Analysing MORI’s 2009 data
Ipsos MORI have put the aggregated results of all their 2009 polling up on their website here (in fact it’s been up for a week, but I haven’t had chance to look at it properly!). The data is, of course, not particularly up to date (some of it would have been collected over a year ago), but the huge aggregate sample size provides us with some interesting cross breaks.
The overall shares of the vote for the whole of 2009 were CON 42%, LAB 26%, LDEM 19% – the equivalent of a 9.5% swing. If we look at different breakdowns by social class (comparing to MORI’s aggregate figures from the 2005 election campaign) we find that ABC1s have a smaller than average swing to the Conservatives: ABs have swung by 6.5%, C1s by 7%. The larger Conservative swings are in C2s (10% swing) and DEs (13% swing). There’s a similar pattern if you look at tenure – amongst those who own their homes the swing is 6.5%, amongst those with mortgages it is 10.5% and amongst those in local authority or housing association properties the swing is 13%.
This pattern of swing, with voters in groups that traditionally support Labour swinging the most strongly toward the Conservatives, produces a truly startling pattern when we get to MORI’s breaks by type of seat. MORI have the Conservative lead in Lab-v-Con seats with a Labour majority of under 8.7% of 21 points. Depending on exactly what notional figures MORI used and how they treated three way marginals, that represents a swing of around about 12.5%. Looking at Lab-v-Con seats with majorities up to 13.9% the Conservative lead is still 21 points – suggesting an even bigger swing in those seats (somewhere around 14%).
If the Conservative swing is biggest in Lab-v-Con marginals it must be lower elsewhere. It isn’t in safe Labour seats, MORI suggest a swing of 13% there. Part of it is Lib Dem seats, where the swing from Labour to the Conservatives is less than 1% (the swing from LD to Con is 7.4%, but I suspect that under-represents how well the Lib Dems would actually do). Where the big swings in Labour seats are really balanced out seems to be in the Tory heartlands – in seats the Conservatives already hold MORI’s figures only suggest a swing from Labour of 5%.
Of course the Conservative lead has shrunk considerably since last year, but if a pattern of swing like this happened in reality it could hardly be more perfect for the Tories – tons of extra votes in the seats they need to win, but very few extra votes in the seats they already hold where they don’t need them. To be honest though, while I’ve no reason not to trust the figures, it just doesn’t seem believable. Previous elections have never shown differential swings of this degree, we simply don’t get swings of 5% in one type of seat and 14% in another. Perhaps this is something different, perhaps this could be a real realignment election, but while other polls of marginal seats have shown bigger swings in marginals, none have shown swings this much bigger. Still, it’s intriguing…
Filed under: MORI
As a Conservative I can but hope it is true after the poor results of the last week.
It would seem to be the only thing that could deliver a decent Conservative majority if the tightening of the polls continues (or gets worse) until election day.
As you say though Anthony, it does seem to be too good to be true. It could perhaps be also true that as the Conservative lead has fallen that the swing will have fallen the most in these areas where it has been highest, dampening the effect.
Who knows though. Who knows.
But surely you should expect a smaller percentage of the electorate to swing to the Conservatives in their heartlands as the number of people who can change is a smaller proportion of the total. Indeed the proportion of previously non-Conservatives who change their allegiance may be just as great. I have never understood why seats are not analysed this way rather than by a uniform percentage of the electorate.
Unfortunately as Scotland is bunched up with the rest of the North (although thankfully that is less than everything beyond watford) we don’t know how the SNP might do.
Peter.
I don’t see how you can collate a years worth of results, and use that as a basis for reading current positions. While they may be of some interest, there are of no use to us when trying to asses where we are at present. IMO.
I think the important question is this… How much hold do the Conservatives have on swing voters from the ‘natural Labour vote’. Swing voters by their very nature are ’soft figures’ and liable to swing back, or to a different alternative.
If the swing vote appearing in the ‘natural Labour voters’ was being pushed by ‘punish Labour’, then that would explain a slow decline of Conservative figures and firming of Labour as they loose the ‘natural Labour vote’ who’re returning to past voting patterns as the election draws closer. Can the conservatives really hold on to these voters.
And worse still for the Conservatives, could they loose them to the Lib Dems. Something that may well happen with a three-way televised debate.
Sorry I take that back, although they normally only give the North there is a Scotland figure further on ( swing since 2005);
Lab 33% (-7), Con 19% (+3), LibDem 14% (-7), SNP 28% (+11) Others 5%( 0).
The Tory lead over Labour is -14%
Labour have recovered since the Low of the mid thirties in Scotland and the SNP has slid back in the last few polls and as I have long said if the election looks like it’s about keeping the Tories out and people think labour can do it then their traditional supporters in Scotland will rally to Labour.
If it looks like the Tories are on their way to government then Labour will fall back again largely through their voters staying at home. Thats what I am still predicting and in effect a final turnout not that different from the shares Mori give.
Unfortunately when you put that into Scotland votes the SNP coming just 5% behind labour and the LibDems losing a third of their vote gives a seat Count of;
Lab 38 (-2) Con 2 (+1) LibDem 11 (0) SNP 8 (+2).
That FPTP for you with less than 40% of the vote Labour get 64% of the seats where as with 14% the Libdems get 18% of the seats. We get 14% of the seats on twice that share of the vote.
Still there’s some consolation as on 17% of the vote the Tories 3% of the seats, which would be harsh if anyone actually liked them.
Peter.
Peter.
Peter
But as Anthony tells us – it’s the clients who determine that polling is done over GB. The pollsters are but the innocent victims of commercial pressure!
It shows what a bad year it has been for labour. Also shows the swing back to labour was significant. Votes are on the move, there is no reason to suppose that the movement has stopped. How many swing voters are there? The Tories keep dropping clangers and shifting their position. Cameron starting a five month election campaign has led to a more critical analysis by the media. There are bad stories about the Tories better ones for labour. The marginals are puzzling. Are voters in marginals on mass different from the rest? One would not think so but it is late, 0140hr.
Percy Holmes
“Are voters in marginals on mass different from the rest?”
Surely the question should be “Are the floating voters in known marginals on mass different from the rest?”
To which the answer is probably “Yes”.
“Previous elections have never shown differential swings of this degree, we simply don’t get swings of 5% in one type of seat and 14% in another”
You people are unbelievable.
Then again seeing as how the media refuses to tell the truth on this i suppose i shouldn’t be surprised.
Mass immigration inflicts vast amounts of harm on people in the poorest areas – vast amounts.
@Percy Holmes
Wouldn’t YOU be different if you were a voter in a marginal? I would be
Fascinating, and it fits with the feel in the papers and on the doorsteps last May/June, that while the ‘posher’ media were pumping out most of the details and analyses on the MPs’ expenses scandal, the bankers’ well-rewarded incompetence, and the general economic collapse, most of the passionate anger being expressed was in a self-enhancing spiral among so-called ‘C 2DE’ people and the tabloid (and equivalent broadcast) media.
This seemed to me at the time to have a lot to do with the actual or anticipated melting away of already small retirement incomes from exposed savings among people over 55/60 years old, plus redundancies and no jobs to go to among the middle-aged, plus fears for what would become of school-leavers and young workers within or close to their families. All this was accompanied by the sense that the better-off were ‘getting away with it’ (as we largely were and still are, with our higher and largely better protected pensions, with keeping a higher % of our jobs, finding better education bolt-holes, &/or comfortable spare rooms at home, for our young, and with many of us saving hand over fist, month after month, on our mortgage repayments).
On that basis, if Labour’s relative improvement from the 2009 annual average of 26 to about 30/31 on 1/2/2010, may reflect a 4-5% national average easing of people’s actual problems and fears for the future, there is still likely to be a greater than average swing against Labour in regions and sub-regions, and among socio-economic classes, where people’s current problems and fears for the future are getting worse. Where these come together, eg in the hardest hit, more industrial, communities, one would therefore expect Labour to be doing worst, with currently Labour-held Lab/Con marginals, and Labour non-marginals that the Tories need to gain in these places, being at greatest risk to Labour of really big swings against them. And the MORI 2009 stats seem to point strongly this way.
However, the Tories have fallen from about 42 to 39 on the same timescale (2009 annual average to 1/2/2010). For them to be confident of picking up enough seats, they don’t need to be dropping back to 38/39, because i) a national average lead over Labour of only 8-9% will include some predominantly ABC1 Lab or LD seats that need more than the 6% average swings that 39/30/19 implies, even before factoring-in Lab/LD tactical voting decisons that tend to be decided much later, and ii) perceived forward momentum is going to count for more and more as polling day approaches.
So far in 2010, the Tories appear to be sliding back, with problems of their own making plus a slight warming-up of confidence in Labour. Small and hesitant though it appears to be, they cannot rely on the latter to wane or even to slow down. They’ll need to get their own act together quickly, if they are capable of doing so. That is now one of the most interesting puzzles in this long election campaign. Sometime between mid-Feb and mid-March it will be resolved.
@Jay Blanc
“If the swing vote appearing in the ‘natural Labour voters’ was being pushed by ‘punish Labour’, then that would explain a slow decline of Conservative figures and firming of Labour as they loose the ‘natural Labour vote’ who’re returning to past voting patterns as the election draws closer. Can the conservatives really hold on to these voters.”
