YouGov seeks to placate its weightings critics
March 5th, 2010
What do we think of the Anthony Wells explanation?
YouGov staffer and operator of UKPollingReport, Anthony Wells, has put up a long post seeking to answer some of the points about the firm’s weightings that have appeared here in recent days.
The essence of his article is that there have been adjustments to deal with the new way it is doing the daily poll which do not involve members of its panel being asked to take part in a specific survey.
Anthony explains: ” Now people are sent a non-specific invite and, when they arrive at the YouGov system, they are allocated to whichever survey needs someone in their demographic group (for example, were I to arrive at the site the system would look at all the open surveys and see which one’s quotas were most in need of a 25-40, middle-class, Times reading man from the South East, and send me over there). What this means is that surveys don’t get excess replies, respondents never get sent away empty handed, and that even very fast surveys get an even mix of fast and slow respondents, allowing accurate one day surveys.
However, because you can’t tell who is going to respond to which survey, it also makes it more difficult to calculate the proportions of people to invite to get a sample that needs the least possible amount of weighting – hence the slightly higher levels of weighting (though it’s worth saying they remain relatively low compared to some of the weights needed for quasi-random samples)..”
The result, as far as I can see, is that we get the ridiculous situation that Labour seems to better when fewer respondents classified by the firm as being “Labour Loyal” take part. This is because, like in the example shown above, the responses from those that do are magnified in order for a poll to reach its “quota”.
Surely the answer is for YouGov to stop messing about with party ID weighting and use past vote weighting as employed by ICM, Populus, ComRes and Angus Reid?
UPDATE 1950 On reflection that previous point was wrong. It’s good that we have a range of pollsters all looking at the same issue but from different standpoints.
Mike Smithson
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Well, quite. Good timing by me to arrive just in time for a new thread.
I’m dubious of YouGov.
FPT - On the NHS or public spending generally I like to compare it to my job (software engineer). I used to work making PC games an area where power would increase every year at around 50% but we never made 50% gains in performance. All that happened is we took more for granted and our code became more and more inefficient and our performance gains were nowhere near the amount power increased every year. This is summarised by Wirth’s Law.
I moved to a console developer last year and have been working with limited resources (console development has fixed resources as you can’t change hardware until the end of the generation). We have to innovate everyday to get more out of what we have available, recently we pioneered a new method of AA that will be implemented in a game in the coming month. Before we started we were told it was impossible to do, but with hard work and a lot of research we did it, underbudget on hardware it is technically impossible to do on.
The problem with the public sector is that productivity decreases at a faster rate than money increases. To paraphrase Wirth.
1 - congrats - you look pleased.
“Surely the answer is for YouGov to stop messing about with party ID weighting and use past vote weighting as employed by ICM, Populus, ComRes and Angus Reid?”
Perhaps they’re reluctant to do so because their past results have been that bit more accurate than recidivist Labour overstaters ComRes, and because Angus Reid’s methods are wholly untested in the UK?
I’m still not convinced - and if it was so *simple* why didn’t Mr Kellner just say so? :scratches head:
“Surely the answer is for YouGov to stop messing about with party ID weighting and use past vote weighting as employed by ICM, Populus, ComRes and Angus Reid?”
+ 1
Party ID weighting is OK provided that they use the latest figures for the targets, that is to say the 2008 BSAS not 2005 GE figures.
Do you think that GB might try this at the actual election?
Mike - yes, that would be a more transparent approach.
And what about the target weights themselves? Cf Caveman’s post on the thread on Anthony’s site.
5. James Kelly: Perhaps they’re reluctant to do so because their past results have been that bit more accurate than recidivist Labour overstaters ComRes
If they were happy with the accuracy of their previous methodology, they wouldn’t have changed it…
re 5. AR untested? YES. But so is the new YouGov approach as well as that from ComRes and MORI.
Side-topic : YouGov now private-polling for CCHQ
Over at ConservativeHome, Tim Montgomerie notes the new polling arrangements at CCHQ: the Populus organisation run by Tory modernisers has lost its monopoly of internal polling. The party will now be using opinion-gathering information from YouGov as well.
—->…“We in the Tory party have to drop all those issues (immigration, Europe, etc) that were previously strongly associated with us because our traditional image is so hated by the voters.”
The definitive proof of this particular hatred for the Tories was that when voters were presented with Conservative policies that were not identified with the party, they approved of them. But when told that these were “Conservative” policies, they rejected them. Hence, the existing Conservative “brand” was irretrievably damaged.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/janetdaley/100028597/tory-moderniser-myths-no-102/
How is YouGov doing part of CCHQ private polling influencing the Tories’ campaign?
Disagree. I like seeing a range of methodologies, providing they are clearly explained.
Past vote weighting has problems too - false recall, shyness, needs special adjustment for people who didn’t vote last time, etc.
Any polling organisation needs to be absolutely upfront when it changes its methodology though - about what has changed, why, and the effect, if any, it will have.
5, YouGov did very well at the mayorals, I believe. If their method was working then, why mysteriously change it in 2010?
The altered method works to Labour’s advantage, and the daily nature of the ‘poll’ is making political news rather than reflecting political views.
11/12. But YouGov have never weighted by past vote, have they? Apologies if I’m wrong.
This will only really be proved by the GE - all speculation until then.
What I still don’t understand is why when the levels of respondents have stayed broadly similar over a period of time, they were considered accurate, but are no longer so. Does YouGov think it was getting it wrong over the past few months? Have they run a standard poll under the old criteria?
3 Max
I agree. The public service just has no focus on productivity, managers spend all their time pleading for “more resources” and when they get them don’t use them. The NHS is probably the worst of the bunch, though the MOD must run a close second.
The private sector is forced to make more with less and for whatever reason seems able to do so.
“Shortly after starting the daily polling YouGov made a slight change to their political weighting.”
As I said before, a shame that YouGov waited until after they had started their reporting to change things – and then failed to mention it had been altered for a week or so.
Bad practice imho.
The other big question that remains unanswered is why the weighting adjustments are not only so large but so consistently in one direction? That would seem to imply either a problem with the target weights or a big problem with the sampling process.
This is all very interesting. And the adjustment to Labour Loyal etc valid BUT why is the same not done for Con and LIBDem?
By doing it for Labour alone with the resulting uplift to their polling there must be a suspicion that the final figures are suspect.
Actually Anthony addresses two completely separate points, which I think you’ve conflated there Mike.
One is to do with the Loyal/Disloyal distinction, and one is related to the allocation of respondents. The second of these explains the mystery of why they are finding so many more Conservative voters than they did a year ago; it’s because their sample has become less representative, and therefore needs more adjustment to get to their sample weightings (eg on Males Over 55). That makes sense, but it does mean the standard error is a bit higher than it would have been (effectively they’ve got a smaller sample for some key groups).
On the party ID question, and the Loyal/Disloyal distinction, I’m less clear. Caveman’s post on Anthony’s site puts the point very well.
Beyond all that, there is of course the question of whether party ID is a good factor to weight to, for an election where loyalties may have shifted more than in the last few elections.
Let me get this right, if Labour support is evaporating yougov just scale up the responses they do get so that it isn’t ‘affecting’ the figures?
Presumably when G Brown and Tim are the last two people in the world still voting Labour Yougov will just weight up their responses x500 or so and still show a hung parliament?
22. GeoffH.
The argument would be that the Iraq protest voters are a tenable block whose reaction this time (move back home or stay with the LDs/Greens) is important and that they make up the bulk of “disloyal Lab” whilst those C/LD identifiers who “were disloyal” had multiple reasons for being so.
One of the Millibands was on the BBC World Service the other day saying he was declaring war on climate change ’sceptics’.
