Guest slot: Do governments always recover in the polls?
December 23rd, 2007
Andy Cooke challenges the received wisdom
One of the most widely held items of received wisdom is “The opinion polls always swing back towards the Government as the Election approaches”. That mid-term blues will always overemphasise an Opposition’s performance in the polls and these will wear off as the Parliament winds down towards the next election.
Received wisdom can well be right - there is always a reason somewhere along the line that any given fact ends up as received wisdom. But sometimes it can be wrong. Usually when this happens it was a truth that has worn off, that has gradually ceased to be so, leaving only the story of its presence behind.
The thing is - in cases such as these, many people still end up betting on defunct received wisdom, which leaves a whopping great opportunity for the more questioning among us. The trick is, of course, to identify which items in the pantheon of received wisdom remain valid and which are now dead. Whether you agree with the thrust of this article or you don’t, at least it should cause you to question this belief - so if you remain a believer, at least you will now be more confident in your belief.
So - let’s have a look at “The opinion polls always swing back to the Government.” The main reason that this popped up a bit of a flag for me is that when I noticed this argument, I thought - hang on. I don’t thing that they did last time. The long period of Tory rule meant that a swing towards the Government was exactly equivalent to a swing towards the Tories. If the rule was valid, there should have been such a swing towards Labour in the last two elections - which doesn’t appear to be so.
Let’s look at the facts. As is frequently pointed out, it’s very difficult these days to compare polls from before the “great methodology change” of 1992-1997. However, MORI have pretty much sustained their “all adults naming a party” methodology and to their great credit have made available their archives back to 1983. This provides a decent baseline for the traditional methodology (the one under which the “rule” was coined).
ICM were the pioneers of the new weighting methodologies, with “spiral of silence” adjustments, first applied in 1994. They have made available their archives since 1990 and they have retrospectively adjusted their 1992-1994 figures to meet the new methodology (Thanks to Anthony Wells at ukpollingreport for making all of these figures available in a very convenient form). Accordingly, we can compare equivalent polls from a Tory Government to the last two Labour Governments in order to see correlations in swingback between midterm and polling day.
For each, what we’d expect to see is the Government (after a short honeymoon period) losing support until the mid-term and then turning it around and steadily recovering until the polls. Individual polls should vary about this tendency, but comparing the average score for the middle year of the Parliament with the following election should provide the data that we’re after.
MORI - LONG BASELINE (1983-2005), “TRADITIONAL” METHODOLOGY
1979-1983 Parliament
Mid-term (calendar year 1981) average: Con 29.5, Lab 36.5, Lab lead 7%
1983 Result: Con 44, Lab 28, Con Lead 16%
So a swingback to the Government (or the Tories) of 11.5% as against the mid-term polls
Note: The “Falklands Effect” must have had some level of influence upon this result - so at least some of the swing to the Conservatives would be over and above the “underlying” recovery
1983-1987 Parliament
Mid-term (calendar year 1985) average: Con 35.5, Lab 35.5, Lab lead 0%
1987 result: Con 43, Lab 32, Con lead 11%
A swingback to the Government (or the Tories) of 5.5% as against the mid-term polls
1987-1992 Parliament
Mid-term (June 1989-June 1990): Con 36.5, Lab 48, Lab lead 11.5%
1992 result: Con 43, Lab 35, Con lead 8%
A swingback to the Government (or the Tories) of 9.75% as against the mid-term polls
Note: The near death of the third Party and its recovery as the Parliament wound on has to have had some effect. Again, I suggest that the recovery of the Tories was enhanced by this
1992-1997 Parliament
Mid-term (June 1994-June 1995): Con 24.5, Lab 56, Lab lead 31.5%
1997 result: Con 31, Lab 44, Lab lead 13%
A swingback to the Government (or the Tories) of 9.25% as against the mid-term polls
So far … so what? The rule seems to be working fine. Strong correlation between the rule and reality - at least 5% swingback for the Governing Party, enhanced by winning wars or events such as near-demise of the third Party mid-term. However - we’ve only explored the situation for a Tory Government. We could equally argue that a rule stating “there is aways a swingback to the Tories from mid-term to polling day would be equally valid. To seperate the two conditions, we need to explore what happens with a change of Government. And now we have a change of Government and we can “press to test”
1997-2001 Parliament
Mid-term (calendar year 1999) average: Con 27, Lab 53, Lab lead 26%
2001 Result: Con 33, Lab 42, Lab Lead 9%
So a swing away from the Government (or towards the Tories) of 8.5% as against the mid-term polls. Hmm.
2001-2005 Parliament
Mid-term (calendar year 2003) average: Con 29, Lab 43, Lab lead 14%
2005 result: Con 33, Lab 36, Lab lead 3%
So a swing away from the Government (or towards the Tories) of 5.5% as against the mid-term polls. Again.
Maybe it’s isolated to MORI. Let’s look at the ICM results.
ICM - SHORTER BASELINE (1992-2005), “MODERN” METHODOLOGY
1992-1997 Parliament
Mid-term (June 1994-June 1995): Con 29.5, Lab 49, Lab lead 19.5
1997 result: Con 31, Lab 44, Lab lead 13%
A swingback to the Government (or the Tories) of 3.25% as against the mid-term polls
Okay - still a swingback to the Government - if not as strong as the MORI polls showed.
1997-2001 Parliament
Mid-term (calendar year 1999) average: Con 30, Lab 48, Lab lead 18%
2001 Result: Con 33, Lab 42, Lab Lead 9%
So a swing away from the Government (or towards the Tories) of 4.5% as against the mid-term polls. Again - a swing away from the Labour Government - less pronounced than the MORI figures show, but definitely not the 5%+ swingback to the Government that we’d expect and that those that cite the rule tend to imply.
2001-2005 Parliament
Mid-term (calendar year 2003) average: Con 32, Lab 38, Lab lead 6%
2005 result: Con 33, Lab 36, Lab lead 3%
So a swing away from the Government (or towards the Tories) of 1.5% as against the mid-term polls. Again a swing away. Again, noticeabley less in magnitude than under the traditional polling system (so we could assume that the “new methodology” acts to dampen large swings in public opinion). But that swingback that we expected is once again absent - any swing here is away
FURTHER BACK
Getting data from further back is very difficult. It appears that the 1974-1979 Parliament had very variable poll scores - to the point where Labour was level in the polls with the Tories in 1978 - but 7 points behind by the election in 1979. This doesn’t really fit with the rule - which tends to be quoted as implying an inexorable pendulum, shifting opinion away from the Government until it bottoms out in mid-term and then swinging steadily back towards the incumbents. Of course, there would be some variation around this central pattern - but the fluctuations between 1978 and 1979 would seem too large to be a variation around a trend of swingback to the Labour Government.
The Feb-Oct 1974 Parliament was rather abbreviated - the “mid-term” would have been May/June 1974. The only data that I’ve got is that before the campaign (end of August/start of September) “Opinion polls showed Labour running 10 points clear of the Tories” (from the BBC website). Their 3.5 point lead in the actual election shows a swing away from the Labour Government from that point of 3.25%.
The last time that I can say with confidence that the “rule” worked for a Labour Government was the 1966-1970 one. And even that one had a surprise swing away from Labour at the end.
CONCLUSION
My conclusion? The rule came about because it was true - at least until 1970. Maybe even to 1979 - with some exceptions that tested it somewhat. It has broken since then. Every election since Maggie Thatcher walked in to Downing Street has seen a stronger showing by the Tories at the ballot box than their mid-term polling levels. And a weaker performance for Labour. Under “traditional” polling methods, swings to the Tories of 5.5%-12.5% have been recorded - averaging over 8% swing in the Tories favour (9% when in Government, 7.5% when out of Government). Under the “new” polling methods, the size of these swings is less - but the direction is the same.
Why has it changed? I don’t know. That’s the realm of speculation. It would be very nice to know why, however. These figures have shown the death of the “Swing to the Government” rule and its regeneration (like a wounded Time Lord) into a “Swing to the Tories” rule. It would be nice to know if this rule also comes with a sell-by date as well.
There may yet be a swingback. But I wouldn’t put my faith in the rule that “Governments always recover from mid-terms”. They don’t - especially, it seems, if the rosettes worn are red. Bet with your head on the trends you see, and don’t assume that there is a pendulum acting for the Government (or even, despite the apparent trend that we’ve seen above, for the Tories).
1 - The swingback rule has not worked for recent Labour Governments; instead there has been a “swingaway” effect.
2 - Even if this has been an aberration, the “new polling methodology” tends to dampen such swings; a swingback to the Tories under MORI of 9.25% (1992-1997) was only 3.25% under ICM.
