Which way will Populus be going?
March 8th, 2010
Will tonight’s poll be in ICM or YouGov territory?
After a weekend which has seen two very different views from the pollsters we are due the March Populus survey for the Times this evening.
The big question is whether it will have figures in the YouGov family territory (down to 2% with YouGov/BPIX) or that of ICM with its Tory 40% share and 9% lead?
It’s hard to say - at the start of February the firm had 40-30-20.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
primo?
Not sure, but nice to get a non-YouGov poll.
Lets try
Down to 5,6 %
Bugger - Plato came second twice in a row
Where are the gentlemen on PB?
6, I came third. Blame adam in hackney for being too quick.
10% Tory lead
6. “Where are the gentlemen on PB?”
They’re all sunning themselves in the Dutch Antilles. Which might explain another mystery.
Either way - Mike, great graphic.
I’m taking zip notice of YouGov for the time being.
7 You have staying power Mr Dancer
Probably less than 10%, but closer to ICM than to BPIX, IMHO.
11, it’s nice to have my wiffle stick appreciated
I am now going to hand myself in for an enormo-haddock bethwhacking for derailing the thread right from the start.
YouGov 6% which rather seems to be the lead of choice for them at the moment. Populus an 8%, Tories down below 40? They do seem to trend to quite closely to ICM though, so it all depends on whether it’s the Guardian or NOTW one they come closest too…
re 6. Could I be forced by Harriet to ensure that we don’t have a gender imbalance on PB thread “firsts”?
The question is not so much what Populus will show, but what the fatal flaw in their methodology will be if they show a narrowing Tory lead, or alternatively what the explanation for their unsurpassed level of accuracy is if they show a picture more in line with ICM.
Plus a new yougov for the Sun I imagine.
I have no idea but where would the site be if people only commented on things they knew about?
Two senarios
1. That the ICM is the outlier in which case you might expect something like 38/32/19 confirming the recent trends.
2. That ICM is accurate in which case you’d expect Populus with its very similar methodology and ICM field work to be very similar.
perhaps a rough standstill of the last Populus
Given the discussion points today its Leadership ratings , if they have any, that will be of most interest.
Based on the current crop of polls, I certainly don’t envy those that actually risk their own money on the GE outcome – interesting times as they say.
16.That’s unanimous then, even the dour SNP supporter believes the Gold Standard to be ICM.
15 Hattie would want a pre-sex form to agree who got to go bang first…
It’d make condoms seem spontaneous
Populus has been fairly steady in the lead shown. Since November, the monthly leads have been 10 8 13 10. Thus, up until the last poll (early Feb), they hadn’t really picked up any drop in the lead.
Given other polls, I’d be a little surprised if the lead doesn’t drop, but we shall see!
Maybe I’ll have to create another poll-guessing widget, like the one that proved that in the long-term you can’t beat the average of the polls…
20. Chris, as you don’t follow ‘local’ trends, you won’t realise my post constituted what we Scots call ‘irony’.
9% and 5% on YouGov (which we all know should be 9%)
24.Yes, subtle as a brick.
From the last thread
Lilly Allen. She is a huge and knowledgable cricket fan - so she is therefore more than enough of an anorak for pb.com
On turnout - how about this scenario - Labour people not voting and using the expenses scandal as a reason, more than made up by returning Tories - leading to a figure around Rod Crosby’s suggested 65-67% but with a better mix for the Tories. But no return to 70% plus
Sadly, nothing tells me that the Tories have reversed the trend, or upended the narrative in any way.
Cashcroft hasn’t impacted the voters, but it has prevented Cameron and Co from presenting a positive story.
Therefore I envisage a slight but definite narrowing. Again.
Populus 6-8% Tory lead. Yougov 4-6%.
http://order-order.com/2010/03/08/guy-news-lord-pauls-pension-steel/
Hmmmm…
Also interesting from a narrative framing perspective. *If* Populus confirms the recent Non ICM trand and we get another 5% or 6% from You Gov tonight then all of a sudden anyone that wishes can spout on about a hung parliament which quite a few people seem keen to do. Its ironic having spent a fortune on You Gov polls that its News Internationals ugly sister of monthly polls that gets the casting vote.
Perhaps.
27. I heard Lily Allen on TMS - she wouldn’t know a googly from a chinaman.
22 ICM really hasn’t moved about that much since the start of December, either (although it’s confirmed a narrowing Conservative lead).
Based on last weeks performances I think all 3 parties deserve to drop a point or two.
21. But sex is only actually possible if you believe in anthropogenic warming, at least in certain regions. There are worse passion killers than Hattie out there (or in here)…
21, you mean like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7klaR_7iGw
26. “subtle as a brick.”
Stop beating yourself up. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.
Prediction - it will split the difference between ICM and Yougov and confuse everyone with strange regional splits. contradictory findings or some such.
Gabble is in Albania it seems. So no posting.
How the hell would I know what Populus
will show, I have no idea who the founder is
married to.
30 Whilst I don’t want to see the Tories down, the NOM meme does get peeps off their arses.
It’s a mixed bag - big Tory lead = charges of ‘it’s in the bag’/laziness/Labour does underdog routine, or if not - it’s weak Tory message/panicking markets/energised supporters of all colours.
I still think the Tories will get in with a majority of 40-100
18 Definitely in the most recent ICM territory.
Last Populus poll was close to similarly timed ICM poll(Pop +1 on Tory but no differce in Lab or Lib ratings,and Comres poll(Tory share same,Lab -1, Lib *1).
Latest Com Res and ICM have shown,since above no change or +1 on Tory share.+1 on Labour share and -2 on Lib dem.
I’ll go for 9% lead with Tories on 40%,Lab 31%,Lib 19%.
39. “I have no idea who the founder is married to”
*APPLAUSE*
More non-YG polling. Rejoice.
31
So did I and Aggers was in dreamland!
16
Spot on. Lead only to be taken seriously if good for Tories.
It will in fact be3-4% and therefore dismissed as a total sham.
39 tim - I thought you could predict the polls from the leaders’ approval ratings?
The other minor narrative framing issue is an other tighening Tory lead will encourage Clegg to devote even more ammo to the Blue Front after todays extraordinary but interesting outburst.
43. “Rejoice.”
Has South Georgia just been liberated from YouGov occupation?
Doesn’t ICM do the field work for Populus? In which case you would think it won’t be far from recent ICM’s? Maybe 39/31/20?
16 James, quite true, just recall how Scots Nats have welcomed and endorsed YouGov’s Scots polls.
What will Populus say somewhere in the region of a 8-10% Conservative lead…..
36% tory, 33% labour.18% liberals
35 That is brilliant - have blogged it, where do you find these?!?
We’ll have to wait for Mr Caveman and a few others to look at the weightings in the populus poll, before we can fully comment on the populus poll.
Who knows, Populus might start adding a Tory Disloyal element for all those who say they may vote UKIP but come election day, will come back to the Tories.
36.You don’t need polls, you just look into “the knowing looks of Diane Abbott”
I think she’s leading you astray, good luck with those 20 seats.
50. “James, quite true, just recall how Scots Nats have welcomed and endorsed YouGov’s Scots polls.”
I can’t speak for others, but I’ve said on my blog that I’ve genuinely no idea whether YouGov or Mori is more accurate with respect to Scotland. I certainly haven’t been rubbishing YouGov’s methodology (or resorting to innuendo about Peter Kellner’s ‘agenda’).
Guido on the warpath again
Lord Paul’s Pension Steel
http://order-order.com/
53, actually I wasn’t looking for that. I was looking for a similar one by Dave Chapelle and, er, someone else, but that’s all I could find.
54, hey, Mr. Eagles, nice to see you on
46 - I can’t remember who the Tory leader is anymore.
