I dont know if the You Gov poll is accurate – I’ve yet to read a convincing non-partisan argument either way.

Both candidates are excellent and either will bring a range of different but exciting skills to the leadership in a way that fills me with great optimism.

I understand the passion of some supporters of both camps but when the election is over I hope they will remember that we all share the same aim.

I am trying to get to the bottom of how reliable the data is. Chris’s supporters are doing what they can to promote positives from it but it seems reasonable to challenge the basis of those claims just as I would if it was Nick’s supporters.

Knowing well and having worked closely with both candidates this time I have done my best to keep an emotional distance. Because I know how demoralising and divisive leadership elections can be.

But it depresses me when intelligent people think other intelligent people might be influenced by the sort of hysterical partisan nonesense that has been the feature of some blogs in this campaign.

(I know, I know, I dont have to read them…)

When I said that most over-40s I knew were voting for Clegg I made it clear it was only anecdotal evidence. I only mentioned it because it surprises me. Perhaps I should have been clearer: almost all over-40s armchair members I know are plumping for Huhne. This includes close members of my family who I would have thought my own support for Clegg would count for something.

If these people are under-represented on the YouGov survey, and they certainly are, then the reality could be extremely different.

Please do continue to convince yourself that I’m wrong, after all denial of basic facts of life has been Team Clegg’s stock in trade and why should it stop now? But don’t sound too surprised if it turns out to be a lot closer than you currently clearly think it will be.

I wasnt doubting the bias towards younger members.

I was asking how many over 60s said they would vote Huhne and how many said they would vote Clegg?

If its, say, 110 – 103, how much of Vodafones budget would you have committed on such a small sample?

As Joe Otten has said on the other thread, You Gov might have a clever way of adjusting for these sampling, um, discrepancies, but as far as I am aware they havent told us.

224 people in the weighted sample are over 60 vs 237 who are under 40 – which I think we can all agree doesn’t reflect reality. The difference in vote share by age is enough to conclude that Chris’s vote is significantly higher amongst older voters than under 40s – although not enough to conclude that Chris has a statistically significant advantage amongst this age group over Nick (51:49 isn’t enough to do it).

You can call it spin if you like. I used to spend several million pounds a year running Vodafone’s UK market research and spent 14 years commissioning and reading market research at P&G – so it’s based on a bit of knowledge.

Martin

Still, that might be just as representative as the You Gov poll. Given that all we ever seem to get in this contest is spin from one camp or the other it would be interesting to get some input from, say, the pollster, to justify their methodology.

Martin – it’s an interesting point you make about the bias towards younger members (which again suggests a bias towards the activists over the armchair members) but how many people are you talking about when you say Chris leads among the over 60s – is it taken from the poll and if so is it a big enough sample to be meaningful?

Bias towards activists might suggest that the poll over-estimates Chris’s vote since he has made a deliberate pitch for their vote. Or you could argue it the other way – that neither candidate was well known among the armchair membership and that Chris would benefit from his name recognition from having stood last time.

OTOH, we could just wait a week to find out, I suppose…

The question, IIRC, asked people to name their top four policy priorities. As it has always been one of our most identifiable policies, it is hardly surprising that so many support it as one of their top four priorities. Even armchair members need a reason to join, let’s not forget. What the poll doesn’t show is to what extend it is a preference – it could be everyone’s fourth priority for instance which wouldn’t suggest it is much of a priority at all.

The poll sample’s age split isn’t even close to the party membership’s actual age split. It (unfortunately) hugely overstates young voters and understates those over 60.

Since Chris is beating Nick amongst those of our biggest age group (over 60s) who have already voted, the election may be closer than the topline figure would suggest.

Whether that makes a difference or not is a whole other story…