politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » CON takes 12% lead in ComRe/Mail poll which uses new method

First - to lunch!

The time for contrition by pollsters is by no means over yet.

Lazy Labour on the slide!

Philip_Thompson said:

Good to see some sensible reforms from ComRes.

FPT regarding the notion that 2016 Holyrood could see anti-SNP tactical voting:

There is no reason to assume tactical voting will be higher against the SNP than it was before. This ludicrous argument was getting made about why some Lab seats would be saved at the election, the simple truth is that Lab and Tory hate each other and nothing is changing that. Unless Lab and Tory start respecting each other anti-SNP tactical voting is simply not going to happen.

Holyrood offers more scope for tactical voting by Labour and Conservative voters whose priority was in reducing the influence of the SNP. A unionist Labour supporter might conceivably vote for the Conservatives in a border constituency and for Labour on the list. In an urban constituency a Conservative might be inclined to do the reverse.

But if the SNP are confident of winning most constituencies, we might see an awful lot of left-leaning SNP list votes loaned to the Greens in order to give yet more volume to the independence voice in Holyrood, rather than pile up SNP votes to no practical effect.

The second possibility looks more likely to me to take off than the first.

MikeSmithson said:

antifrank said:

The time for contrition by pollsters is by no means over yet.

Well the polling made it a bumper general election for the bookies.

Presumably shadsy is excluded from that, given Ladbrokes took at £30,000 bet at 7/1 on a Conservative overall majority.

Philip_Thompson said:

FPT regarding the notion that 2016 Holyrood could see anti-SNP tactical voting:

There is no reason to assume tactical voting will be higher against the SNP than it was before. This ludicrous argument was getting made about why some Lab seats would be saved at the election, the simple truth is that Lab and Tory hate each other and nothing is changing that. Unless Lab and Tory start respecting each other anti-SNP tactical voting is simply not going to happen.

Quite.

After over three decades of demonisation by Labour, they suddenly expect Scots Tories to turn around and say 'oh well, they didn't mean it'?

Dream on.

Labour have dug their own grave.

Should make us all wonder what will go wrong next time. By which time I will be nearly 70 and probably still not polled by anybody. I will have to tell my wife to shoot me of I am still commenting on here by then. Wonder if I will have dodged the bullet?
The benefits to the Tories of having a better off aspirational and engaged electorate seem pretty clear.

OGH is right imo to focus on sampling. Weighting the hell out of poor samples, and adjusting the weights after periodic failures is what gets pollsters into trouble, and additional anchors looks like an attempt to make this a more frequent or even dynamic process.

On topic, kudos to ComRes but we should see more country/region specific polling.

The Scottish polling was broadly right, the ComRes South West marginals poll were spot on, as were others.

I don't think we saw a single England only poll in the last parliament.

antifrank said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Good to see some sensible reforms from ComRes.

FPT regarding the notion that 2016 Holyrood could see anti-SNP tactical voting:

There is no reason to assume tactical voting will be higher against the SNP than it was before. This ludicrous argument was getting made about why some Lab seats would be saved at the election, the simple truth is that Lab and Tory hate each other and nothing is changing that. Unless Lab and Tory start respecting each other anti-SNP tactical voting is simply not going to happen.

Holyrood offers more scope for tactical voting by Labour and Conservative voters whose priority was in reducing the influence of the SNP. A unionist Labour supporter might conceivably vote for the Conservatives in a border constituency and for Labour on the list. In an urban constituency a Conservative might be inclined to do the reverse.

But if the SNP are confident of winning most constituencies, we might see an awful lot of left-leaning SNP list votes loaned to the Greens in order to give yet more volume to the independence voice in Holyrood, rather than pile up SNP votes to no practical effect.

The second possibility looks more likely to me to take off than the first.

Some pretty sensible comments from both. Nearer the time, I would welcome a good sensible thread analysing the issue of what to do with the list vote.

One thought however is that Labour, LDs and Tories will want to vote for their own parties in the List vote anyway, where voting makes much more sense than under FPTP. So there is that much less scope for tactical voting there: only in the constituency vote, and we have seen how well that worked (not very), at least last time round.

I also notice that Labour are sacking members who publicly advocated voting SNP. Presumably, too, they are doing this to members who did the same for SCON and SLD (ie tactical voting) - a cynic might say of course Labour won't, but that lays them potentially open to challenge by any sacked member.

AndyJS said:

Turnout increased by just 0.3 points in England:

http://www.ukpolitical.info/Turnout45.htm

So is that not actually a fall in turnout, given that individual registration made the registers more efficient (and/or excluded potential voters)?