This makes most sense to me. Having said that, is there any evidence over the years of a gradual drift of the natural labour vote – over to a more ‘white van man, Sun reading, occasional UKIP voting’ new type of tory? I just have a feeling that this is happening slowly, and therefore slowly changing the whole picture…
I get the feeling that this is happening largely by observing an increasing difference in the ‘mood’ between England and Scotland; where I see no evidence of this at all in Scotland, the UK/England level media seem to just reek of it…
Percy/OldNat/Yariv:
It seems to me that voters in marginals who know they are in a marginal certainly behave differently to other voters — tactical voting effects are much bigger there, for instance, turnout is higher than in safe seats, etc. Given that this is a big sample from across the whole of last year, some of it from well before everything kicked up a gear into almost-official campaigning, the question is surely what fraction of MORI’s sample in such seats were conscious of being in such seats at the time they were polled, and/or if MORI prompted them with the information that they were.
(Short version: if the sample didn’t know they were in key seats, we can expect there to be changes between now and the election as the parties and media make damn sure they’re aware of it.)
It will be a very close election this year – I foresee conservatives losing a few with labour gaining, giving it a swing of just a couple of percent. Will be interesting.
@ Al
That could broadly fit with AW’s neat synopsis of the main MORI 2009 figures (many thanks, Anthony), plus recently published 2008 Social Attitudes Survey re: Lab->Con movement of political allegiance over the previous decade. All of this points towards a very likely, but still uncertain, Labour ceiling of 32-33.
It doesn’t mean that the Tories are currently on course for the 39-42 they’d need for a working majority, of say 16-20. I imagine that voters in various categories simply not turning out for Cameron would become his greatest danger if he didn’t get his act together rather soon.
Grayling’s crime statistics on R4 today – and the sharp contradictions from police chiefs in key Tory vote areas (eg Milton Keynes) , and a repeated Grayling response along the lines of ‘but Labour’s been doing that with the statistics all along, Miss, and you didn’t tell them off’ – adds to the gradual erosion of confidence in the whole Cameron project.
Meanwhile the sand trickles relentlessly through the hourglass.
@Wolf MacNeill
Yeah. If this is a long term trend then it remains dangerous for the Tories anyway I think. If the party’s support skews too far in this direction it could well put off the current core Tory vote…
Its a very interesting analysis, raising many questions, but obviously date limited. Taking all the poll evidence it is clear that the Tories have performed better in the marginals and at present this would see them home comfortably. I would be fascinated however to see any analysis of the solidity or otherwise of marginal swing voters as Jay talks about. With economic confidence rising and possibly voter confidence in Cameron falling, are these swing voters more likely to swing back again? I remember very clearly living through the early 1980’s, and one vivid memory I have is seeing people interviewed in 1980-82 vowing they would never again vote Tory. In 1983 they voted for Thatcher in droves. Different circumstances I appreciate, but I have long felt in my bones that increasing (or decreasing) economic confidence leads voters to reassess their historical view of how a government has performed, and if the alternative is busy tripping themselves up at the same time we may well see more swinging than the clappers on Big Ben.
In my opinion two factors hold sway here: Simon Heffer and the immigrants. Anyone who reads his column in the Telegraph where he makes plain his frankly psychotic hatred of ‘Dave’, and particularly the comments his views give arise to, must be aware that in the leafy shires where the Telegraph is most read, he must have influenced many. Unfortunately like all the fanatics of history, Heffer is batting for the other side. (Actually it’s not just Heffer but many rightwingers of whom he is the most blatant example). On immigration, Labour has allowed the figure to double during its period in office [snip - you can make the point on immigration without attacking Labour - AW] and this is a disproporionate factor in the working class areas.
Could be that Dave is happy to maintain the status quo, let Labour win the election then watch the train crash from the safety of the opposition front bench, after all, who in their right mind would want to administer the medicine, at the moment the patient is sedated, after the election we run out of painkillers.
Looks to me like a feeble attempt to find some good news amongst the steadily collapsing tory lead.
[Partisan stuff snipped - AW] I shouldn’t be surprised to see labour winning quite comfortably.
MR JONES:-
Interesting observation.
KEN:-
If he reads NIESR’s thoughts on 2010 & 2011 growth & the tax “richness” of key growth components he might be thinking along the lines you suggest!
I wouldn’t be suprised to see a disproportionate swing in marginals compared to Tory seats.
Camerons tactics have not exactly energised ‘traditional’ Tories so far. Looks like they have got their election tactics spot on.
With a few UKIPers, fearing a good show by Labour, coming back to the fold in the weeks leading up to the election and it’s job done for the Conservatives as far as I can see.
Thanks for the analysis Anthony.
This further strengthens my suspicion that the Tories will steal the seats that matter and are heading for a decent majority.
Whilst I’m making predictions I’m going to guess that Labour will close the polling gap to 4% this month. The gap will then slowly widen again through March.
If I was Brown I’d call a March election. If I was Cameron I’d pray for terrible election day weather!
Previous post was a bit ill-mannered. No reason people should know stuff that isn’t reported.
Apols.
**at same time we may well see more swinging than the clappers on Big Ben.**
lol
Let’s see how much more swinging there will be!
The NIESR economic growth forecast is 1.1% for 2010.
It’s a big improvement on 0.1% of actual growth released recently.
Surely this means the next Qu to be realeased, just before the election, will show further growth, giving the Government a further boost.
This analysis probably reflects the 2009 picture but may now be inadequate to reflect current trends. The Tories relied upon the image of Cameron as a vote winner. The sure- footedness seems to have disappeared in recent weeks so it is not surprising that Labour has gained from this change. The next few polls will confirm or refute this trend.
‘The overall shares of the vote for the whole of 2009 were CON 42%, LAB 26%, LDEM 19% – the equivalent of a 9.5% swing. If we look at different breakdowns by social class (comparing to MORI’s aggregate figures from the 2005 election campaign) we find that ABC1s have a smaller than average swing to the Conservatives: ABs have swung by 6.5%, C1s by 7%. The larger Conservative swings are in C2s (10% swing) and DEs (13% swing). There’s a similar pattern if you look at tenure – amongst those who own their homes the swing is 6.5%, amongst those with mortgages it is 10.5% and amongst those in local authority or housing association properties the swing is 13%.’
Have I missed something? Is this not saying that there is a smaller than average swing to Tories in better off families (as they are more likely to be Tory anyway). Equally the swing at the bottom of the SES table to be Tories will be increased as it comes from a smaller base (as they are least likely to be Tories).
Yes, the aggregate size of the sample is impressive but really I can see nothing earth shattering here; all that is being shown is that which is well known (and yes, a swing to tories at all levels) Rich are Tories, broke are Labour.
a 0.1% growth in the fourth quarter is not good. I think growth on April 26th will be negative. Also Civil servants are planning strikes next month and Brown is appearing against Chilcot surely this will swing things back to the Tories.
Is it just me or is the Beeb on a real bash the Tories campaign ? Every time I read a BBC blog, listen to the radio, or watch telly, there seems to be some overpaid BBC civil servant bitching about the Tories. Surely they wouldn’t compromise their high reporting standards to protect their overflowing trough ?
@Al J – the 0.1% figure and the next set of pre election figures are for the current financial year, while the 1.1% is for 2010/11 – next year. They are not really comparable in the way I think you are doing. It’s also worth bearing in mind that 1.1% annually represents 0.275% on a quarterly basis – not a masive leap. Also relevant is what’s termed the ‘trend growth’ – this is the long term increase in economic capacity over time, and is generally reckoned to be about 2.25% pa. In other words, growth below this rate means the economy is growing at less than capacity is increasing. In some ways you can define this scenario as a shrinking economy in relative terms, but in any event unless you grow above trend it tends not to feel like much of a recovery, hence Colin’s referral to the poor tax outlook in these circumstances.
having said all that, I personally expect GDP growth in 2010 to be above 1.1%, possibly quite considerably. I suspect we could be in for a year or two of stonking export growth which will surprise many, but overall growth will still be modest as the home market still has an awful lot of debt to unwind.
Having used the word, ” bitching” in my previous post I realise that some might find the word offensive. My apologies.
@Ken – “Is it just me or is the Beeb on a real bash the Tories campaign ?”
Yes – it’s just you. The BBC is scrupulously fair, and has to follow a myriad of regulations (as do all UK based TV outlets) in terms of unpartisan reporting. I watched extensive coverage last night on the BBC of the eyewateringly embarrassing revelations from Clare Short – no favours to Labour there. I then listened this morning to the Crucifiction of Grayling on Today. I am truly glad that we have a broadcast media that can rip all parties to shreds as and when they need it. I feel your comment says more about your partisan views than that of the BBC.
@ALEC……………..Thanks for the insight.
Alec
`I am truly glad that we have a broadcast media that can rip all parties to shreds as and when they need it.´
If you have Sky or Freesat, I strongly suggest you watch a single edition of Reporting Scotland and Newsnight Scotland before firming up on that conclusion.
The BBC has been “pro-establishment” from the days of Reith, so fairly naturally gives a little deference to the government in power, but BBC Scotland is much more staunchly unionist and pro-Labour than can be justified by such deference, especially with the current Scottish Government being of a different persuasion.
