Has Labour got a by-election poll boost from MORI? - UPDATED
November 21st, 2009
CON 37% (-6)
LAB 31% (+5)
LD 17% (-2)
OTHERS 15%
The delayed survey has the Tory lead down to just 6pts
There are reports about that a poll due out tonight is “very good for Labour“. We haven’t seen any numbers yet and this post will be updated when we get some.
Which pollster it is I don’t know but the November Ipsos-MORI poll is long overdue. The field-work began a week last Friday in the immediate aftermath of Labour’s big Glasgow NE success and continued until Sunday.
I was expecting it out on Monday evening or Tuesday morning at about the same time as the ICM Guardian survey which had a big increase in the Labour share.
The headline figures in Ipsos-MORI polls only include the voting intentions of those who say that are 100% certain to vote - and this tends to cause more movement than those polls who others who measure and include those less certain of turning out. So Labour’s worst figures for this parliament were from the firm.
We will be getting an “England only poll” from the firm based on the data from this survey and it will be interesting to see if the margin has closed by quite the same margin as the national ones. It might be that the by election had a greater impact north of the border.
My guess is that relatively few voters are changing their minds - the driving force behind polling changes is voting certainty.
UPDATE: We now have the figures which are featured above and there can be little doubt that this is a great poll for Labour. To get to within just six points at this stage will provide real heart to the party.
Just under a week ago I was predicting this when I observed that polls taken immediately after by elections almost always produced boosts for the party that did best.
That, I believe is what happened here. The big question is whether this will be sustained and picked up by other pollsters.
It will be recalled that Labour saw a big boost in last weekend’s ICM poll where the fieldwork took place at exactly the same time as this one.
Mike Smithson
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Surely not first?
second?
third
We really need a post Queens Speech poll to see the lay of the land.
I’m surprised one of the other papers hasn’t commisioned YouGov to do a post QS poll.
fourth
sixth?
I dont see any reason why Mori would publish their poll a week late, other than to cause mayhem if Labour got a boost ah la ICM last weekend.
If that is the reason it is not only unproffessional but leaves them open to manipulation by their paymasters, whoevey they may be.
I advise all jittery tories to calm down and all pumped up labour supporters to keep a sense of proportion.
by weathercock November 21st, 2009 at 8:40 pm
It’s a delayed out of date poll. No need to panic.
The Mirror setting any agenda has to be news in itself.
Are we sure this survey isn’t being published in The Mirror?
It wouldn’t be from Kellner’s YouGov in gratitude for the wife’s new position I don’t suppose.
Muckguire hasnt posted anything on twitter, wouldnt he be crowing?
It must be good for labour if the mirror are publishing it - front page stuff maybe!
12 - true, he usually does. But then maybe nobody has dropped the news into his pit yet…
re 11. That’s a disgraceful allegation and, in any case, there are more Tories at the top in YouGov than Labour supporters.
On ther other hand this may not be the Mori poll that Mike has been expecting/pursuing all week.
Mori may dissappear for ever, like an unloved lover, buried in history.
weathercock.
Why would they publish it for free if someone is prepared to pay for it.
The question is more why someone would pay for an out of date poll?
Answer: because its cheap and there’s no news. And I suppose they could try and try to spin out the by election.
GIN - James B aid the twitter was from a Mirror journo but it didn’t say if it was theirs.
15 O/T But how many total number seats do you expect the Lib Dems to target as potential gains at the election? Do they have enough resources if Labour did collapse to take advantage to the maximum.
CON ?? %
LAB ??%
LD ??%
Represents a ??% swing to hung parliament.
re 17. I think that it will be in the Observer.
15 I agree. Nothing twisted about YouGov.
But sadly Kelner does the organsations image no good with some of his pubic utterances.
21. Inspired typo.
21 PUBLIC!!!!! utterances. Sorry!
15. Some of the attacks on YouGov in particular in recent weeks have been quite offensive. Its sad to see some Conservatives supporters attack YouGov like Labour supporters did during the Mayoral election.
20. Will it be front page news or buried on the inside pages?
24. I have no doubts about Peter Kellners integrity.
Mike, can you see whose lurking? Are Rod, Gabble and Tim pressing F5 every few seconds, their hands hovering over the submit comment button?
22. I would like to hear some of his pubic utterances though.
Brazilian or Hollywood?
We are about due a good poll for Labour at this time of the year, lovely jubbly. And that is good news for the Tories.
29. Christmas is always good for Labour, New Year for the Tories.
24 It is on here Gin where regulars should know better than to think the pollster is anything other than totally independent but PK damages his own brand by repeating myths [also debunked on here] on TV.
If I had shares in YouGov, I would want to gag him.
Just been on Twitter. and no-body’s talking yet.
‘and this tends to cause more movement than those polls who others who measure and include those less certain of turning out. So Labour’s worst figures for this parliament were from the firm.
We will be getting an “England only poll” from the firm based on the data from this survey and it will be interesting to see if the margin has closed by quite the same margin as the national ones.’
Um, what?
37, 31 17 yeah right
37:31:17 - Rubbish poll.
O/T, Thick of It, with Labour and Tories again tonight.
“Nicola accepts an invitation to debate with her shadow Peter Mannion on Richard Bacon’s late-night Radio 5 Live programme. However, breaking news changes the whole agenda, ruining both PR teams’ well-made plans, and as the airwaves are opened up to listeners”
26 Peter Kellner’s political views are well known. But is integrity as a pollster is beyond dispute.
That is from @MirrorJames on Twitter. And a load of codswallop it is too
??? Surely we are into hung parliament territory with this disastrous result?
I blame that Bagge chap..he’s an Etonian you know.
Time for one of Mike’s Laws - a rubbish poll is one whose results you don’t like…
Wonder why nobody bought this poll straight out the gate?
BREAKING !!!
A poltical betting blogging site has been hit by a wave of childish hysterics, whilst awaiting an impending outdated poll! No casualties yet reported… More follows
37 see 354 FPT.
On twitter:
Cameron’s lead cut to six points - Tories 37%, Lab 31, LibDems 17 - Ipsos MORI for the Observer
http://twitter.com/MirrorJames/status/5928066272
Ipsos MORI/Observer: Con 37%, Lab 31%, LD 17%
Do people look before they post?
40 Oh. So you saying you reject the ICM taken at the same time.
I see.
40. Obviously NP was hovering and waiting for the moment to post another fairly idiotic comment
outlier but will keep brown in post
From same poll,
But 59% unhappy with Brown vs 48% happy with Cameron
The BBC never mention Opinion Polls - I wonder whether they will break their silence tonight!
However one might like to spin this poll, speaking as a Tory this is an awful one for us.
Others 15%, Hey ho.
Just MORI.
49 He wasn’t going anywhere anyway!
Rod, Gabble, Tim, NickPMP, Cold, Roger and Jonathon;
Away you go.
If true. That is one heck of a shift in the polls. Hung Parliament territory. As always we need to see other polls to see if this is a trend.
Wonder what explains the discrepancy between this and the ICM poll.
Rogue, and quite possibly an out of date rogue at that.
51 It is but it was done at the same time as the ICM and if it had come out first we would have dismissed it already.
51. It’s a week late and suspect.
Is the 37% labour?
51 When every other poll that was taken at the same time is putting the Conservatives 13/14% ahead, I wouldn’t get too concerned.
61, you cheeky monkey
So from the Last Ipsos Mori Poll
COns 37 (-6)
Lab 31 (+5)
Lib Dems 17 (-2)
Are we sure this is a weighted poll?
Bit of a buggar for everyone who thought they were quids in on the 11-15 ‘November lowest lead’ bet - and nearly brought the 1-5% into play.
Other than that, look at the variation in ‘all naming a party’ and the certainty factor and work out what has changed both - given the timing you have the negative to Tory afterwash of the EU position (which will affect certainty short term for Europhobes) and for Labour positive you have the by-election and lettergate.
sub-10 lead in other pollsters returns taken now and there may have been some more fundamental changes in opinion over lettergate that were not immediately obvious.
ICM versus MORI - all about short term certainty
60. It was probably a week late as the firm suspect it is a rogue. It is difficult to find any reason for the shift in opinion.
61 - Are we sure it’s not Labour on 3.1%?
I think out of date is an unfair term if a poll is out of date after a few days why do we look back to previous polls? Obviously it tarnishes the poll a bit but it’s timming surley isn’t that much of a problem. Having said this for me its a rouge
65, lettergate may add 1-2 points to Labour’s core, that’s it. This is just an old, rogue poll. It’s as credible as the 28pt lead one, unless it gets backed up by others.
We can see now why no other paper wanted this poll, only the rather desperate Guardian.
My main header has been updated
If I were Tory contributers then I wouldn’t dismiss this out of hand. Is it not the fact that local elections were good for Labour in England this week?
Mind you the Scottish local result from Falkirk East this week was an overwhelming victory for the SNP.
Might it induce Gordo to go for a GE???
I see why no-one wanted to buy it!
It’s a Roguey-McRogue from Roguesville
68 - Very valid points.
O/T - This chap isn’t me
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/598719/F1-Mad-dad-names-baby-Jenson-Lewis.html
I am always rather suspicious of MORI’s 100% certainty to vote figures. From what was said earlier the fieldwork was completed last Monday- just a day later than the ICM poll which gave us 42 - 29 - 19. The Labour figures are not particularly out of line - the Tory ratings clearly are. I suppose we will have to wait for more polls - though ICM has tended to pitch the Tories a bit high recently.
A Rogue, A Rogue, My Kingdom for A Rogue!
“If I were Tory contributers then I wouldn’t dismiss this out of hand. Is it not the fact that local elections were good for Labour in England this week?”
Not really.
Looks like we may need Liberals help to form government after all.Wonder of Clegg will play ball
Vince Cable for next Chancellor anyone?
