Talk Elections

Hope this is in the correct place, if not feel free to move it.

What does everyone about the lastest YouGov poll. Essentially, I'm projecting a Conservative majority of 30 based on putting the latest polls through Samplemiser (see link for detailed figures). Labour's economic team still have a positive rating for economic competance, which indicates that the damage from the Inland Revenue scandal is only a flesh wound.

http://thepoliticaltipster.wordpress.com/2007/11/23/filtered-polling-data-conservative-majority-of-30/

I'm happy with it to remain here (hopefully Peter agrees) Al is not a big fan of having these things in the International Elections board but I think a 'rolling thread' with discussion should be established.

Put them here by all means, but I'll still be reviewing UK polls on my thread on a weekly basis

Dave

A rolling thread is certainly preferable to a new thread for every poll. And yes, here's better than over at elections.

ComRes

CON 40
LAB 27
LIB 18

Which leaves 15 for others. Which, ahem, stretches credibility somewhat. Almost as the fact that it was done by a polling company with such a dreadful track-record and with so little credibility that they had to change their name a while back.
 
While we're talking bilge polls, various useless polls were published on Sunday and can be found here: http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/1075 (who the hell are "BPIX"?). Other than to sell papers, I don't get the point in all the dodgy polls by dodgy firms seen over the past week. It isn't as though we'll learn anything.

They are all hairs on the same brush. You can't really escape that even if you treat every pollster as 'dodgy' (the only one that is is BPIX which isn't a member of the council) Even polls comissioned by parties really can't pull numbers out of their own ass as they have to abide by certain rules. What % lead the Tories have is meaningless but it is now outwith the margin of error. They lead Labour by a comfortable (but only just majority enducing) margin comparable with what we were seeing before April and Labours 'I'm off' post-Blair period.

The main difference between then and now is that the Tories may have led the polls but the internals on trust, economy etc still weighed in Labours favour. That has been overturned.

People on both sides were blinded by the need for a 'Black Wednesday' moment. We've not had one, we don't need one or should expect one. It wasn't needed to throw out the Liberals after a decade of strong economic growth. At present it's looking like a slow 'death by a thousand tiny cuts' for the current government.

I'm not complaining that polls are showing the Tories leading (they would certainly win the popular vote if an election was held today; denying that would be nothing short of delusional).

I just don't like rubbish polls that tell us nothing interest/nothing likely to accurate (except by chance) and that seem to be churned out in a vain hope of bolstering flagging newspaper sales. A poll that, for example, shows "others" on 15% is clearly not credible, even if it is correct in showing the Tories ahead.

High 'others' in opinion polls often occurs immediately after a 'big' event before the polls settle again and they shrink back to below 10%. It's very much part of the 'ouch' factor when many loyalists become disenfranchised with the party for a short period of time. I'd be worried if we weren't seeing it after the week Labour has had (and as a result in the next round of polls we may see a 'deadcat bounce' for Labour as they correct themselves) If there is high SNP support on Scotland that could count for 3 or 4% of the others.

I don't doubt the Tories are ahead but I'd need to see more polls from other pollsters to back up whether a 13% Conservative lead is for 'real'. Apparently, the Conservatives lead Labour among every demographic apart from 18-24s and Scotland and on that I'm sceptical

Dave

Which is precisely why it's so bloody stupid to commision so many polls at the moment! (other than for the purposes of selling newspapers. Or trying to sell them).

O/c Comres (sounds like a disease of the foot) almost always shows a weirdly high "others" vote and the internals are often "strange" even by the stands of poll internals (which... certainly isn't a good sign).
You don't have to reject all polling firms to declare one to be worthless. I believe that Comres is worthless and I believe that this is shown by a quick check of the, frequently way out of line, numbers that it's been pumping out for the last two years or so.

No problem with accepting that the Tories are ahead. No problem accepting that a sizeable chunk of the Labour vote might currently be pretending that they won't vote out of protest. Big problem with accepting any value in the rubbish pumped out by certain polling companies.

---
Does this post read like one written by someone in a bad mood? If it does; apologies. I am in a bad mood, though its nothing to do with this sort of thing. Basically I'm not well at the moment, am tired and can't sleep and have overworked myself today. And my computer is playing up, because it always does that when I'm tired and irritable. Apologies if I accidentally snap at anyone.

I might have my own misgivings about these polls but I'm going to project a Conservative majority after putting this (and other polls) through the filtering program Samplemiser.

http://thepoliticaltipster.wordpress.com/2007/11/27/filtered-polling-data-conservative-majority-of-54/

Based on the ComRes poll (for fun) and the probabilistic forecast we would see the following

CON 347
LAB 229
LIB 44

()

Could someone tell me the purpose of the Lib Dems?  I just don't see it.

New YG poll. Filtering it through SM produces a Conservative majority of 100 (92 with UNS).
Even a Labour hack like myself is getting a bit pessimistic and I've sold off all my Labour contracts until they fall a bit lower.

http://thepoliticaltipster.wordpress.com/2007/12/16/filtered-polling-data-conservative-majority-100/

It's more a feeling of becoming depressed unutterably rather than pessimistic

Dave

Good lord! I had no idea :) I've not been checking the polls. Goody goody. I'll punch in another map to celebrate :)

Comedy.

The moment the Lib Dems work out what they are for then they will dissapear in a puff of smoke due to some paradox.

If Hague or Howard was still Tory leader, that map would give me nightmares. But since Cameron is okay with me, its all cool. Labour can't win indefinetely.

You show the Lib Dems going from 62 seats to 44. I understand why their vote would decline (Iraq fueled their 2005 gains) but I can't see large numbers of people switching from Lib Dem to the Tories, the ideologies are too different. Or do Lib Dems hate Labour more than the Tories?

In rural and suburban England, do the Tories overperform because Labour and the Lib Dems split the left wing vote? All that blue reminds me of a generic Kansas or Nebraska county map.

Is that green thing in Brighton a Green gain?

Traditionally very few (relatively speaking...) people switch their vote directly from Labour to the Tories or vice versa. A vote for the Centre Party (whether it calls itself Liberal, Alliance or LibDem) is often a stepping-stone for a switch between the two big parties. Tory victories are usually accompanied by a drop in Centre support (see 1951, 1970 and 1979). Other movements (in real elections) are usually the result of shifts in turnout patterns. Usually; you do get an election like 1997 every few decades or so.

Never forget that the party system in Britain is founded upon the fault line(s) of Class.


There is nowhere in England like Kansas or Nebraska.

I know, but that unbroken expanse of blue does look the same, even though the parties and voters are completely different.

Besides, members of the BNP are closer to NE and KS voters than most tories.

OK, does anyone actually think that these early 40's numbers are going to hold for the tories?

I put in a prediction of 39% 33% 18% - and it was a CON majority of 30.

Yes; that would be Brighton, Pavilion, where the Greens came third (ahead of the Lib Dems and just a hair behind the Conservatives) with 22% of the vote in 2005. Their candidate isn't running again, but one of their MEPs is, and it is certainly the Greens' best chance at a seat, so they'll be pouring all of their resources in.

There's been talk that the Lib Dems will tacitly endorse Caroline Lucas, the Green candidate (possibly using the argument that proportionally the Greens should have seats), and the Conservatives really can't advance beyond 25% there so tactical anti-Tory voting will be minimal.

It's worth noting that this was once a very safe Conservative seat. Their vote share has declined there in every election since 1979, though they didn't lose it until 1997. The Brighton & Hove Council is NOC with the Greens holding the balance; the Liberal Democrats are somewhat discredited in Brighton because of some scandal when they were in power back in the '90s; they're the smallest of the four parties on the Council. The Conservatives and Labour are stronger in the Hove and Brighton, Kemptown seats, though, while the Greens are heavily concentrated in Brighton, Pavilion.

Brighton and Hove Council
Conservative: 26
Labour: 13
Green: 12
Liberal Democrats: 2
Independent: 1

If Labour somehow won the next election, would they still lose Brighton to the Greenies?

Could easily do in pre-election polling but, as I've said before, I don't think that matters a great deal. As to whether they'll be up there during an election campaign... I don't know and neither does anyone else. Too much is uncertain.


It is possible that Labour could hold Brighton Pavilion even if it loses the next election. It's also possible that Labour could win the next election and lose Brighton Pavilion.

All I can say is that if Labour can get a majority of 66 on a 36% share, the Tories can hold a majority with less than 40%. Chuck the swingometer in the bin. Why?

I have a feeling British politics is about to 'reset' itself back to before the rise of the Lib Dems, the Labour victory, the Tories landslides and even the SDP. If you look at the maps of elections from the 50's to the 70's there is remarkable stability in the seats won by each of the parties, and in the areas both geographic and demographic. While much of this is still apparent I have a feeling older voting habits will re-establish themselves. It won't mean the Tories winning seats in Liverpool but I think we will see huge swings in some seats and minute ones in others that will see some changes in fortune

It has happened to an extent in isolated seats already; the Tory gains in Putney and Weston Super Mare in 2005 for example. Cameron and Brown (and probably Clegg too) will win over different voters than they have done in the recent past. Any 'revert to type' voting would hurt Labour more than the figures would at first suggest. It is far easier for the Conservatives to win an outright majority on a small national swing than it appears.

YouGov have rolled out another one. No 'ups or downs' on this one as i'm not sure what sample size has been used for comparison

CON 43
LAB 31
LIB 16

The main focus of the poll is on Mr Brown now holding a 'dissatisfaction' rating of 60%. It was 27% in July and 48% in October.

Polls this late in the year? Normal people aren't thinking about politics right now, dearies. Wait until the New Year.

Just hope that none will be published next week; the numbers would be close to meaningless.


He's not been seen to be doing anything while things that, while not exactly serious, are not good, have been going on, so that's no surprise. On a more general point, I worry that he's gone down the Wilson road and assumed that people like and will reward an appeal to managerialism. Would be nice to assume that events of the past few months might change that, but...

I know :(. Much as I enjoy chewing over them, it's pretty well off conducting and releasing them this close to Christmas. Surprising as it may seem, even I like to switch off once ;) a year

Dave

And if the polls in the New Year are still bad, will we be recommended to wait until the spring? ;)

I think we can throw some caution to the wind Al. These polls are not 'worthless' because they do show a great deal of consistency. The Conservatives are holding leads of 10+% reaching 20 year highs. These polls have came in the two weeks after the supposed Brown policy 'relaunch.' What must worry Mr Brown is that if one more fiasco rocks the government (watch this space with the foreign prisoners memo) Labour could dip below 30% and struggle to pull back up. This shouldn't be happening; Brown was supposed to boost a rather tired government. Although, as PB.com have mentioned, the current poll ratings are following a similar pattern to the responses to the hypothetical Brown v Cameron matchup before the succession. While it would be foolish for any moves to be made against him, the possibility of an 'agreement' that he will not lead the party at the next election remains high. It may not swing the election in Labours favour should current trends continue but it could soften the blow and allow the party some post-election breathing space.

What Cameron did in his first two years was 'decontaminate' the Conservative brand. What he did after the summer low was decontaminate himself to such an extent that personal attacks (and 'class' bashing) on Mr Cameron have all but ceased. Even the Daily Mirror have stopped raking through his outside bin :)

It was noted on PB.com that Camerons own approval, as well as his partys, tended to rise when Cameron was in the media spotlight. Since the conference he has taken a fairly low profile, only really appearing at PMQ's (hence the style of debate to be found there) The cardinal rule when a government is in crisis is not to pop up too often to tell the public what they can already see for themselves.

I wasn't trying to make a partisan point; I just don't see the point in doing polls at a time of the year in which ordinary people are paying even less attention to politics than usual.


All polls outside election time are worthless (almost by definition). If they are consistent then they are less worthless than normal. Polls done around Christmas or so are even more worthless than normal. And so on and so forth.

A slight exaggeration there, but I think that's a reasonable way of looking at things. Btw, I'm not "expecting" polling figures to improve next year; predicting polls really is a waste of time.

I'd disagree there; polls during election time can magnify short term issues in the news and ignore long term trends. If taken to excess, as they were in 1992 they can blow up in the polsters face (In 2005 they were more frequent and, were roundly successful with the exception of the BES and Populus ones IIRC) I don't see polls as worthless and I think they are a better gauge of public opinion than holding a general 'feeling.' If I was to revert to that I'd probably say if the public were paying close attention to politics at this time of year, 32% would be pretty generous! In
fact the only time of the year the public do regularly pay close attention to politics, is during conference season when polls are most likely to be guff.

Message see what Australian Labor did.

* They neutralised perceived weaknesses, by agreeing with Government policy on popular issues

* They highlighted their differences on issues that people don't like.

...and it worked like a dream.

The "it's time" factor is hovering in the UK too, Brown may be different to Blair, but he was by his side the whole time. So he's never going to be free of the connection.

I would agree with that. The Conservatives have not opposed for oppositions sake on many issues under Cameron (and likewise with Howard). I also think that the electorate are tiring of the government. It's not to be unexpected after 10 and what will be at least 12 years by the next election. The economy is not looking rosy, but keeping it chugging along is simply expected these days. There hasn't been a European wide recession for over 15 years. In Australia the economy was sluggish but ticking over yet the Coalition lost. The message to those who bleat on about the economy is simple;

If people elected a government solely on who manage a growing economy, or encouraged economic growth then Howard and the Coalition would have been re-elected and Major and the Tories would have been re-elected in 1997

If people are sick of the government everything the government does right doesn't matter and everything it doesn't do right is magnified. Our government is heading that way. Only in retrospect will we know if it has in fact already reached that point.

Polls never have anything to do with long term trends; only General Elections do and some of those should probably be ignored as flukes.


Yes, but that isn't the point. Polls taken during an election (by which I'm including the weeks leading up the official kickoff of the campaign) have a purpose and can be judged in an objective way after the election. Not true of other polls; they measure hypotheticals and not a lot else.


Worthless is, I'll admit, an exaggeration. Except when polls are done around Christmas, in the middle of the Summer and so on. There was a local by-election last night with a turnout of 14%.


