The public’s judgement on the email smears
I am expecting at least two new polls in the Sunday newspapers, our first chance to see how the public have reacted to the email smears and the political fuss around it over the last few days. I will update here as soon as the figures are available.
UPDATE: The Sunday Telegraph has a Marketing Sciences Ltd poll. My understanding is this is a sister company to ICM, with the poll presumably done by the sister brand because otherwise it would clash with ICM’s contractual obligations to the Guardian. The poll was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday.
The topline figures are CON 43%, LAB 26%, LDEM 21%, putting the Conservatives 17 points ahead. With the exception of a single MORI poll in February that in hindsight screamed “rogue poll”, this is the largest Tory lead since September.
On the assumption that this poll was conducted in exactly the same way as ICM’s polls, the changes since their last poll are Conservatives down 1, Labour down 5, the Lib Dems up 3 and presumably the “others” up 3 or so. It appears from this poll at least that Labour have suffered damage from the smear emails, but that it has been to the benefit of the Lib Dems, others (and I expect, non voters) rather than the Conservatives.
I’m expecting at least one more poll tonight, so we’ll see if it confirms this pattern.
Looking at the rest of the questions in the poll 36% of respondents said they blame Gordon brown for presiding over a dirty trick culture at number 10, 50% did not.
Asked who they would most like to see replace Gordon Brown were he to resign as Labour leader, Jack Straw lead on 23%, followed by David Miliband 14%, Alan Johnson 7%, Harriet Harman on 6%, Ed Miliband on 4%, Ed Balls on 3% and James Purnell on 1%. As usual, questions like this probably say a lot more about how well known Brown’s potential successors are, rather than how popular they woulb be as PM.
UPDATE 2: There is a second poll from BPIX in the Mail on Sunday has topline figures of CON 45%, LAB 26% – Lib Dems to be confirmed. It has been 6 months since the last BPIX poll was published, so changes can’t tell us much about reaction to the email smear scandal alone (Tim Montgomerie on ConHome is comparing it to YouGov’s last poll – you shouldn’t, my understanding is they use different weighting.)
There is normally some scepticism regarding BPIX polls because their methodology isn’t open. Their polls are weighted by past vote, but to what shares we don’t know. However, in the past their figures have been broadly in line with other companies, albeit, towards the more “Tory friendly” end of the scale. This one appears roughly in line with Marketing Sciences – the Tory score isn’t too different and they too show Labour being pushed down into the mid-twenties.
UPDATE 3: You’ve probably seen it by now, but for the record that BPIX figures for the Lib Dems is 17%.
UPDATE 4: Just had confirmation that the Marketing Sciences poll was done using the same methodology as ICM, so should be directly comparable.
I am really looking forward to the polls coming out tonight. Since G20 it has been a awlful few weeks for Labour and tonight we will see what if any affect they have had on the voters!
I understand Com Res poll for IOS not out for a week
but ICM poll for S Tel should be out at c8.30pm today.
nearly there….nearly there….I almost wet my pants when I saw the blog heading. I can’t describe how gutted I was that there wasn’t actually a poll. I have to go and get a life….or should I???
Vote yes or no – then we can debate it
I was watching BBC Breakfast this morning and they quoted an e-mail they’d received that was very dismissive of the whole media approach to the e-mail smears scandal, suggesting that it was something to interest the media and not the general public. I don’t know how representative this e-mail was of messages received by BBC Breakfast but I was amazed that anyone could be so dismissive of the scandal. I’ll be really fascinated to see tonight’s poll(s) to see whether this person’s view is a reflection of the public’s view or whether my feeling that it’s a truly monumental scandal, as bad as the worst scandals in my lifetime, is a more accurate reflection. Probably the public at large feel somewhere between the two views.
@ Keir: I really like your comment. It made me laugh and I feel the same way!
Ian Martin blog on telegraph has Labour at 26! Tories on 43.