Andy Cooke
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Thanks Andy. This is one of those pieces of received wisdom that has been about for so long that I don’t think people even check the numbers. I had a long discussion on this here before the 2005 election which proved to be very provocative.
I think you do have to be a bit careful using polls in this way. Rather than comparing the mid-term polls with the GE result, you should probably compare the mid-term polls with the late parliament polls, shouldn’t you? Especially with Mori’s “all naming a party” poll, since as turnout has dropped this has put it more and more out of kilter (therefore “exaggerating” the swing back to the Tories). Of course a close election and high turnout, and it could be back to being “the Gold Standard”!
*as turnout has dropped, and differential turnout has increased
One thing that is true, almost definition, is that Govt’s will recover from their (isolated) polling lowpoints (assuming no institutional bias in the polls). The problem with the conventional wisdom is that it assumes that the polling lowpoint will occur in midterm.
IMO the problem with the received wisdom has come about primarily from Labour’s “365 days a year, 4-5 years a parliament” campaigning approach to Govt.
2 - Alex - surely the GE result is exactly the thing that should be compared to as it is the only opinion poll that actually counts.
5 - The article makes the claim that if Mori’s poll showed, say 30 Con, 50 Lab mid-term but the election showed 35 Con 45 Lab then there has been a swing to the Conservatives. But if the pre-election poll showed 30 Con 50 Lab then there has been no swing. All there is is polling bias.
Agreed that it isn’t a rule but problem with looking at polls over last 15 years is that the Tories, until Cameron, tended to be the ones polling badly over that period so we haven’t recent polling to see if Tory election recovery would still occur from a leading position and increase the Tory margin.
As Alex says differential turnout has an impact and Labour voters haven’t been stimulated to vote by threat of Labour losing.
Thanks Andy - a very well researched and very interesting guest article.
2 comments:
The first (trite) point is that I’ll happily take a further swing from Lab to the Tories on what is currently our mid-term position!
Secondly, and more seriously, I wonder if the swing from Lab to Con after each mid-term since Maggie came to power has more to do with the perception of both parties and the propensity of voters to vote in their own interest rather than some altruistic ideal.
I suggest this, because for much of the 80s and 90s, the Conservatives were perceived as a party of relative self-interest compared to Labour. Thus in the mid-terms when it didn’t count, voters could respond to pollsters according to their moral desire to help their fellow citizens. Yet when it came to polling day and their vote really mattered, they voted according to their own interest and/or the received wisdom following the 1970s that Labour were poor in government and bad for the economy (ie the truisms that “you’re better off under the Conservatives”, “Labour isn’t working working”, etc”.
It all changed in 1992 when the Conservative reputation for competence was destroyed economically.
The interesting thing now is that with DC decontaminating the brand, and Labour seeming intent on destroying any remaining shred of competence with the voter (and economic clouds a-gathering), the position is changing again and voters may vote Tory next time with a glad heart as well as a restored confidence on their competence against Labour’s performance.
So I think the swing to Conservative will continue, and will stick my neck out to call the next election 42:31
Interesting article Andy. My theory based on your figures and a long memory is that in polls respondents only judge the government-not the opposition- and generally on the way they feel at that moment. In a real election they also judge the national situation and what the alternatives are.
Thus the Tory governments have been so arrogant and grotesque (particularly Thatcher’s) that the response in mid term polls has been to say ‘We hate you!’. Two years later at the real election voters consider the opposition and decide reluctantly that they havent a realistic alternative.
When Labour were in power uniquely people didn’t hate the government. They both liked them and thought them competent. But when the real election came round they were such cast iron certainties that some of their supporters didn’t bother to vote.
9. I think there is a lot of truth in that post Robin
9 - “Two years later at the real election voters consider the opposition and decide reluctantly that they havent a realistic alternative.”
I always suspected that Roger had voted for Thatcher…
Sorry 8.
11. alex. I’m talking about what my headmaster used to call ‘The great unwashed’!
Roger, your theory could work for 2001, and I would accept that the majority in 1997 might have been diminished because voters were so sure that Labour would win. It doesn’t explain 2005 though, and offers the current Government no solace for the next election.
“Interesting article Andy. My theory based on your figures and a long memory is that in polls respondents only judge the government-not the opposition- and generally on the way they feel at that moment. In a real election they also judge the national situation and what the alternatives are.”
This is undoubtedly largely the case (outside of party conferences, elections of new leaders etc). However as i and others have suggested when commenting on recent polls, the twin factors of the rise of the LibDems and changes in polling methodology to flag up the presence of minor parties have served to make a very different environment.
There are so many unique features of the political situation at the moment that it would surely be very unwise to draw ANY lessons from the past.
Labour have slumped in the polls but the extent to which the Conservatives have been the beneficiaries of this is open to question - there is clearly something else driving the rise in the Conservative poll share.
Labour’s 36% share at the last election is a massive spanner in any theories, because for a governing party to be that low is unprecedented. Even if there is the “traditional” recovery, to what level will that recovery be? To sustain theories of Labour advancing to a sufficient extent to be a viable governing party all sorts of assumptions have to be made about attracting voters who deserted them in 2005. That’s even before we move on to the possibility that the threat of a Conservative Govt could galvanise their core voters… and make very little difference to the parliamentary arithmetic.
13 -
Roger. I’ve always thought you secretly harboured a great deal of respect for the lower classes - i can see that you’re impressed that they were always able to see past their prejudices and vote with their heads rather than their hearts! 
A very well-researched article, Andy, the kind I would have written myself! You are to be congratulated on your rigorous analysis.
However, I’m sure you can see an obvious conclusion that I can only imagine you have consciously chosen to omit!
Far from casting any doubt on the received wisdom, you have admirably demonstrated its truth, provided one unspoken assumption is present….
“The opinion polls always swing back towards AN UNPOPULAR Government as the Election approaches…”
The Labour governments of 1997-2001 and 2001-2005 were unique in recent history because of their remarkable avoidance of the usual difficulties (mostly economic or fratricidal) that befall governments. Combine this with the near-extinction of the Tories during this period, and we might see why the swingback trend was “bucked.”
There was no swingback because (by definition) there was no unpopularity to swing back from…. Simple.
14. I think 2005 was unique in that Iraq dominated. My guess is that it lost Labour somewhere between 5-7% of those who would otherwise have been certain to vote Labour. Most to minor parties.
For the future I don’t know. My guess is that Cameron has to do much more before he’ll be the shoo in many on here expect
17 - Was the Thatcher govt of ‘83-’87 really “unpopular”?
19. You’re younger than I thought alex. They were poison!!
Always very interesting to look at the past, too try to guestimate, the future, interesting, but accurate?
Politics is not physics, there are no iron rules, events can so often de-rail the most well thought out theory.
Extrapolation is a very dangerous game, if for instance you were to graph the growth of gas lighting from 1840 to 1880, you could show quite convincingly that by 1950 the whole of the UK would have gas lighting, then up pops electricity, and by 1950 nobody had gas lighting.
When looking at future political trends, never forget the sad fate of Bruce Douglas-Mann and the Alliance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Rumbold
Third term governments, seem to be the prisoners of events, buffeted this way and that.
20 - What were the particular features that marked it out for you?
19. As measured by opinion polls and by-elections, very much yes.
However Labour was still on the ropes, with the problems of Scargillism, Militantism and the London loony left.
I think there was a time during 1985-6 when the Tories were third in the polls.
I remember the classic Guardian headline from this period:- “Alliance zoom to 266 seats - on a computer.”
6. Alex, surely that is rather a large assertion to make? Is it really more intuitive to say that polling in between elections is wrong due to bias, than to say that people in between elections change their minds and / or lie to pollsters? All polls measure, in reality, a snapshot of opinion at the time - usually in the context of there being no election imminent. Campaigns however really focus the mind and end up making voters adjust their behaviour.
More importantly, governments in mid-term tend not to put as much effort into their public relations as they do in, say, the last year before an election. They change their tone and sometimes offer big policy or budgetary gifts. Blair’s government was unique in the sheer amount and consistency of the spin emanating from them throughout a parliament and not just at its close. This was the big revolution from before - politicians actually caring about mid-term polling.
24 - I think you’ve misunderstood the point i made.
Thanks for an interesting article.
“A party must be x% ahead mid term to beat the government” is certainly not a hard and fast rule. It is just something the media have always liked to say.
But similarly until this year all university educated PMs since the war had been to Oxford. That did not imply that those who had not been to Oxford were particularly unlikely to be PM. It’s just that over the last few decades history had panned out that way.
Historical patterns are there to be broken. They are only patterns, not rules.
23 - But this was more about the Alliance, surely, rather than Govt unpopularity per se?
