Saturday, August 01, 2009

More Bad Poll News For Gordon

There's a marginal seats poll in tomorrow's News of the World Sunday Telegraph which gives the Conservatives a massive 24 point lead over Labour.

Con 44
Lab 20
Lib 18

It's on evenings like this I am pleased I am doing the paper review on Sky. As I am about to head off I haven't seen any analysis of the figures yet, so feel free to add your twopennyworth in the comments.

Interesting that all the Labour support seems to be dropping the Tories' way, with none going to the LibDems.

UPDATE: PoliticalBetting.com is sceptical aboput the value of this poll, especially as the fieldwork was done quite some time ago, from 1-11 July. The polling was done in only the top 30 marginal seats, whereas the Tories need to win far more than that to get a majority.

UPDATE 10.15: I won't be able to mention it in the first paper review as it isn't on the front page of the Sunday Telegraph. Instead I shall be talking about Harriet Harman on the front page of the Sunday Times saying you can't trust men in power! There's a story saying the Tories will sell off Radio 1, and that Lord Taylor of Warwick is in trouble over his expenses.

25 comments:

  1. Gordon will say that the poll figures are disappointing but should be seen in the context of a GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS.

    Harman will say she's pleased with it considering the difficulties the government is facing blah blah blah.

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  2. No, no, you're wrong Iain. In the immortal words of Nick Clegg - Labour are finished, its now a choice between the Tories and the Liberal Democrats. LMFAO!!

    I wonder what he thinks of this poll?

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  3. im a tory voter OR i would be if thay got off there azz and gave the uk a vote on the eussr

    So no eu vote=no vote for me
    this land is run by Traitors
    and by not giving the people a vote on the eussr lib/lab/con are Traitors

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  4. Note that this is the exact same poll lead that the Tories had in the same poll this time last year. With all the bad news that Labour have faced over the past 12 months, is this 24 point lead really such great news for DC in seats that he should be winning anyway?

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  5. After all I have done for the Labour party. Pass the whiskey and a gun.

    WV: sclyt. No really. It says it all.

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  6. They'd get more than 50% if they guaranteed a refenedum on EU membership.

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  7. These poll results, which started in America...no that doesn't work. Um, sorry Gordon, you've run out of excuses now! I'm sure His Lord and Master, the grand poobah Mandelson will find a way to spin it though!

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  8. Ignore this poll - it is nonsense on stilts.

    Nothing can be inferred from a junk poll presenting a non-random subset of seats as representative of the nation at large. The sub-sets are each junk, because they aren't big enough to draw a constituency result and then extrapolate.

    This is voodoo polling and should be ignored. The Tories have a real lead of about 15 points - this just brings polls into disrepute by muddying the waters between real polling and stupid (or politically motivated) nonsense polling.

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  9. Really Jeff - do you see the Labour vote falling below 20?? I think its hard for the Tories to hack away much more than that.

    Mrs T in her heyday only got 43.

    "They'd get more than 50% if they guaranteed a refenedum on EU membership." --- no they wouldn't - which does not stop me hoping they would. Hard to believe but some people would be worried about pulling out of the EU.

    Polls like this are all grist to the mill for Tories but operantly the poll was carried out for " FlyingMatters, an aviation and tourism lobbying group, "

    Hmmm.

    The pollster is not 'registered' either and it was conducted over a period of 11 days, a long period apparently. See PB.com

    Polls are snapshots and sometimes you cut peoples heads off when you take a photo. Regular polls (and their outliers) will average out. Odd polls like this should not get us too carried away. the fact is it reinforces the recent polling trends.

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  10. The Supreme LeaderAugust 01, 2009 10:27 pm

    It is a truth universally acknowledged that all surveys of opinion which purport to disparage the Supreme Leader will have originated in the Colonies, and specifically in the New World.

    The lesser mortals who profess to believe such subversive nonsense are not to be blamed, of course. Poor souls, they do not realise that I am the Supreme Leader, the Great Helmsman who will steer them safely through the Sea of Economic Despond to the calm, peaceful Blue Lagoon of universal prosperity and fairness for all.

    I have achieved all this a thousand times before, and I will achieve it again. For I am the Supreme Leader. Accept no substitutes, particularly not from the Brazilian region.

    For I hear that the evil Lord Rumba of Rio seeks to usurp my rightful position. Faugh. I shall crush him like a grape. Two grapes, in fact, which dangle from the same stalk.

    [Signed]

    G. Brown
    Supreme Leader

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  11. Polls such as this are why Gordon Brown will take the risk of having one or more debates with David Cameron. A debate moderated by the ever Labour pliant David Dimbleby could be to Gordon Brown's advantage and he needs all the help he can get.

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  12. So is Ms Harperson saying that the country was better run by Mrs T?

    No, thought not.

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  13. If this poll reflects genuine opinion it's a reflection of just how bad Labour have got.

    The Tories haven't said or done anything to grab the nations vote, they're just letting the badly animated disaster called Gordon Brown continue to deconstruct Labours future.

