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 …
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 …
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:
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 date. Which of the following options would you favour most?
Replace Trident with a broadly comparable system: 7%
Replace Trident with a cheaper system: …
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 …
Last week, Pollwatch looked at the state of the parties in July and August; today it’s the turn of the coalition government leaders.
As with all polls, what follows comes with caveats. Only two polling companies – YouGov and Mori – this past month asked questions specifically to find out the public’s views of the Lib Dem and Tory party leaders. (Harriet Harman’s performance as Labour leader is not being measured). And each asks variants on the basic question – do you think Clegg/Cameron are doing a good job – to come up with their figures, so comparison ain’t easy. …
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:
Con 40, Lab 36, Lib Dem 16 (YouGov, 4-5 Jul)
Con 41, Lab 36, Lib Dem 15 (YouGov, 5-6 Jul)
Con 40, Lab 36, Lib Dem 17 (YouGov, 6-7 Jul)
Con 42, Lab 35, Lib Dem 16 (YouGov, 7-8 Jul)
Con 42, Lab 34, Lib Dem 17 (YouGov, 8-9 Jul)
Con 42, Lab 35, Lib Dem
Last month, YouGov’s Peter Kellner penned a rather premature post, which stated categorically: The honeymoon is over. I took him to task at the time, and stand by my view that the Coalition is still regarded generally favourably by a plurality of the public.
It’s been interesting, then, to read some of the barrage of opinion polling which has greeted the Coalition’s first 100 days. Perhaps most significant is this article in The Guardian – Coalition winning argument on economy – detailing ICM polling which shows 44% believe the coalition is doing a good job in securing economic …
Erm, except Sky News isn’t reporting a poll conducted by a reputable polling organisation of a representative sample of the British public. I mean, you didn’t seriously expect journalistic integrity and news values from Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News-lite, did you?
The figure of 8% support for the Lib Dems is the result of a Sky News Panel survey. The surveys are open to any viewer to join and answer. Sky makes no claim that its Panel is representative, …
Politics isn’t about winning elections, it’s about implementing policy – and Liberal Democrat ministers are getting to do that day in, day out regardless of what that week’s opinion polls say. Winning elections certainly also helps in politics, but with the next general election years away, national voting intention questions don’t mean very much this far out. After all, three months after the 1979
Ah, opinion polls. Love ’em or hate ’em, you just can’t ignore ’em.
Today’s Telegraph reports a typically anti-Lib Dem story, Voters fail to recognise ‘invisible’ Lib Dem ministers. It claims to show that “Liberal Democrat cabinet ministers are far less likely to be recognised by ordinary voters than their Conservative counterparts”. However, the real clue to its accuracy is in the next few words, “a survey by The Sunday Telegraph has revealed”.
So how did the Telegraph commission its survey, you might ask. Did they pay a beyond-reproach polling firm (or even YouGov) to talk to a representative sample …
Forget the Lib Dems’ current poll-ratings for a moment – though today’s 19% from ICM will have done a fair amount to repair nerves frayed by YouGov’s poorer recent scores – and let’s focus on the Coalition Government as a whole.
Last week, YouGov’s Peter Kellner stated categorically: The honeymoon is over. His logic was simple enough:
Over the past four weeks, the coalition’s approval rating has slipped slowly but remorselessly. Our latest figures report a net rating of plus four (approve 41%, disapprove 37%). In just over two months, the coalition’s rating has declined to levels that were not
The overall story is good for the Lib Dems – up three points to 19% (both Labour and the Tories are slightly down against the last ICM poll), and the Coalition remains stubbornly popular, still in the 55-60% range.
But this is just one poll (and there are others both significantly better and worse for the party), so let’s not worry too much about the headline figures.
More interesting is the line the Guardian takes and the “marks out of ten” for the Coalition Government.
The news is from the US and allows people in Britain to give themselves a quick pat on the back because from what’s come out so far it very much looks as if the British rules on polling transparency would stop any similar situation arising (at least as far as polls commissioned from British Polling Council members go):
I’ve obtained a copy of the lawsuit that Daily Kos just filed against Research 2000, and this going to get nastier than you thought.
The suit contains striking new details about Research 2000’s alleged reluctance to release its raw data and its alleged money
As with all polls, what follows comes with caveats. Only two polling companies – YouGov and Mori – this past month asked questions specifically to find out the public’s views of the Lib Dem and Tory party leaders. (Harriet Harman’s performance as Labour leader is not being measured). And each asks variants on the basic question – do you think Clegg/Cameron are doing a good job – to come up with their figures, so comparison ain’t easy. But, still, we don’t indulge in polls that often, so here goes …
Here, in chronological order, are the results of the five polls published in June asking for the public to rate the two governing party leaders:
A quick follow-up to my post with YouGov’s party I.D. figures as I’ve now got ComRes’s equivalent figures, these taken from its penultimate election poll:
Party I.D. Labour 32.5% (YouGov), 39% (ComRes)
Conservatives 28.5% (YouGov), 35% (ComRes)
Lib Dem 12% (YouGov), 17% (ComRes)
Measuring underlying party I.D, as opposed to current voting intention, is a notoriously difficult process as people’s general political views expressed to pollsters often move closely in step with their voting intention. Therefore the differences in numbers for each party between the two pollsters are not too surprising and it is more significant that the pattern is …
Interesting figures from YouGov, who have updated their “party I.D.” figures, that is the proportion of people who say they are a supporter of a particular party as opposed to what their current voting intention is (e.g. they may be a Labour support but have a current voting intention of Green):
Labour 32.5%
Conservative 28.5%
Liberal Democrat 12%
Other 3%
Don’t know 24%
Rather than telling us anything particularly useful – certainly in terms of the outcome of any future elections – these last two are notable more for the pollsters finally leaving behind a run of six post-election polls all of which had the Lib Dems firmly planted at 21%.
