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Month: September 2008

Has Luntz Part 2 saved the day for Gord?

Has Luntz Part 2 saved the day for Gord?

Does his latest session merely add to the confusion? As Mike has noted before, when Frank Luntz conducted focus groups on the Labour leadership back in September 2006, there was a complete lack of appetite for Gordon Brown. The other much-noted result was the extent to which these findings dashed the hopes of Alan Johnson. The results were not just definitive – they were damning. So what are we to make of last night Luntz performance for Newsnight, when he…

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Lib Dems get big conference boost with YouGov

Lib Dems get big conference boost with YouGov

Labour only four points ahead of Nick Clegg’s party On top of the good news overnight from the Frank Luntz focus group there’s a big boost for the Lib Dems tonight in the September YouGov poll for tomorrow’s Daily Telegraph. The figures are with changes on the last poll from the firm two weeks ago:- CON 44%(-2): LAB 24% (-3): LD 20% (+4) This is the highest Lib Dem figure from the internet pollster since November 2005 – the month…

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Bob Worcester on the MORI 28% Tory lead

Bob Worcester on the MORI 28% Tory lead

(This is the second guest slot that Bob Worcester, the founder of MORI (now Ipsos-MORI) has produced for PB in which he reviews the polls from his experience of nearly 40 years conducting and observing polls and how they are reported.) “Brown doomed as Tories head for 330 majority” Have I got news for you, as they say, especially directed at the sub-editor on the Express who used the latest Ipsos MORI poll showing a 28% Conservative lead with the…

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Will Lib Dems be complaining about Luntz this time?

Will Lib Dems be complaining about Luntz this time?

Doesn’t the latest focus group highlight Clegg’s central dilemma? Three years ago a Frank Luntz focus group on BBC2’s Newsnight so upset a number of Lib Dems on the site and elsewhere that there were formal complaints to the BBC and even suggestions that a conspiracy had taken place. Why it was argued – Luntz was a student at Oxford at the same time as Cameron! Well I guess they won’t complaining today for Nick Clegg was the surprise “winner”…

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How changing poll methodology is adding to Gord’s problems

How changing poll methodology is adding to Gord’s problems

Was “public sector weighting” behind MORI’s Tory 52%? One of the biggest polling changes that we’ve seen in years was introduced by Ipsos-MORI in the summer following a review after the London Mayoral elections. For in trying to work out why its surveys seemed to be over-stating Labour the firm discovered that people working in the public sector were being over-sampled. So a new calculation has been created and this has been one of the reasons why the firm is…

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Who killed New Labour?

Who killed New Labour?

Was it Blair, Brown, Cameron, the economy ..or just old age? A must-read piece in the latest Economist tries to work out what went wrong with “what has been one of the great election-winning forces in British political history” – New Labour. Looking forward to the election it goes on: ” On current form, the resulting defeat may be Labour’s worst since the second world war. In the aftermath of such a rout, some Labour supporters fear, the party may…

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Frank Luntz on the Labour leadership: September 2006

Frank Luntz on the Labour leadership: September 2006

Would the outcome be the same today? If you’ve got a quarter of an hour to spare check out this Frank Luntz focus group that was produced for Newnight in September 2006 – nine months before Blair stepped down. The picture shows the response of the group when they were asked if Gordon Brown should lead Labour into the next election. Just one person responded. Click the panel to watch the programme. At the time it was so controversial that…

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Would they have been on 12% with Vince?

Would they have been on 12% with Vince?

Why oh why is this man not the Lib Dem leader? The screen shot is of Vince Cable smiling during yesterday’s leader’s speech by Nick Clegg at the end of the Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth. He got a great ovation from the audience when Clegg singled him out for special praise. But shouldn’t it have been the party’s shadow chancellor who was on the stage not the young ex-MEP who screwed up his whole conference by suggesting that the…

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