Category Archives: Polls

Ashcroft’s latest poll: a couple of interesting findings about the Lib Dems

By Stephen Tall | Sat 8th June 2013 - 10:35 am

Conservative peer Lord Ashcroft — who spends more on polling than all three main political parties combined — published the latest of his surveys yesterday.

It contained little good news for his party: ‘Perceptions of the Conservatives have been eroded further … This is the price we have paid for spending half a year talking amongst ourselves.’ And none of the party leaders would’ve been much chuffed by public perceptions of them, though Nick Clegg comes off worst, ‘ the weaknesses of the other two, being “weak”, “out of his depth”, and “out of touch” all at the same time.’

One finding caught my eye, asking which outcome at the next general election the public would most like to see:

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Also posted in News | Tagged lord ashcroft | 39 Comments

Opinion polls yadda yadda. OR “Does Nate Silver mean nothing to you? Did he write in vain?”

By Stephen Tall | Tue 21st May 2013 - 8:45 am

Two new polls last night: the daily YouGov tracker and the first post-local elections poll from Survation. The spread is interesting:

Labour:

Conservatives:

Lib Dems:

Ukip:

As Anthony Wells points out, Survation asks whether people will vote Ukip (most other firms just ask about the main three parties and ‘Others’) so usually gets the highest Ukip poll numbers. This latest survey is in line with the bounce other firms have shown and which the perceived winner of an election often records.

Unsurprisingly, it’s Survation’s poll which has attracted most interest because it shows a gap if just 2% between the Tories and Ukip. Cue cries of ‘Tory meltdown!, ‘Cameron in crisis!’ and every other journalistic cliche.

At the risk of precipitating on the parade of those who love nothing better than to indulge in over-excited hyper-speculation, can I make the following point. Or rather can I ask the following question: Does Nate Silver mean nothing to you? Did he write in vain?

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Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged featured, nate silver, survation, ukip and yougov | 24 Comments

Ukip surge to 18% in latest ICM poll: Lib Dems at 11%

By Stephen Tall | Mon 13th May 2013 - 9:50 pm

ICM: the pollster Lib Dems love and rely on the most. Maybe not tonight, though. Here’s The Guardian’s graph and report:

Ukip’s 18% is the best it has achieved with any pollster in any of the surveys logged at UK Polling Report. It is all the more remarkable for ICM, whose careful adjustments for voters who decline to reveal their political preference smooths out the wilder fluctuations of the electoral cycle.

The Tories are plumbing depths they have not experienced in more than a decade – barring

…

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Tagged icm, tom clark and ukip | 39 Comments

Opinion: A rousing campaigning message from Lord Ashcroft (of all people)

By Tom Richards | Sat 9th March 2013 - 8:45 am

Lord Ashcroft has done another enormous piece of polling, this time into the Lib Dem vote. A few of the more encouraging findings:

…

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Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged eastleigh by-election, lord ashcroft and Mark Pack | 7 Comments

++ Another new Eastleigh poll – and this time it shows the Tories in front by 4%

By Stephen Tall | Sat 23rd February 2013 - 8:35 pm

Last night brought news of a Populus poll for The Times showing the Lib Dems ahead of the Tories by 33%-28%, a Lib Dem lead of 5%.

But tonight a Survation poll for the Mail on Sunday has shown the Tories ahead of the Lib Dems by 33%-29%, a Tory lead of 4%.

Survation conducted an Eastleigh poll a fortnight ago — then they found the Lib Dems leading the Tories by 36%-33%. Here’s how the figures compare:

Only …

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Also posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged eastleigh by-election, mike thornton, populus and survation | 56 Comments

Three things we’ve learned from today’s opinion polls

By Stephen Tall | Mon 11th February 2013 - 7:50 pm

Three interesting and important poll findings to report today…

Big lead for Labour according to ICM

First, the Guardian’s monthly ICM poll is out, showing the biggest Labour lead in almost a decade:

