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Category: By elections

Will the polls make a defeat even harder for Labour?

Will the polls make a defeat even harder for Labour?

What have the double digit leads done for expectation management? One of the main tasks for party spinners ahead of any election these days is to down-play your chances on the Thursday. For a failure to achieve an outcome that has been widely expected is much much worse than if everybody thinks that the party was going to go down anyway. Given the precarious position of Labour and Mr. Brown nationally the Glasgow East aftermath is going to be much…

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PSO Glasgow poll had no “certainty to vote” question

PSO Glasgow poll had no “certainty to vote” question

Is this why Labour was so far ahead? After my moan this morning about Progressive Scottish Opinion, the pollster that carried out last week’s Scottish Daily Mail Glasgow East poll, the information has been released to me within the past hour and two things stand out:- Although respondents were asked how they voted at the general election this does not appear to have been used to weight the sample. The stated weightings were that it should be “be representative of…

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What price will the SNP move out to?

What price will the SNP move out to?

When is the best time to get your bet on? I have no idea who is going to win the Glasgow East by election on Thursday. The latest poll at the weekend gives it to Labour by a whopping 17% margin but comes from a pollster that is not a British Polling Council member and so far has ignored my written requests for the data and the detail on how the survey was carried out. The failure to provide PB…

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Will the SNP knock out the pollsters on Thursday?

Will the SNP knock out the pollsters on Thursday?

Will Labour’s position, once again, have been massively overstated? Those who are basing their betting on Labour in Glasgow on the opinion polls should be warned – the pollsters have a long record of over-stating the party’s position and, occasionally of getting the outcome wrong. Just look at the record:- Hartlepool September 2004: The only poll suggested that Labour would hold onto the seat by margin of 33%. On the day the party won by 7%. Labour’s position was overstated…

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Is it time to be coming off the fence on Glasgow?

Is it time to be coming off the fence on Glasgow?

Should we be taking the SNP at 13/8 before it gets tighter? In the past few days the price on the SNP in next Thursday’s Glasgow East by election has been steadily tightening and now the best bookmaker price you can get is 13/8. I had been holding back my personal betting but I’ve now come to the conclusion that current prices might not last and have put a few hundred on the SNP. Although I still make Labour the…

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How ONE ex-Lib Dem became SIX for the SNP

How ONE ex-Lib Dem became SIX for the SNP

Is this why you have to be careful about extrapolation? One of the main innovations in modern polling is the mechanism to ensure a politically balanced sample by asking how people voted last time and then attaching a weighting. Sometimes this can produce very strange results and there have been none stranger than what happened for former Lib Dem voters in the ICM Glasgow East poll at the weekend. Here, for some reason, the pollster only found six people who…

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Will turnout in Glasgow really be that low?

Will turnout in Glasgow really be that low?

Why my money’s on 45-50%? Ladbrokes have just put up a new Glasgow East betting market on the level of turnout that we can expect. This is timely because much of the comment about the seat has suggested that the proportion voting could be very low indeed. It was just 48.2% at the general election and there have been predictions of it dropping to the low 20s – particularly because election day takes place during the main Glasgow holiday period….

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Should Margaret be worried about the ICM detail?

Should Margaret be worried about the ICM detail?

Could the battle be closer than the headline gap of 14%? I’ve now had chance to examine the detailed data from the weekend’s ICM poll on Glasgow East and there are elements which suggest that it might be better for the SNP than the headline data suggests. Spiral of silence adjustment. The actual shares in the poll before the final adjustment were LAB 46%: SNP 35%: CON 7%: LD 10%. The published figures were L47-SNP33-LD9-C7. The change, like with all…

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