Comments on: First poll since the missing discs

By: Luke Blaxill (Lukw)

Luke Blaxill (Lukw) — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 00:57:31 +0000

21% simply intuitively seems far too high. I might be prepared to believe 18% from the most favorable pollster, but not higher. The poof of the pudding will be in further polls.

By: Cllr Peter Cairns (SNP)

Cllr Peter Cairns (SNP) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 23:52:47 +0000

Mark,

fair enough, the last guardian/ICM was,

28th Oct 2007, Tory 40%, Labour 35%, LibDem 18%, Others 7%

That would make it Tories -3% Labour -4% LibDems +3% Others +4%

That could potentailly be even better for the SNP if we have done well from the “Others” going up.

Given the election for LibDem leadership and the governments bad week I am not surprised at the LibDems rising, but I doubt they will stay at 21% for long.

By: Mark Senior

Mark Senior — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 23:28:55 +0000

Peter , the ICM poll you refer to had some peculiar features which Anthony and I discussed on a previous thread . I am not convinced that it is wise to quote the changes from that poll , better to use the last Guardian poll but that is just my opinion .

By: Mark Senior

Mark Senior — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 23:23:26 +0000

Luke you cannot say that the LibDems have gone from 14 to 21 so this poll is a rogue . Because of their different methodologies Yougov always give LibDems a low rating and ICM a high rating . Populus and Comres with their methodologies being in between . The change in ICM from the previous ICM/Guardian poll is + 3 which is feasible .
What nonone knows of course is whose methodology is the correct one . Is Yougov’s 14 the right level or ICM’s 21 or somewhere in between . Of course we will all prefer to believe that the one most favourable to the party we support is the right one .
I therefore put more trust in ICM than Yougov , you probably the opposite but this is really just faith on our parts. I would submit that yesterday’s good LibDem byelection results fit ICM’s 21 rather than Yougov’s 14 , what evidence can you submit to support Yougov’s figure ?
When the detailed data for this poll is out , you can calculate pretty well what Populus and Comres and to a large extent Mori would have put out as a published figure and do the same for their polls but because of their very different polling and methodology you cannot do this with Yougov’s data .

By: Cllr Peter Cairns (SNP)

Cllr Peter Cairns (SNP) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 23:10:47 +0000

Last ICM poll ( 10yh Nov 2007) had

Tory 43%, Labour 35%, LibDem 15%, Others 8%, the new poll has,
Tory 37%, Labour 31%, LibDem 21%, Others 11%.

The guardian has it as bad news for Labour, but they will like most papers be comparing it to “their” last poll, not the most recent.

It actually has the Tories down more than Labour (-6% as opposed to -4%), the Libdems up 6% must be a relief for them, but then it’s only one poll.

The “Other”s being up is interesting, I wonder if the Yougov figure showing the SNP ahead of Labour would be replicated when we see the tables, although I don’t think ICM show Scotland as such.

Yet again I’d love to see a good (1,000+) poll for Scotland.

Peter.