ICM Poll is
Con 43
Lab 26
Its on the Telegraph site “Politics”
two questions.
Where?
When?
labour damaged and the tories down one it looks like the party that said the least came off best in this case the lib dems and others,but the fact is the tories were only down one and this can be a given to rounding or simperly that less or more for that matter people took part in this survay
I imagine the shift from Labour to Lib Dem and ‘Others’ reflects people like Alice Mahon, who are Labour through and through but cannot support this government anymore.
If the Marketing Sciences badge is supposed to be a workaround of their contractual obligations to the Guardian, that’s either a seive-like contract, or a fairly clumsy workaround.
Will the rules of the BPC (of which ICM is a member) extend to this phantom ‘sister-company’, or should we lump Marketing Sciences with Beaufort Research, BPIX, Crosby-Textor and all the other junk pollsters?
Bad news for Labour obviously. The Conservatives must be slightly disappointed not to have benefited more out of this last week of unremitting negative coverage for Labour.
The Lib Dems have not been involved in any of the stories over the last week and have benfited.
the libdems will benefit because there are a lot of people out there that are unable to vote tory. if you think about it there’ll be some serious left wing labour people that could never vote tory but could be persuaded to vote libdem in a protest.
Morus – that’s only my guess, obviously I’ve never seen ICM’s contract with the Guardian.
Newspapers with regular polling contracts though do tend to have agreements with their pollster that the company won’t do a poll for another media source a couple of days before their own one is due!
Marketing Sciences certainly isn’t a phantom company dreamt up just for this – it’s a proper established market research company owned by Creston, ICM’s parent company. My guess would be the STelegraph asked for a poll, ICM said “sorry, we’ve got the Guardian due on Tuesday and we can’t preempt that, but what about trying our sister company”.
right i’ve put the numbers in along with polls for early in the month and the projected majority is CON 66
WITH SEATS
CON 358
LAB 226
LD 36
OTH 30
Fair enough! Seems a bit of a noddy loophole though – if I had been the signatory of that contract at the Guardian, I might feel this wasn’t exactly within the scope of our agreement!
Mike Smithson reckons that they will still release cross tabs etc in line with ICM’s commitment to the BPC, so I am now dismounting from my hobby horse, and having dinner…
The 5% Labour lead over the LDs in this poll may be reflected in the result of the European election, since a quite possible result for those two parties is Labour 20%, LD 15%.
ConservativeHome is reporting the BPIX poll: C – 45%, Lab – 26%. No figure yet for LDs.
So dead cats bounce, do rotten ones? That seems to have been the effect here. Although I was expecting a bigger change we still have to take into account that the variance could still have the Tories several points higher and labour lower. Even if it’s the other way around then it still wouldn’t be all bad for tories.
Good also to see the LD’s on the way back up. Personally I see Britain closer in actual value to LD’s and Tories. Socialism as the preface to Communism has been proven not to work the world over and always leads to corruption.
@Anthony – can you publish a list of words that can be published without moderation.
OK so we have two polls both of questionable sources both not the usual pollsters.
But, as a Labour man the numbers seem clear enough! We’re dead in the water and sinking fast…..
Well although we don’t know for certain the polling techniques of the polls tonight there is a consistent movement away from what has been the average over the last few months.
I have to say I am surprised with these headline figures. I expected a change of only 2 or 3 points and that the Tories would be the ones who benefited.
I suppose the question now is whether this is a short term blip in the same way that the G20 bounce seemed to be or whether we can expect this higher lead for the foreseeable future.
One theory is that once the Labour vote goes below about 28%, the main beneficiaries are the LDs rather than the Tories.
Though I might wish otherwise, I suspect that the direct effect of the exposure of McPoison may well prove transient.
However, if it has truly damaged Brown’s dirty tricks team, then the mortal wound to Gordon may well be inflicted by one of his “own”. Revenge is said to be a dish best served cold, and there are lots of Labour ex-ministers who would take great pleasure in serving a fatal dish to Gordon.
