I have to take issue with you on Tories benefitting from a low turnout.

The evidence from 1997 / 2001 / 2005 is that as turnout fell, Labour managed to hold an ever greater share of seats relative to its number of actual votes, while it is pretty clear that Major managed to win in 1992 by achieving a record number of votes cast.

It may be that a low turnout among Labour supporters will deliver more seats to the Conservatives than might otherwise be the case, but for Cameron to secure a clear majority it is far more important that there is a high turnout among actual / potential Conservative voters. This is evident from Mori’s filter.

I wasn’t actually saying I thought the electorate was volatile, rather that you just can’t tell which methodology is right you can only speculate.

I am a big fan of YouGov but I don’t think it is the be all and end all.

Equally I am increasingly of the opinion that different polling methodologies are better at picking up different things than others and that they can detect different trends.

I have a feeling that random polls can detect a change in mood before a panel like YouGov but are equally more vulnerable to “chatter” that can produce rouges.

Given that I tend to focus more on trend than headline (partly because the scarcity of Scottish polls mean that I have to try to deduce movement by averaging small samples anyway) that makes me more inclined to favour the YouGov approach.

Peter.

I think that’s unlikely to be honest. What is much more likely to explain the relative volatility of MORI when compared to other polling companies is the fluctuation in people’s thoughts on whether they are certain to vote or not.

In my opinion, allowing for margins of error, the polls have been effectively static over the last 2-3 months. And this is what you might expect given that the position of the government and the opposition have become so entrenched. There doesn’t seem much scope for the electorate switching support.