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Young women – like the Tories but what about Dave? This is Ipsos-MORI’s polling “fact of the day”: Since 2005, the Conservatives have particularly gained ground among women, especially women aged 18-34. Among this age-group, the proportion of women saying they intend to vote Conservative has risen dramatically since the 2005 election (from 22% to 37%). This does not seem to be driven by satisfaction with David Cameron as party leader, however; over the last year women aged 18-34 were…

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I heard this evening that Downing Street is aware that it cannot rely on the strict UNS calculation that the Tories need a 10-11% gap in the popular vote just to ensure an overall majority. Clearly as the polls have got a bit tighter then all considerations have to be examined should Brown decide to do what he didn’t do in October 2007, call a general election when things looked favourable to his party. For the main point about going…

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CON 40% (33) LAB 28% (43) LD 15% (17) Are the blues are doing better where it matters? Today’s exclusive PB/Angus Reid poll was a standard national opinion survey making up its sample from 2,002 participants from constituencies all over Britain. It was not a specific marginals poll. But because of the size of the sample it has been possible to isolate that section of those surveyed who live in the main LAB>CON marginals. So the figures above are based…

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Did Brown want the yellows to be favouring the reds? Just reflecting on last night’s commons vote on the alternative vote system I wonder whether the received opinion is wrong about Brown’s motives. The general presumption is that Labour hopes that Clegg and his party will now look at Labour more favourably in the unlikely event of a hung parliament. But hasn’t the aim been much more short-term than that? For the form of what’s described as “electoral reform” that’s…

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Could the reds or blues produce a version for the final week? With all the talk of negative ads today let’s look back five and half years to see how it’s really done. Could we get something similar here? Obviously we have PPBs not paid for TV political advertising but it’s the message that’s central. What about “could you trust this man with……his finger on the nuclear”/saving the world from a banking disaster….etc” with references to secretaries and chairs or…

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CON 40% (41) LAB 30 % (28) LD 20 %(19) Is Andy Cooke starting to have an influence? The Populus poll for February is just out and provides further data which could be used to support the notion of a hung parliament. But well done the Times in its report on the poll for raising the question of how much the standard projections can be relied upon. Peter Riddell writes after giving the standard projection – “These estimates assume a…

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We keep hearing that the Conservatives will need a lead of “about 11%” to win – but is this really the case? There has been a bias towards Labour since Major won a majority on a 7.5% lead and the decrease in the hold that the “Big 2” have over the vote and seats doesn’t ease things. But the bias is not a fixed law of Nature. In the first of two guest slots statistician and PB regular Andy Cooke…

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