9 Interesting points, though I disagree with grotesque (but I would). The first week in October can be seen as an example of voters hardening their opinions as likelihood of an election approaches - so in silly season when politics is unimportant and press were lauding the new Broom/Brown people when polled went along with the narrative.
However at end September an Autumn election looked very likely and potential voters started to consider seriously how they would vote, on basis of their view of the future, of the Government’s performance and in view of that how it would perform in next parliament (voters rarely seem to vote on basis of what’s been achieved but more on who will serve their interests better in future).
We then got a better view of how people would really vote - support for minor parties dropped and the discontented moved behind Cameron - the Conservative Conference providing sufficient credibility for that to occur. Helped I think by a revising of the perception of the Labour Conference by political journalists and commentators. Had Brown not bottled it I think he would have scraped home but the underlying discontent with the Government, shown by the support of only 35.3% in 2005, might well have meant only as the largest party, possibly second in popular vote.
25. Apologies, you are right I misread your comparison! Although this does raise the issue of changes from mid-term and changes from the last few days of the campaign, i.e. were the polls actually wrong in 1992?
27. No, the government was VERY unpopular, the Labour party was unpopular and the Alliance seemed to be doing very well. (I think they were briefly first in the polls.) I can assure you no seat forecast can show the third party doing so well unless the Tories are doing disastrously.
As an aside, the Guardian forecast was made using the zany Baxter method of “proportional loss”….
6, alex, (on swingback/away to the corresponding company poll) - I had considered that, but decided to go with this method because:
(a) - People tend to quote the rule as against the actual result rather than the shift in polls. E
(b) - There was still a small swingaway even under the that technique for 2001-2005 (the “swingaway” under that technique for that polling system for 1997-2005 was still rather pronounced)- which still eliminated the swingback rule
(c) - The swingaway was still noticeable under ICM.
17, Rod,
I could think of a number of mechanisms to take the conclusions either way - but all of these were up to opinion. The “unpopular government” theory was contentious because the 2001-2005 government had become somewhat unpopular in 2003 with the Iraq War bogging down and the death of David Kelly in July 2003 for example). Accordingly, I wanted to hold entirely to the facts as shown by the numbers. As I’ve mentioned, people should feel free to hold to the “rule” because of a perceived aberration - but to do so with eyes wide open and not rely on a psephological “law of nature”
21, coldstone, indeed. The entire point is to explode the unstated and implicit extrapolation that is so often cited - that the Government will always recover in the polls. Because they most certainly haven’t always recovered in the polls.
The 1983-87 government was unpopular with its opponents, but not particularly unpopular as measured by polls (which rarely put Labour ahead by much, and quite often had the Conservatives in the lead) or by local election results (poor for the Conservatives in 1985, but quite okay in 1984 and 1986).
In fact, from the time of the Falklands War, till the end of 1989, the Government wasn’t really troubled by the opposition very much.
WRT this article, many thanks. The figures certainly back up your theory, although this may be, as Rod suggests, because the government was never unpopular. OTOH, I always thought the huge poll leads of 1997-2001 were down to polling bias, and didn’t really reflect public opinion, in which case, the theory of swingback may not have been disproved after all.
Local election results after 1997 certainly conformed to the traditional pattern, with the Conservatives recovering strongly in 1999, and taking a clear lead in 2000, only for Labour to win convincingly in 2001. Likewise in the 1001-05 Parliament.
Personally, I would anticipate that Labour’s worst polling results, and local election results, will come next year, but then there will be some recovery on their part.
Oh, by the way, very many thanks for the compliments (Got so involved in answering points I forgot the most basic of courtesies - I’ll plead distraction due to overexcited little ones running around here (4 and 6) asking if it’s Christmas yet!)
32 - when did the Tories start to recover local election support? Weren’t the county results in 1997 far better than 1993?
“A trend is a trend is a trend -
But the question is, will it bend?
Will it hold on its course
With irresistible force
Or suddenly come to an end?”
Perhaps someone here can source that, I think it was a senior civil servant. It’s engraved on any competent statistician’s heart, anyhow.
I’m largely in sympathy with Andy Cooke’s analysis (and the implicit conclusion that the Tories will lead the popular vote by 10% plus next time). Underlying factors include: organisation, funding (particularly locally) and determination, all of which favour the Tories most years. By determination I mean both that Tories are more likely to vote, and that their activists are more loyal in foul political weather - “steady the buffs” and all that.
I can’t think of another political party anywhere in the world that could go through what they went through 1995-2005 and still see themselves as the natural party of government.
Is not the rule of thumb that “there is always a recovery from the party behind in the polls from ‘mid-term’ to polling day”?
Obviously, mid-term is open to interpretation and would need to be interpreted fairly loosely so as to avoid one-off bounces (e.g. Brown becoming PM), while including step changes (e.g. John Major becoming PM). True, that makes the ‘rule’ subjective, but then politics is.
I’d agree with many of the points already made about the differences between peoples stated voting intentions mid-term and their actual cast votes at the election. There is almost certainly a protest vote effect in mid-term opinion polls that takes place that wouldn’t do if it were a real election. Similarly, it could be that there’s a consistent bias in the methodology.
If either of these is the case, the point is surely not that the opinion polls are ‘wrong’, but that they demonstrate a consistent feature which can therefore be factored into predicions (yes, I know that’s dangerous, but political betting tends to be predictive by its nature!). It’s only if a relationship between mid-term polls and the following election is not that reliable that it becomes a problem using this kind of rule. Though of course, there are at least two big unknown variables: when ‘mid-term’ is, and events, dear boy.
By the way, it’s not true to say that there are no iron rules of politics. There are at least two: all governments fall eventually; opposition always rises.
34 Yes, the Conservatives regained about 10 county councils in 1997. The Conservatives’ vote share in 1993 was no worse than in 1985, but anti-Conservative tactical voting ensured they suffered a much worse result.
35 The fact that the Conservative Party survived the agony of that period - despite the best efforts of some of its MPs - proves that it enjoys Divine protection.
Thanks for the article Andy , being old enough to actually have been around taking notice of polls and election results since the early 60’s , the only issue I would take with you is really in the 1974-1979 period . The 1978 point you refer to when Labour was level was not of course the midpoint of that parliament , in 1976/1977 Labour was well behind the Conservatives and losing parliamentary by elections such as Ashfield , Workington and Strechford . The by elections of 1978 still generally showed a swing from Labour to the Conservatives but rather lower .
The picture therefore was of the Labour government hitting the low point in mid term , making a recovery which reached a peak in late 1978 when Callaghan may have won an autumn election and then losing ground to lose the 1979 election . Even so the Labour performance in 1979 showed an improvement on where they were in midterm in 1976/1977 if not from where they were in late 1978 .
Thank you Andy Cooke for a very useful article. I cannot recall the last time I read any similar well researched articles in the MSM. Well done.
So the phrase “mid-term blues” will hopefully disappear from this site when talking about UK elections.
36, David Herdson,
“Is not the rule of thumb that “there is always a recovery from the party behind in the polls from ‘mid-term’ to polling day”?”
Possibly - but the 1983-1987 Parliament makes that one hard to call - on average throughout the middle 12 months they were pretty much dead level at 35.5 apiece.
38, Mark Senior,
Thanks for that. The lack of hard data was why I was unable to date the failure of the rule to 1970 or 1979. I did rather hope that readers with access to polls from that period would bring them up to clarify matters :-).
Usually governments have the luxury of waiting till the economy is right before calling elections - or giving nice little tax cuts as a pre-election sweetener. This can aid a poll recovery.
I can’t see Brown having any benefit from here though.
With the danger of a “three-in-a-row” post, I’ve just got to mention that I’ve really got to duck out for a while - sitting on the computer all morning with the kids running riot could end up with my personal popularity as a husband suffering a fatal swingaway!
32 - thanks Sean, that’s sort of what i was getting at. The finesses to the original “Govt’s recover” theory miss out a key feature of the whole theory which i think runs:
“Govt’s always slump in mid-term, and recover as the election approaches”.
In other words “real” unpopularity doesn’t necessarily come into it, the poll slump just comes by default. And when you have the polls reflecting more than just a judgement on the Govt (there was obviously substantial positive support for the Alliance at various time) the effect is magnified without any real added unpopularity.
The fact that the first part of the theory was broken in 1997-2005 (albeit with allowances made for the point about local elections - but then if we’re using local elections as the base then Labour has to recover that much further) calls into question whether Labour’s position now is more than just the “default unpopularity” that the recovery theory rests on.
That’s why i was raising the question of the extent of Thatcher’s unpopularity, outside of her most ferocious opponents.
43 - Andy, my kids are running riot too - and my wife is at work.
