Ex-Treasury minister & Brexiter, Andrea Leadsom, is having a good war and should be given a bigger role

Ex-Treasury minister & Brexiter, Andrea Leadsom, is having a good war and should be given a bigger role

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She’s starting to look like a possible leadership contender A new YouGov referendum poll published overnight has both sides level-pegging – a marked change from last week’s 4% REMAIN lead. It is a sharp reminder that this could be very close and reinforces the big polling story of this election – the huge divide between phone and online. If it is a very tight outcome then there will be enormous pressure on David Cameron and we could have a new…

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How old men being available on Friday nights to do online polls might be skewing results

How old men being available on Friday nights to do online polls might be skewing results

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Very early responders to poll invites might not be representative After YouGov’s methodology changes last week ICM have announced their own measures as we approach the big day. This is the firm’s Martin Boon he explains it on the pollster’s website: “..Interviews tend to build up quickly on each Friday night, probably because certain types of people are more readily available and willing to participate. Indeed, there is a remarkable consistency across our online polls, with big Leave leads being…

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Two of the last four phone polls have REMAIN leading amongst 65+ voters

Two of the last four phone polls have REMAIN leading amongst 65+ voters

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And not one of the last 6 polls has OUT ahead amongst CON voters The big BREXIT polling news overnight is splashed on the front page of the Telegraph – that in its latest ORB referendum phone poll the over 65s are splitting for REMAIN. After taking out those who did not give a voting preference the 65+ group split was 54%-46%. Given that the overall poll sample size of 800 that ORB has been using for its BREXIT phone…

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Jeremy: You are right about austerity but you have a long way to go to win over voters

Jeremy: You are right about austerity but you have a long way to go to win over voters

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Don Brind with some comradely advice One Twitter user was apparently disappointed when she followed tag #LabEcon2016. She was looking for Labradors but what she got was Labour’s State of the economy conference. The organisers were delighted that the event, hosted by shadow treasurer John McDonnell and closed by party leader Jeremy Corbyn was trending second on Twitter after the Cup Final. The large and enthusiastic gathering heard Corbyn’s signature line “austerity is a political choice not a necessity” endorsed…

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Re-formatting the EURef polling table so it strips out the don’t knows

Re-formatting the EURef polling table so it strips out the don’t knows

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This should make comparison easier The election is a month today and postal votes to overseas addresses are starting to be mailed out. To coincide I’m switching my regular polling table to election mode stripping out the don’t knows and just give the figures of those who had a voting intention. Where a pollster has not provided this information I have set my spreadsheet so it calculates this itself. Showing net numbers is, after all, how general election polls a…

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The uncertainty principle. A step by step guide to handling confusing polling in your betting

The uncertainty principle. A step by step guide to handling confusing polling in your betting

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The Alastair Meeks Decision Tree You can access the descison tree here The EU referendum polling is all over the shop, with a stark divide between the phone polls, which show a clear Remain lead, and the online polls, which show it neck and neck with Leave perhaps fractionally ahead.  How on earth are we supposed to cater for this in our betting? Here’s how.  We only need to assess two things: what the current state of public opinion is…

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Perhaps Leave really are going to win this referendum

Perhaps Leave really are going to win this referendum

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What if the phone polls are wrong? Earlier on this year I spoke to someone who works in the polling industry, they ruefully observed that the 2015 general election opinion polls accurately predicted the Tory victory, so long as you ignored the headline voting intention figures and focussed on the supplementaries, and I’m starting to wonder if we might be seeing a similar situation with this EU referendum, where whatever the headline voting intention figure is, the supplementaries are generally…

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