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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Maybe the whole idea of national voting intention polls has had its day
CON to LAB swing The most important measure and where there’s a huge variation from the Ipsos-MORI 2.65% swing to the TNS-BMRB and Opinium 7.15%. If it was the latter on May 7th then LAB would probably secure an overall majority even if it lost all but a handful of its 41 Scottish seats.
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Combine this with my general scepticism about VI poles when you have an "unacceptable" choice which is being attacked by the press (UKIP) where people will be reticent in polls to declare their support, especially face-to-face or on the telephone. You also have the safe "cuddly" choice of telling the pollster that you intend to vote Green which is probably code for DNV or DK but sounds like you are socially responsible.
I never thought I'd see you agree with @audreyanne !!
Tories stopped being a true national party in the late 80s when they were destroyed in Scotland. The tory party has died off in the former industrial north too.
Bizarrely the only true national party these days is the LDs and they are heading for an epic kicking.
We'd be better off with 4 or 5 regional VI polls that could go into a seat calculator
Now the broad churches are shattered, Labour is largely a middle class metropolitan liberal Guardian reading party that is hemorrhaging its ethnic and left wing vote as its appeals to its other minorities. The Conservatives attempted to detox their image by taking on liberal values, and insulting and dumping its traditionalist core. The result is the two broad churches have become rather narrow churches squabbling over essentially the same voters in the centre, and looking all surprised as new parties spring up to fill in the gaps. UKIP hovering up the social conservatives, and the Greens the far left vote.
Lots of voters who would previously have voted for one of the big two out of necessity now find there are other offerings on the table that offer them the possibility of getting more of what they want. One wonders what happens if by the 2025 GE we have UKIP, Lib Dems, SNP and the Greens each with 40-50 MPs (probably in regional fiefdoms)!
http://www.pewresearch.org/2013/03/04/twitter-reaction-to-events-often-at-odds-with-overall-public-opinion/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/11315274/Ed-Miliband-wants-a-counter-revolution-but-doesnt-know-how-to-get-it.html
UKIP 15%, 6 seats
LibDems 12-13%, 20-24 seats
LibDems 13%: 28 seats
In Scotland they could lose all but 2 of their seats. (And with polls showing half of libdem voters have gone to the SNP, they could lose all of them.)
They could lose every seat where labour is the challenger, and a fair few where they come from third.
Kippers might vote tactically in conservative libdem marginals.
I'm not going to predict annihilation for the LibDems, but I'm a seller at the 30 mark.
It has proved very positive for the firm, both in terms of internal employee relations and external PR. Young graduates like to see a firm that makes commitments on such matters, whether or not they are themselves gay. It has been useful as a recruitment tool and has some benefits in business development (for box-ticking on procurement forms, but more usefully for giving LGBT decision-makers a sense that this is a firm whose values they feel comfortable with and for networking).
The group has made few demands or requests of management to change working practices: it turns out that by and large LGBT workers are hard-working and low maintenance (the Women's group and the Family group make far more demands of management, rightly given the more pressing problems that women and parents have in juggling home and work lives).
When working internally, the LGBT group focusses on changing attitudes of staff within the firm and establishing a support network for LGBT staff at all levels. It remains a lot easier to be an out gay man as a senior partner in London than it would be for say a lesbian in the postroom in Glasgow. But we are working with a fast-incoming tide. And a small amount of effort can make a huge difference to how happy such an employee is in the workplace.
Is the firm obliged to do this? No. Is it a small amount of money well spent? You would struggle to find a partner in the firm that disagrees.
Trying to put wishful thinking to one side the country and the country's conversation does not feel anything like the latter. In 1997 it was obvious that an exhausted and divided government was staggering towards a heavy defeat. Blair and Brown dominated the public space to the extent that they looked like they were in government already and nobody was frankly interested in what, if anything, the tories were going to do next.
At the end of 2014 Ed is a very long way from that. Osborne has won pretty much all the economic arguments and we are left with some fairly daft market interventions and a change in tone as an alternative. The government, despite inevitably increasing stresses in the Coalition, gives the impression of having a clear way forward and targets in view, however optimistic they may prove to be. It does not feel like a change election to me.
This does not mean that Miliband cannot win. Indeed, he is the clear favourite to have the most seats at this point. I just don't believe that it is wishful thinking that we have a horse race on our hands and one of the most unpredictable ones I can remember.