- and the Met Office has issued a report: Strong evidence on global warming, says study
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2832934a-27f6-11df-9598-00144feabdc0.html
Over to you Plato -
The more interesting story seems to be Steven Purcell. Is his scandal big enough to cause national outrage? Or is it a local difficulty?
If it’s just a “chemical dependency” as alleged in the Scotsman, and denied by Mr Purcell, then it’s a largely private and quite sad matter. If true, then yes, he should resign, but it is fairly contained.
On the other hand, all the mood music from journalists seems to suggest it might be a lot deeper.
We will find out soon.
24. “Let me get this right, if Labour support is evaporating yougov just scale up the responses they do get so that it isn’t ‘affecting’ the figures?”
Weren’t we told yesterday that nobody was claiming that YouGov were ‘manufacturing’ their figures?
24. Not quite Marcus - they say they are doing this because the sampling process, having changed, is producing fewer Labour identifiers. I do wonder, however, whether they can distinguish entirely between structural sampling shifts and a genuine change in opinion…
27. Which journos ?
21 LondonStatto - I think Anthony has answered that; it’s the change in the way they allocate respondents to polls. They are picking up more of the kinds of people who tend to vote Conservative (such as Males Over 55) than they used to.
26- it isn’t good that either Milliband is declaring war on any law abiding citizens, in fact it’s childish and arrogant. So it really could have been either of them!
26 TimB
well if Miliband has declared war on Putin and the Chinese he’d better let the rest of us know about it. Don’t fancy our chances of winning this one though, they both got bigger armies.
24 Marcus Wood
Not sure that is a fair characterization of the position. As Anthony Wells explains, they did parallel testing of the old and new systems, and found no real difference in the headline figures.
However, this method should produce slightly more variability and error as there is greater scaling of certain demographics. It is therefore slightly puzzling that the headline figures are relatively stable.
27. If it’s ‘just’ a sex or drugs scandal, the journalists may be getting over-excited and imagining its potential impact is bigger than it is. It would need to be something on a par with Jeremy Thorpe to justify what’s being said on Twitter.
26
When I heard Gordon say Labour were going to campaign on AGW - my immediate reaction was 
31. Richard Nabavi.
Ah, so they’ve admitted that their sampling process is hopelessly flawed?
Oh dear.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
521 FTP I would like to clarify that by “health outcomes” I mean life expectancy and infant mortality. There are loads of other statistics which can be used to make any argument you like, but life expectancy and infant mortality are the two most basic health statistics and 2008 WHO life expectancy is France 80.7, UK 79.4, Germany 79.4, US 78.2. Infant mortality (death before age 1 per 1000 live births) is France 4.2, Germany 4.3, UK 4.8 and US 6.3.
Given that the US spends twice as much on healthcare as the others these statistics - especially infant mortality - suggest their system is very poor value for money.
OT Wow
“Drug gang made so much money it rotted in safes”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article7051561.ece
Tim B have you seen:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8551416.stm
30 The Ghost of Harry Flashman
In particular, a journalist going by the handle “journodave” on Twitter - but many others on Twitter are saying that all is not as it seems.
25 “The argument would be that the Iraq protest voters are a tenable block whose reaction this time (move back home or stay with the LDs/Greens) is important and that they make up the bulk of “disloyal Lab” whilst those C/LD identifiers who “were disloyal” had multiple reasons for being so.”
Doesn’t matter what the reasons for being disloyal were for any of the parties’ normal identifiers. If you’re going to make this sort of adjustment, then it must be across all parties and not just one.
YouGov results remain suspect.
So, correct my if I’m wrong, but if someone used to vote Labour but now doesn’t like the party is presented with a daily poll survey, it is likely that they select “None” or “Don’t know” for party ID, and selects Conservative.
Now, even though this person represents a swing of one person away from Labour to the Conservatives, they get weighted down because they’re not ID’d as Labour, and people who ID as Labour (and then select Labour in the survey) get weighted up.
This seems perverse. I agree with Mike, they need to use past vote weighting.
Tim B / Plato
http://theorangepartyblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/wrong-kind-of-weather-forecast.html
35 James Kelly
True. Journalists are always keen to overplay their hand. It’s probably not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things.
41.
http://www.torybear.com/2010/03/purcell-intrigue.html
“Mr Irving is a crisis manager, but TB hears perhaps Mr Purcell better find a relationship councillor too.”
Since the YouGov daily poll has started, ignoring the 2% outlier - we have had ComRes, ICM & MORI all in the same range as YouGov of 5-7% - the only other polling company to have offered us any polls has been Angus Reid who are still above 10% (12 & 14%), so unless the next Populus poll shows a lead over 10% I would suggest instead of looking at how YouGov conduct their polls you should start looking closer to home.
37 - not hopelessly flawed, merely deferred success
38 nickc
it looks like the best VFM is splitting insurance from provision of healthcare. It’s the way this country needs to go.
t0ry bear seems to be in the spam filter - but follow his tweets perhaps…
Nobody can tell me that YouGov is not biased towards labour. I’ve been saying it for months.
At last some people are beginning to agree with me.
Did anyone else think that BRown was quite impressive today. Obviousley it’s a difficult subject matter so I don’t want to be to Party - jingoistic but I do think he performed well.
I’d be surprised if there was any story featuring a councillor - albeit one of the biggest cheeses in councillordom - that could have implications beyond the city itself. On the face of it, it’s an unfortunate one-off that we can’t draw any lessons from - bad news mainly for Mr. Purcell and his family, but without wider ramifications. I’m actually slightly surprised that it’s being reported as prominently as it is. but the only way I can see this might get wider traction is if other more nationally known figures are involved.
37 ‘Hopelessly flawed’ is putting it too strongly, Statto. As long as they have enough benefit-dependent-twenty-year-olds*, say, it doesn’t matter if they’ve also got too many 56-year-old-upright-citizens*, or whatever categories they use.
(* These terms are for illustration purposes only. No slur on any voter intended.)
43 - saying it’s Exeter based - didn’t it used to be in Bracknell?
This is on ConHome:
“There have been a number of misguided comments recently about supposed ‘strange new weightings’ by YouGov: Anthony Wells of UKPollingReport and YouGov has just posted this detailed account for those of you who want to dig deep into the methodology.
I do wonder at some of the comments that have been made. Why would we do anything except to improve the robustness of the methodology? It’s worth pointing out: we are accurate precisely because, as a panel-based pollster, we are able to see exactly what’s happening to our samples and to make adjustments to our methods accordingly. It is because we constantly update that we remain reliably accurate. Remember, pollsters went horribly wrong back in 1992 because they refused to improve their methods in the face of change”
Stephan Shakespeare, CEO of YouGov.
Did Gordon brown pay a visit to Japan recently?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8551868.stm
52. Richard Nabavi.
That’s true as far as it goes, but if the oversampling is always in one direction, as was mentioned upthread, it makes it impossible to tell whether it’s actually oversampling or if identification has switched.
38 - ‘Health outcomes’ is usually taken to mean The effect on health status from performance (or non-performance) of one or more processes or activities carried out by healthcare providers In other words what happens after (say) heart surgery.
It is not a synonym for life expectancy or infant mortality.
54 They moved out to Exeter a few years ago.
On this loyal/disloyal issue, note the following from Wells’ piece:
“this was mostly a Labour phenomenon, the overwhelming majority of people who identified with the Lib Dems or Conservatives also voted for them”
So basically, it ain’t worth bothering with a LD or Tory disloyal category.
53. Tim B. Vague memory you might be right. It is definitely in Exeter now. I seem to remember an article about them moving all their supercomputers to the new building… Maybe they shouldn’t have bothered!
