Is it only the Blue Team that can defy the pollsters? As we ponder whether there are historical precedents for a party to defy the polling and go on to win an election it’s hard to find examples in the Red side. For the shocks that most stand out to me were 1970 – the first I covered as a professional journalist – and 1992 when I was a candidate. In the former Heath’s Tories came to power against most…
Will this help you with the new betting market? This morning, after the slight kerfuffle over what had been said at the polling conference in London, I decided to contact the heads of all the seven main UK political polling operations to put the question to all of them that had been asked last week – what lead, if any, do you think the Conservative will have, in terms of a percentage of the GB vote, at the coming general…
York Outer – 0.44% (Lab 27%) Romsey & Southampton N: 0.46% (Lab 10.9%) Cheltenham: 0.66% (Lab 11.8%) Eastleigh: 1.12% (Lab 21.1%) Westmorland & Lonsdale: 1.7% (Lab 7.8%) Hereford & N Herefordshire: 2.4% (Lab 10.2%) Carshalton & Wallington: 2.93% (Lab 17.3%) Taunton Deane: 3.3% (Lab 12.1%) Chippenham: 4.7% (Lab 16.8%) Leeds NW: 5% (Lab 31.9%) Torbay: 6% (Lab 14.5%) Sutton & Cheam: 6.2% (Lab 11.8%) Camborne & Redruth: 7.1% (Lab 25.6%) Richmond Park: 7.1% (Lab 9.25%%) Cheadle: 7.4% (Lab 9.9%) Portsmouth…
So what did the leading pollsters REALLY say? Along with OGH (Mike Smithson) and one or two other PB’ers, I attended the excellent polling conference held at the sumptuous British Academy on Pall Mall last week. Nearly all of the “big hitters†from UK opinion polling were there – names such as John Curtice, Peter Kellner, and Andrew Cooper who should hopefully be familiar to most readers of this site. Subjects included past vote weighting, telephone and internet polls, and…
Is this putting the squeeze on the “others”? Well done to Anthony Wells as UKPollingReport for spotting this but ICM seem to have introduced a significant methodology change in this week’s Guardian poll which looks as though it will reduce the shares it reports for UKIP/BNP/GRN. For the firm has introduced a change that I’ve been pressing for since 2007 – that greater weight be given when assessing likelihood to vote to those respondents who have a record of voting….
Why survey the 5/6ths that don’t matter? As we look forward to the coming battle why is it that we have our fixation with national polls when what really matters is the state of opinion in the 100 seats that will determine the outcome? Both big parties, though they won’t admit it, are no longer pumping extra resource into seats held by Labour where the 2005 majority is less than 4%. It’s the seats above that which are key and…
What will the recession end do to the campaign? Unless everybody has got this wildly wrong official figures out this morning will show that Britain’s economy grew in the final quarter of 2009, thus marking the end of the recession that has been going on for eighteen months. It’s a massive day for Labour and its leader Mr. Brown who believe that this will underline their argument that their approach to dealing with the economic crisis has been right and…
CON 40 % (40) LAB 29 % (30) LD 21 %(18) And Clegg’s Lib Dems go up 3 to 21 The Guardian’s ICM poll for January is just out and has the Tories constant with Labour down a point and the Lib Dems up three. The changes are against the last published survey from the pollster just over a week ago and come after a period of sustained pressure from Labour on the Tory marriage plans. On that specific issue…