So, is the Labour lead 10-11% or 7%? Thats quite a big differance.

Or is just 1-3% that the council election results would indicate .

GIN,

Anywhere from 7% to 11%, I guess

In 2005, I predicted LAB 38.36% (-2); CON 33.21% (+1); LDEM 20.55% (+1) [adjustments were made given polls overstate Lab support), which gave me LAB 36.36% [actual 35.3%] ; CON 34.21% [actual 32.3% ; LDEM 21.55% [actual 22.1%]

This was calculated using all polling data from Febuary 2005 (three months before the election), allowing for sample size apportioned to the share of the vote for each party.

I allowed for 5.0% tactical voting 0.5% CON to LD; 2.0% LAB to LD; and 2.5% LD to LAB [most likely overstated the latter]

Seat prediction was:

Labour 366 [actual 356] ; Conservative 194 [actual 198]; Liberal Democrat 56 [actual 62] ; Others 30 - Lab majority of 86 [actual 66].

We need to compare the dates of these compared with the YouGov and Populus ones - if they were taken at the same time then I’m happy to live with an average of the two. Even a 7% lead is fine - if that dropped 2% during a campaign Labour would win by 5%, compared to the 3% in 2005.

Looking at Brown’s personal figures in this polling it’s worth considering whether the “presidential” trend in voting might mean an even higher vote for Brown as PM than for Labour as a Party, if you see what I mean?

I don’t trust Council by-elections one jot. Local elections themselves aren’t reliable, local by-elections are so far removed from the reality of a general election that I don’t see the point comparing. And I know I say that at a time they’re meant to be the comfort for my party, but I draw nothing from them at all.

I think polling mid-conference season is a bit iffy too. Labour’s had its week, the big Q has to be (aside from will he/won’t he speak to the queen) can the Tories hold a good conference that gives them a bounce.

Succeed and it could change the political atmosphere completely once more.
Fail and it could be the end of Cameron and a disaster for the party as a whole.

Remember, when looking at these results, its not the size of the lead, that it is most important to look at, but the share of the vote for each party. Remember the sampling tolerances involved folks! - as far as I can see, given a circa 3% margin of error for each result in the survey, then there isn’t a huge difference between this and Yougov’s survey - both show Labour in the low 40s, Tories in the early 30s. What happens after the Conservative conference will of course be very interesting

It’s so sad to see Tory followers like PHILIP THOMPSON always dragging the Conservative party down over a few bad POLLS - perhaps more Conservatives should brave the odd bad POLL and constant media attacks on Cameron like Cameron does himself .

The 2 latest POLLS showing only a 7% lead (a drop from 11%)for Labour only 2 days after their conference and before the Tory conference has even started should lead to an interesting week of POLLS after Cameron gets his chance in front of the media .

Even though i know Labour will NOT call an election for many reasons , like they know their true support is nothing like the POLLS suggest , they don’t have enough candidates ready to fight an election , they don’t have enough money to fund an election , Brown is on the same ego trip as Blair - he won’t want to risk his chances of at least 2 more years in POWER !

Consevative spokespersons so far look in very good shape and are coming across as very positive and confident. Cameron has just given a fluent and plausible interview performance on the AM Show. If this mood continues during the week, I expect a closing of the gap. ‘He who laughs last laughs longest’? Next weekend poll: Lab:39; Con: 38; Lib.Dem: 14?

Given the differences in polling strategy by various polls, it is safer to compare changes within the same poll (or take a running average of all). On that basis Mori has shown a fairly steady trend over the last four months, with Labour ahead by about 6% and any changes being within the expected uncertainty. They showed no great boost for Labour despite their very successful conference - I would be very surprised if there was a marked boost for the Tories in the next Mori poll even if they manage to have an equally succesful conference.
The conservative lead was mainly a product of the public perception that Labour was beginning to tear itself apart in the many months when there was uncertainty about when Blair would go, and what would happen afterwards (plus a separate feeling that Blair had passed his sell-by date).

P.S. JohnH and John H are quite clearly NOT the same people! Cheers, John H

Mike Richardson.

I am confident and proud of my party, unlike when under say IDS whom I couldn’t stand and I joined the party in order to gain the vote to help stop people like him winning again. I voted for Cameron, supported him before his Conference speech even and still 100% support him and hope he’s our next Prime Minister.

