the snap general election thread

Filo25

Guardian/ICM poll suggests Tories have 21-point lead over Labour

ICM was polling over the weekend, and here are the figures.

At 48%, the Conservatives are at their highest share of the vote in Guardian/ICM polling dating back to 1983. But their lead over Labour has not increased since our snap poll on Tuesday because the Conservatives and Labour are both up two points.

But Ukip is down to 7%. That is quite a steep drop from where they were the weekend before the general election was announced, when the Guardian/ICM poll had them at 11%.

Conservatives: 48% (up 2 since the snap Guardian/ICM poll last Tuesday)

Labour: 27% (up 2)

Lib Dems: 10% (down 1)

Ukip: 7% (down 1)

Greens: 3% (down 1)

Conservative lead: 21 points (no change)

ICM Unlimited interviewed a representative sample of 2,024 adults aged 18+ on 21 to 24 April 2017. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.

Looks like this is actually a new Poll over the weekend, although I can't find the detailed numbers anywhere yet.

Fella

padington wrote: »

Four new promised bank holidays will increase the Corbyn vote by quite a bit.

Another policy from the magic money tree.

michaels

Before the polls got it wrong because of 'shy tories' and differential turnout.

It is possible that they are now adjusting to address these two issues but neither of them may exist anymore:

It is no longer uancceptable to admit to being a tory; and
As a tory you no longer feel you must vote as otherwise Labour will get in (Labour are even more scary than they were under Ed and Ed but the threat of them winning is so remote it won't scare any potential Tories into voting. (Similarly if you are terrified of Labourno longer have to vote tory rather than libdem to ensure labour won't get in.)

mayonnaise

Fella wrote: »

Another policy from the magic money tree.

It worked a treat for the Leave campaign last year, so you can't blame Jeremy for trying.

spikyone

padington wrote: »

Four new promised bank holidays will increase the Corbyn vote by quite a bit. He just needs to promise to sell the crown state and share it out and he might have a chance.

I always thought it was possible he would just get silly ... and it might even work if he did. Watch the polls change now.

Clearly Corbyn and McDonnell didn't get the memo about productivity being weak in the UK, they think we're all working too hard already. Those two really are clueless on the economy, it's frightening to think people might vote for them simply because the press continue to paint the Conservatives as "nasty". I read a laughable article shared on Facebook where it was suggested that the benefits cap is a "terrifying" Conservative policy. What's more terrifying to me is that any right minded person would support handouts (excluding disability and carer's benefits, remember) equivalent to someone earning a £24.5k salary...

michaels wrote: »

Before the polls got it wrong because of 'shy tories' and differential turnout.

It is possible that they are now adjusting to address these two issues but neither of them may exist anymore:

It is no longer uancceptable to admit to being a tory; and
As a tory you no longer feel you must vote as otherwise Labour will get in (Labour are even more scary than they were under Ed and Ed but the threat of them winning is so remote it won't scare any potential Tories into voting. (Similarly if you are terrified of Labourno longer have to vote tory rather than libdem to ensure labour won't get in.)

I find this scenario worrying. I don't think Labour will do anything other than tank, but the possibility that complacency could strengthen Corbyn's hand is going to give me a sleepless night on June 8th.

antrobus

michaels wrote: »

Before the polls got it wrong because of 'shy tories' and differential turnout. ...

The British Polling Council inquiry says otherwise.

The widely held view that the polling miss was due to deliberate misreporting -‘shy Tories’ telling pollsters they intended to vote for other parties is difficult to reconcile with the results of the re-contact surveys carried out by the pollsters and with the two random surveys undertaken after the election. We reject deliberate misreporting as a contributory factor in the polling miss.

And

Data from a number of sources shows no support for differential turnout misreporting making anything but a very small contribution to the polling errors.

They have a more simple explanation;

Our conclusion is that the primary cause of the polling miss was unrepresentative samples.

http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/3789/1/Report_final_revised.pdf

davomcdave

antrobus wrote: »

The British Polling Council inquiry says otherwise.

The widely held view that the polling miss was due to deliberate misreporting -‘shy Tories’ telling pollsters they intended to vote for other parties is difficult to reconcile with the results of the re-contact surveys carried out by the pollsters and with the two random surveys undertaken after the election. We reject deliberate misreporting as a contributory factor in the polling miss.

And

Data from a number of sources shows no support for differential turnout misreporting making anything but a very small contribution to the polling errors.

They have a more simple explanation;

Our conclusion is that the primary cause of the polling miss was unrepresentative samples.

http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/3789/1/Report_final_revised.pdf

My take, mostly from reading the uk polling report website, is that polling errors were mostly due to not understanding that Tories were more likely to turn up to vote than Labourites. Most polling companies have adjusted for that apart, I believe, from Survation. Survation shows the smallest Tory lead measuring it in the high teens.

My guess is that there will be two forces at play this election to make the polls wrong:

1. Shy Labour. Are you seriously going to admit you want Corbyn to be PM?
2. Not turning out Labour. I'm Labour I love, love, love them and would never vote anything else but Corbyn, seriously???

Labour constituencies already have the lowest turnout. At some point the turnout will get so low that someone else gets in and Labour stops being the official opposition. That's when politics gets interesting. I wonder how it was socially as Labour displaced the Liberal Party.

Filo25

Truly awful numbers for Labour in Wales (they have had the highest share of the vote there since 1922 I believe)

Welsh Westminster voting intention:

CON: 40% (+12)
LAB: 30% (-3)
PC: 13% (-)
LDEM: 8% (-1)
UKIP: 6% (-7)

(via YouGov) Chgs. w/ Jan

davomcdave

Filo25 wrote: »

Truly awful numbers for Labour in Wales (they have had the highest share of the vote there since 1922 I believe)

Welsh Westminster voting intention:

CON: 40% (+12)
LAB: 30% (-3)
PC: 13% (-)
LDEM: 8% (-1)
UKIP: 6% (-7)

(via YouGov) Chgs. w/ Jan

To clarify are the changes versus Jan 2017 or something else? If against 1/1/2017 that's a huge move against Labour. Do you have a link to the data perchance?

Filo25

davomcdave wrote: »

To clarify are the changes versus Jan 2017 or something else? If against 1/1/2017 that's a huge move against Labour. Do you have a link to the data perchance?

I just got it from the Britain Elects twitter feed I'm afraid, haven't seen the full dataset.

There have been growing rumours recently that Labour are in big trouble in Wales, but even allowing for that those are hugely surprising numbers

EDIT: Actually just found it on Yougov, previous poll was 13th Jan 2017.