politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The Ashcroft marginals poll is out – and it’s great for Ed.

This should steady the Good Ship Milliband for a few hours...

Ed puts the Red into Redbridge!

corporeal said:

First, like an Eastleigh Lib Dem.

But within the speed limit, one hopes.

I want to believe this, but it's hard to square it with the other recent polls and the results yesterday, frankly.

corporeal said:

AveryLP said:

corporeal said:

AveryLP said:

david_herdson said:

Re Ashcroft, obviously a good poll for Labour, with two caveats. The first is that the numbers are not particularly secure: "half of voters say they may change their mind before the election". The second is that the leadership ratings tilt heavily to the Tories: "only three in ten would rather see Mr Miliband as Prime Minister than David Cameron".

Summary: a strong current advantage to Labour but the tide is running the Tories' way.

A 26,000 sample size is impressive but is still no match for a real election even on a below 40% turnout.

Mmm

*that's a sort of skeptical mm sound*

Nah, it is an "I'm far too lazy to crunch the numbers but if I mention it someone might" sound...

Otherwise I am supremely relaxed about the council outcomes.

Given the likely direction of travel over the next year for each of the major players they could hardly be a better starting point for the coalition.

No one is talking of replacing Cameron, or even Clegg for that matter. It is Miliband's future which is being questioned.

I agree about the comparisons that need to be made (and we'll have the Euros to overlay it all as well).

I'm skeptical about the "no match" comment.

You are right to question the "no match".

What needs to be determined is the degree to which shares in a low turnout election can be scaled up to a likely GE result.

Sam's comments on Ashcroft 29% in Thurrock vs 39% in Locals is a clear example of a difference that needs explaining/justifying.

@Next & @Richard_Tyndall

A Labour councillor was asked about his response to the election.

He replied, "Bloody UKIP, coming over here, stealing our jobs".

:-) Very good indeed.

Simply brilliant and worth commenting on just to avoid it being orphaned at the end of the last thread.

Do we know the name of the Labour councillor? It would be a shame for the comment to be lost to "anon." or "attrib.".

AveryLP said:

corporeal said:

AveryLP said:

corporeal said:

AveryLP said:

david_herdson said:

Re Ashcroft, obviously a good poll for Labour, with two caveats. The first is that the numbers are not particularly secure: "half of voters say they may change their mind before the election". The second is that the leadership ratings tilt heavily to the Tories: "only three in ten would rather see Mr Miliband as Prime Minister than David Cameron".

Summary: a strong current advantage to Labour but the tide is running the Tories' way.

A 26,000 sample size is impressive but is still no match for a real election even on a below 40% turnout.

Mmm

*that's a sort of skeptical mm sound*

Nah, it is an "I'm far too lazy to crunch the numbers but if I mention it someone might" sound...

Otherwise I am supremely relaxed about the council outcomes.

Given the likely direction of travel over the next year for each of the major players they could hardly be a better starting point for the coalition.

No one is talking of replacing Cameron, or even Clegg for that matter. It is Miliband's future which is being questioned.

I agree about the comparisons that need to be made (and we'll have the Euros to overlay it all as well).

I'm skeptical about the "no match" comment.

You are right to question the "no match".

What needs to be determined is the degree to which shares in a low turnout election can be scaled up to a likely GE result.

Sam's comments on Ashcroft 29% in Thurrock vs 39% in Locals is a clear example of a difference that needs explaining/justifying.

What I would suggest Avery is voter motivation.

As I wrote a thread about, UKIP voters were much more certain to vote than anyone else at this Euro/locals election.

So in a high turnout election they don't have as many medium motivation supporters pick up so their vote share declines.

This might give a test if anti-Labour tactical voting is possible in some seats next year since the Conservatives are 3rd on 4 seats on this poll.

AveryLP said:

@Next & @Richard_Tyndall

A Labour councillor was asked about his response to the election.

He replied, "Bloody UKIP, coming over here, stealing our jobs".

:-) Very good indeed.

Simply brilliant and worth commenting on just to avoid it being orphaned at the end of the last thread.

Do we know the name of the Labour councillor? It would be a shame for the comment to be lost to "anon." or "attrib.".

It was passed without name to me. I thought it amusing, but I have doubts as to whether it came from a real councillor.

from Ashcroft's speech...

''Outside London, the voters who are most optimistic about Britain’s economy are the constituents of the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.''

Sean_F said:

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/

Anthony Wells doesn't think it's such good news for Labour. He says, the average swing in national opinion polls during the period of this survey was 5.25% Con to Lab. In the Conservative-held marginal seats it was 5.5%.

In Labour-held marginal seats, it was higher, at 6.5%.

