I remember that a year ago my referral logs in the days running up to the local elections were full of people searching for local election opinion polls. They must have come away disappointed, because there were practically none. It looks as though they’ll be similarly disappointed this year. Local election polls are actually pretty rare because of the difficulty of identifying people in areas that do have elections and the problems of doing a bog standard poll giving people the choice of all the main parties when in thousands upon thousands of seats not all the main parties are standing.
The only real prediction based on evidence that we have is Ralling and Thrasher’s prediction, based upon analysis of recent local authority by-elections. Rallings and Thrasher predict local shares of the vote of CON 39%, LAB 24%, LDEM 29%, compared to 2003 when the seats were last fought this has the Conservatives up 4 points, Labour down 6 points and the Lib Dems up 2 points (these, it should be noted, are notional shares of the vote based on what they think would happen if there were local elections across the whole country, not actual shares of the vote. The notional shares of the vote on the BBC on the night of the election will be calculated on the same basis.) Rallings and Thrasher project that this would result in the Conservatives gaining around 330 seats, Labour losing around 500 and the Lib Dems gaining around 110.
Rallings and Thrasher’s local election predictions got some bad publicity last year after their initial prediction on Newsnight went horribly wrong - they predicted that the Conservatives would lose 95 seats, Labour lose 130 and the Lib Dems gain 190. In the event the Conservatives gained 317, Labour lost 320 and the Lib Dems stayed almost static. Rallings and Thrasher had produced revised predictions closer to the 2006 elections, but even they showed the Tories only gaining around 100 seats.
Despite last year’s mistake this doesn’t mean that the Rallings and Thrasher predictions should be ignored. In 2006, between the local by-elections that Rallings and Thrasher based their projections upon and the elections themselves Labour suffered the foreign prisoner release scandal and the revelation of John Prescott’s affair - a week that did a great deal of damage to their image. Perhaps if they hadn’t suffered those scandals the results would have been closer to Rallings and Thrasher’s prediction, we’ll never know. In both 2003 and 2004 Rallings and Thrasher’s predictions for the likely notional national shares of the vote in the local elections were actually very accurate so, assuming no scandals or other events break in the next couple of days, Rallings and Thrasher’s predictions are the best we have.
UPDATE: There is a useful list on 18 Doughty Street of which councils are counting on Thursday night and which are counting on Friday morning.
A new YouGov poll in Scotland carried out for the ESRC between the 17th and 23rd April has voting intentions in the constituency vote of CON 15%, LAB 30%, LDEM 12%, SNP 38%. In the regional vote support stands at CON 14%, LAB 27%, LDEM 12%, SNP 32% (and, presumably, others on a total of 15%). A seat projection based on these figures has the SNP with 47, Labour on 40, Conservatives on 18, Lib Dems on 18 with 5 Greens and one SSP.
The poll has a sample size of 1,800, so larger than previous surveys, but it was also carried out prior to the last YouGov Scottish poll for the Telegraph, so is less up to date.
A separate poll of Labour party members reported in the Sunday Times asked respondents about their voting intention in possible Labour leadership contests. In a contest between Brown, Michael Meacher, John McDonnell (presumably the poll was formulated before Michael Meacher claimed that one of the two left-wing candidates would stand down in favour of the other) and Charles Clarke, 80% of those expressing a preference said they would back Brown, with McDonnell on 9%, Meacher on 6% and Clarke on just 5%. The Sunday Times report suggests that a similar question showed Brown also crushing John Reid, but doesn’t give any figures. In the Deputy leadership race Hilary Benn remains in the lead amongst party members, with the support of 36% of those expressing a preference, followed by Alan Johnson on 19%, Peter Hain on 15%, Harriet Harman on 13%, Jon Cruddas on 10% and Hazel Blears on 9%.
