Friday, June 26, 2009

Tories Ahead in Norwich North Poll

The University and College Union has this morning published an ICM poll of voters in Norwich North.

Con 34% (+1)
Lab 30% (-15)
LD 15% (-1)
Green 14% (+11)
Other 7% (+4)

This shows that it really is, as the LibDems would say, a two horse race - between the LibDems and the Greens for third place. Just my little joke.

Only 45% say they are certain to vote. Interestingly the Conservatives are furthest ahead (40%) in the 18-24 age group.

UPDATE: The full poll details can be found HERE.

51 comments:

Tom Paine said...

"Interestingly the Conservatives are furthest ahead (40%) in the 18-24 age group."

That would be the age group that knows it has little hope of a job on leaving school/university graduation then, given the current economic shambles? Make sense.

Fausty said...

"Interestingly the Conservatives are furthest ahead (40%) in the 18-24 age group."

That age group that possibly hasn't voted before so no 'loyalty' issue arises.

Brett Trevalyan said...

Hmmmm.

You have to think that the Conservatives would wish to be a bigger beneficiary than +1%. Having said that, I had not realised that Norwich North was such a labour stronghold - certainly no marginal if they achieved 45% at the last election.

The poll shows just how huge is the collapse in Labour support. If they lose this sort of seat, they certainly will be wiped out in England.

Not a sheep said...

BT: We can but hope

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, as the by-election isn't goig to be held in the foreseeable future, this isn't relevant as yet.

Marky W said...

I see this as a Labour hold, despite the poll.

The swing to the tree-huggers is a typical lefty protest vote, but I suspect that when in the polling booth the pencil will drift back to Labour.

Unfortunately.

Brett Trevalyan said...

Mark

Don't be so sure. There is still plenty of time for the Great Gordo to blunder into more elephant traps of his own making......

Mark Senior said...

That is a rather poor poll for the Conservatives and rather better than expected for Labour . The group they are furthest ahead in is the group least likely to vote .
Early days yet , lots of campaigning to go .
Caveat Constituency opinion polls tend to have a much greater margin of error than national polls .

Iain Dale said...

Mark Senior, on your last point you are correct. But you clearly know nothing about Norwich North if you think a 4% lead over Labour is a bad result for the Tories. Take your partisan glasses off just for once in your life. I suppose you think 15% for the LibDems is good. You crack me up.

john miller said...

Mark Senior is right Iain, it is an amazing result for Labour.

After 12 years of incompetence and corruption (can you hear me Mandy?),bringing the country to the edge of a financial disaster, a decade of increased taxes and reduced public services to come and STILL 3 out of 10 people want more of the same.

Amazing.

David said...

Am I right in assessing this as an 8% swing to the Tories? If so it is reasonable but not that exciting in the circumstances. Hopefully things will improve by polling day which I understand is unlikely to be before October.

Hawkeye said...

That +11 explains the behaviour of the LibDems - one paper - Eatsern Daily Press IIRC - is reporting that the LibDems are sticking it to the Greens in a rather nasty fashion.

Siberian Tory said...

We'll need to do better than that to win. As Mark said many people will drift back to Labour.

The parties in the game are Cons, Lab, Lib, Green. I don't think we'll be massivley successful in attracting anymore voted from the Lab rump similarly slim pickings from the small Lib vote.

The Greens is where the actions at in terms of attracting vote; but getting people who say they'll vote Green to vote Tory is close to impossible. Any campaiging against the Greens will drive them back to Labour or LibDems.

Playing the voter turnout game may be our best chance here.

no longer anonymous said...

Why does Mark Senior dislike the Tories so much?

Dimoto said...

john miller said: "Mark Senior is right Iain, it is an amazing result for Labour.

After 12 years of incompetence and corruption (can you hear me Mandy?),bringing the country to the edge of a financial disaster, a decade of increased taxes and reduced public services to come and STILL 3 out of 10 people want more of the same".

You are overlooking the fact that Ian Gibson is a generally good bloke, and probably a decent constituency MP. (Speaking as a Conservative voter at the forthcoming GE), the fact that Gibson was forced to stand down, while Maude is still at the heart of Conservative planning, gives me severe indigestion.

Scrutineer said...

Of course, the obvious point is that the 'Conservatives are furthest ahead in the 18-24 age group', the group least likely to remember the damage done to the social and economic fabric of our country by eighteen years of Conservative misrule...