Although I predict a 2% narrowing in the lead.
If Populus is in line with YouGov then surely Brown has to go for April 8th? The dissolution for that date must be by the end of this week so he’ll need to take a gamble. Now in the past he has been allergic to risk but I guess there’s always a first time!
Personally I expect Populus to show little change from it’s last poll.
15 - There are so many comments, I could make about that.
But I wont.
Although, it could be like non competitive sports day, and we all come first.
55
I find her eye rolling and spare tyre so distracting from whatever she says.
I recruited her first PA when she was made an MP
Why she used a recruitment agency is a mystery but it made me a few £££ in commission!
58 - Yeah, it’s good to be back properly.
Had a mini second honeymoon this weekend.
Sexual frustration is over.
Twins leave hospital on Wednesday.
Can life get any better?
BBC1 News sensation …noyhing on Ashcroft in the TV news headslines at 18.00.
46 - Along similar lines this is worth reading just for the typo/basic error.
. As a son of the Manx, Brown makes a more convincing outsider than the Eton-and-Oxford educated Cameron.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100029042/does-cameron-have-what-it-takes-to-be-a-leading-man-the-hollywood-take-on-the-general-election-campaign/
62.I only mention it because I asked the dour snp supporter for some evidence of his claim that Cameron was as much a bully as Brown had be shown to be. He referenced Andrew Neill saying something on the topic & Diane Abbott giving a knowing look….
Just got some hilariously poor campaign literature from the LDs. In a Hello! or OK! style magazine, there is a ‘Your Letters’ page, one of which is worth mentioning in full:
“I like to have the occasional bet on the horses (though don’t tell the wife!) so I know that the bookies are very rarely wrong.
That’s why it caught my eye to see that Ladbrokes and William Hill rate the Conservatives as 100/1 outsiders to win in Durham at the General Election.
I’ve voted for the Conservatives here before, but I certainly won’t be doing so this time.
I want to get rid of Gordon Brown and those odds tell me that I won’t do that by voting Conservative here.
That’s why I’ll be lending my vote to Carol Woods this time.
I admire the way she has stood up to Labour locally and she’s got the right idea on tax cuts and more police on the street.
I’d happily choose Carol over more Labour let down any day.”
A classic! Did you think the Tories had a decent chance in 2005, then, Mr R? From what you say it appears that you are fairly Lib Dem-inclined anyway!
What is that website to submit ridiculous LD campaign material?
I’ll go for 7%.
O/T
Funny how the Beeb misses out one or two details
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8555049.stm
The Telegraph hasn’t though
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/7397808/Gordon-Brown-hasnt-given-MoD-enough-cash-for-defence.html
63, Balls could lose Morley & Outwood.
55. “You don’t need polls, you just look into “the knowing looks of Diane Abbott”
Ah, Chris! I’m so glad you brought that subject up again! It seems that Diane Abbott was even more on the money with those knowing looks of hers than I first realised…
Jeff Randall on David Cameron - “I wouldn’t trust him with my daughter’s pocket money.
In my experience, he never gave a straight answer when dissemblance was a plausible alternative.
Whether he flat-out lied I won’t say, but he went a long way to leave me with the impression that the story was wrong. He put up so much verbal tracker you started to lose your own guidance system.”
Chris Blackhurst on David Cameron - “aggressive, sharp-tongued, often condescending and patronising.
If anyone had told me then he might become Premier I would have told them to seek help.”
Ian King on David Cameron - “a poisonous, slippery individual…He was a smarmy bully who regularly threatened journalists. He loved humiliating people, including a colleague at ITV he would abuse publicly as ‘Bunter’, just because the poor bloke was a few pounds overweight.
He was a mouthpiece for that company’s charmless chairman, Michael Green, who operated him the way Keith Harris works Orville.”
http://cravenite.blogspot.com/2010/03/david-cameron-what-experts-say.html
A delightful chap, this boy who would be king…
Go get him Fox. Tories: Recall Brown To Iraq Inquiry
Tories: Recall Brown To Iraq Inquiry
Miranda Richardson, Sky News Online
Shadow defence secretary Liam Fox has written to the Iraq Inquiry asking Sir John Chilcot to recall Gordon Brown.
The Inquiry will not take any more evidence before the General Election
Dr Fox said: “Today I have written to Sir John Chilcot to ask that Gordon Brown is recalled to the inquiry to clarify his evidence.
“There have been so many other witnesses whose evidence directly contradicted his, concluding with Bill Jeffrey today, that there is a clear case for questioning Gordon Brown again.”
In the letter, the shadow defence secretary acknowledged that Sir John would not want the inquiry to be “involved in party politics” but said it was “important to get the truth in this matter”.
Giving evidence to the Inquiry on Friday, the Prime Minister rejected claims that, as Chancellor, he failed to provide the armed forces with the resources they needed in Iraq.
Fox wants Brown recalled
“Every request that military commanders made to us for equipment was answered. No request was ever turned down,” he said.
But Sir Bill, the Ministry of Defence’s top civil servant, told the Inquiry today the defence budget was so stretched that cuts had to be made over successive years.
And Mr Brown was accused of being “disingenuous” by two former chiefs of defence staff, who said that the Treasury in fact left the MoD billions of pounds short of the money it needed to fight two wars.
Admiral Lord Boyce said: “It’s just not the case that the Ministry of Defence was given everything it needed.
“There may have been a 1.5% increase in the defence budget but the MoD was starved of funds.”
On Sunday, General Sir Richard Dannatt, who is an adviser to the Conservative Party, said: “In front of Chilcot, he did not address the issue of the underlying underfunding of defence that has been endemic since the Strategic Defence Review of 1997/98.
“Implementation of that otherwise excellent Review was hobbled from the start by the Treasury under Gordon Brown not only not fully funding the outcome of the Review, but imposing a three per cent year on year efficiency savings target.”
65 - It might be the writer was thinking.
Manx = Manx Knob = Gordon Brown
http://www.manxknobs.com/
65 tim - Excellent typo!
64 dr spyn - Even more remarkable: The Grauniad home page is 100% Ashcroft-free.
69 - I’ve come to the conclusion I want Ed Balls to win Morley and Outwood.
Ed Balls as Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition = Brilliant for the Tories.
70.You’ve had days, that’s it? I don’t see a single reference to physical bullying. “Six of one & half a dozen of the other”, I think you need to withdraw your original statement. Although I grant you this is better than your original reaction when asked for evidence of your misguided claim you came back with “I don’t take orders”, and “Diane Abbott gave knowing looks….”
Hilarious. 20 seats Kelly, that’s the realistic aim, independance just around the corner, free in 93!
66 I LOL when I read your post - it’s a keeper for those identified as members of the Mr Kelly persecution league.
I can’t recall any poster on any site writing an article on their own blog moaning about what an anonymous internet person said about them.
FFS In the real world, who cares what someone you’ve never met and have no idea who they are says on teh interweb??? And even if you do, no one else gives it a second of their time.
@67 Huw ..
http://www.nastylibdems.org/
Ashcroft isn’t even on the Graudinia’s top 5 stories from last week.
70
Sure all Tory drones on here will be glued to their sets for docu on Cameron tonight. Resultant steam from ears sufficient to power balloon flight to Belize.
78 Their readers speak - and is anyone surprised?
78, maybe circulation dropped, after all you’ve read one you’ve read them all.
79 Steam does not power balloons pillock..
76.I know, I know. It’s just everytime I see Mr Kelly post I get Freddie Mercury in my head singing “I want to break free”, not that I’m suggesting Mr Kelly tidies hhs home wearing a black mini skirt.
*shudders*
My prediction is a 1% swing from LD to Lab to give: C - 40%, Lab - 31%, LD - 19%.
