The next week on Politicalbetting
February 24th, 2005I am going on holiday tonight and will not be back until a week on Monday which means there will be a limited service on the site over the next ten days.
I can just about generate new articles and publish them on my Sony Ericsson 910 smart phone, and have one or two general items in my “store”, but the level of coverage will be reduced.
When I return I will be devoting myself full-time, apart from a house move, to the site until after the General Election - assuming it is on May 5th. I’m changing jobs and have arranged things to give me this time off.
Thanks to everybody for all their support.
Mike Smithson
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Good holiday!
Enjoy your break
You deserve it! Once again, many thanks for all your hard work here.
Likewise, and I hope the house move does not cancel out the relaxing effect of the holiday!
I still can’t work out how you can find the time to have a job!
Have a good holiday!
Have you thought of getting some trusted guest poster(s)?
Back to the Bahamas….Oh, of course that’s work. Have fun.
Re 5 Alex- The answer is that I do not sleep! Just look at the times of my articles
Guido - a “guest” is really good idea. I’ll try to arrange something like that when next I’m away.
Not the Bahamas - but a nice little coastal village in Scotland where we will be lucky if there’s a pub - never mind an internet cafe.
As I suspected, Mike is a Balamory fan…
Thanks for all the hard work you do, this is a superb site that enables everyone to feel like they can participate in a reasoned political discussion. I just hope the weather is reasonable in Scotland. You could get snowed in at this time of year.
Just going to sort out afew tactics with CK?
Have a good break
As above. Bon vacances!
And have a good break
Thanks again for this site and a good trip to you.
I echo everyone else’s comments. Enjoy your break, and thanks for running an informative site.
Mike
I don’t blame you getting a break before the big push, I was out leafleting with some activists this morning and it has to have been the dampest windyest day I’ve been out this year so far
, add to that I was in one of the less than inviting areas of the inner city and it all made for a jolly little outing, still I had “Modest Mouse” and my headphones to distract me from the rain and wind 
Any news on today’s council by-elections?
Have a good holiday, which I’m sure is richly deserved.
Have a great holiday, Mike
Have a great holiday Mike.
If you are anywhere near an Angus coastal village let me know and I’ll buy you a pint!
Have a great trip!
Nick
I have no news on by-elections Ben, over and above a list of those happening today:
Rift House in Hartlepool (Lab)
Askham in Eden (Ind)
Bedhampton in Havant (LD)
Have a good holiday. Do less site overseeing and more sightseeing! A week in politics is a long time!
Mike - Have a good one. Is the address previously mentioned a definite goer ?
23 - is Rift House the ward that generated the unfortunate blog comments in the by-election?
book value
My Hunch is it was Oughton Ward… there where some darn big dogs there it has to be said, nothing else that “Our Jody” described though… Iain Wright’s old ward and if the local party are doing their job they should hold it, though in the locals Wright only won here on a recount as it had gone LD in the elections before last.
Thanks Ben. I’m sure I’ve heard the name before, though no doubt plenty of wards were mentioned in passing in the byelection.
Mike,may I add my thanks for running such a good site and hope you have a restful holiday,you are fortunate that the site has attracted reasoned posters [apart from Tabman & Chrisco].
P.S in regard to the position of “guest poster” I’ve thought of many interesting posts involving the theme of why the Lib Dems aren’t worth voting for when naturally you ask me to guest for you.
Mike, have a good holiday. But when you get back don’t forget that sitting in front of the computer all day is bad for you. If you need some healthy excercise do drop in! All the best, Neil.
Now, now, Vino. That nice Iain Dale is sponsoring an entire site for that kind of talk
lol @ Vino. That man doesn’t admit he was wrong easily, does he?!
Thanks to all for the kind comments.
BTT Yes we are moving to the house I mentioned. It’s a good poster site but do you still operate the erect one first then ask permission policy?
32 - Chrisco - It’s because I’m a man of the midlands!On a more politicalbetting note I’ve not forgotten that I promised you a break-down of my calculations on how the “others” would perform at the next GE.I was of the opinion that they will obtain 12%,mainly at the expense of the Lib Dems - my justification of this being based on local by-elections and voting history - obviously this would be open to counter-argument.
However the last few polls have effectively sabotaged this viewpoint.
YouGov poll results out - Labour 38%, Tories 32% and Lib Dems 21%.
Max
Is that right!
A 6 points lead from Yougov. That’s surprising! (I’m the only one finding that result surprising?)
#37 - You aren’t the only one, believe me!!
That is a strange one! Mori with a big lead for the Tories and YouGov with a decent Labour lead!
Where did you get the figures from? Plainly, the polls are leaping about all over the place if this is correct.
Max have you got a link to those figures?