The movements are more or less within the margin of error. Still, the Tories will be pretty disappointed to see the party get no bounce at all from David Cameron’s promise of a post-2015 EU referendum. Perhaps unsurprisingly it …

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Also posted in Op-eds and Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged eastleigh by-election, icm, peter kellner, the guardian and yougov | 131 Comments

Majority back same-sex marriage

By Mark Pack | Sun 3rd February 2013 - 2:49 pm

Wedding rings From the polling published this weekend:

Would you support or oppose changing the law to allow same-sex couples to marry?
Support: 55%
Oppose: 36%

Amongst Conservative voters the results are 44% – 49% (which is a statistical dead heat, when you remember to factor in the margin of error).

Interestingly, the majority support comes despite the lead-up to the question being a tadge inaccurate:

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Tagged equalities, featured, same sex marriage and yougov | 46 Comments

And the winner of our Liberal Voice of the Year award is… Sam Bowman

By Stephen Tall | Mon 14th January 2013 - 10:45 am

It’s a fortnight since we launched our search for the Liberal Voice of the Year with the aim of finding the individual or group which has had the biggest impact on liberalism in the past 12 months. This is LibDemVoice’s sixth such annual award, and as is our tradition, we looked beyond the ranks of the Lib Dems to find the liberal who’s most impressed our readers and is not a member of our party.

We unveiled the shortlist here on New Year’s Day. In total, 755 readers cast a vote in the past two weeks using a preferential voting system. The final (8th) round of voting gave the following result:

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Tagged featured, liberal voice 2012 and sam bowman | 66 Comments

NEW POLL: Who is your Liberal Voice of the Year?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 1st January 2013 - 2:15 pm

Today’s the day we launch our search for the Liberal Voice of the Year to find the individual or group which has had the biggest impact on liberalism in the past 12 months. This is the sixth annual award, and as is our tradition, we’re looking beyond the ranks of the Lib Dems to find the greatest liberal who’s not a member of our party.

The list of 10 nominees appears below. These were sought from Lib Dem members via our most recent survey; 222 nominations were submitted, and each of those short-listed needed to clear a threshold of five separate mentions.

To vote, please use the poll below to rank the nominees in order of preference.

This year’s shortlist for Liberal Voice of the Year is as follows

(in alphabetical first-name order):

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Tagged featured and liberal voice 2012 | 29 Comments

Why the UKIP surge is good for Liberal Democrats

By Tom Richards | Fri 21st December 2012 - 12:51 pm

Party activists should be cheering on UKIP’s rise in the polls. Why? Because a UKIP surge would most likely end up making it easier for Liberal Democrats to win in Conservative marginals. By my reckoning, every 1% on UKIP’s popularity increases the Lib Dem majority over the Conservatives in these areas by about 90 votes. If last weekend’s polling, putting UKIP at 14%, is correct, that gives Lib Dems in Con-Lib marginals about a 1000 vote head start.

Where do these numbers come from? A recent ComRes poll found that, of people who said they were going to vote for …

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Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged ukip | 43 Comments

4-in-10 Lib Dem voters inclined to leave EU, says poll – a reminder why our pitch should be ‘In Europe to reform the EU’

By Stephen Tall | Sun 18th November 2012 - 4:20 pm

‘If a referendum were held on the UK’s membership of the European Union, how do you think you would vote?’ That’s the question posed by polling company Opinium and published today in The Observer — with the following result reported by the paper:

Almost four out of 10 Liberal Democrat voters support leaving the EU, according to a new poll which shows that hardline euroscepticism has taken hold in Britain’s most pro-European party. An Opinium/Observer survey has found that 39% of Lib Dem supporters

…

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Also posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Tagged european union and nick clegg | 23 Comments

PollWatch: For which other parties would LibDem voters consider voting?

By Stephen Tall | Sun 18th November 2012 - 10:30 am

There’s an interesting poll conducted by ComRes and published today. There’s no surprise in its headline voting intention figures, below — they’re in line with other surveys and indeed with what ‘Super Thursday’s elections found:

But what is new is that ComRes has asked the following question: ‘Which, if any, of these parties would you seriously consider voting for at a General Election if it were held tomorrow? Please indicate all that apply.’