True. But I'm not sure that that says much.


Touché (though I'm not entirely sure about that; if more people paid attention to politics it's likely that the nature of political journalism and the like would be different in some way. But now I'm playing with hypotheticals and should stop before it's too late :))


Ah, but hast thee considered why conference polls are so useless?

Quite a lot of them, actually ... but of course that way of looking at it has little to recommend itself to professional politicians whose jobs are on the line ... or even to anyone whose future may depend on the next election's outcome.

Such people (the first group anyway...) generally aren't too interested in long term trends so that's nothing to worry about ;D

ICM out with

CON 39
LAB 34
LIB 18

Compared with the last Guardian ICM poll, the Tories are up 2, Labour up 3 and the Lib Dems down 1. However there was also a NofTW poll by ICM after that.

ICM seems to be having fun with some internals.

It's Labour 40, Conservative 38% in the 'North' with the Tories up 12 pts and Labour down 7 pts since August

In 'Midlands and East', The Tories lead 48 to 32. In the 'South' they lead by 53 to 23. Labour lead in London with 39 to 38

For Scotland and Wales all the Guardian has said is that the Tories are up 3 pts since August with the SBP leading in Scotland by 39 to 36

Only in Scotland and Wales has the Tory revival faltered: the party is up just three points since the summer. But Labour is also in trouble in Scotland, trailing the SNP by three points, 39% to 36%.

I take back all that stuff I said about end-of-year-polls being bunk.

Actually... I don't.

Will say something of interest (to me...) on regional breakdown lols (a general comment not specific to this poll) and the reason for it when I'm next online. Apparently I've nothing better to do.

ComRes completes the polling picture for December

CON 41 (up 1)
LAB 30 (up 3)
LIB 16 (down 2)

They released a poll on Christmas Eve?!?!!?

Civilisation is dead.

Fieldwork was before then, but they should be the last to report. Bear in mind for some consistency polling companies that release one a month don't hold back just because it's Christmas. Polling mid-month is just to messy for them it seems :/

Fieldwork was completed on 16 December, in effect three days before that of the latest ICM and YouGov, so, as far as I'm concerned, it should have been released Saturday, at the latest.

Releasing a poll on Christmas Eve is pretty well off :(

Dave

New British projections (with Rolling Averages and Polls-of-polls as reference points)

http://thepoliticaltipster.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/british-polling-projections-conservative-majority-of-4/

Very small Conservative majority.

New British projections - hung parliament with Labour as the largest party.

http://thepoliticaltipster.wordpress.com/2008/02/20/british-polling-projections-hung-parliament/

My final Samplemiser prediction for the first preferences FWIW is that Boris Johnson will (unfortunatly) win by 8.15 (though I don’t know about the second preferences).

http://thepoliticaltipster.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/final-prediction-johnson-leads-by-815/

YouGov show a 26 point Conservative lead

CON 49%: LAB 23%: LD 17%

When's the last time a poll showed a lead bigger than the 2nd place party's support?

Seems more-than-a-little implausible (and I don't buy it), except as confirmation that the government isn't exactly in a good shape right now... which is obviously true.

Fwiw another polling firm had something like 40, 29, 20 the other day (don't recall the exact figures, can't be bothered to check). Which is probably, more or less, what a General Election held today would look like if me readings of the local results is right.
I do hope we don't get another silly rush of rushed-polls in sunday papers... though I suspect that we will, just to piss me off.

I'm wondering if YouGov were smoking something in that poll ;).

The Man From G.O.P.- I'd say the 1983 period, but it's a guess.

The answer is the early years of the Blair premiership. Except that that isn't the answer really; the methods YouGov use are totally different from those used by other firms *today* let alone a decade ago.

The answer is that there is no answer as there's nothing we can compare to.

Oh it's definately an indication and that's it; it's similar to the crazy polls of the '94-'97 period. However, if it is history repeating itself then it tells us two things. Including 'swing back' to Labour the Tories are heading towards government. Secondly, they may be heading towards a landslide. Which gives us two years, at the most of a lumbering and flaking government. If 10+ point leads for the Tories continue if I were Labour I'd dump Brown in the autumn; there's nothing to be lost or gained in keeping him.

What makes today different from 1995 is that we are in an economic slowdown, not a boom. The upswing in the economy post 1993 was one of the strongest the UK had experienced since the war and the Tories had 4 years of it but they still lost big. Secondly, post-devolution Labour have lost power in Scotland and now London. If the SNP honeymoon lasts, or 'anyone but Labour' syndrome kicks in, Labour could suffer a significant blow in Scotland. The SNP ideally say they want to win 20 seats at Westminster which is not as fantastic an idea as it sounds.

Late 1981 to early 1982, when the Alliance was over 50% in the polls, maybe, although some of the polls in 1995 might have had Labour that far ahead.

Labour last had a 26% lead in April 1997. The Labour showing; 23% is the lowest since late 1981. It is the Tories highest lead since 1968

Note that polls back then (and until quite recently) weren't weighted for turnout and so on, unlike now. No need to spell out the implication of that.

Agree with most of that (you can probably work out which bits I don't :)). Btw, I actually think a General Election next year is more likely than most people are assuming. If economic indicators, poll numbers and the like are at least moving in the right direction than the pressure to go for it would be immense and probably overpowering. But that's a long way off now (and yet isn't...). What it certainly is is idle speculation.


I would not be happy if he were forced out as PM. I wouldn't mind if he chose (or "chose") not to be the Prime Minister candidate; there are some sorts of politics he's good at, elections don't seem to be one of them.

Personal opinion, nowt else.

Let's see how far we've come since I last asked this....



How long till Brown is gone?

I think Labour will stick with him until the election; they don't really have any good replacements, and few will want to put their careers on the line.

No one knows for sure, not even him (unless he's a very strange surprise planned). A more interesting question would be how much it matters, really.

Anyway, he's not going to go because of a poll that look a little odd and has been published in the Sun, we can be sure of that.

*awakes next morning to discover that the opposite is in fact the case*

I would like Brown to stay, simply because at the moment he is the Tories best electoral asset, more so than David Cameron.

Yes, I think other candidates sense that Labour will probably lose the next election anyway. The party leader who loses the election will have to stand down. On the other hand Labour doing this bad seems to be more out of dissatisfaction with Labour. Brown did do rather wel in the polls for a while last year. So, if there is a new party leader/PM who knows what might happen

I've given up commenting on UK polls, I'm depressed enough

Dave

Take it or leave it but YouGov report Labour on 23% which is apparently the lowest rating the party has had in the history of opinion polling. Question is...can they go lower?

You mean other than the one by the same company three weeks ago with the same number?

In any case, apples and oranges. Under the old ways of doing opinion polls it would have been quite literally impossible for a poll to come up with a Labour figure that low, newer methods mean that it is possible with the methods of some polling companies. If that makes sense.


Well this is a post by-election poll (and they're always dodgy) so maybe not. But of course the current whining about petrol and house prices could cause all sorts of odd things to show up and the Silly Season is almost on us now so, who knows. Such numbers, if they happen, won't be "real" (in the same sense that this one isn't) except insofar as they would be (and this one is) an indication that the government is somewhat-less-than-popular.

Numbers like these for the Tories in '95 weren't real of course. But it did indicate they were going to get humped. We only know that 30% was the low water mark for the Tories after the landslide election. Some have presumed Labour is somewhere between 26-30%, but we've never had a Labour government for this long before. So again, we won't know until after the votes are counted (presuming they do get humped)

The only saving grace for Labour is the performance of the Lib Dems. A more capable leader and firms like YouGov (who poll Lib Dems on the low side) could have showed Labour in 3rd.

That's true, but then that isn't really saying a great deal; there was no chance that the Tory number in an actual General Election on that sort of turnout would be any lower than that. Easier to say with hindsight than at the time, perhaps, but still true.

What I'll note here is the stability of local election results over the course of the present Parliament; true there was a noticable swing to the Tories this year compared to 2006 and 2007 but it wasn't massive or in any way dramatic (now some of the results it produced were a little dramatic, but that's because in the world of low turnouts in local politics if you lose a few hundred votes in every ward you can easily end up losing most of your seats. It doesn't take much actual movement to produce huge changes in local elections) and the general voting patterns broadly fit those of 2006 and 2007. And yet over this period there have been huge swings in the opinion polls, almost every few months or so. The polls show an incredibly volatile electorate, something which does not fit in at all with the relative stability of local elections. I've come to the conclusion that most of the movement in polls over the past few years has not been "real" and would not have been reflected, much, in a hypothetical General Election held at just about any point over the course of the Parliament.

So just out of interest, where do you believe things stand at the moment? Level pegging with 2005? I don't quite understand what you mean when you say the movement in polls over the past few years have not been 'real', particularly when we have had results that broadly reflect such poll movements. Polls for both London and Scotland never quite hit the mark (and that goes without saying, considering the methodology), but they did  reflect the trend that produced results that roughly matched the direction of the polls (i.e an SNP and Boris win from Labour) I would certainly think that much can be gauged by the trends in poll movements as opposed to the raw figures. Raw %'s can be thrown to the wind, but there has certainly been noticeable trends that the polls have picked up.

Tories likely to win, at least, a stable majority. I suspect that little now can change that.


God, no. No, no, no, no, no, no.


I don't mean that there has been no "real" movement. I just mean that the huge movements (the "s" is important!) that have occured all the time in polls over the past few years have, for the most part, not been "real". The polls have shown an extremely volatile electorate, capable of swinging in all kinds of directions, while local elections (and to an extent also local by-elections) over the past three years have been curiously stable. Swings have happend, yes (the consistency of the *pattern* of the Tory swing this year is very interesting) but nothing dramatic that can't be pinned on local factors of one sort or another.

Not sure how clear that is; will elaborate more if it's not clear. Actually, I'll dig up a few examples.


Of course. But *what* are the trends that they show; do they say more about party motivation than how people would actually vote [qm]. Their volatility, in contrast to actual elections, is the thing that makes such a question legitimate.

Some Coventry wards...

Westwood (suburban area, fairly typical in most respects if a little more working class than average, includes part of Warwick Uni)

2006: Con 1566, Lab 1374, BNP 473, LDem 383, Ind 120
2007: Con 1426, Lab 1326, BNP 456, LDem 374, Ind 161
2008: Con 1713, Lab 1389, BNP 425, LDem 277, Green 165

Holbrook (almost the very stereotype of a blue collar inner suburb, pity about the lack of a LibDem candidate in 2008)

2006: Lab 1673, Con 833, LDem 481, BNP 451
2007: Lab 1658, Con 871, LDem 544, BNP 469
2008: Lab 1821, Con 1077, BNP 509

Earlsdon (middle class (esp. professionals) urban area)

2006: Con 2520, Lab 1073, Green 805, LDem 670
2007: Con 2364, Lab 1241, Green 652, LDem 427, BNP 189
2008: Con 2515, Lab 1155, Green 698, LDem 440

Edited-in notes: wards chosen on a semi-random basis, the choice of Coventry not random at all; there have been city-wide swings in all directions there, the same basic set of candidates tend to contest each ward each year and while local politics there can be odd, it isn't as quirky and personality-driven as other places. And of course the point isn't the swings (whatever they may be) but the relative stability of voting patterns. More soon from other places.

What are your views on Electoral Calculus?

Thought I would revive this. A new ICM poll this weekend, a 16 point Conservative lead, with the Liberal Democrats down.
()


http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jpKVQmyJeIJ2yLISA8HAXPjAQ6TA

Have any polls broken down the "Others" category?

I guess I can add the other poll here.

Angus - Reid says...

()



Funny how both polls have it at a sixteen point lead.

After checking, it's a Populus poll.

Ipsos Mori show Tories breaking 50%

CON: 52%
LAB: 24%
LIB: 15%

'Tis a silly poll but...

Seat forecast on a uniform swing

CON 488
LAB 121
LIB 13

CON MAJ 326

This is going to be one hilarious election (whenever it happens).

Desperate Spinner: our vote is holding up! This is the first Mori poll in months that it's not fallen further off a cliff! Recovery!!!!!

A Different Desperate Spinner: 121 seats is a whole 69 more than we managed in 1931; and boundaries then were more favourable to us than they are now!!!!

But, seriously...

I heard that the LibDem figure was actually 12%. Not that it matters; this isn't a poll done to measure public opinion so much as it is to change the opinions (in a newsworthy direction, whatever that is) of a small group of people next week or so. I know, I know, I'm a dreadful (to paranoid) cynic about that sort of thing, but this time the chances of me being wrong are rather small. Especially given the source, so to speak. I guess we'll see more polls like this over the next few days, but hopefully not quite so comical.

It's all good fun. It has the Tories winning Glasgow North for example. I think it's as wrong as the 50%+ Labour got in polls in '95-'96.

However...

I think it points to movement towards the Conservatives that should see it form the next government. It is also pointing towards Mr Cameron being given a landslide (at around the same time the economy picks up which we will, of course take the credit for even if we had nothing to do with it as all governments do :) ). This will probably be enough to secure Mr Cameron two terms.

I'm a bit like Pym when it comes to landslides, but I can't deny one would be nice to experience.

Speaking of which we are doing some 'testing of the waters' in Lanark and Hamilton East. We are a little hopeful of coming from 4th to 2nd here.

With the SNP first?

We don't tend to think about the other parties :P I think we can come in 3rd myself and that's about it.

I think the SNP can overhaul double digit Labour majorities in a host of seats from Edinburgh East to Livingston. However it is very difficult to predict. Seats like Stirling are particularly tricky. If SNP popularity takes a slide and Labour remain low then it makes everything interesting. I would expect an unhealthy number of 3 or even 4 way marginals.

While I don't expect them to outpoll Gordon Brown in his seat I would bet a few pennies on it anyway. Alistair Darling is probably the biggest scalp, if the Tories can benefit in Edinburgh SW

Such a shame that Cameron gets to be Prime Minister.  :(

I'm always asking this question...What's the word on an election being called? Is 2009 out of the question?

you don't like Cameron?

