United Kingdom General Elections: December 12th, 2019

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There was also a ComRes out... I think yesterday? that showed Con 40, Lab 30, LDem 16, BP 7, SNP 4, Greens 3.

So, again, a small upwards Con tick from the Brexit Party. Neither they nor Panelbase are what you'd call 'good', of course.

This whole 'half of constituencies' thing is going to be such a mess for pollsters and for people tying to work out the implications of polls.

I wonder what their methodology is?

They say that they ask for a second-choice party and make appropriate adjustments - claim the effect is Con +1.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That would seem to indicate that the pollsters' sampling collectively is still crap, and they know it, and are trying to re-weight to get a "credible" looking score. Which makes it impossible to know who might be the "most" accurate; and tbh, just means they are going to continue coming out with crap until they can address the root problem which is their inability to get the sampling right.

This almost certainly relates to the issue I was complaining about yesterday: if you have a society marked by strong socio-economic disparities, one in which these are an observable driver of a very high proportion of voter-behaviour no less, but you persist in failing to bother to measure them in appropriate manner, then, well, your surveys will probably be a bit shit won't they.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Ah, Ernest Marples! Hilarious man. Not the only notable Conservative minister of the period to raise eyebrows because of ties to the construction industry: there was also Keith Joseph, though in his case there doesn't seem to be any evidence that the (radical, socially disastrous, much regretted) policies he championed were linked to that. Though the possibility does seem to have aided his relations with the various local government rogues he had to deal with: 'one of us!' they, incorrectly, assumed.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The chances are that this won't lead anywhere, but it's worth keeping half an eye on just in case.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Some good new for the Tories in this weekends polls

BMG 0 0 0 0
YouGov +3 0 0 0
Deltapoll +4 +1 -5 0
ComRes +1 +3 -2 -2
Opinium +3 -1 -1 0

From some of them yes. Though with the caveat that some of the ones showing the best numbers look very strange, and we all know what that often means. The general lack of agreement between firms continues...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

see what you wanna see innit

Doesn't help that if you drew up a list of 'Britain's most obviously dodgy pollsters' then the Venn Diagramme between that list and the list of firms with contracts with the Sunday papers right now would... well...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

One also apparently has a massive (and unexplained) rise in Johnson's personal rating.

Was this Deltapoll? If so, when combined with the obviously odd business of LibDem support dropping by a third in a week and transferring all to the Tories, we can say 'bad sample' and draw a line through it.

Edit: O.K. I've seen their uploaded tables and... this is a bad poll, I'll just leave it at that.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If the polls look like this on Election Day then Boris clearly wins. However, I think that the margin will most likely be closer and there is a significant possibility of a big Labour surge.

Even ignoring the polls that look... strange... then, yes, if the election was today you'd be shocked at anything other than a majority, the question would be the size of it. But as you say there's a long time to go, essentially a month. Two things to remember in addition to that: firstly, that the campaign has been very low-key so far, and secondly that everyone involved being disliked makes the potential for volatility higher (in all sorts of directions!) than was historically normal.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Entirely off topic, but due to the traffic on this thread, the Aberfanepisode of 'The Crown' is probably one of the greatest and saddest hours of TV you will see this year.

Not sure if a 'good' depiction of that is something that I'd be able to sit through, but I'll file the recommendation away.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It seems like his personal opinion of how things will ultimately turn out, not him saying what the polls show right now (as I said right now a Tory majority is almost inevitable but on December 12 a Tory majority is far from inevitable)

Yes: it is important to note that the official campaign period did not start until the 6th of November and that very little has happened since then - the tone has been subdued and the main news has been the business with the Brexit Party withdrawing half its candidates.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

No one cares.

It's Christmas. No one gives a sh!t. There's more important things to focus on. You have voters who decided who they were going to vote for since before the GE and the rest won't give it thought until after the presents are bought and they've had the works night out and they have nothing else to worry about.

I made one of my long trips up to the University to have a chat about the White Whale today. Hardly a poster to be seen, not even in farmers fields. A few, but not many. Strikingly few. People just haven't been gripped by the election yet (very little has happened in the campaign so that's rational enough) and are, for the moment, focused on other things.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

British politics being an absolute horror show, tis now the turn for antisemitic remarks to emerge from some Conservative candidates as well, at Leeds North East (which happens to be the home of pretty much all Leeds Jewry...), and at Aberdeen North. In the latter case, there were some rather crassly homophobic remarks as well.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

An interesting detail from ICM's poll published yesterday (Con 42, Lab 32, LDem 13, BP 5, SNP 3, Greens 3, Others 2) is that they observe that where the Brexit Party is standing, their vote is (at the moment) holding up quite well.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I did not watch it and I gather that I was correct in my decision. As far as impact, I presume the main thing will be a reminder that the election is 'real' - this has been such a low-key campaign thusfar that that isn't a minor matter. Though, for the record, if the general view is that it was a draw, that means a strategic loss for Johnson given Corbyn's low approval ratings.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

6.7 million viewersv.  Not a good number at all.