That must be Labour and the Tories mixed up, it just seems bizzare… not that I’m complaining if its true, esspically in a poll so slanted to the Tories
lol who would have thought it? Tory supporters arguing vigorously for Mori and Labour for YouGov
38% Tories, 32% Labour does sound good
Seems a bit strange that Labour are quoted first - normally it’s the tories
Either way it seems very out of character for YouGov which i would expect to be on 35-36% Labour and 34-35% Tory… but 38% Tory just seems way too high even from YouGov… well if this is true the pollsters have offically deserted us
All this polls are making the election more interesting. Maybe next week a poll will give a Greens’ lead
Link to Poll coverage…
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4176470
Thanks Ben
Just as matter of interest Ben. At what level in the polls do you think questions within the Labour party will break out in the open?
Alex
Questions about what?
Graham’s going to be very confused tomorrow
Discontent about the campaign. Obviously on the back burner for the moment
I shall wait till it is written up in the papers properly. Figures seem out of sync with what’s been going on recently. Nothing recently that would give labour a big upsurge in the polls as seen by You Gov. Strange! Having said that it will be very difficult to work out how You Gov get to their numbers, seeing the obscure and strange weighting process they use. Having said that there was that poll by NOP recently that gave labour a 12 point lead. Proving very unpredictable at the moment.
The Labour YouGov figure hasn’t moved more than 2 pts either side of 35 for well over a year. The Tories have a strong week and they go to 38?
There is no real discontent now that I’m detecting neither within the “inner party” nor on the ground…
Where the Tories to rack up a consistent lead or where Labour and the Tories to be within the MOE of one another for a noticeable period of time in a number of polls… then I think that a shake-up of sorts would probably happen but for the most part the activist plod on regardless and don’t give it much thought, but if things looked bleak it would not be surprising to see Milburn sidelined Gould and Campbell taking effective control with Alexander and Brown being brought more heavily into the campaign… but I doubt we’ll ever get to that stage
That said by the end of the campaign I would be surprised if Brown had not assumed a far more significant role in running the campaign.
Maybe it’s the pension announcement. Old people don’t use the internet you know
One thing is clear, these polls aren’t worth the paper they are written on, unless we are to believe the electorate are swinging like a monkey from one party to another on a daily basis!
48. Well, you could knock me down with a feather. Sorry I have nothing more profound to add, but I guess I am as baffled as the rest of you!
I sense a mass scratching of heads, but pop up to point out that 1.14 on Betfair for Labour to win most seats looks pretty good value again.
If the poll is correct (and I presume it is) then perhaps there are a couple of explanations for it. One the fact that many labour supporters now feel that TB third term is not the stick on job that is was a couple of months ago, have decided they had better get out and vote. Two MH and the Tories opposition to labour’s house arrest plans. While it may play well with the broadsheets and the university educated electorate, the rest may view it as the Tories being soft on terrorism. Three the steam going out of asylum and immigration. It is no so prominent in people’s minds now. Four a rise in the votes for other parties?
I think many people are making the mistake of reading too much into individual polls. As I have said before the only sensible thing to do is to take an average of several over a cycle of polls. On that basis I think that both Conservative and Labour are slightly up while Libs and other are down. I will need to do the maths to be more precise!
Having said that, this poll still looks odd, as did the MORI poll!
Or maybe just the normal margin of error?
So far this month, we have had Labour leads of 1% (yougov) 2% (MORI) 3% (ICM) 6% (Yougov again, if the report is correct) 9% (Populus), and 12% (NOP) - all of which are consistent with an average Labour lead of 5-6%.
In the run up to the last GE, every poll showed Labour with a lead of 10%+. Assuming a rather lower Labour lead this time, we can expect to see very low Labour leads (and occasionally a Tory lead) and sometimes quite large labour leads.
That said, we need to wait for the actual poll tomorrow. Press Association reports have been wrong in the past.
The Lab 38, Con 32, LibDem 21 has just been mentioned on Newsnight.
LD hold (or gain if you like it that way) in Bedhampton, Havant - but in a ward where the other two councillors are Tories who have gained the other seats in the last two elections.
Maybe the “true” position is mid-way between Mori and Yougov ?
4 point lead for Labour with the Lib Dems at 19-20 ?
Alex I am not confused. I was being told that yougov would vindicate all those that would not accept my argument re Conservative over statement. That the lead for Labour would be no more than 1 or 2 points - and we could even see a Con lead. Well, I held to my line and ‘hey presto’ You Gov deal me the ace.
I think that the confused ones will be all those who said - ‘look Graham is just doing his anti-tory thing again’, when all I was doing was trying to get people to look at what was in front of them. I said that the gap is really around 6 or 7 points and YouGov - so beloved on the site has delivered me a gap of 6 points. I go to bed a happy little pollster
:-)
No gloating please Graham!
YouGov poll: well, that’s nice. But odd. The reason I’ve been predicting something close to a dead heat rather than a Tory lead (as YouGov’s record and the drop in Labour’s lead might have suggested) is that the two previous polls were both taken during the pensioner council tax bribe weekend, and I expected the impact of that to wear off a bit, and Labour’s vote to harden a bit. But not that much. Head-scratching does seem appropriate to me.
