Why aren’t all pollsters asking referendum questions?
| Latest AV referendum polls | Date | YES % | NO % | Question wording |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| YouGov/Sun | 07/02/11 | 38 (+6) | 39 (-2) | Bespoke wording – referring to the fact that this is a proposal from the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition |
| Angus Reid/ | 25/01/11 | 37 | 21 | Actual wording on the ballot |
| ComRes/Indy on Sunday | 14/01/11 | 36 | 30 | Actual wording on the ballot |
| ICM/Guardian | 19/12/10 | 44 | 38 | Actual wording on the ballot |
Meanwhile YouGov moves more into line on the referendum
In the past fortnight we’ve had new Westminster voting intention polls from ICM, Populus and Ipsos-MORI – yet extraordinarily none of them asked about the referendum that’s likely to take place on May 5th.
Given the possible ramifications for the result for all three main parties, their leaders, and the coalition generally then this is quite surprising.
YouGov have been asking an AV question at least fortnightly for several months while Angus Reid tell me that they hope to be putting the referendum point at least once and possibly twice a month.
YouGov, which has been showing quite a different outcome from the other firms, has now got a poll out showing YES only one point behind NO.
It had been felt that the firm’s question wording referring to the CON-LD coalition might have been having an impact. Well that might be the case but there were no changes in the format for their latest survey.
These are just tasters and things could change dramatically during the campaign. NO is trying to put the emphasis on Nick Clegg while YES will try to distance its campaign as much as possible away from current elected politicians.
In the PB referendum prediction for the William Hill prize my entry was 50.04% – this can go either way.