Only three Daves from ICM in the Guardian
February 19th, 2008
The poll that caught me by surprise
My apologies for not getting a thread up earlier but the latest Guardian ICM poll has taken me by surprise - I wasn’t expecting it until next Tuesday which would have followed the paper’s normal pattern.
Also the fieldwork took place at the end of the half term week in many places when a lot of people are away. Pollsters tend to avoid such periods because they have thrown up odd results in the past.
The shares are with changes on the last ICM poll CON 37% (nc): LAB 34% (+2): LD21% (nc). So good for Labour and the Lib Dems but disappointing for the Tories.
For a commons seat spread-betting gambler like me the current polls are a nightmare. They range from producing just enough seats for the Tories to form a majority government to just enough for Gordon to hang on to power. I’m passing at the moment.
The ICM survey was carried out at the end of a week when the Commons wasn’t sitting and when there was not that much political news about. We didn’t see much of the Tory leader in the days running up to the fieldwork on Friday. The poll also missed the Northern Rock news.
One factor about ICM is the way it calculates the likelihood to vote. Those rating themselves as 7/10 are given the same weight as those who say they are 10/10. Other pollsters either only take the top group or weight responses in line with the answer. So a 7/10 score would be worth 70% of a 10/10 one. This is probably helping Labour compared with other firms.
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Labour are on their way.
Go home and prepare for Government (again)!
1 - Con have won. 50 terms in a row coming up!
CON WIN
I think this poll is the exception that proves Smithson’s rule. I think the Northern Rock Nationalisation will have a significant impact on Labour’s electoral prospects. Not just in how the media have so far reported it but more importantly how Brown and Darling have and will react to their volte face. Next PMQs should be interesting. So I am happy to maintain my sell position on Labour seats.
3% is within the MOE so really they’re neck and neck in percentage terms but Labour are well ahead on seats.
4 - you’ve lost. Labout out for the rest of the century.
Cheerio Cheerio Cheerio
Mike, thanks for that analysis. I was going to query the fact that it was half term break etc, any idea why ICM did the poll a week early?
4 - the MOE shows a range in which the “true” value is likely to lie with a certain degree of confidence (usually 95%).
So ICM are saying they are 95% confident that the lead is between 0-6% - but it is proportionately more likely to be closer to 3%.
O/T (Sorry but it is a Primaries night)
Betfair punters thinks Wisconsin is all over bar the shouting, Obama’s last matched price being 1/16.
5. I feel your pain.
9:
L
O
L
The article says lib dems up one per cent. Is this compared with the last Guardian poll, or just the Guardian getting their own story wrong?
These figures put Labour 40 seats ahead of the tories according to Electoral Calculus.
Mike can we have a separate thread for the primaries?
re 11. We always get this with comparisons - I always compare with the last survey by the pollster whichever paper is carrying it. The Guardian usually compares with its last poll a month earlier - hence the discrepancy.
It’s still very good for the Lib Dems Peter.
The Guardian must be kicking themselves on timing - obviously they wanted a story around the Tortoise v Hare debate in the Tories, concentrating on tax cuts v public services but events have moved the story elsewhere. They’ve tried to make it relevant by concentrating on the economic confidence piece.
Shows though how times have changed that my first thought was how did Labour score so high? When did 34% start to look like progress and a good rating - how soon we forget the Brown bounce.
The great thing about these fluctuating Tory leads is that they retard the process of adjustment that Labour supporters need to undergo to cope with the emotional shock of losing power in 18 months time.
By the end of 1995 it was pretty clear to most Tories that they were on the road to defeat so when the general election happened in 1997 they were psychologically prepared (although the sheer scale of the losses was traumatic). In contrast, it looks like Labour hopes, albeit slim, may be kept alive for some time yet, which will make the final Armageddon all the more unbearable when it comes.
The current state of self-delusion among Labour loyalists also has the benefit of providing a ready supply of mugs willing to hand over their money to cannier punters on Betfair.
7. It’s a bit wider than that. The MOE on the lead is about 5.22%, so the 95% CI is a Tory lead from +8.22 to -2.22%, but about an 87% chance the Tories are ahead by some amount…
On CNN now. All the experts from “the best political team on television” are agreed that the superdelegates will line up behind the state delegates in the Democratic nomination race.
Is Gabble a Labour version of Ave It o8? I think we should be told.
I’ve revised my theory on the GE date. Clearly, it is going to be half term week, February 2010. It seems to be worth about 50 seats to Labour.