Personally, I blame the government for their rioting.
Have a good one!
40. Firstly, thanks also for the article - I should have mentioned it in my first post.
I suppose if it’s difficult to identify which party is behind then it’s not really possible to apply the ‘rule’ with any certainty. Generally speaking, when there’s a big lead for one side or the other, there will be an element of protest voting which ‘comes home’ when the chips are down. If no lead exists then either the voters don’t have much to protest about but are satisfied with the opposition, or (more likely) they are so disillusioned with the opposition that despite any misgivings about the government - which would have to exist for the polls to be roughly level - there are still floating voters prepared to back the government, never mind core voters. In that case, it could go either way depending on whether the government or opposition gets its act together first.
[37] Monsignor Fear assures us that the fact that the Conservative Party survived the agony of that period (1995-2005) - despite the best efforts of some of its MPs - proves that it enjoys Divine protection.
I’m sure it does, Sean, there’s no earthly explanation for it
38/42 - so really what it comes down to is how good the Govt is at timing election decisions.
So Labour can have full confidence in Gordon…
Of course the timing of elections is a KEY point to the whole theory. There is really no excuse for any govt suffering anything other that bouts of short-term (say up to 2-3 months) unpopularity to do anything other than “recover” by polling day - they’ve basically got at least a year to find a good slot.
The difficulty comes when they’re so unpopular that the PM is left looking for a slot of “short term (relative) popularity”, rather than simply making sure s/he avoids the occasional short-term troughs. The former leads to full length parliaments, and the decision being taken out of necessity rather than choice.
“Such and such a GE was a special case because…”. Possibly. But the biggest feature of the period you’ve examined has been the total dominance of two politicians–Thatcher and Blair. They’ve stood head-and-shoulders above anybody in their own party, or in their opposition.
There is now no dominant political figure. It is impossible to make meaningful polling comparisons back to a similiar period (say the Heath/Wilson era). So questioning the received wisdom is reasonable. But is it making easier to forecast the number of seats each party will win at the next GE?
Re. 38, I still wonder if a 78 GE might not have turned out to be a repeat of 1970, with a tentative recovery proving more fragile than it looked, and ending with a surprise Tory victory. Certainly the late John Golding (in his posthumously published memoir, Hammer of the Left) believed that Labour would have lost.
That said, Thatcher really needed the Winter of Discontent to happen on Callaghan’s watch - had it happened on hers, it would have been (yet again) the Conservatives who looked like the party unable to deal with the unions, not Labour.
As for what would have happened next - a coalition government made up of Whitelaw, Owen et al?
47 - The C of E really is the Tory party at prayer then?
Had an interesting chat yesterday with an elderly American who is a staunch Democrat - and Episcopalian. He said the Episcopalian church is sometimes known at the Republican party at prayer…
Off topic , ICM have done a detailed poll on the state of the Union ( there is no voting intention question ) , the detailed data is on their website . Perhaps the key question asked was ” would you like the Union of England and Scotland to continue or come to an end so that both countries become Independent ? ” Overall 69% wanted the Union to continue and only 24% wanted Independence . The Scottish subsample ( admittedly small ) showed no greater desire for Independence .
50 - Are you sure - didn’t Thatcher have significant problems with the unions in her first few years? By and large she ducked the challenge until she had been able to invest time putting the legislation in place and the resources (eg. stock piling coal) which enabled her to fight battles on her terms.
Why would her ultimate triumph over them really have been any different had she been around for the Winter of Discontent?
Does anybody know of a website where I can find maps of the new boundaries - many thanks
52 - I’ve always felt that if Scottish Independence comes it’s more likely to be as result of the English rather than the Scots. It goes a long way to providing explanations for the polls in Scotland showing the expectation of independence in the medium term running far higher than the desire for it.
50 You may be correct ( but of course we will never know ) that Labour would have lost an autumn 1978 election if not by as large amount as they did in 1979 but the point is that they would have improved their position significantly compared to what it was in midterm in 1976/1977 though not by enough to win .
FR: With your permission, Mr Smithson,
I wish to make a statement about the family’s Christmas card list which went missing some time in December. The list, which had names and addresses going back over 50 years (audible gasps) was transferred to a new computer in mid 2007. A junior member of the family, against all our regulations, used the computer and lost the data.
THE LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION:
Thankyou Mr Smithson,
When FR spent a fortune on the new computer he reassured all in this house that it was money well spent and represented a great step forward in efficiency. I warned him that the old address book had done its job adequately for over 50 years when I and my mother before me were in charge. This comes at the end of a large number of incidents - revealing our pin to the girl in Tesco, giving our mastercard number to all and sundry online - which call into question whether FR is losing his marbles and ought to hand over control of the finances to this side of the family.
FR: I’m off to get a paper.
57 -
54.
Mike, the first link gives a high level overview at ward level
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pbc/review_areas/default.asp
the second goes down to street level
http://www.election-maps.co.uk/formFrame.htm
55 True alex Table 9 in the poll shows that more people expect the Union to last 10 years or less than desire it to end .
53. The difference would have been in the perceptions of the unions’ actions. Had the Winter of Discontent happened under a Conservative government, it would have been much easier to portray the action as a fight for their members’ jobs and pay, and for public services, set against the cuts that would have been announced by then. On Callaghan’s watch, it made it clear that the unions were far more militant than that and intent on dictating to the government. It also proved that Labour, certainly at that time, was not capable of governing them and that serious reform was necessary. Without Labour failing first, Thatcher may well have ended up as a second Heath.
54 i this it?
Map Image
51 The C of E really is the Tory party at prayer then
The C of E is a very good institution for some very good reasons.
The church goers are Tories. The priests (+archbishop) are progressive socialists. It is a very good vehicle to educate the misguided tories.
It makes me laugh to think of how angty the tories get seeing women priests, homosexual priests, homosexual priests marrying each other. Wonderful!
61 - it’s obviously all hypothetical, but that does kind of assume that the unions had public support up to 1978/9 doesn’t it? Was that really the case? If we’re talking about a scenario where the Conservatives won in October 1978, then that scenario would already suggest public opinion was flowing their way, wouldn’t it?
Like i say, from my VERY hazy knowledge, my thought was that Thatcher ducked a lot of fights with the unions in the first few years anyway. It wasn’t as if she came in and started an all out war from the start. Heath didn’t lay any groundwork before he attacked. Thatcher did.
57: I thank the Honourable Gentlemen for giving way, Mr Smithson. In the light of this distressing news, and the other incidents indicating systemic failures in the FR household, can he confirm that the appropriate policies and procedures were in place to prevent the junior member of the family from having access to this personal data? And will he at least reconsider his plans for mandatory Christmas cards for all new acquaintances by 2010?
You can’t do a mail merge with an address book
You don’t have to read polls from previous years to tell you that this government is on the way out. Something as catastrophic as a war might have an impact but it’s hard to see where that is coming from right now, especially if the Democrats come to power in the US.
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com
Thanks for Andy’s very interesting anlysis. I’ve always had a different theory (based on experience in a variety of countries) from “Governments always recover”, and it’s briefly mentioned by David Herdson at 46: it’s that “the party that’s behind in mid-term usually narrows the gap”.
I’m writing in a bit of a hurry so forgive me if I’m duplicating another post (I don’t think so) or have missed something in the data, but doesn’t this pattern show up in all Andy’s examples? What was unusual in 1997-2005 was that the governing party was well ahead in the polls in mid-term, so the operation of the rule meant that the opposition was the one to recover.
Why does the rule operate (if I’m right)? Because parties fall behind for a reason or reasons, and in mid-term with no considerations of balance the media focus on them. People think, “Cor, that lot are rubbish at the moment” and the polls reflect it. Come the election, though, there’s a more balanced presentation of the attractions and (especially) flaws of both sides, and traditional loyalties and antipathies reawaken.
Before I’m accused of facile optimism, this doesn’t mean, as Andy’s examples show, that the party which is behind always catches up. But it does mean that having a 10% lead is cause for pleasure rather than firm prediction.
A final point: I think the polls themselves have an influence. The public is in general not that enamoured of any of us, and disinclined to give us huge majorities. If they see that X is miles ahead in the polls, it doesn’t produce a bandwagon effect but the reverse - supporters of X become more likely to abstain (”they’re going to win anyway and they’re not *that* good”) and opponents more likely to vote (”gotta stop a landslide for those buggers”). In fact I think you can make a case for the 1992 election having been decided like that - people did on the whole want and expect a change, but they didn’t think Labour was wonderful either, so some Labour-leaning voters stayed at home while more Tory voters came out.
