Category Archives: Polls

Stephen Tall

73% say Marr wrong to ask PM about prescription pills

By Stephen Tall | Thu 1st October 2009 - 12:15 pm

An interesting little stat from YouGov’s latest tracker poll (with a hat-tip to Anthony Wells’ UK Polling Report blog). The internet polling company asked the question: Gordon Brown was asked on TV to respond to media rumours that he had been prescribed pills to help him cope with the stress of his job. Do you think it was right or wrong to ask him about this?

And here’s how those polled replied:

>> 22% – Right: the public have a right to know full medical details
>> 73% – Wrong: everyone, including the Prime Minister, has a right to privacy on medical matters that do not materially affect their work
>> 5% – Don’t know

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Stephen Tall

A look back at the polls: September ’09

By Stephen Tall | Wed 30th September 2009 - 7:10 pm

We tend not to be too poll-obsessed here at LDV – of course we look at them, as do all other politico-geeks, but viewed in isolation no one poll will tell you very much beyond what you want to read into it. Looked at over a reasonable time-span and, if there are enough polls, you can see some trends.

Here, in chronological order, are the results of the 18 polls published in September – the number is extra high this month because of the recently instituted daily YouGov tracker poll. (Note to self: we need to find a way of averaging the trackers, otherwise they will dominate and distort LDV’s (very unscientific) monthly poll average).

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Mark Pack

Tax on £1m houses: 69% in favour

By Mark Pack | Mon 28th September 2009 - 8:56 pm

We don’t usually do individual polls on The Voice, relying instead on Stephen’s monthly round-ups. But we do make exceptions when there’s something particularly striking or interesting about them and one of the recent YouGov questions falls into this category.

With the usual caveats about it a poll that is carried out in the middle of one party’s conference and that policy proposals can look different once they’ve been subject to constructive debate frequent attack from other parties, here it is:

The Liberal Democrats have proposed a new tax on the most expensive houses. Householders would pay an annual tax of …

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Mark Pack

What do councillors spend their time on?

By Mark Pack | Mon 7th September 2009 - 12:20 pm

ComRes has recently published the results of a survey it carried out earlier this year, asking over 500 councillors in England and Wales (but not Scotland) a wide range of questions.

One in particular which caught my eye was about how much time being a councillor took up, and where that time went:

Councillors spend the most hours per month attending council meetings and following this on committee work. On average, councillors spend about 19 hours a month attending council meetings. This is greatest among councillors serving in county councils who spend, on average, 24 hours a month attending council meetings. This

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Mark Pack

The Sun versus reality: how do they compare?

By Mark Pack | Thu 3rd September 2009 - 8:23 am

The Sun says: “Every August poll carried out before a spring election since 1996 has predicted the result to within one per cent.”

Reality says: MORI 24 August 2001 2000 – Con 29% (out by 4%), Lab 51% (out by 9%), lead 22% (out by 9%)

Although this is the most striking example, overall for example eight out of the 12 August polls since 1996 had the Labour lead out by more than 1%. Similarly, only three got the Labour share to within 1%.

Not exactly a case of “every”.

UPDATE: Himmelgarten Cafe points out that the graphic accompanying the Sun story isn’t …

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Mark Pack

How is public opinion playing out over MPs’ expenses?

By Mark Pack | Wed 2nd September 2009 - 2:20 pm

At the weekend, I saw a presentation of the June polling findings from the British Election Study. The BES is a collaborative academic exercise run before and at each general election. It is designed to gather some of the key raw material about the public’s opinions which will then be available to anyone who subsequently pours over the election, trying to explain why it turned out as it did.

The June results including some striking figures on the public’s reaction to the MPs’ expenses scandal:

  • Have you heard reports and MPs’ expenses? Yes: 95%
  • Do you think the scandal proves most MPs are

…

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Stephen Tall

A look back at the polls: August ’09

By Stephen Tall | Tue 1st September 2009 - 7:30 pm

We tend not to be too poll-obsessed here at LDV – of course we look at them, as do all other politico-geeks, but viewed in isolation no one poll will tell you very much beyond what you want to read into it. Looked at over a reasonable time-span and, if there are enough polls, you can see some trends.

Here, in chronological order, are the results of the six polls published in August:

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Stephen Tall

A look back at the polls: July ‘09

By Stephen Tall | Sat 1st August 2009 - 2:30 pm

We tend not to be too poll-obsessed here at LDV – of course we look at them, as do all other politico-geeks, but viewed in isolation no one poll will tell you very much beyond what you want to read into it. Looked at over a reasonable time-span and, if there are enough polls, you can see some trends.

