Anthony, is it normal for adjustments to result in increasing the Labour vote? I thought normally unadjusted votes gave better results for Labour and adjusting the results improved them for the Conservatives - or is that only adjusting for probable turnout?

Philip since around 2001, 2002 the adjustment has nearly always increased the Labour vote. The phrase “shy Tories” has stuck in peoples’ minds so much that everyone still assume the adjustment helps the Tories - it doesn’t, these days it nearly always helps Labour.

Looking over the year as a whole at Cameron’s overall net approval ratings the thing that strikes me is that they fell from in the 20s to below +10 around the time of the local elections. They then seem to have stayed there since.

In fact it generally looks to me as if very little change in the overall situation for any of the parties since May.

So Anthony is this because people are now “shy Labour” supporters, a reverse of the same trend for the Tories back in the nineties? Or is there another explanation?

Is the adjustment lower for Yougov then since people are less likely to be shy to a computer than a person?

Yep - Andrew Cooper called them “Bashful Blairtes” when the trend first became apparant. Only ICM and Populus make the adjustment, YouGov don’t, for exactly the reasons you say - they believe that social embarrassment isn’t a factor in the same way in internet polls.

It seems to me that if you have any sort of sense at all, it is quite obvious that this Blair excuse for a Government will be out on its ear at the earliest opportunity. I do fee l that Cameron should push them a lot harder than he has done if only to make supporters feel he is working for them.
M.P’s salaries must remain the same until they earn more respect.
Whether Cameron likes it or not the Tax bburden must be reduced as must the Red Tape.

David Cameron really must start now to push the Tory vote to 40% and beyond. It’s disappointing to see yet another 39% rating.

If in 2007 we continue to have Tory ratings at 38% or 39%, it probably means we can look forward to a hung parliament.

Re J. Meynell. Sorry, the tax burden argument is old tory ’slash and burn nasty party’ policies which have been rejected soundly by the community at large several times. A return to such simplistic Thatcherite policies will ensure another decade in the wilderness. People may not like particularly like Labour (Do they like any party? I suspect not judging by how many do not vote.) but they do like seeing new buildings, schools without holes in the roof etc. People do recognise that taxes need to be paid; yes, feel free to argue how they are spent but don’t just go for less taxes as otherwise you only appeal to the die-hard supporters as that will get you nowhere bar the opposition benches for a long time. The point is we see facilities on mainland Europe which we would like to have and are starting to recognise that to have such facilities we need to pay tax; as a percentage of GDP we still pay significantly less tax than mainland Europe and that excludes Scandinavian countries.

Jack/J. Meynell

Mori show that the top five concerns from Jan to Nov 2006 have been,

Immigration/Asylum (36%), NHS/Hospitals (35%), Crime/Law and Order (32%), Defence/Security (31%), Education/Schools (23%),

Tax comes in way down the list near no 10 at 7%.

This means that leading on cutting tax would almost certainly be a bad move for Cameron. Concern about tax is higher in the South east ( Close to 10%) and lower elsewhere ( less than 5% in the North), so leading on an issue that is low priority and goes down best where you will probably win anyway is hardly the way to gain power.

Much more fruitfull will be to attack the Labour party over being tired and incompetent.

The top five have the immigration fiasco, public concern over HNS cuts, prison overcrowding and sentencing, and the running of the war in Iraq and domestic terrorism.

These are all areas where the Tory intent is broadly in line with the Government, Tighter Immigration Controls, PPP Hospitals and more private sector involvement, Tougher sentences less parole more prisons, Stay the course in Iraq and build Trident 2, ID cards detention without trial.

This means that the can’t really attack the direction, only the delivery and talk about it being “Time for Change”.

Oddly the top five seem to be mostly in John Reids back yard so he will be in for more attack than Brown, who seems to have decided to lead on more money for Education ( fifth priority out of five).

This could work badly for Reid if he is going to try for leader and for the Tories if the can’t really target Brown on the big issues.

Equally Brown could have decided to avoid the top four as each is a poisoned chalice and together they are a lethal cocktail.

Peter.

Good morning Peter , Whole heartedly agree with you that the issues of most importance to voters are as you say . Tax cuts feature very low down in people’s priorities and of course Independence for Scotland and the WLQ barely register at all .

Mark,

WLQ?.

I’d be interested to see what happens post May if the SNP do well.

Prior to 9/11 defence never made it in to the top ten. Now it,s Fourth in the UK, and actually at 40% first in Scotland, with that being mostly because people are very anti the war in Iraq and think it has made things worse not better .

In light of that, and general Scottish opposition to nuclear weapons Blairs “Man in a Hurry” decision to okay Trident 2 thirty days before a Scottish election looks like pretty dumb.

Equally where as Immigration is top in the UK at 36%, it comes in at only 21% in Scotland behind education at number five, which again makes John Reids decision to warn of the dangers post Independence from a flood of immigrants seem a bit odd.

Right now the population in Scotland is static and we are actually trying to encourage people to come here and those here to stay, so it seems an odd thing to make a stand on.

Tax is 7% UK and only 4% Scotland, where as Unemployment is 6% UK ( 3% in the South East) but 8% in Scotland.

