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The Saturday night rolling polling blog

The Saturday night rolling polling blog

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Detailed data from Survation for Southern England has UKIP on 37.6% four pts ahead of the Tories — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) October 11, 2014 Survation/MoS poll has 30.3% of men backing UKIP compared with 18.9% of women — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) October 11, 2014 The big polling question tonight is why there’s such a big difference in the UKIP shares. Opinium 17%, YouGov 16% with Survation on 25%. Chart updated to include Survation with UKIP on record 25% for any…

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Four months before being elected Tory leader Margaret Thatcher was a 50-1 shot

Four months before being elected Tory leader Margaret Thatcher was a 50-1 shot

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Amazing betting odds on the CON leadership in Oct 1974 from the BBC re-run of GE1974 results programme. Maggie 50/1 pic.twitter.com/epdoKJmV5y — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) October 11, 2014 Did you get on? I certainly didn’t The BBC Parliament Channel has been re-running the October 1974 General Election results programme as part of its intermittent series of playing back old elections. I love them and you learn so much simply from seeing how things were seen then. A common feature of…

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The day after: Betting and other by-election round up

The day after: Betting and other by-election round up

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Some comfort for the Tories. UKIP lost two of the three council elections it was defending last night. — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) October 10, 2014 On the Betfair exchange punters give rate UKIP's chance of winning Rochester & Strood at 75%. CON full postal primary to select candidate — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) October 10, 2014 William Hill http://t.co/orbZ1dFWfn odds on next UKIP leader 5/2 D CARSWELL 4/1 P O’FLYNN 5/1 D JAMES 6/1 S WOOLFE 7/1 P NUTTALL — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) October 10, 2014…

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Marf on the morning after at Number 10

Marf on the morning after at Number 10

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If you would like to purchase one of Marf’s prints or originals, please contact her here. Want to know where UKIP will flourish? Where Billy Butlin established holiday camps in the 1930s. Skegness was first followed by Clacton. — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) October 10, 2014

A week a long time in politics. Last Friday CON celebrating 1st YouGov lead for nearly 3 years

A week a long time in politics. Last Friday CON celebrating 1st YouGov lead for nearly 3 years

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Friday's @thetimes #Clacton by-election special edition: The history man: Ukip win gives party first MP pic.twitter.com/tJJNRi8t9V — David Jack (@DJack_Journo) October 10, 2014 Douglas Carswell tells Sky News that "Clacton result shows a profound change in British politics" #skybyelection https://t.co/vOtryZQESt — Sky News (@SkyNews) October 10, 2014 But the real sensation, as Carswell said, was UKIP getting so close in Heywood & Middleton Here's the full #HeywoodAndMiddleton result where Labour hold the seat on a 36% turnout #bbctw pic.twitter.com/KIN27VM1Ym —…

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One thing about tonight’s for sure – my chapter on by-elections in the Politicos GE2015 Guide will look totally out of date

One thing about tonight’s for sure – my chapter on by-elections in the Politicos GE2015 Guide will look totally out of date

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View from the Guardian's executive suite at Clacton count pic.twitter.com/buFwL9D25c — AndrewSparrow (@AndrewSparrow) October 9, 2014 Just got back from an enjoyable holiday near Malaga to find my copy of the Politicos Guide to GE2015 waiting for me. Like its predecessor on the 2010 election I’ve contributed a chapter on by-elections in this parliament the text of which was finalised before Douglas Carswell made his dramatic switch and resigned forcing today’s by-election. What I wrote at the end of July…

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CON hopes are based on the LDs flourishing in LAB-CON marginals but not in CON-LD ones. The opposite is the case.

CON hopes are based on the LDs flourishing in LAB-CON marginals but not in CON-LD ones. The opposite is the case.

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GE2015 will see the return of big time tactical voting Because so much has been going on politically in the past few days very little attention has been paid to the latest round of marginals polling that was published by Lord Ashcroft last Sunday afternoon. The focus was on Lib Dem seats and the chart above is based on Lord A”s aggregate data from 17 separate polls. We’ve talked so often before about the collapse of the Lib Dem vote…

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The Tories are right to take heart from today’s YouGov lead but they’ve still got a huge mountain to climb

The Tories are right to take heart from today’s YouGov lead but they’ve still got a huge mountain to climb

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The fundamentals remain: LAB’s LD firewall hasn’t been touched Undoubtedly a CON lead with another pollster, YouGov, is a big moment and given it comes after Cameron’s well received conference speech will give cheer to the blues. This morning’s Sun poll with the Tories 1% ahead means that within the past months Ashcroft, ICM, Ipsos-MORI and now YouGov have all had blue leads at one point or another. There’s little doubt that Cameron’s speech has been well received and that…

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