Archive for mike smithson
When up is down and down is up
A quick explanation for people who are new to pouring over the details of polls and, as several people have commented, are confused by the conflicting figures given for whether a party is up or down and if so by how much in a poll.
Different polling companies use different methods, so comparing – say – [...]
How did the media do at reporting opinion polls in January?
As I blogged last month, The Voice is going to start rating the quality of the media’s coverage of opinion polls, which is often far from perfect:
There is progress, helped no doubt by the criticism from Anthony Wells and Mike Smithson, both of whom are respected by many of the relevant journalists.
However, there is still [...]
Media to start getting marked for quality of opinion poll reporting
The quality of traditional media coverage of political opinion polling has been a common cause of complaints amongst political bloggers. The most obvious problem is when an opinion poll from one polling company is compared not with the previous poll from that company but against an older one because the intervening one happened to have [...]
What does the future hold for British political blogging?
Mark Pack poses the question ... Predictions that the next general election will be the one in which the internet will make a huge impact have regularly come and gone. Post-Obama ready yourself for another such clutch of predictions, but underneath this punditry froth the internet has got on with quietly shifting the way politics works. It’s been more at the unglamorous organisational end (imagine trying to organise a campaign without email) than at the eye-catching systems-shattering dramatic end beloved of pundits, but it’s been a major change nonetheless.
Why wasn’t it “the economy, stupid” in 1997?
Earlier this week I did a guest post on Political Betting – Channel 2: At the start of September, Mike Smithson drew attention to the improving figures on economic optimism – and how they haven’t been accompanied by a revival in Labour’s political fortunes: Like in 1997 the fact the index is “in the black” seems [...]
Why David Laws was right
Appearing on the BBC earlier today, David Laws made the point that the Conservative Party’s lead in the opinion polls is fairly modest at the moment compared with Labour’s in the run-up to 1997.
This led Mike Smithson to blog:
Why’s the LD schools spokesman getting it so wrong?
You’ll have to indulge me if you think I’ve [...]