@ Ken.
“Is it just me or is the Beeb on a real bash the Tories campaign ?”
You are not on your own. I have just given them a piece which, I didn’t expect them to publish:
“The BBC never fail to amaze me, this blog being no exception. I have never seen such a bias towards the Labour party ever. Don’t forget guys, there is little or no chance of Labour forming the next government, so no fears there. If, as most peple expect, the Tories will form the next government, perhaps they have threatened a cut in funding.
I can’t believe the BBC doesn’t realise the probable outcome of the forthcoming election so, it’s either the latter of the above two options or, you have leaders who are so labour biased, it’s embarrasing the blatant way you are anti Tory and pro labour its shameful.
Shame on you BBC”
No, it isn’t just you Ken. Or to be more accurate not so much of a campaign but a long standing and ethereal standpoint.
GRI
I have been looking at the potential for a party to gain/lose x% of the vote they had last time, not x% of the poll, which makes nonsence in four-party Scotland where the order of the parties and the number of candidates within reach of victory varies so much.
The LibDems are often in extreme positions and as Anthony’s analysis shows, where they are in cotention, the Labour vote can’t be squeezed much more.
Wolf MacNeil & Al
The economic issues or any other policy issues are not the most important for the C2DE swing voters. They vote for a “Strong Leader” Blatcher, but not the “wimp” John Major.
Alec
Yes you are right. When the BBC scrolled it on the screen I thought it meant from January 2010. My mistake.
I am hoping the next Qu growth figures will be an improvement on 0.1%. I guess anything would be better than reversing back to recession.
@ ALEC
” unless you grow above trend it tends not to feel like much of a recovery, hence Colin’s referral to the poor tax outlook”
Nope-that isn’t what I meant-or what NIESR said on tv.
You have missed the point.
KEN-me too
Have a look at Hunt on DP this morning-interesting.
@Brownedov – “The BBC has been “pro-establishment” from the days of Reith, so fairly naturally gives a little deference to the government in power”. This is news to me, and something I have never noticed (at least not since about 1973). What I do notice is that sometimes Tory supporters froth at the mouth over left wing/liberal bias in the BBC, other times Labour complains bitterly about entrenched establishment views (recall Campbell’s regular attempts to bully the BBC?) and almost all of the time the Lib Dems claim there are marginalised by the BBC in favour of the big two. Then the Greens, BNP, Independent Socialists, Nationalists, UKIP and Monster Raving Loonies all vent their anger, so on balance the BBC is probably doing OK.
I think all of you need to pause for a moment and recognise that, for whatever reason, the Tories have taken a bit of a media pasting in the last few weeks. This is certainly not exclusive to the BBC but has been evident across all media outlets. If you are worried about the coverage you are getting, best to complain to Tory Party HQ – it’s probably their fault more than anyone elses. Next week labour will be up in arms at the Beeb – just roll with it.
Even though this is not directly related to polling, it is a treatise on GO’s press conference from yesterday. Worth a good reading in my opinion.
http://www.cityam.com/news-and-analysis/allister-heath/tory-economic-plan-damp-squib
Anthony
I am a bit confused
Please can you tell me does the projection take into account the bigger swing in the marginals?
If so, does it mean an election held now would result in a hung parliament?
Sorry if they seem to have obvious answers. I’m trying to understand it all. Thank you.
Old Nat
“are the floating voters in known marginals on ‘mass’ different from the rest”
Mass of floating voters form opinions from their particular national/local media outlets. I suspect these follow the national trends as much as possible. In known marginals the more politically aware might vote tactically but can you call these the ‘on mass’ floaters who follow national trends.
Steve A – the projection on the front page is just a straight Uniform National Swing calculation, nothing more, nothing less. It doesn’t take account of *anything* else.
Does anyone really still believe that news is unbiased?
Grow up- read and watch a range of channels / papers and the real truth is mediated somewhere between it all.
However the pathetic belief that the BBC is REALLY biased as suggested above is laughable; generally that idea is put forward by people whose biases are so extreme the news does not reflect them. It does not mean that the BBC is (very) biased; it means the complainants are far away from the typical BBC viewer.
The BBC is not politically biased in any normal sense; it is merely bound by lots of legislation – and its viewers – so it reflects the normal middle class middle aged viewer of its news.
But then, that’s what all news does; news reflects the reader- otherwise the readers go away and the newspaper dies or the channel ratings sink. Example; the only paper which has a majority of its readers being of one particular party is The Telegraph; and the Tory line is always pushed by that paper.)
@Jack
“The BBC is not politically biased in any normal sense”
True, at least you admit it is biased.
It is biased politcally towards labour in an abnormal sense, i.e, against the voting intentions of the majority of the country, in favour of a failing government.
Try taking off your red tinted spectacles and just watch and listen to BBC TV news, the inferences and suggestive nature of particularly Nick Robinson is becoming so transparent, it’s a joke.
@Barry P
Do I have to point out that at no point in recent history has any election result given the Conservatives or any other party a majority *vote*. And that the only poll in recent times that even gave the Conservatives a bare majority was what is now considered a rogue poll by Ipsos-MORI during conference time.
Since you vastly overstate the popularity of the conservatives, I think your view point on any bias is going to be tilted.
@ Jay Blanc
Perhaps ‘majority’ was the wrong word, let’s say the party with the ‘highest following’ shall we, if we are being pedantic and grasping at straws
My point above still stands in it’s entirety.
@Barry P
No, I’m afraid your point does not stand. The fact still is that no one party in the UK has mass popularity. In British politics having the most vote share means simply you had the least amount of people dislike you. That is no basis at all for saying that being critical of the Conservative party is some how “against the voting intentions of the country”. If you pay attention, the BBC is equally critical of all the parties.
The BBC report that accredited Economic panels disagreed with Cameron and Osborne, and report that conservative polls were slipping and labour ones rising, not due to some bias, but *because these things happened*. Just as they report on the Chilcot inquiry. Would you rather they not report on any item that might put a political party in a bad light?
@ Jay Blanc
Who has said any party has mass popularity? Not I.
Read my words: “highest following”, which, unless you avoid every poll produced in the last year or so, is perfectly correct.
” If you pay attention, the BBC is equally critical of all the parties.”
Of course it is, there there!
Percy Holmes
I was rephtasing the critical part of someone else’s phrase.
well for the last few days the BBC has looked a lot like the megaphone of the unelected Lord Mandelson. Every time I looked at the BBC News site, there was yet another “Lord Mandelson says …” story up there.
If the BBC was doing its job, it would be doing an expose on how a man with no elected office whatsoever has come to wield such massive political power.
@Barry P – crying foul when you see a news report you don’t like is tiresome. I watched Nick Robinson brutally expose Labour’s entrails recently over the attempted coup, for example. As someone who neither supports Tory or Labour, I can’t discern any systematic biase whatsoever. True, as a Tory you will see reports on the BBC you don’t like. But there are plenty that you should like. It’s an observer effect – you believe the BBC is biased against you, and people tend to notice evidence that apparently supports their own view and disregard other evidence. It’s very similar to what we see all the time on this site. When a poll shows Labour closing the gap, lots of Labour leaning posters get on board and post. With a big Tory lead, the majority of posters are Tories. I’ve watched this for some while now and it always amuses me. When the Tories mess up their policy announcements their supporters round on the BBC, but when the BBC has a pop at Labour just watch Mandelson sulk. It’s all just so unfair!
@james Ludlow – “well for the last few days the BBC has looked a lot like the megaphone of the unelected Lord Mandelson”
Well then, so has ITN, Sky, The Times, The Telegraph, The Wall Street Journal, Bloombergs, The Mail, CityAM, The Guardian etc etc. Everyone has been having a go at the Tories recently because they’ve messed up. Blame Cameron – it’s his fault.
Barry P – are you sure you’re not mixing up a lack of bias for a bias that matches your own? Out of the five main broadsheets (Telegraph, Times, FT, Indy, Guardian) which would you consider most and least biased?
@ Alec
I suggest you look at the definition of bias.
No one is saying Robinson doesn’t give labour a well deserved slagging off now and then but, the BIAS of support is towards them, not away. That is of course very apparent, unless, those red tinted spectacles are out of the case again.
And for the record, Robinson did not, in my book, expose the entrails of anyone other than Hoone and Hewitt. On the contrary, he glowed when reporting the lack of support for them from cabinet members, even though it took nearly a day for them to fall in line behind Brown. Boy those thumb screws were working overtime that day.
“It’s all just so unfair!” I agree, it’s a bitch, oooops, sorry
@ Duncan.
Might have got it wrong here but, aren’t we discussing the BBC not, newspapers?
Interesting PMQs today I thought.
Couple of straws in the wind for developing GE scrap.
@ Barry P
My first post, so might have got it wrong here but, aren’t we supposed to be discussing polls in a non-partisan manner?
Suppose I should declare my particular bias – I grew up in Thatcher’s Britain. Need I say more?
Can we bring this subject to a halt please. It’s one of those topics that always leads to a very dull “they are biased”, “no they aren’t baised” argument between Conservatives and others that never convinces anyone or changes anybody’s mind.