79 - I hope it as good as when Boris met Dave.
That really was special.
83 - You owe me a gallon of mind bleach.
Kristin, thanks!
75. “I don’t see a single reference to physical bullying.”
Chris, I know it’s tough, but I want you to look into my eyes and I’ll make you a solemn promise. One day, you really will get over the devastation of there being two separate references to the word ‘bullying’ in that article. The irony is I never actually suggested Cameron was a bully! You learn something new (and shocking) every day.
76. Plato, it’s clearly escaped your memory, but any niggling between us began with your own peculiar persecution complex regarding me and other Nits. I was confused about what I was supposed to have done so wrong at the time, and so, it appeared, were you…
“I can’t recall any poster on any site writing an article on their own blog moaning about what an anonymous internet person said about them. FFS In the real world, who cares what someone you’ve never met and have no idea who they are says on teh interweb??? And even if you do, no one else gives it a second of their time.”
You obviously didn’t see the several supportive comments I received the last time I did that! Believe it or not, Plato, there are other views out there, beyond the PB Tory orthodoxy. There are worlds beyond imagining, tropical islands called Aruba…
71: ‘”Shadow defence secretary Liam Fox has written to the Iraq Inquiry asking Sir John Chilcot to recall Gordon Brown.”‘
That’s more like it - Dr Fox has humiliated Gordon! The Tories have been too namby-pamby. They need more performers like the dashing Fox to rough up Brown and his goons. Now, my admiration for George Osborne knows no bounds, but at times the chap is just too thoughtful and decent. Imagine if the good doctor was Shadow Chancellor. He’d chew up the flimsy Darling and spit him out.
82
Calm down. It’s not even on till 8. Sssssssss…….
88.I can’t look you in the eyes! see post 83!
Cheer up old boy, your going to win 20 seats in this election & that will be a springboard to independance!
89.Agreed on Osbourne. He has been successfully targetted by Labour, he needs to show his metal & fightback. Labour have devastated the economy, they are getting away with it to some extent at the moment.
Prediction- 13 point Tory lead
Interesting but dated quotes above on David Cameron. I have heard David Cameron interviewed on his past and he seems not to have been that proud of some of the attitudes he then displayed. From that and subsequent interviews it seems abundantly clear that Sam Cam has had a lot to do with changing himn and his perception of life but even more was the birth of Ivan and the self knowledge that came during the years he coped with that situation. It is possible - indeed very possible - for people to mature and change for the better.
SAS commander complains of kit shortages at inquest into soldiers’ deaths
Special Forces soldiers suffered a shortage of combat vehicles and mine detectors in Afghanistan, making their operation even more risky, an SAS commander said today.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7054301.ece
Surely some mistake at Chilcot - Gordon Brown has denied starving UK armed forces of equipment - insisting at the Iraq inquiry that every request made while he was chancellor was met.
89
Yes that’s my definition of humiliation. “Dashing”? Slithering seems more apt.
93 - would that it were to be so - sadly I can’t see a lead as big as that
I think the Villa will win 2 - 0, Tony.
71 As much chance of that happening as Dave Cameroon winning a landslide majority.
90 As an ex union negotiater I was involved in a number of key discussions with senior management teams. It never ceased to amaze me that there were pompous self opinionated pricks on both sides of the table. I always felt let down when some of them were on my side. They are who you remind me of. Nothing personal, just thought you might like to know where I am coming from.
57 Batch File “Guido on the warpath again Lord Paul’s Pension Steel”
I blame John Major - he enobled him…..only fair since Tony Blair is responsible for ‘you know who’…..
Heard the news Gideon is going to be closetted during the campaign and wont be part of the famous five, which includes wily old Ken Clarke. Reason is that Osborne only has to open his mouth and the Tory lead drops further.
and Labours wanton vandalism continues unabated
Have a look in your wallet: any £20 notes with the image of Edward Elgar on them will not be legal tender after June 30 this year.
This means that shops no longer have to accept the notes, and it is up to banks whether they agree to swap notes after this date.
From July 1 only notes with the image of Adam Smith, the Scottish economist, will be legal tender. These notes first came into circulation in March 2007.
Adam Smith???? Who the F*** is that?
http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/elgar-20-note-no-longer-legal-tender-tele-30b4915a2fad.html
http://FTP.202.”For Labour, Doc Fox, is a kick in the box!”
Starkey, you are on form tonight.
It was interesting to watch the way that the Conservative media team switched to the good doctor for the tail end of the Ashcroft saga, and just in time for Chilcott and Brown’s visit to Afghanistan. As usual, one or two in the media were looking under the bed for a Foxy plot to oust Cameron when it was Brown he had firmly in his sights.
That is twice in recent weeks that Major has popped up in the media penning articles in one of the Sunday’s, is he sharpening his political skills for a wee return to the fray in the run up to the GE, a seasoned and respected attack dog solely primed to go after Brown the PM and Brown the Chancellor of our broken economy? Let him do the negative attacks leaving Cameron to be more positive? Its going to be interesting to watch, what ever you say about Major, under that grey and charming exterior beats the heart of the most ruthless politician who was so often underestimated by his own colleagues until it was too late.
Clarke, Major, Heseltine&Co, a lot of scores to settle with one Gordon Brown and New Labour. Even Tebbit does his bit by snarling at Cameron’s heels.
88 And you will recall that I supported you when others were attacking.
Still, nothing like winning friends is there?
15.Mike, she might demand an AW thread or two, or banning men altogether for woman day.
Not sure my guess 7% tory lead. Just took part in my first opinion poll ever today.
100
Nothing personal then. I know exactly where you’re coming from and it ain’t pretty.
71
Cameron will just have to bring it up at PM questions. Let them know how Brown lied. I can just see Brown blowing his top, bang bang bang on that desk again.
08. Got it in one.
08. Got it in one.
08. got it in two.
FPT
I’ve been as unsure as our host on turnout, but now inclined to think turnout will be a bit higher than last time, partly becuase it’s more of a horse-race. Both Tory and Labour voters seem to me on the doorstep to be firmer than last time, mostly for negative reasons in both cases - “gotta get/keep the ******s out”. The competing factor is the belief that we’re all crap because of expenses etc., but that seems to me to be starting to fade.
What do people here expect from tonight’s polls? Based on the dubious entrails of my weekend canvasssing, I’m expecting it to show a bit of further narrowing in the lead.
OT. This isn’t intended to wake fr up from his afternoon nap but why exactly should Jamie Bulger’s mother be entitled to know the charges against Jon Venables? Is it insensitive for someone to explain to her that we don’t have public lynchings anymore?
Not sure my guess 7% tory lead. Just took part in my first opinion poll ever today.
by Paul b March 8th, 2010 at 6:34 pm
Out of interest Paul which paper did you say you read, which party you voted for, and which age range?
“The committee has no interest in the party dimension of this matter,” Dr Wright’s statement added
http://tinyurl.com/y9xxohg
Stop laughing at the back…..
114 - is she being a bit of a shit, Roger?
108 - not sure about that tactic John. From here on in the whole defence thing gets too complioated and the public will be turned off and lose interest, in my view. Best simply to let it hang in the air with the public the idea that Browns Chilcott appearance was a masterful exercise in dissembling. Let the professionals do the attacking.
111 112
Are you clinically brain-dead? I got it in one, two and three. Now go forth and multiply yourself.
103-Isn’t Adam Smith someone us right wingers love for all his free market ideas though?
Better than some composer if you ask me even if he is a kilt wearing type.
114 - I agree with you Roger.
However, she did lose a son, so I will give her some leeway on this matter.
re 113, Nick, If Labour do win the next election do you think that it will be good for the future of the Labour Party?
