Continuation thread
I was waiting to put up a new thread when some big polling news came out. I thought it would have been out by now. So in order to avoid too much pressure being put on the server please continue the discussion here. Mike Smithson
Harnessing the power of Twitter for the election
PB’s MORUS on standardised constituency tags We all know, or should do by now, that there is nowhere better to be on an election night than in the comments section of PoliticalBetting.com – the 2010 General Election will be no different in that respect. However, one development of the last 2 years means that we will have access to more information from the ground than ever before. Developments in the mobile web mean that it is now commonplace for people…
The LDs rise at the Tories’ expense with YouGov
Message from Robert: I attempted to upgrade the main politicalbetting webserver (codenamed Ming) last night. Alas, this was not a success, and it refuses to come back up. The problem seems to be related to the onboard clock. We are therefore currently running solely off of webserver number two (aka Gideon). This may result in some slow performance tomorrow morning. Rest assured, I will get it up and running as soon as possible. If you find the main site slow,…
Does Populus put ICM in context?
Populus for the Times Apr 7 Feb 7 CONSERVATIVES 39.3% 40% LABOUR 31.6% 30% LIB DEMS 20.8% 20% LAB to CON swing from 2005 5.4% 6.5% But why record the figures without rounding? Tonight’s poll by Populus for the Times is hugely significant because the firm’s methodology is based on ICM and generally the fieldwork is carried out from ICM call centres. So it provides us with something that’s quite similar to compare the recent ICM poll with – that’s…
Lib Dems up 2 in new PB/AR poll
Angus Reid for Politicalbetting Apr 7 Apr 3 CONSERVATIVES 37% 38% LABOUR 26% 27% LIB DEMS 22% 20% LAB to CON swing from 2005 7% 7% But the Labour still have a double digit deficit There’s a new PB/Angus Reid poll just out and the figures are above. Polling started yesterday and went on until this afternoon – and was almost all carried out after the election was declared by Mr. Brown yesterday. The comparisons are with the weekend’s AR…
The Grey Marginals
Research by Dr Scott Davidson, De Montfort University Although the ageing of the UK population is well documented, less well understood are the implications for a first past the post electoral system such as ours, with the importance of marginal seats in campaigning. My research suggests that Labour and the Liberal Democrats are defending 57 “grey marginals†against the apparent rise in vote share for the Conservatives since 2005. A note on methods (more details in the full report). I…
And now the final PMQs…
Today’s Marf cartoon and a warning about the UNS
Let’s stop the clap-trap about the uniform national swing So much tosh will be talked about the UNS (Uniform National Swing) in the coming weeks that I thought that we ought to feature a reminder of how successful it’s been in the past four election in predicting eventual seat totals from the national vote share numbers. Thanks to Andy Cooke on the previous thread for providing this. In 1992, Labour ourtperformed the UNS (which was about 2%) by 1-2% in…