No. The man comes across as, and apparently is, a total phoney. I've never been a fan.

shame actually...I thought we might find something to agree on politically.

I do like him. :)

But regardless who the leader is, I'd vote Conservative in Britain right now.

Yes and No. It handily combines it with the Euros ;D

However I (hack hat on) believe Brown has every intention of bringing the party down with him. He will hang on until the last possible moment in 2010.

Going in 2009 I think is better for him TBH. It is anticipated that mid 2010 will see an uptick in the economy and the 'mini-boom' that will bring. With the Tories in the door they will simply claim credit for it or be associated with it at the very least. Always remember that the Tories got a drubbing in 1997 after 3 years of solid growth on the part above the Eurozone average. We may end up with a Tory landslide, but it will provide them with a years worth of a shaky economy and all the problems that may entail if the recovery is not as strong as is hoped.

If they go into the election whenever it is, if they privately prepare for defeat (unlike the Tories in '97) they will be all the better for it.

Yeah. Kind of figured he's not your type of Tory. :)

Now that is rather amusing :)

However...

Meh. I won't criticise thee for fantasising this time ;D

Though I'll say that you're always better off being happy with what you have now than looking for better and better news in the years to come (an interesting flaw in modern society is the latter trait). Best way to avoid disillusionment really.

(fwiw I still expect a Tory majority of between 40 and 60 at the next election. Though I'm not stubborn enough to avoid lowering or raising that if the facts do change. I'll also stick my neck out and say that the swing (whatever it is) will be highest in suburban areas, especially post 1970's ones and especially ones with a lot of growth in the past decade).

     Why do I suspect that this election is never going to happen while the Tories are polling ahead by such large margins. :P

Although I had a feeling that David Cameron was going to wipe the floor with Gordon Brown in the upcoming poll regarding next year's general election, I didn't expect Cameron to break the near invincible glass ceiling in UK political polls of 50 percent. It took myself by surprise, even my Global Economics teacher as I stated Holy S**t upon learning Cameron's achievement and learning that Gordon Brown has a worse popularity rating than George W. Bush.

Guys, it's one poll in 2008. This election could be in two years time.

True. But the Tories have maintained a 10% then a 15-20+% lead in the polls for some months now. The Tories target is a 42% vote share. They may exceed that but they won't get over a 50% share. To do so, and to heap up a majority of 200-300 would be dangerous for the British democractic process.

I will accept a Tory landslide that is enough to keep them in power for 2 or 3 terms. But I don't want a 1931 style rout.

A super majority is not a good thing...

Elections like 1931 are only possible in an atmosphere of mass panic.

Speaking of panic and showing what a moveable lot the voters are.

Probably best for an update. The Tories began to dive in September falling below 40% in one ComRes poll in October and sinking below 40% 'for real' in mid December. Labour soared above 30% to hit 35-36 in mid December with a Tory lead of a few %

But 2009 has painted a different picture so far with leads of 10, 9, 13 and 14, putting the Tories back to pre conference levels, but not near the inflated summer lead.

Which makes the likelihood of such situation....

Well, I'd put the odds at decently high.  Much higher than you might think.

I actually agree with that statement. Even if Brown waits until 'last moment 2010' and the economy is spluttering to life again, what is behind him may haunt him. This recession may break all sorts of post war 'records' - economic contraction, bailouts, bankruptcies and even break Thatcher's unemployment record. What will the government have going for it?

I doubt Labour will fall below 150 seats or anthing calamatous, but a 1997 style rout is a possibility. It will be interesting to see the strength of the SNP at national level and what that could translate to. On that note I'd still put a flutter on Brown loosing his seat.

Well, with what Britain's doing right now in terms of economic policies, there's about 100 times more likely chance of serious currency devaluation or outright debt default before the election than any attempt of an economic recovery.

SamSpade, why not do a megathread covering your opinions on how the world in general is likely to handle the recession? I may not know enough to comment alot but I'd read it.

I don't really have the time, except to make passing comments.

As to how the world is likely to handle the depression (and I say depression because that's what it will be in the near future):  Probably badly and with the wrong economic plans.  Heck, with a couple of minor exceptions, the crisis up to this point has been handled horribly worldwide, so why should we expect any changes.

Now a 15 point lead with ComRes; 43-28-16

Bit of a Lib Dem resurgence (from a low point) in the past two polls. Tories dropping back but Labour falling back even sharper as they fall below 30%. Support for Greens, Nats and BNP up.

Do any pollsters break down the "others" in detail?

Yes. But the subsample is usually so small it's meaningless in most cases. Especially if support is regional.

The Lib Dem surge continues, just 3 points behind Labour

ComRes

CON 41 (-2)
LAB 25 (-3)
LIB 22 (+6)

Labour are effectively in freefall shedding 9 points since the last ComRes poll of 2008.

Every time we beat the Enemy in the Six Nations a shit poll is out the same night. I'm calling this a conspiracy to (mildly) deflate my mood. I think the evidence is clear enough.


Meh. That says almost as much about the hilarious volatility of ComRes as much else. Sort of obvious that Labour support has been falling again, though (same sort of reasons as last year as well).

Different picture from YouGov

CON 44 (+1)
LAB 32 (-)

No confirmation of Lib Dem figures.

I believe that this is one of those "lol@thepollingindustry" moments.

Con: 48%
Lab: 28%
Who: 17%






A survey by Ipsos MORI put the Tories up four points on 48%, Labour down two on 28% and the Lib Dems unchanged on 17%.
The Prime Minister's personal ratings are also down.
Almost two thirds (64%) are dissatisfied with the way Gordon Brown is doing his job, and a quarter (26%) are satisfied.
A third (33%) were satisfied with Mr Brown last month, and three in five (59%) dissatisfied.
Sky's political correspondent Glen Oglaza said the survey is "dire news" for Labour.
He said: "This is not the worst poll of Gordon Brown's premiership - that was last September, when the Conservatives hit 52% - but nevertheless it is absolutely dreadful for Labour and very good for the Tories."
Ipsos MORI’s February 2009 Political Monitor was carried out by telephone between February 13 and 15 among 1,001 British adults.

So, I just had my head sawed off by a whiner, so I'll ask this as best I can. Why are Labour MPs not battering down Browns door at this very moment to tear him out of his office. Why are the LD's not about to get traction?

Anyone who approves of Gordon Brown at this point in the game needs to have his/her head examined.  Might be above Bush/Carter levels of incompetency.

Because Labour are a party of the working class, and the LDs are not. And British politics is all about class.

Ok, so, form that response I can gather Labour has reached the floor of their support levels at somewhere between 22-25%, but that means there's a lot of space to fill, why can't the LDs tame more than a few points off Labour losses?

When the Labour percentage goes up and down it's usually turnout (ie; within the various parts of society prone to Labour voting, rather than society as a whole) related. At least when we're in an environment in which the swingers have already swung firmly away anyway (which we are right now. Make no mistakes about that).

---

Slightly amusing that of all the polls published over the past few weeks, days even, the one to get the most attention is the one by the company with a very bad record in recent years and which is currently using a largely untested methodology (and much of the bits that aren't untested are a little dubious and tend to greatly magnify swings) Life is funny.

Would you like to be the first to suggest that the poll isn't in the general areas of the public mood?

Well, it's more extreme than the other four polls to come out over the past week. Doesn't make it wrong, but it does make it a bit questionable. MORI is, after all, not the most reliable firm historically, which is pretty established fact.

The other four polls all had the Conservatives at 41-42%, and Labour at 28-32%. (The 32% was an outlier as well; without it they all had Labour at 28% IIRC.) Which seems to me to be a very reasonable projection of the current mood.

Not quite sure what you mean.

I'm broadly (and increasingly) sceptical of the value of opinion polls, though I've no doubt that they're correct as to who the winner of the next election will be. Besides, like I said...


Don't mistake me for someone with me head in the sand loudly yelling "lalalalalaeverythingisfiiiiiiiiiiine". Srsly.

It is good to see that Labour's post conference bounce has now vanished. It will be interesting to see how closely the polls match with the result...but that is still a year away.

As way off as the Labour at 55% polls were in 1996, the end result was right - landslide.

There is some credibility to the claim that the polls in 1996 were inherently flawed while the current polls are not. Of course, to some degree there may be tightening once a campaign begins--but the Progressive Conservatives could tell you that an ailing government does not always regain ground during a campaign.

The 1992 General Election was a polling fiasco. Labour 'overperformed' in all the 52 polls in the month prior and in all 16 in the week prior. The Conservatives overperformed in just 1 poll out of 52 and no pollster got the vote share right (42%)

In 1997 Labour were overestimated by 4 or 5 points on average in the final week polls (and not too dissimilar to their overestimation on 1992 but the result disguised the error) Tories were underestimated by less than 0.5 points

In 2001 Labour were overestimated by 5 (4.8) points again in the final weeks polling and the Tories again by about a half point (0.6)

In 2005 Labour were overestimated by 2 points on average (1.9) . The pollsters were spot on with the Tories and less than a 10th of a point out on average.

Based on the last weeks polling (when pollsters start to implement and tweak turnout models) they seem to get the Tories spot on. As for Labour there may still be a slight overestimation of their vote. There is of course PoliticalBettings 'Smithson's Rule' – the lowest vote share for Labour in an opinion poll (if a few are released with overlapping fieldwork) is likely to be the correct one. We can only wait and see if that is correct.

Simply put, there's no viable alternative leader out there at the moment. Everyone likely is too inexperienced (Milliband), too radical (McDonnell) or guilty by association.

I'm pretty sure we'll lose the next election and a leadership contest is unlikely to change that. A recovery before May 2010 is unlikely.

When a political party is heading to almost certain defeat, it would be unwise to change leaders in an attempt to stave off the inevitable. If you install a new leader who is young and less experienced, you'll taint them with defeat and they won't be able to come back. A term or two (or even three) in Opposition may give them the necessary media experience to come back and lead the party to a future victory.

Some interesting results from Populus. The headline figures were CON 42, LAB 30, LIB 19 but the pollster has started looking at employment demographics...at least as a start

Employed by the Private Sector Support CON 45, LAB 29, LIB 17
Enployed by the Public Sector (woot!) CON 38, LAB 26, LIB 23

So a healthy lead in both. While the Times reported the Tories strength amongst the private sector, to me the real interest is the public sector. It was noted that The Tories are ahead amongst NHS and local government workers, while support amongst teachers splits almost evenly between the three main parties. Hopfully there will be more polls on this later with larger sub samples.

Recent roundup....

G20 seems along time ago. Brown (read Labour) may, or may not have had a bounce as a result. However the recent 'smeargate' story, which has had legs for the best part of a week and a bit has thrown Labour back below the 30% mark with 2 polls showing Labour on 26% (one was by BPIX who are unregistered so should be discarded) This may be short term; Labour last trailed in the mid 20's from June - September 2009. The Tories, treading at 40% appear to have had a slight uptick and the Lib Dems are at the high teens, low 20's...a gradual improvement in recent months.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/patrick__hennessy_/blog/2009/04/21/new_poll_gives_david_cameron_pause_for_thought (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/patrick__hennessy_/blog/2009/04/21/new_poll_gives_david_cameron_pause_for_thought)

Reliable poll?

If this is accurate, well, I knew I had a reason to be skeptical of the Tory lead...

MORI's poll out today has CON 41, LAB 28, LIB 22. So a 13 point lead there. People get oddly worried because the Tories only have a 10 point lead.

Isn't that close to the bare minimum of what they need to win enough seats though?

Only on a Uniform National Swing. But the country don't swing like that. A UNS swing in 2005 would have seen a Labour majority of 100. They got 66. It is probably more important who is voting, not how they are voting; if Tory voters come out and vote they get in. If Labour voters stay at home they get in. There doesn't have to be many 'switchers' from Labour to Tory for the Tories to win a majority.

I've spoken to Al about starting a General Election thread with swings, seats and gadgets for the next election.

Which will probably be sooner than most people think :)

Something that should be pointed out (as it is always, always forgotten) is that when there is a sizeable swing, it tends to be a lot higher in marginal seats, thus it's always easier to win a majority than a uniform swing suggests.

No, that's not strictly true. Swings in socially polarised marginals can often be relatively low (this contrasts with low turnout elections of course, where swings in socially polarised wards or constituencies are typically unusually high). It's more that swings tend to be highest where there are big concentrations of swing voters.

Swings tend to be greatest in "medium marginals" aka the seats needing 4 - 10 point swings to change. The really close seats that need like a .4% swing will always be incredibly close because the incumbents realize how much danger they are in and work their asses off. Its the Labour MP who won by 12 last time, but who sits in a seat the Tories held for decades prior to 1997 that is going to have to really worry.

Do it Now

First post budget (treat with caution) poll

YouGov, with changes on the last YouGov poll

CON 45 (+4)
LAB  27 (-7)
LIB   18 (+2)

Which could give a Tory majority of 154 seats

Ouch (but not for my side)!  ;)

Labour deserves to be punished for its sins.

Learn to spell correctly before you post.

Learn to not be a pompous jackass before you post.

In Britain, it's Labour. So spell it Labour when referring to Britain.

I know that. It was a typo and I already fixed it.

Muy bien. Gracias.

The Tories got their post-Budget bounce scoring 45% in the past 3 polls. Labour are between 26 and 27 and the Lib Dems between 17 and 18.

It seems unlikely anything can drive Labour below 25%.

However a breakdown of the 2005 'recall' vote in the ComRes poll makes for interesting reading. Labour have a 'retention' level of 50% (based on 2005 voters voting again) with 17% switching to the Tories and 6% to the Lib Dems (these figures have fluctuated) Labour's retention has been at between 50-60% for some time now. By comparison the Tories are holding onto 90%+ voters.

After a quiet period (about two weeks) two polls are out tomorrow. One gives the Tories a 16pt lead, the other a 22 pt lead. More soon.

Are Tories still underpolled by UK pollsters ?
Is this old story always true, even for 2-3 points ?

At the moment, I doubt it. That's my instinct, though.

