A lot of "satisfaction with leader" responses are about who is doing well, not whether people like them. It's perfectly obvious that Corbyn is doing well in the campaign and May is not - almost nobody here really disputes it. He's overcome what everyone recognises is a tidal wave of derision and hostility from the media, the Tories and many in his own party and continues to campaign with calm, friendly optimism. At a personal level I think it's terrific and an example of how to deal with adversity.
The key point, though, is that Corbyn is not the drag on Labour ratings that the Tories expected and based their strategy on. I think that a lot of people feel that politics under May is just a grim slog and voting Labour is voting for a bit of positivity and hope. The Tory message that it's a terrible risk is just not cutting through - it's actually reinforcing the sense that the Tories are all doom and gloom.
And Ipsos-Mori, like ICM, does weight by past voting, doesn't it?
Whether the surge is enough is yet to be seen, but you deserve plaudits for seeing it before the rest of us did.
I have got no idea what the hell is going on with the polls.
Yes, MORI is famously the most volatile of all, but I'm wondering if we're witnessing the death spasms of public opinion polling for voting intention in the UK.
Getting a representative sample has become more and more difficult over the last thirty years. The 1987 General Election was the last time that "traditional" sampling and processing worked; the 1992 General Election was the harbinger of doom for the polling companies. They responded in different ways, incorporating political identification and weighting, public/private sector weighting, remembered vote, spirals of silence, re-weighting, and so on and so on.
Phone responses dropped over the years to nearly negligible levels. Something like 5%-10% of contactees became respondents; the others didn't answer or put the phone down. Those that responded were assumed to be representative.
2015 showed that they weren't.
Online polling was pioneered in 2001-2005. Self-selecting panels were viewed with (appropriate) scepticism, but YouGov first, and then others, proved that if you process the responses well enough (and if all your many assumptions are valid), you can get an answer that is close enough to reality. 2010 and 2015 showed that these assumptions fail more often than we would like.
Getting a suitable sample is nearly impossible these days.
Expressed preference and likelihood to vote have a major disclaimer about them. A more wised-up populace know that their responses to polls will be fed back to the politicians who are closely watching them, via the media.
Processing, weighting, and so forth is based on assumption piled upon assumption piled upon rule of thumb.
And now the same population polled at the same time in the same way but with different assumptions are giving weird and chaotic outcomes.
Added to that, I have the suspicion that the seat scores might (only might) end up more decoupled from the opinion poll scores than normal.
Whatever happens, I have the strong suspicion that the main governing factor in whoever gets the closest score will be pure unadulterated luck. And luck never lasts forever, anyway.
Jeremy Corbyn: Labour could write off historic student debts| All those in early 20's with student debt #VoteLabour
I know May might be crap, but f*** me Labour are dangerous.
Fox jr has already voted, but would love that!
They should definitely change the interest thing on those post 2012 if they can. IMO historical debt should not be written off. I still have the vast majority of it left but I knew what I was getting into.
Will thw next step be to give me back the repayments I've been making?
One explanation for the Labour share being so high is that in the 1990s the turnout in many safe Labour seats collapsed from an average of about 70% to around 55% and hasn't really ever recovered since. It could be that Corbyn is once again enthusing the voters in those seats and turnout could be back up to 70% again. It would have a significant effect on Labour's vote share but it wouldn't win them many seats. Most of the Merseyside seats are good examples of this.
It's quite plausible that Jez is soaring in Sefton and sinking in Scunthorpe
IF the polls are correct (big if), then Jez isn't sinking anywhere. Both parties should see their vote increase everywhere. The questions then are By how much? And equally importantly Where?
The news of charges against Craiig Mackinlay in South Thanet means UKIP must fancy their chances of their candidate the Reverend Stuart Piper taking the seat to make up for the loss of Thanet South
The Conservatives only hope is that Labour activists have somehow managed to get themselves registered with the polling companies in greater numbers than the populace in general.
One explanation for the Labour share being so high is that in the 1990s the turnout in many safe Labour seats collapsed from an average of about 70% to around 55% and hasn't really ever recovered since. It could be that Corbyn is once again enthusing the voters in those seats and turnout could be back up to 70% again. It would have a significant effect on Labour's vote share but it wouldn't win them many seats. Most of the Merseyside seats are good examples of this.
As someone with a 1st in mathematics at a top redbrick university I disagree with you.
Reading your posts, you seem to be very bullish about conservative prospects and very bearish towards labour. I haven't seen one negative post about conservative polling and you seem to be of the belief that the polls are wrong.
1) In Tory wards turnout was 85% in 2015. Labour ward turnout was 45-50%. Had Labour turnout been similar, the tories would have lost 28 seats in the midlands/northern england. Tory enthusiasm is down compared to 2015, labour enthusiasm is up. 2) 3/4 labour voters in the midlands/northern england are ex-labour voters. There is no evidence now that these same UKIP voters are voting heavily for conservative. 3) There are a lot of seats where the tory vote has a very low ceiling. Plymouth, Southampton, Walsall, Stoke, Weaver Vale, Carlisle and any increase in vote enthusiasm could easily see a labour gain. As mentioned on the conservative home website, the tories are campaigning in labour areas they haven't done so in decades and its ok getting 2-3k votes for council elections but to get to 20k to win a seat is very, very hard. The labour vote is not going to down. There aren't enough seats like Tamworth, Burton that are moving away from Labour.
You don't need 20K to win some Labour seats though! Stoke central in 2015 off the top of my head had Tristram Hunt win on 12K approximately.
Surely that right-hand chart should be labelled 'Labour Lead +3'!
It could be like 2015. Or it could be like 2016 and the expected swing back to the establishment doesn't happen. Interesting times !
