Tory lead down to 2 points, or is it.

Charterhouse

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

Yes the Tory lead drops from 17 to 2. Must be bias in the pollster's methods.

You really do need to do some research into what you are posting.

Anyway, this suits me, gives me better odds to get my bets on the Tories on. Just closed out my short Tories spread bet that I entered at 355 in £20 a point at 330. Nice. I'll probably see if I can get long here, there is no way it's going to be that bad.

Spartacus_Mills

Charterhouse wrote: »

You really do need to do some research into what you are posting.

That is asking an awful lot. The comment summarised the lack of thought and carelessness RP exhibits when he/she posts.

Charterhouse wrote: »

Anyway, this suits me, gives me better odds to get my bets on the Tories on. Just closed out my short Tories spread bet that I entered at 355 in £20 a point at 330. Nice. I'll probably see if I can get long here, there is no way it's going to be that bad.

Do you reckon ?

I am starting to look for value in Labour odds in the second set of 100 marginals and especially Scotland.

Of course the latest polls are against a background of almost wall to wall coverage for the Labour Party against far less for the Tories (just to make it clear to the resident jester this is not due to bias but more a reflection of the respective parties profiles). Maybe as the Tories start to raise their profile more this will change. Labour appear to have gained almost exclusively from the Lib Dems with the Tories vote still within MOE of 40% where it has been for over a year.

The one interesting thing will be the effect of the Lib Dem vote in the Lab-Tory marginals. I have a feeling in some of them, certainly the ones in the second batch of 100, Labour will be able to squeeze this and hold on to some they should lose.

Spartacus_Mills

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

Yes the Tory lead drops from 17 to 2. Must be bias in the pollster's methods.

Just one other reply.

From Nick Palmer, Labour MP for Broxtowe, this morning on the Yougov poll.

I guess we’ll be back to debating YouGov’s weighting this afternoon before we get around to Cameron. The raw data shows the Tories 465-351 ahead, which is lots, so all you Weighting Sceptics out there have got material to go on. The point about YouGov, though, is that their method has always been curious. In theory it ought to be all wrong to have polling restricted to internet users and to ignore certainty to vote and to adjust for demographic factors with uncertain links to political preference. In practice it’s turned out to work well in predicting results.
What we don’t need to argue about is the trend, which has clearly moved towards Labour (and not just in YouGov).

by Nick Palmer MP February 28th, 2010 at 10:36 am

Nick makes some intelligent points. You might want to try it sometime.

markharding557

The only poll that matters is the one where we can all vote.
This is why these newspaper polls should be seen as entertainment

Sir_Humphrey

ICM are showing a narrowing of polling too.

Unweighted data is pretty useless for drawing conclusions from these sorts of surveys. So although there could be flaws in the YouGov method, it is also spurious to claim that the unweighted data is a better indicator of truth.

It always used to be claimed that YouGov showed a Tory bias, as internet users were more affluent and therefore more likely to be Tory. Given that, I would certainly expect, ceteris paribus, that their weighting would move in favour of Labour and rightly so.

wymondham

None of this means anything until poll night surely?

michaelvintner

markharding557 wrote: »

The only poll that matters is the one where we can all vote.
This is why these newspaper polls should be seen as entertainment

Exactly, we will find out what everyone thinks when election day comes.

Sir_Humphrey

Opinion polls are the house price indexes of political junkies.

Don't believe them when they say they do not care!

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Spartacus, you make some valid points.....

But, in fairness, you've been making similar points for some time now, and the trend has been moving sharply towards Labour.

And not just with You Gov.

The poll I posted earlier this week, with the Tory lead dropping to 5 points, was Ipsos Mori.

Raw polling data is weighted for a reason, and whilst the different pollsters presumably use different weighting methodologies, the results amongst all pollsters are now showing significant tightening of the race.

Which, IMO, is exactly what you'd expect given the official end of recession, better than expected jobless numbers, the housing market recovery, and the Tories terminally stupid mistake of trying to push an Austerity Agenda onto a recession weary British public.

I could well believe that a single outlier poll, or single polling company that's changed it's weightings, could be mistaken. But I find it highly unlikely that several different polling organisations could be getting it so badly wrong.

The more likely explanation is that the Tories are genuinely in trouble.

Spartacus_Mills

Well I stand by what I said and when I said it however on the basis of this poll, and even allowing for the change in methodology, it would be churlish to claim there is not a shift to Labour. I do not see it as significant but it could become significant if it is unchecked by the Tories. I do not believe the Tories are in trouble yet but they could be very soon. Cameron has got to give the speech of his life today.

The issue about the raw polling data and the weighting applies more to Yougov than anyone else as they have modified it over the last 18 months. Their raw data has shown little movement in comparison to their polls.

For me the most apparent issue the Tories have failed to address is Labour's infinitely superior media management. Some Tories will see this as bias. I like politicalbetting.com but get fed up with the constant accusations of bias laid at the door of Adam Boulton, the BBC, the printed media. Labour are just spinning and managing the media far more effectively and presenting the agenda they want to present. The Tories are all at sea and Coulson and Hilton are floundering somewhat.

The issue of cuts is one the Tories have to make more of. In the early eighties and early nineties when cuts were made we still grew. Cuts have to be made in my view and it should not put us back into recession.