There’s a new YouGov poll in The Sunday Times, just published, and it shows:
CON 40%(+1), LAB 32%(nc), LIB DEM 18%(-3)
A bit of a dip for the Lib Dems, with the party below 20% for the first time since ‘Cleggmania’ following the first televised leaders’ debate. Though before we grow too gloomy, the drop is within the margin of error.
Nick Clegg’s ratings remain high, with 59% saying he’s doing well as Lib Dem leader, and just 21% badly – a net approval rating of +38% (just behind David Cameron’s +41%). Interestingly, Nick performs marginally better among Tory voters (+83%) than …
I don’t pretend to understand a huge amount about the science of opinion polling – like any political geek, I dabble, but that’s it. However, I do understand a little more of the art of opinion polling, of manufacturing the response you want to deliver a story.
So I was pretty disappointed to read the latest ComRes poll, commissioned by The Independent, which asked a couple of deeply flawed questions. Here’s the worst of the bunch, asking the public to agree or disagree with the following statement:
The political horsetrading which followed the inconclusive General Election result showed that an outright win is much more desirable than a hung parliament.
Now it’s an interesting question to find out what the public did feel about Britain’s first taste of post-election bargaining in the full glare of rolling news – I’d love to see a genuine question putting it to the test.
But this question by ComRes is risible – a serious pollster would not use the loaded term ‘political horsetrading’ if they were genuinely interested in finding out the public’s views. Unsurprisingly the public reacted negatively to the notion of ‘horsetrading’, with 74% saying they preferred an outright win.
What, though, if the pollster had tested the public’s attitudes with a more neutral question, something like:
On 7th May no single party won an overall majority, so the three major parties opened discussions to see if they could reach agreement. Some people say that this is a good thing, resulting in a programme for government based on the most popular policies from each of the parties. Other people say it is a bad idea, and that it would be better if a single party had won an outright majority and could govern alone. What is your view?
Now I wonder what might have happened if ComRes had asked that question. I suspect they would have got a very different answer to the one they got. Which leaves one question hanging … Why did they ask a slanted question that they must have known would provoke a negative response?
Voting intentions:
For the record, ComRes found support for the parties as follows:
Conservative 37% (-1), Labour 33% (-1), Lib Dems 21% (n/c)
This is consistent with most other polls – indeed, I think it’s the sixcth consecutive poll which has shown the Lib Dems at 21%. Okay, the balloon of ‘Cleggmania’ may have popped, but that’s a lot better than some of us would have dared hope in the immediate aftermath of the coalition deal being struck. But it’s very early days of course.
ComRes also tested post-coalition attitudes to the Lib Dems, using one of those “putting words in your mouth” questions beloved of newspapers but which brings political science into disrepute: “Now that they have joined a coalition with the Conservatives, it is difficult to know what the Liberal Democrats stand for” – 65% agreed, but 29% disagreed. Given it’s a statement which invites the public to offer a nod of cynical agreement, I was mildly encouraged that getting on for one-third of the public disputed it.
Electoral reform:
ComRes also asked a question about changing the voting system, testing the statement: The first-past-the-post system for elections to the House of Commons should be replaced by a system that reflects more accurately the proportion of votes cast for each party.
It’s welcome, though entirely unsurprising, to discover that 78% agree, with only 18% disagreeing. It would have been more interesting, though, to find out what the public thought of the Alternative Vote (a non-proportional system) compared with a genuine system of proportional representation (such as STV) or the status quo of First-Past-The-Post.
A propos almost of nothing, here’s a famous clip from Yes, Prime Minister which looks behind the opinion polls:
The likely explanation emerging for the Liberal Democrat vote share in the general election coming in much lower than even the immediately previous polls suggested is that there was a late swing away from the party, partly due to Lib Dem supporters being less willing to turn out (see, for example, this from ComRes). It’s natural to slide from that into a general story about the party peaking after the first TV debate and then being in decline during the rest of the campaign.
However, there is a risk of missing the wider context – and is show by these …
Two polls have been published this week offering some early sense of public perceptions of the Lib Dem / Conservative coalition government, and how they rate the party leaders.