I do occassionally consider putting it on the banned list of “topics that never get anywhere other than tired partisan exchanges” along with “Is the BNP left or right wing”
Anthony
From me, subject closed,. Sorry for overstepping the mark
Anthony – a polling question. have you any easily available data on poll movements within official election campaigns? I can track back through your polling archive, but I’m not certain of polling dates or precisely when each election was called. My recollection in recent elections is that not alot changes, but I would be interested if you had anything more scientific than my memory.
I do occassionally consider putting it on the banned list of “topics that never get anywhere other than tired partisan exchanges” along with “Is the BNP left or right wing”
Alright then. Let’s do “Who killed Kennedy?”
Trying to take the thread away from partisan comments, and I’ve posted a few in my time:
I understand that the projection of seats on the front page is based on a uniform swing and there is a debate about whether swings in marginals can be detected.
What about GE exit polls when voters are asked where they put their X?
Is there data from these polls showing swings in marginals?
Would it have any relevance today?
Hope this makes sense.
I’m a bit of a novice.
Exit polls typically have far bigger samples (60,000 or so) than ordinary polls and are intended to accurately predict numbers of seats, as well as overall vote shares.
So, in principle, you should be correct.
IMHO Cameron’s pitch so far has been to the AB section of the electorate. To secure his win he’s going to have to enthuse the C2DEs as Margaret Thatcher did. People want to see the Tories passionate about putting money in the pockets of the working and lower middle class .Nobody is going to vote Tory out of reasons of moral superiority.
Anthony
Sorry about slagging off a favourite auntie, won’t do it again, mind you, did you hear James Naughtie refer to Labour as “we”?
I’ll get me coat!
Alec
`I think all of you need to pause for a moment and recognise that, for whatever reason, the Tories have taken a bit of a media pasting in the last few weeks.´
I’m a person not a collective and you can take my penn’orth or leave it. I hold no brief for the “official” unionists whatsoever but can recognise that they have taking a “a bit of a media pasting” from the BBC for a lot more than a few weeks.
My original comment was actually more concerned with the unremitting pro-union bias coming from BBC Scotland, and I still challenge anyone who has access to Sky or Freesat (or the iPlayer if UK-based) to watch one edition of “Reporting Scotland” and one of “Newsnight Scotland” and report hand on heart that there was no pro-union and no pro-Labour bias.
Valerie,
As Sean notes, GE Exit Polls have larger samples, and so tend to be more accurate. However, there is only one snag with these – they appear after the polls close and not several weeks/months before.
We will have to wait another three months – by which time we will have a better idea anyway.
Just to get back to the point of this thread (call me old-fashioned!)
Surely Anthony’s analysis would benefit from a like-for-like comparison. Are there similar whole year aggregates for either a) other pollsters or b) other years?
If there are, and stand comparison with this one, it would carry more weight.
As it is, I think the polls are in a state of flux, and could easily go either way over the next weeks.
Not that the above posts aren’t of interest
Anthony,
The Mori analysis shows a bigger Lab-Con swing among C2 and DE than ABC1.
The Mori analysis shows a bigger swing among Lab held seats than in Tory held seats.
That should not be a surprise if one recognises that the seats held by Tories in 1997-2005 were those where ABC1s ae more concentrated as this group had historically been more inclined to vote C, hence they remained blue in 1997.
As Wolf notes, it is whether the C2s swing to Cameron as they did to Thatcher, and then to Blair, which will determine the outcome.
It certainly appears that Lab have more of a problem with their traditional “core” C2 / DE supporters than with their ABC1 support.
In 2005, many of these stayed at home – hence the low turnout in Lab seats which skewed the balance of seats relative to share of vote. If however these people now come out and vote for parties other than Labour, then we could see the re-alignment you mention. Who really knows ?
This will be the most fascinating election for years – at least since 1992, possibly for decades.
As a former opinion pollster (Harris 1986-94), I would say that you just cannot sub-analyse national polls in this way.
These MORI polls will be structured to be typical of the electorate over the whole country, not in categories like regions or marginals. The sample in various types of seat will probably not be a representative sample of all voters in those seats.
This may account for the apparent variation in swings.
In general, I don’t buy the various arguments for large differences in behaviour in marginals. This has not historically been the case, though the slight advantage that the defending party has may well have been eliminated by the expenses scandal of 2009.
I would still say that past evidence suggests that the application of Uniform National Swing from an aggregation of standard national votng polls is the best predictor. All else would be mere speculation, however much it may assuage partisan wishful thinking.
Remember too that polls in 2009 (and indeed right up to just before the election) do not take account of tactical voting. We know that in safe Tory seats there are many Labour identifiers who will not in the end vote Labour as there is no chance of winning. These may show up as Labour ‘voters’ in 2009 polls but not in the election. Similarly, people do not take account of being in marginals (or personal votes) until much closer to the election itself.
More briefly than my previous comment (I can hear the sighs of relief!): a few points made in the thread itself:
1. The reason why more is not made of proportionate swing (I believe as used by Baxter?) is that it has been conclusively proved not to work as a predictor of seat behaviour, ever since the academic debate in the 1960s (Steed swing v Butler swing). Sorry for those who think it is more logical, it just deosn’t happen (this is to do with things like the neighourhood effect where one’ political environment reinforces the strength of ones party commitment).
2. I took the natinal exit polls in 1987 and 1992 and was involved in 1997 and 2001. They do use marginal seats only for their predictions – not that that would have made a difference, as marginals have always behaved very like every other type of seat. The reason they are so accurate is not so much the huge sample size as that they capture people actually voting with their opinions at the actual time, which no pre-election poll can do (which is why no pre-election poll is really a prediction).
3. I remember dropping what a party vice-chairman called ‘Robert’s bombshell’ when providing private research for the Conservative party in the early 1990s: the C2 are not the vital swing group, this is and was a complete myth. There is no single vital swing group, and the C2s if anything are less important than some as they are concentrated not in marginals but in Labour safe seats.
Well said , Robert Waller ! Exactly my point about Labour underperforming the polls.
For example, what is a Labour voter, say, in Surbiton supposed to do ?
I think Labour voters over many years in suburbia and the shires have learnt to vote LD to keep the Tories out. To some extent, I believe many Scottish Tories probably vote either SNP or Liberal in seats where Tories have less than 25%. This tendency has started later. Therefore, I would not be surprised if in Scotland the Conservative Party underperform their poll rating.
Probably would not make any differnce to their seats. 1 MP might just be 2 – no more.
On exit polls, these days they are primarily intended to predict seats – share of the vote is a secondary consideration.
That is, however, all they show – in the USA exit polls are also used to ask what reasons people voted and to provide demographic breakdowns of who votes – we don’t do that here (or at least, not anymore), it’s just a way of predicting who has won the election a couple of hours before the votes are counted.
Robert Waller – I’d expect the Conservatives to slightly outperform the UNS in Con-v-Lab seats… but I’m with you on not believing that a huge differential is plausible.
I’m still surprised and intrigued at quite how extreme the difference is in these figures – but there goes. As I said, dedicated polls of marginals haven’t shown the same, so your (first) explanation is most probably correct.
3. I remember dropping what a party vice-chairman called ‘Robert’s bombshell’ when providing private research for the Conservative party in the early 1990s: the C2 are not the vital swing group, this is and was a complete myth. There is no single vital swing group, and the C2s if anything are less important than some as they are concentrated not in marginals but in Labour safe seats.
Very good point.
Regarding Marginals I believe there are two forces acting against each other:
1. The normal advantage of incumbancy. This could very well be a disadvantage this year though not necessarily for everyone.
Conservative supporters forget that there are also Tory MPs with small majorities who have also been tainted by the expenses scandal. They would also face a backlash just like a similar Labour MP.
2. Resources. Now a days almost all resources for constituencies are now poured into Marginals. The Tories have an advantage here supposedly because of Ashcroft money.
@Anthony – ” I’d expect the Conservatives to slightly outperform the UNS in Con-v-Lab seats… but I’m with you on not believing that a huge differential is plausible.”
And the Lid Dems to out-perform UNS in LibDem-tory marginals? Politics Home marignals survey (Sep last year?) suggested this may be the case.
I also think that UNS, despite its clear flaws, is likely to be not too far from reality. In a tight race, this “not too far” could be crucial however.
Robert –
Baxter used to use Proportional Loss, but he added some modification to it because it kept on predicting a total Lib Dem wipe out – I think that has effectively made it a lot more uniform.
Elephant in the room….Angus Reid !
The elephant in the room is ‘Others’. As I pointed out on another thread, Others could well affect outcomes of marginal seats in England even if they don’t actually win any. UKIP, Greens and BNP are all credible national parties, even if it is only because of the European elections. This is a far cry from the days when Others in England were represented mainly by the likes of Monster Raving Loonies and the Workers Revolutionary Party. Others (including SNP and Plaid) have polled higher in the last three elections than ever before.
Someone has pointed out that Labour are as low as at any time since the early 80’s yet the Tories are struggling to make 40% and the Liberals seem to be flat. Why? Others!
Conventional wisdom say that Others will be squeezed as the election approaches, but if there are lacklustre campaigns that may not happen this time.
@PETE B
AR polls give Others (UKIP & BNP mostly) higher shares than other pollsters, so the 2 “elephants in the room” are closely related. I don’t know if these parties are planning to contest many seats, so I don’t know how a high Other vote would affect actual seats.
