YouGov’s lead goes back to 4
Today’s YouGov poll has topline figures of CON 36%(-2), LAB 32%(+1), LDEM 20%(+1). The Tory lead is back down to four points (in fact the figures are the same as YouGov were showing on Wednesday and Thursday last week) and it looks very likely that the 7 point lead YouGov recorded over the weekend was just a result of sample error. Clearly there is no sign of the current lobbying row having damaged Labour yet.
This poll actually makes rather more sense to me than the YouGov and ICM polls that were showing the same figures over the weekend. For the last month or so ICM have tended to show Conservative leads a couple of points higher than YouGov’s, so while nothing to write home about (after all, all polls are subject to margin of error) it was rather unusual to find ICM showing a 6 point when YouGov were on 7. With ICM on six points, I’d expect to find YouGov on four.
While it’s normally impossible to precisely identify the reasons for differences between polls (there are so many different variables: the mode, the sampling, the wording, the weighting, etc) one obvious explanation is likelihood to vote – ICM weight people by how likely they are to vote, YouGov do not.
It’ll sound a bit sour, but I just don’t buy this. Just talking to people in the street, it feels all wrong.
Ow well, we’ll just have to see at the election.
I have to say I am utterly flabbergasted by this- but in a pleasant way of course.
It’s been a 9 day remorseless onslaught from the media with 4 terrible stories for Labour one-after-the-other.
Amazing.
If I was a Tory supporter I’d be pretty depressed by this.
Tories last three polls of 38/37/36 don’t look very impressive after thirteen years do they?
I’m new to all this but are ‘shy tories’ taken into account?
Or this time will there by ‘shy labour’people also?
Seems like the common theme in the last three polls is a -2 next to the Tories.
After this weekend and the sustained poor headlines – for the Cons lead to shrink is an awful result for the Cons – I was worried that it could be double this lead.
Queue the rubbishing of You Gov again from the Cons. I bet their brief love-affair will be over.
Is election is all to play for and a decent budget – Labour could be in lead come the weekend.
LABOUR WILL WIN THIS ELECTION.
It looks like most people dont want either party in power.
maybe Brown will get back in after all. I am starting to mentally prepare for the unthinkable and further expanding of the Public Sector!
Breaking News – Byers, Hoon et all suspended from the Labour party. Surely this will move the polls. Byers the transport secretary ‘I am like a cab for hire!’.
Anthony,
Why do Yougov not account in some way for likelihood to vote? It seems reasonable to do so.
Well, 4!!!! With most of the others around 7, this seems very, very, bad news for the Conservatives.
Good old YouGov :)
That has made my night, not because of the figures you understand, just the thought of Mr Pickles mildly frustrated!
@ SUE
When you get here – ICM weight by likelihood to vote, ICM don’t. That could be 2% for LAB if folks like you can persuade ‘our’ voters to make the effort to turn out or make a postal vote.
The campaigners on the phone & doorstep will determine which party wins this election.
@ ROB SHEFFIELD
The economy? Even though there have been some bad figures of late, the lower than expected unemployment and the mild growth in Q1 may be having an effect.
Well the WMA is 37:31:19 suggesting the underlying CLead is about 6: 4 is well within MoE.
Unless this is the start of a new downtrend in the CLead (which makes no sense polticially) it seems clear that the downtrend in the CLead is over (even though the R2 over the time to the Election is .68, the 1-month R2 is now 0) but it is still unclear whether there is in fact a slow revival of the CLead or whether it is static.
So its exactly the same as a week ago – no change.
All the latest sleaze exposures (see tonight’s BBC news for more) will add to the ‘others’ and this is not going to dissipate before the election.
Malcolm – when I’ve been surveyed by YouGov, they always ask me how like I am to vote, ranging from Certain to Not At All Likely (or something similar – I never read below Certain!).
Richard, I seriously doubt the Byers/Hewitt/Hoon affair will make any serious difference – it will just confirm people’s disillusionment with politics, keep turnout depressed, but it won’t alter the way in which those people who do vote cast their vote.