Any idea how to work out what the Local Residents Association winning so many seats in Havering means in GE terms Sean?

Tim_B said:

Lewis Hamilton says he's from a 'not-great' place called Stevenage.

Stevenage is ok, if you stay on the A1 and keep going.

Hertsmere_Pubgoer said:

Tim_B said:

Lewis Hamilton says he's from a 'not-great' place called Stevenage.

Stevenage is ok, if you stay on the A1 and keep going.

I always thought that the purpose of Milton Keynes was to make Stevenage look good, in the same way that Mississippi exists to make Alabama look good by comparison.

The only thing I recall about Stevenage is that it figured prominently in an episode of the Roger Moore 60s TV series 'The Saint'.

Most concerned should be the LD, in the marginals poll they fall only 9% from last time, significantly less than the 14% from nationwide opinion polls on average. They must be losing more votes somewhere else.

MrJones said:

Of course el Tories could scrap postal voting and win easy but they don't get why so they won't.

In most parts of the country they are the party that most benefits from postal voting .

MrJones said:

MarkSenior said:

MrJones said:

Of course el Tories could scrap postal voting and win easy but they don't get why so they won't.

In most parts of the country they are the party that most benefits from postal voting .

yeah right

There are a few mostly Asian dominated areas where you are correct but certainly not in South coast retirement/care home land .

MrJones said:

MarkSenior said:

MrJones said:

Of course el Tories could scrap postal voting and win easy but they don't get why so they won't.

In most parts of the country they are the party that most benefits from postal voting .

yeah right

Isn't the party that benefits the most from the postal vote "Tower Hamlets First" ^_~ ?

isam said:

Ashcroft ALWAYS underestimates UKIP.

What poll+result combinations are you thinking of?

Ninoinoz said:

AveryLP said:

@Next & @Richard_Tyndall

A Labour councillor was asked about his response to the election.

He replied, "Bloody UKIP, coming over here, stealing our jobs".

:-) Very good indeed.

Simply brilliant and worth commenting on just to avoid it being orphaned at the end of the last thread.

Do we know the name of the Labour councillor? It would be a shame for the comment to be lost to "anon." or "attrib.".

I think it's likely to stay anonymous.

It reveals an entitlement mindset, "I should get this because I am Labour/White/Whatever, not because I've earned it."

On another point, considering the rampage of UKIP at Thursdays locals, how the hell does anyone define a marginal nowadays?
I've seen it attributed elsewhere to a Conservative spokesman. I would guess that it was a joke.

Well, I've been saying it'll be a Labour majority since June 2010, so in a way it's good to see that for once my instincts may have been spot on, but it's dispiriting how easy it could still prove for Ed M on so little genuine effort.

The point about previous such polls not proving true in the end, but it's just hard to see how the Tories can reverse this. Ed M is not great, but he's too careful to have a disaster and keeps making popular announcements (even if they may or may not be very achievable) which should see him over the line, and the LDs will not recover enough to prevent that. In fact, if they do recover significantly it harms the Tories more anyway. UKIP still hurt the Tories more, and that they are split on the best outcome for 2015 makes believing they will flock back to the Tories silly - not because it won't happen to some degree, but because it needs to happen almost universally to let the Tories get a plurality again.

Very decent of shadsy to pay out quickly on Lutfur Rahman, especially given that there may be a steward's inquiry.

The Greens beating the Lib Dems tomorrow would be a very nice result for yours truly.

RochdalePioneers said:

Next said:

Good.

That should keep Labour complacent for while.

Indeed. Right up until the point where Labour complacently appoint cabinet ministers having won the election.

Quite so. Labour need to kick it up a notch if they want to secure that second term though, time's running out.

GIN1138 said:

Speedy said:

Most concerned should be the LD, in the marginals poll they fall only 9% from last time, significantly less than the 14% from nationwide opinion polls on average. They must be losing more votes somewhere else.

Scotland, Wales and "The Great Northern Cities" would be my guess.

In those marginal seats the Lib Dem vote will have been squeezed a lot already. I think we'll really suffer in the mid-range seats. Where we're neither contending nor down to a hardcore.

Places where we're in a strong 3rd, or a middling 2nd in safe Lab or safe con seats we're going to get killed is my guess.

isam said:

edmundintokyo said:

isam said:

Ashcroft ALWAYS underestimates UKIP.

What poll+result combinations are you thinking of?

Every by election in the last two years I think

I am trying to find the data as we type!