URL says it all
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/2010/03/-the-guardian-faces-commercial-ruin-if-the-tories-win.html
108 - not sure about that tactic John. From here on in the whole defence thing gets too complioated and the public will be turned off and lose interest, in my view. Best simply to let it hang in the air with the public the idea that Browns Chilcott appearance was a masterful exercise in dissembling. Let the professionals do the attacking.
by PeterBuss March 8th, 2010 at 6:39 pm
My wife agreed with you !!
‘US eyes on Northern Ireland in countdown to crucial peace vote’
- Hillary Clinton, the White House and Congressional leaders look for a yes vote in Belfast
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/wintour-and-watt/2010/mar/08/northernireland-williamhague
No tweets on the poll as yet from Chalie Whelan - is that significant?
Voodoo poll
http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/6339/most_voters_say_brown_failed_to_fund_troops_properly.html
119.Prats are prats whatever their political colour and have to be tolerated but you are a prize prat and deserve anything that comes your way.I am so looking forward to this.
I notice the Tories are sending Grieve out rather than the dunce Grayling over the Bulger case, a big improvement.
The Lib Dem guy Howarth makes the most sense so far although all sensible politicians will basically agree.
OT again. Though I correctly predicted five of Kathryn Bigalow’s six Oscars and thought they were all well deserved I’m not at all convinced that ‘Hurt Locker’ was ‘Best Film’. It often takes a few years to see whether an Oscar winning film will turn out to be a classic but with this one I have my doubts.
123 - Plato.
Yippee! A once great paper. Not any longer; not for a long time. Time we had a decent paper of the left, indeed a decent party of the left.
130. What would you have had instead?
I can’t see “Avatar” becoming a much-rewatched classic, because there’s no point watching it when it’s not in 3-D.
*** ANECDOTE ALERT ***
Just heard from a council clerk they are in the preliminary planning stage for 2 general elections this year
46,59
“I can’trmeber who the Tory leader is anymore”
No surprise at Daves’s invisibility.He doesnt want to have to answer any ashcroft question and has temporarily gone to ground until its safe to come out again.
132 - in 2-3 years, 3D TVs will be - if not the norm - very commonly available. The film itself isn’t coming out on Blu-ray until November, since that’s after 3D TVs will be launched.
128
Looking forward to what exactly? Sorry to disappoint you but I haven’t the slightest intention of responding further to a humourless bigoted d..khead like you. Stick to your mindless rabid Tory comfort zone and have your blood pressure checked as soon as possible.
131 I’ve advertised a lot in the Guardian for public sector jobs whilst working on contract and it’s a shocking price - we swapped to Monster and got similar candidates and similar application volumes for £500 a pop instead of £2.5k.
That was a year or so ago and things may have shifted but the price gap was huge.
eyespymp
Jack Dromey seen campaigning in Erdington against the Labour Party’s Constituency budget cuts. Go figure.
115 Im 31 not sure how you gov decide my party alliance and have no idea what paper i said i read most it was done when i first joined almost a year back think i may have said the times not sure.
Populus rumor via Twitter: 36 Con 33 Lab 19 LD
Is there likely to be a budget date announcement tomorrow? Is there really anything to be gained politically now by keeping us all waiting? The presumed date ie 24th March is only 16 days away.
140 re populus Twitter rumour
Those figures(36,33,19 sound more like You Gov?
140. LOL, yeah right.
138 Thought Tory PPC did a good job re Cadbury earlier today - an open goal and Labour Waddled it
And in other news…
Only 6 per cent of voters say that soldiers in Iraq have been supplied with the proper and full kit. One quarter say that Gordon Brown did fulfil every request made of him, but that the military’s demands were incorrect, affecting equipment in the field.
http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/6339/most_voters_say_brown_failed_to_fund_troops_properly.html
141. The presumed date is 24th March, because the presumed date of the election is May 6th.
So if Brown intends to go all the way to June 3rd, then there is a lot to be gained politically from not announcing the budget date for another week or two.
Have we had any recent news on Easter recess dates/ Budget dates?
Also is there a market on Budget date anywhere?
populus and yougov will be a 3% tory lead. Game on for labour. The Ashcroft thing has damaged the Tories who cannot lay a glove on labour. Labour will be the largest party in a hung parliament. The Tories have lost the plot. Nothing can save them.
140 - Michael Branch - Do you have a link? Can’t see it on a Twitter search…
Twitter is going to become a nightmare on election night.
Budget - 24th March
Election called - 6th April
Parliament Dissolves - 8th April
General Election - 6th May
148 - Nonsense, it’s going to be a goldmine. Simply ignore it and you’ll be much richer.
140 Holy cow, batman.
But i never believe twitter OR the rumour is true in which case i have never had any time for populus, grave reservations about their weighting by favourite brand of catfood, always have had etc.
Mike if you are here the standard of trolling has nosedived over the past fortnight which is not just a pain in itself but an open invitation to any lurker trolls who are gearing up for the GE and will, I fear, be receiving the wrong signals about what you can get away with and for how long. Just saying …
Twitter is for t*ats
there is no such twitter rumour. searched ‘populus’, ‘yougov’ ‘con poll’ and ‘lab poll’. nothing
148:It might well be a goldmine if I had any spare cash.
130- Roger
Agreed. Anyway a lot of “best pictures” end up forgotten pretty quickly… Would someone really like to watch again “Shakespeare in love” or “Crash”?
Not so sure Avatar was much better but the whole Hurt Locker bandwagon, based mostly on the “she’s a FEMALE director, you know” selling point, left me dubious.
But I didn’t see it (like everyone else!) so I can’t really say. I thought A serious man was a really really great movie.
136. Gotcha…and it was so easy..
Andrew Rawnsley does Cameron at 8pm on C4
Kratz - that is precisely what is going to happen IMO.
129 tim - I wouldn’t read too much into that, since Grieve is Jack Straw’s shadow.
Still, it would be nice if there were a Next Home Sec market somewhere…
140. “Populus rumor via Twitter: 36 Con 33 Lab 19 LD”
Even though it’s Twitter that sounds reasonable. If so Labour might get a lead on YouGov.
149 I think we’ll know in 3 days if that is right - can’t imagine less than 2 weeks notice of the budget. My hunch is that Darling has at least thought about a post recess budget as that would make it roughly a year since his last one. Seems likely that Brown would allow himself to be persuaded of the merit of that.
Kevin_Maguire
Another poll shows Hung Parliament: Opinium in Daily Express Con 37(-1) Lab 30(+1) Lib 16(+1). Con lead at 7 down 3 on week ago
Last month darling suggested the budget would be in march. If the election is in june that will show brown for the coward.
162. Opinium?
So it could be a waste of time YouGov talking to this group.
Concerns were raised about the number of people still not signed up to vote for the general election.
Young people and those from black and minority ethnic communities could miss out on voting for the next government because they are not on the electoral register, according to the Electoral Commission (EC).
More than half (56 per cent) of young people aged 17-24 and 31 per cent of people with black or minority ethnic backgrounds are unregistered.
Meanwhile, a Hansard report noted a decline in people believing parliament was relevant to their life and an increased dissatisfaction with MPs in general.
Ian Kirby of the News of the World has a fascinating exclusive that shows just how far Charlie Whelan is willing to go to keep is old friend Gordon Brown in power.
…
Labour officials have already admitted that they will be fighting a “bargain-basement” election with no large scale poster campaigns, and will have only around £4 million to spend when Parliament is dissolved.
So from within Brown’s Bunker it makes sense to outsource the bulk of their propaganda campaign to their allies in the trade unions, after all there the one with the money and resources. The union also has the added advantage of not being affected by spending rules when Brown finally calls the election.