@ TEJAN
I suppose when you’ve been behind by 20+ points in the polls, being behind by just 4 must seem like victory – but you’re way off!
Captain Gordy is untouchable….. is there any story will rock this man?
FLABBERGASTED!
Tories are so far from 40 now in all nin epolling companies
Harris
Opinium
Angus Reid
Indians
BPIX
YG
ICM
Ipsos
Populus
all NINE companies have them under 40……..
I am totally amazed. Even given all that MOE stuff.
But I do take issue with your last paragraph Anthony which relates to a discussion between a colleague and myself (he deducted 1.5% from Lab due to ‘more likely to vote’ theory’).
If YouGov thinks likelihood to vote should be taken into account, then it should take it into account. Otherwise your last para is as conjectural (and thus what value?) as my friend’s point this afternoon. In any case his way of dealing with it is more logical than adding 1.%% to Con to explain the difference.
I expect I have totally misunderstood this so put me down gently – no do as you will, I am putty in your hands!
@ NBEALE
With the greatest of respect, I haven’t a Danny La Rue what you are talking about!
Breaking News – Byers, Hoon et all suspended from the Labour party. Surely this will move the polls.
——————————————————–
It could be exactly the action that is needed to limit the damage. LAB may not suffer for this as much as might be expected.
AW – thank you for explaining that YG do not take into account ‘likelyhood to vote’ in the post.
A little annoying (as a Conservative supporter) that YG show only a 4% lead for the Conservatives, but more surprisingly it shows a Labour increase (+1)! But just like during Obama’s campaign the one thing the Conservatives will not do is panic when polls start to surprisingly go against you. The difference here is of course that it is not a head-to-head contest but over 600 seats being fought for over the whole country, which brings us back to the ‘boring’ topic of the marginals.
AW – have you any way of calculating the difference that not implementing the ‘likelyhood to vote’ affects the YG figures? I have only a rough impression that it will likely affect the results compared to other pollsters by giving Labour a 5% – 15% bias in the figures.
Hello Harry – “the lower than expected unemployment” — in fact there were 2 million less hours worked in January (might have been 4 million – the little grey cells are getting forgetful).
If these polls means anything at all it’s perfectly clear that people
have little faith in Dave and especially George O having the
ability to make the grade. We could well find that it will be a case of “keeping hold of nurse for fear of getting something worse”
always a danger for the Tories.
Well Rob, with the Lobbygate thing, Byers/Hewitt/Hoon are hardly central Labour figures anymore and seem quite distant from the current Brown adminstration, however much Cameron tried to say Labour Ministers instead of former..
Perhaps as AW has said before, tell us something we don’t know. It’s harder to paint cabin crew workers in an airline holding the country to ransom as opposed to heavy industry in the ’70s and ’80s, it’s a completely different kettle of fish.
@Amber
If your story is true that is great news…. that wing of the party have been a miestone around the working classes necks for haf a generation….
Patricia Hewitt suspended from the labour party. The national news might not be good for the cons but im sure this will be good for the local campaign in leicester.
Judging by the way people sound on here, people simply aren’t keen on the Tory party
Just cannot believe 32% will vote Labour in the election. There must be a lot of Lemmings living here.
How on earth does the UKPR Polling Average still show as 38:30:19 ?
It does now begin to look like there was no real lift in the Tory lead after all. I find these last polls fascinating – the news has not been good for labour over the last week, yet the poll position improves. The only explanation I can think of is the underlying economic situation – poor but improving perhaps?
The question is not “When is the next poll due” but “When is the sex scandal due?”
Which party will be affected, I do not know but there is surely a scoop in a file in some newspaper office safe waiting for the right moment.
The Lib Dems were polling 20 in March 2005, so on past form their looking good for getting at least the same amount of seats this time.
Seems like 32% is the labour core, bad news had no effect yet.