It does appear that;
Osborne pledging to freeze public sector pay for 12mths + Cameron changing the policy on Europe + Labours win in Glasgow
Have boosted Labour out of the doldrums a little bit. Now, whenevery you get a poll movement, MORI always seem to be the most extreme. I mean, in 2008 we went from a Tory lead of 28% in September to a Tory lead of 3% in November. That is MORI in a nutshell. They are prone to exagerate polling movements. And as I say, there has been a boost to Labours position in the last month or so and MORI is at the extreme end of this (as always)
Still, its a very good poll for Labour and it would be churlish to deny otherwise. This night is one for the lefties to savour.
The good news is it will keep the rebellion against Gordon struggling for air…
Were the people polled asked “Gordon Brown - five more years?”
71, it’s beyond the margin of error for both main parties from its last poll.
If it had showed a shift to Con 49 and Lab 21 it’d be just a rogueish (and would create an equal lead to the 28pt rogue I referred to above).
It’s also significantly out with other pollsters. And old. And taken after Brown had a week that wasn’t uniformly awful (for once).
If other polls move then I’ll change my mind. But right now I think it’s roguetacular.
This shouldn’t be happening yer know.
I reckon it’s the Sun what did it.
Seriously, to go in the same poll from being 17% behind, (is that right?) to 6% is that unprecedented?
I also think, (purely a theory) that the recession hasn’t been as bad for most as they feared, in fact for many they probably are even somewhat better off.
Poll just been mentioned on Skynews.
The bad news is that it will probably crash sterling and cause bond auctions to fail….
Can we conclude from all the recent polls that the new European policy of the Conservatives has probably cost it 2% to 6% of the votes?
84 - No
Has Gordon just increased people’s benifits or were all those polled just civil servants?
82, Sky News also said there was an enormous Tory split over Europe and that Blair would be EU president.
80 - Not at the top, Mandelson seems to be demanding FS from Brown, he is in a difficult position
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6927006.ece
This poll isexcellent news for David Cameron. Now there is no chance of Labour dumping Gordon Brown before the GE and it will make some Tories who have taken a GE victory for granted sit up, shut up and get on with fighting the election.
Health warning, this next article is written by Melissa Kite
After the ‘Turnip Taliban’ rebellion in Norfolk, the Conservative leader is this time fighting to contain a series of rows involving traditionalists in suburban London.
Activists in the Conservative stronghold of Beckenham have condemned as “ridiculous” an edict that there must be three women on the shortlist for the seat, and have lodged a formal complaint with Eric Pickles, the party chairman.
One senior local Tory complained that the calibre of the women who applied for the seat was “very poor”, even though one on the shortlist is an acclaimed author and another is a cancer research scientist.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/david-cameron/6623797/David-Cameron-in-new-feud-with-traditional-Tories-over-promotion-of-women.html
I’m surprised it’s as good as that myself, but I was surprised that ICM wasn’t better. It’s silly to dismiss either poll and it will certainly do Labour morale a world of good: essentially it shows what can be achieved with just a few days’ helpful news, and that’s heartening for Labour campaigners regardless of whether it’s sustained. Since morale is part of the key to winning elections, raising funds and getting people on the street, that’s significant in itself.
Are there any other polls in the pipeline over the next few days?
85 - we can’t conclude that. Why would eurosceptic voters unhappy with the Lisbon line go to Labour? If the Tories were down by 5 and “others” i.e. UKIP up by 5 then you might say so. But not on these figures!
88
That was conjecture, they merely reported the result of the poll.
“UK Polling Report’s Swing Calculator computes these figures into a Hung Parliament where the Conservatives would be 38 seats short of an overall majority.”
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2009/11/ipsosmori-put-tory-poll-lead-down-to-6.html
i’m sure Mark Senior will be on soon to tell us to ignore the headline figures…
Immigrants who don’t understand English have been able to buy language certificates that give them the right to settle in Britain.
An investigation by The Sunday Times has found that staff at English language colleges in London and Birmingham have been offering migrants who speak little or no English Home Office-regulated English and Citizenship certificates for £250 each. Tests are rigged to allow almost anyone to pass.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6927010.ece
I think my fellow Tories are being far too sanguine about this poll. I believe because of lettergate Brown has been given a second chance with voters who feeling he was unfairly treated over that are prepared to listen to him again. I also believe that issues such as Social Care do mean a lot to quite a few people.
More than anything my lot have got to stop shooting themselves in the foot - eg the turnip taliban - the hard right and so on.The problem is not Cameron - its the stupid behaviour and attitudes of some in his Party.When this poll becomes news the instinctive reaction from the Tory bloggers will be - Cameron must turn right - take a tougher line on Europe - promise savage cuts in public spending etc etc all of which is the very last thing he should do.
1. Locks Brown in place over Christmas
2. Suppresses murmurings of dissent in PLP
3. Refocuses press back on politics/GE in run up to Xmas
4. Lengthens Tory win-related odds in betting markets
5. Will push Cameron into populist announcement pre Christmas
6. Encourages other Newspapers to commission polls to test waters
“essentially it shows what can be achieved with just a few days’ helpful news, ”
It was done at the same time as the ICM poll. I don’t think we can conclude anything therefore, given the differences.
90
If DC was caught shagging a dog in Parliament square you’d be on here, saying its good news for the Conservatives.
Sky news ticker straight away saying “tory lead shrinking” no mention before when polls come out showing big Tory leads…it’s hilarious !
91 - Most of Melissa Kite’s work is probably more eligile for the Booker rather than the Pulitzer prize, being as it is pure fiction.
89 So Mandy is in “F*ck it” mode. He either gets to add FS onto his CV - handy for the earnings over the next 10-15 years - or else he gets a pretext to walk away from Labour’s upcoming electoral doom - and can say “nothing to do with me…”.
But perhaps he should have waited for the MORI poll before flouncing…!
I like polls like this one, good for the Tories in Scotland, North and Wales. Very good for turnout, not good for incumbent Libdems.
On the brightside - should move the betting markets a bit!
95, did they state that it was substantially different from other polls and both the main parties’ standing had shifted drastically? Without context a single poll is like one day’s trading on the FTSE: meaningless.
92. Nick Palmer
Where were all the Labour MPs during the Queen Speech debates?
Have they given up?
Marquee Mark November 21st, 2009 at 9:25 pm “The bad news is that it will probably crash sterling and cause bond auctions to fail….”
That is what I fear.
BTW, thanks to GIN for a fair comment, by contrast to the bah-humbug denial from some of the others. Some of you just can’t stand even one poor poll - how will you react if you don’t win the election, hmm? Perhaps it’s an outlier, perhaps not - but something for some of us to enjoy anyway.
Wells gives Con 277,Lab 294,Lib 47,oth 14.
So LAbour low in vote sharre most seatsL!
in event of a hung aprlaiment suicide for iIb Dems to go into any coalition with whoever has most esats and the poisoned chalice
RE 82. If the poll is true then it will be 1948/1967/1976 all over again post June. Sterling crash. Outside bodies proping up the Uk’s finances. major cuts etc. The market has priced a Tory win into current sterling levels and bond prices. Careful what you wish for……
the fact the poll is delayed a week is odd. Perhaps because it so positive for labour it will be used to spin the narrative regarding the publics reaction the Queens speech? If it had come out last week then the other polls would have cancelled it out.
111 Then enjoy…
111.NickP, on the contrary, I think that this is a good poll for the Tories. I am happy - see -
I’m trying to think other than the credit crunch, when was their such a big swing to Labour in the polls in recent times?
99 Peter Buss
You are overreacting. Just take advantage of the shift in the betting markets to increase returns on a certain Tory landslide next May.
This is minor turbulence not an iceberg.
111 And Nick - how goes the defenestration of Gordon?
99 You are something of an old woman.
91 Nick keep kidding yourself on that you wont be 10,000 votes behind Anna soubrey when the election result for Broxtowe is called.
110
It’ll also increase the incidence of genital warts and athlete’s foot.
Its a poll for f**ks sake a poll!
Hopefully it’ll mean we have a more interesting fight in six months time than seemed possible: we have yet to see.
99 Careful Oracle, tim and Chris A will be on in a minute calling you a racist!
Chumps.
Kerry McCarthy Labour MP has twattered:
Tories 37, Lab 31, LibDems 17
Blimey that’s a big jump for Labour, what are the others share i.e. UKIP?
The worrying thing is the markets have calculated in a Tory win, if they have doubts then this could have grave consequences on our economy particularly the triple A credit status.
When will the detailed data tables be available for this poll?
Anthony Wells:
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/
I’m very sceptical about polls like these taken in such odd media circumstances particulalrly as the MORI turn out filter exaggerates what are already exagerated events. However two minor points.
1. Others on 15% in a poll with a 100% turn out filter and in the post coital by election glow of a major party. Very, very high. perhaps the last comress was less of an outlier than we thought?
2. I don’t know how much the Observer paid for this but as a branding excercise wouldn’t have made more sense to release this very triking result earlier in the week where it would have more crediance and many parts of the MSM wanted to believe in a Labour fight back?
3. To some extent you could argue that it is very, very poor for Labour. Taken in the most favourable circumstances on the most favourable methodology for the those circumstances and still only on 31%
4. Allowing for the all the caveats above it does show the difficulties for the Lib Dems if the Labour party could ever motivate its core and get them out. LD down 6 and Tory up 5 from the last general would still cause problems.
If this persists may be a couple of scottish Labour MP’s could be bumped off at regular intervals until the election…
120
Soubrey, ooooh thats a foreign sounding name, too much of that sort of thing in the Tory Party. Palmer a good British name, you’re home and dry Nick.
Just listen to the socialist twits it’s hilarious… If Labour feel confident will they please call an election now ? No cause they won’t… W4nkers !i
122 - Not sure are resident Bernard Manning impersonator is on this evening? Would have thought we would have heard from him by now with regards this “new” poll.
Lord Mandelson still wants Milibands job.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6927006.ece
OT
I have been away for a while, can someone tell me what has happened to Martin Day ?
This is the smallest Conservative lead in an opinion poll since Com-Res on 21st December 2008;
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/voting-intention
I’ve always thought that the 100% certainty to vote criteria was odd in an election where so many are still undecided. So its by no means indicative of a fina result.