Thats News said...

I fail to see why Labour is so high...

Incidentally, students will vote Labour for their own sanity
Good news for students! Gordon Brown will not return to teaching and Speaker election a colossal farce

Keep Gordon out of the classroom and reduce death by boredom...

Lord Snooty said...

Scrutineer puts his finger on one important point - younger people have no memory of how awful the Tories were last time round.

For me, the poll again confirms the general picture at the moment: Labour support collapsing as the government is widely despised (hence -15%) but little positive appetite for a Tory government (hence only +1%). This is still likely to translate to a reasonable majority for Cameron at the GE but should give pause for thought.

Unknown said...

My fear is that, come the GE, Labour's huge client state will quietly slip back into line.

Most public sector workers have been completed unaffected by the recession. In many ways, its a boom time for them: secure jobs, lower house prices etc.

Brown hasn't spent 12 years building up a huge client state for nothing, and the Tory vote is very soft.

Lord Snooty said...

Nice to see you carrying the 'Cameron = Mr 10% less' advert. I couldn't agree more!

Dimoto said...

Ha-ha, I've just read the Telegraph article "Gordon Brown: economic recovery and people power will help Labour at next election",

Apparently, Labour will promise to give people a bunch of "charters of rights". John Major's "citizen's charters" rides again !!
Somebody at Labour HQ is obviously having a laugh.

Dimoto said...

acadman said "Brown hasn't spent 12 years building up a huge client state for nothing, and the Tory vote is very soft".

The basic sum is that the core Tory vote is about 30%. Another 9-10% of middle-class voters are floaters, but have seen enough and will vote Tory. Then there is another 6-8% who are biddable, but currently in a huff about expenses.
The 9-10% are the crucial election clinchers.
But Labour gerrymandering, and Tory voter concentration will make it a much closer contest than the raw numbers.
Cameron needs to "reform" the system by cutting the number of MPs and making constituencies rigorously the same size.

Constantly Spurious said...

66% say 'thanks, Dave, but no thanks'. Great result!

JBW said...

I still find it amazing that even now 30% still want more of the same.

Anonymous said...

So are 30% of people state dependendent in Norwich? Would be interested to see how it compares. Can't think of any other reason they would vote Liebour - unless they were criminally insane.

Anonymous said...

Constantly Spurious

As I recall, 80 odd % just recorded what they thought about Jonah McTw*t in the EU election

Anonymous said...

Lord Snooty

The Tories were great last time round. What are you talking about?

The country had money in the bank, people had pensions, noone was dying on carts in hospital corridors because the nurses hadn't cleaned, there were more British people in work than there is now, and we weren't dictated to by an unelected government in Europe.

Anonymous said...

well, william hill have a tory victory at 1/5, and labour 6/1.

cannot see how those odds would be offered for a labour hold.

Mark Senior said...

Partisan glasses , Iain - pot calling kettke black there .
So Labour have lost support virtually all to the Greens if this poll is to be believed and Conservative support is lower in all age groups than it was at the last GE except in the young who are least likely to vote .
Nearly 4 years of Cameron leadership and a miserable 1% increase in support for the Conservatives from the days of Michael Howard .
You say I may know little of Norwich North but I know enough about politics to say that if all Cameron can do is to increase Conservative support at the next GE by just 1% then there will not be a Conservative majority government .

David from Ealing said...

Yes, what is David Cameron doing about those who are closest to him who are involved in the expenses scandal? He can't just deal with the knights of the shires.

Mark Senior said...

Incidently on these poll figures , with the new boundaries in force at the next GE , Norwich North would be a narrow Labour hold .

Duncan Stott said...

So basically a massive swing to the left (Labour to Greens) produces a gain for the right. First past the post desperately needs scrapping.

Keith Willey said...

Iain

In your response to Mark Senior you make it sound like Norwich North has been a longstanding Tory free zone. I thought it was held by the Conservatives between 1983 and 1997...of course "I know nothing about Norwich North."

This clearly isn't a good poll for any of the main parties, including the Lib Dems, but then constituency polls are notoriously inaccurate.

Anonymous said...

Good point, Keith's Willy. Sometimes, Iain really is a pompous prick.

Anonymous said...

If the Conservatives cannot win this seat at this moment in time,they will not win outright at the next GE...

Weygand said...