Populus

CON 39 (-4)
LAB 26 (-4)
LIB 22 (+4)

YouGov

CON 41 (-2)
LAB 22 (-5)
LIB 19 (+1)

Lowest Labour vote share in a Westminster voting intention opinion poll in 60 years of polling

Alex Salmond must be frothing at the mouth at the thought of an election right now.

Big question is where is the -2 and -5 going? the Lib Dems must be soo thrilled to see they still can't catch a break, then again, Lembit Opik looked the fool on BBC today, I'm just not sure if the LD's are catching as much heat as the two big parties.

The 'Others' share always creeps up around the time of the Euros and this recent crisis has inflated that even more. Seeing a 41% vote share for the Tories and down just 2 points after everything is pleasing. It means the Tory core vote is stronger than people often give them credit for. Cameron this week acted like Blair did when he was in opposition...and I mean that as a compliment.

Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but are there any actual policies where the Conservatives differ substantively from the Labour Party?  Or are they simply a lighter shade of red, ideologically speaking? 

Yeah, he was swift about it, and gave no doubts anyone could get the chop if they didn't comply. I was surprised to see Brown drag out the "review and examine" language one more (last?) time, I really thought they would try to do better than that.

Yes. There are many differences, but it would take some time to mention :)

For your visual pleasure, here are the polls since January. I've used a 3 poll 'rolling' average. As the pollsters seem to publish polls very regularly now, any differences in methodology are ironed out.

()

Notice the Tories, for now, bouncing between 40 and 45%

Am I right in thinking 20% is not the ceiling for the Lib Dems... are they really not going to benefit from Labour's horrible numbers.


That graph is really interesting though. Is it possible they could actually intersect at some point? What kind of reaction would that news story get?

It depends on whether it is permanent. In October 2003, in the days of Blair, Duncan Smith and Kennedy, One poll had a 33/33/28 split. Almost a year later one poll had the Lib Dems ahead of Labour by one point (Lab 28, Lib 29) So there were times of madness in the polls in the last parliament. However these soon settled again.

It would take a series of polls of Labour falling behind the Lib Dems for it to make a serious impact. Labour is in a catch 22. It cannot afford to have Brown as leader, or to remove him. They cannot afford to fight an election (yet) as they have serious fundraising problems.

Is there any light anywhere for them? Other than they have reached the bottom (have they?)

Just watched Margaret Beckett on QT... the crowd reaction was... interesting.

Were there other occasions on which Lib Dems (or Alliance or SLD or anything you want) were ahead of Labour (or Tories) in polls since 1981 ?

There was an ICM poll (IIRC) with a three-way tie at 30% in 2003, or maybe 2004. The Alliance also peaked at over 50% in some polls immediately prior to the Falklands War in early 1982. I would assume the Alliance polled ahead of Labour at least sometimes in the run-up to the 1983 election, too.

The economy might begin to recover early next year. Emphasis on might.

Labour needs a miracle

Probably won't affect the outcome by much. Remember that the economy had 4 years of robust growth after the ERM crisis. In the polls the Tories were ahead of Labour on who best to manage the economy in 1997. A few months of an improving economy will not be enough to reverse Labours deficit on this issue.

Cameron looked like the PM this week. He is Blair circa '96. It may also all end in tears in ten years time but for now....

Bingo...

There are days I wonder whether Labour are simply a lighter shade of blue. A pox on all their houses. The state of British politics is appalling. The pits >:(

A bit off topic, but has anyone seen the latest European Election Poll?

BPIX (not a member of the British Polling Insitute) has

CON 42
LAB 20
LIB 15

Others are at 23%

And ComRes has:

CON 40
LAB 21
LIB 18

Poll showing the Tories leading in every part of the country (including Scotland) and amongst every social group

No, but it might contract the Tory lead slightly.

So reduce a 20+ lead to a 15+ or 10+ lead perhaps? That still means a Conservative victory and at the rate things are going, a landslide. I do expect voters to drift back to Labour as they did for the Tories in 96-97. But I do not believe it will be enough to help Labour anything other than to limit the damage.

Yeah, that's what I meant.

I can see both Labour and the Lib Dems falling below the 20% mark at the next election. I think UKIP are going to win a seat or two, and possibly the Greens and the BNP too.

lol?

Yes.

I expect the Tories to poll 20-22% in the next election. However if Labour collapse, I don't expect them to hold up here. The SNP are favourites to top the poll. Expect some crazy swings up here...

()

Bit of an update.

Update. In two polls Labour seemed to rebound; populus has a 39/27/17 split. However a week later, the Tories rose 2 points to 41, Labour slumped to 21 down 6 and the Lib Dems also took a hit down 2 to 15.

ICM are now out. The Tories are up 1 from 39 to 40, Labour down 6 to 22...and the Liberal Democrats are up 5 to 25 overtaking Labour

Populus and ICM are so strikingly in disagreement that it's hard to know who to believe. The only things they agree on are that Labour is in the toilet, and the Greens are surging for the Euros.

ICM Euro figures are:

Con 29
LD 20
Lab 17
Green 11
UKIP 10
BNP 5

The "third behind the LDs" headline is really tough on Labour, though. It means tactical switchers on the left, the sort who would never vote for the Tories/UKIP and also not the sort for the BNP, from Labour to the LDs (and maybe the Greens for Euros). Could reinforce the decline that has so far been held back a bit by the sense that Labour are the leading party of the left/social liberalism.

ICM tend to 'apportion' Lib Dem votes differently and are often over generous so I agree with you there. For me the real relief is seeing (barring the slip to 39) a Tory 'floor' of 40% which leads me to believe that a Conservative landslide may be in the works. The two 'rules' over on Poltiicalbetting.com is 'Everytime Cameron is on the telly the Tories get a boost' and 'The lowest Labour vote share in any set of polls is most likely to be the correct one.' Whether they will hold true is another matter.

Once again there is talk of ousting Brown if the results next week are severe and there is open hostility towards him on nearly every Labour media source. Any move of that nature would probably force a General Election. To be honest Labour have everything to loose no matter when they call a GE -they may as well go now.

And of course all that PR talk sounds rather silly if this latest poll is confirmed. I don't see Labour supporting any system that may see them ousted not only from government but effectively from opposition. Loose that status, and the coverage and mandate that gives and the Labour party is effectively dead.

BIG NEWS:

ICM Westminster Poll:

Conservatives - 40%
Liberal Democrats - 25%
Labour - 22%

Bye bye New Labour.

I'd piss myself if the Lib Dems polled better than Labour in the actual election.

My prediction - General Election next month.

Generally, ICM does the best with the Lib Dem share far away from the election precisely because they ask about local voting intention instead of simply which party you support. This means that they pick up tactical votes for the LDs from both Labour and the Tories in LD marginals as well as popular local MPs holding seats which might otherwise vote Conservative or Labour. Of course, they've shown some very high LD figures in the past, mostly famously the three-way tie at 31% in 2003. But, then again, that was around the crisis time for the IDS-led Tories and at a time when Iraq was very fresh in the minds of everyone, so a high Lib Dem score would have been expected.

I suspect they're quite correct on where the LDs stand right now--but it's very much open to question how well that would hold up if Labour actually ousted Brown and replaced him with Johnson. Probably not well. But will Labour even have the political will to do so? I'm not sure. The timing of the election to the Speakership also makes choosing a new leader very difficult, since an overthrow can't take place before September (Speakership election, then the Parliamentary recess).

Haha, wow. That would be awesome but why do you feel that way? Do you think Brown thinks it will only get worse and/or he just wants it over with at this point?

That would take us into July. Holiday time. Brown won't go to the country because huge numbers of people won't be there :) I expect an autumn election.

Of course...and there may be a but...we could see a 'shy Labour' factor in play in the polls. Luckily we have election next week to test that out.

That's a reason why he wouldn't call the election then?  :P

People were talking about Brown in early 2007 in the same way they are now talking about Johnson. I personally find Alan Johnson very annoying...that aside however, it's the Labour Party that is damaged. All Johnson may be able to do is save Labour from falling below 30% at a GE. Still leaves room for a Tory victory.

Clegg however has to be very careful; the membership and many in the party still have a tendency to cosy up to Labour, yet the polls show it's voters prefer Cameron and the Tories over any Labour led adminstration by a sizeable margin. Cameron has 'love bombed' the Lib Dems in the past; he will have an easy line of attack if the Lib Dems associate with Labour. They will have to heed the lesson of the 2007 Holyrood elections.

I think after these elections are over and Brown is in the Commons, he will feel like being on trial, because Cameron and his buddies will put so much pressure on him to call an election. He will call one in the hope that it gains him some respect and maybe a boost in the polls.

Been half-expecting this for a while. Oh well. Things are clearly very volatile and unpredictable at the moment and little should be trusted much, but awful ratings for us are now the constant factor. If things are anything like this bad on Thursday, Brown probably goes, one way or another and would become the principle casualty of the expenses mess; which on one level would be monstrously unfair, but then politics isn't even slightly fair (which he knows and has benefited from in the past). The summer would then be filled up by a leadership election (they take a while and I don't think a coronation is all that likely, unless someone popular with activists, the PLP and the main Union bosses has been quietly plotting away for a while now) before the new leader has little choice to call a snap election, resulting in a Tory majority of uncertain size.

As for Labour not having the political will to do what might have to be done, well, when given the option of a possible return to the 1930's or a possible return to the 1980's, the less awful choice is likely to triumph. I don't put much stock in the rumours about a pact with the LibDems, but if that does happen it'd likely the the proverbial camel-back-breaking-straw. I reserve the right to be totally and utterly wrong.

Regrettably, this is true. People do not expect Labour figures to have snouts-in-trough in such as way, and this is why we have been so badly hurt by this. The thing is, Wilson was right. The Labour Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing.


...which would mean the continued existence of a big PLP.


That ship sailed a long time ago...

And to compound things, it looks like it's Cameron whose going on the 'moral crusade.' He is very good at playing 'anrgy/concerned' while looking normal. It is not usualy for Tory politicians to 'out normal' Labour ones...

That aside, what Labour have to look out for is where their vote takes a hit. The elections should also confirm if the SNP are now the 'natural' party for government in Scotland. It was announced this week that Labour are concerned the only MP left in the east of Scotland next year will be Gordon Brown (Darling is heavily tipped to loose his seat)

Locals should also paint a picture of what to expect next year. I think Sunderland Central and Bury South are odds on Tory gains at the GE, even if the national swing is less based on the last local election cycle. The Tories have learned from the Lib Dems how to 'suffocate' the opposition from some seats locally that a few years later have swung or fallen to the challenger.

And to be blunt. They have shitloads of money, and most of it has already been spent before the election to ensure they will win their target seats.

Of course. Johnson would not mean Labour wins the election--at least, I think that very unlikely. But he would save Labour from a true humiliation, maybe to a defeat only on the scale of 1979 rather than 1983 or worse.


Certainly true, and I agree. But I think the Lib Dems have learned that lesson, especially given the reluctance to support Labour in Wales after the 2007 election (eventually forcing Plaid into that unhappy position).

Circulating that Brown will reshuffle the deck chairs after they finish 3rd to the Tories and UKIP. Balls to be Chancellor.

Uh. Ok. Let's pick the guy who might be one of a few people less popular then Darling.

General Election (YouGov for The Daily Telegraph):

Tories: 29%
Labour: 22%
Liberal Democrats: 18%
Others: 31%

:O Do we have a breakdown for this? Others eems very high and Tories too low - are you sure this isn't for the Euros?

lol. Joke poll.

Tender posted it wrong. The actual poll: http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/DT-toplines_27-29MAY.pdf

Con 39
Lab 22
LD 18
UKIP 7
BNP 5
Greenies 4
Nats 3
Others 2

Thx for the link. It wasn't online when I checked the YouGov page in the morning.

I got my figures from here (it's still not updated):

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5ha6yipaakionGB2gPRPPWUdoP2KQ

The 7-percent difference wouldn't have made sense really.

Of course, the poll is junk anyway because the minor parties would never actually get a result that strong. Maybe 1% for UKIP and 2% for the BNP and Greens are the peaks in the GE--and that's pretty generous to the latter two given that they'll only run in maybe 100-200 seats. (UKIP won't manage to run more than 50 or so candidates next time I would expect, and even if they do much of their 2005 vote will revert to the Conservatives.)

ICM may be giving low "Others" figures compared to everyone else, but theirs are the only ones that are reasonable for a GE. Again, because they ask for local voting intention; everyone else is getting a lot of "This is who I'm voting for at Euros", which is totally unhelpful.

(Note that this isn't an endorsement of the ICM figures otherwise, just the low Others number. 13% is about the peak of what the combined Nats-BNP-Greens-UKIP-NI parties-etc. can hope to get at the next election.)

MORI comes up with:

Con: 40 (-1)
Lab: 18 (-10) !!!
LD: 18 (+4)

MORI has a very strict certainty-to-vote filter that is probably skewing things a bit, but wow...

Based on the whole sample:

CON: 35
LAB: 24
LIB: 19
Greens: 7
UKIP: 5
BNP: 3
SNP: 3
Other: 4

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/_assets/pdfs/may09-political-monitor-topline.pdf

But you cannot base it on the whole sample either....

ComRes sounds like it's going to be fun...if you believe, as I do that Labour on 18% is trash look forward to what ComRes may be saying about the Tories.

The ComRes poll is... interesting. Don't what to say about it other than that ComRes is trash. As politicalbetting.com has pointed out, their past vote weightings are all skewed, but even applying the ICM weightings instead just turns it into Con 33, LD 20, Lab 19, which, while not bad for the Lab and LD figures is obviously off for the Con figure--although scaling the Other vote down to 13% or so would make it not far off from the ICM figures, maybe to Con 38, LD 24, Lab 22, or along those lines.

Anyway, ComRes:

Con: 30 (-10)
Lab: 22 (+)
LD: 18 (nc)

Mike Smithson suggested that if you used ICM's stable weightings, you'd get a Tory lead of 15%. Independent are putting it on their front page. However it is is, probable; that if not substantiated by another poll they will be pulled up by the British Polling Council. There is talk of trying to adjust for 'shy' voters; particularly shy Labour voters.

