I’m sorry, but I just do not believe the Liberals will end up polling anything that low in a general election. I mean, it wouldbe fun to see the Libs virtually wiped out, but I can’t see it happening. 18% would be very bad for them and I can’t see them getting much under that, even though they are clearly being attacked from both Labour and Conservative.

Re. Populus, what day can we expect that to be published?

I agree - the fact is the election campaign lifts the Lib Dems rating by a few percentage points every time simply because so many people forget about them altogether between elections. I also can’t see them getting less than 18%.

Take away abou 3 points from labour and add it to the Libdems and that will be the actual results.

Got to say, this isn’t the Telegraph’s take which compares the poll with their previous one … which has a Lab lead of 3%. The D Tel headline is ‘Tory blow in polls fuels election speculation’.

Is YouGov Sun Times actually directly comparable to YouGov Daily Tel? Surely not … different sampling at different times of the week, no? If so this is not good for the Tories.

The neck and neck stuff smacks of Tory spin to me, but we’ll see.

YouGov polls for the Telegraph and the Sunday Times are directly comparable: same wording, same question order, same sampling, same weighting and both done mid-week.

The Telegraph normally draws its comparisons with its last monthly YouGov poll, in this case last month’s showed a nine point Labour lead, the changes being the Conservatives up one and Lib Dems down 2.

The Telegraph quotes figures from the Conservative’s internal polling…this is interesting, in theory Populus should now be required to publish the figures for it so we can see if it’s true or not!

GIN - Populus should be out next Tuesday

“I agree - the fact is the election campaign lifts the Lib Dems rating by a few percentage points every time ”

it didn’t in 2005 if I recall correctly

Brian…

It depends where you measure from. In 2005 the Lib Dems dropped in the months leading up to the election, and then rose during the election campaign so in one sense they did. What they certainly didn’t do was outperform their mid term support come the election campaign.

My suspicion is they would do better now. The old pattern of Lib Dems increasing their support during election campaigns was always thought to be because they got publicity when between elections they struggled to get any media coverage.

During the 2001-2005 Parliament they actually did alright with press coverage, Charlie Kennedy had a very high public profile and Iraq gave them a platform…hence they didn’t have a lack of media profile to recover from come the election.

In contrast since Kennedy’s resignation they have been largely sidelined and starved of media coverage - come an election campaign when the broadcast media are obliged to cover them I expect they’ll once again put on support during the campaign.

Given the leak of Populus’s internal figures for the Tory party, do BPC rules mean that Populus now has to disclose the results publicly?

And if so will there be repercussions against anybody?

Thanks Anthony.

Meanwhile the 3 real polls yesterday all showed falling Labour votes even in the byelection held in Stroud ( a Labour held Parliamentary seat ) .

Philip - by my reading of the BPC disclosure rules yes, it should. It has still never really been tested in reality though, so we shall find out.

I think the Telegraph has its interpretation about right. The Yougov poll cannot possibly be construed as good news for the Tories save only that it now seems that polls showing the Labour lead at 8 to 10 points represent the high watermark of the Brown bounce.

That is not to say that the position cannot change quickly. We have yet to have a poll conducted fully after the recent Cameron announcements (that may be attaching too much weight to his words) and September will be the most significant month for polling since the last election. If Brown’s lead remains at around 8 points he will be sorely tempted to tear up his previous plans and go for an election this Autumn. If the lead wanes to less than 5 points, I am sure he will wait. The grey area would be a lead of around 5 or 6 points. If replicated in a general election it would be more than enough but, I suspect, Brown will be conscious that almost all opinion polls overstate Labour support to some extent and the last thing he will want to do is to go to the country and suffer a reduced majority.

The increasing suspicion I have is that the much awaited collapse of the Brown bounce is not going to happen anytime soon. The Tories have yet to come to terms with the fact that they are facing a completely different opponent in Brown than Blair and that the British people no longer want a charming nice chap as leader but a man of substance, warts and all. That is not to say that Cameron cannot be that person, just that he has elected to spend the past 3 years trying to project himself. This has led to an apparent uncertainty and panic as to what the Tory strategy should now be and the press are no longer prepared to let Cameron get away with expressing passe-partout ambitions that we can all agree with without demonstrating how he intends to achieve/pay for them.

