LibDem leadership election

[afleitch]

ICM POLL

CON 37 No change
LAB 34 Down 2
LIB 21 Up 2

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What's interesting is that we're now beginning to see the different pollsters edge apart; the Labour and LibDem numbers are both very different to other polls published fairly recently; which would seem to indicate that different pollsters have some very different models of the electorate.
Statistically speaking a 2pt shift is pretty meaningless o/c; it's well within the MoE (and the usual thing about the General Election being years away is important as well...).

Anyways this thread has been getting a little bit off-topic... by the sound of it Campbell, Huhne and Hughes are all very close at the moment.

[Ben.]

...by the sound of it Campbell, Huhne and Hughes are all very close at the moment.

Its between Huhne and Campbell, Hughes is out of it (in more ways than one )... in the end its likley that Huhne will win and i get the sense he won't be esspecially good, the LibDems could well live to regret Davey, Laws and Clegg not running.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Interesting ICM poll... http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/images/homepage/icmpoll.pdf
To be taken with a grain of salt o/c, but the overall patterns are interesting (a notable gender split by the looks of it).

Anyways, some polls out today show a similer picture within the MoE; YG has Con 38, Lab 36, LD 18, MORI (all-certain-to-vote I think) has Lab 38, Con 35, LD 20.
The average of the two is Lab 37, Con 36.5, LD 19. In other words, the big two basically tied and with the LibDems down on 2005 (but up from the collapse numbers).

By the sound of all the noise coming out of the LibDems, it's extremely close between Huhne and Campbell.

[Democratic Hawk]

Basically, the polls have Labour and the Conservatives neck and neck, but I for one think it's the Conservatives who well fair better nationally than Labour in the locals. Don't read too much into that though. The Conservatives outperformed Labour in the Euro elections before 2001 and in locals and the Euros before 2004

The Sun [24/2/06] had details of a MORI Ipsos poll of 1,958 adults conducted from February 16-20 has:

Labour 38% (no change) - among all voters 41%
Conservatives 35% (down 5) - amonmg all voters 33%
Lib Dems 20% (up 3) - among all voters 20%
Others 7% (up 2) - among all voters 6%

The Conservatives are in third place amongvoters in the 18-34 age group

On job performance, 31% are satisfied with Blair but 60% are dissatisfied. Cameron has a net satisfaction rating of 15% and Brown 11%; among Labour voters Brown has a 57% approval rating compared with 23% for Blair

http://www.mori.com/polls/2006/mpm060220.shtml

In the News of the World an ICM poll of 1025 adults conducted from February 23-25 has:

Brown leads Cameron as best man for the PM's job by 45% to 33%; is more in touch with the issues that matter most to people like you (39% to 32%); is more trustworthy (39% to 28%), is more likely to be able to manage a limited family budget (48% to 25%) and makes the best dad (35% to 33%)

Cameron is less arrogant (28% to 46%), more preferable to have a drink with (34% to 33%), less likely to try and avoid buying a round of drinks (21% to 54%) and looks more presentable (61% to 22%)

In a nutshell, Brown leads on capability and Camerin leads on likeablity

Dave

[Ben.]

In a nutshell, Brown leads on capability and Camerin leads on likeablity

Exactly

Added to which there is a suggestion that the poll over sampled Labour voters.

Mori’s volatility of late is simply bizarre, I got this from pb.com…

Pollster variations since November 2005

Mori: Labour lead/deficit in a range from +10 to -9
Populus: Labour lead/deficit in a range +8 to -1

YouGov: Labour lead/deficit in a range +2 to -2
ICM: Labour lead/deficit in a range +5 to -4

… to my mind both YouGov and ICM, despite different methodologies seem most credible of all the pollsters but for Mori to have such variations with no real events to have caused them (indeed currently events would seem to be running against Labour) simply suggests that Bob Worcester has learnt nothing from his “President Kerry” and “Labour Landslide” calls of the past.

As things stand I think Labour is probably ever so slightly behind, due more to their own weakness (Dunfermline, Education Bill, etc…) than Tory strength.

Cameron has succeeded in winning back some support but for the most part its come from the softer LibDem supporters and to a lesser extent from Labour. But with his honeymoon over he’s stalled while he fights to establish his authority over the party while resisting calls for a shift to the right.

Meanwhile the LibDems have recouped their losses thanks largely to the Tories once again “talking about themselves” and a mix of Dunfermline and general Labour difficulty returning them to contention.

I think things will remain pretty similar until the fight Blair’s got with his backbenchers and the fight Cameron’s with the Tory right are both resolved one way or another.     

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Added to which there is a suggestion that the poll over sampled Labour voters.

You mean the ICM one? Possibly, but the question wasn't what party you support *now* but what party you have supported before... not sure why they asked that actually... er...
Anyways, the patterns are more interesting than anything else.

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Mori has *always* been very volatile; part of the problem is that they don't actually do normal polls... they decided a while ago to do a poll including only people certain to vote and to do one with everyone... they don't do likely voters polls basically (unlike every other pollsters). As such there polls can be absurdly volatile due to even a slight change in turnout out. The one out today actually looks reasonable (if you ignore the +/- figures), but I suspect that their next one won't be. And so on. For ever. This is irritating because Mori are perfectly capable of doing a proper poll if they want to... they just like to show off...

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...which doesn't actually tell you anything about accuracy. Personally I don't think that any pollster over here is any good... the overall pattern of the polls (from whoever is doing them) is about the same (Lab-Con tie, LD down-but-not-as-down-as-were-a-few-months-ago) meaning that there are either all probably about right or all very, very wrong

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This is because he doesn't need to. He either gets it wrong (often *badly* wrong) or nails it. I wouldn't hire a pollster like that, but there does appear to be a market for that kind of thing...

As a general point about pollsters being credible... none are. They all publish in newspapers and have all either published highly slanted polls or have worked with political parties... YouGov manages an impressive triple of being headed by a man who used to be a pollster for certain factions of the Labour Party, having once worked for the Tories and for producing a series of absurdly slanted polls during their time working for IDS (and in doing so have done a lot of damage to their reputation). ICM worked for the Tories in '97 (and were, suprise, suprise, the only pollster to under-estimate Labour's lead that year) and have been known to do dodgy polls to fit with the Grauniad's editorial line. Populus burst onto the polling scene with a slew of dodgy polls designed to create headlines for the Times. Bob Worcester is... Bob Worcester... Mori has a long record at producing polls tailored for their clients... as does NOP... have I missed anyone out from my rant?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Voting has finished. The counting has apparently begun. The results will be announced tomorrow.