It looks right for a Euro poll, which people thought it was at the start. Luckily Thursday will act as a valuable barometer.

YouGov has a new pair of polls for Euros and a GE.

GE:

Con: 37 (-2)
Lab: 21 (-1)
LD: 19 (+1)

Again, Others are ridiculously high; UKIP is at an absurd 8%, and the Greens aren't much better at 5%. 4% Nats is not totally unrealistic, but 4% for the BNP is. Stupid Euros, skewing the GE polls. Anyway, Euros...

Euros:

Con: 26 (-1)
UKIP: 18 (+2)
Lab: 16 (-1)
LD: 15 (nc)
Green: 10 (+1)
BNP: 5 (-2)

Yes. The thing to watch is the gap between Labour and the Tories, currently 16 points.

Can Yankees watch BBC live for tomorrow on their website? (no the iPlayer does not work for us)

justin.tv

I see... will I search for "BBC" or what?

Remember, Euros will be covered on Sunday when the counting takes place.

No General Election until all is revealed by the expenses enquiry. Lets just see who exactly has been abusing the system before we throw the bums out

I don't think we can last that long. It's pretty much over; Brown, Labour, the government, it's done. Whether there is an election now, or next June the result I feel will be the same, but the effect of a government in crisis during a crisis is not good for Britain. It's better to go to the country sooner rather than later.

And most county councils will not be announcing results until Friday. Only three, IIRC, will release results tomorrow night.

Yeah, that's really lame. I figured we'd get Euro results tomorrow.

Anyway, this is probably the best link to watch anything live (from around the world) - http://wwitv.com/portal.htm (http://wwitv.com/portal.htm)

Not sure it has BBC proper on it.

I do believe this might be the best one so far.


http://www.atdhe.net/watchtv4.php?b=n

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/johnson-would-deny-tories-outright-victory-1700167.html

Johnson would deny Tories outright victory

Exclusive: 'Independent' poll reveals that new leader could transform Labour's prospects

Tuesday, 9 June 2009

By Andrew Grice, Political Editor

Alan Johnson would deny David Cameron an overall majority at the next general election if Labour ditched Gordon Brown and installed him as prime minister, according to a new poll for The Independent ...


... Independent poll: Which leader would put the smile back on Labour's face?

Alan Johnson, Home Secretary

Man most likely to succeed Gordon Brown if he is toppled before general election.
Election result with him as leader:
Con 36% Labour 26% Lib Dems 19% (Con six seats short of majority.)
Support among Labour identifiers: 76%

Jack Straw, Justice Secretary

His withdrawal of support could finish Brown.
Election result with him as leader:
Con 36% Labour 25% Lib Dems 19% (Con majority of 10)
Support among Labour identifiers: 71 per cent

David Miliband, Foreign Secretary

Raised profile last summer but campaign faltered
Election result with him as leader:
Con 37% Labour 25% Lib Dems 19% (Con majority: 30)
Support among Labour identifiers: 73%

Jon Cruddas, Backbencher

Turned down ministerial job and enjoys support on left of party.
Election result with him as leader:
Con 36% Labour 22% Lib Dems 21% (Con majority of 42.)
Support among Labour identifiers: 69 per cent

Ed Balls, Schools Secretary

Brown's favoured successor. Ambition to become Chancellor.
Election result with him as leader:
Con 37% Labour 23% Lib Dems 20% (Con majority of 46)
Support among Labour identifiers: 67 per cent

Gordon Brown, Prime Minister

Hoping to see off plotters as Cabinet did not join revolt
Election result with him as leader:
Con 38% Labour 22% Lib Dems 20% (Con majority: 74)
Support among Labour identifiers: 71 per cent

Harriet Harman, Deputy leader

Would be strong candidate in full-scale leadership contest.
Election result with her as leader:
Con 38% Labour 22% Lib Dems 20% (Con majority of 74)
Support among Labour identifiers: 67 per cent

James Purnell, Former cabinet minister

Blairite who quit as Work and Pensions Secretary last Thursday. Would win respect if Brown was ousted.
Election result with him as leader:
Con 38% Labour 21% Lib Dems 21% (Con majority of 94)
Support among Labour identifiers: 66 per cent

Balls does better than Brown..does anyone know Ed Balls is? I'm pleased to see Johnson could only close the gap to 10 points. We are already sharpening our knifes should he become leader but I would consider the public will see to that.

I really hope he was bluffing when he said he wasn't at all interested. And even if he did become leader and we still lost, Johnson would be the difference between locking us out of Downing Street for 5 or 10 years and locking us out for another 20 years.

Bump.

We should probably keep the opinion polls in this thread, at least until the next election is called.

And
CON 38% (+2) LAB 33% (+4) LD 21% (-2)

Good to see the "Liberal Democrats" down.

You could see it the hackish way that I see it and say that the ConDem Party are at the same point as they were last week. ;)

Some interesting polls recently.

YouGov:

National Government - 59% (Tories - 43%, Lib Dems - 16%)
Labour - 36%
Others - 5% (must be the lowest for some time)

ICM:

National Government - 57% (Tories - 41%, Lib Dems - 16%)
Labour - 35%
Others - 8%

I'd be getting a bit worried if I was Nick Clegg and I was polling 15s and 16s when my party was at 24 just 2 months ago...

I wonder how the lefty LD backbenchers will be feeling when the LDs start to hit rock bottom...

The graph since election day's quite funny...

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/voting-intention

Com(edy)Res(ult) Poll:

National Government - 58% (Tories - 40%, Lib Dems - 18%)
Labour - 31%
Others - 11% (LOL)

YouGov Poll:

National Government - 57% (Tories - 42%, Lib Dems - 15%)
Labour - 36%
Others - 7%

If these numbers were repeated at the next General Election (based on UNS):

National Government - 343 seats (Tories - 322 seats, Lib Dems - 21 seats)
Labour - 281 seats
Others - 26 seats

National Government majority of 36

I wonder what the Liberals will do if they start hitting round and about 12 like they were under Ming.

That big a swing generates that few seat changes eh?  I assume it will be more when the lines are redrawn and reallocated, and Wales is stripped of its extra seats no?

Interestingly, Angus Reid doesn't seem to have conducted a poll since the election.

Kellner calls it: http://today.yougov.co.uk/commentaries/peter-kellner/honeymoon-over

I still can't wait to see how Nick Clegg tries to turn stuff around. The cuts haven't even started hitting hard yet.

God, Clegg really ****ed up the party by forming the coalition.

Populus says that the Liberals have collapsed in their marginals (http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2749). The Tories would gain 30 seats in the Con/Lib marginals and the Lab/Lib marginals weren't even mentioned and considering everywhere else the Liberals have collapsed, benefitting Labour, it wouldn't be hard to see what'd happen.

They've still got 5 years of this to go.

Hopefully, the Lib Dems will end up in a situation similar to that of the 1950s/60s at the end of this.

Tonight's YouGov has them on 14, their lowest from YouGov since February 2009.

I wonder when/if they'll hit single digits. Looking on UKPR, they haven't hit single digits since April 1997. Would the knives be out for Clegg should that happen?

Who knows? Midterm poll ratings for government parties can often be laughably - and unrealistically - low. As we all saw in the last parliament wrt Labour. I would presume that the nature of the coalition would make removing Clegg under such a situation pretty difficult; if you were polling in single digits would you do something that would greatly increase the chance of a snap election that your party would be blamed for? But that's hypothetical upon hypothetical.

On the day Nick Clegg delivers a gaffe filled PMQs, YouGov brings us:
44 (+1) - 35 (nc) - 13 (-1)

Lowest for the LibDems from YouGov since 16th November 2007.

Are they still doing daily polls? Weird.

I know. It's pretty redundant considering we won't be seeing an election until June 2015 (apparently).

It's a wonder the Conservatives aren't pushing Cameron to throw Clegg under the bus and go to the country

What's the new dissolution rules again? 66% and parliament's dissolved?

Either way, hasn't there got to be a 4 month gap between elections?

I actually think Cameron will get this through 2015 though. Considering all the noise he's made about a 2015 election and a fixed-term parliament, he probably knows that he'd just look like an oppurtunist if he went to the country so soon. The LibDems won't want him going to the country either, with poll numbers at 13%. That's why I think the junior partner, atleast, will stick this through until 2015.

Both sides have too much to lose should an election be called early.

OnePoll:

National Government - 63% (Tories - 40%, Lib Dems - 23%)
Labour - 30%
Others - 7%

OnePoll aren't considered a credible pollster.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2576

Sunday's YouGov:
Con 41 (-3), Lab 36 (+1), LD 14 (+1)

Liberal surge!

Government approval is at 41/35 and YouGov notes on their Twitter, the following:

But it's not passed into law yet! ;D

Con 38 (-3)
Lab 34 (-1)
LD 19 (+3)

ICM/Guardian from this weekend. YouGov/The Sun is out at 10pm and there might be a Mori poll coming.

YouGov
Con 44 (+3)
Lab 35 (-1)
LD 13 (-1)

And 57% of British adults think Buckingham Palace was right to ban Nick Griffin from garden party.

Good numbers. I like this government.

Ipsos-Mori Poll:

National Government - 54% (Tories - 40%, Lib Dems - 14%)
Labour - 38%
Others - 8%

Good for the Conservative side of the coalition, not so much for the Liberal side.


I wonder when we'll see a Labour lead.

We don't see this very often, but, the Conservaties lead Labour by 3 (38-35) among all (81%) giving a voting intention; while 32% (+4)*, generally, think of themselves as being Conservative; 31% (n/c), Labour; 14% (-7) Lib Dem; and 23%(+3), Other None

* Change on April 2010

Left LD deserters going to "Other" and right LD deserters thinking "oh, may as well be Tory then if they're gonna coalition"?

YouGov
Con 42 (-2)
Lab 37 (+2)
LD 14 (+1)

Government approval
40/38 - Lowest net approval since election.

YouGov/Sunday Times
Con 42 (nc)
Lab 38 (nc)
LD 12 (-2)

How low can they go? On UKPR's archives, it appears that 12% is the lowest the LDs have ever had from YouGov.

I'm willing to predict that the next LD leader will be Tim Farron or Charles Kennedy. It's all they'll have left. ;)

Didn't we fall below 20% at the height of the expenses mania? I don't have an especially good memory of that period, as I was... um... not in the best of health at the time.

By which I mean, opinion polls can show all sorts of strange things midterm. Really low ratings are often the result of depressed supporters claiming that they won't vote, rather than a genuine shift in partisan affiliation, fwiw.

Edit: back in the late 80s (the lowest point in Centre support in opinion polling since the 1950s - and maybe even including the 1950s - I think) the LibDems (SLD then) often polled around 5% or so.

There was one poll, from Ipsos-Mori, with 40-18-18.

Speaking of Clegg's performance last week at PM's question time, the Speaker cut him off for  failing to answer a question, and going off on some tangent (which happens all the time actually between the government spokesperson and the opposition spokesperson; it is only the back-benchers who are on a tighter leash). That was the first time I have ever seen that happened to the guy behind the dispatch box. Has anyone else seen that before? His performance was indeed unsteady. He was almost sweating at points. I meant to bring the matter up, to ask the Brits what they thought about it.

I think it happened to Cameron a few weeks back, but I could be wrong. I'm certain it happened between Cameron and the speaker when he was opposition leader.

ComRes for The Independant
8/8/2010

Con 39 (-1)
Lab 33 (+2)
LD 16 (-2)
Changes since June 27th.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2773


YouGov for The Sun
9/8/10

Con 40 (-2)
Lab 36 (nc)
LD 15 (+2)

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2772

Holyrood constituency: CON 10%(-3), LAB 46%(+1), LDEM 11%(nc), SNP 32%(+3)
Holyrood regional: CON 11%(-1), LAB 42%(+1), LDEM 12%(nc), SNP 30%(+2)

I wonder if this "House prices are up! The sky is falling!" narrative from the media will have much effect on the polls.

Wednesday's YouGov:
CON 41% (-1)
LAB 37% (-1)
LDEM 15% (+1)

Government approval: 41 (nc)/40 (+1)

Narrowest approval spread to date.

A dodgy poll from Harris/Daily Mail:

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2777

The Mail published it with undecideds/won't say/don't knows included giving: 29-28-12

ICM:

37/37/18

The first poll to show Labour not behind the Tories since....

January 23rd 2008, from Ipsos-Mori. First from ICM since October 4th 2007, when it was 38-38-16.

It's meaningless, really, but I smiled a little. Hah.

Sky News "Poll":

43/24/8

:P

ComRes/Daily Mirror/GMTV

Con 39 (nc) Lab 33 (nc) LD 15 (-1)

Changes since August 8th.

Yougov 23/08/2010:
Latest net government approval rating 0 (40% approve, 40% disapprove) :D

Latest YouGov/Sun voting intentions CON 41% (nc), LAB 39% (+1), LDEM 12% (nc).

39% is the highest Labour's had form YouGov since 21st September 2007. :)

His Sneering Arrogancy, of course, might get a baby "bounce" but Cleggover ain't fairing too well

Of course, Dave's paternity leave should bring some more good Cleggy gaffes. :P

Of course, it hadn't occurred to be that He Who Reeks of an Acute Stench of Entitlement That Often Comes With Privilege would be on paternity leave

I was asked recently if my opinion of Nick Clegg had changed. It has. Pre-election I'd thought Clegg was an idiot, I am now absolutely certain that he is an idiot

Many Lib Dems seem to want Nick to take a more "aggressive" approach in articulating their party's values because right now he seems all too willing to play the role of some 'compliant wife'. If it walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, in all probability, it is a duck

If they wanted to remain a separate entity, they shouldn't have entered the coalition with all but one of their MPs agreeing. If they're so annoyed, get a new leader.

There must be a lot of people who feel "duped" by the Liberal Democrats voting their way because they believed they were a centre-left alternative to Labour

Or, to quote Bremner, Bird and Fortune people watched the first debate and just thought "...who is that man standing next to Gordon Brown? ??? Y'know, I want him to be prime minister."