Whatever the exit poll, add 2 points to the tories because the exit poll doesn't find those shy tory voters. The tories always do better than the exit poll. Even in 97% they did better.
What is really bizzare to me is as this corbyasm has ramped up, Tories don't seem to do anything in response. Either they haven't got a clue what to do or they don't believe it.
You would think that they would have every known popular Tory on the media round the clock with some form of attack. Even the Tory friendly media haven't really been fed attack stories, mail yesterday was how biased the bbc is and today telegraph about to waiting times. The first won't shift a vote and the second is bad for the government.
And yet how much more can she increase the vote share.
The reality is the collapse of the left into labour and if they vote then goodness knows what will happen
It's not about boosting your own vote, it is about damaging corbynism so people vote lib dem or green.
What is really bizzare to me is as this corbyasm has ramped up, Tories don't seem to do anything in response. Either they haven't got a clue what to do or they don't believe it.
You would think that they would have every known popular Tory on the media round the clock with some form of attack. Even the Tory friendly media haven't really been fed attack stories, mail yesterday was how biased the bbc is and today telegraph about to waiting times. The first won't shift a vote and the second is bad for the government.
There doesn't seem to be any grid. What is going on at CCHQ? Tumbleweed?
They have completely ceded the ground and the spotlight to Labour from day one of this campaign. The Tories are nowhere to be seen. They've no-showed at their own party. It's a miracle the polls have them in the 40s.
I think many Tories are still assuming May will win (narrowly) and want her to own her hubris and mistakes.
They have been cut out of the inner circle and maligned so much over the past year (Hammond) that they don't care.
They'll only come to her rescue if Corbyn as PM looks serious.
Mori poll does not mean much, they have the Tories on 45% which is actually at the higher end of what most pollsters are showing and 8% more than Cameron got in 2015 just they have Corbyn getting 10% more than Miliband got. Mori's final 2015 poll had the Tories on 36% and Labour on 35% so they look like repeating their history of getting the Tory share about right but way overestimating Labour
Mori poll does not mean much, they have the Tories on 45% which is actually at the higher end of what most pollsters are showing and 8% more than Cameron got in 2015 just they have Corbyn getting 10% more than Miliband got.
But if they're underestimating turnout, Labour could be in the lead...
For literally the first time this campaign the election came up at lunch in the canteen. We have TVs on BBC news channel permanently with subtitles. Election came on, and someone said "surely May has got more than just "I'm not Jeremy Corbyn"". general laughter and "yeah it's a bit crap isn't it", "they seem to think that would be enough". The feeling that the tories have little to offer is getting through.
Still gobsmacked by how inept the tories have been, and dispirited, almost embarrassed by how crap May herself has been. Astonishingly unimpressive.
Jeremy Corbyn: Labour could write off historic student debts| All those in early 20's with student debt #VoteLabour
I know May might be crap, but f*** me Labour are dangerous.
Early 20s with debts? I know people in their 30s with them.
The irony is that we have loans and debts because George Osborne vetoed a graduate tax, but if the Tories tweaked it into a graduate tax now, it would be hugely popular. It pretty much is one in all but name anyway.
It would eliminate debts at a stroke, and only higher earners would pay it (depending on where it was pitched). It would cost nothing, and not change who pays -- because the low-paid do not have to repay the loans anyway. The difference is that the non-payers would not feel crippled by debt.
One explanation for the Labour share being so high is that in the 1990s the turnout in many safe Labour seats collapsed from an average of about 70% to around 55% and hasn't really ever recovered since. It could be that Corbyn is once again enthusing the voters in those seats and turnout could be back up to 70% again. It would have a significant effect on Labour's vote share but it wouldn't win them many seats. Most of the Merseyside seats are good examples of this.
As someone with a 1st in mathematics at a top redbrick university I disagree with you.
Reading your posts, you seem to be very bullish about conservative prospects and very bearish towards labour. I haven't seen one negative post about conservative polling and you seem to be of the belief that the polls are wrong.
1) In Tory wards turnout was 85% in 2015. Labour ward turnout was 45-50%. Had Labour turnout been similar, the tories would have lost 28 seats in the midlands/northern england. Tory enthusiasm is down compared to 2015, labour enthusiasm is up. 2) 3/4 labour voters in the midlands/northern england are ex-labour voters. There is no evidence now that these same UKIP voters are voting heavily for conservative. 3) There are a lot of seats where the tory vote has a very low ceiling. Plymouth, Southampton, Walsall, Stoke, Weaver Vale, Carlisle and any increase in vote enthusiasm could easily see a labour gain. As mentioned on the conservative home website, the tories are campaigning in labour areas they haven't done so in decades and its ok getting 2-3k votes for council elections but to get to 20k to win a seat is very, very hard. The labour vote is not going to down. There aren't enough seats like Tamworth, Burton that are moving away from Labour.
You don't need 20K to win some Labour seats though! Stoke central in 2015 off the top of my head had Tristram Hunt win on 12,000K approximately.
Thats why tories won seats in the north, midlands and cities in the south because the labour vote didn't turnup. They had nothing to vote for. This time they really do.
Some seats the vote between tory and labour havent really moved. Broxtowe has always been a competitive seat and even in landslides the loser has got withing 5-6k votes while other seats were getting 10k plus majorities.
In london, the tories got over 22k plus in hampstead, ealing, brentford and lost. The tory vote had so much to vote and everyone is making the assumption that the tory vote is as positive as 2015. No chance.
Just to point out to anyone planing to high-tail it to Canada, that BC just elected an NDP (Labour) / Green coalition into power. Good luck!
Have just come back from my son and daughter in law's in Vancouver and my daughter in law promotes BC throghout Asia. Just one of the best places in the World but very expensive.
