The UK Politics and EU Referendum thread - merged

[Jon MW]

Will these polls capture the increased young participation? Are landline surveys going to capture that?

Being the one stopped clock last time might not mean much

I've been doing some polling and calling people and damn it's hard to get hold of 18-34 year olds, and slightly less hard to get 35-44 year olds. We have been calling mobiles as well as landlines but...

Here is some data for the MRP yougov poll

https://yg-infographics-data.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/ZAfbtHgj42wx4reHnaMtbBamoKdMxkFMpz4gnWMjiZCUAxDX66MsCB38K/2019_data/MRP_Tables_2019_Election_Public_Release.pdf

Page 16 has the raw data for age.

In terms of the categories you mention 18-25 were 8% of the sample, 25-30 were 6% and 30-35 were 7% and on the other hand
35-40 is 7% and 40-45 is 7%.

EDIT: in terms of some Labour voters tweeting that yougov never pick them - the figures were 39% Conservative and 35% Labour in the sample.

[nirvana]

Drives me crazy that people can't properly refute the nonsense that talking about the price for drugs in a trade deal is equivalent to putting up the NHS for sale

Just ask anyone banging on about the NHS for sale in trade talks if they would stop sourcing any American made drugs ? Ask them how cheap the generic drugs made in America, and bought by us, actually are. It would be ridiculous not to include drugs in trade talks

Literally makes me froth

[Marky147]

Will these polls capture the increased young participation? Are landline surveys going to capture that?

Being the one stopped clock last time might not mean much

I've been doing some polling and calling people and damn it's hard to get hold of 18-34 year olds, and slightly less hard to get 35-44 year olds. We have been calling mobiles as well as landlines but...

18-34 year olds aren't ever logged out of FB/Instagram/Snapchat for long enough to answer their phones

[bobAlike]

Drives me crazy that people can't properly refute the nonsense that talking about the price for drugs in a trade deal is equivalent to putting up the NHS for sale

Just ask anyone banging on about the NHS for sale in trade talks if they would stop sourcing any American made drugs ? Ask them how cheap the generic drugs made in America, and bought by us, actually are. It would be ridiculous not to include drugs in trade talks

Literally makes me froth

Totally this and anyone who thinks otherwise must be as blind as Corbyn.

[aaron1867]

Labour up again

Westminster #GE2019 
Con 42% (NC)
Lab 34% (+2%)
Lib Dem 13% (-1%)
Brexit Party 4% (+1%)*
Green 3% (+1%)

[TightEnd]

and again

Westminster Voting Intention:

CON: 39% (-2)
LAB: 33% (+5)

Via @BMGResearch
, 27-29 Nov.
Changes w/ 19-21 Nov.

its tightening

[TightEnd]

I wrote this for yesterday for BE

The General Election

Two weeks to go, and we (Neil Channing and I) have been pondering for a week or so writing about the Overall Majority market, and specifically the price at which “no overall majority” became attractive, and at which a big Tory majority was priced in.

As I write a Conservative majority is 1/3 No overall majority is out to 5/2, having been near evens when the campaign began. The latest tick out to 5/2 in the aftermath of the You Gov MRP poll out midweek, which attracted huge amounts of anticipation and attention and predicted a 68 seat Conservative majority and showed a 11 point lead with some very interesting constituency by constituency polling albeit in some constituencies on tiny sample sizes from within the whole 270,000 respondent survey.

A notable element of this report (actually out of date by the time it was published) was the potential results it showed across a range of Labour held Northern and Midlands constituencies which voted leave in 2016, the so called “red wall”. The swing from Labour to Conservative since 2017 appears to be higher in those particular constituencies that voted most strongly for Leave. Such a finding seems plausible since across the polls as a whole there is a ten-point swing from Labour to Conservative among individual voters who backed Leave in 2016, compared with just a one point swing among those who voted Remain. This has reported caused Corbyn (with a nuanced Brexit strategy, latterly speaking of being neutral going forward) to change campaigning tactics towards such areas, featuring Leave supporting Shadow Cabinet members.

