UK General Election - May 7th 2015 (The Official Campaign Thread)

[afleitch]

Panelbase have polled Scotland again. Don't have the full figures as they come from a scanned copy of their front page

SNP 45% (+4)
Labour 29% (-2)

[afleitch]

So today's battleground is Europe. And Labour brought it up. Strange times.

[afleitch]

If you take them all, then on average the Tory vote is only down 0.3% on 2010, with Labour up 3.6. That's a swing of less than 2%.

[afleitch]

If you take them all, then on average the Tory vote is only down 0.3% on 2010, with Labour up 3.6. That's a swing of less than 2%.

With the Lib Dem collapse that's more than enough to ensure Cameron needs to think about calling the movers in.

That's making an assumption that Lib Dem voters are doing the same thing in every seat. Which they aren't as two seats of the ten have swing to the Conservatives in this poll despite a similar Lib Dem collapse. That's one thing that's difficult to measure nationwide and will vary seat by seat. It's entirely possible that with numbers like this as in 1987 and 1992, the Conservatives may snatch a few seats from Labour, lessening the damage.

[afleitch]

Here's my forecast using the average of the polls in the first week



Conservatives 273
Labour 302
Liberal Democrats 38
Scottish Nationalists 15
Plaid Cymru 2
Greens 1
Speaker 1

I will be forecasting Northern Ireland once nominations close today

Harry, what polls are you using to forecast Scotland?

[afleitch]

YouGov/Times Scotland Poll:
SNP - 49% (+4%)
Lab - 25% (-3%)
Con - 18% (+2%)
Lib - 4% (+1%)

SNP surge to largest ever YouGov lead.

Unexpected actually.

[afleitch]

Miliband's rating in Scotland is up from -53 to -46 and Cameron up from -36 to -25.

[afleitch]

In retrospect, looking at this poll, The Daily Telegraph played a blinder. It planted a story that it likely knew would fall apart in 30 minutes but not before Scottish Labour had fallen all over themselves to share it amongst themselves. The story was not only ludicrous and out of step with not only SNP policy but public perception of policy but also happened to be Scottish Labour’s only election tactic; to say that the SNP wanted the Tories, which is why they pounced on it. Now the whole line of attack has been blunted. Tory sympathisers can say they are the ‘unionist’ party, against Labour and the SNP and attract a small but useful pool of voters

Miliband was in Edinburgh today. Labour’s new line is to talk about ‘Devo Max, raised by Nicola Sturgeon at the debates, as being too expensive. There’s a problem here. Firstly there is the perception that Devo Max was offered in ‘The Vow’ and the perception that it was reneged upon. This re-affirms that Labour were never serious about the matter. And secondly, you aren’t going to win over Labour Yes supporters who are now backing the SNP by repeating what was said at the referendum which caused them to abandon Labour in the first place.

[afleitch]

Hmm...

https://twitter.com/scottishlabour/status/586921688790511616

[afleitch]

Week Two Forecast
Labour 305 seats
Conservatives 282 seats
Liberal Democrats 25 seats
Other Parties 38 seats



Changes on last week
East Dunbartonshire from Lab to too close to call (Lab leading)
Ross, Skye and Lochaber from Lib Dem to too close to call (Lib Dem leading)
Falkirk from SNP to too close to call (SNP leading)
Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk from Lib Dem to too close to call (Lib Dem leading)
Fife North East from too close to call (SNP leading) to SNP
Brecon and Radnorshire from Lib Dem to too close to call (Lib Dem leading)
Cardiff Central from too close to call (Lib Dem leading) to too close to call (Lab leading)
Vale of Glamorgan from Con to too close to call (Con leading)
Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire from Con to too close to call (Con leading)
Carmarthen East and Dinefwr from too close to call (Plaid leading) to Plaid
Bedford from Lab to too close to call (Lab leading)
Peterborough from Con to too close to call (Con leading)
Norwich North from Con to too close to call (Con leading)
Bermondsey and Old Southwark from Lib Dem to too close to call (Lib Dem leading)
Croydon Central from too close to call (Lab leading) to too close to call (Con leading)
Carshalton and Wallington from Lib Dem to too close to call (Lib Dem leading)
Sutton and Cheam from too close to call (Lib Dem leading) to Con
Hornsey and Wood Green from too close to call (Lib Dem leading) to Lab
High Peak from Con to too close to call (Con leading)
Cannock Chase from too close to call (Con leading) to too close to call (Lab leading)
Dudley South from Con to too close to call (Con leading)
Eastleigh from Lib Dem to too close to call (Con leading)
Eastbourne from Lib Dem to too close to call (Con leading)
Hove from too close to call (Lab leading) to Lab
Bristol West from Lib Dem to too close to call (Lib Dem leading)
Stroud from Lab to too close to call (Lab leading)
Cheltenham from Lib Dem to too close to call (Lib Dem leading)
Chippenham from too close to call (Lib Dem leading) to too close to call (Con leading)
Taunton Deane from Lib Dem to too close to call (Con leading)
North Devon from Lib Dem to too close to call (Con leading)
Torbay from Lib Dem to too close to call (Lib Dem leading)
Cornwall North from Lib Dem to too close to call (Con leading)
St. Ives from too close to call (Lib Dem leading) to too close to call (Con leading)
St. Austell and Newquay from too close to call (Con leading) to Con
Somerton and Frome from too close to call (Con leading) to Con
Wells from too close to call (Con leading) to Con
Mid Dorset and Poole North from too close to call (Con leading) to Con
Berwick upon Tweed from Lib Dem to too close to call (Con leading)
Redcar from too close to call (Lib Dem leading) to Lab
Weaver Vale from Lab to too close to call (Lab leading)
Warrington South from Lab to too close to call (Lab leading)
Cheadle from Lib Dem to too close to call (Con leading)
South Ribble from Con to too close to call (Con leading)