Labour need a good budget for its voters, hope its gone through with a tooth comb
Interesting that Hewitt said Gordon doesn’t like Ministers to accept invitations to parties. The news programmes did not report that.
I think a double on Arsenal for the title and a hung parliament is a must.
David will be free to take extended paternity leave, with the blessing of his right wing, if my scenario plays out.
Arsene Wenger for p.m. Cesc Fabregas to the Foreign Office and Gordon Brown to line up with Sol Campbell in central defence for the Champions league final in which we stuiff Moan Utd.
There must be a lot of Labour activists signing up to YouGov for their random sample.
We’ve had a couple of new polls recently so I’ve updated my graphs. I’ve also added a fourth chart showing all the polls so far this year and linear trend lines, just for fun.
http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/smart51/Conservative.jpg
http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/smart51/Labour.jpg
http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/smart51/Libdem.jpg
http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/smart51/Polltrend.jpg
@KKay,
I think the voters like tories a bit more when they understand them..
straightforward on tax, tough on crime immigration and europe that woud at least match this 36%
add to that a bit of fatigue with abour and genuine “time for a change” and I think we’d see them win the election….
wishy washy mishy mashy pleases no-one…. (oh but its ok because itoffends no-one either) Brown offered them cear dividing lines- they should have taken it… instead they’re chasing around trying to stick as close as possibe to labour on policy… it must be embarassing for true blues
It’s the ECONOMY stupid!!
Tim Mullen – I don’t know what surveys you’ve been answering. Perhaps stuff for the British Election Study. YouGov’s normal polls don’t have a likelihood to vote question (and on the rare occassions they do, they use a numerical scale, not a verbal one).
Howard – you’ve rather lost me somewhere. Filtering by turnout makes a couple of percentage points difference (exactly how much depends on the filter – a harsh filter taking only 10/10 like MORI use makes much more difference than weighting by likelihood like Populus and ICM do). Whether it is right or not to filter by likelihood to vote is a different question, I just try to explain the differences.
Bill Roy – no, you can’t tell from YouGov’s figures what it would be with a turnout filter, but you can tell from ICM’s figures what it would be without!
I hate personality politics but..
A star of David Kelly, Iraq, Second Home expenses, and Geoff Hoon finally falls for a lobbying scandal ! The words tax and a certain Chicago hoodlum spring immediately to mind.
But he’s gone at last.
Any chance of a red top repeat of “Bye. Bye Byers”
I HAVE NEVER VOTED AND DONT INTEND TO, AM JUST AN INDEPENDENT OBSERVER.
@PHILLIP JW
“The Lib Dems were polling 20 in March 2005, so on past form their looking good for getting at least the same amount of seats this time.”
IMHO they will do better in terms of seats than a UNS calculation projects: not least because of those Greens and Labourites voting for them in their direct face-offs with the Tories.
@Harry
There has not been much reporting of economic news over these 9 days- what little there has been (unless you mean the headlining given to the EU perversely slagging off the UK…) has been drowned out by the remorseless reportage on Bulger; Chilcott; BA and Byers.
@Amber
You would think that Byers Hoon and Hewitt finally getting the dagger for ‘all that has come before’ would lance this particular boil.
But the polls are suggesting it was not actually a boil that needed lancing….fascinating !
Right- lets see what snoozenight makes of it all.
I agree Greybeard, it is the economy . Bank bailout was only a small proportion of Gordon’s £850 billion debt – and that’s just what we know about.
David – given it isn’t a random sample and new recruits aren’t eligible for the political polls, it wouldn’t make much difference really would it? Sigh.
KKay
“Judging by the way people sound on here, people simply aren’t keen on the Tory party”
There are plenty Cons here, but they quieten down on bad news. There are also more than a few who arn’t keen on any party and there may even be one or two who have read the comments policy.
David,
The £850 bn debt is not all Gordon Brown’s. It has been building up since the 70s. Thatcher, Major and Blair must each take their share of the blame.
David Greybeard.
Generally I would agree with that, however there are local and national issues where Labour are seen as weak.