Reproduced from the London Evening Standard CON 39% (32) LAB 35% (39) LD 17%(22) YouGov finds a bigger Tory swing in London A new YouGov poll for tonight’s London Evening Standard suggests that the Tories might be on target to make a dozen gains in the capital at the election. The shares are above with the changes since the 2005 general election. The swing of 5.5% is higher than that we’ve seen in national YouGov polls taken over the past…
Uniform National Swing – an investigation I’ve put together a short series on UNS – what it is, what’s its track record, and what levels of distortion have occurred in recent elections. This is part one of three. My assumptions about the distortions to UNS that have accumulated and are likely (in my opinion) to rebound have been controversial to some. That’s fine – the point has always been to give you information to ponder – you make your own…
Q. “Is Brown/Cameron/Clegg doing well-badly as PM/CON leader/LD leader ……” 36-58% WELL:BADLY – BROWN 50-39% WELL:BADLY – CAMERON 42-28% WELL:BADLY – CLEGG Is this one of the consequences of the focus on the leaders? One of the strange features of British politics generally and this election build-up in particular is that almost nobody ever mentions the leader approval ratings. Unlike many other countries they are seen as not being irrelevant, the number of polls asking regular questions is declining and…
CON 38% (39) LAB 33% (32) LD 16%(17) But it’s all within the margin of error With the TV bulletins throughout yesterday dominated by the Michael Ashcroft admission about his non-dom tax-status you might have thought that the Tories could have taken a bigger hit than they did in tonight’s YouGov daily poll for the Sun. For fieldwork began at 5pm yesterday evening and continued until five hours ago. Apart from that there’s not much else to note – the…
Will these dominate everything? Much to my surprise, I must admit, agreement has been reached on the TV debates which will, surely, become the defining moments in the campaign. The terms seem a lot less restrictive than I was expecting and ICM is going to play a key role in selecting the audiences. In the end it won’t be how the three perform – but the perceptions that viewers get about their characters and personalities. So in the 2008 White…
Should you be betting against a hung parliament? Several of the front pages highlight the reaction on the currency markets to the suggestions that the coming election might produce an inconclusive outcome. With the nation voting in the most difficult financial circumstances the idea that Britain’s plight could be made worse if no party gets an overall majority seems like a pretty potent message to me. Just imagine the reaction if it dominated the closing days of the campaign. This…
CON 39% (37) LAB 32% (35) LD 17%(17) Is it down to positive media coverage This morning I suggested that this might be the day to start buying the Tories again simply because they were back in the news after a period when issues involving Labour and Mr. Brown were dominating everything. My view was that there seems to be an element in polls of up to 4% which appeared to be directly related to who had been most on…
Has YouGov done punters a favour? If there’s one thing that the declining Tory ratings, topped by the YouGov 2% lead, have done it has been to change the narrative. For what looked only two months ago like a foregone conclusion can now be reported as a real race again. The prospect of Brown’s Labour coming on top with most seats has shaken everything up and I wonder whether without it Cameron’s latest “most important speech of his career” would…