Are you more likely to be Labour in public than in private Today’s ICM poll in the Guardian shows no movement on the pollster’s survey for the News of the World earlier in the month but has Labour 2% down on the last Guardian poll in December. The figures are LAB 38: CON 31: LD 21 With just 100 days to go before a May 5th General Election, there’s a remarkable degree of unanimity amongst the pollsters. The telephone-based surveys…
Why does Kellner’s firm have the lowest Labour figures? With today’s YouGov poll likely to take the edge off Labour on the spreadbetting markets we ought to look at how the internet pollster operates. For since starting political surveys at the last General Election YouGov, headed by the well-known politcal writer Peter Kellner (above), has consistently produced figures that set it apart from the rest of the pollsters who rely on traditional interviews . Today’s 34% for Labour is 4-6%…
Just nine points now separate the three main parties A YouGov poll to be published in the Sunday Times tomorrow sees both Labour and the Tories going down and the Lib Dems moving up to 25%. The figures showing the changes since the last YouGov poll before Christmas are: LAB 34(-1): CON 31(-1): LD 25(+2) Labour’s 34% is the lowest share from the internet pollster since August The Tories’ 31% is the second lowest share with YouGov for more than…
One article says Labour’s lead is down – another says it isn’t A new NOP poll in the Independent shows a drop in the Labour lead from 9% to 6% – or does it? It all depends on which of the paper’s commentators you believe. The Strathclyde politics professor, John Curtice, describes the poll in these terms:- Labour currently has a six-point lead over the Conservatives in our NOP poll, enough to ensure that Mr Blair would be re-elected for…
Have the polls really got better? Whenever we’ve criticised polling accuracy apologists for the industry have rushed to their defence saying that techniques have improved and things have got better since 2001 when the average overstatement of the Labour lead was 6.6%. But in a recent example since then, at the Scottish Parliament Elections last year, the overstatement by the conventional pollsters of the LAB-CON margin was two percentage points bigger than the national polls at the 1992 General Election,…
SORRY THE SITE IS SLOW TODAY – WE’RE DOING OUR BEST TO FIX IT BUT WE ARE BEING OVERWHELMED WITH TRAFFIC During the robust exchanges on our election prediction formula we were sympathetic to this response from a professional pollster, Graham, when asked if his industry was going to overstate Labour again. They (we) probably will do it again. When you ask people their opinions and they tell you, as a researcher, your job is to report what they have…
Is Mori right that this is the number one issue? After our article on the Mori poll yesterday Kit made the following observation:- “Received opinion here (including mine) is that Iraq or the War on Terror isn’t going to play heavily outside small sections of society. But according to this poll defence/foreign affairs/international terrorism is given as the most important issue by a reasonably whopping 32% of respondents. Looking back a year MORI have it at the top of the…
READ CAREFULLY Tories up a notch The big move to Labour seen in the recent ICM, NOP and CA polls has not been confirmed by the December Populus Poll in the Times. In fact there has been a small Tory recovery. The headline figures of LAB 37: CON 33: LD 20 mask a change in weightings which helpfully the pollster sets out. On the new weightings last month would have been LAB 37: CON 31: LD 21 as opposed to…