That's more than ten percent of the electorate.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The usual American pronunciation would be 'steen',* the usual British pronunciation would be 'stein', the original pronunciation would be 'schtein'.

*Though there are exceptions: e.g. the great LENNY always insisted that his surnname should be pronounced as Bern-schtein not Burn-steen.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A notable feature of constituency polling thusfar is that with the exception of the Gedling poll, they have all shown significantly larger absolute or relative declines (i.e. where the drops have been lower in percentage-point terms, they have been in constituencies where the vote was lower to start with; often a higher proportion of the vote in such seats is shown as lost) in Labour support than suggested by national polling at the time they were conducted. Given the diversity of constituency polled, this is, how shall we say, something of a red flashing light as to their likely accuracy.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Sort of fits the narrative that BXP eats into LAB leave voters that would not vote CON while in the South BXP tend to eat into CON base.  Of couse BXP is not running in most of the South.

The essential problem with this narrative is that there is no reason to believe that the Brexit Party vote does not = (some of the) people who voted UKIP in 2015 and, well, that really isn't what that pattern looked like.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So there's this forecast site:

https://leantossup.ca/uk-constituency-map/

CON GAIN Torfaen anyone?

Even better: they have Swansea East (!!!!!!!!!) down for that as well. What the actual Christ.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

How do they generate the constituency polls anyway? Landline calls, then weight them for age?

You'd think, but some of the earlier ones (at least: can't comment on the more recent ones) were actually only weighted by... um... Euro Election vote? Bizarre stuff.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Reading and Cambridge would be excellent examples of those sorts of places - thriving service/it oriented job markets that employ lots of graduates

Quite so. It also needs to be emphasised that very few constituencies these days are at all uniform; communities like that no longer exist, and constituencies themselves are drawn to hit quotas rather than to represent communities of interest - they are not natural units. Which makes it even less likely that the maths works out. Besides, Occam is usually right.

Of course 'these probably all suck you know' does not mean that they all suck in the same direction. And it is true that, for various long-term grudge reasons relating to the collapse of its traditional economy (i.e. cod fisheries), it is quite likely that 'Brexit' alone is a stronger siren-song in Grimsby than in most places.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Daily Mail website is a pain to use so I might have missed stuff, but this is impressively dishonest stuff. This appears to be a regional poll (of the whole of the North of England and the Midlands!) that shows a swing of 4.5. Which is not substantially different to what national polling suggests at present - actually it is slightly less than the most recent Survation national poll. In order to justify the general tone of the article, they have decided to milk the hell of out selected subsamples, which, as we all know, is serious '...' territory. It is a little disturbing that they have a quote to that effect as well from someone from the polling firm in question; this is the sort of thing that does not help boost confidence in the polling industry.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So far of the weekend glut we have had...

Panelbase: Con 42, Lab 32, LDem 14, BP 3, Greens 3. A change from a 13pt lead to a 10pt one on the week.
YouGov: Con 42, Lab 30, LDem 16, Greens 4, BP 3. No change on a poll they did midweek, but a change from an 18pt lead to a 12pt one on their last weekend poll.
Opinium: Con 47, Lab 28, LDem 12, BP 3. A change from a 16pt lead to a 19pt one on the week.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I think if things don't shift to a lead of less than 8%, probably a landslide. Something that sees them through to 2024 and perhaps strong enough to weather 2029.

If votes were ever somewhat banked, they aren't now. So there's no point worrying about the longer term.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So far of the weekend glut we have had...

Panelbase: Con 42, Lab 32, LDem 14, BP 3, Greens 3. A change from a 13pt lead to a 10pt one on the week.
YouGov: Con 42, Lab 30, LDem 16, Greens 4, BP 3. No change on a poll they did midweek, but a change from an 18pt lead to a 12pt one on their last weekend poll.
Opinium: Con 47, Lab 28, LDem 12, BP 3. A change from a 16pt lead to a 19pt one on the week.

BMG: Con 41, Lab 28, LDem 18, Greens 5, BP 3. A change from an 8pt lead to 13pt point one on the week, but last week's BMG poll made no adjustment for the Brexit Party standing down in Conservative-held constituencies.