As well as the Scottish poll today also saw the publication of YouGov’s monthly GB poll. The topline figures with changes from their last poll are CON 37%(-2), LAB 32%(+1), LDEM 18%(+1). The changes in this poll alone are insignificant, but the drop in Conservative support does match ICM’s poll in the week, as does the Lib Dem increase (though it is obviously at a much lower level).
We’ll probably never find out for sure if there is a genuine weakening in Tory support, since unless there are any polls in the Sunday papers this is probably the final voting intention poll before the local elections, after which comes the deluge! Local, Scottish and Welsh elections results will themselves likely have an effect upon the polls as some parties are seen as “winners” as some as “losers”. More importantly the elections are widely expected to be quickly followed by Tony Blair’s resignation, which will change the whole landscape of British politics.
This week there have been two new polls for the Welsh Assembly elections. The first was by Beaufort Research for the Western Mail and conducted between April 16th-23rd. We don’t know much about how Beaufort’s polls are weighted or adjusted other than that the poll is based only on those certain to vote. The full figures are:
Constituency vote: CON 19%, LAB 36%, LDEM 13%, PC 26%
Regional vote: CON 20%, LAB 35%, LDEM 12%, PC 26%
This is Beaufort’s first media poll of the campaign, though Plaid Cymru did release figures from a private poll conducted by Beaufort earlier in the campaign which showed figures of CON 14%, LAB 37%, LDEM 14%, PC 30%. It wasn’t clear whether they were regional or constituency figures, but either way Plaid are now lower than in Beaufort’s previous poll and the Conservatives higher… or, of course, there is a difference in how the polls were weighted or filtered and they aren’t comparable.
The second poll is by NOP for ITV Wales, conducted between April 19th and 23rd. It is not a brand new poll, but a call back to around half the sample who participated in their poll earlier in the campaign. Their voting intention figures are below, with changes from the last poll, and show a big advance for Plaid at the expense of the Conservatives.
Constituency vote: CON 19%(-4), LAB 32%(-4), LDEM 15%(nc), PC 26%(+6)
Regional vote: CON 18%(-6), LAB 34%(-1), LDEM 15%(nc), PC 24%(+4)
The levels of support for the Conservatives and Plaid Cymru are pretty similar in both polls, with Labour doing slightly worse in NOP’s figures and the Lib Dems slightly better. I am somewhat dubious about the NOP poll though. As a callback poll it should be very stable indeed - the basic truth is that people really don’t change their voting intentions that much, most of the change in voting intention polls is just sample error - yet in a matter of three weeks we have party support altering by 6 points. It seems strange.
Two new YouGov polls today, one covering Scotland, the other their monthly GB poll for the Telegprah. The Scottish voting intention poll, with changes from their last Scottish poll, has constituency figures of CON 13%(-1), LAB 30%(nc), LDEM 15%(nc), SNP 39%(+2). Regional support stands at CON 13%(nc), LAB 27%(-1), LDEM 11%(-2), SNP 31%(-4), Green 9%(+5), SSP 3%, SCUP 3%, Solidarity 2%, others 2%.
The latest figures show the SNP lead in the constituency section growing to 9 points, but falling to 4 points in the regional section, largely it seems to the benefit of the Greens. However, this change is probably partially to do with the way the question was asked. Normally YouGov ask voting intention questions by giving respondents a list of the main political parties or “other” to chose from, people who select “other” are then given a list of minor parties to chose from. This is the way that earlier YouGov polls in Scotland were conducted. Today’s poll however gave people a single list of all the Scottish political parties with seats in the Parliament to chose from.
This change is likely to increase the number of people saying they will support the minor parties. Including the name of the three main parties in the question tends to increase the level of Lib Dem support by a couple of percent as people were reminded that the Lib Dems were an option, so it is likely to have the same effect with smaller parties.