But I’m not a party hack either, who’d make stupid hostages to fortune like “we’ll definitely be in the lead in the POLLS this month”. I didn’t run down the party one bit, I actually said the polls atm are unreliable since Labour have had its conference (and its boost) but we haven’t had ours yet.

Now you’re saying you “know” what Brown wants? How you’ve been inside his mind have you? The only person who knows what GB wants is GB himself - and possibly his wife too.

And for the love of dog, will you please stop capitalising random words. A “poll” is not an acronym.

———————-

John H

Well said. I am confident that Cameron can pull off a very good conference, he is a confident speaker at events like this and has real meat behind him. The big concern for me is not him himself, or people like Osborne (whom I hold high regard for and think is doing a good job overall) but whether the party is united or not.

JohnH. I agree with much that you have written. There is only a small space between us!! I do feel that GB was unlucky to have various unfortunate events occur in the first weeks of his premiership, but lucky in having the opportunity to prove his ability to act the statesman in the face of such difficulties - and be in the media spotlight. How much have such cicunstances contributed to his lead and public standing? Will the lead be maintained when ‘events’ have ceased to be so eye-catching?

I don’t mind if anyone capitalises, italicises or underlines anything as long as they’re pollite (sic!). I wonder if a similar snap poll has been commissiened by Channel 4 to compare with their one straight after Brown’s speech?
Cameron’s will be the most listened to of all the speeches, and it should give us a clear idea of where the Conservative party is positioning itself. He used the word “clarity” a lot in his Andrew Marr interview, though I personally don’t think it’s a great idea to say good-bye to the votes of single parents and disability benefit claimants at this stage, or mention any policies that Brown can twist against him. Blair didn’t mention BoE independence in his 1997 campaign, yet that was a decision that had a huge impact. Why not mention it in advance? Because he would have risked distracting attention from the Tories image, the main vote-winner.

Getting back to the polls, a GE outcome of Labour 38.5, Tories 34.5 and LDs 19 would give Labour a majority of between 80 and 100 depending on the degree of tactical voting. This would be a very satisfactory outcome for GB given Labour’s current notional majority of somewhere in the 40s.

Those figures would, on a uniform swing, give results of CON 215, LAB 363, LD 44 - so a majority of 76.

Well the Weighted Moving Average is 33:41:15 - it looks as though the Brown Bounce peaked with a Labour Lead of 8.7% on the 28th and by the 29th this has worn down to 7.9%. Hague’s “Clearly they’re thinking in the Labour Party that if they don’t have an election soon, then Brown will be rumbled, and people will be fed up with him in very short order” seems a pretty devastating summary. If the Tories keep their nerve then Brown will not go for a November poll, and politics will get very interesting next year.

Anthony–I’m sure you’ve done this many times before but a simple explanation of how the Electoral Calculus calculation of swing differs from the uniform one would be very welcome!

David - I haven’t done it at length actually, it’s one of those posts that I’m planning to do in the near future, probably during the election campaign.

Anyway, in short a uniform swing can produce logically impossible results - if Labour dropped by 10 points there would be some seats where on a uniform swing they’d have a minus share of the vote. EC uses an modified proportional system (a straight proportional system would be just as bad, parties could end up with over 100%.

On a uniform swing if a party went from 20% to 15% nationally you’d reduce their vote by 5 percentage points in each seat. On EC’s system you would reduce their vote by 25% in each seat, so if they were at 20% in one seat they’d lose 5 percentage points, if they were at 60% in a different seat they’d lose 15 points. The votes they’ve lost are then given to whichever parties are on the up nationally. This is why it is so unflattering to the Lib Dems if you put in some of their lowest polling ratings - the BPIX poll today with them on 12%, a loss of almost half their vote since 2005. Using the modified proportional system that would predict a swing against them of pushing 30% in their safest seats like Ross, Skye etc.

The modified proportional system prevents logicall impossible results, but it doesn’t actually resemble reality very well. In practice, swings normally more closely resemble a uniform swing than a proportional one.

Anthony–many thanks and very clear!

One yet unreported stat from the Mori poll: the 7% Labour lead assumes a turnout roughly the same as last time: 62%. On a 70%+ turnout (74% I think was the turnout cited), the Mori responses produce a 14% Labour lead.

