Another manic Monday! Today we got four GB polls, starting with Populus/FT. Six of the last 9 Populus online polls have had Labour 2 points ahead, so no surprises here:
Populus/FT: CON 32 (-1) LAB 34 (=) LIB 9 (=) UKIP 15 (+1) GRN 4 (=) Fieldwork 17th-19th N=2,048 Tabs http://t.co/2YZbh05tgv #GE2015
— NumbrCrunchrPolitics (@NCPoliticsUK) April 20, 2015
ICM/Guardian, now weekly for the campaign, showed a reversion to the mean after last week‘s apparent rogue poll. The tables didn’t show any of the odd features from last week.
ICM/Guardian: CON 34 (-5) LAB 32 (-1) LIB 10 (+2) UKIP 11 (+4) GRN 5 (-2) Dates 17th-19th N=1,003 Writeup http://t.co/vvL557RR7V #GE2015
— NumbrCrunchrPolitics (@NCPoliticsUK) April 20, 2015
Lord Ashcroft’s phone poll moved in the opposite direction to ICM, with a four-point Tory lead after a tie last week. Although that means the last two Mondays’ phone polls have each averaged a three-point Conservative lead, given how odd ICM looked last week, in all likelihood it’s probably a widening of the lead as measured by phone:
Ashcroft National: CON 34 (+1) LAB 30 (-3) LIB 10 (+1) UKIP 13 (=) GRN 4 (-2) Dates 17th-19th N=1,002 Tabs http://t.co/wMii9hdAQZ #GE2015
— NumbrCrunchrPolitics (@NCPoliticsUK) April 20, 2015
Ashcroft focus group (leaders' fav tv shows): DC Eastenders EM Panorama NC Countryfile/Antiques roadshow NF Only Fools and Horses #GE2015
— NumbrCrunchrPolitics (@NCPoliticsUK) April 20, 2015
Ashcroft also published a pair of constituency surveys in Edinburgh, which showed the SNP leading comfortably in Edinburgh North & Leith and narrowly in Edinburgh South. Incredibly, the 15% Labour to SNP swing in the latter is (by 5 points) the smallest swing Lord Ashcroft has found between those parties so far.
And finally YouGov/Sun, which was basically unchanged. So the phone vs online poll divergence seems to be continuing – watch this space for more on that in the very near future.
YouGov/Sun: CON 34 (=) LAB 35 (=) LIB 7 (-1) UKIP 13 (=) GRN 5 (=) Fieldwork 19th-20th Daily roundup to follow #GE2015 #newsnight
— NumbrCrunchrPolitics (@NCPoliticsUK) April 20, 2015
YouGov also had a Scottish Westminster poll out for the Times. Coincidentally, this also showed almost no change since the previous one (on April 9th):
YouGov/Times (Scotland): SNP 49 (=) CON 17 (-1) LAB 25 (=) LIB 5 (+1) Basically no change on two weeks ago… #GE2015 #Scotland2015
— NumbrCrunchrPolitics (@NCPoliticsUK) April 20, 2015
We also got two very different student polls – YouthSight hads Labour 10 points ahead of the Conservatives and the Greens collapsing 13 points down to third, while High Fliers had a tie for the lead and the Greens only 6 points behind in third places!
YouthSight (student): CON 25 (+2) LAB 35 (+2) LIB 9 (+2) UKIP 6 (+4) GRN 15 (-13) 2-8th N=1k http://t.co/eKKyJWB9dm pic.twitter.com/eH8wn43U4n
— NumbrCrunchrPolitics (@NCPoliticsUK) April 20, 2015
High Fliers (student VI): CON 31 LAB 31 LIB 6 UKIP 1 GRN 25 Writeup http://t.co/wOBUJbd97h HT @StephenDFisher
— NumbrCrunchrPolitics (@NCPoliticsUK) April 20, 2015
On a more general note, polling accuracy is becoming increasingly topical given the apparent closeness of the election. In a guest article for Political Betting, NOP’s Keiran Pedley discusses “Why this could be like 1992 when the polls were simply wrong”.
And finally, just to set any conspiracy theorists straight:
Latest ICM confirms trend: leftie papers' pollsters give Tory leads, righties give Labour leads. Swap offer still open, @patrickwintour.
— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) April 20, 2015
Tomorrow we’ll get the daily YouGov poll for the Sun and probably others too.