So next time they will get 50.
LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!
14 Thanks, Mike. Agree that you have the right comparison and the Guardian the wrong one. Also agree that it is a pretty good poll for the Lib Dems.
17 - thanks Rod - because the MOE’s are for the shares, more or less?
Obviously on top of that we have to apply our own [subjective] confidence test to the pollster’s methodology…
18 - will there be superdelegates from Florida or are they barred too?
OT - from previous thred, posted by Shadsy:
Fox have reported some exit polling in Wisconsin.
Women 51% Obama - 49% Clinton
Independents 63-34 (27% of voters)
Seniors 39-60
Union Members 49-50
Under $50k earners 51-49
If they are right, he has surely won quite easily.
by shadsy February 19th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Would agree that these numbers look do look good for Obama.
Note: likely I’m one of the few folks posting who have actually campaigned in the Wisconsin Primary.
In my case in 1988 for the late, great Paul Simon of Illinois. He got 5% and left the race the next day.
Expect this century’s favorite son of Illinois to do a lot better than that!
As a matter of interest, the chance of a poll hitting the true value of a party’s percentage spot on (to the nearest 1%) is only about 26%, and the chance of scoring a bulseye with the lead is only about 15%…
Kind of makes this endless spinning of polls a bit silly, No?
ABC exit poll reports larger than normal turnout of women in Wisconsin Democratic primary, 4 out of 10 voters as being graduates as bit under the norm and higher than the norm participation from seniors. That looks like it should be good for Hillary, if Obama wins then it would be by eating well into her constituencies.
I’ve opened a Wisconsin primary thread. Please use this one for the ICM poll etc.
24. Let’s see if the “spiral of silence” is dead - I’m not convinced - it will only take a couple of points to go Hillary’s way and this will be a very late night.
Surely a lay at 1.1 has to be worth a few quid
15.I bet they are kicking themselves about that.
19.Well you can’t accuse PB.com of not being balanced in that regard.
20.Daft as it may seem that thought actually crossed my mind a week ago, but no, I don’t think even he could think he could get away with a stunt like that?
The full data from this poll is obviously not yet avaialble but we can look at the data from the 2 previous ICM polls and assess the effect of the ICM taking the voting intentions of those 7/10 likely to vote or higher . The effect on LibDem and Others is negligible but the Labour vote is 2% lower than all respondents and 2% higher than taking the 10/10 only voters . The Conservative figure varying in the opposite direction .
Meanwhile…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7252672.stm
Tommy Sheridan’s wife charged with perjury
22. Yes, at 50/50 support the MOE on the lead is exactly twice the MOE for one party’s share.
In general, the MOE on the lead is
1.96 * SQRT((p*(100-p)+q*(100-q)+2*p*q)/N)
where p is Party A share, q is party B share and N is sample size…
Rogue poll alert!!!
Labour are well behind at the moment. The Tories are much higher than 37%!
After the Northern Rock disaster, Labour will plummet and rot in the burning hell of electoral oblivion. Labour are a finished party in their current form. Frankly after recently working in a Labour party affiliate financial organisation i can understand how inept Labour are at running things financial. Talk about a shambles! Yes that’s right past tense there! I blame it on the horny handed customers! If they did not have missing teeth they were blacked out!!!
:lol: 
They all crack the same crap jokes including the staff! It is true what Nick Palmer MP once said about having to ware old clothes to Labour party meetings. Went to one house and there was dog sh*t all in the hall, living room and kitchen. In another house their was a rotting chicken carcus in the living room behind chip papers etc! In another house there was a chair i thought was black until i sat on it. When i got up the chair was no longer black but my suit had changed to that colour! There was also the unuasual prized possesions such as the stuffed badgers, a stuffed cat and my favourite buster the dog!
So
30. So the Conservative lead would be 7% if only people 10/10 to vote are counted.
So this poll is not actually that inconsistent with other recent polls showing a 9% lead?
34 True as far as it goes but that would imply a GE turnout at a record low of around 50% . A bit too late and I can’t remember the equivalent Populus weighting for likelihood to vote .
As members know I’m a Lib Dem and in the recent election for leader voted for Mr. Clegg based on his majority. Whilst not happy with his referendum policy, I am pleased by this:
October 2007: Lib Dem average poll rating 13.64%
February 2008: Lib Dem average poll rating 18.20%
33: I said something about wearing old clothes to Labour Party meetings? I don’t think so - not the sort of thing I’d say (nearly all my clothes are pretty old anyway).