One thing's for sure, the Labour campaign has been infinitely more clever and cunning than the Tories ever bargained for. And better presented too.
Even more impressive considering it caught them off-guard.
Has anyone attempted an analysis of why corbyn the campaigner seems so much more competent than corbyn the loto, even in areas that are very similar in both roles (controlling media narrative for example)? I'm almost starting to suspect hussling
I thought the LDs would be down to 5% with ICM but actually they're on 7%, only down 0.8 points since GE2015. UKIP and Greens must have been reduced to almost nothing.
Mori poll does not mean much, they have the Tories on 45% which is actually at the higher end of what most pollsters are showing and 8% more than Cameron got in 2015 just they have Corbyn getting 10% more than Miliband got.
But if they're underestimating turnout, Labour could be in the lead...
Yes. If there is a significant Corbyn effect that brings out people who are normally non-voters, the polls could quite easily be flattering the Tories.
Jeremy Corbyn: Labour could write off historic student debts| All those in early 20's with student debt #VoteLabour
I know May might be crap, but f*** me Labour are dangerous.
Fox jr has already voted, but would love that!
Tell me something: when precisely was it that you became an unhinged and pretentious socialist twat?
You voted Tory in GE2010, as I understand it, and were a fan of the coalition. Corbyn and McDonnell will be far worse than Brown and Darling ever were.
You know this (deep down) so there must be something deeply visceral going in inside what passes for your brain.
If the polls are accurate then I assume we will see some increased Conservative campaigning in some of those Tory marginals right? And less in targeting Labour ones?
Can't believe they are polling 40%, the issues about defense and security alone should be keeping them away from that even if you agree with their economic policy of increased taxation and borrowing.
Mori poll does not mean much, they have the Tories on 45% which is actually at the higher end of what most pollsters are showing and 8% more than Cameron got in 2015 just they have Corbyn getting 10% more than Miliband got.
But if they're underestimating turnout, Labour could be in the lead...
They are not, they are probably overestimating youth turnout again and like yougov have clearly learnt next to nothing from 2015. ICM and Comres have learnt however and their turnout model replicates that of 2015, hence they both have Tory leads of 10%+
I think that a lot of people feel that politics under May is just a grim slog and voting Labour is voting for a bit of positivity and hope. The Tory message that it's a terrible risk is just not cutting through - it's actually reinforcing the sense that the Tories are all doom and gloom.
This is absolutely spot on.
What surprises me is that May hasn't seen this coming. She was the one who publicly called out the Tories for becoming the "nasty party". She was the one who told Osborne to "learn some emotional intelligence". Her name has been made on two things: quiet competence and understanding "ordinary people". And yet this election is showing she can do neither.
Still, 6 days to go, so maybe Crosby has some as yet unpublicised super-effective doom and gloom to win people round.
I thought the LDs would be down to 5% with ICM but actually they're on 7%, only down 0.8 points since GE2015. UKIP and Greens must have been reduced to almost nothing.
But with the two main parties up so much, this would still be disastrous for the LDs in terms of seats.
Jeremy Corbyn: Labour could write off historic student debts| All those in early 20's with student debt #VoteLabour
I know May might be crap, but f*** me Labour are dangerous.
Early 20s with debts? I know people in their 30s with them.
The irony is that we have loans and debts because George Osborne vetoed a graduate tax, but if the Tories tweaked it into a graduate tax now, it would be hugely popular. It pretty much is one in all but name anyway.
It would eliminate debts at a stroke, and only higher earners would pay it (depending on where it was pitched). It would cost nothing, and not change who pays -- because the low-paid do not have to repay the loans anyway. The difference is that the non-payers would not feel crippled by debt.
The reason why it hasn't been turned into a graduate tax is because a graduate tax is a seriously bad policy versus the loan-system.
I accept the current loan system is a much harder political sell however.
Jeremy Corbyn: Labour could write off historic student debts| All those in early 20's with student debt #VoteLabour
I know May might be crap, but f*** me Labour are dangerous.
Early 20s with debts? I know people in their 30s with them.
The irony is that we have loans and debts because George Osborne vetoed a graduate tax, but if the Tories tweaked it into a graduate tax now, it would be hugely popular. It pretty much is one in all but name anyway.
It would eliminate debts at a stroke, and only higher earners would pay it (depending on where it was pitched). It would cost nothing, and not change who pays -- because the low-paid do not have to repay the loans anyway. The difference is that the non-payers would not feel crippled by debt.
I thought the problem with a graduate tax is it incentivizes emigration (especially for high earners) in a way semi-commercial student loans don't.
I like the idea of a simple graduate tax, but not sure it can really work in a globalised world/economy. Paying for H/E out of general taxation is IMO, the best and least unfair solution.
Mori poll does not mean much, they have the Tories on 45% which is actually at the higher end of what most pollsters are showing and 8% more than Cameron got in 2015 just they have Corbyn getting 10% more than Miliband got.
But if they're underestimating turnout, Labour could be in the lead...
It depends on what groups are turning out. If it's the 18-34 age group then that's true. But if it's the over 65s then not.
The young have consistently not turned out. I don't see happening in sufficient numbers to happen.
I still think May will win handsomely on the day, 50-80 majority, not a landslide but decent enough.
For all that PB talks about toxic Corbyn (and I also thought he would be toxic) it seems that the IRA stuff really isn't cutting through with the floating voters.
Plus he seems to have inspired a Bernie like momentum with youths. Now, the classic assumption is that youths don't turn up, and that's probably correct. But the EU ref assumptions were based on non voters not turning up, all forecasts of a leave victory assumed a low turnout not a high one. I think we may actually see big youth turnout for once. Bernie only lost to Hillary because of his weakness with minority voters, which doesn't really apply to more white Britain.