However, what it does show is a big surge in numbers coming back to support Labour and a plunge on the Tory side. Whilst Brown is clearly having a good spell I thank the Tories for the changes:
1. The effects of Osborne’s promised Golden Age of Austerity is having the obvious impact. Its patently obvious that voters do not vote for tax rises and service cuts for themselves. When asked in the abtract in a poll sure they support it - for other people. The Tories have been far too explicit and its spooking people.
2. Yerp. Sorry to the moderates but Yerp is still the elephant in the Tory rom. Cameron’s position on the referendum is ludicrous (no vote because its law and can’t be changed now, but trust me to go and reclaim powers. Which are law. And presumably can’t be changed now) and the majority of posts I have seen on Wail and Torygraph boards have been anti - why vote Tory when nothing will change?
So, like all polls its only a trend when others back it up. But it is gratifying to see the narrow minds of Tory posters who dismiss out of hand this and other polls which disagree with them. And if this really is 100% certainty to vote then the 11 point swing must have you worried.
I did tell you it would happen.
Anyhow, Mike in a fit of pique has withdrawn my privileges, so…
See you after the election, somewhere…
133, not a Conservative but a nailed on Tory voter next time: I dismissed the 28pt lead out of hand as well. Shockingly, leftists didn’t call me narrow-minded over it.
Poll says Con lead down to 6 points, most Tory pb-ers say “How interesting, that’ll keep Brown in place.”
Not quite the response that any Lab supporters would have hoped for in all probability.
Can’t speak for others, but I certainly haven’t noticed any softening of the antipathy towards Gordo from those I meet. Very odd. We’ll need a couple more poll results before any shift is confirmed. But in the meantime I do hope that No. 10 believe and make a quick sprint for a GE, ‘cos my feeling is that they’ll lose - badly.
Clearly the by-election gave a boost…..it’s one poll…so lets see how this develops.
112 I have done the calculation on Polling report. It gives Con 288 Lab 286 Lib dem 45.
Good news for Labour if other polls produce similar results, but I think polls after December 9th (PBR) will much more interesting.
@134:
Have you been given a day pass?
133 A plunge is right - 1 in 7 Tories have walked away from them (according to this poll). I doubt they would get that reaction if they said they were going to double VAT…
134 If your privileges are withdrawn - how come you are posting???
126. Sensible stuff from YS as usual.
133 you obviously didnt listen to Any Questions today.
134 - What has Mike actually done that has so infuriated you?
131
I’m afraid Martin has been confined to a rubber room, where he spends his time ironing his straight jacket.
I know I’m feeling guilty already.
What did Rod do to get his privlages withdrawn? H’es not been harping on about H again has he?
143, reminds me, I need to do that.
145. Typically nasty Coldy.
142 He is a pb stellar poster.
So far the spread prices are unmoved.
SPIN has CON 353 - 358: LAB 207 - 212: LD 50 - 53 seats.
Clearly the poll has yet to cause punters to change their positions.
Disheartening. I hope those tossers in SW Norfolk who created a sh*tstorm for no good purpose are proud of themselves.
138. justin: It gives Con 288 Lab 286 Lib dem 45.
Decision time for Clegg, were that to happen: Con most seats, just, and most votes by far. He can form a coalition with either. Does he do what’s right or does he cave to the Senior wing?
150. Perhaps they have read UK Polling.
151 - Depends if Brown offers a new voting system
149, quite. Lucky for the other parties that and Mr. Submarine and Mr. Smithson aren’t leading the Lib Dems.
@150:
Everybody’s waiting for the markets to move so they can buy Tory.
Nobody wants to blink first and become the patsy.
151. He won’t for a coalition with either.
Labour would promise a referendum on voting reform and the Lib-Dems would nod through the first Queens Speech with said referendum legilslation. From that point on the Lib-Dems would vote on the each issue as it comes up. We’d have another election within the year, IMO.
Does anyone know how often the main political parties do private polling, would it be once a week or once a month.?
Is it just me or is Culshaw’s impression of Boris and Dave rubbish (especially Cameron)? I seem to remember Bremer’s attempts on making fun of Dave aren’t up to much either (common man sketch being an exception to that).
Of course its possible that there will be a swing back to the Tories when news of this poll sinks in.It might scare the living daylights out of them!
I posted this elsewhere at 17.43 . Any answers ?
Labour are pregnant again. It must be the fourth time in the last six weeks but the first three were miscarriages.
Let me elaborate. With an expected MORI poll this evening there has been decent money for Labour these last 24 hours and also indecent money for NOM.
Time and again I have seen this before a fresh poll and time after time Labour are disappointed.
However, all the noise has been for Labour and even diehard Tories are asking me for advice where to get the best prices for a LAB Overall.
My question is……just say the next poll does confirm a Labour recovery, will the markets further react, considering that they have already acted ?
My expectation is that NOM will shorten but the Most Seats won’t move much (7.8-8.4)….they might nibble at 7.8.
the_mgt is online now Report Post IP Edit/Delete Message
150 Perhaps they have prioritised and are ringing their brokers to get themselvers out of Uk bond markets first.
What does this poll do to the theory that petrol price rises are bad for Labour?
I believe the poll. Many conservatives are unhappy with Cameron, for example,
o backpeddling on Lisbon (”so what’s the point of voting Conservative”)
o Conservative councillor suspended for complaining about lack of candidates with English names
Cameron wants the middle ground but ends up looking like Labour. So people will react. Some will come back because Labour must be driven into the dust. Others will go to UKIP
161 = 155 not 150.
157 - Not sure, but I’d recommend this post by Anthony Wells on private polling
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2343
After Gordon Brown’s performance in the debate on the Queen’s Speech I suggested a Brown Bounce and received a volley of verbal abuse/banter.
Might I further suggest the Labour are succeeding in winning the media coverage war and David Cameron’s gaffe “cast iron guarantee” will keep on haunting him.
89, 130. Oooh, drama! But who is leaking all this stuff? Cui bono?
According to the article, it’s not David Miliband or Alistair Darling. It doesn’t read like Mandelson leaked it himself, although perhaps I don’t understand his evil genius. I can’t imagine he’d want people to know that he tried and failed to get the EU job.
Who is it, then? Is it Ed Balls? If it is, he needs to stop being a whiny bitch. What’s going to happen if he doesn’t get his precious job? Is he going to cry and be sad? Seriously, what’s the leverage here?
162, most Conservatives are unhappy that he turned around a 10pt deficit to a near-certain victory?
On voting Tory, axing Brown is motivation enough, I’d imagine.
162. Lol. Excellent stuff.
The party who ‘elected’ Brown thinks it can do psychology.
162 - I believe the story about the councillor broke after the fieldwork for this poll.
If my fellow tories were unhappy over the Lisbon decision, would they really defect to Labour? surely UKIP would be their prefered destination
Gentlemen (some, if not all) and lady or two…
#7 front page splash, and a double page spread on the inside with 800 words of my own analysis, explaining the results. You say you don’t see any reason for delay, let me enlighten you. If you want a reputable poll that has a weekend omnibus, and you publish a Sunday paper, as the Observer is as you may have noticed, you have to wait until ? (fill in the blank)
#8 What’s happened this week to make any difference to this poll’s validity? Think about it.
#40 Thanks Nick
#46 Good question
#57 Read my analysis and Toby Helm’s splash tomorrow
#64 Certainly the figures are weighted. All the pollsters publish on weighted date. You might have a look at the unweighted and weighted figures and the effect of weighting on the published weighted figures. They are on the pollsters’ web sites.
#69 You have a right to your opinions just like everyone else, but you really don’t seem to understand much about how polls are done. Any of the polling organisations can recommend a basic primer on polling you might read.
“Poll boost for Brown as Tories drop”
“Ipsos MORI interviewed a representative sample of 1,006 adults by telephone between November 13 and 15. Data was weighted to match the UK population.”
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5hCrXC9Wd7453187ps8WNEBGJolBQ
Herbert. I am afraid you’re in for more abuse. Or just more facts.
‘The poll was actually conducted last weekend at the same time as ICM’s Guardian poll, prior to the Queen’s speech,…(before anyone suggests any of them might have contributed to it!).
167. Wasn’t this poll done before the Queen’s Speech?
167 - The polling was completed well before the Queen’s speech!
156 That’s what the Lib Dems ought to do.
But, justin’s posts earlier got me thinking, and perhaps, they’d just rush to back Labour regardless. Historically, they have done so, and perhaps, they’re just so keen on Labour, that this will override any rational consideration.
167. But this poll was conducted before Wednesday so the Queen’s Speech won’t have affected it, we will have to wait and see for the next batch of polls to see if it’s had any affect.
172. Bob Worcester
Great to see you posting on here.
Why do you only include those who are 100% likely to vote in your headline figures? It seems to produce a lot of volatility.
Front Pages,
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/The-Papers—The-National-Newspaper-Fornt-Pages-Sunday-November-22-2009/Media-Gallery/200911315460915?lpos=UK_News_Left_Promo_Region_0&lid=GALLERY_15460915_The_Papers_-_The_National_Newspaper_Fornt_Pages_Sunday%2C_November_22%2C_2009
@172:
Bob, you’re going to spin this as a ‘genuine’ poll? Shouldn’t you be advising extreme caution instead like Anthony Wells? To do otherwise is disingenuous.
I don’t see how Brown did himself any favours with his QS performance. Dodging the expenses issue was extremely bad politics,and as others have pointed out,this poll was taken well before it happened.
172 - Thank you for that, I’ll buy a copy of the Observer tomorrow.
Re point 64, thanks for that, I wasn’t casting aspersions, I meant, is there some new methodolgy used in this poll. A 7% drop and 6% gain for the two main parties, is something that certainly stops traffic.
The last time a poll that made me woah, was the poll that ComRes undertook for the green during the Euros, that looked out, which was the result on an unweighted sample.
As I said, on it’s own, it looks like an outlier, however if other polls show a similar trend, then you’re the first to spot this new trend
173. A Poll taken just after the Sun debacle with Brown’s letter to a grieving widow.
I wonder if this is what has had the dramatic effect. The polling seems completely out of kilter otherwise.