Now, a lot of people on political Betting are claiming turnout will be lower than last time in a November election. I reckon they’ll be proved wrong (the only significantly disenfranchised group in November elections will be students); though I’m not saying it will be as high as 74%.

In response to Mark Senior near the top; sorry Mark, I reject your assertion that council by-elections every have, ever will, or simply can produce a meaningful national equivalent share of the vote: and this has never been proved to be a reliable forecast of support in national elections, however much you, Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher might argue with me about that!

Wow, slightly off topic but a fun fact nonetheless:

Electoral Calculus predicts Menzies Campbell will lose his seat to the SNP.

It’s very interesting that Labour’s lead falls when people are asked how they would vote if there were to be an autumn election.
I think regional breakdowns should be an important feature of opinion polls in the future - there are signs that swings to the Conservatives will be stronger in southern England and that the SNP will make gains (mostly at Labour’s expense) in Scotland.
If the electoral cycle remains unbroken as it has since most people can remember, the Tories will be at least 3% ahead in the popular vote at the next election.

Joe,

Sitting leaders pretty much never lose their seats, so Ming Campbell will get through. it’s not the electorate he needs to watch out for, it’s his own team.

Even though we still don’t have much detail on whats happening in Scotland, I think that it will be Labour v the SNP, with the overall shares something like,

Labour 40%, SNP 24%, Conservative 16% Libdem 16% other 4%.

The BBC has a Scottish seat calculator here although it’s a bit out of date,

link

In 2005 vote shares in Scotland were;

Labour 39.5% (40 seats), LibDems 22.6% (11 seats) SNP 17.7% (6 seats), Conservative 15.8% (1 seat) others 5% (no Seats) and a turn out of 60.6%.

Compared to 2001 Labour were down 4.4.%, The SNP down 2.4%, the Tories up 0.2% and the LibDems up 6.3%.

I am assuming that Labour will be more or less the same, but tht the SNP and Libdems will effectively switch places with the Tories static.

However I’d expect very few seats to change hands, although I think it is just possible that the SNP can come close to the Libdems in terms of the number of seats.

Another issue is that if we do have an election in November how should the SNP fight it?

Posters of Brown and Thatcher on the steps of No10 might go down well with a Caption of “New Labour” with one word in Blue and another red. Despite the years since she left Maggie is still slightly less popular than foot and mouth in scotland.

I think the British Jobs line, won’t go down well with Labours asian supporters in Glasgow, nor will 90 days detention. Equally during the Scottish election Labour made a big play for the Polish vote and I think that might be an issue in this election, give Browns line.

I am not sure the whole emphasis on “Britain” will be a vote winner up here either, but there are risks in the SNP fighting a negative campaign at odds with the image it’s created at Holyrood.

In addition we need to work with whoever wins, and as ever SNP supporters hardly jump to attention for a Westminster election, indeed the better the SNP do in Scotland the harder it is to get activists to bother about UK elections.

The news that petrol will go above £1 a litre will be one that the SNP can use particularly as oil at $83 will do the party no harm. I know “It’s Scotlands Oil” is an old slogan but with Des Brown pushing nuclear which is hugely unpopular in Scotland, unlike the rest of the UK energy could still be a big issue up here.

So here your chance folks, give us your suggestions ( slogans?) for how you think the SNP should fight it.

Peter.

Maybe the reason why the Tories seem to be suicidally calling for a snap election despite these appalling opinion polls is down to the turnout factor; they may be convinced that a November election would indeed produce a very low turnout, something which would probably benefit them significantly.

Andy,

The Tories are calling for an early election, because not to do so would make it look like they feared one and that would undermine there campaign and credibility, making it look like they were running scared.

So they have no option but to pretend they are up for it.

It’s a bit like a scared kid being dared to do something dangerous, he has to act brave so that he doesn’t get called a coward. It’s about being less scared of being riddiculed than the dare.

Risky strategy but they don’t have any option really.

Peter.

Andy Stidwill

“Maybe the reason why the Tories seem to be suicidally calling for a snap election despite these appalling opinion polls is down to the turnout factor; ”

I agree with Peter, they havent got any option. No point saying “wellactually we’d rather not, thanks very much”

However I do believe that GB risks his reputation as a strong stable leader interested in the best interests of the country if he takes us to the polls in mid November.