With the news that the countries biggest trade union is going to be spending more at the election that the government, one must ask who’s really trying to buy this election.
http://tory-politico.com/2010/03/and-labour-say-the-tories-are-trying-to-buy-the-election/
Bribrad. Don’t let them get you down. They needle you until you start posting nonsense and then you’re dismissed as a troll. Resist the temptation!
159 The one thing that always strikes me about Grieve is that he *sounds* like a judge.
Whatever subject he talks about, I automatically assume he is a legal eagle not a Tory.
He has that rare quality - like St Vince - of saying the truth [popular myth given] with default authority.
164 - Yeah, they usually poll for the People.
162
17% others is ARSesque. Who are omnium??
169. I can’t see Opinium anywhere in Anthonys list?
Oooooooppppppsssss
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/voting-intention
http://www.opinium.co.uk/
If the twitter rumous are correct then I’m afraid that this poll is a dreadful one for the Conservatives.
162 - I hope that Mr Maguire’s facts are more accurate than his maths.
This may be relevant. Make of it what you will, but note the date:
Opinium Research Rolls Out UK Political Poll
October 26 2009
Full service agency Opinium Research has launched a UK political poll which will track voter intention on a weekly basis ahead of the 2010 general election.
Just a week ago, Canada-based public opinion firm Angus Reid Strategies announced it had partnered with UK political blog PoliticalBetting.com to run online polls on the site to track voter intentions.
Opinium Research’s own launch follows its partnership with Michael Bruter, Senior Lecturer in Political Science and European Politics at the London School of Economics (LSE), to conduct a project assessing the meaning of European identity across c.30,000 citizens and 27 European Union member states. Earlier in the year, the firm also predicted the results of the European elections.
Opinium was founded in 2007 by YouGov’s former Head of Market Research Mark Hodson, to offer research in customer loyalty, employee satisfaction, public sector, financial services and media research.
http://www.mrweb.com/drno/news10748.htm
155. Chris. Actually I thought both were pretty good even several years later. Certainly less limited than ‘Hurt Locker’ which was quite facile and aimed a bit low. Also unlike ‘Shakespeare In Love’ and ‘Crash’ it’s in a genre of very good films. Can it really be a ‘best film’ when the brilliant ‘Apocalypse Now’ never was? You must see it and let me know if you agree.
167 - what do you mean until he starts posting nonsense? Bribrad is the non-whimsical version of Gabble.
175 Are Opinium the lot who got the European elections spectacularly wrong, or am I mis-remembering?
167
Thanks, Roger, but I never post nonsense.
Populus is normally out at 7:30, right?
178 - I think ComRes who win the prize for getting the European Elections spectacularly wrong.
178. Not sure. I’ve never heard of them.
Still, the more the merrier.
Oooooooppppppsssss
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/voting-intention
by GIN March 8th, 2010 at 7:19 pm
It shows a 12% swing from the last election, and the Tory party will be the only party that will get 40%
I AM HEARING A POLLSATER GIVES TORIES 7 POINTER, DONT KNOW WHO.
167. Delusional..
I AM HEARING A POLLSTER GIVES TORIES 7 POINTER, DONT KNOW WHO.
184 - WTF is a pollsater?
187. Someone who hates polls but can’t spell.
Am I the only person who wishes twitter would go the way of the laser disc and Sinclair C5?
I am herring a pollster
187- A merry goat-like creature with a fondness for public opinion surveys.
189 - I love twitter now. How else am I going to crowdsource misinformation that I am not responsible for but can take advantage of? The occasional hit when rumours turn out to be true are more than amply compensated for by all the rubbish.
176- Roger
I will see it (it should be easier to find the dvd now!)
For Crash and S I L, I didn’t say they were bad but that they are already pretty much forgotten.
I agree that the war genre is crowded with unrewarded masterpieces (e.g. The thin red line beaten in the Oscars by… Shakespeare in love!)
189 - Maybe it will end-up with all the useless HD-DVD players?
I have got to say, if I have had a bad day at the office I can be assured reading some of the witty posts on this group will strike a smile and often a belly laugh. It’s just a pity some of the labour orientated wits only come half prepared to the keyboard.
FGS!
I’ve got to lay off the damned nutmeg…
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2010/03/three-opinion-polls-tonight.html
Three opinion polls tonight…
Express The first comes from The Express newspaper which begins a weekly survey with ‘Opinium Research’, run by a former YouGov employee.
It has the Conservatives on 37% (down 2% on a week ago), Labour on 30% (up 1%) and the Liberal Democrats on 16% (also up 1%).
Nearly 2,000 voters were questioned from 5th to 8th March.
Later this evening we’ll have polls from Populus for The Times and YouGov for The Sun.
Did we notice an Express poll last week?
Is Maguire doing a spoiler one wonders???.
177
Didn’t you make exactly same point a couple of days ago? Does your Dictionary for Key Stage 1 define “nonsense” as “not a slavish adherence to Tory sycophancy” or am I using too many long words for you to grasp?
192 - I suppose that is true.
I’m viewing twitter in the same field as a friend who works in the legal department of a tabloid.
Every week I hear rumours from her like Celebrity X is about to be outed as the Gay Lover of Celebrity. Y.
And she’s accurate at least once a year.
On Election Night, it would be nice if Mike or Robert could set up some kind of filter.
I suggest something like allowing only those with over 100 comments to post.
Otherwise, we’ll be inundated by tsunami of noisy comments such as “I AM HEARING A CHAP GIVES TORIES 7 POINTER, DONT KNOW WHO. DON’T KNOW WHERE”
re 114 even more depressing was the Liverpudlian radio talk show presenter they had on Channel 4 news this evening. It’s difficult to comprehend how anyone so utterly stupid could hold down a job at all, yet alone one in the media.
193- Chris, how bad are the regional elections going to be for the UMP? It looks like it could be even worse for them this time than it was in 2004, which didn’t even seem imaginable a little while ago.
197 - I’m sure the Express focussed on the supplementary questions.
The fact Prince Philip killed Princess Diana make it more or less likely that you will vote Tory?
99. No …on all counts. Keep trying..
201 - That sounds like an extremely smart idea to me. I’m all in favour of open posting most of the time, but this site is so successful, it will be overwhelmed on election night if we don’t have some filter.
re 156 Mike S as we take a dim viewing of ramping and spreading false information please can richard dodd be banned?
202 I thought a primary requirement for getting a job in the media was being utterly stupid?
205
197- Richard Nabavi
Apparently they did the poll long before beginning to publish it.
“He also explained that the poll has been running for a year in a bid to build up enough trend data for launch.”
http://www.research-live.com/opinium-puts-itself-in-poll-position-for-2010-election/4001253.article
So the comparison could be with an unpublished poll.
207
He should certainly be something-ed.
That populas twitter is RUBBISH
No way in hell they have the lead at 3%
Far more likely to be 9%
40 - 31 - which inb my opinion is a good poll for us reds. As long as we stay in the thirties and the tories don’t go higher than 40% i will be happy!
210 Thanks Chris. That looks as though they are asking the same 2000 people each week, which (if true) is very diffferent from YouGov:
The online poll will run as part of the firm’s omnibus study and will draw from a panel of some 2,000 respondents, asking which party they would vote for if an election were called tomorrow.
209 - That’s most sensible thing you’ve ever said.
209. Speechless eh.
NPMP: “Based on the dubious entrails of my weekend canvasssing”
My Gawd, Nick, how exactly are you dealing with nonLab voters at their doorstep? Am hoping were not talking Broxstowe Chainsaw Massacre??? Though that WOULD be an innovative way of helping win yet another mandate!