Just to point out to anyone planing to high-tail it to Canada, that BC just elected an NDP (Labour) / Green coalition into power. Good luck!
They are centre left not corbynism...Also are they going to remove all the tax incentives for startups in BC? Force all the software, games, vfx companies out? If they do they will crash the place and I am sure calgary will have them instead.
Labour aren't proposing sensible centre left policies (which don't overly bother me), it is having a marxist chancellor that scares the shit out of me.
Election Expenses. I know someone who gave £10,000 to an mps campaign in 2015 (not in south thanet) to a tory mp to stop ukip getting in. When I heard this, I was certain, but said nothing, that this broke election law.
Can a constituent living in a seat give £10,000 to an mp?
Yes, why not? It has to be declared, and the donor has to be on the electoral roll (but not necessariy in the same constituency).
It wasn't declared.
If that's true, then it was illegal. I would doubt very much that it wasn't declared, though; why would the MP not declare it? BTW The donor doesn't have to declare anything, it's the party receiving the donation which should check that the donor is on the electoral roll and declare the donation in its returns to the Electoral Commission.
Surely that right-hand chart should be labelled 'Labour Lead +3'!
It could be like 2015. Or it could be like 2016 and the expected swing back to the establishment doesn't happen. Interesting times !
Whatever the exit poll, add 2 points to the tories because the exit poll doesn't find those shy tory voters. The tories always do better than the exit poll. Even in 97% they did better.
The exit poll doesn't do a vote share, but seat share. It's from samples taken in a hundred+ chosen constituencies and extrapolated.
For literally the first time this campaign the election came up at lunch in the canteen. We have TVs on BBC news channel permanently with subtitles. Election came on, and someone said "surely May has got more than just "I'm not Jeremy Corbyn"". general laughter and "yeah it's a bit crap isn't it", "they seem to think that would be enough". The feeling that the tories have little to offer is getting through.
Still gobsmacked by how inept the tories have been, and dispirited, almost embarrassed by how crap May herself has been. Astonishingly unimpressive.
Maybe they want to lose??
I do wonder if May is producing "Springtime for Hitler", but that was a surprise hit so not an apt analogy.
Our clinic coordinators were talking positively over Corbyn yesterday. They see him as some hope for the future, though one of the patients (older male WWC) went off on a bit of a rant about terrorism. The other patients edged away a bit.
A lot of "satisfaction with leader" responses are about who is doing well, not whether people like them. It's perfectly obvious that Corbyn is doing well in the campaign and May is not - almost nobody here really disputes it. He's overcome what everyone recognises is a tidal wave of derision and hostility from the media, the Tories and many in his own party and continues to campaign with calm, friendly optimism. At a personal level I think it's terrific and an example of how to deal with adversity.
The key point, though, is that Corbyn is not the drag on Labour ratings that the Tories expected and based their strategy on. I think that a lot of people feel that politics under May is just a grim slog and voting Labour is voting for a bit of positivity and hope. The Tory message that it's a terrible risk is just not cutting through - it's actually reinforcing the sense that the Tories are all doom and gloom.
And Ipsos-Mori, like ICM, does weight by past voting, doesn't it?
I think you can add a second, converse key point. Teresa May is not the pull on conservative ratings that the Tories expected. Their strategy is built around Strong and Stable Teresa May the brand, and people can see she is socially awkward, slow on her feet and vacillating. You don't build your brand around your product's most obviously discoverable flaw.
The news of charges against Craiig Mackinlay in South Thanet means UKIP must fancy their chances of their candidate the Reverend Stuart Piper taking the seat to make up for the loss of Thanet South
I have got no idea what the hell is going on with the polls.
Yes, MORI is famously the most volatile of all, but I'm wondering if we're witnessing the death spasms of public opinion polling for voting intention in the UK.
Getting a representative sample has become more and more difficult over the last thirty years. The 1987 General Election was the last time that "traditional" sampling and processing worked; the 1992 General Election was the harbinger of doom for the polling companies. They responded in different ways, incorporating political identification and weighting, public/private sector weighting, remembered vote, spirals of silence, re-weighting, and so on and so on.
Phone responses dropped over the years to nearly negligible levels. Something like 5%-10% of contactees became respondents; the others didn't answer or put the phone down. Those that responded were assumed to be representative.
2015 showed that they weren't.
Online polling was pioneered in 2001-2005. Self-selecting panels were viewed with (appropriate) scepticism, but YouGov first, and then others, proved that if you process the responses well enough (and if all your many assumptions are valid), you can get an answer that is close enough to reality. 2010 and 2015 showed that these assumptions fail more often than we would like.
Getting a suitable sample is nearly impossible these days.
Expressed preference and likelihood to vote have a major disclaimer about them. A more wised-up populace know that their responses to polls will be fed back to the politicians who are closely watching them, via the media.
Processing, weighting, and so forth is based on assumption piled upon assumption piled upon rule of thumb.
And now the same population polled at the same time in the same way but with different assumptions are giving weird and chaotic outcomes.
Added to that, I have the suspicion that the seat scores might (only might) end up more decoupled from the opinion poll scores than normal.
Whatever happens, I have the strong suspicion that the main governing factor in whoever gets the closest score will be pure unadulterated luck. And luck never lasts forever, anyway.
Excellent post.
My working assumption is that the polls end up subliminally weighting up enthusiastic, keyed-up voting intentions (Corbyn) far more than sullenly reluctant votes (May). Social media has amplified both the behaviours and the manner in which they operate in this manner too.
One thing's for sure, the Labour campaign has been infinitely more clever and cunning than the Tories ever bargained for. And better presented too.