FWIW my guesses (forecast seems a bit pretentious) are a lot closer to Charles than Robert. I would guess that UKIP will end up with 12% and 2 seats with the Lib Dems at 15% and 28.
@isam
You say it is strange that Brighton has
A ) A very tolerant attitude to LGBT people
B ) Lots of LGBT equality campaigning groups
You think B ) is weird given A). I think A ) came about because of B ).
I bet places in the country where you get beat up for being gay have very few LGBT campaign groups.
I've bet on UKIP >15%.
"My forecasts:"
I agree with you, which probably means you're wrong.
I do wonder about the value of polling around this time. Not just with people being overseas to avoid the winter weather, but also because the mindset of Christmas/New Year then sharply contrasts with the dread horror of the bills arriving in January.
Some vague musings on what can be expected in 2015 will be forthcoming (a mix of free stuff, self-published/independent and traditionally published).
I don't think they will be down to 2 in Scotland as Robert does but 4 is looking like quite a good result for them at the moment which is a big fall.
UKIP I find very hard to predict and living in Scotland hardly helps. I suspect that their vote will be squeezed somewhat in the run up to the election (presumably some of their supporters are interested in having a Euro referendum even if their leadership is not) and that some of the previous non voters will remain that way whatever their current intentions. But they are undoubtedly a wild card.
The current Government doesn’t come across as united ..... it is a Coalition, after all and I think that, when people think about it, they recognise this. However, as Mr L says, there isn’t a feeling of the Government desperately hanging on, hoping for something, anything, to go right as there was 18 or so years ago!
And FWIW I agree with his & Charles estimates of the LD and UKIP seats. I’ve a suspicion that the LD’s will do better as the campaign unfolds ...... they’ve some interesting ideas about drug policy and mental health ..... but I fear that’s born more out of hope than rational expectation!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30620814
They either vote for the president, or end up having a General Election.
Mr. L, whilst UKIP may shed some votes I think their support will be pretty robust. Cameron's not exactly beloved and Miliband, as Scotland has indicated, is not overflowing with charisma. Disaffection with the main (for the moment...) political parties and the utter abandonment of the socially conservative means that UKIP has fertile ground for their policies.
The Westminster consensus on the global warming and aid agendas (agendae?) is something I've criticised often. When people don't have different policies to vote for there's no real choice. Now UKIP is giving them that alternative. The idiocy and short-sightedness of the big three parties is more to blame for the purple tide than anything Farage has done.
More generally the failure of Labour to work up a credible alternative economic policy has been a disgraceful dereliction of duty by Mr Miliband and has indeed failed to give the population a meaningful choice.
@OldKingCole I have said on here several times that I think Danny Alexander has the most credible economic policy in relation to the deficit of any of the parties and I think that will become obvious during the campaign, particularly on the BBC who like a middle of the road consensus. It may help. I hope it helps him.
Come April and their response will tell you what they think of Ed Miliband and David Cameron as well as their local MP.
On that basis, expect the Tories to claw some voters back from UKIP, Libdems to claw a good chunk of their voters back in seats they hold and Labour to nosedive everywhere except places where the constituency MP is liked, and perhaps places like Broxtowe where they may prefer their former Labour Constituency MP to their current one.
Finally expect Salmond to have a face on the day after the election like Huhne did in 2010 and for the same reason.
Overall, expect the Tories to be somewhere between a majority of 10
and 20 seats short and UKIP to win in more Labour consituencies than Tory ones (just). What will cost the tories a comfortable majority is Liberals hanging onto seats like Bath and Cheltenham that were safe Tory seats in 1992.
A tory majority of 10 will be a nightmare for Cameron. For the last 5 years he has been able to ignore the tory right by using the 80 majority he has with the Libdems to outvote them. With a majority of 10, and several UKIP MPs to vote with them, the right will have him by the throat. I suspect he will be gone within a year if that happens.
"Miliband's economic policy will be in all important respects the same as the Tory economic policy, he just can't say that before an election."
Exactly. His choice is to copy the Tories and pretend he's not doing so, or to tack heavily left and lose the election. The Tories under Cameron are already in line with Labour's social policies.
That leaves the LDs, who are struggling to carve out a distinctive plan, or the Greens or are out-redding Ed.