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Tagged comres | 7 Comments

The pointlessness of political opinion polls

By Mark Pack | Fri 19th October 2012 - 7:50 am

Leo Barasi’s piece over on Liberal Conspiracy raises an interesting point about the frequency of political opinion polling in the UK. We now have far more polls than before giving national voting intention figures (this Parliament so far: 878, 2001-5 312 in total, 1987-92 548 in total – to give some examples). But do we have too few?

Due to the vagaries of random sampling, a poll that shows a party’s support going up or down a couple of points doesn’t really show anything. It’s like tossing a coin 10 …

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Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged featured | 12 Comments

David Cameron: the pro-Europeans’ secret weapon

By Mark Pack | Mon 8th October 2012 - 11:24 am

Writing for the European Council on Foreign Relations, YouGov’s Peter Kellner highlights an important polling finding:

In July this year, YouGov asked this question: ‘Imagine the British government under David Cameron renegotiated our relationship with Europe and said that Britain’s interests were now protected, and David Cameron recommended that Britain remain a member of the European Union on the new terms. How would you then vote in a referendum on the issue?’…

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged david cameron, European referendum, european union, peter kellner and yougov | 11 Comments

New poll gives a boost to Lib Dems – but will it last?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 2nd October 2012 - 8:20 am

An interesting poll from ComRes in today’s Independent appears to show a post-conference boost for the Lib Dems at the expense of Labour:

LibDems get post-conference boost in latest ComRes poll: Lab 38% (-4%), Con 35% (n/c), LDs 15% (+3%), Others 12% (+1%)

— Stephen Tall (@stephentall) October 1, 2012

As UKPollingReport’s Anthony Wells sensibly reminds us, this is just one poll: it might just as easily be a blip or a rogue as a sign of real recovery. BUT it is still interesting:

1) I’d expect the post-conference boost to fade away as the media focus …

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Tagged comres | 11 Comments

ConHome pushes case for Vince Cable as Lib Dem leader. It’s enough to make you wonder why…

By Stephen Tall | Sat 22nd September 2012 - 9:30 am

You’ve gotta love ConservativeHome. No, really. This morning Tim Montgomerie reports a deliciously mischief-making poll from YouGov, commissioned by the Lord Ashcroft-backed site, comparing the standing of Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and the Liberal Democrats in general.

It won’t surprise anyone to learn that Vince Cable performs better than Nick Clegg in all the measures of leadership qualities asked about. (You can see the results in the graph at the foot of this piece.) This leads Tim to conclude: ‘If the Liberal Democrats are looking for a leader who can increase their electoral competitiveness these are powerful numbers.’

Call me …

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Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged ConservativeHome, nick clegg, Polls, tim montgomerie, vince cable and yougov | 11 Comments

ComRes poll: Vince leadership would boost Lib Dem fortunes

By Stephen Tall | Mon 3rd September 2012 - 10:02 pm

It’s not often that polling companies ask how alternative Lib Dem leaders would impact the party’s popularity — in fact, I’m struggling to recall a single example — but ComRes has asked what difference Vince Cable leading the party would have on its fortunes. Here’s the result:

Two findings of note:

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Also posted in News | Tagged comres, nick clegg, stephen tall and vince cable | 12 Comments

What the public thinks of… Cameron & Clegg for ditching Lords reform & boundary changes & of the Lib Dems in Coalition

By Stephen Tall | Mon 20th August 2012 - 7:55 pm

Here’s four intriguing findings from a ComRes poll for the Mirror and Independent released yesterday and conducted 15th-16 August…

By 34%-29% public thinks Cameron was WRONG to abandon House of Lords reform

Q: Do you agree or disagree that David Cameron was right to abandon the attempt to make changes to the House of Lords?