54, chief executive of company under fire defends company and says it’s made of raw awesomeness with lashings of accuracy.
Shakespeare, you crazy fool, you can’t say your firm’s accurate with its new methodology because it’s never been tested.
“Remember, pollsters went horribly wrong back in 1992 because they refused to improve their methods in the face of change””
YouGov was shit hot, if memory serves, with the mayorals and has been pretty good elsewhere recently. So why change a winning formula? I haven’t been this unconvinced since Ed Balls sent me a newsletter saying how brilliant Labour’s economic record is.
Yougov have bitten off more than they can chew with all these polls and are compensating with statistical tricks.
So I come back to my earlier point: Were they getting the right balance in the summer or not? Are they suggesting there has been an underlying shift in support from Labour -> Tory and now Tory -> Labour in terms of identification? If so, why is the response rate not picking it up?
journodave
No indication that the story coming is linked to Steven Purcell, it is related to Glasgow City Council of which Purcell was a member.
So YouGov are just saying what we’ve been saying ever since they starting weighting by the party ID system. Rather than explaining it seems like they are just stating it.
So to sum it up:
Labour respondents decreasing, unweighted gap stays the same, weighted gap decreases massively.
It doesn’t really add up.
I’m not one to say conspiracy very often, but the fact that YouGov have suddenly changed their weighting system (to suddenly favour Labour massively), are doing daily polls and setting the pre-election narrative that Labour are closing the gap and building momentum adds up to questions needing to be asked to Kellner.
47 - I tend to agree with your point. I do have eservations about Yougov but its not as though they are out of kilter with most of the rest. =Have to say as a Tory that I wish it was as simple as a dodgy pollster !!
40 - from the article “Although we can identify general patterns of weather, the science does not exist to allow an exact forecast beyond five days”
I suspect that the Met Office is no better or worse than other forecasters, yet even though the can’t forecast accurately more 5 days out, Copenhagen’s big push was to control the temperature years ahead to within 2 degrees C.
69 Indeed - it’s nonsense.
weathercock,
if YouGov were so biased, why would CCHQ hire them?!
68 - Yes, agree. I’m certainly holding my fire until we have seen the next ICM (Sunday?) and Populus (Tuesday?), and my hunch is that both will also be in the 6-8% range.
Completely Off topic… in fact out of the ballpark
I just shot down someone called David Roe in the Top Gun game on Facebook.
If it was our David Roe then I am really sorry… (actually I’m not, it felt great
)
59 Thank you, I will smarten up my use of language!
Doesn’t undermine my argument though….
49 This very much what the purchaser/provider split in the NHS is supposed to be about - I’m always a bit skeptical about huge benefits being delivered through structural change - but I agree there is some merit in this idea.
Thanks for all the explanations. I have always been very dubious of quantative market research (and not just political polls) because, like economics and sociology, it is in my view another form of the subjective opinion dressed up as objective science.
Everyone and his dog can suggest ways in which the sample might not be truly representative and then suggest helpful weightings to help the argument one way or another and then present the modified result as scientifically pure. When you sell a new line to Tesco’s and you need ‘proof’ for their buying department that their customers want your brand it’s a case of ‘every little helps’ as they say.
Anyway isn’t the fact that yougov are struggling to find enough Labour identifiers itself evidence of something important going on out there?
38. But you leave out the poor health associated with immigrants / new arrivals, and the huge life disparities of african americans. these are often not down to access to health but cultural and dietary problems.
France, Germany and to a much lesser degree UK (well done new labour) are more homogeneous societies then the usa.
The american system is highly disadvantageous to the very poor and undocumented, but for the average middle american, the life expectancy is higher then the UK, and their access and quality of healthcare is considerably higher (though also, more expensive).
To a middle american, with health insurance, the level of treatment available via the nhs, for general practice, emergency care, cancer treatment, eye care and dental care would have them running for the hills in horror.
63. LondonStatto, things look more ominous than at any time since 1976.
It’s one of the most important articles written on the economy this year.
‘Britain Grapples With Debt of Greek Proportions’ Landon Thomas.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/business/global/03pound.html
73 I was shown Woodstock and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre by someone called David Roe when I was 14
He looked like Iggy Pop…
@52:
My initial instinct was to give Yougov the benefit of the doubt, but the more I read (and the above linked article, and OGH’s commentary are included in that) drive me to the opinion that the Yougov dailies are broken, and should be disregarded.
I assume that Yougov are still using their old, tested methodology for their non-daily polls?
74 nickc
the purchaser\provider aspect I think will work, but the funding needs to be clearly separated from the provision. At the moment it’s all too fuzzy and still all too tied up with internal politics; patientcare comes second to the latest set of targets.
79 The problem may be that the respondents are getting weary of incessant polling so the traditional polls may even affected by this…
Interesting to see from the survey highlighted on the previous thread that the BNP have been more active than UKiP or the Greens.
“We know from research that such contacts have positive electoral effects, making this type of activity a vital part of the overall effort to win votes. “
http://www.epolitix.com/latestnews/article-detail/newsarticle/early-skirmishes-won-by-the-tories/
Also the LDs coming ahead of Labour suggests that LD>Con marginals will be close.
65 SthLondonNick - I think they probably are getting it right now, or at least as right as they were before (subject to understanding a bit more about Caveman’s point on the Loyal/Disloyal split). Because they’ve changed the way they allocate respondents to surveys, they are sampling too many of some groups, and therefore weighting them down.
The separate question of whether Party ID weighting is the best approach in the current circumstances hasn’t changed; that remains (in theory at least) a possible source of systematic error, but no more than a few months ago.
However, as Anthony and others have pointed out, YouGov’s headline figures are in line with most other pollsters who use different methods (such as ICM), so it doesn’t look as though there’s a big systematic error. We won’t know for sure until the election, and maybe not even then.
Subject to Caveman’s point, I think they’ve answered all the questions satisfactorily.
From twitter, it appears the background story to the Stephen Purcell story is nothing to do with him himself:
“No indication that the story coming is linked to Steven Purcell, it is related to Glasgow City Council of which Purcell was a member.”
73 - Not me, sorry
I can’t wait to go to work to read what we have on Glasgow Council!
Here’s what we had yesterday
http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/2879303/Steven-Purcell-was-not-treated-for-drugs-at-clinic-medics-say.html
So unless the clinic are lying for Labour, I reckon it’s a council scandal. Council scandals more likely to harm Labour throughout Scotland than an individual doing something wrong.
It would have to be pretty spectacular to harm Labour more widely than that and the Tories have limited ground they can realistically make north of the border.
Is there a market for most accurate pollster come Election Day?
66.ScottP, is it possible we are looking at more than one scandal in Scottish politics?
Long-term, I think the best way to solve all the weighting issues is to release per-respondent raw data and sampling methodology - at lesat, as much as feasible is whilst maintaining sensible data protection.
That way, those who want to weight to past vote could do so. Those who want to weight to anything else sensible (ethnicity, newspaper readership, constituency, etc) could also do so.
“Open source polling” could be an exciting but natural next step.
85 David Roe
I’ve found it interesting that the emphasis is being placed on “not”.
The consultant might have meant “NOT ‘treated for a drug problem’ “. On the other hand he might have meant “not TREATED ‘for a drug problem’ “.
87. ChristinaD. Looks a bit like it.
“Council scandals more likely to harm Labour throughout Scotland than an individual doing something wrong.”
Could be important betting implications.
Jim Murphy has been playing the Glasgow Labour against Edinburgh SNP card heavily. If Glasgow Labour turn out to be corrupt, who knows how many seats could fall?
85. “It would have to be pretty spectacular to harm Labour more widely than that and the Tories have limited ground they can realistically make north of the border.”