At the moment he looks like he can beat Cameron whenever he wants, why risk a winter election, I’d say wait till Spring and then go to the polls. No reason to suspect he wouldn’t win just as comfortably then,in fact i believe more so.

Having said that I think he will go now and win with a lower majority than he expects (maybe 30-40)

I don’t agree with Andy Stidwill’s suggestion that an election this November would produce a low turnout. Turnout is likely to rise reflecting competition between the two parties. However, it would be lower than it would have been in the summer, partly because of a less accurate register.

I also believe that Labour and the Tories are pretty close on the share of the vote - in actual reality.

One obvious factor affecting turnout will be the weather in November. However, if the election is percieved aas a real competition (and it might be, even with a substantial LAB poll lead) then that will enourage a higher turnout. I would predict at least a 65% turnout, althoug I’d be surprised if it is over 70%

PHILIP THOMPSON :-

The fact that you are a paid up member of the Conservative Party is neither here nor there - what the Conservatives need is supporters who don’t run scared everytime there is a bad POLL . Negative commenst only strengthen the Labour rumour that the Conservatices are a split party - which they are not !

The reason i highlight the word “POLL” is because certain individuals on here were suggesting i did’nt discuss the POLLS but just talked politics . There was a suggestion to have my comments censored - so by highlighting what i am discussing makes sense to me , so that there is no confusion on the subject matter i am talking about .

As for you suggesting that i don’t have an insight into Browns mind - no i don’t - but anyone who knows anything about politics and especially the Labour Party and in particular the Brown / Blair partnership - does’nt need to be a mind reader to know what choices he has . If the majority of people are suggesting an election will take place soon - i have a right to suggest tht it will not - of which i gave my reasons .

As with everything else, it’s not just about how many people turn out but where, it would be interesting to look back over polls and see if the numbers likely to vote vary regionally.

Labour voters streaming out to back brown in seats like Airdrie and Shots won’t make a blind bit of difference, but in a key marginal it could man the difference between a 100 seat majority and a humg parliament.

Peter.

well taking last six polls.. I make the new tally something like

Lab 42.1%
Con 33.0%
LDe 14.5%

How the Tory Brigade can call this a victory for Cameron is beyond me,Labour seem to be streching their lead…..

The Northern Rock episode underlines the Conservatives main problem: in a financially risky world Gordon Brown still has the gravitas to be seen as leading a team that can ride out international financial crises. It may be unpleasant for the Conservatives as they believe many of our problems can be laid at the feet of the PM and ex-Chancellor.

Back to the main point I still do not see the Labour majority that these latest polls might suggest.

GIN, Dave, Warren

come on, read the rules in yesterday’s ; watch the share, not the lead!

As I proved with the data for the Sun/Channel 4 comparison, there was NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER, statistically, between YouGov’s 11 point lead and Ipsos MORI’s 8 point lead.

NOT “quite a difference”, NONE AT ALL!

Bob Worcester

GIN, Dave, Warren

Sorry, so anxious to get this off, I failed to finish as sentence (Anthony didn’t edit it out!). Yesterday’s exchange in Mike’s Political Betting 2.0)

Bob Worcester

Anthony

I notice that MORI asked a ’squeeze question’ of those who wouldn’t or didn’t want to answer clearly ‘who would you vote if there was a GE tomorrow’. The question was ‘who are you likely to vote for. All of course were ‘certain to vote’ but the latter group are clearly much less solid about their voting intentions.

It would be interesting to know what the result was of those who answered without the squeeze question. It would also be interesting to know what portion required the squeeze question in order to get an answer out of them. Finally one would like to know what portion wouldn’t give an answer even after the second question.

The answers to these questions might give us a better idea of where we are and what likelihood there was of a significant change during a GE.

Off topic, I’m told that Adam Boulton is still convinced there will be no GE. Others take a different view. I suspect there is spinning to cover a potential line after a backdown; ‘all this froth and bubble was all Press talk, GB never said a word about a GE’. Everything hinges on the polls at the weekend but if GB bottles it on the back of a strong DC performance he’ll be badly damaged and DC will be hugely boosted.

