Those students are a bit fickle.

Not only that the Conservatives increased their majority by 100 even though their vote share actually decreased. I think that's the only time since at least WW2 where that happened between he big two.

Latest Populus poll for FT has

CON 32 (-1)
LAB 34 (-)
LD 9 (-)
UKIP 15 (+1)

This survey from You Gov is worth a look:-

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/04/20...ory-defenders/

as is this piece from the Political Betting site:-

http://www2.politicalbetting.com/ind...-simply-wrong/

There is still plenty of scope for things to change in many directions.

Return of the ‘shy Tories’?

One of the major issues in 1992 was the so-called ‘Shy Tory’ phenomenon where voters told pollsters that they intended to vote Labour (or someone else) where in fact they actually intended to vote Conservative. If such a phenomenon repeats itself this could be crucial in such a close race. Former Conservative MP Rob Hayward has produced analysis (more here) showing that polls have regularly understated Conservative support this parliament when compared to the actual result in elections.

Could this happen again? It’s possible. A key group to watch out for is the cohort of Labour supporters that consistently say that they would prefer David Cameron as Prime Minister. For example, the latest Ipsos Mori political monitor shows that some 28% of current Labour supporters say that they are dissatisfied with Ed Miliband’s performance as Labour leader. Miliband’s ratings are of course improving during the campaign and it is debatable how much impact leader ratings have anyway. However, if we are looking for evidence of ‘Shy Tories’ then current Labour supporters unconvinced by Miliband would be an obvious place to start. We should remember, not all party ‘supporters’ in opinion polls are committed activists – some are floating voters liable to change their minds.

I'm in absolutely no doubt that there will be a late swing to the conservatives from the current position of roughly level, I would be absolutely staggered if the Conservatives won less of the popular vote than Labour.

The question however is whether that late swing will be enough to get them into a position to form a government, because if it just results in a 1% CON lead its likely Lab would be in a far more commanding position to form the government. However if it ends up being more like a 3-4% CON lead then they in my opinion would be in the best position to form a government.

I don't buy this argument when it comes to anonymous polls. What abuse is anyone going to get telling a total stranger at the other end of the country who they are going to vote for?

The same could be said of the independence vote, yet apart from one poll the result was called pretty accurately.

You get this with the so-called "shy UKIP" theory as well... but if these shy Kippers really existed you wouldn't have had a scenario last year when the 27% UKIP was polling 35%... if anything there's a "noisy UKIP" effect and their support is being overstated by some of the polling companies.

As long as it's still neck and neck.. anything can happen. There is still the unknown of how many people will vote UKIP. And Labour will be concerned about this SNP weight around their necks and also concerned if they don't appear to have broken away from CON. Could be a night of high drama.

Around 900 000 are said to have vanished from the electoral lists - students who couldn't cope the intricacies of registering?

In a speech in Sheffield, the Labour leader blamed the "hasty" introduction of the new system of individual voter registration for the problem, saying students were particularly affected.

People must now register to vote individually rather than one member of a household filling in a form.

Ministers said 90% of voters had moved automatically to the new system.

Mr Miliband told students at Sheffield Hallam University that the number of young people not registered to vote was a "scandal".


Labour said 307 of 373 local authorities that provided data had recorded a reduction in their electoral roll. Overall, there had been a reduction of 950,845, the party said.

Students are an extremely unreliable lot from a political perspective.

Last time, hundreds of thousands (many of whom would have gone LibDem) failed to show up at the polling booths and as a result the LDs didn't get as many seats as expected. How they can then complain that the LDs couldn't get the tuition fee pledge through is beyond me -- they brought it on themselves.

Indeed.

Latest ICM poll (17 - 19 Apr):
CON - 34% (-5)
LAB - 32% (-1)
UKIP - 11% (+4)
LDEM - 10% (+2)
GRN - 7% (-2)

sorry out of all the polls this one I have the biggest doubts about the way the numbers fly up and down.

Weird 34 (-5) implies it fell from 39.

When you say it was called "pretty accurately" The polls done a day before the referendum had NO winning by between 2 and 4%, when in reality NO won by 10%. I wouldn't call that particularly accurate, however I do agree with regards to the SNP I think the polls are real.

I think its interesting to read up on polls since 2010 for various elections (e.g european elections) , it seems most overstate Labour and understate the Conservatives. If that is indeed the case again current polls could actually be pointing to the Conservatives being 3-4 points ahead of Lab.

It will certainly be worth watching I am glad to of taken the Friday off work (pretty sure I'd of not been able to sleep anyway because I'd of had it on my mind all night).

I still think there will be a Con Lead of 2-4 points on the day, not sure if this will be reflected in polls leading up to the day or not.

I think this is more in line with reality, phone polls (like this one) generally seem to have the Con's 2 points ahead, online polls labour 2 points ahead. Also shows what most of us suspected that the ICM poll showing a massive tory lead was an outlier (and in fairness ICM pretty much told us this when they said the pool of people were a touch too tory).

no winning by 4% (52%) vs no winning by 10% (55%) is standard 3% MOE. Add that to the incumbency/inertia effect and they were about right.

There is no inertia effect when it comes to UKIP.

Fair points , what is your prediction of what the final vote shares for CON + LAB will be? I still think the Tory's will lead by 3-4.

I think that is plausible.

I have a feeling there will be a late break for both Tory and (to a lesser extent) LD. Tory 36% Lab 33% LD 11% UKIP probably 10-11%.

So students aren't going to vote Green because they don't like Natalie Bennett. And they are voting Tory instead? Truly bizarre.

Seems to me the pollsters are all converging. Better to all be wrong together than being the outlier that loses credibility on 8 May.

How much is fact and how much methodology?

Bit unfair -- the last poll was a rogue/outlier and ICM said so. This is pretty much a return to their normal findings.

I think roughly the same, and I'm of the thinking that a lead like the one you suggested would probably be close to enough for the Tories to get to around 290 seats which they probably need to form a government.

Hi there, just a couple of quick basic questions from someone who doesn't really understand all of these different polls, who are asked to create these polls as I have never been asked, and don't know anyone who has been, and also what sort of sample size is used to generate these numbers?

How reliable are they, and why are they banded about as being important? Surely the only poll that matters is the General Election one?


Thanks for any help.

Regarding ICM I read that the poll had Lab and Con level pegging however part of their methodology is to reassign have of "don't know's" back to where they voted in 2010, which is what gave the CON's a 2% lead. I think its probably correct to do that as historical evidence seems to show that leading into elections people tend to be more likely to go back to how they voted in the previous election.