Archive for Polls
How the left/right balance of Liberal Democrat voters has changed
It is common to use two political spectrums to sort out where people or parties sit ideologically: the left-right spectrum and the authoritarian-libertarian spectrum. The latter is important in explaining the politics of the coalition’s formation, as it was a defence of civil liberties against New Labour’s post-9/11 authoritarian streak that both saw senior figures [...]
A psephology present for the new year: opinion poll data 1943-2011
For years I have been accumulating data about national voting intention opinion polls in the UK and have records of various sorts stretching back to 1943. I had previously held off sharing them as the data is not in a perfect state. However, given that perfection never arrives, I have decided to stop holding off [...]
As if by magic: how to show that public opinion matches your view of the BBC, whatever it is
Over on the YouGov website, Peter Kellner shows how choosing the right question wording can get the public to come up with whatever answer you like on the BBC’s TV License Fee – and it doesn’t even require the use of outrageously loaded questions. You can read his piece about the impact of subtle wording [...]
Only 3% swing to Tories in key Con/Lib Dem marginals
The detailed polling by Lord Ashcroft published today on ConservativeHome brings some encouraging news for the Liberal Democrats. In a set of key marginals held by the Conservatives and where the Liberal Democrats were second in 2010, there has only been a modest swing to the Conservatives since May 2010. In the eight seats polled, [...]
How ICM and YouGov compare
What to do when you’re struck by just how different two pieces of data are? Why, draw a graph of course. Hence this, triggered by the very differing picture of Liberal Democrat fortunes told by the latest YouGov and ICM polls:
Ssssh! Don't mention this opinion poll finding
Here’s one opinion poll finding that has had almost no coverage and I suspect will continue to do so because its finding is so at odds with what nearly everyone is saying. It’s from Anthony Wells’s excellent polling blog: YouGov re-asked a question from back in 2009 about whether people though Britain was a broken [...]
Explaining Cameron’s Coalition: politics as seen through the eyes of MORI polls
Explaining Cameron’s Coalition is the latest in the series of general election analysis by MORI’s Robert Worcester and Roger Mortimore, this time joined by two other authors. The book is therefore very much the tale of the 2005-2010 Parliament and subsequent general election seen through the eyes of MORI’s opinion polling, with an often pungent [...]
So, why do you like Vince Cable?
Two findings jumped out at me from YouGov’s recent poll of Liberal Democrat members, parts of which Stephen Tall covered last week. One is the similarity in many of the findings between YouGov’s poll and the Liberal Democrat Voice surveys of party members, a similarity which we’ve found before. That’s good news – and reassuring [...]
Political Communication in Britain: the latest 2010 election book
Political Communication in Britain, edited by Dominic Wring, Roger Mortimore and Simon Atkinson, joins a long list of books already published on the 2010 general election. As with others it also faces the tough task of finding a niche between the burgeoning coverage of politics in the media, especially online, and the revitalised Nuffield general [...]
A reason to be sceptical of what the public tells opinion pollsters
Much can be learnt from opinion polls, but a reminder of why not all results should be taken at face value is this: If there were local council elections in your area on May 5th, how likely would you be to vote in them, where 0 means you will definitely not vote, and 10 means [...]