Personally, I don’t think a November election would produce a lower turnout than last time, and it could well be slightly higher, around 65%. I was only suggesting that some people in Tory Central Office might think that the turnout would be very low in November.

Note the Mori Observer poll was NOT their normal 2,000 sample monthly political monitor but a special 1,000 sample poll for the Observer .

Mike Richardson: Who’s running scared? I’m not, nor being divisive. Dismissing council by-elections as irrelevant froth is not running scared, its being consistent with my opinion that has been stated here for years. If I said when they were looking good for the Tories “now these are meaningful” I’d be a hypocrite, not loyal.

JakeBraden: I don’t think any sensible Tory is calling present opinion polls a victory for the Tories, they’re quite clearly not! But nor are they realistic either, we’re in a state of flux that happens every year in conference season. Labour normally get a bounce after their conference, and we normally get a bounce after ours. Since we always go last, that means that Labour normally change the gap temporarily for one week only between the two conferences.

We’ll see how things stand afterwards, that will be more meaningful.

Philip Thompson: Looking back over the polls for the last few years, I can’t see much convincing evidence for a regular bounce for either party around conference time.
And, except in the minds of political junkies hoping for (or dreading) an election, it doesn’t seem to me to be particularly a “time of flux” at present. More like a return to the status quo after the real “flux” associated with the fallout from the Iraq war, and then from the long period of uncertainty about when Blair would go.
The present status quo would seem to be: Lab 39ish Con 34ish LD 17ish - with some slight ups and downs, partly due to events, partly just statistical fluctuations.

Today’s Times has an article quoting John Turner,the CE of The Association of Electoral Administrators as saying an Autumn election could be “the worst in living memory”-reasons apparently are failures in postal voting systems not corrected yet/out of date electoral register etc.It is claimed that 1m people might be disenfranchised.Mr Turner advises GB to “keep your hand away from the phone”.

The Conservative Conference is going well so far-Portillo said on TV this morning that the Press is starting to look supportive-and want a “decent fight”.

But if there isn’t going to be one-either because of Mr. Turner-or because GB never ever intended to call one…the Conservatives have simply been rushed into policy choices from their six review recommendations in a period of weeks rather than over the next two years.

Gordon will merely sit back & cherry pick , leaving the Conservatives back at square one.

How cynical & calculating does GB have to get before the polls turn against him?

Colin: “GB cynical and calculating”… Great heavens, surely this is completely unknown in political circles. It would never, for example, cross the minds of ANY party to say “bring it on” (when they really mean - no, please don’t). Or to promise tax cuts aimed especially at their middle-England base… No, never!
But whatever the calculations, I hope GB does resist the temptation. We need a spell of sensible government (yes, and effective opposition too) before we are called on to make a judgement on three terms of Labour.

Does anyone know whether it would be possible for a General Election to be held on a Saturday AND Sunday (as was recommended a few months ago)in order to increase turnout? Could the PM simply announce this or would it require legislation?

Granted that it would be very unwise to allow any one set of local council by elections to lead anyone to think that the opinion polls might be somewhat inaccurate and therefore heading for a 1970 type disaster -if the next set of results this Thursday show exactly the same picture as last week then it becomes just a teeny bit harder to dismiss them out of hand as too many contributors to this website seem to do. There are no absolutes in this game. As Anthony has been saying for months the situation is extremely volatile-those Labour supporters who seem to think that public opinion cannot do a volte face may turn out to be right but victory is not their’s by divine right. The opera as they say ain’t over until the fat lady sings.

Just to make clear I’m not John Turner of the Association of Electoral Administrators! Is that body related to the Electoral Commission? If not, are they independent?
In a different part of The Times , Peter Riddell writes that Labour “distributes its votes more efficiently with lots of small majorities, while the Tories pile up big majorities in safe seats” Is there any evidence that this is the case? (leaving aside the obvious nonsense that the parties “distribute their votes”!)
GB says and does nothing and yet is accused of being cynical and calculating. What power!

“How cynical & calculating does GB have to get before the polls turn against him?”

So let’s get this straight, what you are saying is GB has tricked the Tories into revealing policies before they’d got them sorted by never actually mentioning an election.

Furthermore he deliberately became popular to fool the Tories into thinking he might have an election that we’d all talk about that he wasn’t talking about.