I think if I can take the liberty of paraphrasing what you’re saying, David, it’s that if anyone benefits it’s going to be the SNP!
The answer from YouGov has I’m afraid made me less convinced. I now have a big question mark over what they are doing to be honest.
journodave
The story will break within the next half hour.
87 ChristinaD
Remember when Major did his “back to basics” thing? The Press went hunting to expose any moral hypocrisy.
One wonders whether Murphy’s “religion in politics” has provoked a similar response.
To hell with politics! If this sells papers, then the Press will publish regardless of any collateral damage to Labour.
LondonStatto FPT:
“541. James Kelly.
You’re a disgrace. I don’t know why I even bothered.
Go on, go back to your 42nd best blog and have a whinge about me.”
Indeed, don’t let yourself be bothered. This is the same guy who used to cry that he wouldn’t stoop to posting anymore on a blog that tolerated my presence and then flounced off for a while, only to return and insist on constantly responding to my posts even though he knows I won’t answer him. You’re not obligated to engage in fruitless conversations on PB, so save yourself the trouble.
76 In general I think immigrants/new arrivals are mostly in the 20-40 age group and therefore unlikely to have poor health - you would expect them on average to be healthier than the native population.
Notting Hill police have issued an urgent appeal in the hunt for a missing local resident. The man is described as “a bit posh but shifty with it”, with a bright ,shiny face described as “airbrushed” by one local. He is believed to be wearing an Eton jacket over a pair of what are apparently known as “Bullingdon Club Slacks” and a black fox-hunter’s cap. He is believed to have last been seen some days ago when a business associate identified only as “A” allegedly failed to pay an outstanding bill of some considerable size. There has been local speculation that the missing man found this distressing as he had an unblemished record of openness and transparency in his personal life .
When last seen he was heard to mumble something about having to find some “policies” but it is not clear what he could have meant by this as no one could recall him mentioning anything about this in the past. Police and local residents are keen to find him before any harm can occur as he and a mysterious friend known locally as “Young George” have apparently recently shared the common delusion that they ought to be “running the country”. Can you help?
by bribrad March 5th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
A senior Liberal Democrat election strategist today said it would “very difficult” to imagine that his party would prop up a minority Labour government after the general election.
Alistair Carmichael, the head of the Lib Dems’ Scottish election campaign, said: “I don’t know what the point of that would be.
“The hallmark of 13 years of Labour government has been the sheer pointlessness of it all. They’ve had tremendous opportunities and they’ve blown them all.”
Carmichael’s remarks came amid increasing speculation that the general election would leave neither Labour nor the Tories with an overall majority, increasing talk that the Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, could be a “kingmaker” for the largest party by holding the balance of power.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/05/liberal-democrats-labour-election-government
“The result, as far as I can see, is that we get the ridiculous situation that Labour seems to better when fewer respondents classified by the firm as being “Labour Loyal” take part.”
This is what I said when this question was raised on Channel 2!
YouGov did very well in 2005, but this sort of weighting will bite them hard when there are wholesale shifts of opinion.
Their methodology suits them well when there is variation of opinion, but no great “sea change”.
56. Re - Stephan Shakespeare’s comments.
This is all very well and it may very well be ‘misguided’ to attribute base motives for YouGov’s changes in the light of improved results for Labour.
BUT.
Remember Arthur Anderson and DeLorean. Mrs T was so affronted by their incompetence in that case that they were frozen out of further government work. That led to AA being very much a partisan supporter of New Labour, doing a lot of work on policy fro them prior to 19997, clearly in the hope of being allowed back in to government work in the event of a New Lab win. They were not to be disappointed.
The pro bono work for New Lab resulted in government contracts far outweighing the costs of that work.
Of course, Enron finally killed them off but that was later.
Who knows how YouGov may benefit from building a narrative that worked towards a climate that helps Labour?
75 Marcus Wood. An excellent post, I agree completely.
If YouGov is consistently getting responses from those proposing to vote Conservative ‘too high’, there may well be a message. It seems to suggest that the Conservatives are more likely to vote than potential Labour respondents.
And I see no reason to modify my view expressed in an earlier thread that what YouGov is producing is their view of UK opinion. With these sizeable and questionable modifications, they are not opinion polls.
There’s another point.
It’s claimed that the new adjustments were tested in parallel to the old method and there was no significant difference in the results.
Well, we never saw the parallel polls and if the changes made no difference, why change?
83 - Richard. I tend to see their logic and by way of comparison I see that ICM had to down weight the Labour response in their last Guardian/ICM Omnibus survey to get the figures they wanted. The LibDems got weighted upwards a touch as well. I still can’t understand why with so many thousands on the panel they can’t get a balanced sample on a regular basis. Secondly they designed a system to deal with a result they thought was out of sync. So that then raises the question as to why that didn’t deal with the 2% in the Sunday Times. In fact we have had 1 poll I believe from YouGov where they didn’t need to move the unweighted figures at all to get this 6/7% lead. My concern continues to be that the weighting is always in one direction. One would assume that with a series of regular samples you would have to see a reversal once or twice…
Now we know that there is a response bias with telephone pollsters and YouGov feel that there is a reverse bias with internet polling. The question is, does Angus Reid have the same bias in responses? At least at the raw-data level, we should be comparing apples with apples.
16 - James Helly , Up to the 2005 GE , Yougov DID weight by past vote and NOT by Party ID .
cathynewman
C4 News Exclusive: leaked email reveals tory “despair”. more soon
95. “Indeed, don’t let yourself be bothered. This is the same guy who used to cry that he wouldn’t stoop to posting anymore on a blog that tolerated my presence and then flounced off for a while, only to return and insist on constantly responding to my posts even though he knows I won’t answer him. You’re not obligated to engage in fruitless conversations on PB, so save yourself the trouble.”
Yes, I could hardly have been more prescient on the previous thread when I pointed out that S&S is somewhat cavalier with his attitude to ‘facts’. In fact, on the occasion he’s referring to, I went out of my way to make clear that I intended to continue posting to demonstrate I wasn’t going to be driven off the site by his behaviour. LS called me a “disgrace” earlier - well, there’s just one poster on PB I would characterise in those terms, and it isn’t LS. I’ll give you a clue - it’s someone who thinks that it’s perfectly legitimate to use another poster’s history of mental health problems to attack them. After you showed your true colours on that occasion (and I think I correctly interpret your decision to no longer respond to me as a sign that you knew perfectly well you’d overstepped the mark that day, even though you didn’t have the grace to acknowledge that or apologise) it’s quite true that I haven’t treated you with the slightest respect. The ‘free hit’ you’ve afforded me since then has been most welcome, and long may it continue.
When’s the next Angus Reid due?
Regardless of the differences between AR and YouGov, the difference (or lack thereof) between the next AR and the previous will surely give us some idea as to whether there has been a fundamental Con->Lab shift lately or whether YouGov have been smoking crack.
76 - The american system is highly disadvantageous to the very poor and undocumented, but for the average middle american, the life expectancy is higher then the UK, and their access and quality of healthcare is considerably higher (though also, more expensive).
The expense side is complex: most people and their families get health insurance as a job perk (think car allowance in the UK), so their monthly cost is usually free for the individual, and between $75-$125 a month for family. Thanks to Walmart’s initiative, generic drugs are now $4 for a month’s supply.
If you are in the individual (quantity 1) insurance market, this is completely broken,(and everyone acknowledges it - it desperately needs reform), particularly due to the numbers dropping coverage over the last 2 years, which means that many of those paying are sick and claiming, leading to hikes such as the 39% the California company announced last week. When you look at their figures the rise is far from as high as it could have justifiably been, which is frightening. Obamacare (if passed) means you can drop out of the market as long as you’re healthy (the fine is MUCH less than the cost of care) and only get insurance again when you’re sick - this will destroy the individual market. It must be said that this LOB is a tiny part of the health care LOBs.