Even more impressive considering it caught them off-guard.
The contrast between TMay's complaceny and Blair's take nothing for granted, scrupulously self-disciplined 1997 campaign is really striking.
Truly is New Labour took nothing for granted even on election day were still worried.
Labour had wobbles in 1997 during the national campaign, it was not flawless. Labour were lucky in that Europe had torn the Tories apart for years.
Then, I remember, Neil Hamilton digging in and tarnishing the Tory brand. The Tories had lost the plot politically and had just gone beyond their sell by date. Added to that John Major's refusal to make immigration a key part of his election campaign - We know what happened to Immigration post 1997, it went absolutely crazy.
It does ask the question though in presentational terms why Corbyn has not been shredded for his duplicity on so many fronts by the Tories, the tory press have been giving him a good going over. But I have done my stint in being a helper in an election so I just sit back and watch and laugh at it. Life will go on whoever wins....
What is really bizzare to me is as this corbyasm has ramped up, Tories don't seem to do anything in response. Either they haven't got a clue what to do or they don't believe it.
You would think that they would have every known popular Tory on the media round the clock with some form of attack. Even the Tory friendly media haven't really been fed attack stories, mail yesterday was how biased the bbc is and today telegraph about to waiting times. The first won't shift a vote and the second is bad for the government.
There doesn't seem to be any grid. What is going on at CCHQ? Tumbleweed?
They have completely ceded the ground and the spotlight to Labour from day one of this campaign. The Tories are nowhere to be seen. They've no-showed at their own party. It's a miracle the polls have them in the 40s.
I guess that's what happens when you plan and election and write a manifesto with only four people, and the only other person you tell is Jeremy Hunt ?
Jeremy Corbyn: Labour could write off historic student debts| All those in early 20's with student debt #VoteLabour
I know May might be crap, but f*** me Labour are dangerous.
Early 20s with debts? I know people in their 30s with them.
The irony is that we have loans and debts because George Osborne vetoed a graduate tax, but if the Tories tweaked it into a graduate tax now, it would be hugely popular. It pretty much is one in all but name anyway.
It would eliminate debts at a stroke, and only higher earners would pay it (depending on where it was pitched). It would cost nothing, and not change who pays -- because the low-paid do not have to repay the loans anyway. The difference is that the non-payers would not feel crippled by debt.
The reason why it hasn't been turned into a graduate tax is because a graduate tax is a seriously bad policy versus the loan-system.
I accept the current loan system is a much harder political sell however.
We still cannot even be sure the loans system is cheaper than the old grants system. It depends on what numbers you want to pluck out of the air for repayment and interest rates.
I do think income-contingent loans might be a good idea in other areas, but not here.
Mori poll does not mean much, they have the Tories on 45% which is actually at the higher end of what most pollsters are showing and 8% more than Cameron got in 2015 just they have Corbyn getting 10% more than Miliband got.
But if they're underestimating turnout, Labour could be in the lead...
It depends on what groups are turning out. If it's the 18-34 age group then that's true. But if it's the over 65s then not.
The young have consistently not turned out. I don't see happening in sufficient numbers to happen.
The point is that many pollsters price that in. So the risk is all on one side
Theresa May as a drink: Strong builder’s tea that you forgot to drink and it’s gone cold.”
And as a biscuit: “A cookie. They’re tough, and they crumble.” “One of them hard ones at the bottom of the tin that have been there six months. It looks quite nice but you bite it and break all your teeth.”
I know they say no election is good to lose.However 1992 subsequently was a very good election not to win for Labour.The ERM debacle might be noting compared to Brexit.
Can't believe they are polling 40%, the issues about defense and security alone should be keeping them away from that even if you agree with their economic policy of increased taxation and borrowing.
How long are PBTs going to cling to this notion? NOBODY. CARES. ABOUT. IT. They just want the goverment that will give them large amounts of other people's money.
I expect there will still be people on here banging on about the IRA and Hamas as JC is being driven up the Mall to see HM the Q.
Would we be where we are had Boris withdrawn not prematurely 11 months ago?
I don't think anyone thought that May would be such a poor campaigner. Had she been exposed to the party membership (against a heavyweight opponent i.e. not Leadsom), this might have become clear before it mattered.
That said, *would* it have become clear? She didn't have a reputation as a poor interviewee before the election and her serious demeanour might still have proven enough against a Boris who still had (and has) several question marks against him.
All water under the bridge - perhaps (Boris is 8/1 with PP and 25/1 to be PM on 1 July with Ladbrokes) - but worth pondering all the same.
this is beginning to feel like brexit, when the longtime ignored are offered a chance of change and sticking two fingers up at the establishment. Corbyn could pull this off something I cant even believe i am thinking. I am terrified for this country now
I still think May will win handsomely on the day, 50-80 majority, not a landslide but decent enough.
For all that PB talks about toxic Corbyn (and I also thought he would be toxic) it seems that the IRA stuff really isn't cutting through with the floating voters.
Plus he seems to have inspired a Bernie like momentum with youths. Now, the classic assumption is that youths don't turn up, and that's probably correct. But the EU ref assumptions were based on non voters not turning up, all forecasts of a leave victory assumed a low turnout not a high one. I think we may actually see big youth turnout for once. Bernie only lost to Hillary because of his weakness with minority voters, which doesn't really apply to more white Britain.
Bernie lost because of their weird super delegate system, which some people say is rigged (we can say at the very least the RNC big whigs didnt want him and did everything possible to stop him).
The thing is the comparison sort of stops there...Sanders isn't a terrorist sympathizer, he hadn't taken money from states that kills gays, doesn't surround himself with Marxists and antisemites...
I still think May will win handsomely on the day, 50-80 majority, not a landslide but decent enough.