64 (con) - although despite that, I have seen many suggest that the key factor which prevented her from being another Heath was the Falklands. It’s not as if the Winter of Discontent happened, Thatcher came in with a tide of permanent public goodwill on the back of it, and it was plain sailing from then on.
68 - I really think arguing that the Conservatives won in 1992 because people didn’t want to give Labour a landslide is pushing it a bit!
Doesn’t really fit in with your usual arguments against the prospect of a Hung Parliament either!
64 She certainly did. Everyone remembers the triumph of T over Scargill in 85. They don’t remember Mrs T’s humilating cave in to the Cloth Cap Colonel in 81 because she knew she had no Coal reserves and was in no position to fight
32 What do you anticipate in seats and key Councils next year (excl LM)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2231817,00.html
Here is one Labour minister who doesn’t seem to have any faith that Labour can recover enough to win the next General Election unaided. LibLab pact here we come. May be by the time of the next election they will have merged.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2231817,00.html
Here is one Labour minister who doesn’t seem to have any faith that Labour can recover enough to win the next General Election unaided. LibLab pact here we come. May be by the time of the next election they will have merged.
Sorry for the double posting and that should have been ex-minster
56 I think most feel the rsult would have been a Hung Parliament of some sort. Highly unlikely a Labour Majority. After that who knows..
76 Apart from McShane himself I know no one Labour Tory etc who takes the old fool seriously now
64. The unions certainly didn’t have universal public backing through to 1978, but the ‘Who governs?’ election were fresh enough to show that there wasn’t wholly a mood for reform at that point either. Even so, as you rightly say, the government needed to be prepared and there were enough other battles on to take on the NUM on the picket lines as well as sorting out the economy (for which coal was vital - and the NUM knew that). I do think that the Winter of Discontent was a defining moment - it showed that fundamental reform was required and it wasn’t just that the Tories couldn’t handle them.
There were of course other reasons for the Labour Party’s unpopularity at the time: the IMF crisis, high inflation and high unemployment (at least by the historical standards of 1978), negative real interest rates for savers, and in general, just a sense of malaise.
78. May be so, but didn’t Claire Short get reprimanded by the Labour whips and resign from the Labour Party after saying something not that dissimilar.
Excellent article thanks, hopefully some punters are less likely to get their fingers burned if they take note. Of course, breaking the old ‘rule’ shouldn’t mean introducing an equally breakable new one!
17 - On what planet was there no dislike of the last two governments? Okay, less so in 2001 but it was there plus Iraq and so on made the 2001-2005 government as disliked as the Thatcher ones were.
73 I’ll have to spend a few days thinking about that.
Interesting article. Thanks Andy Cooke. I subscribe to The Smithson thesis. The more the public see of David Cameron the better the Tories do in the polls. So I expect the Tories to build on their current poll lead in the heat of a General Election battle and achieve a small overall majority.
Report from yesterday’s game at Villa Park. Shrug. We woz robbed.
82 Great. I think Labour will take severe beatings in Reading and Cardiff for starters
80 Yes but Short was trouble on so many fronts. McShane is such a bootlicker otherwise I doubt they’ll worry
Since the 70’s and mid 80’s there has been a communications revolution. The breadth, variety and speed of communication has grown enormously, and the cost has crashed.
The ‘respect’ for politicians has finally gone, in the sense that now it is assumed they are wrong and warped rather than right and noble. ‘I won’t again believe a word he says,’ applies to more than Blair.
Those must have an effect on opinion polls and voting. And that makes predictions more difficult from past events.
As they say in the financial pages, past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance.
83 StJohn
It is not technically possible for Aston Villa to be ‘robbed’. It is correctly known as a justifiable redistribution of points from the greedy to the needy.
83 StJohn
It is not technically possible for Aston Villa to be ‘robbed’. It is correctly known as a justifiable redistribution of points from the greedy to the needy.
Totally OT, to get in the holiday spirit many of the bookies have various special bets for Christmas and 2008, and I thought I’d flag a few interesting one that caught my eye this morning.
Ladbrokes are offering 4/7 for Northern Rock to be nationalised.
Looking through the Sunday paper today, I saw that To The Manor Born was being heavily promoted for a one off on Xmas day, so the 10/1 they are offering for it to top the schedules versus 1/2 for Eastenders looked very good value to me, given that Vicar of Dibley won in the same slot last year, and that was up against a very high profile EE departure episode.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6209697.stm
83: yes they was.
Not least because I have 3 Villa players on my fantasy team, so after a storming November, December has been a stinker so far. If only the ref had called Agbonlahor’s shot over the line :sulk:
Man U better not concede any today - unless Cahill scores them.
87 LOL :d
90 whats the matter with smileys on this site?
The 1966-70 Parliament provides an interesting study. Wilson’s second administration hit the rocks almost immediately after the 100 seat win in March 1966. By April 1967 they had lost the GLC on a massive swing and the following year was reduced to 4 boroughs in the London elections with Hackney and Islington with no Tory councillors to a Tory majority the next day. The parliamentary by-elections were equally disastrous.
The Jenkins budget of 1970 was the prelude for Wilson calling a June election. The campaign held in brilliant sunshine had Heath trying to warn the public of the perils of another Wilson Government whilst Wilson complacently toured the country believing he was assured of victory. The polls showed a strong Labour Lead indeed if memory serves me correctly Heath was asked at the daily press conference about an NOP lead of 12% three days before polling day and he asked to whom and blanched when told it was for Labour.
Polls on the morning of polling day on June 18th showed a much narrower picture and in the event Heath won with a majority of 30.
89 - just lost all my clean sheets points, but gained a few because of who scored. Vidic hat-trick now and I’m laughing louder than Charles Clarke.
9
‘When Labour were in power uniquely people didn’t hate the government. They both liked them and thought them competent. But when the real election came round they were such cast iron certainties that some of their supporters didn’t bother to vote.’
That’s funny,of course people just loved Wilson & Callaghan!
And no hatred towards Blair over Iraq!
On another planet again?
Andy Cooke - really interesting article, thanks very much indeed!
O/T - to those who were interested in the odds of a brokered convention in the US, InTrade have opened a market.
Current prices are Democrats:(Buy 5%: Ask 15%), GOP:(Buy 15%: Ask 25%). I reckon, irrespective of likelihood, these prices will go up as the press start to speculate more and more after five primaries produce potentially five different winners (Huckabee IA, Romney NH, Thompson SC, Giuliani FL, McCain NV).
In the GOP race, Paul has overtaken Thompson in 5th, but the top four are pulling away. Odd that both the guy in fifth and the guy in sixth have more cash on hand than the third and fourth place candidates combined. Longevity looks assured.
95. But Morus. Rich people don’t get rich by throwing money away. Surely when Paul and Thompson see that their chances have gone they will throw in the towel? Or have they more money than sense?
88. Caveman. Good spot as ever. In fact 12/1 available with totesport. I’ve taken some.
95 Re paste: “131 Enjoy the trip. If you’re still there in response. Cardiff South- Interesting but thus far the Lib Dems have not cracked the Tory vote in the Vale. They did not again last May. If they can’t do that they’ll have to do it the hard way just beating Labour in Cardiff alone. But you don’t feel the Tories have a shout in a good year with all these new buidlings in the bay?
VoG. I certainly would not regard it as safe. Merely that other CW&PS, CN & Aberconwy would go first. I think a large measure of it is Smith himself who is LD like in his tenaciousness Essentially it may come down to turnout Cowbridge you mention & the rest of the Vale v Barry
by Punter December 22nd, 2007 at 3:39 pm”
Thanks for the article Andy, a very good one!
O/T-New poll in NH
Obama takes the lead, and McCain is closing the gap:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/12/23/mccain_closing_gap_with_romney/
94. The difference is I think Iraq was not a “salient” issue with the average voter, although it clearly was with sections of the intelligentsia and Muslims, minorities both. Sad though it is to say, there were many people I met who thought Iraq was a great laugh, a videogame war with a cardboard-cutout “baddie” to blow the sh1t out of… These dunderheads I would imagine were also typical Labour voters…
As long as Blair kept smiling, people kept voting for the smile…
99 I agree that Iraq wasn’t that big a deal with voters outside those two categories.
96 - More money than sense? Quite possibly.
Except for Romney (who made over a billion though setting up Boston Consulting Group after he left Bain), most of the candidates are raising money for their capaigns, and have to either spend it campaigning, or put it in a PAC and fund other candidates/causes.
Thompson might do this, but Ron Paul has made clear he is campaigning to get his agenda noticed. The only way Ron Paul drops out is if he chooses to use the money to run as a third-party candidate in the GE, which he has said (not very convincingly) he isn’t planning on doing. He will stay in the race until the convention, I reckon.
