So far, at least, it is hard to discern a Falkirk or Flowers effect in YouGov’s daily polls
The YouGov/Sunday Times has
Con 33%
Lab 40%
LD9%
UKIP 11%
So no sign that the Flowers story or Falkirk is impinging on LAB position
— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) November 24, 2013
Labour’s share continues to be very stable
Generally pollsters ask the voting intention questioning first before moving on to other issues because they don’t want the process of the polling itself to impact on the voting responses.
It has been shown that you can influence voting responses if the question is asked at a later stage in the poll.
There’s also a view that big positive or negative news for a party does take time to have an impact. Not everyone is following political events as closely as we do on PB and it can take time for things to sink in.
The other big development this month has, of course, been the improving economic data that has been coming out and that does not appear to be having an impact either. That, surely, will start to show if people start to feel a bit better off.
One element when looking at YouGov’s daily polling is that, except at elections, the firm takes no account of likelihood to vote. This probably favours LAB and impinges on the Tory and UKIP numbers most simply because their voters tend to be older and more likely to say they are certain to vote.
Certainly YouGov is the only firm that regularly reports, like today, LAB shares in the 40s.