Friday, April 15, 2011

No polls is good news/bad news/indifferent news?

I'm glad someone at Newsnight Scotland has finally spotted the bleedin' obvious point that we've had no fresh Holyrood polls for ages, and all the supposed 'latest polls' and 'poll of polls' are just rehashed information from the end of March. What I found slightly troubling, though, is that John Curtice went on to say that he expected at least one poll at the weekend, and that would show 'whether the race is still neck-and-neck, or whether Labour has pulled away again and now looks like winning this election'. Why that binary choice in particular? Given the widespread acknowledgement that the SNP campaign has easily bettered Labour's to date, why not raise the other obvious possibility that the SNP now have a clear lead? The fact that he chose to phrase it in the way he did makes me wonder if he has some inside information about the weekend poll data. Hopefully just paranoia on my part, but if by any chance Labour's position has somehow improved on the back of the shockingly poor campaign they've been running so far...well, the mind boggles.

I can't even resort to April's Angus Reid subsample for clues, because as far as I can see they still haven't published it, even though the main GB figures were released several days ago - they seem to be getting later and later each time.

6 comments:

  1. It wasn't that long ago that Curtice was telling everyone that Labour would have an overall majority or be miles ahead, now he says it is neck and neck. He bends with the wind whatever polls might say. I suggest he knocks a few doors........... it is very interesting at the moment. Incumbency factors are at play.

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  2. Glad to hear it's going reasonably well, Marcia. Keep up the good work!

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  3. Ezio Auditore da Firenze - Alex Salmond for First MinisterApril 16, 2011 at 12:55 PM

    According to KennyFarq on twitter, there's a poll in tomorrow's Scotland on Sunday, the results of which he has described as 'fascinating'.

    It's yougov, so I'm going to guess that it'll be 'Labour pulling away again' unfortunately.

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  4. Ezio Auditore da Firenze - Alex Salmond for First MinisterApril 16, 2011 at 12:58 PM

    More news from my twitter creeping, the Scotsman fellow was asked "Who will believe it if it's Yougov?" to which he replied that the SNP had no problem believing the last yougov poll, because we were ahead on the constituency vote.

    It ain't lookin good, brutha.

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  5. Yes, I had a strong feeling that Curtice must have been hinting at something - if it had just been vague speculation he would have been more even-handed between the two parties.

    The remaining questions are a) how big a Labour lead, and b) will other pollsters confirm it.

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  6. Ezio Auditore da Firenze - Alex Salmond for First MinisterApril 16, 2011 at 4:40 PM

    I know it's yougov, but it really defies belief that they'd be ahead now.

    I can't think of any positives that they could point to for an increase in support, indeed the most noticeable part of their campaign was their 'leader' rushing for cover in Subway. Most odd.

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