UK Opinion Polls Thread

[Leftbehind]

Don't worry, Scotland will leave and Wales and the North will become unpopulated wastelands.

[You kip if you want to...]

This is getting silly now, Tories take a 5 point lead with YouGov.
41, 36, 9

Does anyone, inside or outside the party, still support Ed? He needs to go.

[State Comptroller Atkins]

This is getting silly now, Tories take a 5 point lead with YouGov.
41, 36, 9

Does anyone, inside or outside the party, still support Ed? He needs to go.

IIRC, the Tories were actually slightly ahead of Labour just before they got rid of IDS. Of course, it was around the time of the "WMD? What WMD?" saga, but even so.

[Sibboleth]

Does anyone, inside or outside the party, still support Ed? He needs to go.

I think that most people in the Labour Party understand that while Ed Miliband is not ideal, the brutal factional infighting that would be necessary to force him out would be immensely damaging. It was that, after all, that knocked us out in the 1950s and 1980s. It's difficult to win an election if you spend all of your time kicking the sh!t out of fellow comrades.

Not only that, but it isn't as though there's an obvious alternative (certainly there's no one who could orchestrate the process and emerge unsoiled at the end), so it isn't as though there would really be any point in trying. Not only that, but it isn't as though a plausible pretext exists; Miliband is scandal free, for one thing (which is also why this is a matter of a forced exit. He doesn't seem to be the resigning type). And then while the Party's poll ratings aren't brilliant, they're basically alright (remember that even the worse polls, such as the one you're highlighting, show a significant increase in support from the last election). Moreover, its electoral performance under his leadership has been pretty good - particularly given the fact that he can hardly be blamed for the principle exception to that.

Opposition sucks, of course. And it would probably suck a little less if the leadership spoke with a stronger voice (and I mean that collectively; the ShadCab need to be perhaps a little louder), and if that stronger voice used clear language. One thing that can be absolutely assured to make it worse, though, would be another televised civil war.

[You kip if you want to...]

http://electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html

Electoral Calculus have changed their UNS calculator to include the new boundaries.

[YL]

http://electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html

Electoral Calculus have changed their UNS calculator to include the new boundaries.

You might enjoy what happens to Sheffield West & Penistone.

[Leftbehind]

As we're spoilt for choice recently I thought I'd dig this up.

So, firstly, polling in Lib Dem seats and closely fought targets done by Yougov;

Firstly, vote share in 2010: Lib 41%, Con 32%, Lab 19%
Vote share now: Lab 34% (+15%), Con 29% (-3%), Lib 15% (-26%)
Vote share when those polled above are reminded to think about their own constituency and incumbent (measuring tactical voting): Lab 31% (+12%), Con 28% (-4%), Lib 24% (-17%)

Mayoral vote by Yougov:
Boris 45% (-4%), Ken 40% (-1%), Paddick 7% (+2%), Other 8% (+4%)
Also an Assembly VI done in the same poll;
Constituency: Lab 44%, Con 35%, Lib 11%, Oth 10%
List: Lab 46%, Con 35%, Lib 9%, UKIP 5%, Grn 3%, BNP 1%

Finally, tonight's polls:
Yougov: Lab 43% (+4%), Con 32% (-1%), Lib 8% (-2%), Oth (including UKIP 9%(!!!)) 17% (n/c)
Populus: Lab 42% (+4%), Con 33% (-1%), Lib 11% (n/c), Oth 14% (-2%)
TNSBMRB: Lab 42% (+4%), Con 32% (-3%), Lib 10% (-1%), Oth 16% (n/c)

A mirage of consistency, there.

[You kip if you want to...]

As we're spoilt for choice recently I thought I'd dig this up.