An example or two - my daughter had a medical emergency which meant we arrived at the ER late in the evening. She had a CatScan on the spot, and an MRI early the next morning, and within a hour of that we were sitting talking to the specialist at the medical complex and reviewing both results. Total cost - $100.
I was at the doctor’s office on Monday. He wants me to have a carotid and heart ultrasound and a chest x-ray. I had the ultrasound (and an EKG) done at his office and called the x-ray clinic to get an appointment - not needed they said. Just turn up and we’ll have you out in about 20 minutes. Total cost - $0
To a middle american, with health insurance, the level of treatment available via the nhs, for general practice, emergency care, cancer treatment, eye care and dental care would have them running for the hills in horror.
One of the more depressing aspects of the US health care system is the disparity between groups. Depending on your socio-economic group, and race unfortunately, you have the best health care system in the world and the highest life expectancy, lowest infant mortality. Tales of NHS waiting weeks to see specialists, hospitals with wards, and so on - yes they would head for the hills in a New York minute.
On the flip side, the figures are truly awful for the poorest in society. This is what Obamcare should be trying to do.
105, could be damaging, could be nothing. Have to wait and see.
52 Labour Man. “Did anyone else think that BRown was quite impressive today.”
Yes. He had a job to do and he did it well, i.e. not reveal too much and not take the blame for anything.
He has character flaws, but he is very good at the politics game. He got where is is today due to his political skills.
Shame he doesn’t understand market economics propperly. (I sometimes wonder if any of them do in the HofC)
brown at chilcot, leaked email tory despair how convenient ! wonder
107 - In fairness, and I think a lot of the posts about YouGov have skated over this because there have been so many polls from that firm, we already know that the tightening isn’t restricted to its polls.
The first Angus Reid poll of the year showed a 16% gap, the latest 12%. ICM has gone from 10% to 7%. Populus from 13% to 10% (albeit we haven’t had one for a while). Mori from 8% to 5%. ComRes from 13% (though this was a possible outlier) to 5%.
So YouGov’s move has not been extreme if you take the 2% on Sunday as an outlier, which I think is fair given it’s been a pretty stable 6% otherwise.
110, yeah, I must admit that thought ran through my mind. I wonder if it’s a new effort at the twice attempted ‘backbench 1922 committee message’ which Labour tried to use to protray a split between Cameron and the backbenchers.
112
I HOPE there is a split between the Wintertons and Cameron..
@106:
Jesus, James. Is there ever a time on PBC you’re not indulging in self-pitying whining?
90.”If Glasgow Labour turn out to be corrupt, who knows how many seats could fall?”
oldnat, not ready to get too excited about this yet. It could turn out that the good folk of Glasgow will greet this new story with as much shock as they would on being informed the Pope is Catholic.
109
I always think that if we had had brown as leader after 1951 that we would talk about him as the dominent figure of post war politics not thatcher.
journodave
Have spoken with Strathclyde Police over incident due to be reported and there are no suspicious circumstances, Police are not involved.
116 - i mean to say I think his style would have fitted perfectly with that period of how Britain was
I know myself to be remarkably dense when it comes to understanding YouGov’s methodology, however …
Given that they’ve set up an automated distribution system for responses, I’m beginning to see the point of their comment that Tory voters tend to respond faster than Labour voters.
(IIRC this was originally discussed on PB2.)
114. Jesus, Coxall, just go back and read what S&S actually said if you don’t think I’ve got a point. I’m afraid if people are going to keep launching these unprovoked attacks, I’m going to keep on defending myself. There’s a simple enough solution - they stop, I stop.
117
What about missing Notting Hill Man?
No matter which pollster you try and defame, pull apart, the Tory lead is decreasing, that’s the bottom line.
It’s odd that you have suddenly gone all quiet about the marginals.
117 So none story then - could do with a bit of fun too after enduring Gordon’s droning all day
117: confused..sounds like he’s backing away from it.
27.Wibbler, It will need to be an English paper/journalist that tells the real story, not much chance of any of the Scottish papers investigating a labour scandal. They will stick with the party line, which so far is silence.
116 Labour Man - 1951? I know he didn’t bother to get elected as leader, but suggesting he should have been leader from birth is going a bit far!
116 - “i mean to say I think his style would have fitted perfectly with that period of how Britain was”.
yeah…on the verge of becoming a Soviet-style state but for the small matter of a Conservative win in ‘51.
115 ChristinaD
You’ve got me confused with ScottP.
I doubt that, whatever it is, will actually turn seats in the West. However, the Labour Party’s tying themselves to the Glasgow card, could hurt them further in Dundee etc. We’ll see.
125 /126
I mean if Brown was transported as he is now back to then.
You have to remember that when Churchill was PM he has bed ridden and the press didnt bother to report it!!
That was teh level of personality politics of teh day!
45. Wibbler, It is in Scotland where he has been regularly touted as a future First Minister and the only decent labour politician around
116. Labour Man
Well I’m not sure about that but if he had been Prime Minister in 1951 it would have been the talk of the globe. He would have been the youngest Prime Minister ever being only a few months old!
“I understand that the Tory deal with YouGov will mean that they will get polling within the day on their morning announcements and the like. They will also have numbers on which moments in the leaders’ debates resonated with the voters about two hours after these debates finish, enabling them to have whole ad campaigns ready to go for the next morning.”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5820523/why-the-tories-internal-polling-matters.thtml
125 re 130 Richard Nabavi
Great minds and all that!
118 Labour Man. That’s very thought-provoking. I don’t think that this is the right forum to discuss it, but if you feel like sending me an email with your views, then I’d be interested in reading them.
I made the point a few days ago: why is there such a major “Labour disloyal” (2005) category, but no “Conservative disloyal” which must have been common in 1997, 2001, and 2005?
Didn’t bother watching Brown at Chilcot, but what’s all this they were saying on the BBC News about his continual demented grinning at the audience?
127.Oops, sorry oldnat, meant to reply to ScottP.
133.
I will try to if I can, I have to go now though. But did think he did well today, that is that he didnt screw up!
And at the end of the day, everyday when we don’t screw something up I count as a win.
I would dearly love to take a 39% - 33% result!
135, Find that hard to believe. He was, but surprised the beeb said so.
On topic,
I fully agree with Mike’s comments. Judging from what Anthony Wells has written it looks like the weightings are now driving the poll. If the weightings are not accurate then the poll is skewed. IMO it is arse about face. I also agree that Yougov should scrap the Party ID weighting and replace it with past vote.
journodave
A young man has been found dead outside Glasgow City Council Chambers. No suspicious circumstances. Police not involved.
135 Stark Dawning
Did they really pick up on his shockingly mistimed gurning? Normally they don’t comment on that sort of thing. Didn’t manage to watch the 6 today.
Twitter is a rampers paradise.
124. The twitter journalist, reading between the lines, thinks/thought he had a michael barrymore style story, sans the swimming pool.
142, they’d best be careful though. We all know what too many tweets make
How was Mr. Cameron? Has he endorsed my proposed Death Star fleet?
140. How can the police not be involved? Young men tend not to die outside council chambers. The police must have been involved to establish why he died, even if it was an accident they would need to establish that.
145. Perhaps he means police not involved…..in pushing him off the roof
ARS poll on the Falklands
http://www.visioncritical.com/2010/03/most-britons-prefer-diplomacy-in-falkland-islands-dispute/
Tom Bradby anti -Labour as usual. Was he at school with Wobbler?
