In order to get a balanced representative sample YouGov like other pollsters asks a lot more people to participate than it actually needs.

Once it has the numbers it needs it closes the Poll as they no longer need more people to vote and as its paying them that doesn’t make financial sense to do so.

Most of us from time to time have had a survey e-mail and when we go on it has been closed.

The creditability of YouGovs polls can be judged by both their accuracy, which appears to be amongst the best and the fact that they have a growing clientele of satisfied customers.

Peter.

1) Figures can be interesting without being statistically significant. It just means that you don’t draw definite conclusions from them.

2) I’ll be more specific. Open Europe have a report that says that 72% of the cost of regulation in the UK is EU-derived. Not quite the same thing I know, but it’s the best I can find.

Here’s the link, but it’s quite a long post.

http://openeuropeblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-many-of-our-laws-are-made-in.html

In what way are these figures interesting? They have absolutely not statistical significance!

“What many people don’t seem to realize is that the majority of our laws are now made in Brussels, not Westminster.”

And what you don’t seem to realize is that this is utter rubbish!

There is regionality within Scotland.

Labour won an election in Glasgow. Is the Pope still a Catholic?

I have said the SNP can only reasonably expect to get half of the 20 seats they target but I’d revise that upwards by two seats if there was a state funeral for Thatcher organised by a Labour government in the two months before the election..

The BBC probably have the programming worked out in detail already and will use hours of cheap programming from their news archive with a face to camera link and voiceover, with four cheap retired politicians in the studio.

I can’t seem to post anything in the thread about the Green Poll on Scotland in the Archive.

The questions are now up on the YouGov site and I have some serious concerns about the wording used, particularly for the questions about the Trump application and the Forth Bridge.

Personaly I don’t like the idea of using CPO’s for the development as if a developer can’t get someone to sell that is there problem, not the Councils.

But I have my doubts about the validity of the answers given the questions asked.

Here they are.

“Aberdeenshire Council earlier this month refused to rule out the use of Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs) to remove people from land which Donald Trump wishes to use for a housing and golf development.

Compulsory Purchase Orders could therefore be used to force residents to leave their homes.

Supporters of the CPO claim that the resort would be a welcome investment in the local area and could create more than 1200 new jobs, whilst the residents argue that use of CPOs undermines their right to remain in their homes.

To what extent do you support or oppose compulsory purchase orders being used to evict local residents from their homes to accommodate Donald Trump’s housing and golf development in Aberdeenshire in this instance?”

and

“As you may know, the Forth Road Bridge is deteriorating, and action will need to be taken to ensure a continued road link across the eastern Firth of Forth.

The Scottish Government has proposed building a new bridge at an estimated cost of up to £2,300m which it will pay for using public Scottish funds, but borrow initially from the UK government in order to help spread the cost.

According to a report by the Forth Estuary Transport Authority, the existing Forth Road Bridge could be repaired, rather than replaced, for an estimated cost of up to £122m.

Those in favour of REPLACING the bridge argue that it needs to be widened, to reduce congestion, and that a new windshield should be built to protect travellers.

Those in favour of REPAIRING the bridge argue that replacing the bridge altogether would put an unnecessary burden on public funds.

Which ONE of the following statements comes”

Peter.

Cons 42%
Lab 29%
Libs 19%

Bit of a boost for Labour but not much to shout about but the worrying thing for him is the underlining intentions of the voters polled. Most would welcome a Tory victory in comming election and a far bigger % say cameron is more decisive and stronger than brown and thats even with lab voters

I haven’t divulged much in the way of my political opinions on here (and not at all besides economic policy) and I’m unfamiliar with yours, but I like to think that this is a site that deals with facts and therefore agreement between people of widely different values is possible.

Pete B,

Possibly, but if a significant number are going to do that, they aren’t turning up in the polls.

Neil A,

The problem for the Conservatives re. Thatcher is not that the country hates her. She, after all, won 3 elections and the opinions that brought her down on Europe were vindicated on Black Wednesday when the ERM proved indeed to be the Eternal Recession Mechanism.

HOWEVER, no-one (aside perhaps from a few of the 4% or so who want to vote UKIP) who loves Thatcher is going to vote Tory because they are reminded that Thatcher was a Conservative. On the other hand, many would probably have problems “holding their nose and voting Tory” if David Cameron had recentely been singing her praises on TV. It would probably be a nothing-to-win situation for the Tories.