For all that PB talks about toxic Corbyn (and I also thought he would be toxic) it seems that the IRA stuff really isn't cutting through with the floating voters.
Plus he seems to have inspired a Bernie like momentum with youths. Now, the classic assumption is that youths don't turn up, and that's probably correct. But the EU ref assumptions were based on non voters not turning up, all forecasts of a leave victory assumed a low turnout not a high one. I think we may actually see big youth turnout for once. Bernie only lost to Hillary because of his weakness with minority voters, which doesn't really apply to more white Britain.
Bernie lost in a Democratic primary not a national election and May has more of the white working class than Hillary did
45% for the Tories would be their highest voteshare since 1970 but 40% for Labour only their highest voteshare since 2001 before Corbynistas get too excited
I think that a lot of people feel that politics under May is just a grim slog and voting Labour is voting for a bit of positivity and hope. The Tory message that it's a terrible risk is just not cutting through - it's actually reinforcing the sense that the Tories are all doom and gloom.
This is absolutely spot on.
What surprises me is that May hasn't seen this coming. She was the one who publicly called out the Tories for becoming the "nasty party". She was the one who told Osborne to "learn some emotional intelligence". Her name has been made on two things: quiet competence and understanding "ordinary people". And yet this election is showing she can do neither.
Still, 6 days to go, so maybe Crosby has some as yet unpublicised super-effective doom and gloom to win people round.
I have not been moved to comment on this blog for several years now, but the current circumstances are simply too exceptional to ignore. As a lifelong Conservative, the events of the past fortnight have been painful to watch. Nick Timothy and the brain trust behind the Social Care policy are going to have a lot of explaining to do in 7 days time, no matter the result as it seems clear that, barring another massive polling failure, we are not going to get the historic landslide that seemed to be within our reach when the election was called. I think the best we can hope for now is a respectable working majority.
I have a lot of respect for Theresa May, I like her temperament and her style, but she has seemingly fallen into the same trap as other top level politicians in allowing herself to become beholden to a tight and closed circle of advisors who really aren't as well connected to the Great British public as they think. As TSE has already said, her reputation is likely to emerge from this shemozzle with significant damage, and it is just possible she may lose! I certainly hope not but, by God, how the mighty have fallen!
I think some of the comments are spot on. Yesterday I was relatively sure Brexit, economy, immigration ad nausea would see the Tories home easily. But that appears to be wrong. They aren't offering anything positive. It's so fucking bleak. Corbyn does sound like he wants to transform Britain, regardless of the practicality and the possibility economic implications. I'm in what would be described as typical Corbynite target grouping as a very low income renter, but I've always leant tory followed by social liberal or green as protest. I've never voted Labour, but personally a Corbyn win would harm me less than the middle classes and might benefit me greatly. Put it this way, I'm really gonna enjoy the election night coverage cos it's gonna be shits and giggles!
What is really bizzare to me is as this corbyasm has ramped up, Tories don't seem to do anything in response. Either they haven't got a clue what to do or they don't believe it.
You would think that they would have every known popular Tory on the media round the clock with some form of attack. Even the Tory friendly media haven't really been fed attack stories, mail yesterday was how biased the bbc is and today telegraph about to waiting times. The first won't shift a vote and the second is bad for the government.
There doesn't seem to be any grid. What is going on at CCHQ? Tumbleweed?
They have completely ceded the ground and the spotlight to Labour from day one of this campaign. The Tories are nowhere to be seen. They've no-showed at their own party. It's a miracle the polls have them in the 40s.
I guess that's what happens when you plan and election and write a manifesto with only four people, and the only other person you tell is Jeremy Hunt ?
I dont think that an election was planned. No evidence of Tory planning certainly!
If the polls are accurate then I assume we will see some increased Conservative campaigning in some of those Tory marginals right? And less in targeting Labour ones?
Can't believe they are polling 40%, the issues about defense and security alone should be keeping them away from that even if you agree with their economic policy of increased taxation and borrowing.
If their bottle goes, yes. Then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of a tighter election.
If they keep their nerve, they can still get a large majority of 50+
45% for the Tories would be their highest voteshare since 1970 but 40% for Labour only their highest voteshare since 2001 before Corbynistas get too excited
Pretty unarguable now that the "true" polling position for the Tories is 44ish%. That's a comfortable majority in any reasonable circumstances.
Even this Bouncy MORI poll gives a majority of 20 on Baxter (assuming UKIP 2% and Grn 1%).
If Corbyn was 20 years younger it might have been much easier for the Tories to attack him politically speaking, but with him looking like Father Christmas it becomes a lot more difficult to combat his policies because it looks slightly unfair and unseemly. Strange but true.
One explanation for the Labour share being so high is that in the 1990s the turnout in many safe Labour seats collapsed from an average of about 70% to around 55% and hasn't really ever recovered since. It could be that Corbyn is once again enthusing the voters in those seats and turnout could be back up to 70% again. It would have a significant effect on Labour's vote share but it wouldn't win them many seats. Most of the Merseyside seats are good examples of this.
As someone with a 1st in mathematics at a top redbrick university I disagree with you.
Reading your posts, you seem to be very bullish about conservative prospects and very bearish towards labour. I haven't seen one negative post about conservative polling and you seem to be of the belief that the polls are wrong.