Still no reason for Purcell to resign. More to come then …
Where’s Tim? He’s usually posted on the thread about a doxen times by now.
I was looking forward to watching SallyC verbally beating him up again!
144 Not in despair.
Eton is training up Death Star fleet pilots as week speak but it’s very hush hush.
147, hmm.
I’d go for Any Means Necessary, myself. Argentina can go to hell. Our islands, our waters, our oil. Come to close and we’ll sink you. The end.
136.oldnat, I think I could have posted the same reply to your query a couple of posts later though.
150, hurrah
You can rely on me to keep things quiet. Discretion is my middle name
This is another very interesting ARS poll which, as far as I can see has had very little attention.
http://www.visioncritical.com/2010/03/few-britons-believe-the-economic-recession-is-actually-over/
It’s one that I participated in.
Evening all Just got baack on after a 2 hr power cut… and its damned cold tonight!
On You Gov
Why dont You gov publish the figures using both methodologies so that we can compare the results.
More Purcell stuff to come. May not involve a ‘young’ man
POLL ALERT
TNS BMRB
39%(+3), LAB 31%(-1), LDEM 19%(-2)
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2490
Please note that Anthony has put this up as 9 point Labour lead. I nearly found myself calling 999…
On TNS BMRB this is what Anthony has to say on the methodology:
“Since then I have some more details about the methods TNS BMRB are using – it is a face to face poll (making them the only political pollster still doing them now MORI have switched to phone polls), though the voting intention question itself is self-completed. They weight by normal demographics, plus past vote. My understanding is they use they use the actual 2005 vote shares without adjustment for false recall, like Angus Reid do. Finally they weight by likelihood to vote.”
Also this poll finished on Wednesday.
Two areas either side of a main road, both solid Labour once, both same socio-economic blah, same newspapers same blah etc. In one area there’s still a solid Labour vote while in the other the vote is fragmented and all over the place. The marker for why is ethnicity so how do you deal with that in your polling methodolgy? - where one area has solid or increasing support while one area has collapsing support and both areas the same in all aspects except ethnicity?
We’ve slipped into first-stage balkanisation and ethnicity needs to be included in the polling if you want accurate results. America has gone through this process already and all their polling includes ethnicity as it’s a far more accurate marker for voting than anything else i.e ethno-sectarian groups tend to vote at least 2:1 for one particular party regardless of social class etc depending on how ethno-centric they are.
As the process of balkanisation continues till the end stage ethno-sectarian groupings will gradually become the dominant marker of voting intentions.
160, if we don’t know anything about methodology or historical accuracy we can’t really judge TNS. Doubt it means much.
159 TGOHF
Whether it’s just an “England Football Team” situation, or something that actually matters, remains to be seen.
160 SthLondon Nick
TNS’s methodology is a bit obscure. Still, it’s always good to see Labour going down!
159. TGOHF, assume we will get it in the sunday papers. Definitely something to come out, otherwise he would not be spending a four figure sum each day for PR/lawyers.
@160:
Poor old Yougov, what a shame.
161, oh, whoops
Sounds reasonable.
160 - I don’t know whether this is accurate or not but if its anywhere near right then it just shows how utterly stupid Labour have been in focussing on Ashcroft all this week and in doing so reminding eveybody of their hypocricy and sleaze ridden history. I noticed on Qt last night that the Ashcroft affair did not have much traction with the audience.
163/165 - I’ve put the methodology up at 161. It’s a bit like the old MORI method with the YouGov anon method. Whilst they are new to this, I always like to see more polling companies. A wider range gives us more information.
Just seen this tweeted New TNS BRMB poll C39 (+3) L31 (-1) LD19 (-2)
149 I was told off by a lady called Betsy. he had concluded my behavuiour encourages tim in his demands that everyone looks at the contents of his potty [....or words to that effect].
She may have a point.
Poll with dodgy methodology gives Tories slightly increased lead. Cue general hysterical rejoicing on this site. (all other pollsters routinely rubbished if not doing so)
Channel 4: Cameron ends week haunted by Sleaze from Belize.
henrymacrory Looks like @cathynewman’s ‘exclusive’ C4 story tonight is based on an email from a lobbyist, not a Tory’
The TNS face-to-face polls must cost a bomb. How can they possibly be feasible, purely on cost grounds, when you have Angus Reid and Yougov with internet surveys?
172 She had concluded….
172
The “C” stands for what,exactly?
175 - They possibly aren’t as costly as you would imagine. If they were then it wouldn’t be done that way.
174 - lobbyist attacks Tories after Cameron promises crackdown on lobbyists. Brilliant!
173 “Poll with dodgy methodology gives Tories slightly increased lead. ”
Curious, then, that the previous figures (in brackets) closely tally with the YouGov dailies.
175
Ashcroft paid for them? VAT free, natch.
179, if that’s true it’s rather pathetic. Still, better than widow of irrelevant man says deceased husband was angry a decade ago.
164. Not sure JT and Wayne were shacked up together in that case.
174 Ch4 received a number of complaints last night….very possibly more tonight.
Ch4 and Newsnight seem to become obsessed. Coming up empty handed just seems to encourage them all the more.
181
AFAICR its a question of vat inputs and outputs. Every Company pays their net liability. Looks like another Labour smear to me, and why should one be surprised.
The TNS methodology looks quite reasonable to me but we could do with seeing the full data tables . Do they publish these ?
181 You appear to have zero knowledge of VAT - anyone who turns over more than a few tens of thousands is registered for VAT and charges/pays it HMRC every quarter.
No business makes money from it - it’s revenue neutral.
Idiot.
It’ll be interesting to see tomorrow night whether ICM back up TNS in showing a drop in Labour support. I have been warning for the last day or so that the way Labour have been going on about Lord Ashcroft they risk undoing some of their recent polling gains….
Jesus, anyone see Tory councillors on Ch 4? Were they caricatures? Fat burbling Tory Boy and Fat Burbling Tory Man. God save us from such horrors.
And Liam Fox - another Mr Shifty desperately trying to “move on” from Ashcroft.
186 - Anthony says he thinks so but hasn’t checked their site. Can’t find it with an initial Google…
Fox floundering…
186. Their site is being updated so it only has a holding page….
191
Rod thats the sort of comment a troll posts. You don’t want to be considered a troll do you?
191 RodCrosby
Do you think so? I think he dealt with the questioning very adeptly.
189. Your a lovely chap aren’t you?
195 - has he taken a look at Tom Watson or Charlie Whelan recently ?
187
Read the facts, Dumbo. Bills paid by company in Belize so VAT avoided. What a patriot.
186 Mark Senior
They are members of the British Polling Council.
I thought under the new election “war rules” all BPC members agreed to publish full tables a few hours after headline results were released? I might be misremembering though.
189 bribrad
Were they rounder than John Prescott? Porkier than Tom “pizza slice ” Watson ? Like Jacqui Smith super-sized ?
Or is calling them fat the best your limited vocabulary can cope wiyh ?
196 - Or MacBride of Frankenstein.
173
It’s the trend that matters, not the methodology.
194. Yes, he played a pretty straight bat….but the Tories ought to brief their spokesmen better, Ashcroft’s ‘residency’ has not been the issue…(its clearly been the UK) but his ‘domicile’…..unless Fox is cleverer than we think….nah….
This is the comment I’ve left on UK Polling Report:
Anthony – thanks for this explanation. I think it’s a very measured response to some slightly irrational concern about re-weighting being somehow ‘fiddling’ (which of course it isn’t).
My, far more modest, concern is this: reweighting by Party ID (whether as a single reweighting or duel reweighting based on ‘loyalty’) seems troublesome to a degree – at least as troublesome as past vote weighting.
