Now I can perfectly understand how Labour-leaning journalists might spin the Panelbase poll as modestly good news for their party. Although taken in isolation it's an absolutely dreadful poll for them (that would see them lose half their Scottish seats), you do have to see it in the context of the even worse polls that went before. Our objection is not that the reduction in the SNP lead suggested by Panelbase wouldn't be progress for Labour, it's that it probably isn't real, because it isn't borne out by the other polling data we have. Others are free to have a different interpretation.
But, George Eaton - the Survation poll? Seriously? A 20% deficit for Labour with three-and-a-half months to go is good news? Is that what you said in January 1997 when polls showed John Major 20 points adrift of Tony Blair, or did you correctly note that the Titanic was heading for the iceberg all over again?
And if the next Ipsos-Mori poll shows, for example, the SNP lead being trimmed from 29 points to 27, can we look forward to the epic comedy spectacle of the New Statesman dancing in the streets about that one?
James, you described him as a journalist. Are you sure this is the correct term?
ReplyDeleteI would suggest apparatchik, press release purveyor or the like, but not journalist, surely.
Like most of Her Majesty's Media's empty suits, he is a vacuous shill. Not one would recognise a journalistic ethic if it jumped up and bit them in the ar$se. None seem capable of dispassionate analyses.
DeleteTheir forte is cut'n'pasting pro-Union "Salmond Accused - Body Blow to Nats" press releases, and calling up prime-time Willie Rennie and/or wee Ruthie, for a quote attesting to that release's veracity.
As for Eaton, well, he never was the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. George should quit as New Statesman Political Editor and join the staff of Daily Mail, thereby raising the average IQ at both rags.
Ashcroft sub-sample (size <100)
ReplyDeleteSNP 58, Labour 24, Tories 8.
Presumably Mike Smithson will be highlighting this in his new-found enthusiasm for Scottish sub-samples.
You know, I really am dismayed sometimes by the embarrassing behaviour of some of the people on my own side. The Survation poll was spectacularly shit for Labour. The Panelbase poll was unspectacularly shit. Wish they'd just leave it at that.
ReplyDeleteHere in London the Evening Standard are talking up the Conservatives chances in tonight's edition. Some polling guru thinks that the shy Tories are back and Labour's lead is overstated. Nothing about any of the Scottish polls.
ReplyDeletePossibly this should have been in the previous thread.
ReplyDeleteI've just completed a YouGov survey that had no political questions in the main body, but the first supplementary was '...hung parliament, would it be a good thing for the SNP to hold the balance of power...'
The results were, good - 14%, bad - 52%, with the rest don't knows etc.
They then asked the same for the other 'fringe parties'.
Only the Greens holding the balance of power was seen as a good thing. Plaid, UKIP, or the LibDems (lol) holding the balance was seen as bad, bad, bad. But not as bad as having the SNP in a powerful position.
They really don't like us, do they.
John Bell
Little Ed's witless spinners are now in real danger of outspoofing Clegg's ostrich faction for sheer comedy value.
ReplyDeleteI noticed the absurd attempts at trolling on here of late but to be perfectly honest most of it was so clueless and desperate I saw no need whatsoever to rebut it as it was a perfect example of how out of touch westminster Labour and their little tory helpers are. Indeed, it was almost too perfect and you have to wonder if someone isn't taking the piss out of them. ;o)
Speaking of taking the piss, Clegg's ostrich faction are still the masters even with the ridiculous red tories latest efforts to outdo them. There can be no greater example than wee Willie Rennie deciding the 'smartest' thing for the lib dems to do right now is bang on about student tuition fees in scotland. I shit you not! Not an trace of self-awareness or irony in sight as he seems to have decided to sprint ever faster towards the cliff of May's general election dragging the hapless scottish lib dem MPs behind him.
I would read this pretty much the way Yes 'optimists' read polls during the referendum - i.e. pretty much every poll was showing No ahead until the death of the campaign, but at least when there were still months of campaigning to go the trend was what mattered. That's essentially what Labour optimists are going to do at this point.
ReplyDeleteLet's be reasonable about it, James did the exact same thing during the campaign that he's accusing Eaton of here - i.e. take polls showing poor overall positions for Yes and write feverishly optimistic analyses on the basis of the trends.
For instance, here's an article by James discussing a TNS-BMRB poll in February which worked out at a 41% - 59% lead for No when don't knows were excluded. The headline is: "More drama as TNS-BMRB poll suggests the pro-independence campaign have closed the gap for the FIFTH time in a row"
http://scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/more-drama-as-tns-bmrb-poll-suggests.html
If someone had responded at the time by saying that a poll indicating a 41-59 win for No can't be seen as "good news" I think I can guess what kind of response they'd have received.
...and of course he's not being entirely fair to Eaton either because he explicitly says this in his article:
Delete"To be sure, these are merely two snapshots and the SNP's lead remains of a level that would have been considered remarkable in the pre-referendum era."
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/01/labour-starting-turn-tide-scotland
Actually, you're not being fair to me, Rintoul. That TNS poll is more comparable to the Panelbase poll showing Labour 10 behind - ie. if you take it at face value it does show a significant decrease in the lead. The Survation poll is more akin to the YouGov and Ipsos-Mori polls that so often failed to budge during the referendum. My reaction to those was more typically "here's why the Yes-friendly pollsters are more likely to be right". Eaton isn't doing that - he's painting a poll showing a 20-point deficit as good for Labour. The "remarkable" caveat is pretty half-hearted in the context of the political earthquake we're witnessing.