@ComResPolls: Our Head of Political Polling @tom_ComRes will be on @daily_politics shortly discussing new ComRes Voter Turnout Model and GE polling

PT Factually wrong, Labour only held Edinburgh South for instance through Tory tactical voting where the Tory share fell almost 5% since 2010. At Holyrood where a Labour vote does not risk a Labour government it will likely be higher

blackburn63 said:

I'm not sure if labour are in denial or simply appealing to the % of the electorate that is economically illiterate. On one hand they oppose cuts, on they other they pledge to remove the deficit.

And they don't want to put up tax..

@JasonGroves1: Ed Miliband preparing to make first Commons spch since election during economy debate. Going thru his notes. Labour will hv hearts in mouths

tlg86 said:

Is it not a little strange that the Comres change makes no difference to their Ukip prediction in their final pre-election poll, yet it knocks 2 pp off their score in the first poll after the election?

It is a UKIP to Con swing since the election as those wanting a referendum seeing Dave deliver said referendum

Osborne slagging off pollsters from the despatch box

@joeyjonessky: @George_Osborne laying it on thick: "what the pollsters and the pundits didn't reckon upon was the good sense of the British public."

@VickiYoung01: Osborne pays generous tribute to Ed Miliband who is sitting on the Labour benches and intends to speak in debate on economy #economy

The FT reports on an interview with the Wallenbergs on their fears of Britain leaving the EU:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8662c054-0a11-11e5-a6a8-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=published_links/rss/brussels/feed//product#axzz3c5ozOvoz

They express their concerns in terms of the impact on the EU rather than the impact on Britain:

" “The axis of London-Paris-Berlin changing to Paris-Berlin would be a significant change to the core of Europe. Britain stands for a liberal economic stance which I find very important, speaking as business people and free trade advocates,” said Jacob Wallenberg, chairman of Investor, the main family investment vehicle."

"He [Marcus Wallenberg] continued that the UK leaving would weaken the EU’s global influence: “The UK has a tremendous position and influence in areas such as trade and in political clout. Its relationship with the US is something we should be very mindful of and its positive influence on the continental European debate.”

HYUFD said:

Leslie 'The Tories promised there would not be a deficit by now', a fair point, voters will tolerate further cuts for now, but if there is no surplus by 2018 as prmoised they may be less forgiving. Leslie emphasises Labour will back tax cuts for middle and low income earners, not the rich

I agree it's a fair point. I really lost patience with Cameron and crew when the deficit elimination was pushed back to 2018, inevitable as it all seemed, and I remain convinced they will push it back to 2020, but I would think far less of them if they do and extending the pain even further will surely see more anger.

Guido's stand in sketch writer did a good job, and with the killer punch line.

Comres head of polling on Daily Politics now on polling in election

DecrepitJohnL said:

AndyJS said:

Turnout increased by just 0.3 points in England:

http://www.ukpolitical.info/Turnout45.htm

So is that not actually a fall in turnout, given that individual registration made the registers more efficient (and/or excluded potential voters)?

Probably, yes. But most people — including the pollsters — were expecting it to rise, at least a bit. That would have boosted the Labour share.

Lolz

Osborne on Labour

"Has taken the unusual approach of erecting the headstone first and then conducting the post-mortem."

Good cartoon from Hoby on the EdStone:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CGps2ERVAAAeSxu.jpg

Looks plausible, though I wonder if demographically-driven turnout is the whole story.

O/T: three banks have informed me that someone who knows my private address and my birthday has applied online to open accounts in my name. TSB and Capital One wrote to me to request confirmation; Lloyds cheerfully opened it anyway, and let him spend £800. Presumably there are others I've yet to hear from. TSB and CapOne promised to put me on the "exercise extra care" CIFAS list and Lloyds (who have now found that other details of the application were wrong, e.g. length of time at the address) assure me that I'm unlikely to be chased for the amount once they've checked it out. I've reported it to all three immediately I heard from them. Is there anything else I ought to be doing to protect myself?

I'm curious how it works. My post is continuing to arrive so it doesn't appear that someone is successfully diverting it. So how will the guy have got sufficient information from Lloyds to enable him to spend the money?

@ToryTreasury: Yvette Cooper has said Labour are "anti-business, anti-growth and ultimately anti-worker".

NickPalmer said:

Looks plausible, though I wonder if demographically-driven turnout is the whole story.

O/T: three banks have informed me that someone who knows my private address and my birthday has applied online to open accounts in my name. TSB and Capital One wrote to me to request confirmation; Lloyds cheerfully opened it anyway, and let him spend £800. Presumably there are others I've yet to hear from. TSB and CapOne promised to put me on the "exercise extra care" CIFAS list and Lloyds (who have now found that other details of the application were wrong, e.g. length of time at the address) assure me that I'm unlikely to be chased for the amount once they've checked it out. I've reported it to all three immediately I heard from them. Is there anything else I ought to be doing to protect myself?

I'm curious how it works. My post is continuing to arrive so it doesn't appear that someone is successfully diverting it. So how will the guy have got sufficient information from Lloyds to enable him to spend the money?