Interestingly 21% of Conservative voters disagreed with their party leader’s decision. Also interesting: the views of Labour and Lib Dem voters on this question were near-identical, disagreeing with David Cameron’s decision …

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Tagged comres | 6 Comments

Three intriguing opinion poll results that made me go, “Hmm, really?”

By Stephen Tall | Wed 1st August 2012 - 2:15 pm

Looking through some of YouGov’s recent poll results (as you do on a summer’s evening during the Olympics), a trio of responses struck me as, well, slightly bizarre. See what you think…

Lib Dem voters LEAST LIKELY to think Britain is best at cricket, MOST LIKELY to think we’re best at cycling

This may simply be a reflection that ‘Britain’ does not play cricket. Or perhaps just a subjective viewpoint: after all, England is currently ranked the best test cricket team in the world (though fourth in one-day internationals); while …

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Tagged jimmy carr, sport, tax, tax avoidance, tax evasion, transport and yougov | 8 Comments

The graph which shows how many Tory, Labour and LibDem voters support House of Lords reform

By Stephen Tall | Sat 21st July 2012 - 8:45 am

The London Evening Standard reported this week a new poll under the headline Even Lib-Dems say Lords reform is not a priority. Buried two-thirds of the way down, however, was this interesting data:

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Also posted in News | Tagged constitutional reform, featured, house of lords and tom brake | 18 Comments

Coalition partners: sink or swim together?

By Mark Pack | Tue 22nd May 2012 - 11:50 am

The idea that Liberal Democrat and Conservative political fortunes are tied together comes in two forms. The basic – that with both being in government, the public’s overall view of the government (and in particular its economic record) will heavily determine its view of both parties come the next election. Sink or swim together then. Then there is version which adds an asymmetric twist. Namely that if the public views the coalition as a failure both parties will sink together, but if the public rates the coalition as a success, being the smaller of the two parties means the Liberal Democrats won’t necessarily get their share of the credit.

What does the polling data show?

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Tagged featured | 22 Comments

Professor John Curtice: ‘Labour cannot afford simply to ignore the Liberal Democrats’

By The Voice | Mon 21st May 2012 - 1:24 pm

On Juncture, the website of the Institute of for Public Policy Research, psephologist Professor John Curtice provides some very interesting data which suggests Labour would do well to keep talking to the Liberal Democrats:

…the hung parliament brought about by the 2010 election was no accident. It was a consequence of long-term changes in pattern of party support that mean it is now persistently more difficult for either Labour or the Conservatives to win an overall majority. Meanwhile, although the current review of parliamentary boundaries will not deliver the Conservatives quite the

…

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Tagged labour party and liberal democrats | 43 Comments

‘Brand Clegg’ continues to out-poll ‘Brand Miliband’: what it means for the Lib Dems

By Stephen Tall | Tue 1st May 2012 - 9:15 am

It’s a harsh reality that ‘Nick Clegg’ has become an easy punchline for many comedians. Nick can perhaps draw some comfort from the truth universally acknowledged that it’s better to be joked about than never to be joked about at all.

But he can draw greater comfort from some of the polling evidence showing him doing better than Ed Miliband, even though the Lib Dems’ ratings significantly trail Labour’s. The Independent’s Matt Chorley noticed this little-noticed phenomenon last week:

Most, though not all, months the Independent on Sunday/Sunday Mirror/ComRes poll has asked voters whether they agreed or disagreed with these statements

…

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Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged david cameron, ed miliband, featured and nick clegg | 42 Comments

Poll shows Labour’s vote up but Livingstone’s vote down

By Mark Pack | Sat 28th April 2012 - 1:15 pm

When phone polling was first introduced in the UK it attracted flak over its accuracy (least remembered about those ASL polls the better), but also gained popularity through both its lower costs compared to the then dominant face to face polling and also its greater flexibility. The same pattern has been seen again with the spread of internet polling the UK. Just as face to face polling used to be the gold standard and phone polling the upstarts, now phone polling is the gold standard and internet polling the upstarts.