I am going to look through the history books and see the largest number of candidates ever to survive Super Tuesday. I think four viable candidates after that is probably unheard of.
101 see 97
“McCain could win New Hampshire”
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-id.infocuswest23dec23,0,3707076.story
102 - Thanks Punter. Agree on VoG - re Cardiff South: the new building in the Bay, where it is residential, is largely ‘pieds de terre’, and often not occupied by the sort of people who probably do vote Tory in their primary residence! Welsh Assembly (Labour, now in coalition with Plaid Cymru) are taking much of the creidt for the redevelopment. The Tories would have to have a very good year to take it in one.
Re: my comment at 101 - the Democrat race in 1988 saw Super Tuesday split between Jesse Jackson, Dukakis and Al Gore (5 or 6 states apiece), with Gephart getting one too. Simon won his home state of Illinois a week or so later. It was a three way race (Gore polling on only about 10% though) until New York on the 19th April. Other than that, most modern primaries have been effectively decided by Super Tuesday.
103. Me. Still 8/1 available with Skybet for Mccain to get the GOP nomination. I’ve gone in again.
With respect to the topic of this thread - a sample consisting of 6 parliaments would be too small to have reached any really sensible conclusion. Even if only two parties were involved - with the increased complexity of a stronger third (and other) parties the only sensible conclusion anyone with any scientific bent could come to would be that the margins of error are huge and thus no conclusion is possible.
105-Thanks Stjohn!
104 Oh I agree it would probably take an extraordinary slide in the Labour vote primarily not to the Tories for anyone even them to take it again in one. I was just questioning to see how you see the LDs taking it when they have made no progress attacking the Tory vote thanks to their lack of muscle in the Vale. You presume I think they can simply wear away the Labour vote in Cardiff South. On those developments pied a terres really? I thought Cardiff they’d was gaining thousands in population, and would have thought at those prices while they could be LD’s there’s less chance of them being natural Labour
Thanks for an excellent article. I think the fact that we have far fewer by elections than we used to is important too as they often have a major effect on opinion polls.
Let’s not forget that Cameron nearly came unstuck six months ago at Sedgefield and Southall.
105/107 etc
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/nh/new_hampshire_republican_primary-193.html
Race definitely tightening in NH. 8/1 good value McCain. If Huckabee wins Iowa, Romney will struggle to hold NH, and then it’s anybody’s game.
88.
I wouldn’t put you off taking the 4/7 about “The Rock” being nationalised.
I jumped in a couple of weeks ago at 4/5.
Revealed: Northern Rock chief’s secret lover
By IAN GALLAGHER and NIGEL GREEN - More by this author
Amanda Smithson from the Northern Rock’s buy-to-let division was having an affair with boss Adam Applegarth as the company headed for collapse
The former boss of beleaguered Northern Rock conducted an affair with a junior employee while the bank was heading towards collapse.
Adam Applegarth, 45, who left his post as chief executive this month, had a secret relationship with Amanda Smithson from the company’s buy-to-let division.
Suspicion had already been aroused by Mr Applegarth’s private visits to America up to six times a year, staying in the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington or New York.
An internal investigation found that on almost every occasion Ms Smithson had booked the same time off. And if it was ever suggested that he rearrange his holiday, Mr Applegarth would apparently become “touchy”.
Mr Applegarth’s position had already been weakened by his unpopularity at the top of the bank
83 stjohn - It may be just a “shrug” for you, but it’s £60 down the tubes for me. Just as well my season’s points profits are being preserved by another Midlands side, whose results are *cough* a little more dependable.
110-PtP- This scenario is the most plausible. Then we will have Huck with a win in IA, McCain with a win in NH, and I still think that Romney can win in Michigan. Very open!
Then Rudy wins Florida and maybe an open convention is on. Are there odds for this
The advantage in Andy Cooke’s article is that it is not in the MSM. So we are still likely to have the MSM repeating this adage although the real facts indicate otherwise. Called a betting opportunity. Thanks Andy.
Andy
I will try to read your words fully all through, along with the comments - haven’t time at present - because I think it is an interesting topic. I am sure someone must have come up with the fact that we are in a different era of politics now - “three and a half party politics” (now, without checking, I am not sure whether you are among the Tories who are pushing “the return of 2 party politics”). So, the key reason politically, why your conclusion suggests that the rule worked up to 1970, but been broken ever since, has been to do with the evolution of thus new politics. Which, I would argue, is why Labour are so often overestimated in polls. I notice you are comparing poll results midterm with actual outcomes. Many people midterm giving “Labour” preference are merely expressing “anti-Tory”. Nearer the time you will see polls getting closer to final outcome, and people are actually expressing a likely voting intention, and the Lib Dems climb. So your whole thesis of measuring Con vs Lab swing is based on a false premise, IMO, and you need to look at the figures in another way.
Of course, the media are also key in this - in that over the Thatcher era, the “right” became even more powerful, growth of Murdoch as a force etc. This had 2 effects - 1) That the noise from the media as an election nears is increasingly right wing (?and pro-Tory? although note Blair and NuLab trying and succeeding in disrupting this effect) and 2) The Lib Dems are ignored by the mass media over the main part of a Parliament, but start being mentioned as the election nears. So from this point of view, your observed swing to the Tories in that period would not be unexpected.
PfP. They deserved the 3 points. Hopefully we will do better at Stamford Bridge on Boxing Day. We are making the pilgrimage to your neck of the woods to see the match.
I’ve managed to sneak back on - the kids are behaving and the wife’s out shopping
49, David Kendrick “But is it making easier to forecast the number of seats each party will win at the next GE?”.
Nope - sadly not. But the point is to make it less easy to make an assumption that may push you to getting it wrong.
68, Nick P. The “whoever’s behind tends to catch up” theory does have appeal - and meets 5 out of 6 of the examples (the 6th - 1983-1987, being impossible to call as they were dead level). The “Tory swing” meets 6 of 6 and has a mechanism suggested at 8 - but as I said, people should bet with their head and not assume that there’s an inexorable pendulum swinging either way. The next election should provide valuable data on how the swing occurs.
81, ukpaul, “Of course, breaking the old ‘rule’ shouldn’t mean introducing an equally breakable new one!”.
Very true - and I have tried to emphasise that in my closing paragraphs - the “new rule” has an unknown “sell-by date” and people shouldn’t assume a guaranteed swing to the Tories.
83, stjohn - One thing that has stuck in my mind is that all swings using the “new methodology” seem to be highly damped - so the overlying week-to-week and month-to-month factors that we see in the polls (such as the Smithson Thesis of Cameron exposure) could well drown out any “swingback” or “swingaway” anyway
106, ApRhys, the number of examples one needs to disprove a thesis (which is the thrust of this article) is small - one unexplainable event (such as the Michelson-Morley experiment for example, which brought down the long standing theories of the luminiferous ether and opened the gap for Einstein) can do the trick. More examples aren’t realistically feasible without the ground rules changing, so we’re left with what’s available. I did try to emphasise the uncertainty of replacement rules with my summation:
There may yet be a swingback. But I wouldn’t put my faith in the rule that “Governments always recover from mid-terms”. They don’t - especially, it seems, if the rosettes worn are red. Bet with your head on the trends you see, and don’t assume that there is a pendulum acting for the Government (or even, despite the apparent trend that we’ve seen above, for the Tories).
And my conclusions were that the rule was broken (which is eminently demonstrable from the data available) and that, as an addendum, swings to and away produced by the new polling methodology were smaller.
Once again, thanks all for the nice words - and I’d better scoot because the wife has returned and I’ve been rumbled
114-Don’t know if there are odds for this, sorry…
Without fixed term parliaments by definition “Midterm” is a word which can only be used with the benefit of hindsight.
I think there is a natural inverted parabola of popularity for any government. Thus every government is actually MORE popular three months after its election than it was on election day. Eventually this tails off and heads downwards.
It is the skill of the polititian as to how he/she manages this eventual inevitable loss in popularity. Blair and Mandelson were fixated with a quick Tory recovery. Not least because real polling evidence, the 1999 European Elections suggested it was already happening.
Dave’s biggest problem at the moment, like Maggie in 1978 is there is a significant portion of the electorate that do not believe the Tories can win the next election. Hardly surprising as long as the BBC remains an unproscribed organisation. These natural Tories need to be convinced so they don’t waste their votes on Lib Dems or UKIP.
These voters came back in force in ‘83 hence the spectacular result. The polls might have showns a disaster for the Tories in 1981 but no-one in the real world doubted that the Tory Goverment would be returned with an enhanced majority. The anti-Tory vote was not split but splattered.
In 1970 Heath had the chance of power for a long time, he bottled it. Maggie made no such mistake. Dave will have the same choices and if he isn’t PM for 15 years the fault will be his and no-one elses.