Anthony,

Am I right in saying that the polling was carried out over a month ago (23-25 July) which is before the polling for the ten points ahead poll for the Sunday Times (9-10 Aug)?

The change since the previous YouGov may be trivial to some, but I think it shows that the Brown Bounce has reached its peak.
As Anthony says, this poll was conducted before recent policy announcements were made. I predict Labour support will be fall next time.

I tend to take poll findings at face value (polling does seem to have improved since 1992)and try not to accept the good polls as being correct and the bad polls as being incorrect (as a Labour supporter). Given this I think the poor LibDem showing could be down to their leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, who does get low Approval Ratings when compared to their old leader Charles Kennedy.

Ralph - no, the Telegraph have made a mistake and left in the dates for last month’s poll. This one was done earlier this week, I don’t know the exact dates it opened and closed (I’ll update when I do) but the vast majority of the fieldwork would have been done before Wednesday.

Arnie - you’re assuming that Brown only reads YouGov polls and spurns lesser pollsters. Obviously one couldn’t criticise such wisdom if he did , but I suspect he doesn’t and ICM and Populus are both showing leads in that 5-6 sort of area.

The Times is saying, “Insiders said the internal polls showed Labour on 37 per cent and the Tories on 36 per cent”.

do bear in mind that the Tories were saying they were neck and neck in Southall too. I take leaks of internal polls with a pinch of salt. We need to see the published polls!

Mark Senior where do we find these results?

Jake , best site is http://www.vote-2007.co.uk .

Thanks Mark.

Am I correct in thinking that ‘internal’ polls for the most part can be taken with a pinch of salt? It just seems rather strange that any party would commission a poll if they thought it was going to come up anything other than with favourable findings. Or is it just me?

The gap may, indeed, be narrowing between the “big beasts” but I find it implausible that the Liberal Democrats are going to poll as low as 14% come a General Election, as this YouGov suggests.

No matter what (there won’t be any return to the two-party duopology of the 1950s), some popular Lib Dem incumbents are certain to re-elected. I don’t see much scope for Lib Dem gains, however. Any Conservative surge in the South can only hit them hard. Based on the ICM regional “aggregates” movement from the Lib Dems, here, has been primarily to benefit of the Conservatives rather than Labour; however, what is to say that will hold should such switchers were, ultimately, not to perceive Cameron as quite the nicey-nice ‘liberal’ Conservative they may have initially thought him to be?

Dave Hawk,

Internal polls, so long as they are conducted by reputable companies, should come up with similar results to published polls. No party is going to want to be given false information.

Dave - parties commission perfectly straight and fair private polls, they want to know how well they are actually doing! They pay pollsters hundreds of thousands of pounds a year for actual accurate results.

However, if a party was going to commission a poll for publication they might not want an accurate one, they might want one that makes them look good. Hence the BPC disclosure rules - they prevent parties commissioning skewed polls for publication…or more to the point, parties can commission skewed polls, but the details of them are there for all to see so everyone would be able to see if and how they are skewed.

This is likely to be a proper poll conducted to try and get an accurate measure of public opinion. The questions will be whether the reports are actually accurate, exactly who the poll is of, whether the figures quoted actually bear any relationship to a real poll and whether that poll uses the same methodology as Populus’s Times polls or whether there are different approaches to turnout, don’t knows, etc, etc which could account for a difference.

The bottom line - if the tables aren’t released, take with very large pinch of salt. If the tables are released and there is no apparant mischief, treat it as being as reliable and trustworthy as any other poll.

Mark,

I don’t doubt Stroud CLP may find the Stroud result a matter of concern, depending on its history. It might be a ward Labour has any been particularly strong in, I don’t know.