Once again Harry, on what are you basing your Scottish predictions?

[afleitch]

What does everyone think of the YouGov nowcast - is it actually worth anything, or is it just a bit of fun?

They haven't revealed their methodology in full, so I can't really tell how sensible it is, but without a variety of reliable constituency polls it's hard to do a good 538 style prediction in the UK.  (They're using their own data, but they don't really have enough members in each constituency IMO.)

That said, it seems to look reasonably plausible in most places.

It does seem to be quite vulnerable to outside manipulation though. Sigh.

It's all algorithms, so it makes some assumptions about areas based on demographics and it doesn't seem to be doing anything 'better' or even different than regional polls/constituency polls are doing. Any model that doesn't tell you why it's doing what it's doing (and even old fashioned swing at least explains itself) isn't really worth anything.

It will be worth keeping an eye on when we reach the final few days at which point all models should be no longer forecasting but predicting.

[afleitch]

While you’re all waiting, I used date from the 2007 results (which I published on here last year) to estimate how Scotland would have looked at ward level in 2011. Below is the same thing…but for 1992

[afleitch]

Glasgow more than Edinburgh, Coatbridge more than Airdrie, West Dunbartonshire more than East Dunbartonshire, Paisley more than Newton Mearns, Aberdeen North more than Aberdeen South. And so on.

[afleitch]

Worth noting that the SNP vote was more uniform in Edinburgh than Glasgow which allowed it to outperform in a more crowded field. The SNP relative to other parties would have to underperform on 2011 in Edinburgh to not make an almost clean sweep there.

[afleitch]

Guardian predictions by constituency.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2015/apr/20/election-2015-constituency-map

[afleitch]

Murphy's way of phrasing things is not always perfect, but it's hardly an unreasonable point.

Why would a pro independence party ever rule out a referendum on independence?

[afleitch]

Jim Murphy is having a bit of a...crisis right now.

[afleitch]

Well it's the first Tory lead with YouGov since April 9th so it's out of the 'new norm' if that makes sense. Nothing has changed since January, while an accurate assessment of the polls, is not one that shifts newspapers or make people place bets.

[afleitch]

In other news.

LUTFUR RAHMAN IS OFFICIALLY A CHEATING CORRUPT SELF AGGRANDISING (BEEP)

[afleitch]

Are they re-rolling the dice to make sure that the numbers look more in keeping with the pack or something?

Pollsters forget themselves. Even that poll is within the margin of error.

[afleitch]

I remember Harris came back from the dead in 2010. Nothing from them yet this year.

[afleitch]

'Dollgate' seems to be the most exciting thing today.

[afleitch]

I just want a results service. Sky News are good at giving them in a ticker like the football scores.

[afleitch]

Panelbase - Scotland

SNP 48 (+3)
Lab 27 (-2)
Con 16 (+2)
Lib 4
UKIP 3 (-1)
Greens 2

Another pollster showing Labour falling back a little.

[afleitch]

TNS poll for Scotland. Fieldwork ended over a week ago however;


SNP 54% (+2)
Lab 22% (-2)
Con 13%,
Lib 6%
Green 2% (-1)
UKIP 2% (+1)