UK Election Trend

Site Notice

2011-04-20T10:45:00.000+01:00

I'm sorry that I'm going to have to announce again that the site will be moth-balled for an unknown amount of time, due to personal health issues cutting into the amount of time and effort I can spend on collating polling data. My final thoughts on AV as we go into the campaign period, is that it's still too unclear to call it. Even after disappointing polling for the Yes campaign, they can't

AV, a case in Statistics.

2011-04-12T08:00:00.001+01:00

A paper published in Significance, the statistics journal, collated election returns of the various government election systems. The aim is to show the various real-world properties of these election systems. It came to some unsurprising, and some surprising results. Proportionality We can identify how related the returns are to the proporition of the national votes. This identify if elections

Disinformation being promoted for a NO Vote

2011-04-05T12:38:00.001+01:00

There's a little bit of disinformation being passed around to support voting NO in the upcoming referendum on AV. It goes a little like this, "AV will result in the BNP getting more power. In France they have runoff votes, and the national front almost won the presidential election!" The problem here, is that it starts of with an outright lie, and supports it with a misleading truth. In 2002 the

Energy Minister Makes Unwise Speech, Outdoes Thatcher and Gets His Figures Wrong.

2011-04-04T15:16:00.002+01:00

In 2006 the Republican candidate for the United States Senator for Virginia made a mistake that many feel cost him the election. At a fund raiser for his campaign, he was caught on Video saying the wrong things. Just a few years earlier, this wouldn't have happened. Politicians could, with little worry, make speeches at their fund raising events that they wouldn't dare make "in public". But

A quick update on AV Referendum Polling

2011-04-04T11:27:00.000+01:00

I've noted that a lot of traffic to the site has been coming on from google searches for AV polling. A lot of these readers may be wondering why I don't have a tracking graph for AV Referendum polling, as I do with Voter intent. The simple answer is that there isn't enough regular consistent and quality polling. Most public opinion firms are only performing a poll on the referendum sporadically,

Clegg to support Tory NHS reform?

2011-04-04T10:09:00.001+01:00

The reports in the press and from downing street seem to state that Nick Clegg will be fully committing himself to support of the Government package of NHS reforms. As things stand, this does seem to put him at odds with the directive from party conference to amend the bill to remove competition based on price, ensure competition is on standard of care, and to require public operation of any

Budget bounce fades amidst reports of NHS climbdown

2011-04-04T08:00:00.002+01:00

As predicted, the bounce from the Budget faded quickly, with polling returning to approximately the same place as pre-budget values. With Labour occasionally tipping up into double figure leads over the Conservatives, but being on average around 6 to 7 points ahead. The apparent main beneficiaries of the bounce seem to be the Liberal Democrats rather than the Conservatives, but that could be due

YouGov/The Sun polling question appears to show bias.

2011-03-29T08:00:00.010+01:00

YouGov recently performed two different sets of polling on the AV Refferendum. The first for the Sunday Times, the second for The Sun. What's notable about this is that they used different question formats for the different poll, and they were conducted within two days of each other. The Sunday Times poll, conducted between the 17th and 18th of March, asked the following, The referendum question

Osborn gets a polling boost, but for how long?

2011-03-28T08:00:00.002+01:00

The graph tells the story here, with there being an obvious modest gain for the Conservatives and a significant drop for Labour. However, this is a little more to this story. The bulk of movement comes from ICM's poll, which actually showed a drop for Labour putting them behind the Conservatives. However, ICM's poll showed that drop going to the Liberal Democrats rather than the Conservatives.

Have Conservatives buried poll showing high satisfaction with the NHS?

2011-03-21T08:00:00.002Z

There were accusations in the press over the weekend that the Conservatives have been sitting on a poll commissioned late last year from Ipsos MORI. In which the respondents showed "record levels" of satisfaction with the NHS. The most recent published polling shows levels of satisfaction at 64% (British Social Attitudes survey, 2010) and 63% (Ipsos MORI, 2007). While guidelines require

Wedges being driven in at Conference over the NHS and Disabiltiy benefits

2011-03-12T13:54:00.000Z

The most well reported result of the Liberal Democrat Conference so far has been the vote to set Party policy as opposed to the NHS reforms currently proposed by Government. In an amendment to a soft policy motion, originally calling on government to "uphold patient care standards", the following motions were voted on and approved by the Conference, Conference recognises however that all of the

AV Polling Questions

2011-03-09T08:00:00.001Z

As I've said over and over, at the moment the poll results on AV seem to be entirely dependent on how the question is asked. So let's have a look at the questions currently in use for AV polling. ICM At present, the UK uses the ‘first past the post’ system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should the ‘alternative vote’ system be used instead? Score: 10/10 Asks the bare ballot question. This

Barnsley Lib Dem Result Follows National Trend

2011-03-07T08:00:00.002Z

At this point you probably know about the "Shocking" result of the Barnsley Central by-election; where the Liberal Democrats dropped from second to sixth, attracted less voters than the BNP and UKIP, and lost their deposit. However, taking a look at national polling, and comparing it to the local situation shows that this was entirely expected. If we take the relative positions of the parties to

Searchlight/Populus Poll Not Entirely Scientific?