Scotland & Wales don’t make much difference as the Tories are relying on England to give them a majority.
@Surbiton – a Scottish Tory vote SNP? What are you on?
There was historically a “Unionist” working class vote, particularly in the West of Scotland, who would vote Tory for sectarian reasons. That vote died with the de-industrialisation of the 80s, and a lot of it actually went straight across to Labour.
The remaining Tory vote in constituencies where they’re out of the running is a fairly hard core one: I don’t think they would make their support for the Union Jack secondary to their hatred of Labour.
The main reason why the Tories won’t win much in Scotland (at best 4, I’d say) is the seat demographics. After the Boundary Commission reshaped the constituencies after devolution, there are simply very few viable Conservative targets.
The behavior of 2005 DNVs could have a huge impact on the seat numbers. In Labour held seats, turnout was 58% v 65% in Conservative seats. In the seats where Labour had a 5-10% majority over the Tories, turnout was around 62%. If any party can tap into those approx 11 million non-voters they could see huge benefits, even if it comes at the expense of disheartening some voters in your ‘core’ areas.
This was why Labour saw such a landslide in 1997. It wasn’t just the amount of votes they got, it was where they got them. In seats Labour held in 1992 they gained an average of around 1,000 votes. In seats not held by Labour, it was around 4,500 votes.
EDIT: Not sure where that 11 million number came from, I must have read the wrong one on my working spreadsheet. There were 17 million non-voters in 2005.
This showed up in Norwich North where there was a big swing and this was when the tory lead was well off its peak.
Crewe and Nantwich isn’t as good of comparison because the big swing there happened at the height of the tory lead in the polls in summer of 2008.
I have always thought Blair’s personality was more suited for a lot of these marginals than Brown’s personality is for the demographics of these marginals. That is why Labour made a mistake in not replacing Brown. Poll of 100 marginals of labour/con marginals showed tory majority at 38. That is a little off because lib dems are holding up well in their marginals against the tories.
Even though it is going back to 2006 lib dems made up a lot of ground on the tories in a by election. I know the lib dems have a great by election operation but my suspicion according to polling and articles with sources on the ground are that lib dems incumbents will be very tough to knock off and the tories will be making almost all of their gains against from labour.
That means you will be more likely to see a labour seat way down on the tory list fall than a lib dem seat way lower on the list fall. I’ve read articles where tories were seeing great resistance in lib dem target seats with even very small swings needed to gain the seat.
This throws off the swingometer.
My guess would be 39-30-19 would easily get the tories a majority and not be 12 seats short.
You could have a small tory majority even with a 5 percent lead of tories 39 to labour 34.
I am Agent in a Labour held Tory Battleground Target in the north. A seat that has long been a Labour heartland.
What we hear on the doorstep does not seem to tie in with the polls. The animosity towards Labour in the big council estates is quite marked. It boils down to immigration frankly.
But then when every third door you knock on in the estates is opened by a non-indigenous householder, what can they expect.
@Pete B – “Conventional wisdom say that Others will be squeezed as the election approaches, but if there are lacklustre campaigns that may not happen this time”. One possible explaination for recent poll moves could be a differential squeeze on others. There is some evidence from by elections that the BNP is being pushed back in core Labour areas, and we know that Labour has also recovered in Scotland for example. Perhaps Others that split from Labour have begun to return, whereas Others that peeled away from the Tories have not as yet done so?
@Ken – AR is indeed another elephant in the room. If their polls start to move we really know we are on to something. If they stay static, we will be left wondering if all the polls are revolving around the liklehood to vote issue and we probably won’t get an answer until after polling day.
With all this talk about elephants in the room starting to move Anthony had better go get a big shovel.
“Conservative supporters forget that there are also Tory MPs with small majorities who have also been tainted by the expenses scandal. They would also face a backlash just like a similar Labour MP.”
Fortunately for the Conservatives, they have fewer incumbents for people to vote against. And, t heir worst offenders tended to be in safe seats.
**But then when every third door you knock on in the estates is opened by a non-indigenous householder, what can they expect.**
I am hoping my ancestors arrived on these shores at least 17,000 years ago.
Will that make it ok then?
I think the fact everyone has so much personal debt from Banks makes the bank bailout even more riduculous as the banks get paid twice for something of their own creation. Personal debt in the UK is now over £1.5Trillion with the average family havind debts of 60% of their annual income. Why is this not been seen as an election issue?????
Robert Waller,
The exit polls in 1987 and 1992 did not turn out to be very accurate in that both significantly understated the Tory performance.. Moreover, in 1992 Labour clearly did outperform in the marginals which is why a 7.6% lead gave Major a majority of just 21!
@Paul B – “………as the banks get paid twice for something of their own creation.” If you are talking about ‘personal debt’ it’s hard to blame the banks for everything. No one had to take out £1.5T of personal debts, but they chose to because they wanted bigger homes, better cars, longer holidays etc. It’s part of the modern age that no one wishes to take responsibility, from government to business and right down to individual citizens (now normally described as ‘consumers’ since everyone became obsessed with getting more stuff). This is probably why its not an election issue – would you like to be the politician that tells the country they are all stupid for borrowing far more than they could afford?
PAULB
“Why is this not been seen as an election issue?????”
Because :
a) The Government wanted people to spend & borrow because they got a double whammy of tax revenues from the factor you indentify-consumer spending & lenders profits.
b) The Government cannot credibly now berate voters for building up debt
c) The Conservative opposition is very nervous at saying things which they perceive to be “unnacceptable” to voters-like stop borrowing so much & enjoying yourselves.
GO has recently published an “economic model” which includes “less debt & more saving”-but it’s not in headlines.
The recent NIESR forecasts indicate their opinion that consumer spending will fall this year ( and that the modest increase in GDP will have exports, rather than domestic consumption as it’s main component.)
NIESR’s forecasts for growth for 2010 & 2011 are significantly less than those in PBR & have implications for the Budget. These data plus the figures published by IFS yesterday indicate the scale of fiscal tightening which any new government will be faced with.
I think we can anticipate that UK consumer debt will continue to be paid down-whether politicians urge it or not.
@colin & Paul B – what we actually need is a global rebalancing of credit and saving. One of the key problems that has to be addressed is the fact that the UK and USA, along with some other big economies, are chronic consumer borrowers, while the Chinese are gross over savers. They need to increase their spending to take up the global economic slack while we need to drawn down our overall indebtedness while expanding our economy through exports. While the western nations have a lot to answer for in the current circumstances, the Chinese policies are aggravating the imbalances and making a smooth solution much harder to achieve. Either way, as Colin says, neither Labour or Tories really want to spell out the problems.
The economics community has recognised the global imbalances for five or six years at least, Alec. Simply outlining them doesn’t change the situation. Until China winds down its precautionary savings then there is absolutely nothing the West can do about.
On the topic of economic issues which for political reasons are unspoken in the Westminister village, one big one was the imbalancing of the economy due to the China Factor.
Cheap manufacturing of transportable goods in China (and India et al) reduced cost-pull inflation on those goods. However, net inflation is always a monetary phenomenon and the fact that the price of one set of goods was going down didn’t mean that the money supply had stopped growing. Instead, people’s money was spent on other things, ie. houses, which can’t be imported cheaply from China, hence a boom in house prices and hence the imbalancing of the economy.
One move that I think is very necessary, but has received no attention (at least officially) would be a more holistic monetary policy that paid more attention to RPI. All the alarm bells of a housing crash were there (so much so that I could see it back when I was a high school student just beginning to learn economics) but the overall instability of the economy was hidden by a narrow focus on CPI.
As I’ve said, the big big challenge now is to keep interest rates low over the next few years. That means that it’s extremely important that the next MPC meeting gets it right on QE (to keep down prospective inflation) and that the debt issue is managed properly. Keeping the pound weak should also be a priority, because the manufacturing recovery (a salient part of our current recovery) is dependant on a competitive exchange rate.
Politicians would do a lot to look back at the failures and successes of 1981-1985 to see how (a) economic growth is dependant on good monetary policy, (b) how good monetary policy is dependant on good fiscal policy, (c) how you can manage domestic monetary conditions and you can manage trade conditions, but not both and (d) with regards to late-1985 onwards, how firing your accountant won’t prevent you from going bankrupt, contra Nigel Lawson.
@AW
“I’ve no reason not to trust the figures, it just doesn’t seem believable”.
Excellent advice for interpreting any poll. Always worth asking ‘does is make sense’.
Alec,
“They need to increase their spending to take up the global economic slack while we need to drawn down our overall indebtedness while expanding our economy through exports.”
Actually the chinese don’t “need” to do anything. Their economic policies might not be doing us any good, but they are working just fine for them. If we can’t compete with the Chinese that is our problem not theirs.
We like to go on about them keeping their currency artificially high, but if that is their choice then so be it, its their currency they can set it how they like. They play by their rules and do what is in their interests and we do the same its just that when they don’t do what we would like or would want them to do we call it cheating.
Peter.
That should of course have been artificially “low” not “high”
Peter.
” If we can’t compete with the Chinese that is our problem not theirs.”
Nail-head, Peter.
Hi all
I am a regular visitor but first time poster. Can someone explain this to me, does the scotish vote inflate the labour share of the polls and if so by how much?
