Browsed by
Month: April 2010

What happens to Gordon in a Hung Parliament?

What happens to Gordon in a Hung Parliament?

Would this be the key question as to What Happens Next? Let’s suppose that the General Election produces the hung parliament the polls and betting markets are currently indicating is the likeliest outcome. What happens next is partly the consequence of the numbers game – how many MP’s and votes each party won – but also how the various players react to events and to each other. In politics, as allegedly elsewhere, possession is nine-tenths of the law and Gordon…

Read More Read More

Could the LDs get most seats with 36pc?

Could the LDs get most seats with 36pc?

538.com Nate Silver’s view of the Uniform National Swing Nate Silver, the elections expert behind the renowned US polling site, Fivethreeeight.com, has been taking a close interest in the mathematics of the UK’s uniform nation swing mechanism for converting poll shares into seats won. He argues: “…. these forecasts are based on a questionable assumption and may understate, perhaps substantially, the magnitude of gains that might be realized by the Tories and by the LibDems. In particular, they are based…

Read More Read More

What are the holiday weekend polls going to be like?

What are the holiday weekend polls going to be like?

Populus May 2005 Can we expect shockers like this from 2005? At the big pre-election polling conference at the Royal Academy in January 2010 the boss of ICM, Martin Boon, touched on the challenges for phone pollsters of carrying out surveys over bank holiday weekends and referred to what had happened before the last election. For fieldwork for the most infamous bank holiday poll, the one reproduced above from Populus, took place over the Saturday, Sunday and Monday before the…

Read More Read More

And it’s the same broad picture from ComRes

And it’s the same broad picture from ComRes

ComRes: ITV News/Indy Apr 25 Apr 24 CONSERVATIVES 32% 34% LIB DEMS 31% 29% LABOUR 28% 28% Another pollster has the gap narrowing As the Guardian has broken the embargo these figures are now in the public domain. What is the final poll for tonight has the blues dropping but shows the yellows moving to their best ever position with the pollster. Looking at the detail 21% of Labour supporters and 8% of Conservative supporters at the 2005 General Election…

Read More Read More

The Tories’ bad polling night continues

The Tories’ bad polling night continues

YouGov: The Sun Apr 26 Apr 25 CONSERVATIVES 33% 34% LIB DEMS 29% 30% LABOUR 28% 28% Tonight’s YouGov daily poll for the Sun is now out and is in line with the trend that we saw from ICM of the gap getting closer. These figures will surely add to the concern amongst Tories about their chances of winning the election. Still to come – ComRes. Mike Smithson

Labour get closer with ICM

Labour get closer with ICM

ICM Guardian Apr 25 Apr 23 CONSERVATIVES 33% 35% LIB DEMS 30% 31% LABOUR 28% 26% But the LDs remain in the 30s The first of tonight’s polls is out and had good news for Mr. Brown. Labour have moved up from the weekend ICM poll while both the Tories and Lib Dems have dropped a point. This is all margin of error stuff but it will give heart to the red team as it seeks to avoid finishing in…

Read More Read More

Standard/YouGov poll on the battle in the capital

Standard/YouGov poll on the battle in the capital

London Evening Standard How the LDs are progressing in London This is how the paper is reporting its new YouGov poll tonight:- “Nick Clegg’s surge is rewriting London’s election map, an exclusive poll for the Standard reveals today. It points to the Liberal Democrats snatching three seats from Labour and denying David Cameron victory in three target seats crucial to his hopes of an outright majority. The numbers are above and show that what’s happening nationally is being repeated in…

Read More Read More

Opinion polls and postal voting

Opinion polls and postal voting

The piece by Anthony Wells on postal voting and opinion polls on UKPR is a good reminder that things can now get a bit complex given that perhaps one in five of all votes will be made by post. What happens when the pollster calls or someone fills in an internet form when they have already voted? Almost all the firms adapt their voting intention question to take into account this possibility but they cannot report them separately. As Anthony…

Read More Read More