However, we would caution against extrapolating too far from the MRP a fortnight out from the vote. Many of its projections of Tory gains from Labour are based on relatively small estimated majorities, I counted over 40 where the gap between the big two parties in the Conservatives favour was less than 5%. Whilst 11 points and 68 seats was their finding  a four-point drop in the Tory lead would have us in hung parliament territory, the composition of the current electoral map requires the Conservatives to lead by 7 points to get to the 323 seats required

In the last week MRP aside there has been a narrowing of the polls by a couple of points. Six companies put the Conservative vote down one point and Labour up three. Today a new poll had Tory +8, with a three point swing to Labour (-1 Con, +2 Lab).

So is a hung parliament still a possibility? Is 5/2, in betting terms, value?

Much like in 2017 many Labour policies are popular and poll well. What is missing this time round is a) that an unimaginative and conservative with a small “c” Tory manifesto isn’t going to scare an older voter base thinking about “Getting Brexit done” (which doesn’t happen if even a new parliamentary majority gets the deal through) and b) Corbyn hasn’t had a great personal campaign dogged for example by ongoing anti-semitism rows

This is a tough election to call by trying to look at the macro picture, with a Brexit overlay and there appear to be two types of swing voter at play here a) the previously Labour voting heartland Brexit voter and b) the centrist remainer whether former Conservatives or Blairites. At a micro level the leave vote is more united in one direction than the remain vote and whilst it is understandable on both sides that there is no tactical voting pact between the Lib Dems and Labour (the Lib Dems were in an austerity focussed coalition four years ago, Corbyn isn’t the ideal partner for a party with a central policy of revoke) we are left wondering if at a local level any of that will come into play.

For now, certain of us are left hoping for some “Portillo moments” in the constituencies of the likes of Raab, IDS and Redwood, without even considering Uxbridge, if only enough voters from the left lent their votes to the party best placed to topple the incumbent rather than expecting them.

One thing the MRP does indicate to potential Lib Dem strategic voters in three way marginals is that things aren't as clear as they appeared at the start so in the London marginals such as Kensington, Wimbledon and Cities of London/Westminster voters may now pick Labour whereas at the start of the campaign they were perhaps looking at impressive Euro results and much higher polling for the Lib Dems and thinking of going that way. We would think that the poor performance of Jo Swinson and the fall in her personal approval ratings means that the Lib Dem projected vote share will drop further leading to a drop in her seats due to tactical voters getting a clearer idea of which way they need to look.

There have been 3.2m new voter registrations (about 10% of the 2017 total vote) since the campaign began. 66% of those are from potential voters under the age of 35 and a majority would be expected to break Labour. When there was a surge in 2017, up to 40% of these new registrations turned out to be duplicates from people already on the register but in 2019 even if only 60% are new voters, that is a significant inroad to the nine million people previously not registered.

As ever, this sort of report is a hostage to the fortunes of the next fortnight, but expecting the polls to narrowly slightly further (Labour squeezing the smaller parties, we think) we are going to take the plunge at 5/2

[nirvana]

You and channing can hope I guess

[nirvana]

n.b How much tax does channing and BE pay ?

[aaron1867]

I see your opinion on Jo Swinson has changed Tighty. Called it ages ago.

[TightEnd]

I see your opinion on Jo Swinson has changed Tighty. Called it ages ago.

its not my opinion, just a disspassionate look at how its gone

[aaron1867]

Seen more polls, same pattern

Tories - down slightly
Labour - up slightly
Lib Dem - down massively

Interesting one I’ve seen is in Raab’s constituency, huge gains for labour

[TightEnd]

Marina Hyde

Every punch lands on the jaw

[RED-DOG]

I lolled.

[RickBFA]

Marr gives Chakrabarti a nice comfortable easy interview.

Suddenly changes into an aggressive interviewer when Johnson turns up.

Obviously unbiased.