1) In Tory wards turnout was 85% in 2015. Labour ward turnout was 45-50%. Had Labour turnout been similar, the tories would have lost 28 seats in the midlands/northern england. Tory enthusiasm is down compared to 2015, labour enthusiasm is up. 2) 3/4 labour voters in the midlands/northern england are ex-labour voters. There is no evidence now that these same UKIP voters are voting heavily for conservative. 3) There are a lot of seats where the tory vote has a very low ceiling. Plymouth, Southampton, Walsall, Stoke, Weaver Vale, Carlisle and any increase in vote enthusiasm could easily see a labour gain. As mentioned on the conservative home website, the tories are campaigning in labour areas they haven't done so in decades and its ok getting 2-3k votes for council elections but to get to 20k to win a seat is very, very hard. The labour vote is not going to down. There aren't enough seats like Tamworth, Burton that are moving away from Labour.
One to savor when the Tories get a nice fat majority.
To paraphrase Thatcher
"Having a 1st in Maths from a redbrick is like being a lady... if you have to tell people you are, you aren't."
May knows how hard brexit is going to be, so has purposefully engineered a shit campaign so that Labour can win and take the blame when it all goes tits up. Obviously. Then the tories will win again with a 100+ seat landslide majority and rule for a lifetime. Genius. Utter genius.
I was planning to quietly swap his wine for RedBull double-caffeinated....
Surely you are not the 20 something Corbynsta he lovingly tells us about?
Definitely not!!!!!! I was planning a sort of "reverse Milk Tray advert" where a mysterious lady swoops into Sean's place and swaps the goods, leaves a puzzling card and then silently departs before the fireworks begin
Jeremy Corbyn: Labour could write off historic student debts| All those in early 20's with student debt #VoteLabour
I know May might be crap, but f*** me Labour are dangerous.
Early 20s with debts? I know people in their 30s with them.
The irony is that we have loans and debts because George Osborne vetoed a graduate tax, but if the Tories tweaked it into a graduate tax now, it would be hugely popular. It pretty much is one in all but name anyway.
It would eliminate debts at a stroke, and only higher earners would pay it (depending on where it was pitched). It would cost nothing, and not change who pays -- because the low-paid do not have to repay the loans anyway. The difference is that the non-payers would not feel crippled by debt.
I thought the problem with a graduate tax is it incentivizes emigration (especially for high earners) in a way semi-commercial student loans don't.
I like the idea of a simple graduate tax, but not sure it can really work in a globalised world/economy. Paying for H/E out of general taxation is IMO, the best and least unfair solution.
Wasn't it Ken Clarke who said he didn't get married for the income tax allowance? I doubt it would have more than a marginal impact on anyone's decision to emigrate.
You can make a case for general taxation, as we used to do. My point is the current loans system practically is a graduate tax but with the added disadvantage of saddling with debt people who will never be called upon to repay it anyway.
Comments
Any chance of SNP switches to labour?
Yes, MORI is famously the most volatile of all, but I'm wondering if we're witnessing the death spasms of public opinion polling for voting intention in the UK.
Getting a representative sample has become more and more difficult over the last thirty years. The 1987 General Election was the last time that "traditional" sampling and processing worked; the 1992 General Election was the harbinger of doom for the polling companies. They responded in different ways, incorporating political identification and weighting, public/private sector weighting, remembered vote, spirals of silence, re-weighting, and so on and so on.
Phone responses dropped over the years to nearly negligible levels. Something like 5%-10% of contactees became respondents; the others didn't answer or put the phone down. Those that responded were assumed to be representative.
2015 showed that they weren't.
Online polling was pioneered in 2001-2005. Self-selecting panels were viewed with (appropriate) scepticism, but YouGov first, and then others, proved that if you process the responses well enough (and if all your many assumptions are valid), you can get an answer that is close enough to reality.
2010 and 2015 showed that these assumptions fail more often than we would like.
Getting a suitable sample is nearly impossible these days.
Expressed preference and likelihood to vote have a major disclaimer about them. A more wised-up populace know that their responses to polls will be fed back to the politicians who are closely watching them, via the media.
Processing, weighting, and so forth is based on assumption piled upon assumption piled upon rule of thumb.
And now the same population polled at the same time in the same way but with different assumptions are giving weird and chaotic outcomes.
Added to that, I have the suspicion that the seat scores might (only might) end up more decoupled from the opinion poll scores than normal.
Whatever happens, I have the strong suspicion that the main governing factor in whoever gets the closest score will be pure unadulterated luck. And luck never lasts forever, anyway.
IMO historical debt should not be written off. I still have the vast majority of it left but I knew what I was getting into.
Will thw next step be to give me back the repayments I've been making?
fun fun fun.
They have been cut out of the inner circle and maligned so much over the past year (Hammond) that they don't care.
They'll only come to her rescue if Corbyn as PM looks serious.
For literally the first time this campaign the election came up at lunch in the canteen. We have TVs on BBC news channel permanently with subtitles. Election came on, and someone said "surely May has got more than just "I'm not Jeremy Corbyn"". general laughter and "yeah it's a bit crap isn't it", "they seem to think that would be enough". The feeling that the tories have little to offer is getting through.
Still gobsmacked by how inept the tories have been, and dispirited, almost embarrassed by how crap May herself has been. Astonishingly unimpressive.
Maybe they want to lose??
It would eliminate debts at a stroke, and only higher earners would pay it (depending on where it was pitched). It would cost nothing, and not change who pays -- because the low-paid do not have to repay the loans anyway. The difference is that the non-payers would not feel crippled by debt.
Do people just not believe the polls anymore?
Some seats the vote between tory and labour havent really moved. Broxtowe has always been a competitive seat and even in landslides the loser has got withing 5-6k votes while other seats were getting 10k plus majorities.
In london, the tories got over 22k plus in hampstead, ealing, brentford and lost. The tory vote had so much to vote and everyone is making the assumption that the tory vote is as positive as 2015. No chance.
You voted Tory in GE2010, as I understand it, and were a fan of the coalition. Corbyn and McDonnell will be far worse than Brown and Darling ever were.
