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Month: November 2009

Labour close the gap to 10 points with ComRes

Labour close the gap to 10 points with ComRes

CON 37%(39) LAB 27%(25) LD 20%(17) OTHERS 16% (19) But have the seat calculators got it right? There’s a new poll out tonight from ComRes for tomorrow’s Independent which has the Tory lead down to ten points but with the Lib Dem continuing to do well. For the Tories another poll having them below the 40 mark might add to the jitters as we enter the run in period to the election. Only ICM of the six firms that regularly…

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Will day-time counts mean we have to rely more on this?

Will day-time counts mean we have to rely more on this?

Is the wise strategy not to bet on exit polls? If there is a huge increase in the number of day-time counts, as many are predicting, then the general election exit poll is going to become even more important. For its projections will be what will dominate perceptions of the election for several hours and maybe into the following morning. Arrangements, I understand, have been made for just one such survey to be mounted which will feed all the main…

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Remember this poll – exactly a year ago today?

Remember this poll – exactly a year ago today?

CON 37 LAB 36 LD 17 ComRes: Nov 30 2008 UKPollingReport Whatever happened to Brown’s Bank Bailout Bounce? On November 30 2008, precisely a year ago today, ComRes finished their monthly poll for the Independent which had Labour just one point behind – figures which suggested that Mr. Brown was within a whisker of an overall Labour majority. This followed an extraordinary couple of months after his widely acknowledged role in the bank bailout – not just for the UK…

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Which party should be most pleased by this?

Which party should be most pleased by this?

YouGov/Citizenship Foundation But how much importance can we attach to it? Thanks to Gabble for spotting that YouGov have put up on their web-site the result of a 4,000 sample poll of 14 – 25 years olds which was carried out over the past fortnight. The dataset runs to an enormous 200 pages and covers a whole range of issues about this age group’s view of the politics. There was a voting intention question which asked “Which TWO or THREE,…

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Are UKIP and the Lisbon driving the Tory poll decline?

Are UKIP and the Lisbon driving the Tory poll decline?

BBC news – Nov 4th Can Dave win back the Tory doubters? All seventeen polls published between the end of the Tory Party conference and Cameron’s dropping of his pledge to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty had the Conservatives on at least 40%; of the eight published since then, only twice has the Tory share broken into the forties. Two conversations I’ve had in the last week give anecdotal evidence that Cameron’s move has gone down badly in…

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Does dropping out of the 40s safety zone matter?

Does dropping out of the 40s safety zone matter?

What does it mean for the election outcome? I’m not sure whether there’ll be any new polls in the Sunday papers and it would be really good to see a new ICM survey. For the big trend in the past few few weeks has been the decline of the Tory share into the 30s so that now only ICM is showing a figure above that threshold. Polls tend to move in step changes and that might be what we have…

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Who is betting on the blues in Buckingham?

Who is betting on the blues in Buckingham?

Is laying the Tories here an almost total certainty? Like one or two other punters, it seems, I have been taking as much as is available on lay bets on the Tories in the Betfair Buckingham market. My reasoning is quite straightforward – this is the seat of John Bercow, the Speaker, who in the traditional way renounced his link with his former party and all others when he got elected to the post in June. At the coming general…

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YouGov: “8 percent LAB>CON swing in northern marginals”

YouGov: “8 percent LAB>CON swing in northern marginals”

Does this show that marginals are behaving differently? The first information about the YouGov poll of Northern marginals is just coming out. We haven’t seen a report yet of the poll and much detail is missing but an editorial for tomorrow’s paper has been published and contains the crucial headline figures. It notes that the Conservative party: “…. leads Labour by 42 per cent to 36 per cent in northern marginal seats. Indeed, the Tories appear to be doing better…

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