Thank you for your help.
P.S I have predicted a tory victory of approx 40 seats for the last year.
Alec,
“…would you like to be the politician that tells the country they are all stupid for borrowing far more than they could afford?” Sadly this is the crux of the problem.
When GO came as close as he dare to saying this at Conference last year it drew a lot of flak and caused a big wobble in the polls.
GB on the other hand leads by example in the other direction.
It seems the public prefer Ostriches to Voltaire.
Is it any wonder Cameron is so cautious he infuriates many on his own side ?
Topcat,
The answers to your questions are:
1 – Yes
2 – but by such a small amount you would barely notice.
The reasons are two-fold:
1 – Although Lab have a large lead over Con in Scotland, their absolute share of the vote is not significantly higher than for GB overall
2 – Scotland accounts for less than 10% of UK voters.
You might equally ask whether East Anglia inflates the Conservative share of the vote.
Topcat
Scottish polling
To some extent it depends on which pollsters you look at!
The only one to give England as a separate country is MORI.
If you look at the most recent poll the GB figure is 40/32/16, while the English poll is 44/29/17.
It is, of course entirely up to you whether you think that the difference between a 15% and an 8% lead is “such a small amount you would barely notice” as Paul H-J suggests.
Personally, it seems quite significant to me.
@Peter Cairns – “Actually the chinese don’t “need” to do anything. Their economic policies might not be doing us any good, but they are working just fine for them.” No they aren’t, or at least not long term. At present China needs – absolutely needs – us to buy their goods. If they don’t help the global economy unwind the imbalances in an orderly manner they will have an economy of 1.5 billion people collapsing around their ears. They have as much to lose, and possible more, than we do.
@Bill Patrick – your observation re the focus on the CPI is absolutely right. Somewhat bafflingly, Osborne yesterday nailed his colours very firmly to continuing the myopic focus on a 2% CPI, which it could be argued, was the very policy that got us into this mess in the first place.
Topcat
For YouGov Polls -on average-if you recalculate to total sample by excluding the Scotland content, Cons% & the lead over Labour rises by 2.
@ ALEC
” Somewhat bafflingly, Osborne yesterday nailed his colours very firmly to continuing the myopic focus on a 2% CPI, which it could be argued, was the very policy that got us into this mess in the first place.”
This is the second time you have made this innacurate description of GO’s statement.
I will try once more to correct you.
What he actually said under Benchmark 1 of 8–Macroeconomic stability :-
“We will safeguard Britain’s credit rating with a credible plan to eliminate a large part of the structural deficit over a Parliament. Our fiscal policy will seek to help keep interest rates lower for longer. The independent Bank of England will continue to target 2% CPI inflation and will use its new role in prudential supervision to preserve financial stability.”
The last 12 words Alec, mean that BoE will be given responsibility for asset price bubbles.
PAUL H-J
“It seems the public prefer Ostriches to Voltaire.
Is it any wonder Cameron is so cautious he infuriates many on his own side ?”
There was a period when polls indicated a majority supporting reduced public spending-but perhaps that was vs the alternative of tax rises-I can’t remember now.
Have there been any polling questions recently which actually bear out your assumption PAUL?
Timidity on the point is certainly evident from all parties.
@Colin – “The last 12 words Alec, mean that BoE will be given responsibility for asset price bubbles.” I don’t want to upset Anthony again, but I don’t think you can say that. GO hasn’t made it clear at all how he intends to pursue macro economic stability, and I think you might be equating his desire to give the BoE responsibility over banking supervision with a wider role in macro managing the economy. In this I am backed by the CBI and many others. You could be right – it may be his intention that the BoE will have a wide remit to tackle the whole economic picture, and he certainly seems to imply they will have a role to play in identifying government spending levels, but other than that we just don’t know. With all politicians I always tend to employ the ’suspension of belief’ approach. When I hear a speech I suspend my belief until I have seen the actual policies.
ALEC:-
“With all politicians I always tend to employ the ’suspension of belief’ approach”
In this case I wouldn’t worry too muchn Alec – the clue is in the Title of Benchmark 1:-
” Macroeconomic stability”
BoE is GO’s favoured oversight & regulatory body.His statement needs interpretation from you really.
….needs NO interpretation… !!!
If i remember rightly wasnt there quite a large swing from labour to SNP in a glasgow by election in 2008.
Alec,
“At present China needs – absolutely needs – us to buy their goods.”
We will always buy their goods but maybe not as much. China can and as our wealth declines adapt.
In the last year while the UK and US budget deficits have ballooned and our economies reversed china has kept growing thanks in no small part to a stimulus package aimed at infrastructure developments which was paid for not by debt but by savings.
Already the Chinese economy has shown itself resilient and able to boost domestic demand if required when we go into recession.
If the US doesn’t get its act together soon and like us stop living beyond it’s means then at some time in this decade the Dollars status as a reserve currency will be in doubt, at which point it really will hit the fan.
Peter.
Topcat
…… does the Scotish vote inflate the Labour share of the polls and if so by how much?
Because England is larger and not everyone in Scotland votes Labour, the answer is “Hardly at all.”
What is much more important is that the Conservative vote is dispersed, while Labour is concentrated around Glasgow and the LibDems and SNP have almost everything North of the Central Belt.
This gives Labour a disproportionate advantage in FPTP and the number of Labour votes per MP elected is about a third for each SNP MP or a ninth for the sole Con MP.
The number of Con MP’s will be in the range 0-4 and Labour will have at least 30 more. So if you get a Labour government majority of less than 30, it will be thanks to FPTP electing Scottish Labour MP’s who (unlike the SNP and the Conservative) vote on English Education, NHS, and Justice.
Their constituents and famlies do not much care how these services are managed. Scottish Labour MP’s are just lobby fodder.
It was admitted by a Conservative MP (who thought he was underpaid) that you can do the job on two days a week. Scottish MP’s postbags are empty because MSP’s deal with all the common issues that constituents write to their MP/MSP about. Scottish Labour MP’s, if they arn’t ministers. probably only have a few hours work a week apart from waiting in the bar for the division bell to ring.
My projection is that FPTP at the next election will give Labour three times as many MP’s as Labour on much the same share of the vote, but next time round, if the SNP can get a 5% swing from Labour, FPTP could flip and give the SNP30+ seats, about 15 more than their proportionate share.
That would give them a majority of the Scottish MP’s, and they could revive the pre-devolution objective of secession.
5% swing isn’t that much for a party on a generations long, very gradual advance. Consider what they will have in their favour:
a still popular SP government
a Labour opposition that has not yet adapted to loss of office
a Labour SP opposition on it’s 5th, or more likely 6th leader after twelve years, each less successful than the last
a UK Labour opposition in disarray with at least three factions blaming each other.
an insolvent Labour party rejected by former big business donors
a popular FM
an unpopular UK government
a Conservative UK government that has too many problems and too few Scottish MP’s to make allowances for Scottish sensibilities and values
a group of SNP MP’s who will extract a high price for any support they give a hung government party.
I don’t think you should suspect me of partisan over-optimism if I say that 5% swing must be an easy objective in such circumstances. I’ve never been a member of any party and independence is not my first choice (though it’s the quickest way to a fit-for-purpose parliament and I’ll vote for it for that reason).
With a population of X billion wanting to be middle class why does China need us to buy their goods?
It may be fun for them if we do to increase the size of their international monetatary deposits but there is no way they ‘need’ us’…
Get used to the new super power and stop looking to the past. ( But that’s a UK hobby I know)
Paul B:
“If I remember rightly wasn’t there quite a large swing from Labour to SNP in a Glasgow by election in 2008?”
Yes there was, and I’m still struggling to understand how such a thing could happen in Glasgow.
There were problems with the selection of candidates, and the record of the previous MP. The SNP worked hard and were well resourced and organised. Peter Cairns will claim some of the credit for that.
Whatever the local factors were, don’t bet on this seat reverting to Labour. The SNP voters in this constituency enjoyed the both the attention and giving Labour a kicking. They might find that addictive.
It’s not as if they had to vote Conservative to get rid of Labour. The SNP are no further left that the Butskillite consensus of the 1950’s, but that’s well to the left of NewLabour.
Anthony:
I note your comment about “The BNP is on the right/left.”
How about “NewLabour is to the Right of Harold Macmillan/ Winston Churchill”?
@Paul H-J
“It seems the public prefer Ostriches to Voltaire. ”
Spot on – and DC is wise to recognise it. No point setting ones self up for being called nasty.
The public accuse politicians of being two faced, but can you blame them when the electrorate’s support form them goes down when they tell an uncomfortable truth about the need for reduced spending? No one thanked GO for stating this fact and rewarded his honest with an increase in the polls, no one said he had got it right when GB was forced to adopt his policies and accept ‘cut’s – and agin there was no recognition in the polls.
There was an interesting article on the BBC last week – an American study into how in presidential debate (Bush v Gore) the public prefered nonsense over facts that they did not like to hear. Sound familiar? Investment versus cuts?
Labour is already busy cutting (e.g. university cuts), but is saying the Cons would cut too soon. A brilliant illustration in how politicians know that they can speak and act hypocrtically – yet also know that many people will still believe a positive lie over an uncomfortable truth.
Such is human nature.