Here, in chronological order, are the results of the nine polls published in July:

Tories 39%, Labour 26%, Lib Dems 19% – YouGov/Fabians (unpublished, 1st July)
Tories 41%, Labour 27%, Lib Dems 20% – ICM/Guardian (14th July)
Tories 42%, Labour 25%, Lib Dems 18% – YouGov/S. Times (18th July)
Tories 38%, Labour 23%, Lib Dems 22% – ComRes/S. Independent (19th July)
Tories 38%, Labour 26%, Lib Dems 20% – Populus/Times (21st July)
Tories 40%, Labour 24%, Lib Dems 18% – Mori (unpublished, 21st July)
Tories 40%, Labour 25%, Lib Dems 20% – YouGov/S. People (26th July)
Tories 42%, Labour 24%, Lib Dems 18% – ComRes/Independent (29th July)
Tories 41%, Labour 27%, Lib Dems 18% – YouGov/Telegraph (31st July)

Which gives us an average rating for the parties in July as follows (compared with June’s averages):

Tories 40% (+2%), Labour 25% (+2%), Lib Dems 19% (+1%)

All three main parties can take a little consolation from this month’s figures, which sees a slight recovery for each at the expense of ‘Others’ (chiefly Ukip, Greens and BNP), who were boosted by their increased exposure during the run-up to June’s local and Euro elections. However, both Labour and the Tories have yet to return to their pre-‘Expenses-gate’ support of 28% and 43% respectively.

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Mark Pack

Are you only interested in things you agree with?

By Mark Pack | Thu 30th July 2009 - 1:30 pm

That looks to be the view of many people according to the findings of the latest PoliticsHome Impact Tracker.

The tracker asks: “Below is a list of news stories that the media have focused on this week. Looking back over the week, please say which stories, if any, have most interested you. You may choose up to three.”

The overall figures show some interesting trends – the top story getting interest was ID cards (with 31%) just beating the story about two police dogs dying in a hot patrol car (29%). Yes, that’s right – a hard political story beat an animal tragedy story for interest from the public. In addition to those two, the renationalisation of the East Coast rail line also got more interest than the ongoing story of Michael Jackson’s death, a finding that raises some interesting questions about some of the media’s editorial judgements.

But what really caught my eye was the variation in the results when looked at by party affiliation. It’s perhaps no surprise that Conservative and Lib Dem supporters were far more likely to find the ID cards story interesting than Labour supporters. After all, they are both more likely to be opposed to ID cards, and generally opponents think ID cards are a much bigger deal than supporters.

It goes on though. Labour and Lib Dem supporters were much more interested in the railway renationalisation than Conservatives; Conservative and Lib Dems were more interested than Labour in the criticism of Michael Martin being given a peerage; Labour and Lib Dems were more interested than Conservatives in the news that George Osborne’s mortgage expense claims are being investigated and so on.

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Mark Pack

What does the public think on tax, spending and the budget deficit?

By Mark Pack | Thu 23rd July 2009 - 9:20 pm

From MORI’s latest email newsletter rounding up some of their most recent poll findings:

Many believe that efficiencies, rather than cuts, can ‘rebalance the books’. Four in five (79%) agree that efficiencies can help cut government spending without damaging services, while around half (51%) are not persuaded that there is a need to cut spending on services to pay off the national debt. This suggests that many of the public are either not aware of, or not facing up to, ‘hard truths’, as espoused by many independent experts like Robert Chote of the IFS.

No public consensus exists on how best to

…

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Stephen Tall

A look back at the polls: June ’09

By Stephen Tall | Sat 4th July 2009 - 11:30 am

We tend not to be too poll-obsessed here at LDV – of course we look at them, as do all other politico-geeks, but viewed in isolation no one poll will tell you very much beyond what you want to read into it. Looked at over a reasonable time-span and, if there are enough polls, you can see some trends.
Here, in chronological order, are the results of the twelve polls published in June:

Tories 37%, Labour 21%, Lib Dems 19% – YouGov/Telegraph (4th June 2009)
Tories 38%, Labour 22%, Lib Dems 20% – ComRes/Independent (9th June)
Tories 36%, Labour 24%, Lib Dems 19% –

…

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Mark Pack

What newspapers do Liberal Democrat voters read?