Local by-elections are hardly in the grand scheme of things vindicative of the national environment. In my experience, local by-elections are pretty intense occasions that are decided primarily on local factors such as the extent to which, or not, the electorate are familiar with the candidates; the effectiveness, or like of it, of their campaigns; the calibre of the candidate and the extent to which they have a track record of service in the wards they seek to represent; as well as wider local issues pertaining to the respective council in question. There is also “differential turnout”, as well as “split-allegiances” to take into consideration. For such reasons, the results of all-out local elections are not necessarily vindicative of what is going to happen at the subsequent general election.

I was an unsuccessful Labour candidate in the City of Durham in May in a marginal Lib Dem-Labour ward which covers two distinct villages, which though accessible by road are not direetly connected by road as the crow flies. Naturally, this produces “local voting” whereby voters vote for village candidates irrespective of their party; in other words, many vote only vote for who they know, yet many of these people who cast 2 Lib Dem / 1 Labour city votes were staunchly Labour when it comes to the general election. You are always going to have red-dog ancestrally straight Labour voters, in the former mining communities of County Durham, no matter what but they in themselves alone are not always enough to carry Labour to victory as they once did.

Nevertheless those pols, irrespective of what their colours are, who take votes for granted, get complacent, arrogant, etc are sooner or later can expect to get their ass handed to them.

Previous post, first para “any” should read never

Anthony/Sean,

Thanks for shedding light on ‘internals’

My initial suspicion re ‘internals’ stems from the fact that many of my American acquaintance (whether partisans or the more independently-inclined) always seem to be sceptical/cynical of just about every poll that has been done either by, or for, anything or any one that has a D or an R associated with it, which is why I was of the opinion that they are done to “big-up” the chances of that particular D or R.

I can understand the psychological rationale for “bigging up” given that some voters my lose heart and say why bother voting if they feel that their party nationally or it’s local candidate has not have a hope in hell of wining. That said, I could just as easily understand the psychological rationale for “playing-down” given that some voters may feel why even bother voting if they feel their party nationally or it’s local candidate has it in the bag.

Such is the nature of simple plurality majority electoral systems that we have both sides of the Pond.

Onee thing that struck me looking in detail at the DT poll was that “Don’t knows” made up a large percentage on all the single issue questions. Is this normal? Do these numbers have any bearing on the credibility of the voting intention numbers? I refuse to believe in an electorate that can decide on the major issue without deciding on its constituent parts. Or should I?

Had a reply. The figures from the internal Conservative poll ARE going to be released by Populus, and are indeed very different from the YouGov ones. Check back later

Mark - it’s because the Telegraph combined the figures for “Don’t know” and “None of them” (it also missed out the Lib Dem figures). On any particular issue there are a substantial proportion of people who don’t trust any of the main parties.

what are we to make of the situation when different polling companies come out with very different results? Is there any reason to give more credence to either Yougov or Populus?

Wait until we get to see the tables - we may find some obvious differences in timing or something.

When you say they ARE differant results with Populus, in what way are they differant? Is the Tory Spin reliable?

Don’t know for certain yet GIN, all I know is that there is a poll and it contrasts with the YouGov one.

I expect that the figures in the Telegraph (CON 36%, LAB 37%) are accurate though, or Populus wouldn’t be releasing the figures.

Can someone enlighten me? Where is the increased majority going to come from? Not Scotland or Wales as seats are likely to be lost to the Nationalists! Southern UK? - maybe in a few seats. The danger for Labour surely is that they may pile up large majorities in safe Urban seats mainly in northern England.

It is not a foregone conclusion by any means.

Labour seem to be holding their own at present as Gordon Brown appears to be the only politician on the governments side whom we hear from - it appears that he is frightened to let any of his cabinet from saying anything about anything that might not be his (not Party) line. His cabinet is more anonymous than Blair’s

Well it’s now the 1st of September and already as i predicted weeks ago the Autumn turnaround in the polls for the Tories has started - i think this will be the trend each time a new poll is releasd now - for all the doubters of my predictions .

Once the polls are released following the Cameron announcements on crime and immigration the polls will narrow sharply .