		        Labour	Con	LibD	UKIP	Others
Wythenshawe		55.3	14.5	4.9	18	7.3
South Shields		50.4	11.5	1.4	24.2	12.5
Eastleigh		 9.8	25.4	32.1	27.8	4.9
Croydon North		64.7	16.8	3.5	5.7	9.3
Middlesbrough		60.5	6.3	9.9	11.8	11.5
Rotherham		46.5	5.4	2.1	21.7	24.3
Cardiff South		47.3	19.9	10.8	6.1	15.9
Corby		        48.4	26.6	5	14.3	5.7
Manchester Ce		69.1	4.5	9.4	4.5	12.5
Bradford West		25	8.4	4.6	3.3	58.7
Feltham & Heston       54.4	27.7	5.9	5.5	6.5
Inverclyde		53.8	9.9	2.2	1	33.1
Leicester South		57.8	15.1	22.5	2.9	1.7
Barnsley Central       60.8	8.3	4.2	12.2	14.5
Oldham East		42.1	12.8	31.9	5.8	7.4

isam said:

edmundintokyo said:

isam said:

Ashcroft ALWAYS underestimates UKIP.

What poll+result combinations are you thinking of?

Every by election in the last two years I think

I am trying to find the data as we type!

Has Ashcroft done any local election or by-election polling?

RochdalePioneers said:

With the LibDems, there is a widely held view that they will do better in seats than UNS suggests as they concentrate resources in seats they can win. When Ashcroft repeatedly shows Labour doing better than UNS because of the same factor it's shouted down as LOOK AT THE POLLS.

UNS is irrelevant, there is no national election to swing. Models based on 3 party politics are irrelevant - as demonstrated on Thursday. It's merely 650 separate fights in separate seats, where a strong local showing by LibDems or Ukip splitting the right or Labour being well organised decides the seat, not a theoretical proportion of a tiny subset of a national poll. You want proportionality then go PR. Under FPTP it's seat by seat, and in the seats needed for a majority Labour are well organised and we'll supported. Regardless of whether Ed is carp/doing well enough/a geek etc etc.

On the first point, the Lib Dems will probably do worse than uniform national swing would suggest. Where parties suffer a sharp drop in polling, uniform national swing does not work mathematically in seats where their vote share was already low. The consequence is that they will do worse elsewhere than uniform national swing would predict.

This is particularly apparent for the Lib Dems in Scotland, but probably true of them in England also. Their seat count will only hold up to the levels that uniform national swing would predict on current polling if their poll ratings start to rise. (I expect that to occur, at least to some extent, as it happens.)

Speedy said:

Most concerned should be the LD, in the marginals poll they fall only 9% from last time, significantly less than the 14% from nationwide opinion polls on average. They must be losing more votes somewhere else.

I agree with this point completely. One thing consistent between the Ashcroft marginals polls and the ComRes marginals poll is that the Lib Dems continue to record significant levels of support in these seats. These votes are wasted and the Lib Dems on current polling levels would wish them to be elsewhere.

richardDodd said:

Sorry folks...Ed is still crap....and not PM material...

Well everyone knows that (even the most died in the wool Labour supporter knows this truth) but that doesn't mean he couldn't, by some bizarre fluke, blag himself into Downing Street for five years.

Just the thought of it is the stuff of nightmares TBH.

RochdalePioneers said:

With the LibDems, there is a widely held view that they will do better in seats than UNS suggests as they concentrate resources in seats they can win. When Ashcroft repeatedly shows Labour doing better than UNS because of the same factor it's shouted down as LOOK AT THE POLLS.

But the difference here is microscopic:

National swing - 5.25%
Ashcroft Con marginals swing - 5.5%

Which is so close that it cannot possibly be statistically significant.

So whilst this is a very comprehensive piece of work by Ashcroft, it's actually told us precisely nothing over and above what we have from national polls.

By the way next time I think Ashcroft should just poll twice as many Con marginals and forget Lab marginals. Realistically Con gains from Lab are highly unlikely but looking at twice as many Con marginals would give a much better sample size - ie 28 seats instead of 14.

FPT 3:17PM
Pressure is building up on Clegg.
http://www.libdems4change.org/

It now has 150 LD members signed up wanting Clegg out.

Lol, Ashcroft, the man who gives you crossover and a thumping Labour majority in the space of three weeks.
It's either a brilliant piece of psephological discovery, or a load of nonsense. Recent polling and the locals suggest the latter. Fear in my gut suggests the former.
Are the Tories really headed back to 2005? This seems extremely unlikely.

corporeal said:

TCPoliticalBetting said:

FPT 3:17PM
Pressure is building up on Clegg.
http://www.libdems4change.org/

It now has 150 LD members signed up wanting Clegg out.

Clegg has received the ultimate vote of confidence in him staying, Lembit's called for him to go.