@Colin – Osborne’s speech really doesn’t tell us very much. He can say he wants stability and that he wants the BoE to do this, but with no indication of what the detailed BoE remit will be (other than 2% CPI target) and no idea what their powers will be either, we don’t really have a clear idea of how he intends to deliver the macroeconomic stability. It would be hard to imagine any government handing over total responsibility for all macroeconomic issues to an independent central bank, and without the detailed policy prescriptions we only have a speech, pretty vague in many places, in which a politician says he wants a stable economy. Many independent commentators have noted that the Tory economic policy is still far from clear. That’s all I’m saying.
@Peter Cairns – your point about the Chinese stimulus confirms what I was saying – they were terrified that the west would stop buying, Chinese consumers got nervous and loaded even more into their savings, and without a massive stimulus China would have been in deep trouble. They will adapt, but for their own sakes they need t develop a stronger domestic market and stop relying on western profligacy.
John B Dick
I’m still struggling with the wide range of Scottish polling results, and have no idea of what will happen here!
It could be that Labour’s obsession with reinstating GARL will have a positive effect in Glasgow – but that could equally lose them votes elsewhere in Scotland.
Internet polling should be subtle enough to create appropriate sample populations relatively easily. However, it doesn’t.
All we get is Brito-centric polling – even to the extent of using GB weightings (on some factors) within Scottish polls.
OldNat
Did you see a Scottish Conservative flyer or maybe I wrote a post on it? They quoted an ORB poll of Scottish voters (Dec 09)
Best PM – GB 46% DC 54% but
73% of Scottish voters agree that “Labour look tired and failing”
So 27% don’t agree. Even if these are all Labour loyalists (and many Labour supporters would not disagree) and they all think GB is the greatest Labour leader since Tony Blair, that means that 19% of Scots would still prefer a “TIRED AND FAILING” Labour government led by Gordon Brown to a Conservative government with a better leader.
The article is headlined: “Bad news polls for Labour SNP and LibDems”. I agree there is bad news in it for all these parties, but surely nothing as bad as the fact that the number of people who will vote for a party is no more than those who would prefer, for the next four or five years, a government which has a worse leader and is already TIRED AND FAILING.
They can’t blame the leader. He’s significantly more popular than his party (as well as GB) though less so than he was.
It must be “The Nasty Party” and they don’t think the nice leader can keep them in order. What other explanation is there?
John B Dick
I saw that ORB poll when it first came out.
I asked Anthony on a different occasion about the phrasing of questions in polls, and he said that the questions were suggested by the clients, but that the pollsters then adjusted them to be appropriate.
Anyone who has seen the ORB leading questions will suspect that Anthony was talking mince!
Over to you Anthony! Justify the ORB questions for the Scots Tories as being appropriate!
Alec & Peter
The main reason for the need for China to reduce their savings ratio is that it impinges globally. Most foreign reserves are held in US dollars, so effectively, the Chinese conservative confucian-principled worried wealthy are propping up the dollar and reducing thereby the price of Chinese exports in an ironic but fundamentally unhealthy way.
Global co-operation is the way forward. Little-Island attitudes (including self-loathing) are the way backwards.
So is the over-simplification we get so bored reading by the regular party-line trumpeters on this site. (Not you Peter!)
Alec
“without a massive stimulus China would have been in deep trouble”.
Have you heard of quantitative easing? Have you seen that the US has a trillion dollar debt. We’re in above our heads and China barely got its feet wet.
Chine motored through the worst recession since the thirties on its savings and it could also have boosted consumer spending if it had wanted too.
Saying they would have been in trouble is like telling a boxer to watch it because if he punches you he’ll get your blood on his shirt and then need to wash it.
This is a nation that has average above 10% annually growth every decade since the late 80’s and has a current accounts surplus of 9% of its 3.3 trillion GDP it exports 40% of GDP and has domestic and national savings over 50% of GDP.
its hard to see a healthier set of statistics anywhere. If we stopped spending it would need to change it might even find it hard to sustain double digit growth after a few years…. but it doesn’t need us.
It has the rest of Europe, Canada, Australia and India . It also has asia in its grasp and it is growing faster than we are as well as making big inroads in South america while buying up huge tracts of Africa and securing long term control of global strategic assets.
Peter.
@ALEC
“That’s all I’m saying”
No it wasn’t Alec-what you said was :-”Osborne yesterday nailed his colours very firmly to continuing the myopic focus on a 2% CPI,”
And I am reminding you that the Title of “Benchmark No 1″ in his speech ( from where you took your CPI assertion) is :-
“Macroeconomic stability ”
I am not here to debate how he will achieve his objective or whether he will be successful -and nor are you for reasons which Anthony constantly explains to us.
But I am reminding you that if GO had meant -my policy is ” Myopic concentration on CPI without regard to anything else”-
he would have said so.
Colin,
“”if GO had meant -my policy is ” Myopic concentration on CPI without regard to anything else”- he would have said so.”"
Actually like most politicians if “Myopic concentration on CPI without regard to anything else” was GO’s policy he would have said anything but……
If a politician gives you a list its prudent to suspect that its a list he’ll think you will like which is probably not the list he wants himself.
John TT,
“Global co-operation is the way forward.”
It has been for a century, but as with the US since WW2 it can be Global co-operation on unequal terms with a top dog determining the terms.
Peter.
Peter.
The drop in Tory poll support is quite normal coming into an election and is actually an advantage, as it will bring out their core vote, the swing vote and the ones who may not have bothered if the lead was too substantial. Generally the the Tories always do better than the pollsters predictions, even when they lose badly.
I personally think the female voters will put the Tories in, as they are the ones in the past who usually recognise the right time for change and are less influenced by the pre-election waffle. e.g. Major, Thatcher and Blair
I predict a comfortable small majority for the Tories.
Sure, Peter, all I’m saying is let’s not beat ourselves up because of our debt culture.
The Confucian culture that leads the Chinese to hoard dollars has its pitfalls too, for all of us.
Also, international co-operation was a lot more difficult before the communications revolution of the 90’s
@Peter cairns – I don’t dispute the growth of the Chinese economy, but you have to factor in the growth of the Chinese popultaion and the fact that the countries social fabric is much weaker than we often believe. There was evidence of discontent when the pace of growth dropped and factories closed, with riots and violence in some areas. Their economy is romping along, but it has to in order to provide for an expanding population with a growing expectation of improved living standards. If China’s GDP was to grow at a ‘healthy’ 3% pa there country would be under severe risk of mayhem.
Alec, without turning this into a China debate, their infrastructure is what is weak, rather than “social fabric”. They have an awful long way to go to bring them into the 20th Century in many areas, such as sanitation in rural areas, let alone the 21st.
Fiinancially they are cautious as individuals. Whereas here, low interest rates leads to debt/spending increases, in China low rates lead to savings increases (because you need to save more to yield the same level of interest)
A complete paradigm shift is an unrealsitic expectation of both China and us here. We cannot and should not be a lot more like the Chinese, and vice versa. A bit more like each other would help.
One of the main problems with online debates is that each side reduces the other and over-simplifies in order to feel that they are right and have all the answers.
I think we’d all be a bit better off if we appreciated the others’ views a bit more, instead of trotting out what GO or DC or GB or NC would like us to say.
@ Peter Cairns
“If a politician gives you a list its prudent to suspect that its a list he’ll think you will like which is probably not the list he wants himself.”
Thank you for that insight Peter.
I am busy re-interpreting a number-for example :-
“We intend to lead a government of purpose and direction so that we can offer the people of this nation the opportunity to move forward to independence, democracy and equality.”
“we are committed to sustainable economic growth”
Thanks to all who helped re: the scottish polling. What amazes me is if you talk to the average guy on the street he/she wants a change even ex labour voters, if you take this as a straw poll, how on earth are labour still polling around 30% if you take my area -sitting labour MP- they are lucky to be getting 20% its a strange world!
This site looks at the ‘hard’ aspects of polling and prediction and I agree that the Conservatives should be a little worried, but not too much: it is reasonably certain that the gap is narrowing everywhere, but more in the safe Tory seats where it doesn’t matter, as well as safe Labour seats. In short the gap is still very large in the marginals. Provided the lead remains at 4% or above David Cameron will have a majority. If it stays at 8% or above he will get a landslide victory. But there is a ’soft’ side to which no specific figures can be put. Over the past year every left wing political commentator I can think of (Toynbee, Ashley, Bright, Rawnsley, Kettle) has savaged Gordon Brown as being inept, incompetent, useless, a class warrior and nothing else. If Brown wins, they are all going to look pretty stupid, aren’t they ? Is it likely they will all be wrong ? Aren’t they meant to be the experts ? Furthermore, if Brown wins he will be confirmed as our greatest ever politician or even statesman: eighteen years at the top of power at least; no former politician could match him, not Churchill, Lloyd George, Disraeli, Gladstone, Palmerston, Peel; only one perhaps, our first PM, Walpole. With all we know (or at least believe), about Brown’s narrow party political view of the world, his temperament, judgement etc. Is that likely to happen ? Perhaps Gordon Brown is our greatest over political leader. I just wouldn’t put any money on it.
Robert Waller, as one would expect of so distinguished a commentator, makes interesting and important points.