204. Do you agree with the following statement:
“Gay and lesbian asylum seekers are cause of house price crash, predicts Diana’s ghost’
201: Philippe Magnan @ 19:37
If Mssrs Smithson don’t feel able to set a filter (and I am not sure that the number of previous posts is a terribly useful one), maybe they could simply put the names at the top of each post again, with a double line break before the actual text. That way we could all run our own person filters very eaaily.
We haven’t had any more from ARS recently; when’s the next?
Anyone know?
Given Mike’s “Golden Rule”, I can’t believe we can really dump them for being “too” pro-Tory!
208- No, that’s a helpful but insufficient qualification for a media career. You also must have an enormous and entirely unwarranted belief in the soundness of your judgment and righteousness of your opinions. Without that, they might just end up obtaining a position for which they’re duly qualified such as ditchdigger or burger-flipper.
204. The most odd question I saw asked in an opinion poll was “Which of Cherie Blair or Sandra Howard is more likely to make you vote for their husband?” It appeared in the Mail on Sunday and happily the answer from the majority was that it would make no difference at all!
216. NonLAB voters? In Broxtowe? I didn’t think such a thing existed.
By the way, leaving aside frequent twitterers, when should we expect news of Populus?
213. If so, avoid.
216. Not the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. NPMP is thinking of doing a remake of another horror classic, based on his doorstep canvassing of Mr and Mrs Hill of Broxtowe.
“The Hills used to have eyes.”
Speaking of trolls (the bugaboo of true blue PBers) am going throught local voter registration file here in Seattle, and just ran across the following surname:
Trollsplinter
Sounds like it’s Scandanavian to me (a natural guess for Seattle area, which has more Norwegians than Oslo and more Swedes than Stockholm, maybe even more Danes than Copenhagen . . . and certainly more Finns than all three care to contemplate!
This guy Warner, does anyone know where he lives?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100029071/davewatch-camerons-war-machine-resembles-the-wehrmacht-in-april-1945/
He’s a dead ringer for someone who lives around the corner, (bend) I’m sure its him, he’d certainly fit in well.
221. Usually, anytime around now!
Oops looks like I have had one of my posts deleted.
Apologies to OGH and the mods, didn’t realise it was that bad.
229. Off to the naughty step to keep little Timmy company.
Hurt Locker is a decent, well-made, vivid piece of antiwar cinema-making, it is also predictable (all that jerky camera work), earnest, meandering, plotless and ever-so-slightly ho-hum.
As Roger suggests, it will be forgotten in five years. In fact, I suggest it will be forgotten in about a year, at which point we will all look back and think, Er, why F didn’t they give it to Avatar?
Extraordinarily, Locker got an Oscar for the screenplay. Given that there is not a single memorable line in the movie, that’s quite an achievement.
So why did it do so well? Channel 4 just said Cameron (James) is hated in Hollywood, which might explain Avatar’s failure in a PR voting system.
Shakespeare in Love is a delightful and intelligent piece of froth. Funny and touching and affectionate. A TV favourite. Crash, I agree, seems a bit dull already. Like the Hurt Locker.
203- S and S
Indeed, it looks grim.
But statu quo ante (everybody but Alsace and Corsica under left-wing rule) seems the most likely result.
The starting point is so horrible that expectations were that improvement was a sure thing.
However, all factors are now going against UMP:
- Sarko’s popularity is still very low (only the two Le Pens and Royal have worse ratings). Obviously, the state of the economy and fast-rising unemployment doesn’t help.
- regional presidents (almost all socialists) are largely unknown but in general considered quite positively. they don’t have much to do but distribute quite a lot of subventions while regional taxes are very low and “hidden” (a small part of the tax on real estate sales goes for the region, for example)
- the rise of the ecologists, using a wider coalition than only the (very leftist) Green party is changing part of the game. environmental concerns and large disinterest for local elections tend to favor them anyway but after their stunning success in the euro elections, quite a bit of organiztion has now taken place. The problem is that, far from being apolitical (even though they pretend often to be concerned mainly about green issues) they are rock-solidly allied with the left. With the two-rounds system, UMP will probably face in every single region an alliance of socialists and ecologists. As Bayrou is still trying to reinvent himself as an anti-Sarkozy alternative and the Front National tries to survive by focusing in anti-government rhetoric, the UMP, while the single biggest party, has not much reserve of votes for the second round…
217 - lol, SSI!
170. I am just me! Opinium who perhaps you meant are a much less well regarded (I hope!) source of wisdom.
The Populus poll is a marginals poll so not comparable with last month. Peter Riddell tells me that it will be on the Times website by 8
Parish Notice.
Andrew Rawnsley’s hatchet job on David Cameron about to start on Channel 4 now.
235, do we know what sort of and how many marginals?
235. Oh.
236. I hope he’s at least dug up some tasty new gossip.
227 - The very premise of this guys argument in the first paragraph shows how ill informed he is.To win the Tories have got to achieve a swing greater than that managed for most of the past 100 years. To win outright will be a great achievment however big the majority and frankly Walker hasn’t got a clue.
Apparently Rawnsley’s programme on Dave comes up with startling claim that he once had a “policy”, though he quickly abandoned the idea when focus groups and Lord Ashcroft told him not to be so specific and to stick to the vacuous waffle which had served him so well up to then.
236
No complaints from Tory posters please, you were quite happy to cheer on Rawnsley when he revealed Bullygate, he was ok then.
Not the poll, but an interesting story. Tories unhappy with Labour’s PC Lapdog, ACPO: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7053182.ece
40. Bribrad I turn my back for a moment and here you are with more rubbish…determined little lad arent you..
232- Thanks Chris. I just read an article in Le Figaro giving hopeful evidence that the right can still win Alsace, but… Alsace?!?!?!
http://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/2010/03/07/01002-20100307ARTFIG00209-alsace-l-ump-reprend-la-tete-dans-les-sondages-.php
The very possibility that Alsace is inches away from being taken over by an Ecologist-led coalition, frankly, is pretty illustrative of just how bad things have gotten for Sarkozy’s forces. One doesn’t want to be premature, but is almost looking like the Sarkozy/UMP dam is breaking and, after fifteen years of right-wing presidencies, the country may have had it with the right. Do you think that a national breakthrough for the left could be in the cards, here as we stand only two years away from the next national elections? One has to at least seriously consider the possibility.
241 - I was being a bit ironic Coldy.
As Charlie Whelan pointed out a few weeks ago, Andrew Rawnsley is so inaccurate.
231. Crash is HILARIOUS. Especially the part where Sandra Bullock falls down the stairs, and learns the true value of her Mexican maid! Also the part where the cop saves the life of the lady he raped to the swelling-est music that ever tumesced.
DAVID CAMERON CHANNEL4 ITS ON……
“Is he simply better than his predecessor at presentation”
Lord Mandelson, irony-free zone!
Who is Cameron? Who is Osborne?
Who indeed.
49. There you are again…why dont you go and tidy your room..
249
Someone so ill informed as you should hereafter be ignored.
In addition to pro-feminism and anti-(James) Cameronism, yet another think going for “The Hurt Locker” was the subject matter: pro-troop without being pro-war.
BTW, was disappointed that “The Last Campaign of Booth Gardner” didn’t get an Oscar (for short documentary). But not for artistic reasons, just because I know and admire the former WA governor.
Art aside, my guess is that it this case, the subject matter of “TLCoBG” (assisted suicide for terminally ill) was too offputting . . . particularly for a group of voters who intend to live forever . . .
bribrad do you seriously think your posts demonstrate either insight, or a sense of humour? It is the sheer infantile stupidity which is so wearing; all on a level of “David Cameron smells of great big ploppy poos”.
If you weren’t dimmer than a Toc H lamp you would possibly realise that your target is a straw man. No one on here remotely expresses unqualified admiration for Cameron, and even qualified admiration is getting pretty thin on the ground.