Aye, "Cleggmania" ::). Fed the ol' ego a bit didn't it?

Not half. To think, he was god's gift to politics 4 months ago.

YouGov Government Approval:

Approve - 39%
Disapprove - 41%

Tonight's YouGov brings yet another new low for the Orange Tories.

43-38-11. LOL

Not long until the two coalition parties aren't even polling above 50% together.

According to ElectoralCalculus, if that poll was repeated in a General Election (on a UNS), Simon Hughes, Alan Beith, Nick Harvey, Chris Huhne and Vince Cable would all be ousted.

Well, it's not like they voted No or abstained on the coalition vote (like Kennedy), so they deserve to be ousted.

Tonight's YouGov:
40 (-1) CON
39 (+1) LAB
12 (nc) LD

It'd be funny if we get a poll with both parties at 40 or above. Let's not forget, such a thing's never happened at an election since 1970. The LD conference in Liverpool (where local LDs are dropping like flies, btw) should be funny.

I wonder when the calls for an LD leadership election will start rolling in.

Ipsos/MORI Poll:

National Government - 52% (Tories - 37%, Lib Dems - 15%)
Labour - 37%
Others - 11%

YouGov at 42-38-11. If the Liberals aren't at 15ish tomorrow, they ought to be very worried. Although, yes, poll ratings like 11% are like superglue for the coalition. No way would they risk coming out of an election with 10-20 seats. They'd try and ditch Clegg, maybe, or maybe a few will defect to Labour, but they wouldn't terminate the coalition.

YouGov at 39-39-13, first tie they've had. I don't know if the bigger story is the tie or the fact that the LDs started conference at 13% and, even after the speech of Clegg's political life, they've soared to... 13%.

Oh dear....I accidentally posted that in the wrong thread....

Anyway, I think we may see the Lib Dems going into single digits within the next week or two. Some Kennedyite Lib Dems who are not too keen on the coalition may switch their voting intentions to Labour in the aftermath of the leadership election results (albeit, maybe briefly).

And, on the day Ed Miliband becomes the PM-in-waiting, we have:
Con - 39 (-2)
Lab - 38 (+1)
LD - 15 (+2)

Should wait till the Monday night tracker for a more accurate picture of the Mili-bounce.

YouGov Poll:

National Government - 51% (Tories - 39%, Lib Dems - 12%)
Labour - 40%
Others - 9%

GOOD! :D If Labour are still ahead after the Tory conference, we're in for a good year or so atleast.

This a pleasant surprise - I was worried the "Red Ed" fearmongering would have taken its toll. :)

It will, eventually. The media have already created the narrative.

From last night's YouGov.

41 39 12 - Today's YouGov. Labour down. Wonder how different this week would have been had those 6 Ed MPs voted for David...

Probably not much different, not that it really matters. But 39 = 9/10 points higher than in the General Election, or only slightly less support than in 2001. Most of the PLP would have killed for figures like those for most of the past five years.

The government isn't unpopular yet (neither is it popular anymore, of course. We're in that strange inbetween stage that can last for anything between weeks and years) so there's probably not much room for grossly inflated figures yet. You'll only see those once Tories start telling/lying the pollsters that they won't vote.

ICM/Grauniad: Labour 37, Tories 35, LDems 18

First ICM Labour lead for three years, of course.

Fail on the Murdoch media! :D

Also, the lowest Tory vote share in a poll since the crazy days of the election campaign.

YouGov Poll:

National Goverment - 50% (Tories - 39%, Lib Dems - 11%)
Labour - 41%
Others - 9%

Highest Labour share in a poll since October 2007.

Labour could realistically be even with the combined Con-Lib shares by 2011... Good stuff.

44-35-9 doesn't seem that bizarre once we've had the spending review.

BPIX Poll:

Tories - 41%
Labour - 37%
Lib Dems - 13%

Angus Reid:

Labour - 38%
Tories - 35%
Lib Dems - 16%

The first time Angus Reid have ever had Labour in the lead.

Although it's worth remembering how bad they were at the election. :P

With the conference season over, polls have returned to where they were before it began with 2 and 4pt leads for the Tories with YouGov. A fuller picture should be clear by the end of the weekend.

If the past five years have taught us anything it's that there is never a fuller or clear picture ;D

http://blog.itv.com/news/tombradby/2010/10/ashcrofts-parting-gift/

I can't believe the latter, however amusing it would be.

It would be ironic if the Lib Dem leadership ended up being 'decapitated'....

Here are the percentages from the polls conducted in Sheffield Hallam and Eastleigh:

Sheffield Hallam:

Lib Dems - 33%
Labour - 31%
Tories - 28%

Eastleigh:

Tories - 42%
Lib Dems - 31%
Labour - 21%

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2834/comment-page-1#comment-680315

Constituency polls in this country are, of course, known for their outstanding accuracy.

LOL. This is just too good to be true. I hope it's true.

Fwiw, GE results...

Sheffield Hallam: LDem 53.4, Con 23.5, Labour 16.1, UKIP 2.3, Green 1.8, Others 2.8
Eastleigh: LDem 46.5, Con 39.3, Labour 9.6, UKIP 3.6, Others 0.9

The nastiest polling for the LibDems right now has them hovering around half of what they polled in the General Election. Given that, the Eastleigh figures aren't so strange for a poll that obviously works on worst-assumptions; it's also worth pointing out that a sizeable residual Labour vote that had previously avoided tactical voting more than halved in May (down from around 20% to 9%). But the Hallam figures look like trolling; even though boundary changes mean that it isn't quite the Labour dead-zone it was before and even though Cleggmania and the post-97 tactical vote are no more, such a high Labour vote in a constituency that includes Dore & Totley ward is very unlikely under any circumstances.

As someone who lives there, I think the Hallam one is quite plausible, actually.  There's a lot of annoyance at Clegg, and Labour made the right choice of leader to take advantage.  (That isn't saying that they made the right choice of leader for other places.)  Indeed, the fieldwork for this was done before the Browne report (although probably after the recommendations started being leaked) and if the poll was accurate, I suspect Labour are now ahead in Hallam.  The council elections next year could provide some indication of what's going on; presumably there will be some attempts by the local Lib Dems to distance themselves from the Government.

As far as I'm aware, there really haven't been enough constituency polls in recent UK general elections to judge their accuracy record.  Is there a list anywhere of results?

To add a note of caution, shouldn't this be treated with some of the scepticism due a Tory internal poll, given the source?

Really? Wow.


A few are done at every election and they're usually pretty dreadful. This time round I'm only aware of some being done for the Brighton seats.


Yes.

There was also a poll conducted and released in April this year in Norwich South, which showed Charles Clarke with a big lead, and the Lib Dems tied with the Greens for third place....

I'd forgotten that one: certainly not a triumph.

There is a document on the British Polling Council website
http://www.britishpollingcouncil.org/simon-atkinson.pdf
which gives various polling statistics from 2005 and includes 5 constituency polls, three by ICM and two by NOP.  To sum up, the ICM polls (in Finchley & Golders Green, Shipley and Haltemprice & Howden) were pretty accurate (they got the Shipley winner wrong, but it was close enough that it can't be considered a bad poll) while NOP were accurate in Cardiff North but badly overestimated the Tories and underestimated an Independent (and Labour, to a lesser extent) in Ynys Môn.

ComRes
Con 40 (+1)  Lab 34 (-2)  LD 14 (-1)
YouGov
Con 41 (-1)  Lab 39 (+1)  LD 11 (-1)

Trust on the economy (ComRes):
Cameron/Osbourne - 45%
Miliband/Johnson - 23%
More results here (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5gOTYO8ntgK70rp2PshD5d_msMs_g?docId=N0310001287254612272A)

Government approval (YouGov):
Approve - 38% (-3)
Disapprove - 44% (+3)

After the 2015 election, you will probably be able fit the entire LibDem Parliamentary Party into a Mini Cooper. Oh, or a yellow taxi.

It'd be interesting if Lab-Con both polled over 10 million in 2015.

Time for LibDems to dump Clegg. He's certainly underperformed in my estimation. Labour on the other hand is looking good.

My guess is that Conference 2011 will make or break him, assuming the AV Referendum fails of course. I think that Simon Hughes (or Tim Farron?) will step up to take over as a left-wing alternative to Clegg. They'd just have to sit and hope that their Labour tactical voters would forgive them.

Either way, the LibDems need a back-up plan should the Government lose the confidence of the House. 14 days to negotiate or they'll be a snap election, and all that. I'm sure they wouldn't want to fight an election, polling below 10%...

Fresh elections are not in the interests of the LibDems (and probably won't be for years). Removing Clegg = fresh elections suddenly much more likely. Which means that Clegg is safe enough. There was far less trouble at their conference than many were suspecting/hoping for. We're more likely to see a split than to see the left of the party take over for real; besides they aren't in a great position as they mostly acquiesced to the coalition and the ones that didn't just stayed quiet.

Of note too, I guess is that Nick "dead weight" Clegg's leader ratings slipped into negatives for the first time, making him the least popular of the 3 party leaders.

Cameron approval - 52/41 (-2/+3)
Miliband approval - 38/20 (+8/-2)
Clegg approval - 41/47 (-5/+7)

I was wondering how Clegg was doing with 18-24s after this week's tuition fees stuff. Last week he was 36/38 amoung 18-24s, now he's 32/47... -4/+9. Gonna be even tougher getting the Liberal students to polling stations, when the time comes. I actually think a majority Tory government would be more popular than the Coalition at this point.

Coalition working together well/badly - 52/39 (-4/+4)
Coalition good/bad for people - 28/48 (-5/+7)
Coalition handling economy well/badly - 42/45 (-5/+7)
State of Britain's economy: good/bad - 4/76 (nc/-1)
Household's financial situation: get better/get worse - 9/57 (-2/+3)

More questions on Wednesday's spending review (http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Pol-ST-results-151010.pdf)

Lib Dems on 6% in Scotland....lol.

Well, there's one way that Charles Kennedy can keep his seat. ;)

Poll internals are...

Anyway. I do note that teh nayshun is united on one thing: England's footballers are crap.

First post-CSR YouGov
41 (nc) 40 (+1) 10 (-1)

Approval 40/45

Con lead... still... Liberals hit a new low.

Channel 4 reports there's a poll out tonight showing the Libs at a 20 year low.

ICM/The Guardian 24th October 2010
39 (-1) 36 (nc) 16 (nc)

Populus/The Times 24th October 2010
38 (+1) 37 (-2) 15 (+1)

Ed's Labour take the lead for the first time with Populus, in their first poll since September 12th. ICM remains static since their poll on the 22nd for The News of the World.

People don't appear to be that bothered about the all new age of austerity.

Then why are Labour doing so much better than at the General Election and the LibDems so much worse? The CSR didn't come as a shock to the system because the build-up for it has been going on for months. Government popularity tends to erode rather than suddenly collapse and that's very much been the pattern we've seen so far. Government support only tends to fall suddenly when there are material factors at work; we saw this with price rises in 2008, for example.

Good point, but I was just expecting the government to take more of a hit this week, but they appear to have been on full-on spin mode.

The LibDems are doing so badly because they're seen as "the betrayers", they're not governing how they promised they would. There's also some tactical unwide from Labour voters who tactically voted Liberal to.

All I can observe is that, really, Lab-Con are both doing brilliantly on all counts considering Labour only left office 5 months ago surrounded by sheer division and unpopularity and the Cons are having to make very difficult decisions. Both would be gaining seats if there was an election tomorrow, which can't be a bad thing for either of them, really in these dynamics...

I have a feeling that come January when the VAT rise hits and Christmas bills start hitting doorsteps and the first wave of austerity measures sweep the nation, it'll be the Liberals that bear the brunt of it. Especially come May when they have to explain why they seem to care more about a referendum, which most people don't really care that much about and that is costing £10m, than people's jobs. There is absolutely no where to go but down for the Liberals, for Lab/Con on the other hand, they'll both be in a better position than they were in May 2010.

YouGov Poll:

Tories - 40%
Labour - 40%
Lib Dems - 11%
Others - 9%

Most movements on the YG are mostly noise, but a tie's good to see. Labour would've killed for 40% back in May.

They've been having it at 40-43 37-40 10-12 for a while now.

YouGov

40 (-1)
40 (nc)
9 (-2)

LOL.

Coalition - 49
Non-coalition - 51

Just sayin', even though measuring the polls like that is stupid.

Labour jump ahead on Sunday's YouGov:

41 (+1)
39 (-1)
10 (nc)

Approval -10

No, some consistent movement away from the Libs. Tuition fees clearly aren't doing them any good.

Labour still ahead, two days later:
42 (+1)
40 (+1)
10 (nc)

Government approval: minus 10 - 37/47 no change.

Tuition fees have definately hurt the Liberals.

Latest YouGov:

Lab - 42 (nc)
Con - 37 (-3)
Lib - 10 (nc)

Labour 42, Coalition 47. How long until Labour leap frog both parties?

UKPR has the first Lab majority average i've seen since i've been using the site. A majority of 34 on 41-38-10.

Labour losing some ground again with Yougov:

40-40-11

followed by a

40-38-11

I'd say Labour will definitely be near to a double digit lead before Summer starts though.

ICM
38 (+2)
36 (-3)
14 (-2)

ICM last had the LDs at 14% when Ming Campbell resigned, so this ties for the lowest LD score from ICM since the 30th March 2001.

They have truly screwed themselves against a wall.

Random aside, but I heard the redistricting in the UK after the 2011 census is expected to heavily favor the Conservatives at the expense of Labour (as it heavily favors Labour right now (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8609989.stm)).  Is that true?

It doesn't work that way in Britain.

Well, I asked a Briton about it on another forum (back in April), and he said that the reason for Labour overrepresentation was the population decline in Labour-dominated areas since the last census, and that they should be expected to lose ground after 2011.

Marginally, maybe. Institutionally the map favors Labour, but this is because the map is drawn based on population, not voters, and voters in really Labour areas are almost universally less likely to turn out than voters in Conservative areas (really Conservative seats can get as high as close to 80% turnout while really Labour seats can go as low as 50% turnout).