By Mark Pack | Wed 10th June 2009 - 9:50 am

From the recent YouGov poll for Channel 4:

Which daily newspaper do you read most often?
42% Express / Mail / Mirror / Record / Sun / Star
25% No newspaper
18% FT / Guardian / Independent / Times / Telegraph
15% Other

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Stephen Tall

A final look back at the Euro polls

By Stephen Tall | Thu 4th June 2009 - 12:40 pm

Today is (in case you hadn’t realised) polling day – for much of England that means local elections, for everyone it means European elections – which means it’s our last chance to look at the polls for the Euros, and try and make some sense of them. There have been 11 polls in the last month asking voters to say which party they’ll choose on 4th June:

Here they are in chronological order:

>> Con 37%, Lab 22%, Lib Dem 19%, Ukip 7%, Green 4%, BNP 4%, Nats 5% (YouGov certain to vote, 10th May)
>> Con 34%, Lab 25%, Lib Dem 20%,

…

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Mark Pack

Conservative voters back electoral reform; public doesn’t want to cut MP pay

By Mark Pack | Mon 1st June 2009 - 7:15 pm

An interesting snippet from today’s YouGov poll:

Here are some proposals that have been made for reforming our political system. In each case do you agree or disagree with it?

Introduce a new voting system for electing MPs which would link the number of seats to the total vote of each party, and make it harder for a single party to win general elections outright.

Support: 52%
Oppose: 20%

Amongst Conservative voters:

Support: 40%
Oppose: 33%

Not surprisingly, Liberal Democrat voters are much keener, but it’s interesting to note that a majority of Conservatives agreed with this question.

The other question that particularly caught my eye was on MPs’ pay, where the …

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Stephen Tall

A look back at the polls: May ’09

By Stephen Tall | Sun 31st May 2009 - 12:47 pm

We tend not to be too poll-obsessed here at LDV – of course we look at them, as do all other politico-geeks, but viewed in isolation no one poll will tell you very much beyond what you want to read into it. (And how true does that sentence read after the contrasting results in successive days from Populus and ICM, the former showing the Lib Dems as laggards, the latter as the real opposition.) Looked at over a reasonable time-span and, if there are enough polls, you can see some trends.

Here, in chronological order, are the results of the …

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Richard Huzzey

Poll Position for the Lib Dems?

By Richard Huzzey | Sun 31st May 2009 - 12:05 am

Lib Dem Voice doesn’t do polls. But if it did, we would draw readers’ attention to two rather different recent surveys of opinion.

On Friday, Populus suggested a surge for UKIP — who would relegate Labour to third place and leave the Lib Dems fighting it out with the Green party for fourth place.

Sunday’s papers will bring a new ICM poll putting us at 25% at Westminster and 20% in the European elections – in both cases relegating Labour to third place in the popular vote.

Are they both outliers? Political Betting’s sage Mike Smithson offers …

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Mark Pack

How the Canadian pollsters performed

By Mark Pack | Tue 19th May 2009 - 10:10 am

Cross-posted from The Wardman Wire:

May 12th saw voting in the British Columbia elections. This Canadian provincial election saw Gordon Campbell’s governing Liberals re-elected and also a few barbs thrown about internet polling. As in the UK, internet polling has both its fans and its detractors. So does the Canadian experience help shed any light on the UK polling debates?

Perhaps the most striking fact about Canadian pollsters is that they haven’t yet had a “1970″. In Britain, pollsters got the 1970 general election badly wrongly with much of the blame being placed on having fieldwork that ended too far ahead …

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Stephen Tall

A look at the Euro polls to date

By Stephen Tall | Mon 18th May 2009 - 1:57 pm

We’re mid-way through the campaign for the European Parliament elections – though, as yet, discussion of Britain’s role in the EU has not been the, erm, dominant story. But, still, there have been five polls to date in May specifically asking for the public’s Euro voting intentions, so let’s check out what they’ve been saying:

Here they are in chronological order:

  • Con 36%, Lab 25%, Lib Dem 20%, Ukip 7%, Green 4%, BNP 4%, Nats 4% (YouGov all naming party, 10th May)
  • Con 37%, Lab 22%, Lib Dem 19%, Ukip 7%, Green 4%, BNP 4%, Nats 5% (YouGov certain to vote, 10th May)
  • Con

    • …

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    Stephen Tall

    Another good week for Nick Clegg

    By Stephen Tall | Sat 16th May 2009 - 9:30 am

    Okay, so it’s not the most controversial headline you’re going to read on a Lib Dem blog all week. But, still, I think it needs saying – because though we Lib Dems, especially in the blogosphere, tend to be quite good at criticising our leadership, MPs and other ‘powers that be’, I’m not sure we always spread the love when it’s deserved.