    Whilst I prefer a Tory government over a Labour one, I'm concerned about sleepwalking into one. They must offer a mandate, earn power, rather than simply sit back and reap the benefits of Labours fall.

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  14. Morus, this poll makes no claims to be representative of the nation as a whole, only of 30 marginal seats. Maybe you've been at PB too long?

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  15. More Bash the BBC Bolox from Cammo to get in with Rupert Murdoch.

    Well, if you sup with the devil, let us hope you have a very long spoon..

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  16. Trevorsden,

    I'm just saying, if the Tories were all that given Labour's utterly dismal position and David Cameron being the only other credible Prime Minister, they'd be convincing more than 4 in 10 people out there of giving them a vote.

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  17. I see Fatty Hatemenperson has put her big size 10's in it? So men can't be trusted to run anything?

    Funny that the worst Government in living memory happens to be the one with the most women in it as well. Oh and the most Scots.

    Hattie really does let women down with her claim that women should be in positions of power based on their reproductive equipment (although quite how breasts or a Vagina helps you run a Country I have yet to figure out) rather than ability.

    The current Labour party really does have a sorry bunch of ugly short haired "wimmin" in it. None of these hags could hold a candle to Mrs T who became PM on ability not gender.

    I really do hope Hattie gets elected leader of the Liebour party, they will be out of power for a generation if they do. She is the feminist Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock rolled into one (except both Foot and Kinnock were better looking)

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  18. Russell, the firm that has conducted and press-released this poll is one of the finest political consultancies in the world.

    They are masters of communication and political PR. Allowing for the fact that a poll of the 30 most marginal constituencies in the country is rather less useful than a chocolate fireguard, especially when the subsamples would not be sufficient for constituency forecasting and extrapolation, there is no reason for commissioning this poll except for the press coverage.

    Crosby/Textor will be aware that journalists will not report the nuance, and that by conducting a poll of the marginals that we estimate as having voted about C(40) Lab (33) LD (24) last time (significantly different to the national 2005 GE result) they can report a "poll of over 1000 that gives the Conservatives a 24-point lead over Labour"

    They are experts - they know exactly how this will be reported, and I suspect that was entirely the point.

    This sort of junk polling, which isn't useful for anything', hurts both sides - it hurts Labour by condemning them for being even more unpopular than real pollsters think they actually are, and it sets Conservative expectations extremely high.

    This is a voodoo poll which I suspect has been designed to distort the political narrative. It should be given no credence.

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  19. Best news of the week, Iain.

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  20. Imagine what the Conservative lead would be if Labour didn't have constant, (largely) unwavering support of the British media establishment....

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  21. Everyone's missing the point. The only party capable of raining on Cameron's parade is UKIP, who stopped 30 Conservative seats in 2005, effectively ensuring Blair had a workable majority.

    If their support rises from 1.5/2% to 3/4% they will possibly take away 100 Conservative seats, reducing Cameron from a majority of 150 to a majority of 50.

    (I will leave the exact numbers to the number crunching boffins)

    That is why the media is pumping UKIP. The BBC features the UKIP story at every opportunity, and Simon Heffer knows his job is secure as long as he continues to harass Cameron and lower his potential majority.

    The Lisbon Treaty would not have made it through Parliament were it not for UKIP's blocking effect in 2005. Blair/Brown would have had a vastly smaller majority of around 10 seats, and one of the various rebellions (which had a good number of Labour MP supporters)would have felled the Treaty.

    UKIP did not save Lisbon as it is still struggling in Poland, Germany, Czech Republic and Ireland. If however, Lisbon makes it through those four, it could well be said that it was UKIP that saved the Lisbon Treaty and the EU.

    Looking ahead to 2010, ironically, the only party which could again ensure Britain gets locked inside an increasingly dysfunctional EU, by hobbling the Conservatives, is the United Kingdom Independence Party.

    UKIP is THE story now as Labour are not going to come back from the dead by 2010. And yet all commentators are avoiding talk of this fact.

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  22. What astonishes me is that 82% of the public are still going to vote for parties that have recently proved themselves to be self serving and corrupt, interested only in lining their pockets. If this figure is reflected in a General Election then they deserve everything they get. Forewarned is apparently not forearmed in the case of the British voter.

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  23. @ Martin

    "... (except both Foot and Kinnock were better looking)"

    ....and bigger tits, too.

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  24. These polls never cease to depress me. Why are people like bl**dy sheep? They're more to blame for the status quo than the damned politicians.

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  25. Gary Elsby stokeAugust 03, 2009 10:18 am

    A massive lead, as most labour members must concede.

    Considering that Dave and George haven't got a policy between them, do you think the gap will reverse once they explain the intent to 'balance the books'?

    It's a tough business is politics and tough people are needed for tough decisions, so be cruel to us and tell us poor folks how much you intend to slash the NHS, Education and any form of Social wealth redistribution.

    OK, we hear that you won't cut the NHS budget, but remember, you are Conservatives and we don't believe you.

    This is why we left you in the last Century.

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