Tag Archives: yougov

How the left/right balance of Liberal Democrat voters has changed

By Mark Pack | Published 11th January 2012 - 10:25 am

It is common to use two political spectrums to sort out where people or parties sit ideologically: the left-right spectrum and the authoritarian-libertarian spectrum. The latter is important in explaining the politics of the coalition’s formation, as it was a defence of civil liberties against New Labour’s post-9/11 authoritarian streak that both saw senior figures in the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives often co-operating in Parliament and also carved out a large area of policy agreement between them.

Since the coalition’s formation, its importance has rapidly dropped. Some of the reasons are straightforwardly good ones – such as delivering on several of …

Posted in News | Also tagged icm, Polls | 30 Comments

So, why do you like Vince Cable?

By Mark Pack | Published 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 …

Posted in LDV Members poll, Polls | Also tagged featured, vince cable | 13 Comments

Learning the lessons from last week #2: Lib Dem voters don’t want out of the coalition

By Mark Pack | Published 10th May 2011 - 6:54 am

Even after last Thursday, I’ve come across very few Liberal Democrats saying, “we should have made a deal with Labour last May”. That’s not a surprise, given the Parliamentary arithmetic and also all that has come out since about just how split Labour’s negotiating team was, not to mention the almost farcical lack of preparation from Labour for talks. Peter Mandelson grabbing a quick cup of tea with Ed Balls to sort out Labour’s negotiating line before walking into the first meeting may be very English, but competent or prepared it wasn’t.

That does, of course, leave the question of whether …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged ed balls, featured, peter mandelson | 55 Comments

Overwhelming public support to end sexism in Royal succession

By Mark Pack | Published 3rd May 2011 - 3:53 pm

Last month Nick Clegg took up the issue which Lynne Featherstone and Evan Harris had previously been pushing, namely changing the rules of Royal succession so that men and women are treated equally, rather than men being given preference over women.

One of YouGov’s post-Royal Wedding questions was about Royal primogeniture and found overwhelming backing for the change:

Currently male children of the monarch take precedence over female children in terms of the succession. Do you think men and women should be treated equally in the line of succession to the throne?

Should 76%
Should not 14%
Don’t know 10%

A slightly different …

Posted in News | Also tagged evan harris, lynne featherstone, nick clegg, royal family, royal primogeniture | 5 Comments

A reason to be sceptical of what the public tells opinion pollsters

By Mark Pack | Published 14th April 2011 - 8:55 am

Much can be learnt from opinion polls, but a reminder of why not all results should be taken at face value is this:

If there were local council elections in your area on May 5th, how likely would you be to vote in them, where 0 means you will definitely not vote, and 10 means you definitely will vote?

10 – will definitely vote: 52%

This poll is not unusual in showing more people saying they will certainly vote than seems credible – and polls before previous elections (i.e. where we know the actual subsequent turnout) have often shown the number of …

Posted in Polls | Also tagged turnout | 3 Comments

Fairer votes referendum: it needs to be about the voting system, not the government

By Mark Pack | Published 9th December 2010 - 12:54 pm

Contrasting poll results from YouGov and ICM on the AV referendum show how important it is avoid the referendum becoming a vote for or against the government rather than about the merits of the alternative vote compared to first past the post.

An ICM poll has found the Yes camp leading by 35% – 22% (with the balance don’t know or wouldn’t vote), which compares to a 35% – 41% deficit on the latest YouGov poll.

However, there is an important difference between the wording of the two polling questions, with YouGov’s question starting, “The Conservative-Liberal Democrat government are committed …

Posted in News | Also tagged av referendum, ed miliband, electoral reform, featured, icm | 24 Comments

Market Research Society rules that it is ethical to poll about false personal allegations

By Mark Pack | Published 3rd November 2010 - 8:55 am

The Market Research Standards Board (MRSB) has cleared YouGov of all the complaints made about its polling of 16-19 April during the general election – but in so doing has raised a big question about what now counts as ‘ethical’ polling. The MRSB’s ruling gives the green light to pollsters asking questions on behalf of their clients which contain false allegations about a person, even if those allegations have not previously been made in public.

The Market Research Society Code of Conduct (to which YouGov subscribes, along with other British political pollsters), states that “researchers shall be … honest” and …

Posted in News, Polls | Also tagged charles kennedy, featured, market research society, market research standards board, michael brown, nick clegg | 6 Comments

Is there still inequality in the workplace?

