Comments on: YouGov show Tory lead down, but doing well in Northern marginals

By: Clive

Clive — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:16:23 +0000

It seems that raising awareness of the marginal nature of voters’ constituencies would assist the Conservative vote in those seats.

By: Statto

Statto — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:01:44 +0000

This is probably a more appropriate thread.

Politics Home are reporting Comres in the Independent as:

C37(-3) L27(nc) LD 20 (+2)

So re-enforcing the trend that (presumably) Lisbon has hurt the Conservatives (what else could it be?)

By: John B Dick

John B Dick — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:51:16 +0000

Frederick Stansfield

“In the past there was a sizeable “anybody but the Conservatives” (or perhaps anybody but Thatcher) vote. All the indications now are that there are a considerable number of “anybody but Labour” voters”

These people are going to determine the outcome.

You make a good point about the non-voting Nats. A majority over the other large party and the LibDems will do, most of the time. 30+ Labour’s Scottish MP’s will vote on English matters. The SNP will have only 10 MP’s but that’s 10 denied to Labour and the LibDems, and every little helps.

They may or may not have enough to defeat a Conservative government on eg Trident, if Labour votes against.

They would demand a lot for any formal arrangement short of coalition and would find it too difficult to be in Coalition at any acceptable price in the UK parliament, though not in the Scottish Parliament.

By: Alec

Alec — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:34:28 +0000

I rather liked Neil A’s well balanced review of what issues could affect the GE, but just to show how we shouldn’t take anything for granted there are already issues developing that he didn’t foresee. Revisiting dirty hospitals won’t help Labour, although unless the theme develops this is likely to be short lived and with minor long term consequences. However, the Zac Goldsmith story is potentially more damaging for the Tories, as it feeds into a strong and existing theme. I would imaging it means they have now lost another potential marginal, but one issue missing from Neil’s list was the Ashcroft factor. Cameron may have a serious vulnerability here, and the Goldsmith story edges attention closer to Ashcroft. Brown actually made a very good joke about Osborne’s IHT proposals in the Queen’s speech debate, and its clear Labour are targeting the ‘wealth and privilege’ angle. If any embarassments do emerge, even relatively minor ones, Cameron stands to lose rather a lot as he has staked so much on ‘cleaning up’ politics.

By: Paul H-J

Paul H-J — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:45:13 +0000

Mike,

In the absence of a crystal ball it is nonetheless difficult to foresee what those unknown / unforeseen events might be !

As things stand, a Con victory remains the most probable (but not certain) result. Recent movements in polls may have eroded the probable margin, and even increased the possibility of a hung parliament. What we are still a very long way from is any reasonable likelihood of a Lab victory.

There is still time for things to change, but any change in teh likely outcome will need to be driven by a major (unknown / unforeseen) event shifting the polls rather than continuation of existing trends.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:05:48 +0000

JOHN C
“It is difficult to see how there will be any other result in the GE but a Tory victory”

While I would like to hope you are right you seem to be ignoring what may be the most important factor(s) that may influence the result i.e. the unexpected ones. Looking at the polls over the last few years the largest swings followed unforeseen events e.g. (1) Brown’s failure to have a GE in Autumn 2008 and his stated reasons for not having an election & (2) the favourable publicity he got at the time of the banking crises in Autumn 2009.

By: John C

John C — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:09:06 +0000

It is difficult to see how there will be any other result in the GE but a Tory victory. The more interesting figure will be the percentage of the electorare participating -50%?

By: MG

MG — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 19:16:25 +0000

As Anthony says the polls are generally pretty accurate. Much experience has been developed by the main pollsters. a smaple of 1,000 is generally regarded as reliable to a MOE of 3%.

By: Anthony Wells

Anthony Wells — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:45:36 +0000

There are about 7 political phone polls a month, so for this year 70,000 or so people have been interviewed in them. Add in private polls and it’s probably still only 100,000 or so. In 12 years it’s no surprise that you’ve never been interviewed for a poll, on average you’ll be interviewed once every 400 or so years.

Even for panel polls like YouGov, they’ve 250,000 people on their panel, and have done 50 or so polls with voting intention this year – so most people will not have been asked one.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 17:56:09 +0000

I think these poll results are fixed. A very small amount of the population has ever been asked their voting intention. I have never been asked in all the 12 years I have been voting. Whatever methodology these people use 1,000 people is too smaller amount to get a very accurate result. People do not normally change there voting attentions every week. I have joined the You Gov site and get hardly any surveys and have not been on a poll I think some pollsters are just biased to Labour .