117 I see the afore-unmentioned other Midlands side are drawing 1-1 at half time away at Newcastle. Bring ‘em on!
Fantastic article Andy Cooke, which gives me much cheer as a Conservative.
Are we sure the rule was not always a swing back to the Conservatives as they were always in government with only a one parliament aberration?
117 stjohn ….. BTW, Boxing Day, stay at home and save your money.
I’d like to join others here Andy in thanking you for a great thread - is it your first on PB.com? Let’s see more.
120 You are attempting to rewrite the history of 1981-83 with the benefit of hindsight . My memory of the time was that in late 1981 noone in the real world thought that the Conservatives would be able to win the next general election with any sort of majority let alone an increased one . The polls were dire , the parliamentary byelections even worse and noone envisaged the effect of the Falklands war . It would also be true to say that noone envisaged the benefit the Conservatives were to gain from an opposition evenly divided between Labour and the Alliance parties .
Excellent, thought-provoking article, the kind to draw me out of lurking.
One caveat - beware of drawing new rules from data that may be as flimsy as the old ones. In other words, it is dangerous to assume that because the “swing to government” theory has less foundation than thought; that then the “swing to Tories” theory is more justified.
I wonder if it’s more helpful to think that there are several competing forces within the British electorate and the relative proportions of each determine the degree of “late swing” and whether it’s reverse or not (to use a cricket analogy…)
1) Tribal “colour” voting - votes cast for a colour regardless of performance. We generally know a fair bit about the percentages and geographical distribution of these votes because they’re very consistent, changing only slowly in line with demographic/socioeconomic shift. These votes generally set up which seats are safe and which are marginal. Who wins the marginals is then determined by the next two groups.
2) “Vote with a winner” - votes cast because of the feeling that a particular party is riding the crest of a wave. To use a sporting analogy, the glory-seekers. This is a large reserve of voters, but it takes a LOT to get them voting, because they often don’t. Falklands83 and Blair97 are probably two examples where this group voted heavily.
3) “Vote for the underdog” - the British love an underdog and more importantly, the idea of a close contest. It’s this group that drives the phenomenon being discussed in this thread. They come out to support the party behind in the polls (for varying reasons, not always obvious/explicit, but the effect is the same). This is quite counter-intuitive behaviour from a betting perspective but I think is very evident in the British way of life and thinking. The betting equivalent is the chap whose only annual bet is a 100-1 shot in the Grand National.
Yes there’s probably a fourth group that looks at policies and makes a judgment call between the parties… I don’t think they’re particularly large however. Besides, I suspect they split fairly evenly between the parties (meaning relative to the national levels, they probably favour the LDs and smaller parties). I think we can largely discount this small group when thinking about national results.
To try to guess which group will swing an election, you need to understand the mood of the country and THEIR (not our) understanding of the relative position of the parties. Because we analyse polls, trends, etc obsessively for small shift, we risk missing the wood for the trees. OUR votes are irrelevant - it’s the votes of people who vote on broad, fairly meaningless, gut instinct that govern electoral outcomes.
“Vote with a winner” probably likes a strong leader, a poll lead and a party with a coherent image. “Vote with the underdog” probably likes a party behind in the polls, but not ridiculously so, with a sympathetic leader and a similar type party.
So how should any of that affect election predictions? Difficult to say. Brown is not a sympathetic figure so will struggle to be happy with an underdog role in the way Major92 role. He is pretty good at the strong leader role when heavily in the lead already (the Blair01 role). But can he change his personality/style enough to be a bit humble, be appealing, deliberately show some vulnerability… without appearing deceitful/calculating? I’m not sure. Not on current evidence, but he needs to try.
Cameron plays the underdog role exceptionally well. Despite - or because - of his background, he (like Blair) knows the value of self-deprecation and uses it very effectively to charm. However, he does have a tendency to veer too sharply between this role and the “strong leader” role when the Tories are on the up. Swerving too sharply confuses the electorate. His task is finding a way to be a strong leader without losing the self-deprecation. I think he’s more psychologically suited to his challenge than Brown is to his.
So while Brown _may_ narrow the poll gap, I do think Cameron is better placed to ride out the storm. Whether that’s enough for a Conservative majority I’m not sure, but I do think it will be enough for largest party status at least.
I’m off to Northumberland for the break, with very limited web access (essentially a Blackberry!) so will just wish everyone a very happy Christmas and an interesting New Year!
127-Happy Christmas!
127 Enjoy the break, Nick.
Best wishes to one and all.
127 Looking for a retirement home Nick? No, only kidding, have a good one.
2-1 !
108 - Wear it away slowly, yes. The additional thousands are actually on the roads going north to districts like Thornhill, Llanishen and Lisvane. The Bay is largely tourist/Senedd/business focussed.
114/119 - David Herdson reckoned about 4-1 the other day when this came up. I’ve posted about the new InTrade market on brokered convention (remember, this is no nominee after one round of convention voting) at post 95. I reckon buy early, as there will be growing speculation in the press about a brokered convention, meaning the % price on InTrade will rise, even if it is getting no more likely.
127 Merry Christmas, Nick!
129 Refer you to 45 on the Fear thread
O/T hatchet job by the hackette interviewing NC intoday’s STimes..
130: Have you backed McCain in SC, your grace?
Re 35 Innocent Abroad “I can’t think of another political party anywhere in the world that could go through what they went through 1995-2005 and still see themselves as the natural party of government.”
We are obstinate people
132-Thanks
Re 66, Alex “You can’t do a mail merge with an address book ;)”
You can if you know what you are doing
Re 68 Nick Palmer, “In fact I think you can make a case for the 1992 election having been decided like that - people did on the whole want and expect a change, but they didn’t think Labour was wonderful either, so some Labour-leaning voters stayed at home while more Tory voters came out.”
More people voted Conservative in that election than have ever voted for any other party ever in the UK EVER!
So clearly not everybody wanted a change
111.
“Amanda Smithson from the Northern Rock’s buy-to-let division was having an affair with boss Adam Applegarth as the company headed for collapse”
Getting your Northern Rocks off?
Bad month for the Smithsons, what with our Mike getting his op and one of the lib-Tory Defector MEP’s staff sacked by text was another Smithson. They deserve their own Institute?
Meanwhile in the real world, for Mark Senior who likes to focus on the individual actions of a politician as he argues it gives useful insights into the rest of a party.
“DEAF parents should be allowed to screen their embryos so they can pick a deaf child over one that has all its senses intact, according to the chief executive of the Royal National Institute for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People (RNID).
Jackie Ballard, a former Liberal Democrat MP, says that although the vast majority of deaf parents would want a child who has normal hearing, a small minority of couples would prefer to create a child who is effectively disabled, to fit in better with the family lifestyle. ”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article3087367.ece
The idea that we create people with disabilities to suit their parents lifestyle, is like something out of a sci fi horror story.
O/T TV Soaps Betting - Paddy Power are running a “Who will kill Vera Duckworth?” market would you believe!
Emily Bishop is on offer at 100-1, I don’t think so really, whilst Terry Duckworth, the errant son, is favourite at 5-4.
Not sure when Vera is scheduled to meet her maker, but based on my mantra that “someone always knows and someone always tells”, this may be a market, as opposed to a programme, worth a careful watch.
Newcastle 2 - 2 Derby FT
Goodbye Sam!
Caveman @ 88 re To The Manor Born as top Christmas telly programme.
Anyone who remembers To The Manor Born will also remember Jim Callaghan as Prime Minister.
For some time, Callaghan was airbrushed out of history but now takes his place on the Labour Party’s site, though some sub-editing may be in order: “Wilson was replaced as premier by his Foreign Secretary James Callaghan, who had also served as Chancellor and Home Secretary in previous Wilson administrations (the only PM to hold all three major offices of state).”
Dr Who has Kylie but 6.50 is a bit early. Still, I’m in for a score at 12/1 with Skybet.
A friend, who is a GP, has just sent this letter to his local MP:
I am bemused that a Government so beset by public outcry concerning withholding pay awards to the Police, economic peril concerning Northern Rock, constitutional irregularities concerning the monies of Mr Abrahams, security lapses concerning HMRC, DVLA & DSC, and the military quagmire that is Afghanistan and Iraq, should have chosen this moment to precipitate a confrontation with a group of 36,000 professionals across the nations of Britain who enjoy the respect and daily personal contact with the vast majority of the electorate.
I speak, of course, of General Practitioners.
Following the recent Government originated survey of two million people, which cost over £11 Million of tax Payers money, I might add, we have discovered that 86% of the population are quite satisfied with the opening hours and availability of GPs. Indeed, I believe that the figure is somewhat higher here in Somerset. In most sectors of industry and commerce this achievement would be warmly applauded and celebrated as an excellent service. Apparently this was not the answer that Mr Brown wished to hear.