I'm not the best on boundary commision stuff (you're best asking here (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=116449.420)), but yeah, we're getting new boundaries and the size of the house of being reduced to 600. As far as I know, the reason you've been given for it isn't entirely true, just partially. Scotland and Wales are currently over represented heavily, compared to England - at the last count, Wales is set to lose 10 seats, I think and as you can see from the current map (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/), Labour are always safe in Scotland and Wales. Another reason for the numbers "favouring" Labour is the fact that turnout is generally much lower in safe Labour seats than in safe Tory seats, meaning that it takes less votes, on average, to get a Labour MP elected. Nothing, except having pro-Tory boundaries, could prevent this.

And no, we don't do our boundary reviews like the US does. Our last review was before the 2010 election and there was one before the 2005 election (I think) and 1997 before that.

Of course, if the coalition loses the confidence of the house before the boundary commision's finished its review, this is all moot.

I suppose, but that's true in the US, too, and representation here generally tracks the two-party vote fairly closely, or even favors the Republicans.  I guess it must be because Labour still has a fairly strong rural presence (and the Conservatives a fairly strong urban presence) compared to the Democrats and Republicans over here.


Thanks for the explanation.  That's probably the best I'm going to get.

Don't forget 35% of Britons didn't vote Labour or Conservative. First-past-the-post, like we have in the UK and US, break down when there's more than two parties in the mix.

Yes, but it's my understanding that the Lib Dems (and most of the other minor parties outside of N. Ireland) mainly take votes from Labour, so that should hurt them more than anyone else, right?

No, it's based on the number of registered electors. But it is true that what 'bias' exists (which is more that it is easier for Labour to win a majority than the Tories, rather than Labour being grossly overrepresented in relation to the Tories - which they aren't at the moment) is down almost entirely to differential turnout.

Not true at all. Labour is weaker in the countryside than the Democrats are, and the Conservatives are stronger (much stronger, in some cases) in cities than the Republicans are.

Nor are the differences in turnout nearly so stark in the US. Sure, there are couple of extremes--but bear in mind that the areas with the best turnout are the swing-to-Dem states in the Upper Midwest as well as generally Democratic Upper New England (although uber-Republican Mormonland [Utah and SE Idaho] also has very good turnout).

And the Democrats do well in a lot of wealthy urban areas with very high turnouts, like the white urban seats in NYC, Chicagoland, LA and the Bay Area. All of those places would be Conservative in the UK (a few might be LD, and SF might be Labour, but the point is generally true), yet the Republicans have little to no presence there.

Basically, your core assumptions on this issue are all wrong.

At the election, the 24% for Liberal probably would've gone about 60-40 to Labour, there was some polling on it I think. 6 months later, they're hovering around 11%, probably about 60-70% of which would choose Tory over Labour, that's why they haven't left yet - they don't mind being in coalition with their idealogical opposites. Personally, I don't think they've hit their floor yet.

For the smaller parties, the only obvious one that hurts the Tories is UKIP. You're right though, the others, from the Greens to the BNP to Plaid Cymru hurt Labour in some way.

Mostly wrong anyway. Working out what's rural and what isn't in a country with such a pronounced tendency towards industrial villages and with an unusually traumatic experience of industrialisation/urbanisation is problematic, and there's an unfortunate tendency to define it based on the pastoral idyll rather than anything halfway objective. So large parts of southern England that are clearly not rural in terms of social or economic structures are commonly regarded as such, while it is more or less a taboo to acknowledge the essentially rural nature of most of the coalfields and a lot of early industrial districts.

By "rural areas" I'm referring to N. England and Scotland.

Ah, the famous villages of Glasgow.

---

All questions... answered. Once again:


I may have to adjust this at some point, due to the changes in the position of the Yellow Party, but as a guide to the last election it's fine.

North of the wall the divide is clearly between 'bath' and 'beth.' Those who say 'beth' support the Yellow Party or the Blue Party if they have a surname as a first name and support the Blue and White Party if they don't. They are fans of the field sport with the squashed ball or if surrounded by round ball fans; Partick Thistle. Those who say 'bath' vote for the Red Party (from 2007-2010 The Broon Party) even if they now own the type of house where there is clearly a 'beth.' They are fans of the field sport with the round ball. Those who are concerned about bowler hat etiquette but say 'bath' and like the round ball now also vote for the Blue and White Party as they are concerned that the Red Party is too Green (not be be confused with Green Green, but rather green green but of course to explain all that would just be silly). There are also some supporters of the Fake Tan Party (subsequently Faketanidarity) who want to be redder than the average Scot.

The rural parts of both of those areas usually vote Tory, Lib Dem or SNP.

This will bring a smile to a few people's faces - Lab and Con alike.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2894

Angus Reid/Political Betting
40 (+3)
35 (nc)
13 (-2)

YouGov/The Sun
41 (+1)
38 (-2)
11 (+1)

So, the day has come that Angus Reid is more pleasant to read than Yougov.

Amused that Angus Reid are still working here; presumably they've made certain major adjustments to their weighting. Anyway, why are YouGov still doing daily polls? During an election that's quite interesting, outside one? Obviously because The Scum is paying them to, but why is The Scum paying them to do that? Someone at YouGov must be very good at scamming newspapermen.

Kellner?

What does everyone expect the media shifting to no no, Miliband really is rubbish will have on the polls?

ComRes online/Independant on Sunday

39 (+1)
37 (nc)
11 (-2)

If we had STV, we'd need a 3 party government probably... oh dear, the Liberals are on death's door, surely.

This month's YouGov Welsh Assembly:

Const:
44 (nc)
23 (+2)
21 (nc)
6 (-3)

Reg:
42 (+1)
22 (+2)
21 (+1)
5 (-4)
5 (+1) (Yes, it's UKIP...)

And tonight's national:
42 (nc)
41 (+1)
8 (-1)

It's numbers like this which leave me waiting in anticipation to see Election Day 2015, especially Nick Clegg's reaction.

Those libdem numbers are pretty damning.:)

The tables show that the LibDems are tied with the Communist Party in the North Wales region.
http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Pol-ITVWales-DecemberPolling-221210.pdf

And we're only 7 months in folks...

Doesn't that work both ways though? If the situation improves, wouldn't the Lib Dems benefit?

Amusing, though poll internals are always dodgy, YouGov poll internals doubly so (a consequence of the panel system) and North Wales has been one of the weakest parts of the U.K for the LibDems since 1992. Still, lol.

The usual tendency is for the polling position of the government to erode throughout the Parliament, until the last few months before the election. O/c the Con/Lib split shown by YouGov is a little different to that shown by other polling firms; they tend not be quite so extreme.

Bear in mind 'politics' hasn't really started back up again since the GE; at least not in people's minds.

We had an overload at the start of the year with expenses, then the GE then the summer, then the conference season and then a few piddling weeks before the festive season. Business as usual will start up again in the New Year

Also the Lib Dems often do creep back down between elections; it's a bigger drop than usual but I don't think it presents a true picture. The Lib Dems still remain a powerful 'not Labour/not Tory' choice for many voters.

Oh - and can I also thank Labour supporters and those who sympathise in the media for focusing your guns on the Lib Dems for the past 6 months. You've hardly given the Tories a challenge ;) If the fall out from May 2010 is all you focus on for the next few years then that would be super - k thnx.

When Joe Public forget that they even exist. Hardly an excuse now...

Gotta feel sorry for the Tories though. If they had a majority, they wouldn't have all this dysfunction and division dragging them down. The Liberals are harming any potential for good government.

If anything being part of a popular coalition would have propelled them ahead of Labour. It really is emblematic for how impopular the coalition is with Libdem voters or other left-leaning voters that the party not only isn't polling above their GE total but have instead lost 2/3rds of that support.

But do they? For the most part LibDem ministers sound no different to Tory ones, and in terms of media profile it is only ministers that they have. Well, with the exception of the increasingly pathetic Simon Hughes, and his public vacillations on seemingly everything are unlikely to have the sort of positive impact that he presumably assumes likely. What the LibDems did by going into coalition with the Tories in the way that they did (ministers in every department rather than concentrations in certain areas) was change their role within the political system dramatically. They can't play the role of generic protest choice any more, they can't claim to represent anything radically different to the two mass parties and an end has probably come to representing themselves essentially different things in different parts of the country without absurdity. Their local government base is probably going to be annihilated in most major local authorities over the next few years as the rule of anti-government protest kicks in (and no amount of pounding the pavements looking out for dog sh!t can stop that. Plenty of decent 'local champion' type Labour councillors lost 1997-2009 and plenty of the same type  of councillor - though Tory - lost 1980-1996), something that will have consequences, though basically unpredictable ones.

Now, all of this doesn't mean that they're doomed to disappear down the plughole, but it does mean that they'll have to seriously reconsider what they are actually for.

If the Tories had a small majority I can assure there would have been more 'dysfunction' courtesy of the backbench 'awkward squad.'

I do wonder whether 'potential for good government' will matter come May when Labour tries to form an administration at Holyrood. The SNP aren't going around trashing the Lib Dems for example ;)

Lab 43
Con 39
LD 7

Tonight's YouGov. The LDs hit another all time low. Labour only behind the Coalition by 3%.

MORI/Times, 21/8/89, LD 4%
MORI/Times, 26/7/89, LD 4%
MORI/Times, 27/6/89, LD 4%
 (http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/historical-polls/voting-intention-1987-1992)

Ok Cameron seriously needs to drop Clegg and either have the balls to call another election or try and govern with a minority government. What good is the man doing him? Nothing, all he was full of hotair during the campaign, and a wasted vote on the part of the electorate that could have saved Britain from going through the travesty of him in government if they had actually voted for real change in the Tories or voted Labour.

Why on Earth would he do that?

Yes, because a 22 year low is so much better. YouGov's never had them lower in the company's existance anyway. And to be fair, the party was called "The Democrats" until October of '89.


As if Cameron would get anything passed in a minority if he suddenly dropped the Liberals. Although, it wouldn't exactly do Cameron any harm if the coalition collapsed soon. The Tories would probably win any ensuing election. Can't wait for Clegg at the debates next time round though.

Thought they were the SaLaDs?

---

Look, Clegg gives Cameron a sizeable Commons majority of the sort he wouldn't (and won't) win on his own and a precious edge in the Lords. Why dump him? Think logically!

I was just pointing out that 7% wouldn’t be an all-time low; not that the LDs current polling is anything better than dismal.

Anyway, assuming your rejection of the pre-Oct 89 data, the new benchmark for “all time low” would presumably be the series of 5% results between Oct 89 and Jun 90 (same source as above polls), the last one being:
ICM/Guardian, 9/6/90, LD 5%

The new party was named Social and Liberal Democrats (SLD); after shortening this to The Democrats in October 1988, it changed to Liberal Democrats in October 1989.

EdMil plummeting. Cameron more popular amoung Liberals than Clegg.
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2011/01/09/ed-opens-20111-with-a-further-ratings-drop/

Do you say "amoung" in Britain? I didn't know that.

*among

School boy error.

ComRes phone
42 (+2)
34 (-2)
12 (nc)

Biggest Labour lead of the parliament. The Liberals appear to be stabalizing between 8-12, depending on the pollster.

Tonight's YouGov:
43 (+2)
40 (+2)
8 (-2)

Still, if there was an election next month, the Tories would win. They're still trusted over Labour on most things and it's hard to know how much of Labour's rise is just a protest vote, a la 1992.

You have a serious simmering problem with your leader that will have to be adressed quite soon.

Ftr, the Tories didn't poll all that badly under IDS.

Probably, and I trust that the powers-that-be will fix any problems. Although, there's also the issue of the Deputy Prime Minister being nothing but toxic to the government. If this was a majority or minority Tory government, the Tories would be about 10% ahead. If Labour lose the by-election, Ed'll be gone before the end of the year.

Thank you for standing up for a great, great man. He should be leader of the party and of the United Kingdom.

Sure. :)

Holyrood Constituency: CON 9%, LAB 49%, LDEM 7%, SNP 33%
Holyrood Regional: CON 9%, LAB 47%, LDEM 7%, SNP 33%, GRN 3%

LOL

I'll expand upon that a little. To start off with the Lib Dem figures seems about 'right'; it's in line with both Holyrood and Westminster polls. (Lib Dems have a ratio of Westminster-1 : 0.93-Holyrood in terms of votes) Labour on 49% would probably be it's largest vote share in any election in Scotland ever. SNP on 33% would actually be higher than their 2007 score, so again it might be just a few percentage points off the mark.

The Tories have been underpolled in Holyrood elections since...well ever. Not one (okay - well maybe one) Holyrood opinion poll in Scotland in 11, nearly 12 years has predicted the Tory share correctly (which has held up). They always underestimate their support. The Tories in Scotland are not really affected by being in government as they hold little mainstream support anyway. However their core vote is constant and it comes out to vote on the day.(Scottish polls haven't got to grips with turnout models so far)

Labour are vastly over estimated. I don't think that with the campaign still to get under way, they are even above 40%. I cannot see where Labour has aquired an extra 18 points from. It will be interesting to see what past Lib Dem voters are doing. Lib Dem voters in Scotland (excepting students...and what they will do this year will be interesting) are not the same beast as they are in England. The residual SDP presence is not as strong either in the party structure or where they pick up seats.

The regional poll is way off if you look at it. That's all that really needs to be said.

If I was to take a stab in the dark on constituency support I'd probably say LAB 31-37, SNP 30-35, CON 15-18, LIB 8-12

Who did the poll? Of course the answer to 'where are these extra votes coming from?' could easily be 'people who didn't vote last time' (perhaps combined with people who did vote last time not voting this time), although that would be a massive increase even taking that into account.

TNS/BMRB did the poll.

Ah! That explains it. Its System 3's successor.

Ah, right. lol.

Now we know who conducted the poll it's not one to cause some concern.

