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Month: November 2006

Labour lead Tories by 54-15% amongst politics dons

Labour lead Tories by 54-15% amongst politics dons

And 53% predict that Labour will win a fourth term Full details are now out on the Ipsos Mori site of the poll of members of the Political Studies Association which was prepared for their annual conference this week. Although no voting intention was asked the 283 respondents responded were questioned about what outcome they personally were hoping for at the General Election. These were the shares – LAB maj 54%: HUNG 21%: CON maj 15% so it is reasonable…

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Will Gordon get seats like Withington back?

Will Gordon get seats like Withington back?

Who’ll win battles between Labour and the Lib Dems? While most of the focus has been on the Tories and Labour we should not forget the other major battle-ground at the next General Election – those seats where Labour and the Lib Dems are slugging it out. And for me nowhere is more interesting than Manchester Withington – where in May 2005 John Leech for the Lib Dems turned round a Labour majority of 11,500 votes increasing the party’s share…

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The Indy’s CR poll methodology under “constant review”

The Indy’s CR poll methodology under “constant review”

Encouraging response to PBC’s observations Following yesterday’s article and thread on the methodology being used for the new month Communicate Research poll in the Independent I have had an encouraging response from both the pollster and the newspaper. I wrote to both making the same point: “What convinces me about the need for past vote weighting is the sheer consistency of the figures that both Populus and ICM get when they ask how people voted last time. I’ve been monitoring…

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Did Blair get value from the controversial election loans?

Did Blair get value from the controversial election loans?

How much did the bill-boards help Labour to victory? There is something rather ironic about the fact that a big part of the money Labour borrowed in the run-up to the 2005 General Election was spent on bill-boards like the one above promoting the Government’s successes with the economy and interest rate policy. This was a key theme in the huge advertising blitz in the run-up to May 5th and on which a large part of the borrowed money was…

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Communicate Research: polling in the old fashioned way

Communicate Research: polling in the old fashioned way

Labour ahead in the paper that brought you the Harman poll cock-up Back in 1992 they used to run polls like the one by Communicate Research that appears in the Independent this morning. That was the year of what Nick Sparrow of ICM calls “the great polling debacle” The final opinion polls gave the Conservatives between 38% and 39% of the vote, about 1% behind. On the day itself exit polls were carried out and everything was pointing to a…

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Was the Independent “conned” on the Harman poll?

Was the Independent “conned” on the Harman poll?

YouGov’s actual figures were neutral for Harriet and bad for Brown We’ve now got the full data from this morning’s poll by YouGov that was reported in the Indpendent – and my warning that “.. we need to see the full detail of how the survey was carried out before coming to firm conclusions” could not have been more right. For the actual numbers do show that 15% of respondents said they were “much more” or a “little more” likely…

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Will Labour be saved by the “90 minute nationalists”?

Will Labour be saved by the “90 minute nationalists”?

Could retaining the Calcutta Cup impede Salmond’s party? With the weekend ICM poll showing support for an independent Scotland both north and south of the border the conditions for a strong SNP performance in May’s election for the Scottish Parliament could not be better. Judging by the fierce attacks on Alec Salmond’s party by both John Reid and Tony Blair in the two days there can be little doubt that Labour is worried. There is a Glaswegian friend of mine…

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YouGov boost for Harman’s deputy bid

YouGov boost for Harman’s deputy bid

Poll suggests that she could win 15% more votes for Labour According to a YouGov poll reported in the Independent this morning 15% of voters said they would be “more likely” to support Labour if Harriet Harman was deputy leader. Hilary Benn was in second place on this measure with 12% saying they would be more likely to vote Labour but none of the other contenders got into double figures. Hazel Blears – the party chair and other potential female…

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