    I kept my powder dry during the leadership campaign, didn’t declare my voting intention, have never publicly disclosed it since. I felt both candidates – Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne – had very real strengths. I also thought each …

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    Stephen Tall

    A look back at the polls: April 2009

    By Stephen Tall | Sun 3rd May 2009 - 9:06 pm

    We tend not to be too poll-obsessed here at LDV – of course we look at them, as do all other politico-geeks, but viewed in isolation no one poll will tell you very much beyond what you want to read into it. Looked at over a reasonable time-span and, if there are enough polls, you can see some trends.

    Here, in chronological order, are the results of the eight polls published in April:

    Tories 41%, Labour 34%, Lib Dems 16% – YouGov/S. Times (5th April 2009)
    Tories 43%, Labour 30%, Lib Dems 18% – Populus/Times (7th April)
    Tories 43%, Labour 26%, Lib Dems 21%

    …

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    Alix Mortimer

    A quick word on the polls

    By Alix Mortimer | Sun 19th April 2009 - 11:10 am

    Yes, I know the monthly poll round-up here is sacred. But before we all chow down to our weekend Smeargate extravaganza, let’s briefly consider the latest exploits of BPIX.

    As regular poll-watchers will know, we don’t incorporate BPIX’s figures into our monthly round-up at LDV because, uniquely among pollsters, their figures and filters are not published for scrutiny. It should be noted that BPIX commission Yougov to carry out the actual polling, but then apply their own undisclosed filters and methods to interpret the findings. BPIX only works for the Mail.

    Last time they polled, in

    …

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    Stephen Tall

    A look back at the polls: March 2009

    By Stephen Tall | Sun 5th April 2009 - 2:20 pm

    We tend not to be too poll-obsessed here at LDV – of course we look at them, as do all other politico-geeks, but viewed in isolation no one poll will tell you very much beyond what you want to read into it. Looked at over a reasonable time-span and, if there are enough polls, you can see some trends.

    Here, in chronological order, are the results of the eight polls published in March:

    Tories 42%, Labour 30%, Lib Dems 19% – Populus/Times (9th March 2009)
    Tories 41%, Labour 31%, Lib Dems 17% – YouGov/S. Times (15th March)
    Tories 42%, Labour 32%, Lib Dems 14%

    …

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    Mark Pack

    Why David Laws was right

    By Mark Pack | Wed 18th March 2009 - 6:23 pm

    Appearing on the BBC earlier today, David Laws made the point that the Conservative Party’s lead in the opinion polls is fairly modest at the moment compared with Labour’s in the run-up to 1997.

    This led Mike Smithson to blog:

    Why’s the LD schools spokesman getting it so wrong?

    You’ll have to indulge me if you think I’ve banged on about this too much – but I have a real “bee in my bonnet” about the phoney invalid polling comparisons that journos, pundits and politicians are rushing to make when they compare the polling position at the moment with what went on

    …

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    Stephen Tall

    Some evidence that Lib Dem supporters are a liberal and coherent grouping

    By Stephen Tall | Mon 16th March 2009 - 6:31 pm

    There are a couple of interesting titbits from the latest Sunday Times / YouGov poll, published at the weekend, and published in full here.

    For years, opposition parties have levelled the charge at Lib Dems that our supporters are chiefly a ‘neither of the above’ option, that the party is merely a repository for disenchanted protest votes. For years, Lib Dems have refuted the charge, arguing that the party is the only one which has continued to stand by its founding ideology, liberalism.

    So I always take a close look at detailed opinion poll data to see if …

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    Mark Pack

    A reminder of how little some people know about politics

    By Mark Pack | Thu 5th March 2009 - 3:20 pm

    BBC Wales has commissioned an opinion poll from ICM, which contains this:

    Who do you think forms the current Welsh Assembly Government?

    Labour and Plaid Cymru 48%
    Labour 21%
    Plaid Cymru 6%
    Labour and the Liberal Democrats 5%
    Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats 3%
    Liberal Democrats 2%
    Conservatives 2%
    Other 2%
    Don’t know 11%

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    Stephen Tall

    A look back at the polls: February 2009

    By Stephen Tall | Sun 1st March 2009 - 3:50 pm

    We tend not to be too poll-obsessed here at LDV – of course we look at them, as do all other politico-geeks, but viewed in isolation no one poll will tell you very much beyond what you want to read into it. Looked at over a reasonable time-span and, if there are enough polls, you can see some trends.