Once labour grass roots know that they are sunk as an electoral party, there will be a movement to change the leadership if only as a damage limitation exercise. Calls to rid the party of all taint (which includes GB) will grow (I feel history is repeating) – maybe we could lend them Michael Howard
sorry I meant ellectable
the other was wishful thinking
@ Cynosarges – “Though I might wish otherwise, I suspect that the direct effect of the exposure of McPoison may well prove transient.”
Maybe, but equally it might be the final straw for a proportion of habitual Labour supporters. Alice Mahon’s resignation from the Labour Party today is interesting – she’s always been a maverick (insofar as New Labour were concerned) but, despite huge differences with Blair, she stuck with the party through thick and thin. But no more – she’s had enough. The smear incident seems to have been one thing too many, and she’s probably not alone in feeling that way.
We’ll have to wait for a few more polls to find out, I suppose.
@James – I also wonder if people are waiting to see if AD can pull something out of the bag at Budget time or maybe see what happens in june election
Weighted Moving Average is 43:29:18 so CLead 14 but this is a bit academic. Brown has lost his “right hand man” SpAd, the Sunday Times is gunning for Balls and Brown would be lost without them.
A truly awful week for Labour, that’s set to get worse.
More revelations in the Sunday Times and News Of The World later today…
It looks like they are implicating Balls, Maguire, Whelan and even Ray Collins, the General Secretary of the labour party in Smeargate.
Guido Fawkes blog is set for more revelations too.
This is turning out to be a complete and utter disaster for Labour and Gordon Brown.
This story has serious legs to it and I think we will see Labour dropping back to last years lowest polling figures in the next week or so.
The continuous calamatous headlines on the back of truley dreadful economic data could possibly see the Government itself fall over this.
I was phoned by Ipsos MORI this morning. I am not on any list so it must have been a random call. Presumably they will also be releasing a polls in the near future.
Questions on voting, NHS, savings and if I owned items off a list of media appliances – DAB radio, freeview, internet, iPod.
I did my duty and volunteered for more polls in the future!
@James Ludlow
Surely your argument about Mahon emphasises my point that if the McPoison incident has permanent effect, any coup de grace will be delivered from within Labour?
There is a famous tale about a newly elected young Tory MP, eagerly taking up a place on the benches and pointing to the benches opposite, said to Churchill, “So that’s the enemy”. Churchill supposedly replied, “No son, that’s the opposition”, and then pointed to the benches behind and said, “That is the enemy”.
Gordon’s enemies are coming out, and their knives are sharp. But they’re on the benches behind him, not the benches opposite.
@Cynosarges- So the message is for the tories to just let labour rip itself apart whilst maintaining the moral high ground.
Interesting to hear that the leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage, has said that he thinks his party might be able to beat Labour in the Euro elections. Nick Clegg said the same thing for the LDs earlier in the week. It seems unlikely that either could happen but the latest opinion polls don’t rule it out. Labour will probably poll at least 5% less in the Euro elections compared to their national opinion poll rating, maybe 10% less.
From this poll it seems, as others have pointed out, that the Liberals have benefited rather than the Tories. It has been suggested that this is because while many Labour supporters would never vote Tory, they might be persuaded to vote Liberal.
Nevertheless, this could be helpful to the Tories. Does anyone know how many Lib-Lab marginals there are? I’ve looked (not very hard) but can’t find a list.
If the Libs take a few seats from Labour it will not increase the Tories overall majority, but it will create a bigger gap between them and Labour.
A truly terrible week for Labour with things set to get even worse. Smeargate could possibly land them with even lower poll ratings then their mid-summer nadir last year. Sadly theres no by-elections to show the public’s dissatisfaction but with a backdrop marred by economic worry, shambolic public services, a government in civil war and the party falling apart at the seems the Labour Party will struggle to avoid a total meltdown in the very near future. Of course, it’s great news for a Conservative!