And to think a few weeks ago, we were complaining how boring the polls were!
181 Well, as Anthony says this very night, when someone raised the point that sudden changes against the grain of other polls should be treated be treated with caution in the news,
‘Stephen – if only it did work that way. A poll showing unexpected results is far more newsworthy than a dull sturdy one.’
re 172. Bob - do you have the “all naming a party” figures? That would be very helpful.
BBC ‘news’ mentions Gordon Brown visting Cumbria every 2 minutes. If DC went up there it would be called a photo op.
80% Mike, 51% ‘certain’
If we start to get other polls in line with this one, that would be good news for Labour
Statistically you expect one polling figure in twenty to be wrong by more than the margin of error.
This shift is more than the margin of error, and if other polls in the next few weeks were to produce figures in this ball park, that would be evidence for some degree of Labour recovery.
However, it would be premature to jump to the conclusion that Labour’s has really closed the lead this much on the basis of one poll - or that the recovery, if it is real, will be sustained.
The one conclusion we can all draw is that there is everything to play for - no party would be wise to give up, no party can afford to be complacent.
Oh dear, seems as suggested at the time, Gordo had a “photo-shoot” at the Remembrance Service after finding out Cameron had had pictures taken.
“sending frantic messages during the service to demand a photographer and TV camera”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1229917/Brown-Cameron-apologise-Abbey-turning-Poppy-Day-contest-photo-ops.html#ixzz0XXCoHF3Y
Both got a wrap on the knuckles by the sounds of it.
172. Thanks for posting here Bob.
188-Brown is Prime Minister. He is ultimately responsible for both the flood defences which have been swamped and the rescue operations ongoing. Had he not gone the abuse thrown at him would have been vitriolic - “Brown doesn’t care” etc
Cameron on the other hand at the moment has no responsibility or authority over this whatsoever. What would he have been doing there - being seen to be seen or making political points?
The wife of Commons Speaker John Bercow was sacked from a leading City firm after it claimed she had lied about having a degree from Oxford University.
Sally Bercow was dismissed by public relations business Consolidated Communications after it contacted the Oxford authorities and discovered they had not granted her a degree.
The company accused her of having lied on her CV. It also claimed that Mrs Bercow - who at the time was known by her maiden name, Sally Illman - had used ‘multiple CVs’ with different ‘facts’ about her past on each one.
Mrs Bercow, 39, last night denied lying. She admitted she had referred to an ‘upper second’ in theology at Oxford on her CV. But she claimed this was her first-year exam result and was not intended to conceal the fact that she had left Keble College after two years after falling behind with her studies and rowing with her tutors.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1229912/Speakers-wife-lost-job-Oxford-degree-wasnt.html
re 189. Thanks Bob. What were party splits on the all naming a party?
Last month it was CON 40: LAB 31: LD 18.
Many thanks and it’s great you are joining the discussion.
194 - Missed a paragraph from that link
The controversy over Mrs Bercow’s CV dates back to 1994, when she applied to join Consolidated Communications. Sources at the firm say they were told by Mrs Bercow that she had an Oxford degree.
194 - Tut tut tut.
171 It doesnt matter if the story broke AFTER the poll. The reality existed BEFORE the poll. What the councillor reported is just what other people were thinking.
Conservative voters are unlikely to defect to Labour. However, angry Labour voters may well return to Labour if Conservatives are no different.
169 Several points here
1) 6pt lead will not give a victory
2) A “Near Victory” is like “Nearly pregnant”. It either is or isnt.
3) Cameron cannot dine out on past glories. If he betrays B to woo A, B is not going to thing “its ok, he USED to agree with me”
195 He sounds pompass enough to fit very nicely into the pb community
191 Its time, ‘Rememberence Day’ was declared off limits for politicians, perhaps even banning them from attending, the Cenotaph.
‘My poppy is bigger than your poppy’
Are the LibDems starting to get worried yet that they are going to be squeezed like a Chippendale’s bum-cheeks at a Blackpool hen night?
Can I echo the welcome and thanks to Bob Worcester for posting on here.
Back in 1994 when doing some statistical work for my maths GCSE, part of the coursework, I chose an analysis on opinions polls as my topic. I wrote to Bob Worcester/Mori for opinion polls figures between 1983 and 1994, and two weeks later, I received the figures via the post.
Thank you for that, you’re responsible for my A* in Maths.
190.
We haveanother poll with vitually identical fieldwork dates ICM Guardian.
I know which one I would choose to measure monthly movements.
It is possible given MORI only uses 100% certain to vote, that the Tory Lisbon weaseling has diluted some Tories certainity to vote.
202
TSE. seriously swotty.
205 - I was a geek, in those days. Actually, still am.
Ohhh,
Iraq report: Secret papers reveal blunders and concealment
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/6625415/Iraq-report-Secret-papers-reveal-blunders-and-concealment.html
Oh dear oh dear.
Specifically oh dear because nothing at all good has happened for the tories since this poll. There was nothing of substance in the Queen’s speech to sway opinion either wa and the “fact” that it was politicking rather than policy is an anorakish, pmq-ish sort of point unlikely to resonate with the wider public. And I still think that jerk Strathclyde bragging about how he would mess bills up in the HoL can only be damaging.
207 (cont)
The Sunday Telegraph has obtained hundreds of pages of secret Government reports on “lessons learnt” which shed new light on “significant shortcomings” at all levels.
They include full transcripts of extraordinarily frank classified interviews in which British Army commanders vent their frustration and anger with ministers and Whitehall officials.
203 I think the fieldwork dates for the last YouGov overlapped this [and obviously the last ICM] clipping the by election.
Wow. Very surprised by this poll, but I can’t think of any reason for things to have shifted so much so quickly, I’ll wait until it other polls confirm or deny it before worrying about it. If true then the election could be interesting after all. It would also probably be a disaster for the Lib Dems, if the election is close they are likely to suffer quite badly.
198. ken wasabi November 21st, 2009 at 10:17 pm
I would say that the Conservatives are doing rather better with David Cameron than with their past three leaders.
It’s the nature of the game that you have to risk alienating your core in order to attract feckless floating voters like me. If the Conservatives are serious about getting back into power they will continue trying to occupy the centre ground.
There’s no other way to win. If Labour do recover and win the next election, this is still the right strategy to win the election after that.
194. I wonder how long the Mail has had the story about the Oxford educated Miss Illman. It isn’t a stunt which does her any credit, but I guess that once she decided to stand for Labour, the story was dusted down.
The shift in sentiment in Brown’s favour is somewhat surprising, his government’s perfromance is still poor, nothing on cleaning up MPs’ expenses, nothing on Harriet Harman’s motoring misdenmeanour, nothing on Baroness Scotland’s ability to remain in office. Nothing on equipment failings in Afghanistan linked to ministerial decisions.
If this poll is to be believed it will be the biggest come back since Milan went 3-0 up against Liverpool.
207 jeepers!
203 For me Cameron’s Lisbon back tracking is fundamental.
I shall vote conservative because Labour is dangerous and must be removed.
Labour have won 3 elections based on the premise that Power is everything and anything must be done to win power. Once in power, Labour slipped in massive immigration, Political Correctness and Euro treason.
Cameron has decided that to beat Labour, he must play their game.
It is like “Games people play”. To prevent the child winning, the adult is behaving like a child.
The problem is, by playing like a child, the adult will lose the game.
To gain 5%, Cameron is in danger of losing another 10%.
215, he didn’t backtrack. The media attempted to cretae a Tory splits story during the conference precisely because he was not promising a post-ratification referendum.
So Brown attaches himself to Tony, very publically, backing him to the hilt for King of the EU, just as his reputation is about to be dragged through the mire.
Who said it was a bad idea for the Tories to be seen to block TB’s appointment? Who said Tony would be out on the campaign trail helping Labour?
Must be Labour ’strategists’.
Is it just me or does anyone alse actually think ‘TB’ a very apt shortening for Blair?
A key Government adviser on Labour’s flagship City Academy scheme is now earning millions of pounds in fees from the taxpayer by setting up the controversial schools.
The scheme was at the centre of the so-called ‘cash for peerages’ scandal when police were called in to investigate claims that Labour was offering honours to businessmen who invested in the schools.
Now a series of leaked documents, obtained by The Mail on Sunday, reveal how the Government’s vision of local business helping to rescue failing schools has been replaced by fat-cat consultancy firms earning huge fees to set them up.
They charge hundreds of pounds to carry out straightforward tasks including opening bank accounts and registering with exam boards.
And they have even set up offshoot firms to become the sole supplier of compulsory school uniform to pupils – which parents complain falls apart in the wash.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1229862/Government-s-key-adviser-Academies-makes-millions–setting-Academies.html
208. Constan Treader November 21st, 2009 at 10:24 pm
I was thinking that. The past week hasn’t been that good for the Tories.
Semi-serious question: is it impossible for Brown to call an election right now? Is it technically impossible to hold it before Christmas? If it is possible, GB would wise to do it imo. This poll, if confirmed by others, is as good as gets for Labour. Plus, the media narrative, while not pro-Labour, has become quite Tory-sceptic.
I very much doubt this will last until the spring, however.
191 - now if I recall timbot made a bit of a thing about Cameron over this.
I’m sure he will be on later to provide a balanced response now things are clearer…. or not
207 - ‘Operations were so under-resourced that some troops went into action with only five bullets each. Others had to deploy to war on civilian airlines, taking their equipment as hand luggage. Some troops had weapons confiscated by airport security.’
Chancellor Brown, now PM Brown could be more damaged than Blair, 5 bullets per soldier….. equipment again.
So much for a poll improvement for Labour, a shortlived Brown bounce.
21 See the post at 215.
Further consider the case of “New Coke”.
Coke, a company that has arely touched its logo for 100yrs, was threatened by fliberty jibbet Pepsi.
The pepsi challenge showed that, in a short sip test, people preferred the sweeter Pepsi to Coke. Thing is, in the long run, people want to quench their thirst and a sticky sweet taste just doesnt do it.