Please stop. You make wageslave look like Walter Bagehot.
253 - Actually thinking about it.
Bribrad, are you related to Wageslave by either marriage or birth? (or more likely, both?)
Seriously worried about this site on election night. We are going to have all kinds of “Con gain Bootle” nonsense posted.
That is why I wanted to have trusted helpers to update this will REAL results as they come in…
http://hungparliament2010.blogspot.com/2010/01/i-undermentioned-hereby-give-notice.html
If you are interested email me at:
rod [at] crosbytitanic [dot] co [dot] uk
233, NPMP - am now in talks (at least in my own mind) with Q. Tarintino re: screenplay. Sadly, Vincent Price is no longer with us, he’d have been perfect for your part! Any alternative casting suggestions?
255, I do agree with you on this, Mr. Crosby. I think I’ll try to refrain from posting overmuch, as I’m not a clever analytic chap, nor have any inside knowledge.
Mind you, still undecided whether I’ll watch the results in bed, on TV, or here.
256 - Brad Pitt or John Travolta
Who was that French chump at the beginning of Rawnsley’s programme? The irony…
Cameron is orders of magnitude better than Brown isn’t he? Funny, natural, warm, genuine and frankly just normal. I agree with tim, odd that Cameron has been away from the limelight and I think the Tories can only go up in the polls if he is given more exposure.
“165.So it could be a waste of time YouGov talking to this group.
Concerns were raised about the number of people still not signed up to vote for the general election. ”
Note to pollsters - ask people if they will be registered to vote and exclude them if if they won’t be! How difficult can it be to see that they are skewing any polls by not doing this?
Again, if anyone from ARS is paying attention you could steal a march by starting to do this.
bribrad seems to be toiling under the burdensome misapprehension that he is writing debonair satire, rather than dull and laboured piffle.
Sorry, just switching to WebCameron for Mary Poppins type fluffy bunny political insight.
Speaking of innovative ways of reducing opposition, is installing the kind of see-saw illustrated at the top of this post in council housing playgrounds part of the Conservative Party plan for winning today’s safe Labour seats sometime the middle of this century?
258 Rod after how many results do u think you will be able to call the result?
65. Bribrad…I love you…never been known to dissapoint..well done…keep it up 5 out of 15.
A Poll by an organisation I have not heard of before has just been announced by the Daily Express. The poll was taken by Opinium from 5th to 8th March using what is described as “their research panel” of 1960 individuals. The figures are: Conservative 37%, Labour 30%, Lib Dems 16%, Others 16%.
Has anyone come across Opinium before? Are they members of the British Polling Council? Is their methodology published? If so, is it sound?
Cameron has more substance than Brown.
Media-savvy, well-balanced, highly intelligent guy v spin-obsessed, demented, dividing-line-drawing, scheming nutcase.
269: It’s an ex YouGovers company.
269 - seems like anyone and everyone is doing polls.
I’m going to form my own polling company and my research panel will be 30 blokes down the local pub.
My guess at Populus C 40 L 31 LD 19 (hoping the figures aren’t further up the thread).
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/goldlist/2010/03/another-labour-mp-in-a-marginal-seat-throws-in-the-towel
” odd that Cameron has been away from the limelight ”
Maybe to avoid over-exposure?
—
“another think going for “The Hurt Locker” was the subject matter: pro-troop without being pro-war.”
I think this is absolutely spot-on.
270 Get a room
270 If thats not an example of rudeness from a rightwinger on here being O.K,whilst us Labourites are expected to be polite about Tories,then I don’t what IS hypocrisy
Watching the footy. What’s this Rawnsley thing like so far ?
273. These guesses are otiose.
We have now learned that the poll is a Marginals polls, so all calculations based on prior national polls are pointlessly out-of-whack.
277, out of interest, whilst we wait for this ‘8pm’ poll, do you disagree with the view of Brown described above?
My Populus guess
C38 L31 LD 19
I think Labour’s been damaged by the Jon Venables story.
I predict a reversion to the 40/30/20 type split with YouGov.
201 - repeating it doesn’t make it any less true, and I’m rather pleased that you noticed it and allowed it to get under your trolly skin. And the idea that you’re trying to bill yourself as somehow too intellectual for me - or indeed for anyone else - is vastly amusing.
Rawnsley thing quite good so far. Mandelson talking shite
Oops just realised it is a marginals poll; ignore my guess above (as you would/should have anyway).
I have never really seen the point of twitter it seems a bit tacky a big brother
277 you really think that is rude. I thought he was quite restrained on demented loony we have for a prime minister.
244- S and S
Alsace is traditionally a stronghold for the right BUT:
- it’s also one of the traditional strongholds of genuine ecologists (non-political, like the 1980s leader Antoine Waechter). allying these with more leftist Greens is powerful electorally.
- historically the region essentially voted for christian-democrats (the old UDF). Some of these voters were uncomfortable after UDF was swallowed in the UMP, especially as Sarkozy is not typical of the gentle/dull/moderate christian-democrat leader…
It has been only eight years since our last socialist government. From 1997 to 2002 Chirac was largely powerless.
However, there is indeed room for a leftist surge in 2012. Actually 2007 was the exception to the rule: between 1978 (bare hold to power by Giscard and Barre)and 2007 (Sarko’s parliamentary majority) every single French government lost the next parliamentary elections (six elections 1981 86 88 1993 97 2002).
The real “miracle” was that the right, with a hopelessly impopular president and government in 2007 managed to stay in power. he only explanation is that Sarkozy (by being bitterly opposed by Chirac and friends) was still seen as a change.
This time around, it won’t work so the PS has a more than decent chance to win.
However, (and therein lies the historical stupidity of Lionel Jospin) the combination of equal terms for president/MPs and an order in which voters choose first a president make parliamentary elections quite pointless exercises: in 2002 and 2007,it was a very dull campaign and only concentrated on the “give him a majority to govern” theme (from the right of course; the left campaigned on “ok, but not too big”).
So the problem stays the same for the left: they have every chance to win in 2012 IF AND ONLY IF they pick decent, semi-consensual and competent presidential candidate.
This will be the only story starting from September this year, I guess.
284. Yes, Cameron getting an easy ride so far.
As of the beginning of this month, White House insiders said they were putting the chances of Obamacare passing at 51%:
http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/0310/preview_bakers_rahm_opus_59d03485-089f-4a95-8d69-b270e899a9f7.html
St. Vince on Cameron programme talking about the dangers of cutting too much or too quickly, when his own leader used the word “savage” in his conference speech.
267 timmo - good question, that’s where there’s money to be made for those with the courage - probably to within 20 seats for Labour and the Tories after 4-5 results would be my guess, if these are from differing areas.
By the way contrary to PB popular opinion, I thought the Hurt Locker was a better film than avatar and deserved best picture.
267. Depends how close it is, doesn’t it?
a rough estimate can be derived from how close to a “threshold” swing it is.
e.g. the BBC use something like this
http://www.titanictown.plus.com/99.5confidence.jpg
So if we assume that it’ll take about a 4% swing for the Tories to be the largest party (itself an estimate), and the true swing is 5%, we should be able to call the Tories as the largest party after about 80 results. But if the swing is only 4.5%, it would take about 300 results…
These figures are illustrative, and will almost certainly be underestimates, due to uncertainty in the boundaries, non-uniformity of UNS, and non-random declaration order…
Tom Bradby:
“Still not answering the question.
08 Mar, 2010
Four days after Lord Mandelson told us that all Labour donors should own up to their tax status, the party still refuses to answer our questions on the subject.