The merits or otherwise of YouGov have been much debated elsewhere …

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Also posted in London | Tagged ken livingstone and survation | 6 Comments

Only 3% swing to Tories in key Con/Lib Dem marginals

By Mark Pack | Mon 26th September 2011 - 8:55 am

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, the Conservative Party has a lead of 8% compared to an actual lead in May 2010 of 2%. This swing of 3% is much smaller than national opinion polls show. The vote share figures are:

Conservative 39% (-2% on May 2010)
Liberal Democrat 31% (-8%)
Labour 19% (+6%)

Con lead …

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Also posted in News | Tagged ConservativeHome, featured and lord ashcroft | 11 Comments

Polling the Lib Dems: the good, the bad, and the inbetween

By Stephen Tall | Tue 20th September 2011 - 10:25 am

‘Less anger, but less clarity’ is how UK Polling Report’s Anthony Wells characterises the latest YouGov polling looking at the public’s attitudes to the Lib Dems. It’s interesting to read through the full data, available here, especially as the responses are directly comparable with a year ago, before the Lib Dems’ U-turn on tuition fees sent the party spiralling downwards in the polls.

The bad news

Nick Clegg’s popularity has taken a hit: from a net positive of +8% a year ago, to a net negative of -29% today. Worth noting, however, that this is primarily due to Nick’s toxicity with Labour supporters, with whom he has a rating of an astonishing -79%! Both Lib Dem (+51%) and Tory (+17%) supporters have net positive views of the Lib Dem leader.
There is greater opposition to the Coalition than a year ago. In September 2010, 43% supported it, while 46% opposed it (net -3%): today the split is 34%/57% (net -13%). Interestingly, among the group identified as ‘lost Lib Dem voters’ — ie, those who voted for the party in 2010 but no longer would — 29% support the Coalition, while 63% oppose it.

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Also posted in Op-eds | 22 Comments

Explaining Cameron’s Coalition: politics as seen through the eyes of MORI polls

By Mark Pack | Wed 3rd August 2011 - 10:24 am

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 analysis which certainly fits Robert Worcester’s happiness to point out when he got predictions right and others got them wrong.

Though there is a smattering of references to polling results from other firms, the great strength of the MORI data is that many of the …

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Also posted in Books | Tagged david cameron, gordon brown, mark gill, paul baines, robert worcester, roger mortimore and tony blair | 2 Comments

So, why do you like Vince Cable?

By Mark Pack | Fri 20th May 2011 - 6:49 am

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 too, given how often our surveys are now quoted by the media as being ‘what Lib Dems think’.

The other is that it means the YouGov poll mirrors both our own findings and my own experience talking to Lib Dem members in many different …

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Also posted in LDV Members poll | Tagged featured, vince cable and yougov | 13 Comments

Political Communication in Britain: the latest 2010 election book

By Mark Pack | Thu 19th May 2011 - 8:44 am

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 election series.

In its favour, Political Communication in Britain brings together a strong cast of journalists and politicians who were active participants in the election, with six of the nineteen chapters coming from insiders such as Sky’s Adam Boulton, the Labour Party’s Greg …

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Also posted in Books and Online politics | Tagged adam boulton, chris rennard, dominic wring, greg cook, ivor gaber, roger mortimore and simon atkinson | Leave a comment

Do Lib Dem members think the Coalition will collapse early? And what the public thinks about Nick Clegg…

By Stephen Tall | Thu 12th May 2011 - 9:08 am

Channel 4 News has conducted an interesting YouGov poll surveying former and current Lib Dem members about their views on the Coalition. Their political editor Gary Gibbon gives the skinny on his blog:

We have a YouGov poll, taken from 396 Lib Dem members and 118 former members, on the programme tonight. It found that 52% of (396) members sampled thought the coalition wouldn’t run the full five years, though 63% thought it should. The poll suggests 35% think Nick Clegg shouldn’t lead the party into the next election (against 45% saying he should) – worth remembering he only won

…

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Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged channel 4 news, david cameron, ed miliband, gary gibbon and nick clegg | 14 Comments