Drugs at 12% in Scotland are more than twice the UK 5%, higher here than Pensions, Pollution or the Economy.

At 4% housing is far less an issue than say London at 10%.

It’s almost as if the Cabinet came to Oban and attacked the SNP on the issues that were on their desks rather than what was on Scottish peoples minds.

It will be interesting to see the effect in the polls as to be honest the press reaction has been pretty much to right most of Labours attacks off as scare tactics that won’t work.

Peter.

“despite this, Brown led Cameron in the Best Prime Minister question”

Which might suggest that the specific questions they were asking weren’t getting at the basis on which people decide who’d be the best PM.

Alternatively, Brown’s ‘best PM’ lead came from a question where respondents could pick from him, Cameron, Campbell and Reid, whereas the various ‘personality’ questions were straugh Brown vs Cameron. Maybe more Campbell/Reid fans would go with Cameron than Brown in a forced choice?

“It seems to me that if you have any sort of sense at all, it is quite obvious that this Blair excuse for a Government will be out on its ear at the earliest opportunity”

You may think that had you not lived through over a decade of large mid term Labour opinion poll leads followed by Conservative election wins from 1980 to 1992. I think it’s a fair assumption that Cameron needs to be well over 10% ahead in the polls from now until polling day to be in with a chance of winning the election. As it currently stands the polls are showing anything from a 10% tory lead to a 2% Labour lead - a Tory lead of around 5% being the most likely ‘true’ current figure.That is not an election winning position, it’s all to play for .

Brian: I fail to see where this “10% lead to win” figure comes from? Is it just because Labour failed to win in the eighties? Because there’s arguably other explanations for that than the mid-Parliament opinion poll results.

The fact is actually if one looks at Anthony’s collated figures in the right for the last Parliament, then in the middle of Parliament last time, Labour frequently had opinion poll leads between 9-14%, by this time last Parliament the Labour lead was frequent higher even that that. But by election time the Labour opinion poll lead was just 5% and the actual results were even closer (on percentage terms) than that. The truth is that the Tory position improved between this time last Parliament and election day.

So where has this 10% figure so commonly quoted come from? What facts underpin the claim?

Sorry to double-post, but looking at the ‘97-’01 figures, at this time of that Parliament the Labour lead was ~25% became one of “just” 15% come election day. So in each Labour Parliament so far the Tories improved not worsened by 10% between this point in the Parliament and election day, so why do they “need” a 10% lead?

If the trend continues, then the 5% lead now will become a 15% lead by election day. Not saying that will happen, but I see no evidence so far that there must be a deterioration from now, the opposite has happened both times and its all to play for from here.

Surely a significant factor in this is how the accuracy and indeed influence of polls has increased since the nineties.

I wouldn’t be surprised if by todays standards the polls a decade ago were more than 5% out and so these “historic” mid term leads might not be what they appeared.

In addition we could well be at a different point in a cycle in that in the early Blair years and to an extent for Thatcher, the opposition was seem as unelectable, and people just didn’t think they could win.

I think there is a difference between disgruntlement with the government and support for a change. For much of the last five years there has beeen growing discontent with Blair, as there was with Thatcher, but they survived on the basis of,

” We may be a dissappointment, but we’re still better than that shower”

We now seem to be in different territory with people not only fed up with Labour, but no longer scared to vote Tory.

This is all complicated by the Labour leadership issue which means that we will have two new leaders to choose from, and Brown seems less popular than Cameron in the key marginals, and with all the indications being that the floating voters of Middle England like Blair much more than Brown.

At the end of the day the national lead be it 5% or 15% doesn’t matter a damn if it isn’t in the right seats at the right time.

Labour can chalk up 300 seats with 60% of the vote the Tories and LibDems on 20% each, but if in 350 the Tories get 36%, to the LIbDems and Labours 32% each, then they win a landslide victory.

Thats why the regional swings are so important. Brown is far more popular in Scotland than Blair, but that is unlikely to gain him more than two or three seats.

Being less popular than Blair with Middle England, could cost him dozens.

Peter.

Peter WLQ = West Lothian Question . I do agree that voters priorities are and will be different in Scotland to England but the last Mori poll had less than 1% saying that they considered Welsh/Scottish devolution and constitutional reform to be an important issue .

Mark,

Like I said, about defence, things can change. I see it as a two way street, on the one hand politicians are drawn to issues of public concern but equally the public can be made aware of an issue and as such the iisue can then move up the agenda.

I expect that over the last year, climate change will have moved up.

Six months ago Scottish Independence was dormant and for some dead and buried, but the very fact that in the last two months it has been polled on twice, shown a majority for in both, and the press on both sided of the border have been full of it, could well start to have an impact.

As to the WLQ, the West lothian Question, is about as relevant to most as a Welsh Language Qualification.

Every day MP’s vote on issues that don’t effect their own constituency but do effect others, while their constituents are effected by the votes of MP’s who don’t even know where the constituency is.

For me it’s always been a non issue.

Peter.

” We may be a dissappointment, but we’re still better than that shower”

We now seem to be in different territory with people not only fed up with Labour, but no longer scared to vote Tory.