Coke very close to turning themselves into Pepsi. Ironically, it was only a consumer rebellion that revented acommercial disaster
You had a good bet on Labour 325-349 AT 40-1, MichaelK. The odds changed to 33-1.
219- I think that calling an election now would be a mistake, there is no excuse he could use and it would make him look even more cynical and desperate. I think it has to be next year now, besides I think he’ll wait until we’ve returned to growth and then claim credit for it.
220 Indeed he may actually do just that since he doesn’t seem to subscribe the the Roger/coldstone theory of Brownian misunderstood greatness.
218 I suppose we could have an election on Thursday 17th December ( I don’t know if 24th December would be lawful).
215. ken wasabi November 21st, 2009 at 10:29 pm
“Cameron has decided that to beat Labour, he must play their game.”
The game of winning more than 325 seats, yes.
If the Conservatives don’t reach out beyond their core they will never ever poll above the low 30s.
225 No offence to our new mate Bob [W] but you would have to be a loon to call a GE on the back of this evidence.
The betting markets don’t seem willing to move few bob [pardon the pun] on the back of it.
228- too many Bob’s, but I’m not changing my name again
207 - wow, just wow.
If that gains traction…….
229 - Fine, we’ll start calling you Kate to avoid any confusion.
Whilst I think you can trace Laboura slight polling recovery back to Osbornes Age Of Austerity speech, it was definatly the right approach for the Conservatives to take. I would rather the Tories lose the election telling the truth than win the election lying.
If the British people decide they can’t face up to the reality of the economic mess we’re in, then thats the demorcratic will of the people. The IMF will ultimately make the country face up to reality after a currency collapse and a gilt strike.
People have the choice. They can deal with economic reality under the Tories or deal with it six months down the line after the IMF has intervened.
227 Conservatives need to do more than just move “beyond their core”.
They need to be clever.
226. Christmas Eve general election with the result held over to January 5th. That’d be fun.
We are frequently told that the PM is a serious man for serious times, unlike that light weight Mr Cameron. We are told that his problem is that he is so focused on the serious business of government that people can’t relate to him. Of course, that is when he isn’t inviting “celebrities” to Downing Street, or talking about the X Factor. Well, apparently he can’t even get that right now:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/x_factor/2737857/Brown-makes-X-Factor-gaffe.html
227 Core Conservatives and swing voters don’t always have contradictory views. Most swing voters would actually agree with core Conservatives about the EU, for example, although they don’t attach the same importance to the issue that core Conservatives do.
WRT the poll, there are bound to be occasional polls that look encouraging for Labour - just as there will be occasional polls that give the Conservatives outstanding leads.
231- oh God, flash backs to college
236 For the record, I am done with Cameron.
I shall vote conservative as a step to regaining our country but Cameron is not a Conservative.
I am not sure he is looking for a Conservative win or a Labour win masquerading as a Conservative win.
“People have the choice. They can deal with economic reality under the Tories or deal with it six months down the line after the IMF has intervened.”
Indeed. I am perhaps a hopeless optimist, in that I believe that enough people do realise what a mess we’re in. The alternative would be very disturbing. It would mean that we had become so infantile, that we actually couldn’t cope with reality.
Holy Hell
RED alert at Conservative Central Office: Eric Pickles, the bullish Tory party chairman, has outed himself as a former communist.
Pickles has revealed for the first time his passion for Leon Trotsky and Karl Marx as a teenager growing up in Yorkshire in the 1960s. He admits that he switched to the Tories only in protest at the Soviet Union’s invasion of Czechoslovakia.
“I was massively inclined that way,” says Pickles in a radio interview to be broadcast tomorrow. “It was part of my upbringing.
“I was a pretty serious young chap. For my 14th birthday I got Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution as a present — and I read the damn thing.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6926960.ece
228. SallyC November 21st, 2009 at 10:39 pm
“you would have to be a loon to call a GE on the back of this evidence”
Well, you’d have to be desperate. But if this is, by some chance, Brown Bounce III, doesn’t it seem inevitable that it will be gone by January?
Jesus wept, Gordon Brown is playing politics with the Army, again.
GORDON BROWN has ordered defence chiefs to find a way of pulling some troops out of Afghanistan by the end of 2010, according to senior defence sources.
They say he wants to be able to tell voters before the expected election in May that a partial troop withdrawal will begin by Christmas next year.
The move will be justified on the grounds that British soldiers will be handing over areas of Helmand province to Afghan troops, say the sources.
It is designed to wrong-foot the Tories and capitalise on opinion polls which show that more than 70% of the public are opposed to keeping British forces in Afghanistan
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6927012.ece
237 nonsense.
Bloody hell, Thick of It touching on dodgy ground with what Tucker says has in his filing cabinet!
238. You would think so Sean, but we won’t know for certain until polling day. I’m pleased that the Conservatives haven’t taken the easy option of just telling everyone what they want to hear anyway. It may turn out to be the wrong thing politically, but they have done the right thing morally and thats what counts.
The Thick of It was on form tonight
239. ERIC PICKLES IS AN ASSOCIATE OF MURDERERS
I BET HE AND ALISTAIR DARLING HUNG OUT AND JUST MURDERED ALL THE TIME
247- caps lock is the last refuge of the scoundrel
242 er, actually your post is nonsense. My post is fact.
I REALLY am done with cameron.
I REALLY am not sure…. etc, etc.
Does this mean that NPMP = Eric Pickles?
Quite a damning editorial in the Sunday Times
John Major once came back from an important European summit claiming that the result was “game, set and match” for Britain. Gordon Brown returned from last Thursday’s meeting in Brussels having broken his racket, lost his balls and developed a thumping political headache….
….Things are even worse for Mr Brown, who may now have a full-blown political crisis on his hands. The fact that Lord Mandelson wanted the EU foreign job indicates he knows that his rescue mission for Mr Brown is doomed. He has, in effect, given up.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article6926953.ece
Going off for the night but before I do.
1. On the poll. Sean F is correct and odd polls should be treated in the way Anthony suggests rather than making a meal of them - either way. Even more so when simultaneous polls say something different.
2. Bob W is going to explain his analysis in the big O tomorrow but I hope the headline doesn’t give the game away. Economic confidence = recovery for Labour etc etc since most of those theories have been debunked by Mike and Anthony already. We shall see if its something other tonmorrow.
3. Not been a good week for the Tories etc. Nothing really bad has happened to the Tories this week. I subscribe to the Ashcroft theory: that most stuff goes over the voters head unless its big. Nothing big has happened to us this week. Cameron has been quiet, that’s all.
4. The DT story above is big. Its huge and if that doesn’t take off, we are a disgrace who do not deserve the service of our armed forces [but then I have already come to that conclusion anyway].
248 - Quite possibly.
Looks like the Telegraph have got pages of stuff on the leaked documents,
Iraq report: Troops ‘rushed’ into battle without armour or training
“Never again,” says the main “lessons learnt” report, “must we send ill-equipped soldiers into battle.” The kit shortages that plagued British troops - from missing body armour to lack of chemical weapon protection - have become a familiar theme of the Iraq operation. But the detail contained in the leaked documents still has the power to surprise.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/6625692/Iraq-report-Troops-rushed-into-battle-without-armour-or-training.html
Never again, until Afghanistan….
Whatever this poll says, I remain supremely confident in the power of “Gordon Brown - Five More Years!” to work its magic with the voters.
G’night all…
re 122 Albion why should I, if it’s true. Your story was a veritable load of cobblers and any thinking person would have thought it so. Don’t think much of the ST story either. A certificate of spoken English does NOT give you the right to remain in this country; there aer many other hurdles to be jumped through as well.
250 - On point 4, it should be the massive and I hope it is.
Just starting to wade through the stuff and it is makes for truly shocking reading, and it comes direct from the horses mouths. If it is genuine and the rest of the media turn a blind they are an absolute disgrace.
239 - you know what they say, if you don’t go through a socialist phase in your youth you’ve no heart, if you’re still a socialist when you grow up you’ve no brains.
(I was rather younger than Eric when I got over my socialist phase, but I did go through it.)
Back to the thread, of course the one thing that this poll if translated into seats as the ONS predictors suggest would mean is riots to make the Community Charge riots look like a vicarage tea party, especially if the LDs do the stupidest thing imaginable in the history of the world.
Well, it looks like my first “Against The Grain ” article on “A Labour Recovery” was prescient. Now I need a YouGov super landslide poll for the Tories to pocket the double for my second article of yesterday - “A Conservative Tsunami ?”
Oh and did I mention Scotland’s absolute thrashing of the Aussies in the rugby !!
258 - If you call that a thrashing, I wonder what you’d call England’s massacre of Scotland in this years Calcutta cup?
I’ve been a Tory since high school, at leats I have a brain.
re 194 TSE, I know lots of rowers who’ve fallen behind and been chucked out
258 Scream. Lucky ?!?!
262 - It was a good performance, I quite enjoyed it. Mind you for some reason I enjoyed us losing to the All Blacks, It wasn’t as bad as I had feared.
236. Sean Fear November 21st, 2009 at 10:44 pm
“Core Conservatives and swing voters don’t always have contradictory views.”
Indeed. Of course, the trick that a successful party leader has to pull is to persuade enough floating voters that the points on which they differ from his party’s core are ones on which he differs from it too.
260 Snap. Born Tory [probably]. Breed Tory [certainly]. Still breeding Tory [dutifully]!
265 Scream. A somewhat typical English performance of late. Much good work in defence but England do seem to conjure up half a dozen ways of not scoring tries from decent openings. They also oddly seem a team that are worse than the some of their parts.
267 SallyC. How very public spirited of you !!
268 - It’s our ability to give away so many penalties that’s not helping us either.
249. That article makes no sense.
“Lady Ashton will be good at her job, but that’s bad, because nobody in Britain knows her, and that will make the British hate the EU. But the British should hate the EU, because it works in secret. Also, it’s good that Lady Ashton is British, but it’s bad because she should have been in another job anyway. Also, Gordon Brown pissed off his colleagues with a plot that in another article they’re supposed to know nothing about. In conclusion, Gordon Brown is a horrible, horrible man and if you ever saw him burning to death in a raging fire you should hold your precious urine in your bladder and save it for something more useful, like writing in the snow or watering a local gutter.”
