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Political polling

Tonight's Observer poll:-

The fortnightly Opinium poll for the Observer is out tonight and has topline figures of:-

CON 28%(nc), LAB 38%(nc), LDEM 8%(-1), UKIP 17%(+1).

Voting intentions are pretty much identical to a fortnight ago – the UKIP score looks startling but Opinium have had them this high for a month (they tend to prodce one of the higher scores for the party, which Opinium themselves put down to the fact they don’t use any past vote weighting.)
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Today's YouGov...

The weekly YouGov poll for the Sunday Times is now up here. Topline voting intention figures are :-

CON 30%, LAB 40%, LD 11%, UKIP 13%.

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/7248
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The same poll included a number of 'welfare' questions and the findings make pretty grim, if unsurprising, reading...

Looking at the broad findings, a chunky majority of people think that the present benefit system needs reform in some way. Overall, 70% of people think the current system works badly and needs significant (38%) or major (32%) reform.
However, looking beneath that concern seems to be more widespread about who benefits go to, rather than the level of them (though it would be wrong to deny many were not also concerned about that!). 63% think that the benefit system is not strict enough and too open to fraud, 22% think it is too strict, 9% about right. Compare this to 37% who think it is too generous and benefit payments are too high, 21% who think they are too low and 26% who think they are about right. In previous polling we’ve often seen that overall people want to see less spent on welfare, but are actually well-disposed towards benefits for some groups like the disabled or the elderly – the driver of disatisfaction with the system does seem to be exactly who it goes to.
The YouGov/Sunday Times survey asked people what proportion of welfare they thought went to people who genuinely needed and deserved support, and what proportion went to people who did not deserve it and were taking advantage of the system. 36% of people think that half (23%) or more than half (13%) of people claiming benefits do not deserve help and are taking advantage of the system. A further 42% of people think there are a minority of claimants who are not deserving help. (Again, we’ve seen previously that people vastly overestimate the level of fraud in the system, but this is not actually the same question – people may well think that people are perfectly legally claiming benefits within the current rules, but that the rules should be tighter).
Asking more specifically about some of policy proposals and whether they are fair or not, 78% of people think it is fair to put a £26,000 cap on the benefits a household can receive each year (10% think it unfair) and 59% think it is fair to limit the increase in working-age benefits to 1%, less than the rate of inflation. People are more evenly split over the “bedroom tax” – 47% of people think it is fair that people have their housing benefit reduced if they are considered to have more rooms than they need, 40% think it is unfair. The survey in the Sun had a similar batch of questions that asked if people supported changes, rather than if they were fair/unfair – the results were very similar though – 79% supported the cap on total benefits and opinion on the “bedroom tax” was 49% support/44% oppose.
Asked about the challenge made to Iain Duncan Smith to live on £53 pounds a week, only 26% think it would be reasonable to expect someone to live on this amount of money. However when asked about whether it would be reasonable to live on £71 – the current rate of income support or jobseekers allowance for a single adult over the age of 25, 57% of people think it would be reasonable to expect someone to live on this compared to 31% who do not . That said, people are slightly less optimistic about whether they themselves could live on that much money! Only 44% say they could, 48% say they could not.
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Hmmm..... tory press; job done.:(
 
shagnasty said:
Any idea when the elections are for greater london
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2014.

Here's the list of councils where elections are taking place this May. Vast majority currently under Conservative control.

I don't think UKIP will take many council seats (though I think they'll probably gain a few unlike the last two years) but they could cause serious damage for the Tories - and help out the LibDems.
 
redsquirrel said:
2014.

Here's the list of councils where elections are taking place this May. Vast majority currently under Conservative control.

I don't think UKIP will take many council seats (though I think they'll probably gain a few unlike the last two years) but they could cause serious damage for the Tories - and help out the LibDems.
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Yep, the 2014 elections are the next real test for the Libdems (especially with the added pressure from the Euros), this one could be a blwo for the Tories, however I don't think they will hugely suffer in terms of seats held as so many of them are fairly safe Tory seats, it all depends on how well UKIP organise. I think Labour are right to talk down their chances this time.
 
There's also the mayoral elections in Doncaster and North Tyneside this time, I think a divided field in Donny could let Labour through (but might not they are loathed by so many), and Labour should take North Tyneside off the Tories.
 
Can't even escape it here..

On the day of her death, half of all respondents, 50%, told the pollster that they look back on her contribution as a positive one for Britain. That is 16 points more than the 34% who say she was bad for the country.
Opinions remain strong on both sides: half of her admirers, 25%, rate her record as "very good", and most of her detractors, 20% of the overall sample, deem it to have been "very bad". Indeed, only 11% sit on the fence and say she was "neither good nor bad"; an even smaller slither of opinion, just 5%, told ICM that they didn't know.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/08/britain-divided-margaret-thatcher-record-poll
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The fortnightly Opinium poll for the Observer has topline figures of:-

CON 29%(+1), LAB 35%(-3), LDEM 8%(nc), UKIP 17(+1).