Let’s see what the IoS poll on Sunday has to say before we conclude anything.
Tory posters all over Broxtowe this week, by the way - all on saloon-bar wisdom lines (”The law ought to protect me, not burglars”, “Can’t be that hard to clean a hospital”, etc.), and Voter Vault continues its eccentric scatter-bombing (latest weird report is from a 49-year-old Labour County candidate, who has had a letter from Michael Howard about pensioners).
Nick
Perhaps a more sensible way to view the polls would be to ignore Mori for the reasons graham gave ie that they use no known methodology and just see ICM as a rogue poll which happens every now and then. The other three are pretty consistent.
Graham - I think a little more consistency is required on your part before we accept your line! When a poll does not suit your argument you scrutinise to the “n”th degree to find a reason to doubt it. However, now that YouGov produce figures you like you swallow it whole without a peep.
To me the YouGov poll (my personal favoured pollster) looks a little out of synch - just as the MORI one did also. However I stick to my thesis that we should consider an average of the polls over a cycle and not allow one (good or bad) to turn our heads!
Hopefully there will be one or more at the weekend to show us which way things are really moving and which of the recent three is the outlier.
If I was Nick, I would be more worried about polls that show a wider Labour lead, because that will make it harder to get the vote out.
I only gloat Robert because I was told that I was 1) arrogant 2) that the veracity of our South West Polls and our company was called into question 3) that I was doing it for political reasons 4) that I was wrong. Only roger backed me up a couple of times and everyone else who was around laid into me. I felt I was making a logical point based on 1) having been a professional researcher for 9 years and 2) an inkling that it looked all wrong. After that I feel entitled to gloat a little bit - but I will wake up tomorrow and forgive and forget, because life is too short to harbour grudges
I will look at it Rik. It is my business to look at all the polls. If you had seen my arguments all the way through yesterday I wasn’t denying that the Conservatives had made progress, I just doubted that they were at 37%. What made me suspicious was that the underlyings had Lab 43% Con 31% LD 18% yet they got a headline 39/37/18. I believe that Mori needs a correction, but that their method led to an over correction. I said that I felt that a more realistic result given their underlying data was about 6 or 7%. I think that is fair and not biased in any way. I also feel that people should get off their high horses a minute and accept that I had a point!!!!!
Any Word on the Hartlepool Ward By-Election
Weird or what! IoS poll on Sunday I await with interest. For what it’s worth I still think that we are around 36:34:22 (L/C/LD). I’ve heard a lot of views on TV unwind here in Con Lab marginals but no one attempt to quantify extra potential swing to Cons in these seats bearing in mind TV built up over 92 and 97 elections. Would like to know if anybody has tried to quantify TV vote built up here. I think Cons will achieve 2% above average UNS in these seats (i.e. 5.5% average swing on top of 3.5% national swing) if I’m right about overall voting intentions, which on my reckoning gives a Labour majority of about 40.
I don’t think it will be as much as a lot of people believe, as there is a lot of voting inertia built up a 01 showed i.e. voters well versed in voting tactically Lab / Lib Dem where they have done it in previous GE’s.
One thing that I do think will be a feature of GE 05 in the small number of Lab / Lib Dem marginals is Tories prepared to vote tactically on mass for the 1st time to unseat Lab MPs, of what is left of Tory 3rd vote. OK this has happened in Rochdale and Chesterfield in the past but I believe it will spread more giving Lib Dems above UNS in these seats.
Thoughts?
Well, I think Graham is entitled to a gloat (rather like Willie Whitelaw, “Oh, this is very serious, we musn’t gloat. Absolutely not. But, oh, my goodness, I’m gloating, I’m gloating very much indeed…!”).
Fortuntaely, for me at least, my last posting on the subject yesterday concluded “..And as I mentioned much earlier, I am not particularly confident on what YouGov may produce tomorrow…” So I allow myself a wry but rueful semi-smile…
77 - sadly I don’t think the “confused” smiley is available on this site, but I share yours. Thank you to the kind soul who bought me out of my long Tory Spreadfair position at a small profit, though.
75- Here’s Hartlepool Ward by-election results: Lab 440
Libdem 143
UKIP 131
Cons 126
Askham ward in Eden by-election result: HUGHES Stuart Irving (Liberal Democrat) 77
LOWIS Joan (The Conservative Party Candidate) 206
WARREN Colin Michael (Independent) 91
Turnout: 35,5%
Any news on Havant by-election ? can’t find it on web and it’s interesting as it seems to have been a Con/LD marginal in the past.
Andrew - don’t forget to mention the Eden by-election was a Conservative gain
82 Eden is a blue rinse area. Same as Sallowfield. Whether it’s a Tory or an Independent Cllr, it’s still a Tory area.
:) 
North Norfolk by-election result very satisfying given how marginal the constituency is and how certain Iain Dale was that the Tory would hold the seat