268
Yes and they want you to pay between 60 and 85 quid to watch that too!!!!!.
268
Yes and they want you to pay between 60 and 85 quid to watch that too!!!!!.
Amusing poll from Mori tonight - am glad that I’m free of all the shackles of blind party allegiance!
O/T - seems that the EU president is prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to extend powers, taxation from CO2 no less - if it wasn’t so laughable it would be amusing.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6623665/Van-Rompuy-wants-the-EU-to-run-on-CO2.html
268. Jack W November 21st, 2009 at 11:17 pm
“worse than the some of their parts”
They’ve been that since 2003 really.
Great result for Scotland.
267 Keeping my end up - just like you Grandpa Jack.
244/6. Does Armando Iannucci read PB? For the second week tim (from Ruislip) gets a starring role
270 Scream. That’s clearly down to better discipline. However sometimes watching excellent English club players become internationals stiffled and smothered with indecision is most odd.
251 Scream - the briefing that was being reported this morning was that Mandelson had been the EU centre left’s preference for Poo Bah but had turned down a return to Europe, the Sunday Times says he actually wanted the job but the centre left didn’t want him. Interesting.
254 The bit that stood out for me was “some troops went into action with only five bullets each. Others had to deploy to war on civilian airlines, taking their equipment as hand luggage. Some troops had weapons confiscated by airport security.” That is shocking and even if it only happened once shows a degree of unpreparedness that damns the MoD. Wonder if the Sun could find a soldier sent to war on the BA flight to Kuwait? Did he get airmiles at least?
275 - How we got into in the 2007 world cup final, I’ll never know
276 SallyC. Oh please, call me Gramps !!
Sky:
Economic confidence at its highest since 1997.
No! 6 point lead only? Must be a rouge, I mean rogue!
Lab/Con %-age jumps to a massive 83.8%.
282 - 1997 you say, when there was a conservative government, and back to those levels, in the anticipation of a conservative government?
And the moral of the story is: “If you continually betray your core membership, in due course they will grow tired of it.”
One stupid policy mistake can easily turn an historic win into a something quite different.
Better pray its a rogue poll.
282 - What when the nation voted the Tories out in a landslide? Sense of deja vu perhaps?
276 SallyC
I refuse to comment on how you said what you said!
280. Indeed, as we overperformed on two consecutive weekends.
It was perhaps the best result for us, as it would have been rather a joke if we’d won the competition, but by reaching the final we achieved a highly respectable defence of the cup, which no-one expected.
Sky. Michael Brown (tory):
Quite a significant poll.
CCHQ will be having palpitations.
Blair got 44%, Cameron on 37% - hung parliament territory.
Cameron insulting the Norfolk tories ie. ‘Turnip Taliban’.
Where are the 7% that Blair got that Cameron isn’t getting?
LOL yes i always rely on MORI
I learned the hard way when i was labour!
Con are still 10% clear min…..
LOL yes i always rely on MORI
I learned the hard way when i was labour!
Con are still 10% clear min…..
288 - Agreed. Would have been one of the most amazing comebacks in sporting history, if we’d beaten South Africa in the final, after they nil’d us earlier on in the tournament.
I was in London on the day of the QF against Australia, never have I seen London with so many few Australians about, after the result.
I thought we treated Brian Ashton shabbily post world cup.
289 gabble you are are named in the team we beat today scunthorpe…
The Sunday Telegraph - ‘The Iraq Files’ - There will be some in the government having a sleepless night for a long time if the documents are gradually released like with the expences fies…….
282 - go and shout that on any high street in the land, and see how many takers you have?!! Your entertainment value on here is priceless Gabble.
It’s not just that ICM had a lead of 13% on the same day as this poll. YouGov had a lead of 14% two days earlier and ComRes a lead of 14% three days earlier.
Is it really likely that the true position could have moved 8% in two or three days?
I’m going to stick my neck out and say that this is the closest Labour will get to parity with the Conservative before the General Election.
296. Mike L
No. I think the lead is still about 14%. It’s just the way Mori only use the the 100% certain to vote in their headline figures.
It’s a method that is more useful when the GE is imminent but fairly useless when it could still be 6 months away.
WHY was it delayed? Is there something fish about this poll?
Apologies for the monstrously long post - which is for Gabble.
I thought I would post this whilst he is in a good mood and the risk of infuriating him reduced. Everyone else just scrollpast…
GABBLE,
At the risk of reigniting an old argument I will explain why I have ‘failed’ to ‘condemn’ the ‘appalling attack’ on Sarah when she was called ‘blatantly thick’.
Firstly, I don’t think it justifies the tag, ‘appalling’. Be clear. I don’t approve. I don’t agree. But in my view it’s a relatively innocuous mass floating down the sewer of political abuse that has flowed through British politics since Labour, Mandy, Brown, Campbell, Balls, McBride et al tipped their buckets of slime into the system.
High level abuse - I still l feel the need to express an opinion. And have done so. I do it as much for the sake of preventing politics from slipping further into the mire.
The low level stuff I leave alone. Not just on the grounds that Labour set the rules, dirtied the pitch and fouled the pond in order to sully their opponents and can’t expect their intended victims to pull them out and hose off the filth when they fall into their own mire but also because, in the emotional defence of Sarah from petty low level insults, there is a hint of misogyny.
There is a long history of British consorts of either sex having to tread a fine constitutional line and when failing to do so, being the subject of public resentment. Sarah’s actions have gone beyond that of mere consort. She has cultivated an individual political persona in her own right and deployed it, on her own, both on the campaign trail and the conference stage. This goes beyond looking nice in a photo with your partner.
She is a highly trained experienced PR professional who specialised in politics. I very much doubt that a man with such a background would be excused from understanding the fairly obvious consequences of his own actions. What if this was Jacqui’s husband? Was Denis, an experienced successful businessman who stood quietly in the background, excused from being cast as a fool.
Sarah has modelled some of her actions on another political spouse, her friend, Michelle Obama. This is in itself a problem for me. We don’t have a US Presidential system and I don’t want one. We don’t vote, constitutionally, for a person. If we did her husband would have no business being in post. The Americans had an opportunity to reject the man and indeed his wife and her role, before he took office. Sarah has copied a role the British public has not endorsed, for a man they have not voted for.
I give Sarah credit for being the experienced PR professional she is and for taking active decisions rather than being a passive vessel. In questioning and criticising the enhancement of her role, in firmly believing she understands it and has chosen it, I give her far more respect that those who seek to assert her haplessness.
And there is a real risk in this situation for Sarah.
Women know VERY WELL that their femininity can be used to protect them. ALL of us have known, pretty much since birth.
I never thought I’d praise Cherie Blair be here goes. She regarded herself as an equal and received the abuse that came along with it - as if she were a chap. Only once did she do the teary woman bit. I respect her for that. She frequently demonstrated poor judgment and over stepped the mark as a consort but it never occurred to me that I couldn’t criticise her lack of good sense because she had ovaries. Speaking personally, I have a horrible suspicion Sarah wants the best of both worlds; respect for her opinions and exemptions as a woman.
We can’t have it both ways.
I hope I am wrong because my respect for a woman whose decisions I strongly disagree with might well turn to something akin to anger. I think we saw in newspaper reports post conference, that some women are already there.
When you enter a game you are a specialist in, on behalf of a dirty player, you can’t expect people to continue to believe you are a sweet innocent without inviting them to think that you are, at least a little bit…’stupid’.
You can’t have it both ways. And I think she knows that because I don’t think she is stupid.
299. See 172 above.
Bob Worcester:
“If you want a reputable poll that has a weekend omnibus, and you publish a Sunday paper, as the Observer is as you may have noticed, you have to wait until ? (fill in the blank)”
299. Well, as Bob Worcester said at 172, I guess it’s because the Observer doesn’t publish on Monday - Saturday?
What is a weekend omnibus?
Gabble = boring
when we get in next year we will lock all people like gabble up and:
- abolish all spongers
- put vat up to 30%
- eliminate the lowest earning/spongers 10% by stopping their benefits
- as a result reduce the higher rate tax to 20%
cheerio inferior people!!!
263 Chris A
There is no ignominy in being sent down from Oxford. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Evelyn Waugh, Dr Samuel Johnson and John Betjeman all left Oxford early without completing their degrees.
The problem with Sally Bercow are the reasons for her early exit: “falling behind with her studies and rowing with her tutors”.
Compare this with Dr. Johnson who caused offence by refusing to pay a two penny fine for missing a lecture, declaring that it wasn’t worth a penny.
Or Shelley who got into trouble with University authorities for swapping babies around in their prams on the street when their mothers were looking the other way. The trigger was his decision to send a co-authored pamphlet entitled “The Necessity of Atheism” to all the bishops in the country.
301 “you have to wait until ?”
As it’s the Observer, would it be “until the cheque clears”?
303 “What is a weekend omnibus?”
The train replacement service?
Now I really am off to bed….
303 - I suspect this means they contact people at the weekend as opposed to a weekday.
On R5L earlier the Independent were saying they were running a poll saying how much less women like/trust Cameron than men. Would love to look at their data.
On MORI, I would be interested to look at the tables. Is the difference universal or in one area… so many queries. As I said earlier you need to see a series before we can declare a shift.
302:The question is why would The Observer want a poll that is a week old? surely they could ask Mori to do the fieldwork on Wednesday, Thursday or friday so that they could publish the results on Sunday.
299 No. Nobody had comissioned it. As Anthonys says - polls that fit the pattern and look utterly sound aren’t really news worthy. Thye are the opposite of exciting.
No doubt the Guardian/Osbervor saw how this would be a good story for their readership.
Too many spelling mishtakes. Now it really is time for bed.
303 Constan Trader
What is a weekend omnibus?
A ‘bendy-bus’ that runs on Sundays?