Perhaps the fundamental point is that people commissioning published opinion polls – specifically the newspapers – will ask for the most economical poll that will provide a reasonable estimate of national voting intentions. About 1,000 people. But if one wants to sub-analyse such a poll the sample becomes too small to be acceptably reliable.
In previous discussion on this site, we have run into this problem even when wanting to sub-analyse a single factor: Region. We found the regional analysis in published opinion polls too coarse – three or four regions instead of all the regional government areas.
If you are wanting to analyse several factors – e.g.Social Class within Party holding seat and size of majority, you are just asking too much. You will have to commission a special poll, at considerable expense.
Again, as previously discussed, the polls are trying to cope with increasingly complicated situations. Perhaps the stereotypical idea of polls comes from their early use in the 1950s, when nearly everybody voted Conservative or Labour, and there were fairly cmprehensible class divides. We now live in a mutliparty world, with some parties, notably Plaid and SNP, not standing in all seats. Class factors are different, with the decline of manufacturing and rise of other groupd such as, regrettably, large numbers of unemployed. And their are additional complexities due to ethnic diversity.
One answer is to look for more qualitative infomration, such as that in Robert Waller’s almanacs or, in a less organised and checked fashion, in comments on this site.
Finally, it is dangerous for parties to concentrate, as they do, on very select social groups, and seats.As they are finding through their concerns about the BNP, if parties neglect the interests of core groups and areas on the assumption that they will vote anyway, eventually those neglected people will look for a better option.
@Topcat
“If you talk to the average man on the street”…
With all due respect, the “All the people I’ve talked to are dead set against Labour so obviously the polls are wrong” argument is tosh. You don’t have a bank of phones and ability to make a representative sample of over a thousand people.
Sure, all the people you talk to might be against Labour, but have you considered that the people you most talk to about politics may be the people who most share your views?
I’ve seen this many many many times in discussion here. Where the polls are simply discarded or ignored, because “obviously” the mythical man on the Clapham omnibus can’t really think that way.
The polling is the polling, it may well be wrong, but declaring it wrong because of some gut feeling that “the people simply won’t put up with it” is deep bias.
I guess the real issue behind Topcat’s post is whether these people are telling hin the full truth. The Tories have really bought into the ‘nudge’ theory of social change, where people can be persuaded to act in a certain way by, for one thing, promoting the belief that everyone is doing the particular task in question except them. People mostly want to be in with the crowd, and when Labour is meant to be highly unpopular many people will agree in public in order not to be different. I don’t know if this is happening here, but if the current negative run for the Tories continues it might not be quite so fashionable to ‘hate’ Brown.
To return strictly to the MORI 2009 data, could the UKIP nationwide surge during the European Elections period have been far greater in safe Conservative seats thus weakening Conservative support in those very constituencies and thus appearing to depress the level of Lab to Con swing there?
Also, with the Tories apparently getting far greater swings to them in marginal seats, could this be just a nullifying of the propensity of LD and Lab voters to gang up against Conservatives in the Blair years. Perhaps this is even reversing with ganging up going on to now get the sitting Labour MP out? Thus the supposed in-built 40 seat bias in FPTP in favour of Labour will be corrected to defacto a level playing field by voter behaviour?
Just seen this piece:
http://theconservativeblog.co.uk/?p=2413
What are the chances? Obviously it will be officially denied even if it is going on, but I wonder have there been any suggestions to polling companies or anything of that nature. Perhaps Anthony can let us know if YouGov have been approached about this at all.
Just a couple of disclaimers:
1) I am not saying I believe this story to be true – just pointing to it as a possibility
2) The website is not an official Conservative party one.
I wonder what effect , if any, the Legg Report will have?
Combined with the news of prosecutions of MPs it conjures up the circumstances , last summer , which saw Cons diving to 35% & Labour to 20% .
They have both recovered from that-Labour more successfully than Cons.
Have voters had their say now-or will these final chapters in the saga trigger more negative reaction in the Polls?
Colin,
Ouch…..
More seriously, you should always question rather than just accept the claims of politicians. That doesn’t mean they don’t have good intent or a good idea just that you should be sceptical about their claims.
Probably the best current example of this is Blair on Iraq. He clearly thought he was doing the right thing but the reasons he gave weren’t the ones that convinced him, rather they were the ones he thought would sway the public.
As to the two quotes from the SNP, I am happy to be judged on them. That is what we have said and it is for each of us to look at them and make a judgement.
In some ways its what this site is about, judging the effect of what the public say and looking not so much at what lines from politicians are true but rather what ones are convincing.
Unless you look at all politicians with a critical eye and lay your own preferences aside it is difficult to be objective about what does or doesn’t work in electoral terms.
If you think your preferred party’s every announcement is wonderful then if it goes down badly in the polls they you are likely to focus on Media bias or poor polling rather than on poor delivery or presentation on your party’s part.
A lot of partisan posters tend to shoot the messenger when the don’t like the news.
Peter.
Neil – of course, a big illuminanti lizard from the Bilderberg conference drove to the office the other day in his White Fiat Uno to give us our election orders.
In other words, don’t be so bloody silly, it’s obvious full on tinfoil hattery.
Peter
Perhaps you missed the reason for my posts -Alec misquoted-or to be more correct-partially quoted something from a GO speech-and then made a judgement about the misquote.
It’s a neat trick I know -but I quite like the facts to be used where possible-that’s why I corrected him on the quote.
I didn’t make any judgements myself on the topic-for fear of the wrath of OGH!!
So far as -”As to the two quotes from the SNP, I am happy to be judged on them”-I am sure you are.
But if someone had misquoted the second one as ““we are committed to unsustainable economic growth”-and then criticised you for it, you might perhaps be less happy……………………….
……………………though come to think of it ” ““we are committed to unsustainable economic growth” has a certain ring of truth to it-don’t you think?
Coiln,
Personally I like;
“You should be committed if you go for unsustainable economic growth”
But then we’d be into comments on the PM and that would be partisan…..
Peter.
@Neil – as AW says, it’s patent nonsense, but interesting however that it is appearing on Tory leaning websites. If they had such certainty of victory I doubt they would even consider this stuff, so maybe a sign of nerves. There was some similar stuff flying round in Labour linked circles pre ‘97, but that was rubbish too. It always amuses me that people who spend years decrying the incompetence of their opponents then suddenly believe they would have the wit and ability to organise one of the most comprehensive and difficult frauds known.
PS – I’m reasonably sure that if AW was in on it, he probably wouldn’t have told us here, so it was probably a bit pointless asking….
Stay calm Anthony – I didn’t write the article!
Please, Populus, COMRES, Mori, anyone, please send us some nice fresh polls to discuss. Meanwhile, thank you very much to those who have been putting up some really interesting posts. But, we need a decent serving of nourishing new data. Do you know what’s coming next, Anthony, and when it’s due?
For what it’s worth, from a wizened participant and observer of UK elections since the early ’60s, this election campaign thus far, both on the doorsteps and in the polls, does not yet have the feel of major change (eg 1979, 1997). It’s more like the two GE’s of uncertain outcome of 1974, but it’s as well to remember that at the equivalent stage (ie in late 1973) the Feb 1974 election wasn’t even a twinkle in Edward Heath’s eye, and 3 months out we really cannot foretell the result of 2010, whatever anyone tries to tell themselves.
Angus Reid poll on attitudes to FPTP and AV has been published on PB.
Wolf – Someone could have commissioned something for the Sunday papers, but there’s nothing regular due until Populus on Monday night.
That was quick Wolf. You clearly wield far more influence than you imagined!
New to this site but been following the reduction in the Torry lead very closely over the last few weeks. Could anyone give me an I idea when the next poll is due out.?
I predict that it will close another point or 2 and then steady out. Poor economic news and Iraq inquiry (Gordon Browns appearing) will then result in the lead widening.
I believe Cameron will wake up to the fact that he is having a bit of a wobble in the polls and he will put it right like he die in oct 2007. Plus Gordon Brown cannot go more than a few weeks without making a big mistake himself.
Anthony
Interesting analysis.
When is the next poll due?
Sorry Anthony, I have just seen your answer to my question in one of your previous comments.
Somehow or other my computer seemed to be stuck on 80 comments for this thread not the 155 that it turned out to be.
Thanks Anthony – it’s good that the pack’s moving again!
DAZ-I have been thinking along similar lines.
I’m not so sure Brown at Chilcot will be a factor, but the economy could yet have some surprises if the signals from equity & gilts markets are anything to go by.
If the external narrative on the economy starts to provide any support for Cons, that would certainly knock what has been Brown’s biggest positive recently.
I agree with your penultimate sentence too. He has a good track record when things look tough.
And there is the campaign of course-this phoney war is not the real stuff.
Im really interested to see if the next AR poll shows any movement.
Am I missing something? It’s got very quiet around here lately?
Surprised there is not more discussion of the CPS charging decision today.
For what it’s worth, I think Labour have been a little unlucky with the way the news has played. Overall the “guilt” is fairly evenly spread between Tory and Labour politicians, but with Barbara Follett topping the repayment stakes, and three Labour MPs being prosecuted against one Tory peer (or ex-Tory peer, peers are a little easier for parties to dump it seems), the reporting has focused very much on Labour.
And of course the announcement has driven Gordon’s Ulster Triumph to the bottom of the TV news.