It is true that the Ashcroft affair raised significant questions about David Cameron’s judgement, but he has come clean and taken his kicking (even if it was only because he knew the issue would dog him throughout the election campaign).
What we have on the other side of the divide is the idea that a party which has imposed significant new taxes on the British people may be funded by businessmen who do not pay tax here on their worldwide income.
Does that seem right to you?”
http://blog.itv.com/news/tombradby/?p=67
282 Gabble. . Dont try to hide behind something else. You sound just like a spin doctor.
277. It’s an opinion, just an opinion. Albeit pretty near spot on though.
279: I’m sure they can ‘weight’ them appropriately.
286. “I have never really seen the point of twitter it seems a bit tacky a big brother”
Like Facebook it is very useful for compiling blacklists.
UkPaul — it’s indeed very surprising that the AR/PB.com polls don’t informed themselves about their respondent’s voting registration, and simply take for granted an abstract answer about “certainty” to vote.
Come on Mike!
280 FWIW,I do consider Brown has major flaws;
(a)HIs monotonic Scottish voice can be quite depressing-no offence to other Scottish posters!
(b)He is NOT a good communicator
(c)He is probably justifibaly dubbed a ‘control freak’
IF,and it is quite a big ‘if’,Labour were to carry on in office after the next GE,I,and a retired relative (public sector librarian,Labour voter),would prefer Brwon to step down within a year or two,and for a contest to allow Labour to find a new leader
Aaaaaarrrgggghh Blanchflower on now. Man is a total Pr1ck. Wants inflation to bail out irresponsible debtors. I hate him! He is one of those people who is just ALWAYS wrong
**** BETTING POST ****
You can get 2/7 on the Lib Dems retaining Cardiff Central with Victor Chandler (1/4 with William Hill if like me Victor Chandler won’t take your money). Ladbrokes price this at 1/33. Labour would need a 7.8% swing to take this. Even as a Lib Dem bear, it seems to me that Ladbrokes price is more accurate.
If you disagree, you can back Labour with Ladbrokes at 8/1. If you want free money, you can back both.
**** BETTING POST ****
You can get 2/7 on the Lib Dems retaining Cardiff Central with Victor Chandler (1/4 with William Hill if like me Victor Chandler won’t take your money). Ladbrokes price this at 1/33. Labour would need a 7.8% swing to take this. Even as a Lib Dem bear, it seems to me that Ladbrokes price is more accurate.
If you disagree, you can back Labour with Ladbrokes at 8/1. If you want free money, you can back both.
Where is this Populus marginals poll? I need another non yougov poll.
It’s 8.40pm now. We were promised 8pm.
Jeez, I’ve known girls that have come quicker than this poll!
test
from ukpollingreport
Two new national polls tonight: YouGov’s daily poll in the Sun and a new entrant in the Express – Opinium Research. They have topline figures of CON 37%, LAB 30%, LDEM 16% – but more on that later. We will also have a new poll from Populus in the Times, but it is apparently going to be a marginals poll rather than their normal GB voting intention.
Tom Bradby the itv man is the most RIGHT-WING LOON POT ON TV.
302
It always beats that Blanchflower was ever put on the mpc.
301 Patrick, moving back to the real world, sorry, I expect a defeated Brown to be out by/at the party’s September conference.
277 PWHF … etc
If Colin keeps it up for two solid weeks while everyone else suffers in silence, you will then possibly have a point.
I must say I find it hard to agree with Colin about Cameron or disagree with him about Brown. Judging from most previous versions of your signature I would have expected you to feel much the same.
309 - wasn’t he put on because he agrees with Brown?
305- TSE
“Jeez, I’ve known girls that have come quicker than this poll!”
quicker than 40 minutes is not that unusual…
288- It seems that (almost) everything depends on Sarkozy’s own popularity. If he is able to resurrect it, he ought to win re-election handily. But if he can’t, the door is wide open to whomever the Socialists nominate next time. Just as is happening in the regionals this month, Sarko hatred ought to give the left plenty of incentive to rally behind a unity candidacy of the left. Also, I would imagine the PS won’t be so foolish next time as to nominate someone as flaky as Royal. At least as of now, it looks like the Socialists will have a very good chance to win all the marbles in 2012.
I also wonder if Sarko can rebuild his position in time. It’s not just the bad economy and poor unemployment numbers; voters’ desire for change after many years of conservative rule will be a real obstacle to reclaiming a popular mandate (as you yourself state).
313-How about 30 years and still waiting…
The dispatches program has been quite good for the tories so far! thou im guessing the last 10mins is where ch4 will turn on them…
313 - Well it’s dependent if I’m in the room or not.
310 In that,admittedly likely scenario,I would agree in that:
(a)Whoever wins the next election could have to make unpopular decisions that reduce the likelihood of re-election in 2014/5
(b)Labour should decisively ‘move to the next generation’,and have a 40-something person to counterbalance Cameron.
Politics could be a good spectator sport over the next few years
A Lawyer from Yorkshire.
Damn, they’re not talking about me.
Labour claim Blanchflower is a genius because he voted for an early rate cut. He did. But six months before that he voted for a rate cut at the peak of the boom and then two months later voted for a rate rise. At best he’s guessing, at worst he’s as economically incompetent as Brown and Balls.
I hope they didn’t pay big money to whoever recommended Opinium as a trading name - one which should surely be consigniaed (see what I did there?)to the dustbin of history.
New thread
new thread
314- S and S
I largely agree. However, “unity candidacy of the left” is an oxymoron.
At the next election there will at least be 6 candidates from the left:
- a socialist
- a green
- a communist
- 3 trotskysts (1 of each chapel: NPA, LO and PT)
317 You randy goat!!
Seriously,all the very,very best for your new arrivals,your wife and your goodself-I wish you every happiness!
Tom Bradby is an over sensitive precious wally.
I remember his interview with John Bercow. Now i am a little biased here because i like Joh Bercow. I supported him for speaker, and backed him at 3/1, so i won. But in the intervening period he has grown into his new job very well. He is knowledgable, colourful and always polite. And of course he has a goooorrrrrrrrgggggggeeeeeoooouuuuusssssss wife.
But that aside, despite my liking of him, when Tom Bradby grilled him when he first got the job, he was accussing John Bercow over the voted that were cast in his favour.
How the hell can John Bercow control that ? He can’t. He was voted in as speaker by a democratic vote. The fact that Brown probably threatened anybody who dissented with a holiday for 2 in Siberia, is neither here nor there.
JohnBercow was elected, and has since proven hmself up to the task. Period.
John Bercow 1
Tom Brady 0
End of.
Vernon Bognador (Dave docu) on Cameron’s philosophy: ” political and social policy of the 19th century”
Glorious Leader and Ed Balls are going to be doing webchats on “Netmums” (which is apparently an alternative to “Mumsnet”) soon
http://www.netmums.com/
292. Far too few, I’m afraid. Depends on how confident you want to be.
95% confidence would imply about 30 declarations. 99.5% (what the BBC use) would imply about 50.
But again the factors I mentioned above will confound those numbers upwards…
4 or 5 results could only reliably detect a landslide, as in 1997 or 1983…
Thought Rawnsley wasn’t too bad - could have been worse. Thoroughly pissed off listening to the poisonous Mandelson and Vince Sanctimonious Cable.
Programme didn’t have much depth, you could see large chunks had been cut. I think DC should choose his interviews very carefully from now on.
Come on, guys, the Tories have won. Stop all this fake suspense.
Neck & Neck @ 38% each
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/rachel_sylvester/article7054580.ece
“As our poll shows today, the fight there is intensifying, with Labour and the Conservatives neck and neck on 38 per cent. Many voters say they believe it is “time for a change” but are not sure that they want to support David Cameron. In the key battlegrounds there is all to play for.”