Theoretically it sounds fairer to include all the party names in the prompt, even minor and fringe parties, since when people come to vote all the party names will be on the ballot paper (or at least, they will in PR elections with regional lists. In general elections then in the majority of seats people won’t have a Green or BNP candidate on their ballot paper.) Unfortunately, what is “fairer” isn’t necessarily the same as what is more accurate. Back in 2004 YouGov’s poll prior to the European elections prompted by all the party names, and it resulted in a poll that predicted too high a level of support for UKIP. In that case, including all the minor parties in the prompt made the results less accurate, even though the wording seemed “fairer”.
It is impossible to say until after the event which approach will give the more accurate results. In this case, as Peter Kellner explains here, YouGov have chosen to go with a question that includes all the minor parties in the initial question because the results seemed more plausible - at the last election to the Scottish Parliament “other” parties received 22% of the vote. The last YouGov poll using the old version of the question wording showed the other parties together getting only 11% of the vote, half what they got in 2003, the new question shows the other parties together on 19%, still down on their 2003 support but not catastrophically so. We’ll have to wait until next Friday to see which question wording really does produce the more accurate figures.
ICM’s April poll suggests a narrowing of the Tory lead. The headline figures with changes from ICM’s last poll are CON 37%(-4), LAB 30%(-1), LDEM 21%(+3). The Labour and Lib Dem figures are pretty much par for the course from ICM polls, and are similar to the levels of support ICM have been recording this year (though the level of support found for the Lib Dems tends to be more erratic than Labour), but the Tory vote is down slightly, having been at 40% or above in the last three ICM polls. The poll was conducted between April 20th and 22nd.
The hypothetical question naming party leaders and asking how respondents would vote with Brown as Labour leader as usual shows a larger Conservative lead, though not to the freakish degree of 15 points that was found last month and splashed across the media. Voting intention with Brown as leader stands at CON 40%, LAB 28%, LDEM 20%.
In comparisons with Gordon Brown, David Cameron’s position has strengthened (or perhaps more likely, Brown’s has weakened) - he has a one point deficit to Brown when respondents were asked who was most likely to make the right decisions when the going got tough compared to a seven point deficit last September; Cameron also has an 11 point lead over Brown as the man most likely to take Britain in the right direction compared to a 5 point lead in September. A large majority of respondents (78%) said they would like to see a contest when Tony Blair stood down as Labour leader.
Finally, 54% of respondents want to see a change of government after the election, with only 21% of people wanting Labour to remain in office. This shouldn’t be a huge surprise - remember the headline voting intention figures exclude don’t knows and won’t votes, so the 30% of voters supporting Labour is probably roughly equivalent to the 21% of people overall. This is however another suggestion that there is a public mood of “time for a change” - Labour must hope that the transition from Tony Blair to his successor, presumably Gordon Brown, will diffuse some of that desire or it will be a huge benefit to the Conservatives come the next election.
Communicate Research’s monthly poll for the Independent shows Labour at their lowest level for decades - the last polls I can find with Labour this low are from September 1983. The headline voting intention figures, with changes from last month are CON 36%(+1), LAB 27%(-4), LDEM 22%(+2). The poll was conducted between April 20th and April 22nd.
Last month Communicate started weighted their polls by past vote, so in theory at least (I haven’t yet seen the details of how they are weighting their polls) they should no longer be as volatile as they have been in the past. ICM’s monthly poll for the Guardian and YouGov’s poll for the Telegraph are also both due in the near future. If they show a simialr drop in support for Labour then next month’s elections could be very unpleasant for the government.
Friday and today have seen new voting intention polls for the Scottish Parliamentary elections from Populus and YouGov. Support in the constituency vote stands at:
Populus: CON 13%, LAB 30%, LDEM 18%, SNP 34%
YouGov: CON 14%, LAB 30%, LDEM 15%, SNP 37%
And in the regional vote:
Populus: CON 14%, LAB 27%, LDEM 18%, SNP 34%
YouGov: CON 13%, LAB 28%, LDEM 13%, SNP 35%
The main difference between the pollsters, much as with Westminister polls, is the level of support for the Liberal Democrats. Both companies show the SNP with a solid lead over Labour of around seven points in the regional vote, and between 4 and 7 points in the constituency vote.