By Mark Pack | Published 6th October 2010 - 12:25 pm

Do you think women in Britain have equal job opportunities with men, or not?

Men: Yes 51%, No 43% – net +8%
Women: Yes 25%, No 63% – net -38%

Net scores by political preference:

Conservative: 0%
Lib Dem: -22%
Labour: -25%

Source: YouGov, fieldwork 30 Septemeber – 1 October

Posted in Polls | Also tagged equalities | 8 Comments

83% support child benefit cut

By Iain Roberts | Published 6th October 2010 - 7:55 am

A YouGov poll in The Sun this morning has 83% supporting the plans to scrap child benefit for high-rate taxpayers, with only 15% opposing the idea and an astonishingly small 2% who don’t have an opinion.

Whether that will calm Cameron’s nerves when faced with the full fury of the Daily Mail remains to be seen.

Posted in News | Also tagged child benefit, david cameron | 23 Comments

Has the long-term decline in trust finally bottomed out?

By Mark Pack | Published 30th September 2010 - 10:27 am

It has been a regular finding of both MORI and YouGov research that the public’s trust in members of different professions has been steadily declining for many years. However, the latest survey from YouGov suggests this decline has stopped, with several professions – including politicians – seeing a recent recovery in their standings.

In 2003 on average 49% of people said they trusted different professions on average to tell the truth a great deal or a fair amount. This fell to 42% in 2006 and 37% in 2007 but was 39% this August. The two point rise is not statistically significant …

Posted in News, Polls | Also tagged featured, journalism | 6 Comments

YouGov versus Lib Dem Voice surveys: how do they compare?

By Mark Pack | Published 22nd September 2010 - 8:56 am

As Stephen mentioned earlier in conference, we’ve done a little experiment with the latest Lib Dem Voice survey of party members by asking exactly the same questions as were very recently asked of party members in a YouGov survey. It turns out that the answers from our two different approaches are very similar:

As you may know, there is currently debate about whether or not the UK should replace its Trident nuclear weapons system. Current policy is to replace the Trident submarines with a new fleet of boats, and to replace the ballistic nuclear missiles they carry at a later …

Posted in Polls, Voice polls | 5 Comments

Poll: Less than 1 in 10 party members support like-for-like Trident replacement

By Mark Pack | Published 16th September 2010 - 6:07 pm

An opinion poll of over 500 Liberal Democrat party members carried out by YouGov for Greenpeace has found that 7% said they supported a like-for-like replacement of Trident.

The key question asked was:

Replace Trident with a broadly comparable system: 7%
Replace Trident with a cheaper system: …

Posted in News, Polls | Also tagged greenpeace, trident | 8 Comments

Majority think Coulson should be sacked, police should re-open investigation

By Mark Pack | Published 12th September 2010 - 9:27 am

A YouGov poll commissioned by The Sun and carried out over Monday / Tuesday finds:

The editor of the News of the World at the time, Andy Coulson, denied knowledge of the phone tapping operation, but accepted the “ultimate responsibility” as editor and resigned. He has since taken a job as David Cameron’s Director of Communications. There have recently been allegations from former employees of the News of the World that phone tapping was more widespread at the News of the World and that Andy Coulson was personally aware of the tapping. Mr Coulson has denied allegations that he was …

Posted in News, Polls | Also tagged andy coulson, phone tapping | 8 Comments

87% back Lib Dem Lynne’s rogue wheel clamping clamp-down

By Stephen Tall | Published 22nd August 2010 - 12:45 pm

Lib Dem Voice reported earlier this week the news that Lynne Featherstone had secured government support for a new policy to ban wheel clamping and towing away of vehicles on private property, bringing England and Wales in line with Scotland.

YouGov asked the following question directly of members of the public:

The government have announced they intend to ban wheel clamping on private land. Under their plans only
the police and local councils would have the right to use wheel clamps or tow cars away. Would you support or oppose a ban on private wheel clamping firms?

The result? 87% supported the …

Posted in News | Also tagged lynne featherstone, wheel clamping | 9 Comments

Pollwatch – State of the parties (summer 2010): Reasons to keep calm and carry on

By Stephen Tall | Published 21st August 2010 - 5:57 pm

There have been a rather astonishing 36 opinion polls in the six weeks since LDV’s last polls round-up at the beginning of July. Thirty of those 36 originate from just one polling company, YouGov.

So let’s bring you up-to-date with July and August’s polls in chronological order of publication:

…

Posted in Op-eds, Polls | Also tagged featured, icm, Polls | 18 Comments

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