But does the poll ask the wrong question? The Guardian’s ICM poll for August is out and has the following shares compared with the last survey from the pollster earlier in the month – CON 44% (- 1): LAB 29% (nc): LD 19% (+3) So broadly little change except that that the dreadful rating for the Lib Dems from ICM that we saw at the start of August has now been reversed and Clegg’s party is back on 19%. The…
But Brown gets a poll boost over Miliband The general picture from the monthly YouGov poll for the Sunday Times is one of little change although as ever we have the paper seeking to compare its latest numbers with its last poll rather than the last poll from the firm. The new shares with changes on a week ago are: CON 45% (-1): LAB 25% (-1): LD 18% (+1) – so Labour’s position continues to be dire and if these…
Is the idea of swingback just an anti-Tory fantasy? Yesterday on one of the threads I got into an argument with a poster who asserted “…But no-one seriously expects the actual election to mirror the current polls.” Well this flies in the face of what has happened at the last three general elections. I know we have had this debate before but I thought it might be useful to set out the polling at exactly the same point – 20…
What we need to know is how people will vote? As someone who uses polls to try to predict elections and win bets I’ve always been very wary of polling questions which ask respondents for their opinion – not for an indication of what they would do in an election. This based on the last two general elections only about 60% of people actually vote so the results you get from the opinion questions are distorted by the views of…
How can they select someone who could make matters worse? The only point for Labour to go through the pain of changing the leader again is to improve the party’s chances at the next election. In June 2007, as I keep on reminding people, Labour MPs ignored the overwhelming polling evidence, that has since been proved correct, that Gordon would be an electoral disaster. So how are we to assess the reports that a union-backed joint Johnson-Cruddas ticket is being…
Has he really got what it takes to undermine Cameron? Now there’s a headline, I know, designed to provoke a largish slice of the PB audience but it could be correct. For every Labour person I’ve spoken to over the past forty-eight hours, and for various reasons that has been quite a few, has told how under Gordon they are heading for oblivion but that David Miliband is “the one” who can turn the party’s fortunes round. They believe passionately…
Revised But more ammunition for those who want Gord out The News of the World has a poll from YouGov, giving David Cameron’s Conservatives yet another healthy over Gordon Brown’s Labour government – 20 percentage points although it is down a couple of notches from the last survey from the firm nine days ago. Amongst the non-voting intention questions nearly half of those who took part said Brown should quit and and 49% say they would prefer Tony Blair as…
Could it be months, years or even more than a decade? Exactly a year ago we ran a competition here asking when entrants thought that the Conservatives would regain their poll lead over Labour. The thread makes an interesting read. At the time the Tory deficit ranged from 3% to 9% (the biggest coming from YouGov) and it took the party just two months to restore the situation. The current Labour deficits are reproduced above and the question now is…