These two polls follow a couple of weeks when we’ve had to rely upon rather erratic polling from Scottish Opinion and mruk. Mruk managed to find a Labour lead when all other contemporary polls were showing the SNP ahead, while in two polls published just a few days apart Scottish Opinion found a Labour lead of 3 points and an SNP lead of 11 points. Mruk have no track record to judge them by, and there is no way of telling what weightings and adjustments were applied to the figures, neither do we know what weightings Scottish Opinion use, though the evidence from those two polls alone suggests that their results are volatile.
You have to go back to November to find a poll by one of the well known companies (Yougov, ICM, TNS System Three and Populus) that didn’t show a SNP lead and I think the picture presented by those pollsters whose methodology we do have the details of is pretty clear: the SNP have a consistent lead going into the Scottish Parliamentary elections and unless there is a change in public sentiment, or a systemic failure of the polls, we can expect the SNP to gain the most votes at the Scottish elections. How that translates into seats is a different matter - most projections suggest the SNP will be the largest party in the next Parliament, but there is no obvious coalition. The Lib Dems have suggested they will not agree to the central plank of the SNP programme, a referendum on Scottish independence, and the SNP would not go into a coalition with the Tories. It is possible that the SNP could emerge as the largest party, but Labour continue in power with the Lib Dems, propped up by the Conservatives.
Populus’s monthly poll for the Times as usual includes a hypothetical question asking how people would vote with Gordon Brown as Labour leader. As usual this shows the Conservative lead growing with Brown as Labour leader - to 11 points - though not as much as last month. What is slightly more interesting is that the lead under David Miliband would be 12 points. On this basis, Brown would perform better than Miliband but only just so, and Miliband is clearly advancing: earlier polls showed Brown performing better than Miliband by a substantial margin (a 13 point deficit compared to a 20 deficit with Miliband).
Now, in themselves I don’t think these polls are particularly meaningful. As I’ve said before, you probably can draw some rough conclusions about present negative perceptions of Brown, but hypothetical questions like this can in no way be a genuine prediction of what will happen once Brown becomes Labour leader. They are even less meaningful when it comes to David Miliband because, unlike Brown who the majority of people know and have formed an impression of, most ordinary people have very little idea of what David Miliband is like and what he stands for (though Populus did find that over half of respondents were able to pick Miliband out of a line up of photos, those who got it wrong did tend to pick Peter Mandleson though!).
Miliband’s advance since last month is probably due to no more than increased name recognition. However, where polls like this may yet be very important is if the trend continues and polls start showing Miliband performing better than Brown would in a hypothetical general election. Whether such polls would be particularly meaningful or not, they would be given huge media coverage and would be yet another bit of pressure behind Miliband to stand for leader.
Populus’s April poll has headline figures of CON 37%(-1), LAB 29%(-1), LDEM 20%(+2), a Conservative lead of 8 points. There is no significant movement from last month, though for those who record such things, this is Labour’s lowest score in a Populus poll to date. The figures do suggest that the Conservatives are now consolidating a lead of around 8 points, with them recording
similar leads in all the most recent YouGov and Populus polls, and larger leads in ICM polls.
Looking toward the elections next month Populus’s poll in April 2003, when most of the council, Parliament and Assembly seats that are up next month were last elected, stood at CON 34%, LAB 36%, LDEM 22% - putting into context the sort of slump there has been in Labour support since these seats were last up for grabs. Asked this month about the local elections, only 14% of people said they would be voting on local factors - 16% said they would use their vote in May to pass their verdict on Gordon Brown, 24% to pass a verdict on Tony Blair and 39% to pass a verdict on the government.
Populus’s fieldwork was conducted between the 13th and 15th April.