34: ICM weights according to certainty, discarding people less than 5/10 certain, doesn’t it? If so, and if the Tories have more 10/10s (very likely at the moment), the two parties are roughly tied in this poll among people who will probably vote.
37. Re ICM weightings - not according to the article introducing the thread (see final paragraph).
Wasn’t there a thread on PB over Christmas where it was pointed out that Guardian/ICM polls favoured Labour over Conservatives, when compared to ICM polls for other newspapers?
I’m not sure what this poll is meant to illustrate, given the Northern Rock debacle came after the fieldwork. A bit like a poll taken a week before black wednesday but published a week after!
People want to see some strength from Cameron.
He should speak out on Kosovo and advise that Britain should withdraw its support for the EU’s Kosovan independence attempt, which is coming apart at the seams.
Brown will hide in silence and play the weak ‘what me?’ approach. Cameron must at least ask questions at this stage, and advise a retraction of the current British position, from which we will humiliatingly be forced to climb down at some point. Better to show some strength on this issue early for David Cameron.
It is the critical event in the world, and the UK’s Parliament has said not one word about it. Pitiful.
Yet again I find too many messages since yesterday to wade through. But I noticed there were some naughty jokes about Japanese businessmen in Thailand and so on, so here is another one:
Why does an elephant have four feet?
Six inches is not enough.
I think Labour will be the largest party at the next general election.
Nick - this is from the ICM website to describe how they deal with turnout.
“1. ICM ask respondents to say how likely it is that they will go and vote in a new
general election using a ten points scale where 10 means they would be absolutely
certain to vote and 1 means they would be certain not to vote.
2. Those saying they are 7-10 certain to vote are included in the vote calculation.”
Another BBC Presenter on drugs charges
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=516136&in_page_id=1770
He should have been arrested on his choice of music alone.
[33] Smithson’s Law: “a rogue poll is one whose results you disagree with”.
[41] Totally disagree- Kosovar independence is not only right but also just. If you want the full argument- you can read my blog of yesterday on the same subject.
Gordon Brown and his Cabinet from the notorious party known as New Labour in the United Kingdom have been caught red handed siphoning off 100bn of British Taxpayers money to fund a private bank with strong links to the unions.
Indeed so much taxpayers money has been assigned to private ventures, New Labour are cutting back on hospital treatment for all British Families as an emergency measure to ensure enough capital remains to keep the failed private companies afloat.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister stated that its important to get the priorities right at this difficult time, the Prime Minister has to look to his own future and the possibility that should he lose an election he will need a job with the banks to fund the champagne lifestyle incumbant on all socialist leaders.
The hospital renowned as the birthplace of the National Health Service has announced swingeing cuts in an attempt to save itself from bankruptcy.
Managers at Trafford General Hospital in Manchester have declared £10m of cuts to clear the hospital’s long running deficit and a predicted overspend of £7m next year.
Two wards of 38 beds are to close, 210 posts will go and the seven operating theatres are to be reduced to five. The Trafford Healthcare Trust last month was also forced to renew a loan of £3m from the North West NHS Strategic Health Authority to pay its bills.
On 5 July 1948 the hospital became the first in Britain to admit patients under the NHS. Aneurin Bevan, the Minister for Health, chose Trafford General, then called Park Hospital, to launch his creation.
But despite the injection of £43bn into the NHS over the past five years, Trafford General is now facing an uncertain future. Surrounded by three major teaching hospitals, it has lost out on patients and services to its larger competitors.
Neil Limsky, of Unison, said the hospital was paying for mismanagement in the past and there were now real fears about its future. “This is a failure of the Government’s internal market,” he said, adding: “We have always argued the NHS should not be run as a business – the fact Trafford has not succeeded as a business does not mean it is not needed as a hospital.”
Fay Selvan, chair of the Trust’s board, said it was concentrating on getting financial controls in place and was predicting a surplus of £500,000 this year.
A spokesman for the North West NHS Strategic Health Authority said: “Trafford General is going through what other trusts went through 12 months ago to get its finances in order.”
A Tory health spokesman Stephen O’Brien said: “Despite the extra money going in, hospitals like Trafford are still prevented from getting on an even financial keel. It is a disgrace that in this 60th anniversary year of the NHS Gordon Brown should have fouled up the NHS budget so badly.”
He added that Labour had returned “boom and bust” to the health service.
I rest my case Your Honour !!!
Nick @ 37: You’re thinking of ComRes, that’s the way they weight their polls.