What concerns me is any movement at all on the constituency vote from Conservative to Labour. It would mean that the Tories core vote has deserted to Labour. What YouGov etc have been showing is more interesting. The Tories are polling around 13-14% which is down on '07 (though as I mentioned, polling that in a Holyrood poll is pretty good for them). Internals seem to suggest that there is movement to the SNP.

The Tories constituency majorities, combined with the individual MSP's who hold these seats are sufficient enough to see them maintain all 5 (notionally)  I have excluded Dumfriesshire which I have as a notional Labour seat. It's an ultramarginal but considering the sitting MSP they will hold on and probably increase their majority (given that Labour voters in Upper Nithsdale/Stewartry have a reason to come out and vote...)

There are of course a slew of SNP/LAB maginals that are vulnerable but the SNP do have a chance in a number of Lib Dem held seats. Aberdeen South and Edinburgh Western are two examples. The Lib Dems with these figures (and with their two Highland MSP's retiring) are vulnerable to wipe out in the north of Scotland (less Orkney and Zetland) Notionally they don't hold the two Border seats either. This would mean we have something we have not seen in Scotland for some time; the Liberals reduced to an 'urban' presence.

ICM/Guardian:
39 (nc)
35 (-2)
15 (+2)

Prefered Prime Minister
Dave Cameron - 38%
Ed Miliband - 25%
Nick Clegg - 12%

Who's best place to deal with the nation's problems?
41% Conservative-led government
36% Labour

That seems a slight bit odd...

Questions like that always end up with lower numbers than 'who would you vote for' questions. Note that the composition of the current government is given 41% but that the combined vote for its parties is 50.

But that makes sense since the poll asked about "the Coalition" and I'm sure quite a few voters from both parties answered neither, since they would prefer a majority for their party.

"Which foreign leader would you most like to see lead the UK?"

Obama - 21%
Merkel - 16%
Gillard - 13%

http://today.yougov.co.uk/politics/obama-brits%E2%80%99-favourite-lead

LOL, please no

Angus Reid (joke pollster, but whatever) shows "The Coalition" tied with Labour - the first time any company has done so.

43 (+2)
32 (-1)
11 (-1)

The Tory figure is why there isn't an election on the horizon, the Liberal % doesn't matter. This would also mean that Labour would win against a "National government" ticket, right? (If this result was to play out, of course.)

Curious. When Gallup destroyed their credibility here, they stopped working here. Angus Reid seem to have adopted a different approach.

To be fair to them, they're picking up what every othe firm is: Liberal hemorrhaging has slowed, the Tories have started to fall - both to Labour's joy.

Actually the polls aren't picking up anything at all :P

()

http://www.nextleft.org/2011/01/cameron-no-longer-more-centrist-than.html

Interesting. I suppose the "voters" columns are the self-placements of voters, while the other columns are aggregate placements by voters of all parties? Would be interesting to see party's and leader's placements by party support.

Yeah, that's right. As for the rest... http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Pol-Prospect-Left-Right-310111.pdf

Though YouGov's internals are often seriously screwy because of the way they do polls.

Last night's ComRes:

43 (+1)
34 (nc)
10 (-2)

I'm still finding it hard to believe that Cleggmania was actually a thing.

YouGov (http://today.yougov.co.uk/politics/govt-trackers-update-31st-jan) (Jan. 31)

Lab - 42 (-2)
Con - 40 (+2)
Lib - 8 (nc)

So just how screwed are the LibDems.... UKPollingReport's swingometer doesn't really give an accurate prediction when you throw in 'extreme' scenarios like LibDems falling to 8%.  I'd have to imagine that if an election were held today that LD's share of seats would fall through the floor.

18 seats would be a blessing for them, if there was an election today. Presumably, they'll get a drubbing at the assembly elections in May (I saw one prediction the other day pegging them at 1 seat in Wales) and they'll probably lose some big councils like Sheffield and see further loses on councils they lost big on in 2010 (i.e. Liverpool).

Depending on how much you pay attention to swingometers though, the lower the Conservatives go, the better it is for the Liberals in terms of seats. They'd go from oblivion to the edge of oblivion if the Conservatives polled say 32%, as opposed to 40% at the next election.

There's also the matter in seats like Eastleigh and Berwick-upon-Tweed of how badly Labour tactical voters coming back to the party will harm the Liberals and if this can be made up by Tories voting more tactically in the north than they normally do. There's also the possibility of many personal votes being harmed (see Nick Clegg in Sheffield Hallam and Simon Hughes in Bermondsey).

fwiw (which is ridiculously little), feeding the last two polls here into a swingometer gives respectively

Labour 375, Con 232, LD 19, other 23

and

Labour 335, Con 282, LD 8, other 24

The 8 LD seats would be Orkney & Shetland, Ross Skye & Lochaber, Westmorland & Lonsdale, Sheffield Hallam, Ceredigion, Norfolk North, Twickenham, Bath, and Yeovil.

A Farron/Laws leadership election would be fun.

I like the one seat the others are losing to Labour in the first scenario compared to the second.

Gordon.
That's right. Lol.

Last two polls with a unified "coalition" ticket:

YouGov: Coalition: 352, Lab: 275, Other: 22
ComRes: Lab: 321, Coalition: 304, Other: 24

That clearly seems to be the way to go for Cameron and especially Clegg.

Conservatives wouldn't actually win that much from a Coalition ticket IIRC, while the Lib Dems obviously would be able to hold on to quite a few seats (not in the least those seats where the conservatives currently are their main challenger). On the other hand a coalition ticket would probably have every single Left-leaning Liberal backbencher calling for Clegg's head. So that means Cameron hasn't got that big of an incentive to go for it, and Clegg's hands are tied by his own party on the issue, making a coalition ticket not very likely IMHO. Maybe one of our British posters can elaborate?

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/43729/labour-still-leads-in-britain-even-if-coalition-partners-run-together/

Their minds might be swayed if there's a good chance they won't be sitting on a bench at all.

They'd prefer a new, untarnished leader, (because, let's be honest, Clegg is more unpopular than Gordon Brown was in May) to try and detoxify themselves from Clegg, rather than a joint Coalition ticket.

YouGov:

Labour - 44% (+2)
Tories - 39% (-1)
Lib Dems - 8% (NC)

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/3070

Reporting this particular poll here because it represents a minor milestone of sorts...

Labour 45%, Con 35%, LDem 9% (YouGov/Sunday Times)

Of course these are fantasy numbers, like all polls this far out. And from a semi-tracker-whatever as well. But, hey.

Big Society speech. Good for the Tories, or bad?

Neutral; it's not going to sway many minds either way. The real time to seriously watch is when the new financial year starts and the cuts really hit; especially with the elections in May.

The SNP have opened up a lead in Holyrood voting intentions with Ipsos-MORI

Holyrood Constituency: CON 13%(nc), LAB 36%(-5), LibDEM 10%(nc), SNP 37%(+6)

Holyrood Regional: CON 13%(+1), LAB 33%(-3), LibDEM 13%(+1), SNP 35%(+3), Greens 6%

Just some comments on the poll internals

The Lib Dems are less popular among the 18-24 age group than any other (7%)
SNP support is strongest amongst those aged 25-34

The Labour lead over SNP amongst women is 7%
The SNP lead over Labour amongst men is 10%

Conservative support amongst voters born elsewhere in the UK is 28% equal with Labour

The SNP lead over Labour in the 'least affluent 20%' is 9%. It's lead in the 'most affluent 20%' is 6%

Very different figures than from other polls recently, not that there have been many. Should probably go in the thread for the election as well.

There is the problem. Anything by System 3's successor is easily ignorable. Ipsos-Mori are polling Holyrood every 3 months. The only downside is that they didn't poll during the 2007 election.

Labour were behind in most polls prior to the 2010 GE, since then they have bounded ahead. The question of course is what was this bounce based on; was it a reflection on what was happening in Westminster. Who know's. For the record they sample days were during a terrible week for 'Scottish' Labour who were caught out by the Megrahi issue and were lambasted for voting down a budget despite getting the concessions they had demanded.

Though the effect of that is weakened by the hoardes of voters who would say 'What's a budget, whats Megrahi and who is Iain Gray?'

I fail to see any poll showing the SNP "opening a lead". Unless you meant against the National Government.

What is this 'National' Government you speak of?

UKIP gaining on the Liberals on Angus Reid (joke pollster)

41 (+1)
34 (+1)
10 (-1)
7 (+1)

The English one. It is called the National Government because it is supported by only one of the four nations of the United Kingdom.

Apparently YouGov give us an eleven point lead. A bit like that cream that comes in squirty can thing; pleasant enough, but you know it's artificial.

It's not artificial - it's sweetened though. More than you would if you whipped your own cream.

If David Cameron went to the palace tomorrow and asked for an April 10th election, it's safe to say he'd probably still be PM on April 11th. Hypothetically, in my opinion and all that...

I would agree, and not for any partisan reason. Labour's support is based on opposition to the government. The same was true until about this time last year for the Tories.

Exactly. Although the I doubt the Liberals would pick much support back up. Also, don't forgot, Labour (as a party) is beyond skint. The 2010 election was done on such a budget, i'm suprised that Lidl didn't endorse them.

ComRes
40 (-2) 37 (+1) 11 (nc)

The Budget:
I believe that George Osborne, the Chancellor, is “on my side” in dealing with the country’s economic problems

Agree: 23%

Disagree: 50%

Unsurprisingly, 53% of Conservative voters agree – compared with 8% of Labour and 28% of Lib Dem voters.

When Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, talks about the “squeezed middle” he is talking about people like me and my family

Agree: 48%

Disagree: 28%

On this question, there is less of a partisan divide: 68% of Labour voters agree, compared to 40% of Conservative and 42% of Lib Dem voters.

Cancelling the planned 1p increase in fuel duty in the Budget would not be enough to help motorists

Agree: 80%

Disagree: 10%

The cuts are unfair because they will be felt more by the poor than by wealthier households

Agree: 63% (Nov: 56%; Dec: 57%, Feb: 63%)

Disagree: 25% (Nov: 30%; Dec: 28%, Feb: 24%)

There is a significant party split: 90% of Labour supporters agree, compared with 27% of Conservative and 53% of Lib Dems.

Bankers are making a fair contribution to the cost of getting the public finances back on track

Agree: 9%

Disagree: 78%

Finally, we asked about the Duke of York:

David Cameron should have sacked Prince Andrew from his role as an international trade ambassador when his judgement over personal friendships was first called into question

Agree: 38%

Disagree: 33%

Don’t know: 29%

March's Ipsos/Mori
41 (-2) 37 (+4) 10 (-3)

Approval ratings (approve/disapprove):
David Cameron - 43/51 (+4/-1)
Nick Clegg - 34/56 (nc/-1)
Ed Miliband - 37/42 (+3/-1)
"The Government" - 36/59 (+5/-1)
George Osbourne - 36/45 (-4/+22, changes since June 2010)

Economy:
"Do you think that the general economic condition of the country will
improve, stay the same or get worse over the next 12 months?"
23/23/51 (+4/nc/-5)

"Which party do you think has the best policies on the economy?"
31/28/6

"Who do you think would make the most capable Chancellor?"
Ed Balls - 36%
George Osbourne - 35%

"Do you think the government has on the whole made the right decisions or the wrong decisions about where spending cuts should be made?" (Changes since October 2010)
Yes 35 (-6)
No 55 (+17)

Libya:
"Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way the government is
handling the crisis in Libya?"
42/42

Mori notes that Yugoslavia handling in 1999 was 49/28. Not sure how useful their point is though...

The preferred chancellor numbers have gotten me all excited for the opposition response to the budget! I wonder how Labour's gonna try and spin any fuel duty reduction as bad...

Only posted as it is a curious poll

ICM

Conservative 37
Labour 36
Lib Dem 16

What's particularly curious is that it's not that different from their last one; for some reason ICM are showing a subtly different landscape to the other companies (which is more interesting than the ups and downs all polling firms will inevitably show from time to time). Who's right?

(of course if the last General Election is anything to go by, the answer to that is 'no one').

YouGov
44 (+3) 36 (-2) 9 (-2)

ComRes (Phone)
41 (+2) 35 (nc) 13 (+1)

End of the budget bounce? Ed Milibandela/Suffrag'Ed bounce? Who knows?

Interesting stuff from this week's Sunday Times/YouGov:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/yg-archives-pol-st-results-22-240711.pdf

43 (-1) 35 (-1) 10 (+1)

David Cameron approval:
39 (-2)/55 (+2) (-16 net)

Ed Miliband approval:
35 (+3)/50 (-3) (-15 net)

Nick Clegg approval:
24 (nc)/66 (nc) (-42 net)

To those who subscribe to the mantra that approval is more important than voting intention.

At the start of the month, Ed (when he was just that idiot who repeated the "get around the table" soundbite) was a -34.

What's up with this sky-rocketing LibDem vote?

They've gone from

8-8-9-8-8-9-9-8-8-9-8-9-8-9-8-9
in the polls to
10-10-11-11-10-10-11-10-11-10-11-11-10

What gives?

Nick Clegg has barely reared his head (bar a forgettable soundbite or two) since the referendum. That'll be why. No doubt the questions about the Liberal leadership will come back once we hit conference season.

Their popularity's lack of movement over the past few months is just a reflection of how totally irrelevent they are.

My theory is that the Tories look dirty, and saying you back the LibDems is a way of saying "I back Cameron, but he's dirty"

Saying you back the LDs is like saying you no ideals of your own anyway. How anyone who voted for their last manifesto can still back them is beyond me...

People read manifestos?

Alright, anyone who voted for this (http://www.leftfootforward.org/images/2010/10/Nick-Clegg-tuition-fees-pledge.jpg), this (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5mJGEVvBCgc/TCE1oEcu2eI/AAAAAAAABHo/_1QEt49_b2g/s1600/Tory+VAT+Bombshell.jpg) or even this (http://images.newstatesman.com/articles/2010//20100416_nick-clegg-1st-leader-debate-15-april-2010_w.jpg).

Ah, well, yes. But then those still pledged to voting LibDem generally didn't do so for those reasons. The people that did are the ones who've gone.