polls

A turning point in fortune

Two polls this week put Labour well ahead of the Tories and even Poltico’s poll tracker has Labour ahead albeit by smaller numbers and on Thursday, the Tories lost 5 council bye-elections. A couple of things to say, firstly, this may not last, and secondly it’s often said that government’s lose elections rather than oppositions winning them. This turn in the polls may come to be seen as important. I find it hard to believe that ‘partygate’ is the cause of the sudden turn in fortunes, but stranger things have happened. While Thatcher fell because of the Poll Tax, and Major because of Black Wednesday, Brown was overtaken after a spat with Osborne on Inheritance Tax, with Ed Miliband, it was the bacon sandwich and the SNP, and Corbyn lost his lead over May at the same time he was arguing that we needed more evidence to blame the Russians for Skripal poisonings. Sometimes tragedy, sometimes farce but we need to ask will it last. ... More overleaf ...

Starmer vs Johnson, approval ratings

Is Starmer thought of more highly than Johnson? The short answer, it would seem is "Yes". I have looked at yougov and re-presented their results here. But if he is more highly thought of, why are the Tories ahead in the polls when nearly 100,000 people are dead from the coronavirus. The charts showing each leader's score since Starmer's election to the leadership, a comparative score and a look at the Party scores are overleaf. I have used yougov's figures. ...

Labour’s vote: where does the next tranche of voters come from?

I wrote a pissy little piece on the polls the other week but in doing so looked back as far as this one at politico goes. They mark certain key events on the chart, but miss some which I think are important, such as the 2019 Euro-elections, and key counter pandemic events, including Cummings and his drive to Durham and the breaking of the growing corruption story. They also miss the Skripal poisoning, the failure to leave on May’s first deadline, Corbyn’s new red lines and Labour’s NEC’s shit Brexit position for the Euro-election. I’d argue that Labour’s opposition to May in early 2019 won it voter share, but it’s behaviour after that didn’t. Labour’s voter share began to rise after it’s fixed ’19 Conference. The rise and fall of UKIP/LibDems would seem to be the story of the summer and autumn of 2019 suggesting that the electorate was polarising over the issue of Brexit, but that Farage gave up when he realised that his fucking about was jeopardising the Tory vote and there’s no explaining the ludicrous implosion of the LibDems.

The big problem here is that throughout the six year period, with the exception of the 9 months, from June 17 to April 18, Labour’s vote share is under 40%, to reach the FPTP tipping point voter share needs to be above that. It’s a fact that Labour needs to win votes from the Tories but there is some evidence that so-called radical economic policy might win some of the working-class Tory or Brexit Party vote back, if in fact this vote was ever Labour’s. It might be of benefit if the Liberal Democrats recovered some of their vote, especially since they are clearly positioned in the model of European Liberal Parties of ‘dry’ economics, with a dash of social liberalism, add several dollops of constitutional reform and a dash of political sectarianism. If they are kicking lumps out of the Tories who cares? One problem they face is they are not asking themselves these questions either, of where their voters will come from politically or geographically?

How does Labour increase its voter share to over 40%? Where will they get them from politically and geographically? Purges and abstentionism is unlikely to do it unless “Team Starmer” are relying on the idea that Govts lose elections, oppositions don’t win them. If that’s the case, Labour could be waiting a long time. …

What are the polls telling us?

Are the polls telling us anything? Here’s a chart from politico.eu , since June, Labour have between 37% and 39%. This is better than earlier in the year but we should remember that polls claim a 3% error margin, which is why multi source publications like this are more accurate than a single company’s results. We should note this Govt. is killing people and guilty of the worst corruption and cronyism, but it is rare for Labour to poll much higher and we need to ask where the next batch of votes are coming from?

politico.eu – UK National parliament voting intention

Labour supporters should note that the SNP vote share is rock solid at 5%, although there is evidence that the ex-pit and steel towns are returning to Labour, so not only do we need to ask where are the votes coming from, but we need to know where are the seats coming from? …

Who’ll win in the London Euro poll?

The LibDems are going to struggle. Will Labour get three MEPs? Will Jean Lambert, the Green keep her seat?

After the ORG hustings, I had a brief word with Claude Moraes about the likely results, whether Labour would win more seats and if Sarah Ludford, the sole London LibDem MEP would hold on. The following day, the Evening standard published an article quoting a YouGov poll, putting Labour well in the front in London. The Standard’s article sadly doesn’t quote its YouGov source, which may have been private and it does not mention the Greens. The most recent YouGov report I can find is dated early May, and is here. In addition the counting method is complex. I have sought to see what the results in London might be based on what data I have. …

Two political forecast models; a Labour landslide

If you check, You Gov’s midweek poll for last week, you will find they forecast, as follows. CON 29%, LAB 42%, LD 11%, UKIP 18%; the field work was done between the 21st and 23rd May. If you then go to the BBC’s House of Commons Seat Calculator, and set the dial as You Gov suggest, you get the following result.

A Labour Majority of 142, with the seats as follows, CON 190, LAB 396, LD 35 and the Rest at 29. This is on a scale of Tony Blair’s 1997 Victory.

ooOOOoo

There are a number of problems with this model, it is based on 2005 results, and there have been boundary changes since, it assumes an even swing which probably discriminates against the Lib Dems who claim a positive incumbency factor, and it almost certainly underestimates the Scottish Nationalists. It’s a shame that there is no ‘hover’ over the seats to see which seat is which.

Other potential long or medium term factors i.e. the increasing xenophobia and the rise of UKIP are likely to be under-estimated or ignored. The YouGov report does count and report on the UKIP and SNP voting intentions.

I have placed the you gov news page and the BBC page together with Political Betting’s home page on my Blogroll.

This is already out of date, YouGov published a further poll with field work conducted over the 23rd and 24th May in last weekend’s Sunday Times, with the Tories having stolen 1% from the Liberal Democrats. …