I had to chuckle to myself when I read on here that Lembit said he was going to "have Clegg removed as leader of the Lib-Dems"

LOL!

If anybody's read Sian Lloyds' (weathergirl) autobiography they'll know Lemit does have a tendency to be "away with the fairies" a lot of the time, especially when pissed, as according to Sian, he frequently was during their relationship.

MikeL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

With the LibDems, there is a widely held view that they will do better in seats than UNS suggests as they concentrate resources in seats they can win. When Ashcroft repeatedly shows Labour doing better than UNS because of the same factor it's shouted down as LOOK AT THE POLLS.

But the difference here is microscopic:

National swing - 5.25%
Ashcroft Con marginals swing - 5.5%

Which is so close that it cannot possibly be statistically significant.

So whilst this is a very comprehensive piece of work by Ashcroft, it's actually told us precisely nothing over and above what we have from national polls.

By the way next time I think Ashcroft should just poll twice as many Con marginals and forget Lab marginals. Realistically Con gains from Lab are highly unlikely but looking at twice as many Con marginals would give a much better sample size - ie 28 seats instead of 14.

I think the main point is simply that it shows that the incumbency bonus doesn't exist this time (for whatever reason).

MrJones said:

Pulpstar said:

GIN1138 said:

Danny565 said:

I want to believe this, but it's hard to square it with the other recent polls and the results yesterday, frankly.

Perhaps there's thousands of "silent" Labour voters in marginal seats just waiting to run to the polls to get Ed Milliband into Downing St next year?

Its a stereotype -- because its TRUE that Labour voters are the laziest of the lot. So they may well all show up at GE time.

which is why they get the most benefit from postal votes. it ups their average certainty to vote more than anyone else's. it's why they did it.

Eh? Abolish them retrospectively at once and I'd still be an MP. The Conservatives are in most constituencies MUCH better at getting people to vote by post. It's a bit hard to quantify since PVs tend to be older voters and older voters tend to be more Tory, but in every election since 1997 I've seen the Tories do subtantially better among PVs. I suspect that it will hlep them pull out a decent performance tomorrow, given the lower turnout than at GEs.

F1 Morris - I think the 5.15pm was European time - so it's -1 wherever you've starting from.

Good to see the stewards are doing the right thing, even if they use the pretext of reversing to do it. The unnecessary steering inputs during breaking are a dead give away - he could not lock that wheel quick enough

You're a star Avery.

15 mins and we'll all find out if we're +1

I guess the other caveat is Kippers on 20%. If they can't muster that in a nationwide local poll, they ain't getting it at a GE. It rather trashes everything.

dyedwoolie said:

I guess the other caveat is Kippers on 20%. If they can't muster that in a nationwide local poll, they ain't getting it at a GE. It rather trashes everything.

A nationwide local poll? Which one was that? I hope you are not talking about last Thursday because that was in no way nationwide as far as the elections to local councils were concerned.

Ha ha Morris

Mr. Briskin, although the focus is on Mercedes, it is worth recalling there are 20 other drivers.

Still waiting onwhat happens with Perez, Kvyat and, er, two others accused of blocking.

Morris - Yeah but I'm data limited. If Rosberg's on poll he should be hot favourite given what happened last year.

Sorry if this is too bland for you - I get the impression that some people are still crying over a few student paintings being burned.

Mr. Briskin, depends on the start as well. If he leaves the handbrake on...

MikeK said:

Amazing figures from Ashcroft but not a lot learned IMHO.

First; this poll was conducted over six weeks and if week is a long time in politics then 6 weeks is an eon.
Secondly, although 26K people were contacted for the poll only 1K were canvassed for each constituency, which is far different to having 26K answer on each.
Thirdly, as always the suppositions are always spread rather thickly in any of the Lords disclosers.

Just a professional mathematical note on the "only 1K". Broadly speaking a poll of 1K is adequate for most purposes with a roughly binary choice. If you are picking oranges and apples randomly out of a barrel, 1000 picks will give you a pretty good idea of the relative proportions, regardless of whether the barrel contains 10,000 or a million items of fruit. Given that constituencies are mostly around 70,000 people, it's actually a relatively high proportion compared with most polls, but it wouldn't matter much if it wasn't.

You're of course right that 6 weeks is a long time and things do change, though the national polls are much the same now as six weeks ago. They could change markedly over the next two weeks as we see what the Euro result and Newark do.

Only a tweet, but suggests from Rosberg's body language he may get a penalty.

If you bet on F1 I'd suggest preparing to back Red Bull to top score at 8 (Ladbrokes), and perhaps wait for confirmation.

Yeah, I know Carnyx - but when the Bbc are literally* cutting off your data...

*old meaning