to national polls.

_{*There was a period in the 1960s and 1970s when quite a few local newspapers ran ones of their own. And published breakdowns for different parts of the constituencies in question. I suspect they were not terribly well conducted, but dubious social surveys were very much in style at the time!}

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And to-nite's YouGov: Labour 35, Con 34, UKIP 13, LDem 7, Greens 5, Others 6

[You kip if you want to...]

Drinking game: shot every time someone says 'too-close-to-call' between now and about 3-4am on May 8th.

[Vega]

Drinking game: shot every time someone says 'too-close-to-call' between now and about 3-4am on May 8th.

Now why would you want someone to get alcohol poisoning?

YouGov did a cool thing on "Where 2010 voters are today":

[You kip if you want to...]

Stinks of more Crosby Australian tactics. I'm not 100% this'll work as well in the UK.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E01-LvLOBLA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HfRyjfsw8Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v5QxX8rHPk

[jaichind]

I noticed over the last couple of weeks that the odds on Ladbrokes in terms of seat over/under

http://sports.ladbrokes.com/en-gb/Politics-c110000037#

always seems to match (a seat or two)

http://www.electionforecast.co.uk/

Did the two make a deal where ladbrokes will just use http://www.electionforecast.co.uk/ number ?

[Phony Moderate]

John Swinney got absolutely destroyed by Andrew Neil, btw: http://youtu.be/Gl-zTYQzKJM

[Clyde1998]

John Swinney could absolutely destroyed by Andrew Neil, btw: http://youtu.be/Gl-zTYQzKJM

It wasn't a good interview for Swinney.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

John Swinney could absolutely destroyed by Andrew Neil, btw: http://youtu.be/Gl-zTYQzKJM

It wasn't a good interview for Swinney.

Well that's good!  Anything to that hurts the SNP juggernaut in Scotland.

[Clyde1998]

John Swinney could absolutely destroyed by Andrew Neil, btw: http://youtu.be/Gl-zTYQzKJM

It wasn't a good interview for Swinney.

Well that's good!  Anything to that hurts the SNP juggernaut in Scotland.

I don't think many people in Scotland watch that program.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

John Swinney could absolutely destroyed by Andrew Neil, btw: http://youtu.be/Gl-zTYQzKJM

It wasn't a good interview for Swinney.

Well that's good!  Anything to that hurts the SNP juggernaut in Scotland.

I don't think many people in Scotland watch that program.

Well I should have said might actually.  Thanks for correcting my error.

[Lief 🗽]

This seems like an hilariously terrible idea to me...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A salutary reminder that the fact that the SNP is home to some champion bullsh!tters should not blind us to the fact that, like all parties, it has plenty of people in it who are not now, and never will be, ready for prime time.

This seems like an hilariously terrible idea to me...

No, no, it sounds excellent. More of this kind of thing please!

Oh and a poll from TNS. For what that's worth. Labour 34, Con 32, UKIP 15, LDem 8, Greens 5, Others 6