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

[ChrisDR68]

ICM Wisdom Index (asking for an estimate of the party shares on May 7th) has Labour and the Tories both on 32 with the Lib Dems on 14 and UKIP on 12.

A private poll of Thanet South has Con 31, UKIP 30, Labour 29.

That's the first post on here that's near my prediction of 13.5% for the Lib Dems and 11% for UKIP

[ChrisDR68]

Tonights YouGov: Labour 35, Con 33, UKIP 13, LDem 8, Greens 5

The polls are moving as fast as an asthmatic ant with some heavy shopping.

[ChrisDR68]

General Election Forecast (Week Three)

Taking the advice of members from last week, I am now doing England and Wales and Scotland as separate forecasts (and combining them after the forecasts)

Conservatives 268 (leading in 15)
Labour 243 (leading in 18)
Liberal Democrats 35 (leading in 3)
Scottish National Party 40 (leading in 4)
Plaid Cymru 3 (leading in 0)
Green Party 1 (leading in 0)
Others 20 (leading in 0)



Coalition Builder
Con + Lib Dem = 321 (with DUP / UUP supply and confidence) = 330

The Lib Dems would bite your hand off to get those 35 seats!

[ChrisDR68]

Just watching Election Tonight on BBC Parliament.

The presenter talked about how reliable the opinion polls have been over the last 5 general elections. The one common theme in all of them is that the Conservative vote has been underestimated in all of them (and in 1992 by a large amount).

Could be the shy Tory voter effect or a late swing over the last couple of days before polling day as undecided voters finally make up their mind.

So keeping this in mind expect the Tory vote to be a couple of points higher on election day than the final opinion polls end up showing.

[ChrisDR68]

Peter Kellner's latest prediction: https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/04/26/tories-pay-price-inept-campaign/

Not sure I agree that there was a last minute shift in 1970, 1974, 1992 and 2010. It could well have simply been a matter of the polls being wrong in all four instances; even the exit polls in 1992 showed a deadlock.

I well remember Peter Snow getting all excited about the BBC's exit poll in 1997 at the start of their election night broadcast.

It had Labour on 47%, the Tories on 29% and the LibDems on 17%.

So even their exit poll that year had Labour too high by 3.5% and the Tories too low by 2%.

[ChrisDR68]

No, he will be eaten alive.  His heart doesn't seem in it for more, he'd probably be best to get a plum position in the House of Lords quickly before Miliband and Sturgeon set fire to it

I think May is a more likely leader than My Dear Mayor myself.

Teresa May looks worried sick all the time. If Cameron goes if he's no longer PM after this election I'd like Boris as Tory leader. For entertainment value if for nothing else after watching him joust with Ed Miliband on the Andrew Marr Show on Sunday!

[ChrisDR68]

Certainly, every polling company is now showing a further move towards the SNP since early April. I am still, to put it mildly, shocked at the level of support the polls are showing for the SNP and the fact that Labour are registering sub 30.

I doubt these sorts of numbers will happen on election day.

One opinion poll stuck in my mind while I was watching Liverpool FC's treble winning tour of the city in 2001. It had Labour on 54% and the Conservatives on 26%.

That parade took place on May 20th and the general election happened on June 7th - a gap of 18 days.

In the end Labour finished 13% less and the Tories 6% more than that poll. Doesn't prove anything obviously but it taught me to be very sceptical of very large leads for a particular party over another.

[ChrisDR68]

Interesting graphic on the Electoral Calculus website about how voting intentions have shifted since the 2010 general election.

Each figure represents 1% of the electorate.

One thing it doesn't seem to show is any migration from the Conservatives to Labour!

[ChrisDR68]

87% Liberal Democrats
86% Labour
85% UK Independence Party
73% Green
67% Conservatives

So the party I've already voted for (by postal vote) comes out on top (just)

My political beliefs constituency is Liverpool Riverside (which is where I used to work until 5 years ago funnily enough) and according to this quiz I'm a centrist on the ideological scale.