    Here, in chronological order, are the results of the seven polls published in February:

    Tories 40%, Labour 28%, Lib Dems 22% – ICM/S. Telegraph (8th Feb 2009)
    Tories 42%, Labour 28%, Lib Dems 18% – Populus/Times (10th Feb)
    Tories 41%, Labour 25%, Lib Dems 22% – ComRes/S. Independent (15th Feb)
    Tories 44%, Labour 32%, Lib Dems 14% – YouGov/S. Times (15th Feb)
    Tories 48%, Labour 28%, Lib Dems 17% – Mori/unpublished (17th Nov)
    Tories 42%, Labour 30%, Lib Dems 18% – ICM/Guardian (24th Nov)
    Tories 41%, Labour 31%, Lib Dems 15% – YouGov/Telegraph (27th Nov)

    Which gives us an average rating for the parties in February as follows, compared with January’s averages:

    Tories 43% (n/c), Labour 29% (-3%), Lib Dems 18% (+2%)

    What to make of this month’s polls, which paradoxically convey both stability and fluctuation? The Tories seem to be relatively stable, in the low 40s% – except for Mori which elevates them to 48%, touching the heights of New Labour before its landslide. Labour appear relatively stable, hovering just at or below 30% – except for ComRes which relegates them to 25%, only a margin of error’s breadth ahead of the Lib Dems. And the Lib Dems seem to be relatively stable in the 17-22% range – except for YouGov which sees the party stuck firmly at a pretty paltry 14-15%.

    All this statistical noise is, of course, ironed out by our monthly average, which sees Labour ceding ground to the Lib Dems. Indeed, it seems a lifetime ago, but just back in December Labour’s poll average was 35%: they have dropped 6% in the space of just a few weeks, with the spoils evenly shared between the Lib Dems and Tories.

    Such has been Labour’s decline that it has prompted a brief effervescence of speculation that Gordon Brown might be tempted to resign if he thought it would assist his party’s fortunes. This prompted ICM to ask the question on behalf of The Guardian: ‘Putting aside your own political party preference for a moment do you think Labour will do better at the next general election with Gordon Brown in charge, or with another leader?’

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    Mark Pack

    How The Telegraph misreported today’s YouGov poll findings on immigration

    By Mark Pack | Fri 27th February 2009 - 2:39 pm

    The Daily Telegraph today has its regular monthly YouGov poll. They’ve headlined their report:

    Immigration is top issue for both Labour and Tory voters, YouGov poll shows

    They go on to say:

    A Daily Telegraph/YouGov survey shows that it is the top concern that people want an incoming Conservative government to deal with.

    Problem is, that isn’t really what the poll says.

    One of the plus points of the paper using a polling firm that is a member of the British Polling Council is that we can get ready access to much fuller information than that in the report. If you have a look …

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    Mark Pack

    YouGov’s polling panels: an interesting snippet from Peter Riddell

    By Mark Pack | Tue 24th February 2009 - 11:57 pm

    At tonight’s launch of a Microsoft/Hansard Society report into MPs’ use of the internet, The Times’s Peter Riddell revealed an interesting snippet of information about YouGov’s panel for its political polls might be: YouGov decided it couldn’t do any polls during the Glasgow East by-election because it had only around 100 panel members in the constituency, and they were overwhelmingly public sector workers – i.e. a very atypical cross-section.

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    Mark Pack

    How The Guardian completely misreported an opinion poll finding

    By Mark Pack | Wed 18th February 2009 - 7:25 am

    Last Thursday, The Guardian’s G2 section carried this rather surprising claim:

    According to Keep Britain Tidy, we write more letters to our elected representatives, locally and in Westminster, about dog fouling than we do about anything else.

    I did a bit of a double-take when I read it because, in my time, I’ve both dealt with quite a lot of correspondence from the public to elected representatives, worked closely with people who have dealt with even more correspondence and trained people who have dealt with yet more correspondence. And I’ve never got a hint that this is anywhere close to being true. …

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    Mark Pack

    How accurate are YouGov polls?

    By Mark Pack | Sun 8th February 2009 - 8:50 am

    It’s a well-established pattern during this Parliament that YouGov generally gives lower ratings to the Liberal Democrats than other pollsters, and this appears to be due to YouGov finding female voters to be more Conservative than other polling companies. Whilst YouGov did well in last year’s London Mayor elections, its record in other elections is more mixed. Most notably, its exist poll at the last European elections got the Conservative and UKIP vote shares badly wrong.

    Interesting then to see Ben Goldacre’s column in yesterday’s Guardian which, on the way to rubbishing the PR of an insurance company, took to …

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