Amazing to think how the Tories have gone from ridiculing the man to being so petrified that they are doing everything in their power to stop him calling an election he never mentioned, by claiming that they want an election that everyone knows they don’t.

You’re right, the Tories aren’t cynical and calculating, just foolish and inept.

In reply to the other points, I do believe there would be a big reduction in the turnout if the election was held in November, I think people would resent being called out to vote in an election we dont need to have, simply to please the politico’s.

Brown will beat Cameron whenever he goes, he’d be far better off to wait for the spring, and then go to the polls then. If they have turned against labour then he can wait another year before we get to the stage when people thought we might have an election in the first place, so there’s no need to rush.

GB has panicked the Tories into opening up their shop window before the shop is open, and now he can pick off their hare brained and rushed policy announcements at his leisure.

Correction to the above - it would require amendment of the 1983 Representation of the People Act, under which weekends are “non-days”. That’s not going to happen sometime soon, so expect very low turnouts again.

Charles - an election on a Saturday or a Sunday would require legislation. Currently the statutory timetable polling day automatically happens 17 days after the writ for the election is issued, not counting bank holidays or weekends, hence it is impossible to call a Saturday or Sunday election - the 17th day will never fall on a Saturday or Sunday.

To change it would require the Representation of the People Act 1983 to be amended. I’m not sure if there is provision for it to be changed quickly using secondary legislation, or whether it would take primary legislation to do so.

Davwas:-

“GB has panicked the Tories into opening up their shop window before the shop is open, and now he can pick off their hare brained and rushed policy announcements at his leisure.”

Yes I think he has-time will tell though. I don’t think they are hare brained at all….erm do you think GB would prefer to use them if they were?!

JohnH:-

“to promise tax cuts aimed especially at their middle-England base…”

This middle class/middle england epithet used as a term of abuse by Labour gets increasingly flexible!-now it includes all homeowners whose property is worth less than £1m & all couples with children eh!

Anthony - Is it my computer or do my posts appear,then disappear,then re-appear again?

Anthony - One more thing.How come when asked if there was going to be a vote tommorrow the Labour lead is 14% but asked if there is an Autumn election its 5%.Is this more or less the same thing???

Shouldn’t appear then disappear then reappear! If comments do not appear at all, it probably means I moderated them. As I said a week or two ago, some people were really not even attempting to live within the spirit of the comments policy, so I’ve been moderating comments far more harshly than usual.

On the immediate election polls, all normal polls ask about an election tomorrow - that is itself normal voting intention, so I expect that the private polls Labour were claiming weren’t asking that, but some other wording asking about immediate elections. Since nothing about it is public we can’t possibly make any judgements about it, MORI’s question is kosher and above board and judging from that a fair question about how people would vote in an immediate election doesn’t make any great difference to the normal voting intention figures.

“do you think GB would prefer to use them if they were?!”

No, when I said ‘pick off’ I meant shoot down rather than use .
Though there could be a bit of that too.

I’ve had a look at the ICM poll in more detail and they are showing two things that seem to differ from August, the obvious one is that the Labour vote has gone up, but less obvious is that the turnout is up in the North and down in the south.

It looks to me that at present labour is piling on votes in areas where they are already safe, where as turnout is if anything falling in areas where the Tories are both ahead and need to win.

Still nothing detailed on Scotland although the SNP seem to be on a higher vote nationally (3%) than UKIP (2%). It’s about 8% of the “North” figure but i don’t know what that covers, so we are still in the dark about how the Brown bounce has effected Scotland.

i am sure that the reported figure of SNP at 35% with the Tories and LibDems both at 10% or less can’t be right or if it is wouldn’t be repeated in an election.

Peter.

Anthony,

Mori are showing the issues as;

Most Important Issues

Crime 55%
Race/ Asylum 35%
NHS/ Hosp’ 26%
Defence 25%
Educat’n/ Schools 19%
Eco’ 9%

How much have these changed over the summer? I think crime has risen which could explain Brown’s suggested “Have a Go Hero” law change. Also with Race and Asylum at number 2, the “British Jobs” line is hardly a surprise.

Maybe you could do us a graph of the main issues over time and how they have changed with key point dates, like terror attacks and government announcements, along the bottom.

Then we can see how events are shaping opinion and the time lag before politicains respond.

Not that I am a cynic…….

Peter.