YouGov Daily figures – 36/32/20
Today’s YouGov trackers has topline figures of CON 36%(nc), LAB 32%(nc), LDEM 20%(nc): absolutely no change from yesterday. Perceptions amongst commentators yesterday seemed to be that it had been rather a bad day for Labour, the Conservatives seemed to be getting good traction with their attack on Unite and Gordon Brown suffered some embarrassment over defence spending. It appears that this has not had any effect.
There will be questions on both issues in the next few days, but I expect the lack of impact is a combination of people who watch politics overestimating just how much attention the public pay to things like who gives money to which party, who says what an inquiry, etc and that both are already “priced into the market”. People tend to think politicians are economical with the truth anyway, and the Labour party having links with the Trade Unions is not exactly shocking news.
Meanwhile the Lib Dems seem to be consolidating their conference boost rather well, remaining at 20% compared to the 17% and 18% sort of range YouGov had been showing previously.
Filed under: Voting Intention, YouGov, YouGov Daily Polls
@Howard
Trolls generally make outrageous or inflammatory statements in order to provoke a reaction, rather than ask friendly questions trying to catch people unawares.
In any case, asking if you found one extreme more plausible (and correct me if this wasn’t the post that made you think of trolling) doesn’t seem like an unreasonable request, and didn’t imply that you’d have no reason for choosing the one you did. I’d say that I’d be inclined to lean towards YG because it’s slightly closer to the average. Even “AR, just a hunch” is a perfectly reasonable answer.
A troll would say something like “YouGov has shown itself to be useless again”, in an attempt to get you to say “It’s not as bad as AR!” or something equally unjustifiable.
Hence the garbage we get on these threads every time one of them releases a new poll…!
MIKE N:
“Can someone tell me what WMA stands for, please?”
Weighted Moving Average
A simple example of this would be if you wanted the average of the last 5 polls while giving higher significance to the latest of those 5 polls and lower significance to the oldest one.
When a new poll comes out you drop the oldest of the 5 and include the new one, redo the weighting and calculate the averages once more.
Of course, you can use various different criteria for weighting as well as have change the period from 5 days to something else.
EOIN CLARKE:
RMT General Secretary since 2001 has been Bob Crow.
@Ash
thanks for that
I’lll eave you guys to read up on Crow yourselves. Some mirhy enough stuff that I would not wish to put on this site. He makes Charlie Whelan look like a yes man.
The only hting I will say is this… Crow feels he owes labour no favours..
Ash – thanks.
@YARIV
You are right sample size 1. They woul’nt want many like me.
There have been some comments here about last nights Question Time. I feel that this programme continues to go downhill, especially with characters like David Starkey and last week the ex-Editor of the Sun. The level of “debate” is is so shallow, it is demeaning to anyone with half a politucal brain and there is rarely any serious interraction.
The programme of real significance last night was on BBC2 at 9pm following some MPs who are standing down at the election. Anne Widdecombe and Richard Caborn tried to engage with a “lost generation” of people who have never voted and appear to have little intention of voting. How can we engage with those who choose to be disenfranchised? An active 75 year old who was training young people in a Sheffield Gym said (joked) that if he hadn’t voted, his “suffragette” Mum would have killed him. Yet today the only, even though marginal, token of democracy is rejected and neglected due to apathy, and an appalling level of political discourse, especially from the media(whether that be the BBC, the Sun and even the broad sheets).
On this blog, I feel that number crunching and all the acronyms about polling, seem to hide what’s behind the numbers. Why Cameron or Brown or Clegg or Green Party? Does an airbrushed Cameron have any political depth or substance – where is his ideology? Same question to the others. Do the powers that be think that ideological questions are perhaps beyond the masses?
Many people say that there is nothing to choose between the parties, which I think is nonsense. But the big problem is that the parties don’t don’t resonate with the people and don’t spell out clearly their ideology, vision and policies that go with them. What happens if election upon election the apathy grows, until the voting percentage is 40% and then 30% – what happens to democracy? Or perhaps even the fall in voting numbers is not to do with apathy, but a recognition that democracy is on the wane, due to the increasing power of transnational companies, that bypass one countries laws to move to another one that fits better with their business plan.
I hope this isn’t too heavy for a friday afternoon.
Howard
Danny Alexander MAY be vulnerable, but who knows?
Scottish polling is sparse, but does suggest that overall the LDs have lost about 11% support since 2005, with most of that going SNP. But where has that happened? UNS is even less useful in Scotland than GB, since we have 3 and 4 way contests.
LD support may have held up throughout the Highlands, and dropped even more massively elsewhere, or Inverness etc may become a 3 way marginal.
We’ll find out around dawn on 7 May!
After that lot, a quote from an e-mail just received from CAMRA (I didn’t know there was a Minister for Pubs,
John Healey, Minister for Pubs has announced a major package of reforms to support pubs. This announcement reflects all of the hard work and tireless campaigning that we in CAMRA have been doing both nationally and locally to protect consumers, community pubs and local brewers.
The Government’s new 12 point action plan promises sweeping reforms on a wide variety of subjects.
To support community pubs, the Government has announced:
Greater protection for pubs under threat of demolition
A ban on the anti-competitive practice of imposing restrictive covenants on the sale of pubs
Greater flexibility for pubs to diversify by adding shops and other facilities without planning permission
£1 million Government funding for Pub is The Hub
£3 million to support Community pub ownership
Greater freedom for pubs to host live music without a specific licence
Now I’m off for a siesta
Yariv
Your analysis of silly partisan comments was the 66th post (including yours and Anthony’s).
I think what followed showed a distinct improvement.
Please provide a similar service for the next few days. I think that could have an enduring effect.
QUESTION TIME
It’s when they laugh openly at the party line you know there is a change of Government on the way. I havn’t heard that.
ASHCROFT
Can anybody tell me which, if any, constituencies in Scotland are targeted with Ashcroft money?
I assumed that there were none, and that the Conservatives couldn’t be so stupid, but yes, it’s possible. Look what Labour did. They announced a state funeral for MT in the middle of one bye-election in Glasgow, and refused entry to the pipe band from Glasgow’s twin town, Lahore in the middle of another.
Yes! If they really try the Conservatives can be as insensitive as that. They managed it before with the poll tax and threats to privatise water.
They should promise in their manifesto that they will make it legal to use dogs to hunt for haggis. That should do it.