So, firstly, polling in Lib Dem seats and closely fought targets done by Yougov;

Firstly, vote share in 2010: Lib 41%, Con 32%, Lab 19%
Vote share now: Lab 34% (+15%), Con 29% (-3%), Lib 15% (-26%)
Vote share when those polled above are reminded to think about their own constituency and incumbent (measuring tactical voting): Lab 31% (+12%), Con 28% (-4%), Lib 24% (-17%)

Mayoral vote by Yougov:
Boris 45% (-4%), Ken 40% (-1%), Paddick 7% (+2%), Other 8% (+4%)
Also an Assembly VI done in the same poll;
Constituency: Lab 44%, Con 35%, Lib 11%, Oth 10%
List: Lab 46%, Con 35%, Lib 9%, UKIP 5%, Grn 3%, BNP 1%

Finally, tonight's polls:
Yougov: Lab 43% (+4%), Con 32% (-1%), Lib 8% (-2%), Oth (including UKIP 9%(!!!)) 17% (n/c)
Populus: Lab 42% (+4%), Con 33% (-1%), Lib 11% (n/c), Oth 14% (-2%)
TNSBMRB: Lab 42% (+4%), Con 32% (-3%), Lib 10% (-1%), Oth 16% (n/c)

A mirage of consistency, there.

I don't know what's the funniest part of that. UKIP in 3rd? The fact that the LibDems would still be down to 7 seats even with the "own constituency" question? The Tory's rock hard support base of 36% ebbing away to Hague/Howard levels? Ken being such a crap candidate that he's trailing the party by a (quite frankly) stupid amount against an idiot like Boris?

If the Locals reflect the polls (they won't), gains'll be getting to a stupidly high number.

[crypto-fascist superhero]

2 questions:

How likely is Clegg to lose his own seat (Sheffield Hallam) with the current numbers?

Is the UKIP surge temporary (anger over the budget) or lasting?

[You kip if you want to...]

2 questions:

How likely is Clegg to lose his own seat (Sheffield Hallam) with the current numbers?

Is the UKIP surge temporary (anger over the budget) or lasting?

The UKIP surge's being driven by various things: them being the only protest party with the Libs being in government (and loathed), Cameron not being anti-Europe as many Tories'd love him to be, the crisis in Europe, all 3 leaders collectively being the most hated trio (apparently) since polls began. It's definitely a very flakey mound of support, they collapsed back to 3-4% after Cameron's veto in December.

As Hallam exists now, Clegg'd just hold on (probably), but it'd be hard to tell how much the 2010-Cleggasm has receeded there (meaning, it could be worse or not as bad as the rest of the nation). The problem for Clegg with Sheffield though is that it's a mix of the exact group who've swung against the Liberals the hardest - students (there's two massive universities within a 5 minute drive of eachother). Come 2015, there'll be no student in Sheffield who hasn't seen that photo.

And if the new boundaries go through Sheffield West & Penistone, as it'd become, would be much less friendly to Nick Clegg.

[Sibboleth]

The only surprise about the obvious story is that it's taken so long, perhaps.

[You kip if you want to...]

If UKIP are tying or ahead of the Libs in 2015, I wonder if Farage'll be in the debates...

[Leftbehind]

I don't know what's the funniest part of that. UKIP in 3rd? The fact that the LibDems would still be down to 7 seats even with the "own constituency" question? The Tory's rock hard support base of 36% ebbing away to Hague/Howard levels? Ken being such a crap candidate that he's trailing the party by a (quite frankly) stupid amount against an idiot like Boris?

If the Locals reflect the polls (they won't), gains'll be getting to a stupidly high number.

I think that's a bit unfair to Ken, I'm of the opinion there aren't many Labour characters who could win against the 'lovable buffoon' that is Boris. He's easily more popular than his party, and also attracts goodwill from even the anti-Tory section. The only thing to be changed in hindsight for me is Ken's tax affairs.

[Leftbehind]

2 questions:

How likely is Clegg to lose his own seat (Sheffield Hallam) with the current numbers?

Is the UKIP surge temporary (anger over the budget) or lasting?

 a) slim. Pre-tuition fees (October 2010 to be exact - which will be looked on retrospectively as within the honeymoon period), Ashcroft comissioned a poll in Sheffield Hallam, and even then, the published VI was:
Lib 33% (-20%), Lab 31% (+15%), Con 28% (+5%), Oth 8% (n/c). I think it's safe to say - and Clegg's quoted as one of the casualties of the new Lib Dem poll's implied 50 seat losses - that the Liberals have lost further ground since then.

b) difficult to say at the moment. It's mainly derived from disaffected Tories and overwhelmingly elderly Britons. Many of these get their news from papers that wouldn't be satisfied with Pinochet, so I do think there's a more permanent groundswell for right-of-Tories, but given it's more or less immediately after a budget in which said elderly Tory voters suffered, it does have the appearance of a protest spike.

