PB Nighthawks is now open

PB Nighthawks is now open

Home of the web’s best political conversation Why not relax, and converse into the night on the day’s events in PB NightHawks. If you’re a lurker, it’ll be a Tragedy if you don’t delurk, I’m sure your contributions won’t be Better Best Forgotten, I hope at least 5,6,7,8 lurkers delurk. The round up of recent events (click on the links below, and it will bring up the relevant link) Why Cameron’s crackdown on immigrant benefits won’t help the Tories. The PM…

Read More Read More

Even though it is well over four years since it was in power LAB is still getting the blame for the cuts

Even though it is well over four years since it was in power LAB is still getting the blame for the cuts

YouGov's "blame for the cuts" tracker has LAB equalling best figures for the year – but still it gets most blame. See pic.twitter.com/QS9Dd84yjk — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 29, 2014 Ever since May 2010 I’ve said that the “blame for the cuts” tracker from YouGov might be a good indicator. The figures from 2014 are in the chart above and although the party is not on its worst position, 48% back in October 2010, it is still blamed more than…

Read More Read More

Vote UKIP get a LAB government might not have the potency that many Tories think it has

Vote UKIP get a LAB government might not have the potency that many Tories think it has

CON & LAB governments running neck and neck as preferred outcome amongst UKIP voters You hear it all the time from the Blue teams when talking about the Ukip threat – that when faced with the prospect of a LAB government a large proportion will “come back home” and vote Tory. That was a view that I broadly shared until last night before my detailed study of the aggregate data from the latest 14k sample Ashcroft marginals polling focused on…

Read More Read More

The Tories drop to their lowest point ever in a ComRes phone poll in tonight’s survey for the Indy

The Tories drop to their lowest point ever in a ComRes phone poll in tonight’s survey for the Indy

And LAB moves to 6% lead with YouGov For whatever reason see section the regular phone polls are tending to produce more extreme figures than online firms and so it is with tonight’s ComRes phone poll for the Independent. The Tory share is down to 27% with Ukip dropping only a point to 17%. ComRes, like almost all pollsters at the moment, had their usual crop of Miliband questions using the agree/disagree format. Asked whether Ed puts them off voting…

Read More Read More

Charting the Populus “Monday effect” – the day the LAB lead is generally up on the previous Friday

Charting the Populus “Monday effect” – the day the LAB lead is generally up on the previous Friday

General elections are on Thursday – so good for CON? For a year now Populus has been issuing two online polls a week – on Monday where the fieldwork has taken place over the weekend and on a Friday when responses were from mid-week. Last week YouGov’s Anthony Wells who runs UKPR crunched the data from the 100 or so Populus online polls that there have been and found an average LAB lead of 3.1% of Friday and a 3.8%…

Read More Read More

There can be no getting round the fact that Tories are still being the most hurt by the UKIP surge

There can be no getting round the fact that Tories are still being the most hurt by the UKIP surge

And a lot of 2010 non-voters seem to back Farage’s party The above chart is based on the aggregate data from Lord Ashcroft’s latest round of CON-LAB marginals polling which had a total sample of 14,004. The first factor to stand out is that much more of UKIP’s current support in these key battlegrounds continues to come from ex-Tories than from ex-LAB voters. This means, of course, that the blues will benefit most should UKIP support fade. Secondly, given UKIP…

Read More Read More

It looks as though Lord Ashcroft could be polling the slightly less marginal LAB-CON battlegrounds

It looks as though Lord Ashcroft could be polling the slightly less marginal LAB-CON battlegrounds

Next round of @LordAshcroft marginals polling perhaps? LAB targets #15-30 from UKPR http://t.co/cnko1uzXpI pic.twitter.com/7wlxQCM089 — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 27, 2014 Yesterday my wife was telephone polled for what appeared to be a seat specific survey in Bedford where we live. This is LAB target number 24 and was won by the Tories with a 3% majority in 2010. Judging by the format of the questions the interview followed the same pattern as all his other marginals’ polling. To me…

Read More Read More

While Scottish athletes flourish in Glasgow there’s a big polling blow for independence campaigners

While Scottish athletes flourish in Glasgow there’s a big polling blow for independence campaigners

The pollster that last August had YES ahead now has NO 8% lead In August 2013 there was a sensational poll by the Northumberland-based Panelbase that had YES 1% ahead. Although the survey had been commissioned by the SNP the firm is the regular pollster in Scotland for the Sunday Times which added credence to its findings Since then the firm has been part of the group including Survation and ICM that has tended to have YES in better positions….

Read More Read More