Okay, well this is it – the final polls of the campaign are published tonight. Here’s what’s in so far:
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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 … CON 37%(nc), LAB 28%(-1), LIB DEM 28%(+2)
Well, if that’s not a consistent pattern, I don’t know what is. The Tories are somewhere in the mid-30%s, with Labour and Lib Dems vying for second place in the high 20%s. Who’d have thought that was possible at the start of this campaign?
ComRes and ICM still to come, maybe others – we’ll update again later tonight. Apparently the very final poll will be Ipsos MORI’s in Thursday’s London Evening Standard.
Anthony Wells’ UK Polling Report’s ‘poll of polls’ shows the following final figures:
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CON 35%, LAB 28%, LIB DEM 27%
Anthony has blogged his final predictions here:
… my guess is we are going to see the Conservatives between 300-310, Labour between 220-230, the Liberal Democrats between 80-90 (though I warn you, I may be a pollster, but my personal powers of election prediction are notoriously poor!)
And YouGov’s chairman Peter Kellner has also stuck his neck out:
Overall, my prediction of the outcome tomorrow is:
Conservative: 300-310 seats
Labour: 230-240
Lib Dem: 75-85
Others: around 30
Don’t forget: you can make your predictions on the LDV Competetion thread here.
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15 Comments
ICM in the Guardian
Con 36% Lab 28% Lib Dem 26%
Unhelpfully reported as polls suggest victory for Cameron – ignoring
a) it’s not a big enough swing in Labour held seats, plus b) no swing in Lib Dems seats
c) all the other polls, which couldn’t possibly be better.
It seems old habits die hard in the Guardian and their love in with all things Dave continues – despite
apparently backing the Lib Dems
Peter Kellner of YouGov is predicting that David Cameron will just about be able to form a minority gov’t:
http://today.yougov.co.uk/politics/eve-election-predictions
This is starting to feel depressingly like 1992.
will democracy return to the UK? Will we have a “hung” parliament? Not a representative parliament yet(!) but maybe an opportunity for majority rule or at least if it is a minority administration then one held to account by the majority? Will it be a great day for democracy? Or will we have another government supported by around 35% able to take us to war as of old? May 6th – freedom day or a day of infamy? Not long to wait now!
I see YouGov has now corrected its “rogue” poll of yesterday, and returned to the figures revealed by its 11,500+ survey the day before. That was an amazingly big sample, and we got a regional breakdown. I will be interested to see if YouGov is right in predicting that the Tory vote is actually DOWN on 2005 in the South-East and South-West but not anywhere else.
BTW, all tonight’s polls put as higher than our previous best performance – the just under 26% of 1983.
It’s looking good (and it’s much better than previous elections) but I wish the surge had held a bit longer and then I wouldn’t have to be so nervous. I hope the weather is good and we get the vote out. No tory majority thanks.
http://www.miscellani.org/blog/2010/05/im-voting-liberal-democrat-in-the-general-election/
PS has anyone seen the vile cover on tomorrows Sun yet?
My general feeling is that Nick scores B+ for his election campaign. It’s a good solid performance, but he doesn’t quite pull it off to hit the top. I’d hoped for a real blinder eve-of-poll speech, even made some suggestions as to what it might contain, but we didn’t get one. Instead, a repeat of the message he’s been giving throughout – a strong one, but getting a bit samey by now.
The first TV debate did well for Nick, but in reality only because he proved to be good when many of those watching it were still attuned to it being Cameron v. Brown so were knocked by a solid performance from someone they were hardly aware of or thought would not be able to cope.
After that, perhaps the campaign managers were a bit too taken with Nick doing well that they forgot the Nick&Vince image they’d obviously been planning. What was needed was to counter the “Susan Boyle” accusations, that the rise in support was just a short-term vacuous response and wouldn’t last. What was needed was something solid to show we are not just Nick doing a good speech one evening, we’re a party full of talent which has been working hard for a long time.
I’m hoping the state of the polls masks a rise in support where we’ve been working against a fall where we haven’t and it really was a “Nick looking good in the TV debate” thing. In which case, it’s a fall only where it doesn’t matter anwyay.