Anthony at UKPR says...

I am always extremely cautious about reading movements into polls – more often than not they turn out to be no more than the result of random movement within the normal margin of error – however we do seem to be seeing a consistent trend. YouGov’s dailing polling for the Sun which normally shows Labour leads of around 10 points has produced leads of 7, 8, 11 and 7 this week, Ipsos MORI showed Labour’s lead dropping by four points, ICM by two points and now Opinium by four points.
Just as I’d advise caution in deciding whether or not there is a change in the polls, one should be equally cautious in assuming what the cause might be. Don’t just leap at the most apparent story in the news! Clearly one obvious explanation would be the coverage of the Thatcher funeral, but it doesn’t follow that this is automatically the cause (if it is, of course, then I would expect any narrowing to be very short lived. A bit of positive TV coverage of a leader from long ago is probably not going to lead to any long term shift).
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/7314
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Dead witch bounce?
 
Labour to gain up to 11 seats in Bristol from Tory/Lib Dems. Lib Dems to lose up to 11 to Labour/Greens. Labour biggest party on hung council
 
Spanky Longhorn said:
don't think Labour would be doing so well if they had won the mayoral election some how
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dunno tbh, this is guesswork on my part based on the seats up for grabs this time and the results four years ago (ie no actual polling). I'm guessing that Lib Dem votes will transfer to Labour on the estates/inner city and to the Greens in the lentil belt. As a result, Labour to take back much of what they steadily lost over the last dozen years or so and a rise in the Green vote again, perhaps leading to an extra seat or two in said lentil belt. Certainly more second places for them, can see Labour and Green pushing the sitting Lib Dem into third in Easton. Lib Dems to hold on in the complacent m/c west Bristol wards and Tories to lose up to four seats in the suburbs (to Labour).

Musical chairs will make no difference because George is running the show anyway and Labour don't want to play in his cabinet
 
JTG said:
Labour to gain up to 11 seats in Bristol from Tory/Lib Dems. Lib Dems to lose up to 11 to Labour/Greens. Labour biggest party on hung council
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Sorry is that your predication/rumour or what?


Anyone want to make a guess on how many councillors UKIP gain/lose? I reckon a net gain of about 15.
And unfortunately I think the LibDems will not do as badly this year as the last two :(
 
redsquirrel said:
Sorry is that your predication/rumour or what?


Anyone want to make a guess on how many councillors UKIP gain/lose? I reckon a net gain of about 15.
And unfortunately I think the LibDems will not do as badly this year as the last two :(
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JTG said:
dunno tbh, this is guesswork on my part based on the seats up for grabs this time and the results four years ago (ie no actual polling). I'm guessing that Lib Dem votes will transfer to Labour on the estates/inner city and to the Greens in the lentil belt. As a result, Labour to take back much of what they steadily lost over the last dozen years or so and a rise in the Green vote again, perhaps leading to an extra seat or two in said lentil belt. Certainly more second places for them, can see Labour and Green pushing the sitting Lib Dem into third in Easton. Lib Dems to hold on in the complacent m/c west Bristol wards and Tories to lose up to four seats in the suburbs (to Labour).

Musical chairs will make no difference because George is running the show anyway and Labour don't want to play in his cabinet
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The Thrasher and Rallings’s local elections projections came out ever the weekend (n brief anyway, in-depth later this week) - usually broadly reliable: Labour to gain 350 seats, Conservatives to lose 310, the Liberal Democrats to lose 130 and UKIP to win 40, national share: CON 29, LAB 38, LD 16, UKIP 11.
 
Lovely chart on PB:

BIWmmX9CEAAiLFM.jpg:large
 
I'd like to see some shading - i think the article overplays labour's problems in the south - 97 showed they are not fatal, in fact a good chunk of seats are within the swing range. Not so for the tories outside the south.
 
The Sun published results from two polls yesterday: –

CON 32%, LAB 39%, LDEM 11%, UKIP 13%

CON 33%, LAB 40%, LDEM 10%, UKIP 12%

Anthony at UKPR gives an interesting commentary on the recent evidence of a closing in the polls to erode Labour's run of double digit leads:-

