The evidence from last year's Euro elections (a better comparison) is against you. In the run up to that election the polls consistently estimated UKIP support at a higher level (taken over groups of polls) than they achieved on polling day. No reason to believe that the reverse scenario applies this year.

The Referendum was a unique case. It does not easily compare to a more traditional election.

However, for interest let's test your theory. What % do you think UKIP will poll on May 7?

^^^ This +1. After the polling and PR disaster of the 1992 general election poll outputs, the polling companies made significant improvements to their methodologies to ensure that they weren't caught out again and their accuracy has significantly improved since then. That said, there will always be outlier polls now and again within the margins of error but they are much easier to identify.

I still think the polls will shift in favor of the Tory's, even in 2010 at this point the Tories were only averaging a 3-4% lead but finished up with a 7% lead.

On this very day in 2010, YouGov had The LibDem's laeding The Tories by 3 points and
ComRes had The Tories leading The LibDems by 8 points! plus a few other polls that had them basically tied

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/voting-intention-2005-2010

Shows how much things can change.

There is a possibility the pollsters are as wrong as they have ever been with this election as well.

The exit poll next month will I'm sure be very accurate though.

Agree with both points, I'm of the belief that the pollsters are clever enough to know what to do with the info they are given from exit polls which is very firm data so I'd be surprised if its miles out, but I think that current polls have far more potential to be wrong (and even if they aren't wrong there could be a shift in voting intentions as the day gets nearer).

I have looked at the data and I am still not going to buy in to Lynton Crosby's phantom phenomenon of polling effect. Indeed, it is reminiscent of the infamous Vulcan planet affair.

If there is a genuine move to one party or the another, and that might happen, then it should start to become apparent in both the individual polls and in the aggregate polls.

In 4 of the last 5 elections Lab's vote share has been overestimated by the polls, in local elections/eu elections etc. since 2010 the lab vote share has been overstated. I'm not saying it will happen I'm saying there's a reasonable chance it will.

I'd be shocked if the CON's don't have the largest share of the vote on may 7th (that doesn't necessarily mean the most seats obviously).

Well the 2010 GE is obviously the most recent precedent and the pollsters underestimated Labour's vote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politi...10/8667801.stm

The key point is the one just made which is that given the plurality of polls and polling methods if there was movement in the polls we would see it. Polling companies that tend to favour Labour would see a move towards parity and polls that favour the Tories would show their lead stretching. Currently whenever one company registers a surge in support for one party it swings back again almost immediately eg. ICM which is favourable to the Tories is now back more or less to parity after recording a surge last week. Same in reverse for Survation.

All of which is not to say that there won't be movement in the last two weeks but two further factors militating against it are the unlikelihood of a repetition of Brown's bigot catastrophe (although something similar could happen I suppose) and the stability of the polls over the last few months.

I'm afraid there's no gentle way of breaking this news: the polls have correctly called the winner/largest party in the 1997, 2001, 2005 and 2010 general elections after polling methods improved and I have no doubt that they'll do the same next month although if the two big parties are so close in numbers of votes then the direct relation between votes and seats just might break down so that we have a 1951 effect again.

I've seen no sign whatsoever of any consistent or observable last minute upturn effect for the outgoing governing party so why Crosby keeps going on about it is beyond reason. I do have one constructive suggestion for you though.

On election day itself, take a look at this well-visited site here http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/ and do your own poll of polls average of the last half a dozen polls only to ensure that they are the most recent ones and see what you come up with. That can then be compared with any post-10pm exit polls which themselves should be pretty accurate indicators of the real state of affairs.

Exc: Times / YouGov / Scotland 16-20 April
SNP 49
Lab 25
Con 17
LD 5
Other 4
Unchanged on April 8/9

The General Election result could even depend on what kind of weather it is across the UK from dawn to dusk on 7th May. The difference between a warm, dry and sunny day or a dull, wet and chilly one. In that case how would that favour things? Do pollsters even account for such aspects? Then there is which parties will get their vote to turn out the heaviest. What if it becomes clear that the election turnout is heavy, or heavier than expected? What is the perceived wisdom on what that would mean? The same for a lowish turnout? There are still so many unknowns.

Bad weather = low turn out = helps Tories.
nice weather = high turn out = helps Labour

You might be interested in this conversation between David Dimbleby and Tony King about the effect of the weather on polling during Election 92.

*licks screen*

Tonight's YouGov:

Lab 35 (=)
Con 34 (=)
LD 7 (-1)
UKIP 13 (=)
Green 5 (=)

So 2 Online polls have Labour ahead and 2 phone polls have the Tories ahead

...i.e. still a dead heat within the margin of error.

Do the Tories have any more in the tank?

They've promised stiff austerity and a mega giveaway at the same time.

They've spent years portraying Miliband as weak, then run for the hills when challenged by him.

Looking at the numbers, with the Tories getting 306 seats last time to Labour's 258, all that needs to bring the two parties level is a modest 24 seats going across to Labour. OK so there is the likely SNP snatch of a large number of Labour seats to factor into the equation but for my mind I think of SNP seats as defacto Labour in all but name. These SNP seats are not going to help the Tories but will clearly be gifted into Labour's hands one way or another.


Sorry Jason, I know you were trying to be helpful but have I got to wade through the full 8 hours of coverage to find what you mentioned?

I easily recall General Election Day in 1992, the first I could vote at. It was a very decent day for early April across England, warm and dry. But still Labour lost! I would not put it past the current Labour bunch to somehow manage to snatch defeat at this election from the jaws of a victory, as Kinnock was perceived to have done at the April 1st Sheffield rally with the appearance of his triumphalism.


I've been hearing about how Ed Miliband and Labour might be saving up a late election surprise announcement to spring into the campaign in the final days, whatever that might be?

Blimey, LD down at 7 😧

@LordAshcroft: Average of the 4 polls today CON 33.5% LAB 32.8% LDEM 9.0% UKIP 13.0% GRNS 4.5%

Hmm, it should've automatically played from 1:19:35 when it was being discussed.

Anyway, what Tony King said was that he got a weather report from the Met Office for a previous election and he found absolutely no correlation between the turnouts in particular areas and whether they had been sunny or rainy that day.

Do Labour have anything in the tank?

According to you and others Cameron is a nasty evil man who picks on the disabled and hates the poor yet Labour are on exactly the same percentage as Tories, therefore why is the fantastic, wonderful Mr Miliband not miles ahead in the polls?

Why are Labour not 10 -15 points ahead if Cameron is so bad and the British public hate him so much?

You keep telling us all these things about Cameron that he is a chicken, he is evil, that all his interviews are weak so why is he still level in the polls Jol 44, net nut, Jojoleno, all the people who come on every day and tell us he is hated.