It looks to me like the right-wing press was first so taken aback by the response to the first TV debate that they reported us factually, then they regrouped but went over the top in attack, finally managed to get it right (for them) and have been drip-feeding the propaganda successfully since then. They’ve gone a bit soft on Brown because they need him, they certainly can’t afford to drive his votes to us.
I suspect that Nick’s advisers fear the sort of strong and emotional speech I’d like to see wouldn’t work with Clegg giving it. And maybe they’re right. I’d love the response to the OTT attacks to have been a stronger “who runs the country?” line, but can Clegg look really convincingly an outsider attacking the whole financial/media establishment?
What’s pleasing is that there’s been no real “calamity Clegg ” moments. Fumbling the immigration question was the worst he did, he could have done far worse than that. on other things.
The end of last week should have seen the focus on the economy, which was the subject for the third debate. If that had happened, I think we’d have seen Vince back to the fore and comparing favourably with Osborne.
As it happened the Gillian Duffy business, a gift for the media if ever there was one, crowded it out of the picture.
I’m not sure I agree about the repetition, trouble is we politicos hear it a lall a ot, but most of the public are noweher near as engaged. Overall I think the ‘four things to remember’ theme came over well, and the income tax policy in particular was well received.
In some ways there wasn’t a crescendo today, but given where Nick’s seat is, if there had been the tabloids would ahve called it ‘another Sheffield rally!’
Oh well, time to get the stuff ready for the committee room to open in a few hours.
Anthony Wells summarises some predictions of the outcome:
Anyway, I can’t delay it any longer: my guess is we are going to see the Conservatives between 300-310, Labour between 220-230, the Liberal Democrats between 80-90 (though I warn you, I may be a pollster, but my personal powers of election prediction are notoriously poor!)
For other pollster predictions, TNS have made a seat prediction of CON 292, LAB 204, LDEM 114; Peter Kellner’s personal prediction is CON 300-310, LAB 230-240, LDEM 75-85; Angus Reid have a prediction of CON 320-340, LAB 165-185, LDEM 105-120.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2686
Whatever the truth of the matter, we seem to be heading for another Tory government – though whether it’s a minority government or one with a small majority (or even a working majority) is anyone’s guess. And Labour still firmly established as the main parliamentary opposition. That’s a depressing prospect, and a sad comedown from the expectations of a fortnight ago, even if the Lib Dems are able to congratulate themselves over ten or twenty gains.
Dont forget, the “Conservative and Unionist Party” bit in Northern Ireland, where they reckon they will be able to call in the tied support of the Ulstermen, this might prove crucial to Cameron. He had to get through the volcano cloud, “find an aeroplane” and all that guff, as it matters so much to the final numbers…
It’s not over til it’s over – I supect that with some places counting on Friday ? recounts etc, we won’t know until Friday evening what the final tally is.
Just need a couple of seats – Wells ? Aldershot ? to go Lib Dem on the back of the expenses scandal and at least a shiver of fear will run through the Tory camp.
Mouse…whats the matter with you, living up to your name? You left out Sandy Walkington, St. Albans, where the Tory is deep in the mire over her property and living arrangements, a three way marginal. One to watch as he’s not on anyone’s radar…
Anecdote Alert:
On returning from our Good morning leaflet delivery my wife told me she met a woman who said she was undecided until last night – but has decided to go Lib Dem after seeing Nick Clegg on the news. She also commented on how she thought the Good Morning leaflet was “a really nice touch”.
We live in the Richmond Park constituency.
Actually, the “minority government” could still be a good opportunity for electoral reform. Given that most MPs would – based on the manifestos – support some form of reform (Lib Dems, SNP & Plaid for STV, Labour for AV, and I think the NI parties too) a bill could possibly be just about forced through. Failing this, it does cry out for a cross-party campaign along the lines of the Scottish Constitutional Convention – and bear in mind that, at the outset of this, Labour didn’t want PR for it or for it to have tax-raising powers, and the Scottish Parliament has both.