Nick, as the victim of ID theft, check your experian report now. See if there's anything unusual and check it regularly.

Am I right in thinking you have two correspondence addresses?

Is how they got me.

TheScreamingEagles said:

New ICM online poll

http://www.icmunlimited.com/data/media/pdf/Public reaction to new government policies.pdf

Quite encouraging for the Conservatives, IMHO.

OchEye said:

HYUFD said:

PT Factually wrong, Labour only held Edinburgh South for instance through Tory tactical voting where the Tory share fell almost 5% since 2010. At Holyrood where a Labour vote does not risk a Labour government it will likely be higher

Totally factually wrong, Labour held the seat due to the SNP candidate being uncovered as a CyberNAT troll who had said very rude and uncomplimentary things about the elderly and those who voted No

Also the Tory vote fell by just over 800 votes, the LDs by 13k. I don't think it was Tory tactical votes that swung it.

OchAye No, the SNP total rose 26%, the Labour total also rose 5%, the Tory total fell almost 5%

Have comres just found a model that fits their last poll and then adopted that? I'm just asking. May be that is what good statistics is all about.

TUD Many of those LD votes will have gone to the SNP

Miliband on his feet

Thanks to whomever posted this on the previous thread. I agree with all of it:

http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2015/06/04/rock-bottom-2/

Miliband giving the his best speech of the last 5 years

@SophyRidgeSky: Biggest departmental cuts: 1. Transport £545m 2. Defence £500m 3. Education/Business £450m each 4. Justice £249m 5. DCLG £230

MarkHopkins said:

Note that Experian may try and charge you for extra services.

The statutory check is only £2.

http://www.experian.co.uk/consumer/statutory-report.html

In a case of identity theft you probably want to pay a bit more to get a fuller report - it can be a serious pain to sort out.

AndyJS said:

"Alex Salmond tells female MP 'behave yourself, woman!'

Scottish Nationalist MP accused of sexism after outburst in Commons at Anna Soubry, a Treasury minister"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/SNP/11650695/Alex-Salmond-tells-female-MP-behave-yourself-woman.html

At the risk of incurring the wrath of the nats, Alex Salmond has always come across to me as a smug pompous pr*ck. And I do not swear lightly.

I turned when he said, 'The Scottish lion has rroared..' at his count last month, followed by a smirk. Just almost everything about his rhetoric grates.

Either Angus Robertson or Nicola Sturgeon would (and have) made far better leaders of the SNP than he. In fact, one does wonder how much better YES might have done had either of them been in charge during the indyref last year.

Richard_Nabavi said:

MarkHopkins said:

Note that Experian may try and charge you for extra services.

The statutory check is only £2.

http://www.experian.co.uk/consumer/statutory-report.html

In a case of identity theft you probably want to pay a bit more to get a fuller report - it can be a serious pain to sort out.

Agreed - the consequences can last years.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Well we're cutting defence by a further half a billion, that's going to be troublesome for Dave.

What's all this about? I thought the CSR was in July.

TheScreamingEagles said:

@SophyRidgeSky: Biggest departmental cuts: 1. Transport £545m 2. Defence £500m 3. Education/Business £450m each 4. Justice £249m 5. DCLG £230

I take it the £545m coming off transport doesn't take into account HS2?

Casino_Royale said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Well we're cutting defence by a further half a billion, that's going to be troublesome for Dave.

What's all this about? I thought the CSR was in July.

Ozzy has announced 4.5billion worth of efficiencies/savings in his Queen Speech debate.

I'm assuming he's getting the painful stuff out now, and announcing the big popular things during the budget next month

AndreaParma_82 said:

Louise Haigh, new MP for Sheffield Heeley

TheScreamingEagles said:

Who is the ginger lady sat behind Ed Miliband? #HasAWeaknessForRedHeads

Oooh, thank you.

Richard_Nabavi said:

MarkHopkins said:

Note that Experian may try and charge you for extra services.

The statutory check is only £2.

http://www.experian.co.uk/consumer/statutory-report.html

In a case of identity theft you probably want to pay a bit more to get a fuller report - it can be a serious pain to sort out.

The standard report has full details (for these purposes) in there.

Check the link I gave to see the differences.

I was going to say the advantage of not having any bloody money was that nobody could steal it, but on identity fraud I was a victim of a very low level (about £20 or so) bit a few years ago. Stood out a mile because the card it was on was one I used rarely. Thankfully the firm (VISA, I think) were entirely sensible about it and I got a refund.

Sandpit said:

Ed's back!
How is he trying to define poverty - unable to afford Sky TV or a new iPhone?

Do you remember how buying a flat screen (plasma!) TV was a sign of decadence? Owning one became a key rioter demographic. I hope comres have updated their model on that one.