Public views of the coalition government
Angus Reid discovered that, overall, 58% of the public strongly/moderately approve of the coalition, while 31% strongly/moderately disapprove – that’s a net +27% approval rating. Approval is, as you might expect, stronger in the south of England (+41%), weaker in the north of England (+14%) and marginally negative in Scotland (-2%).
Since the start of the year, The Voice has been tracking how newspapers do at reporting the political opinion polls they commission. Each time a newspaper reports on such an opinion poll, the report gets scored out of 30 against a set of basic criteria. The scoring system has generally worked well, though it doesn’t catch the nuance of newspapers commissioning poll questions about political matters and then not reporting certain ones which happen to contradict their editorial line (such as on this, this and this occasion).
How then do the different newspapers come out of this all? Here are the …
ComRes, S.Indy/S.Mirror … CON 38%, LAB 34%, LIB DEM 21%
ICM in the S.Telegraph … CON 38%, LAB 33%, LIB DEM 21%
Polls at this stage of the parliamentary cycle (apparently a full 5 years before the next election) are a little academic. Still, let’s give them their moment.
From a Lib Dem perspective, I’m moderately encouraged: our support is down, unsurprisingly, but it has not evaporated overnight. It’s at least arguable that our support might be lower still if Nick Clegg hadn’t struck a deal with the Conservatives: parties which have under-performed at an election tend to suffer in the immediate post-election polls.
There has also been more analysis of first reactions to the Lib-Con coalition government.
A YouGov poll suggests that the Lib Dem/Conservative coalition has the approval of 60% of the public – almost exactly the combined vote of the two parties in last week’s General Election.
Of course, the reality is slightly more complex than this, with a significant minority of Labour voters approving and not every Lib Dem or Conservative voter being in favour.
The British public broadly approve of the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition that, under Tory David Cameron, now forms the Government at Westminster. 60% of the British public say they approve of the Conservative-LibDem coalition, following an unprecedented week
First thoughts from ComRes on why the Liberal Democrat vote share last week, although up for the third general election in a row, was much lower than the polls had been predicting:
We along with many others were surprised by the eventual Lib Dem figure; but that’s not the whole story….. our Conservative Party vote share was, in the words of the BBC’s analysis, ‘bang on the button’ while we understated Labour support to the tune of 1.14% (incidentally the first time the Labour vote share has been understated since 1983). Along with every other polling company we
Lib Dem Voice reported eight of the final day polls yesterday – there was just one last polling company, Ipsos MORI, due, and their figures have now been published by the London Evening Standard:
CON 36%(nc), LAB 29%(-1), LIB DEM 27%(+4)
The average of these nine final polls is reported by the Standard as follows, with changes from 2005 in brackets:
CON 36%(+3), LAB 28%(-8), LIB DEM 27%(+5)
There were apparently 91 polls published during the 2010 general election campaign, compared with 30 five years ago.
Okay, well this is it – the final polls of the campaign are published tonight. Here’s what’s in so far:
YouGov in The Sun … CON 35%(nc), LAB 28%(-2), LIB DEM 28%(+4)
Opinium in the Express … CON 35%(+2), LAB 27%(-1), LIB DEM 26%(-1)
TNS BMRB … CON 33%(-1), LAB 27%(nc), LIB DEM 29%(-1)
Populus in The Times … CON 37%(+1), LAB 28%(+1), LIB DEM 27%(-1)
Angus Reid for PoliticalBetting.com … CON 36%(+1), LAB 24%(+1), LIB DEM 29%(nc)
Harris in the Daily Mail … CON 35%(-1), LAB 29%(+3), LIB DEM 27%(-1)
ICM in the Guardian … CON 36%(+3), LAB 28%(nc), LIB DEM 26%(-2)
ComRes for the Indy/ITV …
ComRes for Indy/ITV … CON 37%(nc), LAB 29%(nc), LIB DEM 26%(nc)
YouGov in the Sun … CON 35%(nc), LAB 30%(+2), LIB DEM 24%(-4)
Harris in Metro … CON 36%(+4), LAB 26%(+1), LIB DEM 28%(-2)
What to make of those? The YouGov poll is the least good news for the Lib Dems, showing a sharp 4% drop in support. It’s hard to see anything that’s happened in the last 24 hours triggering such a sudden dip, so this may turn out to be an outlier caused perhaps by the difficulties of polling over a bank holiday weekend. Of course, it may …
Tristan Ward @Jennie
"It’ll blow your mind to discover that there are HUMANS that produce both gametes, or neither"
I'm not aware of any examples of humans who produ...
Tristan Ward @Jennie
"anyone who has had their ovaries removed or gone through menopause is no longer a woman"
Obviously this is not correct.
"Yes, the majority o...
cim As far as voting complexity goes, there's two separate bits to that.
1) How difficult it is to understand how to vote? Closed List is exactly equal to FPTP, ...
Tim Boura @Chloe
You said "Fully understand that Mark. The problem is one set of rights should not take precedent over another. Does a female inmate have a right not t...
Jenny Barnes Seems to me that what most people mean by "biological sex" is "gender assigned at birth" . Gender. So the supreme court ruling makes very little sense....
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