You are absolutely correct of course that all that matters is that the post-weighted sample is representative. But how would we know if party ID is representative of the whole country, and current? I assume through polling – though obviously this polling wouldn’t be reweighted by any political affiliation!
So I can only assume that the ‘correct’ (ie truly representative) party ID numbers are compiled independently from a non-politically weighted poll – is this correct?
Also, how regularly is this polling updated?
And is this done through your internet sample, or by another method?
The concern would be, and I have every confidence that YouGov have addressed this, that if party ID is changeable (not as volatile as voting intention, but changeable over short periods of time) that party ID from 6 months ago might be very different to the present, meaning that the reweightings are ‘correct’ but out of date. Obviously, this is no worse than ‘past vote weighting’ but it would lack a reflection of an underlying change in political climate, I think.
3 questions I think we need answered - if they have been already, I apologise, but I really would like to know the answers.
197 Do you really think that someone who is a billionaire is worried about 17.5% tax on £40k in that case?
Do try harder. I used to pay more than that myself as a SME.
bribrad property bought through the Cayman Island by patriotic newspaper who persecutes Tory Lords to avoid enormous capital gains tax.
Some hypocrisy with your tea, Mr Rusbridger? One lump or three?
197 bribrad
to call you as thick as pigshit is to do an injustice to porcine bowel movements.
Have you ever filled in a VAT form ?
Just watched Ch4 news and Krishnan Guru murphy is frankly a total joke.
For a supposedly neutral broadcaster CH 4 spent about 2 minutes defending Gordon Brown and his lack of funding of the Army and then 10 minutes foaming about Ashcroft.
Channel 4 is just Tim, BenM and Bribad given a TV channel. It no longer provides a service to the public, it is now just a left wing bolthole and its standards of journalism are absolutely dire. Time for complete privatisation.
186 Mark Senior
While TNS did Scottish polls (last one 8 Feb), they were members of the BPC and published their data tables.
However, they are now in a new grouping and a reference to the BPC appears nowhere on their website.
272 Checked the TNS website and it says Con +3, Lab n/c, LD -1, and others -2
CarlottaVance March 5th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
His domicile was never the issue as you understood earlier when you were banging on about permanent residence.
Can’t make the charge fit, fit him up with another one.
Is your head sore yet from banging it on that wall?
According to UK polling report, the TNS figures leave the Tories 17 seats short of a majority. According to Electoral Calculus, 16 short.
Haven’t got any non-UNS toys to play with at the moment though.
Haha, a nice balanced AQ panel:
The panellists are the former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, shadow business secretary Ken Clarke, senior politics editor at the New Statesman Mehdi Hasan and Liberal Democrat spokesman on communities and local government Julia Goldsworthy.
Next week, Lenin, Mao, Stalin and Iain Duncan Smith.
207. At least nobody watches C4 News.
I predict a 12% lead for the conservatives come election day. Just think labour will slip most in the last four weeks of the election. I think cameron will seal the deal in the leadership debate.
203. Morus. I’ve already asked a similar question of Anthony some days ago. IIRC the response in essence was that the Party ID was set up in 2005 based on Yougov’s findings. So it would seem it is neither independent nor contemporary.
209 madmacs
That is at odds with their last poll (as listed on UKPR) which lists Lab on 32. There is definitely a mistake somewhere along the line.
208 The TNS Scottish polls were not weighted for past vote or turnout so the new regime seem to have a better methodology .
Must say I thought Fox did OK tonight. On the EMail, the guy is a lobbyist who supports the Tory Party.It is clear that his views equate with the right wing of the Party and he belongs to those Tory members/MP’s who want to overturn the Cameron reforms.No doubt the EMail was leaked deliberately. Thee are indeed some who would not be sorry if the Tories lost as they could then get somebody in their same image.Whilst I think the importance of the EMail is grossly overblown and the C4 report was dreadfully biased I do agree with the guy that the campaign has been utterly shambolic.
@213:
Quite 200,000 people at the most, all of whom were going to vote Labour anyway.
No great loss.
212 Well at least they have some politicians on the panel this week
204
Then why bother dodging it? Spivs can never get enough.
217 Mark Senior
Agreed.
213 yeah, what was I thinking.
On Gordon at chilcott. 3 people in the know said he underfunded the army, but gordon claims he gave them everything they asked for.
This is why Brown will get whipped in the debates. He can’t help but lie, not even plausible lies like Blair used to, just out and out complete deceit or delusion.
208 oldnat
If a polling company is taken over, surely their BPC affiliation stays with them? TNS is still listed (as TNS System 3) on the BPC website - but then again, Angus Reid are not:
http://www.britishpollingcouncil.org/officers.html
210. Witan - If his Domicile wasn’t the issue why was Hague only told about it “a few months ago” and Cameron “last month”?
Pretending there is not an inconsistency will not make it go away.
Much better for Fox et al to go on the attack and ask ‘Why is Lord Mandelson going on about this when British workers (fill in appropriate bad new here) - shouldn’t he be doing his real job rather than this?’
The ‘domicile’ issue is a side show - the lamentable handling of it is the concern.
Apparantly the lobbyist in question is on twitter and tweeted about his guinea pigs earlier. I suspect that Channel 4 woudl have still run their story had the email been signed by the said guinea pigs.
187 Plato.
He has no understanding, knowledge, charm, or wit.
He is the perfect advert for them.
Ignore.
Somehow, I think this “Scottish Scandal” is going to be a damp squib. How about “Scots Tory Substance Abuse Shock: Easterross Denies Putting Sugar on his Porridge”. Rather more newsworthy than the thin gruel we have been served so far.
207
Out comes the List again. BBC, SKY, CH 4 … and so on
I found this posted by Philip Magnan the most intriguing post so far to day.
Basically if you sell a policy ( eg EU ) that gets thumbs up from the voters and then tell them its Tories it gets rejected. Same things apparently happens for Labour popular policy gets thumbs down when they know who is pushing it. Both big parties have serious credibility issues.
It really does raise the issue of why Clegg can’t get his act together. He should be cleaning up.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/janetdaley/100028597/tory-moderniser-myths-no-102/
As I predicted yesterday, no-one cares about Chilcot. Brown’s performance isn’t in the top 10 stories.
I am really surprised Wilders isn’t higher up the register though.
bribrad, don’t be a Tw@ all your life take today off, there’s a good girl.
226 I couldn’t resist - have been using a netbook with a bust [cat wee'd] keyboard for the last couple of days and it’s very amusing/frustrating to just watch the to-and-fro
Am now using an ancient keyboard with my ‘new’ replacement laptop as I managed to tip a glass of wine over it with the help of a kitty nudge and now only the F5 key works
re 211 wibbler, well Andy Cooke on those figures and the Welsh ones today give them a 40 seat majority with 100% probability of a majority
228 bribrad
this from someone complaining about Tom Bradby’s bias a few hours ago.
What does this say about your IQ ? Can you spell IQ ?
228 Indeed there is a bias in broadcasting against the tories, no doubt at all about that, Labour used to boast that it evened up the bias to the tories in the print media, that was until the sun came out for labour, and dacre arrived at the mail at which point the boast looked like they controlled all the media.
Oh dear - tweets maketh the man
henrymacrory Breaking news: Star of C4 ‘exclusive’ Peter Bingle @parsifal2 tweets “Having stressful breakfast. Just fed Tufty and Joe the guinea pigs.”
henrymacrory More from C4’s leading ‘Tory commentator’ Peter Bingle @parsifal2: ‘Am drinking a Chateau Margaux in bed! It just gets better and better.’
