Political polling

[butchersapron]

Are the broadcasters able to affect the debate? Does anyone pay attention to them these days - I don't know. It seems to me BBC is keen to promote the non-Brexit issues (as well as the C4 Johnson/Corbyn head-to-head debate which doesn't leave room for SNP or LibDems or Plaid or Green or anyone else (even Farridge)). And if they do succeed in shifting the focus off Brexit, will that make a difference do you reckon?

FWIW I reckon it would and it would help Labour.

The neutral BBC to save us by bringing some sense or something? Are you fucking mad?

 

[Fez909]

 

[Teaboy]

Interesting shrink away from the smaller parties there. 2017 was the election where people deserted the smaller parties, 2019 was supposed to be different. Interesting in a totally random and probably hopelessly wrong poll sort of way.

 

[butchersapron]

Interesting shrink away from the smaller parties there. 2017 was the election where people deserted the smaller parties, 2019 was supposed to be different. Interesting in a totally random and probably hopelessly wrong poll sort of way.

2017 was where they went back to the big parties.

 

[Teaboy]

2017 was where they went back to the big parties.

Yeah, sorry it was a typo. I've edited.

 

[Proper Tidy]

Interesting shrink away from the smaller parties there. 2017 was the election where people deserted the smaller parties, 2019 was supposed to be different. Interesting in a totally random and probably hopelessly wrong poll sort of way.

Always going to be the way in election period isn't it. Outside of that people will tell pollsters who they like, or least dislike. Inside it's focussed on who can form a govt.

 

[Supine]

 

[William of Walworth]

I'm sceptical about that Panelbase poll above, but if Tories really end up getting 40% and Labour only 29%, that would be a Tory landslide ...

<prays that scepticism about the poll is justified >

 

[killer b]

There's a whole general election campaign to go at first - get out doorknocking.

 

[William of Walworth]

ill be chatting with a very-Labour mate Eddie about that this evening .... he was ward organiser in Antonia Antoniazzi's constituency last time, should be again. And he and comrades did a lot to help get people out and voting on the Swansea side of Gower -- she won big.

I want actually to get involved myself this time, somehow.

 

[killer b]

Momentum have done this really good campaign map - click on the marginal closest to you and it'll give you a list of campaign events/locations/dates, and you can just turn up and get involved this time, somehow.

My Campaign Map

 

[marty21]

Momentum have done this really good campaign map - click on the marginal closest to you and it'll give you a list of campaign events/locations/dates, and you can just turn up and get involved this time, somehow.

My Campaign Map

lol, that is blocked at work, I guess Councils don't like that sort of thing - we are in purdah too during the election

 

[Wilf]

lol, that is blocked at work, I guess Councils don't like that sort of thing - we are in purdah too during the election

It just doesn't load for me.

 

[Proper Tidy]

It just doesn't load for me.

Not me either. Well it loads but doesn't let me use the search on post code which is the point. I suspect you have to register so they can harvest all that lovely data, there is a sign in/register thing at bottom

 

[Pickman's model]

Not me either. Well it loads but doesn't let me use the search on post code which is the point. I suspect you have to register so they can harvest all that lovely data, there is a sign in/register thing at bottom

yeh but you do know you can find out other postcodes, you don't have to be entirely honest with them

 

[killer b]

Not me either. Well it loads but doesn't let me use the search on post code which is the point. I suspect you have to register so they can harvest all that lovely data, there is a sign in/register thing at bottom

why do you need your postcode? I'm guessing you've some idea where on that big map of the UK you live...

 

[Proper Tidy]

why do you need your postcode? I'm guessing you've some idea where on that big map of the UK you live...

You on a desktop? No map on mobile, just brings up a search post code function

That button thing doesn't work by the way

 

[killer b]

ah, fair point, I hadn't checked on my mobile. it works well on a desktop anyway!

 

[killer b]

postcode search works fine on my mobile too, without having to sign in or anything.

 

[belboid]

Not me either. Well it loads but doesn't let me use the search on post code which is the point. I suspect you have to register so they can harvest all that lovely data, there is a sign in/register thing at bottom

works fine on the phone for me, no need to register. Of course they want your email address to 'keep you up to date'

 

[Proper Tidy]

Yeah just tried again and works for me now, wasn't before and tried on whatever browser links on here opens and on chrome. Anyway I'm not going to do fuck all beyond turning up to vote so dunno why I bothered

 

[killer b]

 

[maomao]

Telegraph has the Tories only 8 points ahead now but they won't be wanting a clear lead at this point. They need fear of a Labour government to get the vermin vote out.

 

[brogdale]

On Smithson's site Harry Hayfield has this actual polling data:

...there have been over 500 local by-elections up and down the country since the last general election and how have those local by-elections come out:

Conservatives 278,329 votes (32% -5% on last time) winning 191 seats (-37 seats on last time)
Labour 256,801 votes (29% -1% on last time) winning 166 seats (-5 seats on last time)
Liberal Democrats 164,670 votes (19% +5% on last time) winning 100 seats (+47 seats on last time)
Independent and Local Independents 53,835 votes (6% -1% on last time) winning 44 seats (+6 seats on last time)
Green Party 42,729 votes (5% -2% on last time) winning 5 seats (+3 seats on last time)
United Kingdom Independence Party 15,655 votes (2% -7% on last time) winning 0 seats (-13 seats on last time)
Scottish National Party 31,400 votes (4% +1% on last time) winning 8 seats (+3 seats on last time)
Plaid Cymru 3,998 votes (0% unchanged on last time) winning 5 seats (+2 seats on last time)
Other Parties 30,242 votes (3% unchanged on last time) winning 15 seats (unchanged on last time)

Conservative lead of 21,528 votes (3%) on a swing of 2% from Con to Lab

but...