Ukip have the advantage of being distinctive and the being the underdog.
I suspect the LibDems will end up slightly north of 10% because:
1. Their national equivalent vote share in the last three local election results has been around 12%, and the party has been - rather amazingly - a net winner of council by-election seats in the last three months.
2. Historically, governing parties have tended to rebound from mid-term local election blues. This may not be true of this time of course, but we should consider it. I also find it very notable that the Green surge that has been picked up by the polls has not been confirmed in the ballot box. I wonder how many Green supporters are really soft Labour or LibDem.
3. The LiBDems have typically seen their poll shares rise in General Election campaigns. Of course, this is probably a function of there normally being a publicity boost for them, but we should not discount the possibility this happens again.
Of course, the LibDems could end up on sub 8% - they did after all end up with 6% or so in the Euros, but evem there I would note that last time out the LibDems roughly doubled their share between the Euros and the General Election.
There's a sizeable group of people who think that the Conservatives want to cut way too hard, that Labour are nowhere near ready for power and who think that UKIP are poundland fascists. Their options are 1) abstain 2) vote Green and 3) vote Lib Dem. Where the Lib Dems might stand a chance of winning, I expect that a substantial part of that group will vote Lib Dem as the least bad plausible option and congratulate themselves on their maturity.
If I were guessing on seat numbers, I'd guess that the Lib Dems will get 30-35. It is a guess though.
As for UKIP, I shall be coming back to that later today.
http://archive.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/17-10/ff_christakis?currentPage=all
2. The governing parties rebounding (Fisher hypothesis) is based on very few data points. Neither the Conservatives or the LDs are strengthening as predicted.
The parties interest me much less than the people.
FPT hyufd suggested the http://www.playbuzz.com site. Interesting but totally non-causual: Someone needs to tweek their algorythms....
The Jokers Wild are UKIP. I still expect the big story on the day after the election to be their disappointing performance. When it comes to the ballot box, the appealing idea of a vote to poke the established order in the eye will get top-trumped by steady-as-she-goes on the economy.
I predict that Carswell will be their only MP. And that assumes he hasn't listened to one racist rant too many from a fellow Kipper and left to sit as an independent. But if it doesn't have racist rants, what does UKIP have to attract the masses? There is an intellectual void at the heart of the party. To think that a term of Labour having no referendum is a great way to progress exit from the EU is like the Tories arguing the best way to make the case for privatisation is to have a Labour government that renationalised everything. Utter madness.
I live in Essex and drink in sorts of rough places and I can't imagine anyone beating someone up for bring gay, or know anyone that wouldn't be outraged at that happening... Although the word pooftah would be used to describe a gay man I guess by most people
As for Brighton I don't think I agree that it is so tolerant because of the amount of official gay groups
FWIW , my own forecast for next May is
Lib Dems 14-15% and 35-38 seats
UKIP 10% and 2 seats
I think the hatred of Clegg may well be a factor in Lib-Lab marginals but it certainly won't be in Lib-Tory marginals. The result won't be the destruction of the Libdems, it will be the virtual evisceration of the SDP from the Libdems, putting the Orange Bookers in the driving seat.
http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/RP14-33/local-elections-2014
p.7 of the PDF.
May 2015 will demonstrate that they will have to stop smearing and try and win the argument through reason and intellectual justification if they ever want power again.
They think they are clever smearing UKIP as racists and fascists, but few are taken in and they just come across as bullies.
The cleverer people on the left realise this though, Owen Jones got this as soon as March 2014
"Operation Get Nigel Farage is politics of the lowest form
It sticks in the craw to defend the Ukip leader from the latest smear campaign, but if we want to rid Britain of this toxic approach, we must"
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/13/operation-get-nigel-farage-lowest-politics-ukip-smear
There isn't much enthusiasm for any party, though quite a lot of people keen to stop another party - I mainly meet anti-Tory and anti-UKIP voters, but among the people who don't want to talk there are certainly strong anti-Labour voters. There's a LibDem loyalist vote but most people aren't really considering them at all. I don't think Clegg is hated, but the party is seen as adrift and ineffective. Maybe 40% of them have come to Labour (a bit more than nationally for local reasons - we are in local coalition and the Tory MP has attacked them relentlessly), often highly motivated; the rest are scattered.