[You kip if you want to...]

No matter who wins, 2015 will be a realignment due to the collapse of the Liberals. On election night, when Dimbleby goes on about "there might be very different patterns of voting around different parts of the country", he'll actually mean it in a noticable sense this time.

There'll be some bizarre swings and bizarre seats changing hands I imagine, certainly in Scotland where they certainly gave Gordon Brown a favourite son vote in 2010 and the SNP (rather than Labour) have been scooping up the former Liberal voters ever since.

[Leftbehind]

The re-emergence of the swingometer actually being relevant?



excepting Scotland, of course.

[YL]

As Hallam exists now, Clegg'd just hold on (probably), but it'd be hard to tell how much the 2010-Cleggasm has receeded there (meaning, it could be worse or not as bad as the rest of the nation). The problem for Clegg with Sheffield though is that it's a mix of the exact group who've swung against the Liberals the hardest - students (there's two massive universities within a 5 minute drive of eachother). Come 2015, there'll be no student in Sheffield who hasn't seen that photo.

And if the new boundaries go through Sheffield West & Penistone, as it'd become, would be much less friendly to Nick Clegg.

I think you're basically right: as things stand Clegg would just hold on in the seat as it is now but would probably lose (to Labour, who are helped by the removal of Dore) on the provisional new boundaries.  (The seat which Dore goes to, basically a heavily redrawn Sheffield Heeley, might be quite interesting too: it's notionally Lib Dem with a smaller majority than West & Penistone, but the Lib Dem vote held up better in parts of Heeley last year than it did in Hallam.  I presume Clegg would stay with the bulk of his old seat though.)   But 2015 is a long way off, and if there's an election before then the events leading to it might affect his chances...

(Plus there's a small chance that we might get more sensible boundaries, in which case the calculations would of course be different.)

[Leftbehind]

Finally, tonight's polls:
Yougov: Lab 43% (+4%), Con 32% (-1%), Lib 8% (-2%), Oth (including UKIP 9%(!!!)) 17% (n/c)
Populus: Lab 42% (+4%), Con 33% (-1%), Lib 11% (n/c), Oth 14% (-2%)
TNSBMRB: Lab 42% (+4%), Con 32% (-3%), Lib 10% (-1%), Oth 16% (n/c)

A mirage of consistency, there.

Angus Reid: Lab 41%(+1%), Con 29%(-3%), Lib 11%(+1%), Oth (including UKIP 8%) 19% (+2%)
Opinium: Lab 37% (-2%), Con 32% (-2%), Lib 9% (+1%), Oth (including UKIP 10%) 22% (+3%)

It doesn't look like the TNS BMRB tables are up yet, but Populus only have UKIP at 4% in last night's. So there we have it - the mirage of consistency's vanished.

[State Comptroller Atkins]

Angus Reid seems to have a disliking for whoever the (main) governing party is.

[You kip if you want to...]

Angus Reid seems to have a disliking for whoever the (main) governing party is.

Nothing funnier than Mike Smithson at PB.com taking them as gospel before the last election. Egg on face.

The thought of Dave leading his party to sub-Major/Hague levels of support is nice though.

[You kip if you want to...]

UKIP still in 3rd 41-32-9-8
http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/9vd7805h01/YG-Archives-Pol-Sun-results-170412.pdf

[You kip if you want to...]

Ed narrows the PPM gap:
http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/so7z2ce31t/YG-Archives-Pol-Sun-results-180412.pdf

31 (+1)
22 (+3)
5 (nc)
undecided - 42 (-4)

[crypto-fascist superhero]

Shouldn't they put Farage in that poll now?

[You kip if you want to...]

Shouldn't they put Farage in that poll now?

One would think, but it'd mess up comparisons with past polls.

[Leftbehind]

Interested to see that despite these leads, in the preferred government question Labour's actually lost ground since the poll taken before on the first week of April - which you wouldn't expect.