Five of YouGov’s last six polls have shown single figure Labour leads, whereas previously the average Labour had been consistently around 10 or 11 points. Put in the context of the falling Labour leads from ICM, MORI and Opinium it is pretty undeniable that something is afoot.
YouGov’s average figures in the first half of April were CON 31%, LAB 41%, LD 11%, UKIP 11%
The average over those last six polls is CON 32%, LAB 40%, LDEM 11%, UKIP 12%
So roughly speaking we appear to have had a small increase for the Tories, a slight knock for Labour. At this point we can normally expect lots of speculation about what has caused it… or more typically, lots of people claiming that the thing they personally care deeply about has caused it, the thing they think their party shouldn’t be doing has damaged them, or the thing they think their party should be doing has helped them. Normally such claims don’t bother with evidence.
The harsh truth is that we usually can’t really tell what has caused a movement in the polls. Sometimes there is an obvious event that coincides with a big shift in the polls which, while it doesn’t prove anything, does strongly imply a connection (after all, we can’t be sure that the big drop in Tory support in March last year was definitely due to the budget, but it would be a remarkable co-incidence if it wasn’t!). Other times there are all sorts of plausible explanations.
The most obvious explanations for the current narrowing relate to Margaret Thatcher’s funeral. That could impact the polls in terms of lots of positive retrospectives about Thatcher in the media… or could have an indirect effect in the sense that it interupted the normal flow of politics. David Cameron got to spend a week or two looking statesmanlike without the normal dirty business of politics and governing. However one could equally look at other underlying factors, the welfare debate for example, perhaps a generally more focused presentation by the government since Lynton Crosby returned, some figures from the Blair era apparently criticising Ed Miliband. All these things add up.
My own working assumption is still that is it is a Thatcher effect of one sort or another that will fade away, but it really is impossible to know. We shall have to wait and see if it lasts.
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His usual caveats, and all that, but he calls it as the 'dead fatch bounce'.
 
While I agree with those who say the standard poll leads for Labour have been softer than people seem to be thinking I do this this current slight narrowing is down to a combination of good things for the Tories including Thatcher and some solid anti-immigration moves and a ratcheting up of the anti benefits arguments as well.
 
Big question is whether those factors will continue and strengthen. Or whether Labour will become even quarter-way competent about 'changing the subject'

I have severe doubts about that, mostly because they're no good at all at controlling, or even influencing, the 'narrative'. Nor are they any good at stopping Tory/UKIP 'narrative' being the default position for apolitical and alienated (and also stupid) people.
 
What's the margin of error on these polls that are being cited? A couple of them seem to suggest that Labour's lead has deteriorated by four percentage points, and that the Tories have recovered by about the same amount, but to the best of my knowledge, a four per cent error margin is quite usual. And bearing that in mind can make quite a difference to how you read the results.

Apologies if I'm teaching granny to suck eggs, it's just an important point that needs stressing.
 
JTG said:
Think it's usually +/- 3 points or thereabouts
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Yep, as YouGov says...

In the small print of opinion polls you'll often find a ‘margin of error’ quoted, normally of plus or minus 3%. This means that 19 times out of 20, the figures in the opinion poll will be within 3% of the ‘true’ answer you'd get if you interviewed the entire population.
A poll of 1,000 people has a margin of error of +/- 3%, a poll of 2,000 people a margin of error of +/- 2%. The smaller the sample, the less precise it is and the wider the margin of error. Strictly speaking, these calculations are based on the assumption that polls are genuine random samples, with every member of the population having an equal chance of being selected. In many cases this isn't true ‒ polls are carried out by quota sampling, or from panels of volunteers. Even polls done by randomly dialling phone numbers aren't truly random, as the majority of people decline to take part. Even so, the margin of error is still a good rough guide to how precise a poll in, and indeed, when measured against real events like general elections most polls are indeed within the margin of error of the real result.
However, it is important to note that a margin of error applies to the whole sample. All pollsters who are members of the British Polling Council, like YouGov, will publish computer tables showing the detailed results of the poll, which will include crossbreaks breaking down respondents by age, gender, social class, region and other demographics. While these offer great insight into patterns of public opinion, they do, naturally, have smaller sample sizes. For example, a poll of 1000 people will normally have around 500 men and 500 women, and the margins of error on those figures will be around +/- 4%
For smaller demographic groups, sample sizes are even smaller and these bring with them much larger margins of error. For example, a poll of 1000 people would have a margin of error of +/- 3%, but if there were only 100 Scottish respondents within that poll the Scottish figures would have a margin of error of +/- 10%. This means unless the difference between what Scottish respondents said was different to what the rest of the sample said by more than 10 percentage points, it would not be statistically significant. It could just be random error.
The error is particularly common when looking at responses of ethnic minorities or religious minorities in national polls. Britain is an overwhelmingly Christian or secular country, meaning that in any properly representative poll of the British population, only a small percentage of respondents will be Muslim, Hindu or Jewish, and any crossbreaks by religion or ethnicity will be based on very small numbers with very large margins of error.
Remember, it isn't just the sample size of the overall poll that counts, but the sample sizes of the crossbreaks too. It is very rare that crossbreaks of fewer than 50 or 100 respondents will tell you anything reliable or useful.
http://yougov.co.uk/news/2011/11/21/understanding-margin-error/
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Spanky Longhorn said:
While I agree with those who say the standard poll leads for Labour have been softer than people seem to be thinking I do this this current slight narrowing is down to a combination of good things for the Tories including Thatcher and some solid anti-immigration moves and a ratcheting up of the anti benefits arguments as well.
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I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be almost entirely a 'dead evil old bat bounce' and the numbers return to where they were before, in a few weeks. The economy is still dreadful, in terms of how it affects people's everyday lives, and that's the key thing.
 
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