2011-02-27T21:06:00.000Z

Your humble blogger is still a bit unwell, and unable to provide the normal updates and graphs. However, I can make a short comment on a recent poll. Quoting the Guardian article, reporting on a poll commissioned by Anti-Facist Searchlight magazine... "A Populus poll found that 48% of the population would consider supporting a new anti-immigration party committed to challenging Islamist

Add Them Both Together

2011-02-21T12:40:00.000Z

Do you support the Government? Yes/No Would you vote for Labour or the Coalition? Yes/No Are there only ever two valid choices? Yes/No Last week YouGov joined ICM in putting out some pseudo-polling that forced an artificial merger of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats into a single option. Again it's important to remember that even now the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are not joined

Site Notice : Apologies to lack of reporting due to illness, and notice about AV Referendum prediction.

2011-02-21T12:20:00.000Z

I'd like to apologise to my dedicated readers, both of them, for failing to report recently. Your humble blogger has been suffering quite a bit of bad health and multiple trips to hospital, and was unable to report on the final real end to the AV Filibuster. I will now be assessing the quality of AV polling, and making a decision on if it is worth-while modelling trends and attempting to predict

How Much Would Letting Prisoners Vote Affect The Result?

2011-02-14T15:24:00.001Z

The answer... Not a lot. UK prison population is 148 people per 100 thousand, or 0.148% of the population. Even if all of them voted, and they all voted for the same party, that wouldn't produce a significant difference to any but the tightest election result. But, you may ask, surely this could sway the vote in constituencies with large prisons? However, prisoners would not be given a vote in

Junk Polling of the Month

2011-02-10T07:30:00.001Z

Today's "Award" for Junk Polling goes to ICM and the News of the World for their poll last weekend showing "Most people support the coalition". Publishing a poll showing that 32% prefer a Conservative and Liberal democrat coalition, 26% Labour and 29% neither. However, this turns out to be a very poorly phrased question. While the News of the World is now behind a pay-wall, you can read ICM's

YouGov AV polling returns to Neck and Neck

2011-02-10T00:53:00.002Z

With a reversal of YouGov's recent trend, it now looks like they have moved back in the direction the rest of the pack were taking. YouGov now shows a statistical tie of 38% Yes, 39% No. I've made no qualms about pointing out the deficencies of YouGov's question wording on this, and YouGov's Anthony Wells has made a response, "Basically there are two explanations put about, one which seems

House of Lords To Use AV In Replacement Lord Election

2011-02-09T14:05:00.000Z

As part of the compromise over the previous round of House of Lords reform, 92 Hereditary Lords would be appointed to remain as lifetime peers. And that on the occasion of a Lord's retirement from the house or death, that they should be replaced with another person qualified to take the seat in a collective decision of the house. With the death of Lord David Kenworthy, 11th Baron Strabolgi, the

"Unite Against Fascism" to Rebuke Founding Member Cameron.

2011-02-08T13:39:00.003Z

At a time of very great stresses on the Government, I would start to suggest they have too many fires to fight at the same time. With the attacks on NHS reforms, attacks on Forestry sales, renewed attacks that the government have caved into the Banks, and further threats of protests and strikes... And with the government lacking a chief spin-doctor, as Craig Oliver is not to formally take the

Conservatives Won The Fillibuster Battle, Lost The Amendment War.

2011-02-08T13:23:00.001Z

At the time of my last report on the Lords filibuster, the press had declared Victory for the conservatives. In announcements outside of the Lords, and referred to by the government in the Lords, an apparent "Compromise" had been proposed. And it was announced that the filibuster would be brought to an end, and the legislative process would move on to it's second reading. Apparently, someone had

Conservative party issue Three Line Whip to Conservative Lords

2011-01-31T20:46:00.002Z

There are reports that the Conservative Party have issued a "Three Line Whip", demanding full attendance of Conservative Lords at the Tuesday sitting. This firm command could indicate they intend to attempt to move to bring debate to a close without cross-bench support on Tuesday. It would be the first time in twelve years that such an order has been put through to the Conservative Party's lords

House of Lords Fillibuster Day 15 - Debate Continues

2011-01-31T18:37:00.002Z

With perhaps a little spill over of sentiment into other business, the House of Lords started in somewhat late into it's 15th day of debate on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. It was also delayed by some lengthy discussion following an official statement on the situation in Egypt, with lords taking a good length of time to discuss the situation and the middle east in

House of Lords Fillibuster Threatened With Guillotine on 15th Day

2011-01-27T11:07:00.003Z

Another late night session saw little progress on the alternative vote and the redrawing of constituency boundaries in the house of Lords. Debate has now been adjourned again, with the government scraping some more time for the bill out of the parliamentary calender. Monday, 31st, Tuesday 1st of February and Wednesday 2nd will see the 15th and 16th and 17th day of amending committee debate on the