And there’s more
henrymacrory More #BingleWisdom @parsifal2 ‘It is hard being a prophet in my own land. I am a combination of Nostradamus and Doris Stokes.’
henrymacrory
Breaking news: Star of C4 ‘exclusive’ Peter Bingle @parsifal2 tweets “Having stressful breakfast. Just fed Tufty and Joe the guinea pigs.” 9 minutes ago via web
More from C4’s leading ‘Tory commentator’ Peter Bingle @parsifal2: ‘Am drinking a Chateau Margaux in bed! It just gets better and better.’
More #BingleWisdom @parsifal2 ‘My best Christmas present was a Margaret Thatcher nut cracker. Her legs crack my nuts!’
More #BingleWisdom @parsifal2 ‘It is hard being a prophet in my own land. I am a combination of Nostradamus and Doris Stokes
Ch4 perhaps could have found someone with a little more gravitas
233. Madness…
238 - Perhaps they could have talked to Tufty and Joe.
236/237 snap.
241 And it’s very amusing - what a twonk he is. Too many twits make a …
234. Don’t bother mate. Gabble, tim and this new troll just aren’t worth the effort, better to ignore them and watch them explode trying to get people’s attention, far better use of time I figure!
henrymacrory More #BingleWisdom @parsifal2 Am convinced the election will be on 25th March 2010. I am the Nostradamus of the public affairs world
Calling Roger…
227 - have a listen to STV news - it seems it will appear in the press over the weekend
http://tinyurl.com/yb3yu2d
‘Seen Elsewhere..’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2010/mar/05/mark-thompson-6-music Rather amusing Malcolm Tucker / Paxman mash-up..
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/domestic_politics/lobbyist+attacks+aposshambolicapos+tory+campaign/3570612 Off Iain Dale [sorry bit late..]
And Oscars Voting - They use Alternative Vote - Could it boost Avatar ?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/oscars/7376497/Oscars-2010-Row-over-best-picture-voting-system.html
242 - it is actually astounding how, ever since Cameron said that, Twitter really has exposed oh so many of them, when it actually hadn’t before.
243 - you know with Tim at least, I think the reason why people get so annoyed with him is mainly because he is smarter than them
230. “As I predicted yesterday, no-one cares about Chilcot. Brown’s performance isn’t in the top 10 stories.”
The most read chart on the BBC is very interesting, political stories barely register, readers don’t seem interested. Considering it’s a news site we can assume that visitors want to be informed, so it is depressing to see what trivial nonsense is amongst the most read stories. If people who go to the BBC News site are reading “tabloid” rubbish imagine what rubbish people are reading on the websites of the tabloids.
161. SLN, quoting Wells: They weight by normal demographics, plus past vote. My understanding is they use they use the actual 2005 vote shares without adjustment for false recall, like Angus Reid do. Finally they weight by likelihood to vote.
Interesting. As noted upthread, when they used to do Scottish VI polls their methodology was sub-MORI (no political weighting and not even anly likelihood-to-vote weighting).
Subject to their publishing data tables so their methodology can be examined, it looks like a company to take seriously.
And, as someone else mentioned, it’s always good to have a range of methodologies. A good old-fashioned face-to-face pollster is a useful addition to the field. We still need a robocaller though…
248 - he thinks
248 Tim is a bright lad no doubt about it, but the reason I get annoyed is because he is bright enough to know the facts but chooses to use his intelligence to distort them.
@245 by marcia March 5th, 2010 at 7:45 pm
So, story blows up day after he meets Gordon, Jonah strikes again.
248 - you’re confusing persistence with intelligence.
244.Plato, at this rate I fully expect C4 to ask Roger if he would like to come on the programme to discuss the views of the Conservative grassroots.
24 - Marcus, did you not know tim says even he cannot vote Labur?
Yawn - Guardian flogs vote coffin. Haven’t they noticed that no-one cares about this ?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/05/ashcroft-hague-turks-caicos-funding
Saw my first conservative poster today in cheltenham. Ready for race week i think. Tim did not go to university at chester by the way. We called him tim nice but dim fought he was much brighter and popularist than he actually was.
What was this about a dead body being found in the Council chamber? It was mentioned somewhere above but doesn’t seem to have been reported…
Who is this Peter Bungle bloke who does not like the fact that lobbyists like him are in Cameron’s sights? I thought men into guinea pigs were the Pet Shop boys? Let us hope that he had the nails and teeth done.
Q: What do Peter Bungle and Norman Tebbit have in common?
A: Neither has a future with the Conservatives.
* * * NEW THREAD * * *248
tim just gets enjoyment from winding people up. If you look at what he has achieved it’s precious little - 16 hrs living on a blog ?. Get a life. Most of the bloggers on this site have achieved substantially more in their personal lives so why they offer him deference is beyond me.
Not sure what the Scottish twitter scoop is meant to be but I watched both STV News and BBC Scotland News and other than reporting Steven Purcell’s resignation, nothing more said.
Sorry but I for one just do not buy the YouGov explanation. I agree with Marcus Wood. If YouGov is experiencing problems getting Labour leaning respondents it may simply be because there are far fewer of them.
If they used the past voting weighting then we might understand their workings.
263
Haven’t the Tory Pary hired Yougov to do their polling for them? Can’t be that bad then.
I’ve noted that falls in the footsie are pointed out with relish on this site, so here goes.
FTSE highest since Lehman collapse
The FTSE 100 has closed up 1.3% at 5,599.76, taking it to its highest level since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008.
Oh sorry wrong way up!
Great comment on the Telegraph blog re Brown / Chilcot
“”He seems to think that if he answers a question which has not been asked using some phrases which are in themselves true, that is the same as telling the truth.”
Thats Brown for you
234
Just about. Is it “IQ”?
I was down to go to Eton, but Pater was hit by enormous unpaid tax bill and we had to move to Belize. My place was taken by a chap called Dave.
253. So, story blows up day after he meets Gordon, Jonah strikes again.
by Kristin March 5th, 2010 at 7:51 pm
The curse was particularly powerful north of the border. Last Thursday Gordon shared the top table at a Labour Party fund-raiser in Glasgow with the leader of the council, the flamboyant “high-flyer” Steven Purcell. Colleagues say he was buzzing at the party. The next morning his career was over. Purcell mysteriously cancelled meetings before eventually clearing his whole diary and promptly resigned citing “stress“.
http://order-order.com/2010/03/04/jonahs-omnishambles/
As predicted here the Ashcroft smears have caused a massive sympathy swing to the Conservatives - 4% in a week.
How did Labour think it would play out when everybody remembers Damian McBride, Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson - all three disgraced and exposed?
The public understands the sub-plot of smear and manipulation - the machinations of the manipulator and the mendacious.
The masters of spin, deceit and smears are now Labour’s worst enemy, who know no better and cannot help themselves - they continue to spin, deceive and smear, thinking it will still work now because it worked before.
Times have changed. This is a very different public now and Labour are still stuck in the past, fighting previous general elections rather than the current.
The Conservatives look modern and forward-looking. Labour can do nothing but spout venom and nastiness.
In that context who would you vote for?
The more smears the further the polls will swing against Labour, right before an imminent general election.
The Conservatives have regained their mojo, Labour look utterly desperate.
The public can scent desperation. They don’t like it. They are fed up of the worst government in 300 years.
264. In economics they call it asset-price inflation. This uses leads to a bubble and then a burst. Current rises are wholly fuelled by government orchestrated debt-creation.
test
269
So much effort, so many words, so little product. The worst government for 300 years? Why not go back to Nero,Caligula and Commodus? I believe they were Labour administrations too.
TESTING
Come on mike,let us back on,I love you,in a sort of liberal way,I will behave my self