The UKIP vote seems to me about half quite determined, the other half not sure if they'll vote and a bit tempted by tactical considerations. I think, though, that all of us are chasing fools' gold in hoping to get back a significant number this time. Similarly, both Labour and Tory votes are quite entrenched.
Overall it feels like 2005, when the Blair affection had worn off but Labour was seen as the lesser evil. There is a widespread recognition that the world is in difficult times, and on the whole Labour is seen as less likely to let events ruin the lives of ordinary people. I don't think that great things are expected of anyone beyond getting us through the tunnel without too much pain.
I've said over the last year that I'm hopeful - I'll now be more specific and say I expect to win, though one can't rule out black swans. Talking to other English candidates in marginals I get a similar impression (no idea about Scotland) and I'll be surprised if we don't get most seats. An overall majority depends largely on the Scottish result.
But why has Lib Dem support nose-dived? Because Lib Dems can't be an anti-Tory party and part of a Conservative government at the same time. Have the Lib Dems provided any other reason to vote for them? No. Have they given other reasons not to vote for them? Yes. Nick Clegg. Tuition fees. Economy. VAT. Any unpopular Tory policy. They are no longer the anti-Tory party. They are seen as one and the same. They have nothing to offer. Confidence in the two main parties is very low, but if anything, I suggest that UKIP and Green support will rise during the campaign.
People were not asked whether they cared about giving offence to others.
If you were to make a list of the "Orange Bookers" (I am not quite clear just who these are supposed to be), and then identify those who were in the SDP before the merger, those who were in the Liberal Party, and those who have never been anything but Lib Dems (ie those who joined the party in the last 25 years), I have a feeling that you are talking nonsense.
It’s almost as though they want the LD’s to be able to claim at the GE that “they stopped the Tories being even worse”!
No doubt Nick Palmer does it himself, attacking Anna Soubry at every opportunity.
Voting Conservative gets them a say in 2017.
"Highlighted"? What does that mean? Do you mean the grey ones, or the black ones? Can't you even bother to apply a little common sense to the wording of your articles?
Or are customers not the reason for public-services...?
I am not sure that helps his chances of winning but at least he practices what he preaches.
Apparently the Queen Mum enjoyed gin.
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.
It will deliver quite the opposite of its stated intention. A Miliband Govt. that works closely with Brussels, insinuating the UK ever further into the European project, will raise your supporters blood pressure a good few points - but otherwise will be the opposite direction of travel to what they want to see.
So don't play the "what's best for Britain" card about voting UKIP. It is a home to Brussels' useful idiots. It is the F*cking for Virginity Party. It brings about precisely the opposite of that which it claims to want. And that is the intellectual void at the dark heart of UKIP.
What do Cameron's conservatives stand for ?
The fact that you ignore the point being made to you - a pretty good point - speaks volumes.
I would second what you say about how it helps create a good atmosphere. It - and the high level of volunteering encouraged by the firm - is one of the best things about the place. If anyone else is thinking whether something like this is worthwhile, I would - as someone who is not gay - say yes.
Cameron is a roadblock to EU exit. As long as he is there the chances of us even starting along the road of exit are practically nil.
'Nigel Farage blasts 'fascist' protesters after Edinburgh confrontation
UKIP leader Nigel Farage has described protesters who besieged him in an Edinburgh pub as "fascist scum"...
...He told BBC Scotland the incident was deeply racist and displayed a total hatred of the English.'
Voting LibDem gets them a Europhile PM who will not give them a vote on the EU.
Voting SNP gets them a Europhile PM who will not give them a vote on the EU.
Voting Green - who knows what that gets...
And the killer for UKIP - voting UKIP has the consequence of getting them a Europhile PM who will not give them a vote
Voting Conservative gets them a vote on the EU, whatever the politics of the PM.
And that's not even taking into account that the Conservative that one would grudgingly vote for as the lesser evil is probably going to be a supporter of EU membership.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-30620829
Surely he wrote his poems in a trench in France, not a semi in Shropshire? I can see a case for a blue plaque but grade 2 listing seems OTT.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30623421
Place your bets folks...!
So the question remains what do Camerons Conservatives stand for ?
ND: 77
SYRIZA:141
PASOK: 14
ANEL: 13
XA: 17
DIMAR: 0
KKE: 17
Potami: 21
Other: 0