...since the middle of 2018, there has been a distinct drop in Labour support. Case in point, just look at the last few months or so. Since August, the Conservative vote has gone up a tad (+0.82%), the Labour vote has collapsed (-9%) and the Liberal Democrat vote has shot up (+9%)

 

[cupid_stunt]

Telegraph has the Tories only 8 points ahead now but they won't be wanting a clear lead at this point. They need fear of a Labour government to get the vermin vote out.

The last survation poll, a few days ago, had the Tories on a 8% lead, which should still give them a comfortable majority of around 40.

 

[Mr Moose]

The last survation poll, a few days ago, had the Tories on a 8% lead, which should still give them a comfortable majority of around 40.

Hasn’t the maths shifted a little from the usual predictions? There is a danger for the Tories that they rack up huge votes in Little England, but get squeezed in the Remainey areas around the big cities and in Scotland.

 

[MickiQ]

Hasn’t the maths shifted a little from the usual predictions? There is a danger for the Tories that they rack up huge votes in Little England, but get squeezed in the Remainey areas around the big cities and in Scotland.

That seems to be BoZo's master plan, abandon his Scottish MP's to the SNP and the strong Remain areas to the LDs' but take enough Leave votes off Labour in Tory-Lab marginals to get victory overall, his record when it comes to master plans is fairly dire but fortunately his immense arrogance blinds him to this.

The last survation poll, a few days ago, had the Tories on a 8% lead, which should still give them a comfortable majority of around 40.

We'll see, I'm not optimistic at the moment but when into the 2017 election expecting a massive Tory majority, I'm hopeful I will be proven wrong a 2nd time.
They can't be completely discarded but the reputation of pollsters has taken a knock these last few years and there are lots of complex factors in this election that probably can't be modelled.

 

[brogdale]

That seems to be BoZo's master plan, abandon his Scottish MP's to the SNP and the strong Remain areas to the LDs' but take enough Leave votes off Labour in Tory-Lab marginals to get victory overall, his record when it comes to master plans is fairly dire but fortunately his immense arrogance blinds him to this.

We'll see, I'm not optimistic at the moment but when into the 2017 election expecting a massive Tory majority, I'm hopeful I will be proven wrong a 2nd time.
They can't be completely discarded but the reputation of pollsters has taken a knock these last few years and there are lots of complex factors in this election that probably can't be modelled.

Talking about difficulties of modelling...yesterday's FT ran a piece on how this (potential) 2 & 2 halves/4-way GE may see some seats being won on remarkably low vote shares seeing a significantly lowered median winning %.

Brexit has splintered the UK political landscape to such a degree that Boris Johnson could win the upcoming general election by seizing marginal constituencies with as little as a quarter of the vote share in those seats. During the 27 UK general elections since 1918, the average seat winner secured 53 per cent of the vote, and there have only been seven occasions when a party won a seat with less than 30 per cent of the vote. But a constituency-level forecast produced by Focal Data for the pro-Remain group Best for Britain, shows how the Conservatives could triumph in many seats with even less. The Best for Britain/Focal Data 2019 model predicts that the median seat winner’s vote share will be 39 per cent, and forecasts that 15 seats will be won with vote shares of less than 30 per cent.

 

[brogdale]

Couple of days old, but YG's Anthony Well's piece on what the current polling means is pretty good.

It’s worth noting that that Tory lead is largely down to a split opposition. Even in the MORI poll the Conservatives have lost support since the election (in the YouGov and Survation polls they’ve lost a lot of support). This is not a popular government – in the MORI poll, their satisfaction rating is minus 55 – it’s just that the main opposition have lost even more support. The healthy Conservative lead is down to the fact that the Conservatives are retaining the bulk of the Leave vote, while the remain vote is split between Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, the SNP, Plaid and so on.

For as long as this is the case, the Conservatives should do well. If it should change they’ll struggle. If the Brexit party manage to get back into the race and take support from the Tories it would eat into their lead. The other risk for the Tories is if the Remain vote swings more decisively behind either Labour or the Liberal Democrats (or that there are signs of more effective tactical voting, winning seats off the Conservatives despite a split vote). Essentially Boris Johnson needs to keep the Leave vote united and the Remain vote divided.

It is also worth considering how the Conservative lead might translate into seats. In 2017 the Conservative lead over Labour was only two and a half percentage points. You would therefore expect an eight point Conservative lead to translate into a majority, and a fifteen or seventeen point lead to be a landslide. In reality that Survation poll could easily be touch-and-go for a Tory majority and, while the bigger leads would likely get a Tory majority, it may not be landslide territory.

The reason that the Conservatives translated votes more effectively into seats in 2015 and 2017 was to do with the distribution of the vote. The Conservative re-emergence in Scotland meant that Tory votes up there were no longer wasted (but Labour votes increasingly were), the collapse of the Liberal Democrats in the South-West meant that the Tories vote there returned more MPs. If at the coming election we see those trends reverse, and the Conservatives lose seats to the SNP in Scotland and the Lib Dems in the South, then suddenly their votes won’t be translated so effectively into seats, and they’ll need to win more seats off Labour to make up for it.

 

[killer b]

Quite a bounce for Labour in the new YouGov