In response to his publicly stated pledge for Extended Opening hours, the General Practitioners Committee submitted rational and well-costed proposals. These appear to have rejected out of hand, and the Government is about to impose a draconian new contract upon the profession.
This contract will remove resources from Practices for care of chronic conditions, and instead allocate them to a clinically unnecessary pandering to the desires of a very small minority of the electorate. In pursuing these marginal votes, the Government is quite content to reduce day-time access for the majority of our needing patients – the elderly, children and mothers.
This contract further threatens the very fabric of General Practice, regarded by many as the lynch-pin of the NHS, and the essential bedrock of Continuity of Care, which we know is so valued by our patients. One potential consequence of this sequence of events will inevitably be the glancing over shoulders in the direction of the dentists – the mass privatisation of medical Primary Care is a reality that no longer creeps, yet now hurtles towards us, effective April 1st 2008.
Doubtless there are numerous Labour Marginal MPs whose political future will look very uncertain if Mr Brown’s efforts to dismantle the NHS come to fruition. You may care to mention this to them.
I am most grateful for your attention to this matter. Should you require any further details, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Yours sincerely
Re 127, Nick Palmer, Have a good Christmas, and the same to everyone else here ;_
Having sneaked back onto the computer briefly
With all of the kind words above, I’d like to mention my personal appreciation of the further thought-provoking analysis that the pbc community have carried out above - the discussion that you have all engaged upon has been non-partisan, deep-ranging and detailed - exactly the response for which I’d been most hoping. Other guest article authors will no doubt identify with the feeling.
alex and Long Term Lurker have both identified that there is no single key mechanism causing swingaway/swingback but the differential turnout of groups of voters for which different mechanisms apply. Tim13, Robin Wiggs and alex have all identified different mechanisms that could cause a pro-Tory swing (media saturation, self-interest and exacerbation of polling biases); David Herdson and Nick Palmer have illustrated that a “catchup swing” would fit most of the data with only one minor (and not critical) blemish.
The breaking of the original “rule” being rather coincident with the breaking of 2-part politics was highlighted by Tim13, the swingback having greater power for unpopular Governments was pointed out by RodCrosby. David Kendrick mentioned the distorting effect of a political titan of Thatcher/Blair scale on any rules.
Innocent Abroad, ukpaul, SBS, coldstone and many others have emphasised the point that any replacement “rules” are themselves there to be broken.
There’s been other useful sub-threads that I haven’t yet highlighted - but it is the best of feelings when others pick up the work that you’ve done and run with it, developing it further. Thank you all, and thanks to Mike for offering me the slot in the first place. I hope to see many of you at the pbc party next month.
Re 139, HF “The idea that we create people with disabilities to suit their parents lifestyle, is like something out of a sci fi horror story.”
As is the idea we abort due to simple abnormalities.
Re my 147, That should have been to HF at 140.
147/140 - abortion is not the same thing. In certain cases carrying to term can endanger the life of baby and/or mother. This example is of engineering, not to create a master race but to intentionally inflict disabilities upon the soon-to-be living. You can’t equate the two.
147 Benedict, we do abort far too many. I am more comfortable with parents asking for the selection of fertilised eggs without disabilities than later abortions.
96 stjohn - “To The Manor Born” an excellent spot on ToteSport available at 12-1 - not often that caveman is outpriced and it’s still there. The concern has to be that it’s on a little late at 9.30pm and is pitched against “Love Actually”, so I’ve bought a little outsider insurance with “Strictly” at 17-1 aired an hour earlier, and available from the same firm.
Incidentally, you must use a different odds checker from Oddschecker.com, since the Tote’s 12-1 available for TLMB does not appear on their listing.
Re 149, Morris Dancer “147/140 - abortion is not the same thing. In certain cases carrying to term can endanger the life of baby and/or mother. This example is of engineering, not to create a master race but to intentionally inflict disabilities upon the soon-to-be living. You can’t equate the two.”
Sorry, but I was not talking about situations where either mother or baby would be endangered but where simple and sometimes fixable abnormalities led to abortion such as for a cleft palate.
Edwards & McCain take the lion’s share of a $19.2m taxpayer-funded cash injection into their campaigns.
http://www.fec.gov/press/press2007/20071207cert.shtml
This might matter less to Edwards (unless he comes second or better in Iowa), but almost doubles McCain’s cash-on-hand.
151 - I’m sure you know perfectly well that you’re misrepresenting the cleft palate issue.
I see the Sunday Mail today is going on about “inflation busting 10% pay rises” for MPs. More typical misrepresentation.
154
even bearing in mind its over three years( 2.8% this yr if I remember correctly) it a blooming cheek given the fact they are offering the Rozzers 1.9% It just gives politicians a bad name. A freeze would be more appropriate in the circumstances IMHO
155 - It’s fairly simple, they should just agree to stagger it.
But ludicrous reporting of this type doesn’t help anyone.
Re 153, Alex. “I’m sure you know perfectly well that you’re misrepresenting the cleft palate issue.”
No, with regret I am not aware that I am.
Do enlighten me.
Anyway, I’ve learnt today that policemen can retire at age 48 on half their salary. In an unfunded scheme!
But of course it’s always local Govt pensions (half pay at age 60+) that takes the flak.
157 - I’m not an expert but that celebrated case a few year’s ago was not done because of “a simple abnormality”. The defence was that it was allowed to proceed because identifying cleft palate in an unborn child is thought to be an indicator of potential serious disability. Personally i find that a far more justified reason for a late abortion than no medical reason at all for an early one.
And i accept that of course some will reject the course of abortion for disability out of hand, anyway.
My impression though was that characterising the whole thing as “abortion for a simple abnormality” was just a proxy for the usual anti-abortion arguments to be aired in a favourable public environment.
New thread - Countdown to the primaries - My Sunday selection
to be honest, i think we are seeing more of a “swing back to the party that is behind” rule. Even if the Tories hold their current leads up to the next election, I would be stunned if there wasnt some level of swing back to Labour.
Re 160, Alex “157 - I’m not an expert but that celebrated case a few year’s ago was not done because of “a simple abnormality”. The defence was that it was allowed to proceed because identifying cleft palate in an unborn child is thought to be an indicator of potential serious disability. Personally i find that a far more justified reason for a late abortion than no medical reason at all for an early one.”
It still smacks of eugenics.
On the early abortions… I agree.
Abortions are illegal in this country unless 2 doctors think that the woman is going to come to some mental or physical harm, hence most of them being carried out by clinics where such doctors are not hard to find.
If mid term was Jan-Dec 2007 then the average ICM polls are
C 37.1 LAB 34.6, LD 18.8, C lead = 2.6
If in the 2010 GE there is the “predicted” 3% swing from LAB to C then it would make the lead 8.6%.
BTW The Conservatives achieved a small overall lead over Labour in 2006 and 2007 with ICM’s average of its polls. The last year that happened was 1988.
165, HF,
That’s if it’s a 4 year Parliament. If GB is behind at that point, he would probably go long - so “mid-term” 12 months would be May 07 - May 08.
From May 07 to Dec 07, it’s C 36.4, L36.1, C Lead = 0.3
However … we have yet to see (obviously) the Jan-May 08 polls - nearly half of the mid-term polls (assuming that it’s going the distance this time). An average Con lead of 5% over that time would give a 2.3% lead on average over the mid-term.
But I’d caution the use of a 3% swingaway - it could well be as wrong as a swingback.
Best thing to do is assume that the swingaway/swingback mechanisms may well cancel and ignore any electoral pendulum at all - assume that whatever you’re seeing at the time is just as likely to occur in 2 or 3 years time as it is now. The swingaway/swingback effect appears to be well dampened below historical norms anyway by the new polling methodologies.
Looking at it with 3% swings either way and then assessing how likely you feel each extreme to be is probably of use as well (eg if its “catchup swing”, and the midterm average Con lead is 3%, then Labour could lead by 3% in 2010 - if it’s “Tory swing”, the Tories could lead by 9%).
To assess how likely each is, look at Long Term Lurker’s (and others like alex and Tim13) post above and try to judge how each of the target populations will react and how enthused they’ll be to vote. Add in any populations you can think of that haven’t been raised anywhere above. It’s going to be more an art than a science, and everyone will have differing judgements on it.
So it still remains very much a gamble
- but hopefully a more informed one.
The article is all very interesting- but surely it makes more sense to summarise that either Labour perform better mid term and worse at election time than the Conservatives or, which I believe, opinion polls have always overstated the Labour vote.