Whoops! I’ve just checked Liberal target seats on this very site!
There are 13 seats where a 5% swing from Labour to Libs would see the seat change hands.
Not huge numbers, but could strengthen the Libs hand in the event of a hung Parliament. Of course if the Tories get an overall majority, the more the opposition is split the better for them.
@Keir
“So the message is for the tories to just let labour rip itself apart whilst maintaining the moral high ground.”
Not exactly. The Tories and the LibDems may be cleaner than Labour, but that isn’t saying much,they’re all politicians. The Tories and LibDems may only be four feet deep in a swamp, while Labour is in eight feet of muck, but I wouldn’t say they have the “moral high group”, just are less mired. But, being eight foot deep in muck when you’re only six foot tall is likely to be fatal.
However, since Labour are eight feet deep in the swamp, the only way for any to survive is to use some dead bodies to make part of the swamp shallower, so both logic and emotion favours the assassin from within the ranks.
I’m not saying that this “should” be the Tories’ tactics, just that in my judgement, Brown won’t last till an election because the attacks from within Labour will prove fatal.
I wrote on the 15th April that if the upcoming several polls don’t reduce Labour’s average of 31% I would eat my ballot paper.
Mark M, thank you for your offer of ketchup to go with it but as these two polls demonstrate it doesn’t seem I’ll need it.
I didn’t expect to see Labour reduced to 26%, and perhaps polls from the regular pollsters might show Labour to be a few percentages higher. However, since these two polls still more bad news for Labour has come.
Mrs. Mahon resignation from the Labour party declaring she has lost faith in it will surely strike a cord with others who otherwise would be regarded as belonging to Labour core vote.
I think it is important that the price of petrol has jumped up to an average 95p a liter. I believe that petrol prices play a big part in how many people feel about the economy.
As I’ve said on a number of occasion over several months I expect Labour to be polling around 26% by the (regular) pollsters before the end of May.
The one poll I’d REALLY like to see is just how many readers like myself will desert the Telegraph this week after their scandalous attempt to smear Guido Fawkes. And who will pick up their votes? Times? NotW?
Surely NOW would be the prefect time for a Vote of Confidence in the House. And one should be called for by George Osborne who has a legitimate beef with Brown and his allies in Number 10.
Who would dare to be seen in public to be lining up to vote FOR Brown? The only way for Labour MPs to survive the next election is to now put a very great distance between themselves and Brown.
Unfortunately, the Conservative leadership don’t have the spine for it, do they?
@ cynosarge – I’m sure you’re right but I don’t think there are enough disgruntled ex-ministers to alone account for a 4 point fall in Labour’ support.
The problem for Brown is that the allegation that he knew all about – and sanctioned – the smear campaign personally is utterly believeable for anyone with any involvement in or understanding of the Labour Party. Brown’s attack dogs savaged anyone seen as a threat – Blairites when Brown was Chancellor, then anyone a threat to his ascension, then anyone – minister, past minister, whoever – who dared to question him.
Unfortunately for him the truth usually comes out in politics and in this case the truth is that he is a nasty piece of work.
However, there is still a need for policies, and that ultimately will be how the election is decided. Slease and the like provide the mood music, but people vote first and foremost for what will benefit them. As the polls have seen there are a great deal of votes flitting between parties – the Tories haven’t yet demonstrated that they will do things better. If – as Osborne now admits – the economy is showing signs of recovery then things get interesting. Do the Tories look like less of a gamble? Or does their austerity cut services platform look increasingly over the top?
The interesting thing about these polls and their trend over the last few months is that they will once again demonstrate how lacking in courage Brown has been. He flunked an election in the tail end of 2007 when he had been firmly ahead. He has done the same thing in the second half of 2008 and first month or so of 2009. The polls were only just OK for the Tories and Labour could have won an election if they’d had a good campaign. Brown did well in the immediate aftermath of the banking scandal and left the Tories looking like they had no credible alternative policies.