I also cannot see why Iain should be so pleased with a poll which shows Labour shedding 15 points but only one of them going to the Conservatives.

Assuming the poll is accurate, one must wonder how many of those thinking of voting Green will decide that such would have no effect on who won/lost and then hold their nose and actually vote Labour or Conservative (but which one?).

However, I am suspicious of polls carried out for those with an agenda (which the supplementary questions and comments suggest may have been the case here) and I would not take it as a serious indicator of what will actually happen come the date of the bye-election.

PS why does the report occasionally refer to 'percent of adults', when according to the notes all those polled were over 18?

Siberian Tory said...

Either way you've gotta feel sorry for the denziens of Norwich North.

There about to be carpet bombed by the political parties for this one.

Wonder how much money and resourced Labour can afford to throw at this one? Either way it's good for us. If they skimp it makes their victory harder if they spend spend spend it further runs down their resources.

The Tories will throw everything they have at this one and volunteers won't be hard to come by. I think Labour will struggle to out gun us here.

Johnny Norfolk said...

Our county is nearly all Tory so I hope Norwich moves back to the Tories. If we can win it will be a devistating blow to Labour.

Anonymous said...

interesting they say the tories and labour are "neck and neck".

Really? Is maths in this country now that bad?

Malcolm Redfellow said...

UPDATE: The full poll details can be found HERE.

Err ... I guess not, else there's something wrong with the usual understanding of "full" and "details".

So, from the top:

Hmm: sample of 300? Iffy. Very iffy. I think the general US view is such polls may at best have a reliability of around +/-4%.

We don't know the method of interview or the wording of the question. [Just "details"?]

We do know that the method ICM use to "re-balance" (i.e. re-engineer the figures to suit past admitted voting habits) is not universally accepted.

Now look at the source.

The sponsor was UCU, and their headline issue was increasing expenditure on eduction. That could, just could imply a degree of issue-pushing. Particularly when we see the main conclusion is, so surprising (not): With the election on a knife-edge this is a clear signal to all those standing that education must be at the top of their agenda.

Without a lot more supporting information, ukpollingreport's typo ("Nowhich North") seems appropriate comment.

Or, as used to be current around Wells and Fakenham, "Yoo dun arf tork a load of squit, bor."

Siberian Tory said...

The Lib Dem blogger Agent Orange posted this on what he sees should be their stratergy.

Potentially bad news for us; less of the lefty vote split.

http://rainbowherbicide.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/norwich-north-a-target/

Will S said...

"Interestingly the Conservatives are furthest ahead (40%) in the 18-24 age group."

If you looked at more opinion polls, Iain, you'd see that this is a recurring phenomenon.

chris said...

I See that UKIP are going to put up a candidate for next election against John Bercow in Buckingham. That must be worth a flutter at the bookies.

Nich Starling said...

Of course the Tories are ahead with younger voters. They cannot remember how utterly awaful Tory governments were !

tweek said...

Norfolk Blogger: On the contrary, it is because we know how utterly useless your lot are.

Anonymous said...

If the LibDems were in 2nd place here, as the Tories are, I bet they'd be more than 1% up on last time. Looks like the Tory campaign has not caught fire. Could they fail to win this gift of a by-election?

Chris said...

This poll, plus the election results this year, seem to be leading to the 'time trumpet 2012 election' clip on Youtube; well the start anyway.

JPT said...

Who is 'other'?

Ever Vigilant said...

Forget polls for any elections held in the next 12 months.

New Labour wil have to come to terms with the fact that most of the current crop of their politicians are seriously disliked by the electorate.

Let me correct myself-- not seriously disliked, detested.

Spartacus Mills said...

I do not see this as good news for the Tories. They should be aiming to poll at least 50% here.

Mark Senior's core point is correct. One would have expected the votes to go from Labour to the Tories but they have not.

I don't see the poll as good news for the Lib Dems either but once their byelection machine swings into inaction I am sure we will be treated to the usual rubbish from them.

Interesting to note April Pondlife writing to the Tory candidate to urge a clean contest, highlighting Tory negative campaigning and committing to fight fair but the Lib Dems are already using their dirty tricks on the Green candidate who has made some brilliant comments it has to be said.

Kenny Grewar said...

"Interestingly the Conservatives are furthest ahead (40%) in the 18-24 age group."...Could it be they do not remember the unmitigated disaster that was 18 years of Tory rule!!!