305. Good point! Very good piece of career advice for students. If you sense you are on the verge of being rusticated for some ignominious reason, do something imfamous to pre-empt it.
Possibly the same applies to cabinet ministers?
GIN @ 232,
“I would rather the Tories lose the election telling the truth than win the election lying”
… would be an easier position to maintain had the Tories not fallen into line with Labour’s fiscal stance in 2005-2007. Maybe they only did so on the grounds that “The electorate can stay irrational longer than we can stay viable” (Keynes: “The market can stay irrational longer than you stay solvent”), but that’s hardly a winning defence.
Ave it emergency budget 01.01.2010:
- vat up to 30%
- tax on alcohol bought in shops NOT PUBS increased by 500%
- all state benefits other than OAPs stopped!
- higher rate tax band and PA restictions scrapped!
- inheritance tax 75% above £300,000 on LIFETIME transfers except between husband/wife - not available in double relief to other beneficiaries
- stamp duty on house sales/shares abolished
- 30% tax on credit card/borrowings not paid off in 30 days (exc mortgages) make borrowers suffer!
This is in line with the movement I have been expecting, and around which I have framed my betting. Perhaps not a million miles from where we shall end up next May.
There are plenty of people this Christmas still in work, with mortgages at nominal interest rates, who have cash to burn and are starting to feel a little more optimistic.
[308] - AnnaK, not really. This has happened with the Mori poll before, because they don’t have a permanent customer in the way that, say, ICM have for the monthly poll in the Guardian.
Therefore they have to find a customer for each poll, and sometimes this results in a delay. Not suspicious at all, then.
315.’There are plenty of people this Christmas still in work, with mortgages at nominal interest rates, who have cash to burn and are starting to feel a little more optimistic.’
Quite.
And those those people chose to answer this poll rather than the ICM/YouGov or ComRes.
Ipsos-MORI Graphs
Just had a look at these. They are certainly all over the place. They’ve had the Tories over 52% (take that not polling as high as Blair-meisters!) and as low as 37. All the other pollsters are far more stable. I - like many - are not keen on this certainty to vote question. With expenses still in the headlines, this will also distort the results as people just got fed up with politics in general.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/voting-intention/mori
299 Englander
The fieldwork dates for the IPSOS-MORI poll coincided with the ICM poll. One additional reason for the delay in publication may have been that, if two polls been published on the same day, the news effect of the MORI poll would have been diluted by the contradictory findings of ICM.
Given the large divergence from almost all recent poll findings, the Observer gains much greater traction by having a clear run during a weekend.
It seems that psephologists may be as much prone to manipulative presentation of data as climatologists.
re 315 Chris really? All of us in my NHS trust got a letter yesterday asking us if we wanted to take voluntary redundancy. I expect many more in the public sector will be getting similar letters soonish.
172. Entertaining intervention from the venerable Sir Bob, hyping his own poll with references to the ’splash’ in tomorrow’s papers.
Volatility is the newsman’s friend of course, as we saw with the ridiculous daily trackers during the conference season. Every day a poll with a story to suit someone.
In an increasingly crowded polling field and in the face of an otherwise boringly predictable political narrative, it’s great to have an approach that you know will consistently throw up results that a lazy media will jump at.
315/320. My (private sector) employer announced another 400 redundancies on Friday. Not me, yet, but you can only dodge a bullet so many times. Unemployment is a trailing indicator, so I expect 2010 to be a lot tougher than 2009 in that respect.
It is possible, though, that there’ll be a spike in economic optimism early in the year, which could have electoral implications.
It also strikes to me that if Labour were somehow to win, they’d have the devil to pay afterwards. People would expect growth, no tax rises and no spending cuts and would have absolutely no tolerance for bad news.
From UK Polling Report…
psos MORI
Finally we come to Ipsos MORI. Alone amongst the pollsters Ipsos MORI do not use any political weighting at all (that isn’t to say they don’t weight, or their figures are unweighted. They do use all the normal demographic weights like age and gender). This has two important effects – firstly, the weighting used by ICM, Populus and so on nearly always reduces the proportion of Labour voters in a sample, so the absence of weighting in Ipsos MORI polls has historically helped Labour. Since they don’t weight by it, MORI do not as standard ask about recalled vote, but when they did it showed their samples contained roughly the same proportion of people who said they’d voted Conservative in 2005 as ICM and Populus’s polls… but far more people who claimed they had voted Labour.
Following the 2008 London election when MORI wrongly showed Ken Livingstone ahead of Boris Johnson they conducted a review of their methodology. This found that their samples had too many public sector workers, something that presumably increased Labour support in their polls. Since then MORI have been weighting by public sector employment along with all their normal demographics. We have very little past vote data from MORI since them, but that which we do suggests their samples are still more Labour than Populus and ICM. Here’s the June 2008 recalled 2005 vote data for the three pollsters:
ICM: CON 19, LAB 23, LDEM 13, Oth 4, Didn’t vote 32, Ref/DK 9
Populus: CON 20, LAB 24, LDEM 13, Oth 5, Didn’t vote 30, Ref/DK 8
Ipsos MORI: CON 20, LAB 30, LDEM 10, Oth 5, Didn’t vote 27, Ref/DK 7
In October 2008 MORI showed partial figures for past vote, with the Conservatives on 23%, Labour on 31% and the Lib Dems on 10.5%.
There is more to it than that and I do suggest you read the article. It is all at:
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/faq-weighting
320. Quite. Let us not forget workers in the private sector either. Staff at Fujitsu called for strike action to protest at 1200 redundancies, a pay freeze and closure of the final salary pension scheme.
Imagine for a moment though that the people Chris describes exist in electorally significant numbers. These people then are going to be the most seriously disappointed when the QE presses shut down, and the radical rebalancing of the economy required to keep the international markets and ratings agencies in line begins.
Can Labour keep the fantasy afloat till June?
Chris A - I’m sorry about your circumstances - how many jobs are they actually cutting to warrant these ’scatter gun’ letters?
My train into London each morning is getting busier as the months go by, and I presume they’re not all tourists at 6am.
The Observer story on the poll
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/22/tory-lead-falls-mori-poll
I think the result of the next election will be something like C - 39%, Lab - 27%, so this poll isn’t actually that far off from that.
Nobody I know wants a Tory government next year.Yes people grumble about Brown but I’ve heard no-one say that Cameron is the answer to anything.
This is not a replay 1996/97.Perhaps people have ‘wised up’ a bit?
We’ll soon see.
I might add that the most tangible indication of the recession, for me, is not job losses but the closure of shops in the village where I live. Very sad: people lose businesses they’ve worked for years to build up, and the boarded-up windows remain. It’s grim down south.
328. Cameron is the answer to “not Brown”.
322/324 - I agree. If Labour get back (inevitably in coalition) and the brakes get slammed on - as surely they must - we shall be in for a very messy time.
I consider house prices, for instance, remain at totally unsustainable levels and have another 30% to fall. But that fall is unlikely to commence until next autumn. Cue Banking Crisis part 2.
More discussion in the Observer:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/22/hung-parliament-election-mori-poll
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/22/leader-david-cameron-general-election
The programme to manage electoral expectations progresses as expected. The byelection in Glasgow was heavily rigged. Now the polls follow. By election day a hung parliament will appear to be a likely outcome.
Brown will resign presumably.
Mandelson will become the new gauleiter. In alliance with the Lib Dems he will become PM, sign the UK into the Euro and head for Brussels as President five years later.
But before they rig the general election, they have to create the right expectations, or people will smell a rat. Right now sites like this are cooperating with these ludicrous figures by treating them seriously.
SallyC
I wrote a long justification but I can’t be bothered posting it.
Your arguments haven’t changed. My arguments haven’t changed.
You seem to be saying that if Samantha Cameron introduces her husband at next year’s tory conference, then you would not condemn anybody for calling her ‘blatantly thick’ and you wouldn’t find it ‘appalling’.
I simply disagree with you. I would consider it to be ‘appalling’ and I would condemn it, as would any reasonable person.
Such a dramatic change - 17 point lead to 6 point lead, and the only thing that’s happened is Labour winning in a dead-cert seat for them? Unless this is repeated in other polls, this strikes me as a statistical outlier and certainly not relevant for this week considering it’s very delayed in publication.
I’d rather wait and see what happens next week as the effects of Brown’s humiliation (again) over Parliamentary expenses sinks in, as well as the row about elderly care.
At best this can only be a flash in the pan.
http://cogitodexter.wordpress.com
[323] - But Tapestry, now that the EU-cabal have demonstrated that their brain implants work on Cameron [see his refusal to promise a referendum ona ratified treaty] why would they need to run the risk of rigging the UK general election?
328 - Matthew:
I’d be fascinated to know where you live. Where I live everyone votes either Tory or UKIP.
207.”Commanders reported that the Army’s main radio system “tended to drop out at around noon each day because of the heat”. One described the supply chain as “absolutely appalling”, saying: “I know for a fact that there was one container full of skis in the desert.”
I think I know why that happened.
323
The narrative that Cameron is a europhile is part of the game…even while they take measures to eliminate him.
It’s a clever ruse, but it isn’t true. To detoxify the Tory brand he pretended to be europhile, to get media support. Now he is declaring his hand openly that renegotiation is his plan, and possibly a referendum in the longer term, they are blocking him with the Hung Parliament’ rigging strategy.
So suddenly we’re heading towards a hung parliament, and Scotland have a decent rugby result for the first time since the fall of Byzantium. All is right with the world at last.
339. Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but is that a spoof blog?
The possibility of a hung Parliament is good news for Labour and the Tories in Scotland, terrible news for the SNP and the Libdems. It will focus the voters minds, increase turnout while polarising the vote between the Tories and Labour, thus squeezing the Libdems and SNP until the pips squeak. So I am quite happy with a poll like this.
It’s a shame there aren’t some more polls appearing in the next few days. Brown enjoyed a bounce in the polls almost exactly 12 months ago. Some of us commented it might be his best chance but the argument he would be cutting and running probably proved too much. The same doesn’t apply now. It is difficult to see how things would improve for Labour in the new year (VAT rises and tax/N.I increases, continued toll from Afghanistan, constant attack from the Sun and possible double dip recession etc). A snap election might just rescue Labour from polling disaster if this poll is proved not to be an outlier.
