Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Political polling

Even if people didn't give a fuck about the potential of the SNP in government, it dominated the discussion at the expense of other subjects that might have won labour support such as the NHS. A clear case of the press (probably instructed by Crosby) setting the agenda I think. Don't think Miliband was at his best dismissing it either.
 
This was the polling I was thinking of, a potential 8% of the electorate the Tories had to target by going on about an SNP deal.

Take away all those groups and YouGov were left with 8% of the electorate who think a Lab/SNP deal of some sort is likely AND think this would be a bad thing AND think a Tory government would be preferable BUT are not already voting Tory. That’s actually a significant chunk of people and is presumably the voters who the Conservative party are targetting with their current campaign – they are mostly made up of don’t knows, Lib Dems and Ukippers, the message seems to have very little potential to move people directly from Labour to the Tories. The challenge for the Tories is how many (if any) of that 8% of people they can get to go that one step further and vote Tory. The early weeks of the Tory campaign didn’t seem to have any effect on voters at all – this message does at least seem to have potential for them. Whether or not they manage to translate it into votes remains to be seen.
Click to expand...

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/9369
 
Dogsauce said:
Even if people didn't give a fuck about the potential of the SNP in government, it dominated the discussion at the expense of other subjects that might have won labour support such as the NHS. A clear case of the press (probably instructed by Crosby) setting the agenda I think. Don't think Miliband was at his best dismissing it either.
Click to expand...

Labour offered nothing on the NHS. Less than the Tories and LibDems in fact. Just a vague nation that they've supplied shiny new PFI hospitals in the past and tend to be thought of as the party for public sector workers. Oh and some promise about 23,986 new midwives. Zilch about funding.
 
Quartz said:
Hey, brogdale, can you check something for me? Aren't the actual results within (just) the margins of error of the opinion polls? If that's the case, then perhaps future polls need to be larger - and thus have a smaller MoE - to be considered reliable?
Click to expand...
Error margins represent process uncertainty. The failure was at very least parameter uncertainty but more likely model uncertainty. You can't diversify that away with a bigger sample size.
 
Quartz said:
Hey, brogdale, can you check something for me? Aren't the actual results within (just) the margins of error of the opinion polls? If that's the case, then perhaps future polls need to be larger - and thus have a smaller MoE - to be considered reliable?
Click to expand...
Labour are at the bottom of MoE, Tories at the top. The rest were about right. The possibilities of every poll being similarly out is almost zero. There is strong evidence of either clumping (where the pollsters all decided that if that was what everyone else was saying, they should say it too) or simply them being wrong. Or both.
 
kabbes said:
Error margins represent process uncertainty. The failure was at very least parameter uncertainty but more likely model uncertainty. You can't diversify that away with a bigger sample size.
Click to expand...

True, but increasing poll sizes should reduce that factor. Are the other uncertanties testable with the extant data? That said, surely not all psephologists use the same models, right? Because the polls results were pretty much the same across the board. (belboid's clumping) I vaguely recall that being an issue in 1992.

Anyway, I think Occam's Razor may well apply and it's more likely that the polls were not wrong: Ashcroft's post-election poll showed that many people made up their minds on the last day.
 
Maybe the polls were right and there was actually late swing? One poll picked that up.

Doesn't really explain the exit poll underestimating the vermin vote, in particular the Sky and Ashcroft ones which were lower than the BBC iirc.
 
The head of Ipsos Mori is saying today on BBC Radio 4 that the polls were far off because of 'lazy Labour voters' rather than 'shy Tory voters'
If its that case it is a real shame, but were they 'lazy' or disillusioned?
 
treelover said:
The head of Ipsos Mori is saying today on BBC Radio 4 that the polls were far off because of 'lazy Labour voters' rather than 'shy Tory voters'
If its that case it is a real shame, but were they 'lazy' or disillusioned?
Click to expand...
I did hear that...and wondered what % of those responding that they preferred Labour were not actually registered to vote? Probably a tiny amount, but the pollsters don't actually know the registration status of those they ask. Might be more significant in the younger cohorts...that were Labour biased?

Earlier in the year the electoral commission was talking about a fall of 900k electors since 2010.
 
Yes, on second thoughts, the image of the 'radical student' is just that, a lot of students did vote for the lib dems in 2010 for a more benign govt, but overall I see your point.
 
I've found a couple of pre-election polls that put the tories on 32% of the student vote, but nowt for after. Doesn't seem that far from reality tho, students being what they are, and where they come from
 
Just got polled by yougov, one of the questions they asked is whether I'd take a call from an opinion pollster, wondering if they are seeing whether people who vote X are more/less likely to do polls online and not over the phone. Same question also asked about PPI sellers, personal injury lawyers, salesmen and something else (separate answers for each).
 
Ban Polls In Run-Up To Election, Urges David Cameron's Strategist Following Shock Tory Win
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/201...ction-david-cameron-strategist_n_7296714.html

Feels a bit dirty agreeing with him, but does he have a point?

My vote was influenced by the polls (voted Labour in an ultra safe Tory seat - thinking that it would be so close nationally that the popular vote might factor into which party was most credible. Otherwise would have gone Green).

Another question that I've wondered about but not seen discussed elsewhere is how many Tory voters were actually voting for "more of the same please" and potentially would have voted differently if the polls hadn't told them that a Tory majority wasn't a possibility?
 
I don't understand the drama here; general election pollsters are schiesters, they're selling a bogus, fundamentally flawed product - and they get away with it because people forget in four-five years. People love those beautifully simple charts, those easy to read timelines, the premise. It's all bullshit.

Pay someone £8 an hour to make dozens of phone calls, ask the wrong question/s, pressure them to tick boxes on a sheet, pass the results to some data entry monkey - what could possibly go wrong.
 
Mojofilter said:
Ban Polls In Run-Up To Election, Urges David Cameron's Strategist Following Shock Tory Win
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/201...ction-david-cameron-strategist_n_7296714.html

Feels a bit dirty agreeing with him, but does he have a point?

My vote was influenced by the polls (voted Labour in an ultra safe Tory seat - thinking that it would be so close nationally that the popular vote might factor into which party was most credible. Otherwise would have gone Green).

Another question that I've wondered about but not seen discussed elsewhere is how many Tory voters were actually voting for "more of the same please" and potentially would have voted differently if the polls hadn't told them that a Tory majority wasn't a possibility?
Click to expand...
I agree, make polling for the rich only. Us stupid.
 
I like his point:

"The trouble now is that polls have become part of the political process so they're not an independent measurement that says this is what's going on, they actually influence what's going on."

In other words, not polls at all.

So bullshit quality polling formulated as to not be a poll, that is in any event not an independent measure.

2500 post later: Is anyone starting to get it yet?
 
OMG the polls were wrong. Did you point this out prior to the election you one note cunt? No, you did not. You simply said universal swing wasn't ensured, like every one else.
 
BigTom said:
if you ban public polls, there'll still be private polling, which only the wealthy can buy or see.
Click to expand...

But you could ban all political polling - both public and private - during the election campaign. Don't the French do this?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Veronika94
What's happened to classic,old-fashioned political scandals?
Replies
27
Views
967
tim
tim
quimcunx
  • Poll
What is your polling station usually?
2 3
Replies
60
Views
2K
ska invita
ska invita
Pickman's model
yvette cooper's pitiful politics
Replies
0
Views
195
Pickman's model
Pickman's model
N
Ever had a negative reaction to a political T-shirt?
2 3 4 5 6
Replies
163
Views
8K
Chz
Chz
Silas Loom
Practical republican politics
2
Replies
59
Views
2K
Silas Loom
Silas Loom
Back
Top Bottom