Why don’t Ken’s voters back him on the congestion charge? By far and away the biggest political betting event in the UK this year is the London Mayoral election on May 1st. Five million people will be able to vote and the outcome will set the scene for the coming general election. But as we’ve noted before – there has been almost no polling data on which to make predictions. We’ve had just one survey in 2008 and only 240…
Did Cameron benefit from the Auschwitz row exposure? A new poll by ComRes for tomorrow’s Independent shows a three point move back to the Tories since last month. The shares are CON 41% (+3): LAB 30% (nc): LD 17% (nc) If the pollster was following its normal pattern then the fieldwork would have taken place from Friday until Sunday when one of the big political stories was the row of David Cameron’s Auschwitz trip press release. My theory, as regular…
A new poll with a sample of 2118 people is just out from YouGov for the Economist and shows Labour moving up a notch and the Tories down a point. The fieldwork was carried out from Monday through till Wednesday and so covered the Northern Rock nationalisation. The vote shares compared with the last YouGov poll at the weekend are CON 40% (-1): LAB 34% (+2): LD 16% (nc). The Tories will be pleased to remain in the 40s while…
Half the voters support nationalisation A “quickie” poll by Populus for tomorrow’s Times has some good news for the government over the Northern Rock crisis. A total of 519 people were interviewed last night with 49% backing nationalisation. The sample supported Darling remaining as Chancellor by 50 to 38 per cent. But it’s not all plain sailing. 58% blamed the Labour Government for some of the problems while 64% blamed the Bank of England and City authorities. There was most…
The poll that caught me by surprise My apologies for not getting a thread up earlier but the latest Guardian ICM poll has taken me by surprise – I wasn’t expecting it until next Tuesday which would have followed the paper’s normal pattern. Also the fieldwork took place at the end of the half term week in many places when a lot of people are away. Pollsters tend to avoid such periods because they have thrown up odd results in…
On a morning that has seen a second national opinion poll showing Labour an election-losing 9% behind there is a provocative piece from the Independent on Sunday’s veteran commentator, Alan Watkins. He argues, in his own style, that quite simply that the age of Labour is dead. He writes: “..Mr David Cameron is doing well but not quite well enough. In view of various disasters for the Government since October, he ought to be miles ahead in the polls. That…
Why has the British Polling Council decided to investigate? A week before Christmas, on December 18th, the above press release was issued by the GLA about a poll showing that 38% of Londoners “strongly supported” plans to increase the congestion charge to the most polluting cars with 21% opposing the scheme. In the normal course of events within two days the pollster, Ipsos-MORI, would have published full data from the survey on its website as part of the transparency arrangements…
…or will Barack’s polling surge turn out to be like New Hampshire? I detect a real sense of nervousness amongst punters about the latest round of US polling ahead of Super Tuesday. After what appeared a certain win for Obama in New Hampshire four weeks ago there has been a, perhaps, natural reluctance to get swept away by the latest moves to Obama in the Democratic race. Yet the growing support for the black Senator from Illinois in both national…