Morus wonders what would happen if… Imagine that the polls narrow just a little more over the course of a blood-spattered, mud-flinging General Election campaign of only 17 working days that leaves no time for clarity and perspective. Imagine that quirks of turnout and minor party support combine with a decent Lib Dem showing to befuddle the best laid plans of Mice and Men. Imagine that the Conservatives, in spite of winning the largest percentage of the vote, are not…
Can the SNP reverse Labour’s fightback? With not particularly subtle timing, Alex Salmond launched on Thursday the Scottish government’s bill to put a referendum questions on independence and greater powers for the Scottish parliament – close to three years since taking office and within a few weeks of a UK general election campaign. The SNP sailed into government close to the crest of their support: in the election, they won 33% of the constituency vote and 31% of the regional…
Do the underlying numbers point to a different conclusion? Just been looking at the detailed dataset from the the Telegraph’s Ipsos-MORI poll that came out late last night and in my view the underlying numbers are nothing like as good for Labour as the five point Tory lead might suggest. After weighting for standard demographics we find that: 300 of those certain to vote in the sample said they had supported Labour at the last general election. Yet only 236…
(Here is the 2010 version of what has become a great PB tradition – Roger’s Oscars Tips. Those who have followed them up with bets in previous years have almost always made money. Let’s see if this will work again next week – Mike Smithson) 2010 Oscars. Here is a list of the nominations in the main categories followed by my tips for the winners. A competitive year with very few certainties, Best Film. ‘A Serious Man’, ‘An Education’, ‘Avatar,…
(I’m on holiday in Dorset at the moment and this guest slot submitted by Flockers echoes quite a lot of comments that we are getting whenever YouGov polls are published – which is now five times a week. When I return next week I’m hoping that the firm’s Peter Kellner will take part in an online Q&A session – no doubt this will form part of the conversation. I should emphasise that these are the personal views of Flockers –…
CON 37% (40) LAB 32 % (32) LD 19% (16) MORI has the gap down to just 5 The first MORI poll for the Telegraph has more bad news for the Tories and will certainly add to the early election fervour. For the gap is down to just five points which on the conventional UNS calculators could mean Labour having most seats in a hung parliament. There’s no getting away from it – this is seriously bad news for Cameron…
CON 39% (38) LAB 33% (32) LD 16%(19) But how will it compare with tonight’s MORI poll? Tonight’s YouGov daily poll for the Sun maintains the consistency that we’ve seen for a week with Labour just six points behind the Tories. Both main parties move up one but there’s a big shift downwards for Nick Clegg’s party. At this level YouGov is suggesting that Labour have dropped just one in twelve of the voters who supported Blair’s party in 2005…
Belatedly, I can at last say that my spreadsheet model is now available to download from Google Docs. The instructions are now in the adjacent post on PB2 and in that post is a link to the model. Looking at the effects identified in my original analysis, we can now expand on the details – thanks largely to the in depth and constructive discussion on pb.com. Firstly, the “Constituency Effectâ€. I now think that this is a poor name, but…