Now, Labour’s HQ must surely have a banner over the entrance with the words “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.”
For those of us who work in the private sector and run our own businesses, we are totally sick of the bloated bureaucracy that has been built up over the last few years. This together with the benefit-ocracy means Labour support cannnot slip much below where it is now. Whether these people actually bother to turn out at an election is another matter.
Part of me is just longing for an election so we can be rid of this agony, on the other hand the contortions and exposure of the nasty underbelly of Labour is much better than any blood sport. A fair and decent society should really put Jackie Smith out to grass but it is quite wonderful to see that self serving, vaccuous non entity getting her just desserts.
I think these polls are interesting, but I would expect a modest Labour recover once the fuss dies down. The optimistic economic mood music is more interesting. I’m wondering whether Osborne has tactically boobed again by openly talking about tax cuts when it seems we might have turned the corner. I’m not saying I support this line, but one thing Brown loves is to paint the Tories as public spending slashers.
In terms of which party is more sleazy – Labour have got their deserved come uppance, but lets not forget that the Tories got hold of the emails somehow, probably illegally, and that Coulson lost his Fleet Street job as the man behind the illegal bugging of royals phone conversations. If anyone really wants to tell me that Cameron has surrounded himself with honest, ethical, virginally clean men and women, then please take a running jump. He couldn’t even persuade his front bench to ditch their lucrative second (and third, fourth and fifth jobs) in order to concentrate on the task in hand. I see no prospect that politics would be cleaner and better after a possible Cameron win. We’ll be left with the same old career politicians who are so removed from real people I’m surprised they even bother to talk to us.
@Ian Bailey
“Or does their austerity cut services platform look increasingly over the top?”
Hardly likely – they are banding around the figure that we will need to borrow 150 Billion this year and next. That’s something like 12% of GDP.
Utterly bonkers… deep into IMF territory.
Imagine the cuts required to balance the books!
We’d be looking at around 25% cut in spending minimum.
@ Alec – “Labour have got their deserved come uppance, but lets not forget that the Tories got hold of the emails somehow”
No, they didn’t. It was the “anti-politics” blogger Guido Fawkes who got hold the emails and broke the story, nothing to do with the Tories.
@ Alex – bang on mate. Tories have tried to portray themselves as whiter than white in this with regards to smear tactics? Really?
Coulson as media director who ordered his hacks to bug the royal family. Cameron who smeared Fox in the leadership campaign (according to Fox). Osborne who smeared Brown suggesting he had Aspergers. Dorres who smeared the Doctor at the Abortion select committee hearings for presenting evidence she didn’t like. And its not exactly new is it – remember Alan Clark being “economical with the actualite” when the Cabinet were happy to let smears against Matrix Churchill send their directors to jail? then smears from the Cabinet against Nicholas Scott?
Smear is endemic in politics unfortunately. Brown’s team are in the spotlight and rightly so. But its not like they are the only ones at it. But thats OK – the truth always outs. Blair portrayed Labour as whiter than white vs Tory slease then set about raking in cash for policies from Ecclestone. Now its the Tories pretending to be clean vs Brown and McBride. In a decade it’ll be Labour again pretending to be clear vs Tory smears. And should we be surprised? Politicians are professional liars – why should anything they say be a shock?
These polls are great entertainment. Added to which we have Guido but….
These pollsters are second-string organisations (and I mean that not to be derogatory, just a reflection that one – MSL – is a unit of ICM’s parent group and the other – BPIX – interprets data collected by YouGov). When they have a track record we can judge….
So when are the big-boys to publish? ComRes next weekend (but they have had an erratic performance in the last couple of years)? YouGov after the budget (as prior polls will make little sense) next week? Mike’s fav’ ICM, when…?
And what about IPSOS/Unite…?