342. Well, at least you tried manfully (or womanfully) to keep a straight face while you were saying all that. A six point fall in the Tory share of the vote, and a ten point fall in the Tory lead, is “good news for the Tories in Scotland”. Okay…
This poll seems to be getting a very wide coverage in the media.
The herd should look on the bright side, soon the headlines will be ‘Tory lead doubled!’, or worse.
The poll was a week ago after gordon had had his best week in years, due to sun silliness and BBC bias. This week he has had the queen’s speech which by any estimates went down like a lead balloon. I think if you asked people today the result would be dramatically different.
The Telegraph’s Iraq story at 207 is deadly for HMG. Leaders have been hung for less. It’s going to be very interesting to see how it pans out over the next few days.
The Telegraph’s Iraq story at 207 is deadly for HMG. Leaders have been hung for less. It’s going to be very interesting to see how it pans out over the next few days.
345 A proper post Queen’s speech poll would probably do that Gabble, but as you imply the media are desperate for a narrative change.
“Lord Mandelson tells Gordon Brown: make me foreign secretary”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6927006.ece
344.Not at all, I was saying the same thing in JackW’s last ‘Against the grain’ thread yesterday before I even knew the outcome of this Mori poll.
The single point lead may not last long but at least it will give people cause to re-examine some of tories’ mistakes - and there’s plenty of them.
For example:
“Cameron has not been allowed to forget the “cast-iron guarantee” for a referendum on the Lisbon treaty and the legalistic but unconvincing excuse that the treaty is no longer a treaty but a piece of European law.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/22/henry-porter-conservatives-general-election
341. If it is a spoof it’s a damned good one!!!
349 As if to prove my point, Just look at the BBC desperate to give Brown a wonderful photo opportunity in Cumbria. No questions asked about money for flood defences over the past 12 years. Adoring pictures of (in all liklehood coordinated labour supporters) “local” residents.
351. Of course it could also have been a Malcolm impersonation - “This poll is good for the Tories. All polls are good for the Tories.”
“If a Tory victory looks likely, that’s good for the Tories. If a hung parliament looks likely, that’s good for the Tories. If a Labour victory looks likely, that’s good for the Tories.”
As far as the possibility of a hung parliament being “terrible” for the SNP and Liberal Democrats is concerned, my own view for a while now has been quite simple - the worse the Tories do across the UK, the better it is for the SNP. And far be it from me to say anything encouraging about the Lib Dems, but the idea that the prospect of a hung parliament isn’t good news for the Lib Dems is somewhat eccentric. A hung parliament is their holy grail.
“What women want… and it may not be Dave”
“To borrow from a well-used abbreviation on the mothers’ forum site Mumsnet, the response to David Cameron’s online chat with the parenting website this week was a BFN – a Big Fat Negative.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/what-women-want-and-it-may-not-be-dave-1825560.html
355.Sorry, I was debating this very point yesterday before this poll saw the light of day. I have always maintained that the closer the polls were to a hung Parliament scenario, the more chance there was of the vote polarising between Labour and the Tories pushing up turnout as well.
356 - Polling figures from ComRes:
Analysis of the past five months of ComRes polls for the IoS and The Independent shows that, when only men are taken into account, the Tories are on 41 per cent, 18 points ahead of Labour on 23 per cent, with the Lib Dems on 20 per cent. This would give Mr Cameron a majority in the Commons of 128. But when only women are taken into account, the Tories drop three points to 38 per cent, Labour are up four to 27 per cent and the Lib Dems are on 19 per cent. Mr Cameron’s Commons majority would be a rather more modest 24. The analysis also confirms that women are more likely to be floating voters.
356.Gabble, its odd, but the most positive reaction to Cameron among friends and family comes from women.
358.This has been raised before, and yet personal experience is telling me the total opposite.
356 Yes, Labour certainly got their people on mumsnet. They had to really after Brown’s disaster.
357. History stubbornly refuses to bear that theory out, Christina. Before the formation of the SDP, when was the highest post-war Liberal showing? That’s right - February 1974, the only election since the war to produce a hung parliament. The Liberals’ second highest post-war showing was in…yes, October 1974, which produced a wafer-thin Labour majority of 3. And in 1992, when there was a clear expectation from beginning to end of a hung parliament, the Liberal Democrats increased their share of the vote appreciably over the course of the campaign.
So close elections appear to have the opposite effect from what you think. Why? Well, my best guess is that they do indeed focus attention on the choice between Labour and Tory…and that focus leads a large section of the electorate to the epiphany of what a thoroughly unsatisfactory choice that is.
359. ChristinaD
We won’t agree but I think there’s something smarmy about him, probably down to his PR background. He speaks well but says very little.
It doesn’t surprise me that women are sceptical. Blair had the same problem.
363. I’d have said the opposite was true of Blair - there was quite a bit of anecdotal evidence that women were more likely to have been taken in by the “oh, I’ve completely forgotten to put my mug down before meeting the press” wheeze after Leo was born. But it’s encouraging to see that women appear to have sussed Cameron, who is after all essentially Blair Mark II.
You can see why Tim so despises Hannan this would at a stroke remove the Gravy Train that Labour is relying on, remove a lot of the reliance on the state that Labour relies on and start to make people more self reliant
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/6622384/Daniel-Hannan-EU-is-in-a-democratic-mess.html
363.Gabble, I think that men should stick to a male view rather than second guessing women, it never ends well.
I been struck by the way that Cameron has won over a few converts around my group of female friends and family. Got one that is voting Tory for the first time simple because they want to give Cameron a chance, and only a couple of days ago another SNP female relative raved about how well Cameron came across in the PPB. Purely anecdotal I know, but interesting none the less.
364.James, all those thinking that Cameron is a Blair mark II are going to be disappointed. Very interesting Straight Talk with Portillo this week, he thinks that Cameron is nearer a Thatcher mark II.
367. That would indeed be even more disappointing - although of course he may not get the chance to be the Mark II of any Prime Minister.
367. ChristinaD: “…Cameron is nearer a Thatcher mark II.”
That’ll account for his unpopularity amongst women, then.
369 - Despite his (in your well-rehearsed view) manifold faults, he still isn’t quite reaching Brownian proportions of unpopularity though is he? Wonder why that is….
368&369.Well not long to wait now until the GE, and all will be revealed. Looking forward to election night on here, whatever the result, its going to an exciting roller coaster of a night. I only meant to pop on to PB.com briefly to catch up with the Sunday’s while I had a cuppa, it looks like we will have much to chatter about tomorrow judging by this poll and other stories. Nite all.
370.Hi AHM, good to see you posting, you are missed. Once again, nite all.
As a Labour voter who is in the complete minority in my social circle, there is a definite trend towards voting Tory at the next election amongst men, and voting Lab/Lib/Green amongst women.
Just to pull the last set of ICM figures from the Guardian on Cameron & Women:
Conservative Voting Intention:
Men - 41%
Women - 45%
If Conservatives Elected, would you be: (men-women)
Pleased - 33%-37%
Disappointed - 32%-30%
Bored - 11%-13%
Excited - 8%-6%
Angry - 5%-4%
Good Prime Minister:(men-women)
Gordon Brown - 34%-30%
Cameron - 48%-48%
There are more in there, but it’s late and the figures aren’t particularly different. Once again a newspaper headline is not nuanced. The underlying facts may be different. I would also point out these figures are from Nov. Other polls may be different.
370. It’s because Brown is the PM.
Brown’s satisfaction ratings with Mori dropped to 21% in July 2008.
Today it’s at 34%, joint highest (March) since December 2008.
Both Thatcher and Major had lower satisfaction ratings than Brown has achieved, so far.
Since becoming PM, Brown’s highest was 65% and lowest was 14% both with YouGov. Last YouGov was 28%.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/leaders/brown
354 re “BBC desperate to give Brown a wonderful photo opportunity in Cumbria”
Erm, you do realise Brown is Prime Minister? This means anywhere he goes he’ll get on the news, a bit like Jordan.
A very poor poll for the Tories, however one looks at it. So far there have been no changes on the GE Seats spread markets, despite Baxter and Wells projecting the Tories winning around 60 fewer seats on the strength of this poll (290 seats) than the mid-spread price (355 seats) - the largest gulf we have seen for a very long time. Surely, something has to give and soon - if the tide really is turning towards Labour, even modestly, I would expect their spread to increase by at least 10-15 seats in the short term and for the Tories’ spread to fall by around the same extent.
What other markets are likely to move on the back of this poll?
Despite much ribbing of Rod Crosby, Betfair’s NOM odds of 3.2/1 (already down from a recent peak of 4/1)look increasingly attractive as an all round, especially for those of us who has been betting on individual constituencies in the belief that any Labour seat with a majority of 6,000-8,000 was threatened by the Tories.
Although the chances of an early GE have increased, there doesn’t appear to be much value in Ladbrokes 9/2 offering against a March 2010 poll, but wind the calendar forward by just one month and their price of 50/1 against February looks distinctly tasty - yes I know all the arguments against a winter poll, but for 50/1 and can anyone doubt that Brown would not hesitate should he be confident of he achieving a hung Parliament - surely his optimum expectation and frankly what would represent an excellent result for Labour after 13 years in office.
Hmm…. possibly lots of new opportunities opening up.
Here is an alternatve theory:
The Observer headline misleads: it isn’t Poll boost for PM, it is Poll boost for Labour, PM still loathed. It might therefore make Brown’s position less secure. At the moment no one wants to depose him just for the chance of leading Labour to a crushing defeat, but say there is a chance of a hung parliament and another GE late next year then the chance for any Brown successor to get an overall majority in that second GE is not nil. . Add to the mix that Mandelson still obsessively wants to be Foreign Secretary (and will do a deal with anyone who will offer him that job). If another poll confirms this one as far as voting intention goes and also shows even a very slim possibilty that another leader would do better than Brown and he starts to look seriously insecure, surely.