Yet again the Golden Polling Rule holds good
UPDATED
Why Labour should ALWAYS assume the worst
Before we get into the days big story about whether Brown can hang on let’s have a quick look at the pollsters which, once again, have shown that the Golden Polling Rule still operates.
This, as we’ve discussed here before, is that in CON-LAB contests the survey showing Labour in the least favourable position is the most accurate one – something that has happened on every occasion when polls have been tested against real results right back to the 1980s and is a key element to remember as we move into the general election campaign.
The final GB EU shares votes were (excluding the Western Isles) (excluding Scotland): CON 28.6: LAB 15.3: LD 13.9: UKIP 17.4: GRN 8.7: BNP 6.5. The final polls can be found here.
The Scottish numbers will shift Labour a bit but not by very much.
In terms of the CON-LAB battle the winner on the figures we have so far is Populus with its May 28th poll for the Times which had CON 30: LAB 16: LD 12: UKIP 19: GRN 10: BNP 5. Only it and YouGov had Labour as low as 16%.
At the other end of the scale the loser was ComRes which had a CON-LAB split of 24-22 – a lead for Cameron’s party of just two points. This firm, extraordinarily, abandoned past vote weighting for its EU election polls. This is the measure that is used to ensure a politically balanced sample by asking how respondents voted at the last general election and weighting accordingly.
If ever there was a demonstration of the importance of past vote weighting the overnight numbers provide it.
The Golden Rule, incidentally, is one of the reasons why I am opposed to poll averaging.