You know this (deep down) so there must be something deeply visceral going in inside what passes for your brain.
Can't believe they are polling 40%, the issues about defense and security alone should be keeping them away from that even if you agree with their economic policy of increased taxation and borrowing.
What surprises me is that May hasn't seen this coming. She was the one who publicly called out the Tories for becoming the "nasty party". She was the one who told Osborne to "learn some emotional intelligence". Her name has been made on two things: quiet competence and understanding "ordinary people". And yet this election is showing she can do neither.
Still, 6 days to go, so maybe Crosby has some as yet unpublicised super-effective doom and gloom to win people round.
I accept the current loan system is a much harder political sell however.
I like the idea of a simple graduate tax, but not sure it can really work in a globalised world/economy. Paying for H/E out of general taxation is IMO, the best and least unfair solution.
The young have consistently not turned out. I don't see happening in sufficient numbers to happen.
For all that PB talks about toxic Corbyn (and I also thought he would be toxic) it seems that the IRA stuff really isn't cutting through with the floating voters.
Plus he seems to have inspired a Bernie like momentum with youths. Now, the classic assumption is that youths don't turn up, and that's probably correct. But the EU ref assumptions were based on non voters not turning up, all forecasts of a leave victory assumed a low turnout not a high one. I think we may actually see big youth turnout for once. Bernie only lost to Hillary because of his weakness with minority voters, which doesn't really apply to more white Britain.
Labour aren't proposing sensible centre left policies (which don't overly bother me), it is having a marxist chancellor that scares the shit out of me.
45/40 could produce anything from a hung Parliament to a large Conservative majority. It's back to the 1960's.
It's from samples taken in a hundred+ chosen constituencies and extrapolated.
Our clinic coordinators were talking positively over Corbyn yesterday. They see him as some hope for the future, though one of the patients (older male WWC) went off on a bit of a rant about terrorism. The other patients edged away a bit.
I thought the working assumption for them was 5/6%?
My working assumption is that the polls end up subliminally weighting up enthusiastic, keyed-up voting intentions (Corbyn) far more than sullenly reluctant votes (May). Social media has amplified both the behaviours and the manner in which they operate in this manner too.
I hope. Boy oh boy do I really really HOPE.
Then, I remember, Neil Hamilton digging in and tarnishing the Tory brand. The Tories had lost the plot politically and had just gone beyond their sell by date. Added to that John Major's refusal to make immigration a key part of his election campaign - We know what happened to Immigration post 1997, it went absolutely crazy.
It does ask the question though in presentational terms why Corbyn has not been shredded for his duplicity on so many fronts by the Tories, the tory press have been giving him a good going over. But I have done my stint in being a helper in an election so I just sit back and watch and laugh at it. Life will go on whoever wins....
Nice work chaps...
I do think income-contingent loans might be a good idea in other areas, but not here.
(Only applies to the numerous PB Tories).
The Lord's latest focus group from South Wales:
Theresa May as a drink: Strong builder’s tea that you forgot to drink and it’s gone cold.”
And as a biscuit: “A cookie. They’re tough, and they crumble.” “One of them hard ones at the bottom of the tin that have been there six months. It looks quite nice but you bite it and break all your teeth.”
I expect there will still be people on here banging on about the IRA and Hamas as JC is being driven up the Mall to see HM the Q.
Would we be where we are had Boris withdrawn not prematurely 11 months ago?
I don't think anyone thought that May would be such a poor campaigner. Had she been exposed to the party membership (against a heavyweight opponent i.e. not Leadsom), this might have become clear before it mattered.
That said, *would* it have become clear? She didn't have a reputation as a poor interviewee before the election and her serious demeanour might still have proven enough against a Boris who still had (and has) several question marks against him.
All water under the bridge - perhaps (Boris is 8/1 with PP and 25/1 to be PM on 1 July with Ladbrokes) - but worth pondering all the same.
Good old Bouncy MORI.
The thing is the comparison sort of stops there...Sanders isn't a terrorist sympathizer, he hadn't taken money from states that kills gays, doesn't surround himself with Marxists and antisemites...
It could be a bloodbath.
I hope I'm wrong.
Why are governments in hong kong, qatar, bahrain giving money to tory mps?
I have a lot of respect for Theresa May, I like her temperament and her style, but she has seemingly fallen into the same trap as other top level politicians in allowing herself to become beholden to a tight and closed circle of advisors who really aren't as well connected to the Great British public as they think. As TSE has already said, her reputation is likely to emerge from this shemozzle with significant damage, and it is just possible she may lose! I certainly hope not but, by God, how the mighty have fallen!
I'm in what would be described as typical Corbynite target grouping as a very low income renter, but I've always leant tory followed by social liberal or green as protest. I've never voted Labour, but personally a Corbyn win would harm me less than the middle classes and might benefit me greatly.
Put it this way, I'm really gonna enjoy the election night coverage cos it's gonna be shits and giggles!
If they keep their nerve, they can still get a large majority of 50+
Even this Bouncy MORI poll gives a majority of 20 on Baxter (assuming UKIP 2% and Grn 1%).
That a phone poll has shown is this is interesting - I wonder whether other phone polls will show the same.
To paraphrase Thatcher
"Having a 1st in Maths from a redbrick is like being a lady... if you have to tell people you are, you aren't."
Definitely not!!!!!! I was planning a sort of "reverse Milk Tray advert" where a mysterious lady swoops into Sean's place and swaps the goods, leaves a puzzling card and then silently departs before the fireworks begin
https://youtu.be/P_LWzvWPmlI
You can make a case for general taxation, as we used to do. My point is the current loans system practically is a graduate tax but with the added disadvantage of saddling with debt people who will never be called upon to repay it anyway.