DeleteThe other point I always made during the referendum is that there were good reasons to think public opinion was more changeable than in a conventional election.
why is polling so expensive?
ReplyDeletethx
It's fairly labour intensive (particularly any poll that isn't conducted online). You have to make thousands of phone calls or interviews to get the minimum 1,000 or so respondents you need to make a representative sample. That takes hundreds of man hours, which at minimum wage (or just above) would cost thousands. On top of that you need more qualified people to analyse and convert the raw data into something presentable.
DeleteJust looking at the Panelbase poll.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.panelbase.com/media/polls/F6581st.pdf
I wonder if a wee problem with it is that the Westminster VI question was not asked first, but third. First of all it asked if or when independence would happen, which is a neutral question. Second it asks whether the fall in the price of oil affects the case for independence, before asking for Westminster VI.
If this was the order in which the questions were asked, I think it would depress the SNP result, because it would make people think about the oil price and how it affects Scotland immediately before asking for their VI. This is the sort of thing that got Panelbase a bit of a dodgy reputation when they were obtaining unusually high support for independence after suggesting some pro-independence thoughts.
U-oh.
DeleteLeading questions ahead of VI.
Yep, quite likely they had an effect, especially the oil one.
It's like saying 'This party is involved in Scandal X'. Right, now, who are you going to vote for?
Of course they'll go and vote for that party anyway. However, some feel that by saying that, they are making themselves look silly. It's human nature.
Certainly, the poll can't really be compared with the last panelbase or other polls with reasonable justification.
I suppose what it does say is that the oil thing is unlikely to have a huge effect on VI.
A mistake that politics geeks often make is assuming that everyone views things in a political context. It's unlikely that most people's first thought on hearing of the oil price drop was "SNP BAD".
DeleteOkay, but the poll itself found that a lot more people thought that the oil price decline weakened the case for independence than strengthened it. If even a small percentage of people were influenced by thinking about that issue when they answered the next question then it would have an effect.
DeleteJames, a blast from the past, mainly to let you know I haven't forgotten our bet. I'm now firmly expecting I shall have to pay up...
ReplyDeleteantifrank
Alastair, I hope you are well and your bets are doing well too.
DeleteThat's very kind, Marcia, and I hope you are well too.
DeleteMy big bets for the 2015 general election are bets on the SNP in the constituency markets, so for once my interests are fully aligned with the regulars on this site.
Hi, Alastair. I do recall that we have a bet, but for the life of me I can't remember what the terms of it were, and a search of my email account has drawn a blank. I think it had something to do with Liberal Democrat seats?
DeleteJames, the details are recorded on the vanilla system and are as follows:
Delete"£20 on an even money bet that Labour gain more SLD seats than the SNP at the 2015 Westminster general election. You win if the SNP gain more SLD seats than Labour, the bet is void if the number of SLD seats gained by each party is equal, or if the SLD don't lose any seats at all. In the event that the Lib Dems gain seats in Scotland net, the bet is also void. Seats lost to the Conservatives or others are left out of the equation - this is a straight Labour/SNP bet."
You look as though you will be £20 richer in May.
Your point about the Panelbase poll is a good one and needs a wider audience. I have mentioned it on political betting, crediting you. (It has met with consumer resistance.)
I've been following the SNP's progress with interest and I'm betting very heavily on their success in May. There's no reason why you would have seen my own posts on the subject, which you might find interesting if only because they come from a source who is scarcely a starry-eyed Nat:
http://newstonoone.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/scotland-pre-referendum-special.html
http://newstonoone.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/scottish-post-referendum-special.html
http://newstonoone.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-snp-battleground-in-november-2014.html
http://newstonoone.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/testing-boundaries-2-labour-vs-snp.html
http://newstonoone.blogspot.hu/2015/01/the-snp-conundrum-glasgow-experiment.html
http://newstonoone.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/bedtime-stories-extending-my-thoughts.html
The last two of these represent my best guesses as to what will happen in May.
Thanks, Alastair.
DeleteI see Jim Murphy is in Dundee telling Tory voters 'A vote for the SNP is a vote to put David Cameron in No 10'.
ReplyDeleteIs this wise in Scotland where a vote for the Tories is a waste of time under FPTP?
Has Murphy ever actually been asked: "The SNP say their MPs wouldn't support a Conservative government - and it stands to reason that they wouldn't, as they can see the electoral price the Lib Dems have paid. How, then, does voting for the SNP in Dundee, where the Conservatives cannot win any seats, increase the chances of Cameron being PM?"
DeleteI wonder if he'd go back to his innumerate assertion from a couple of months that the SNP taking a seat off Labour magically increases the chances of the Tories achieving a majority.
And yet again Jim Murphy did not answer questions put to him politely by an elderly member of the public!
DeleteThe MSM seem strangely silent on this photo-opportunity, probably take them a wee while to get their stories straight and turn the incident into a 'vile Yes campaigners, subject Mr Murphy to off-line abuse'
The YouGov average of the last 12 Scottish subsamples puts SNP on 41%, Labour on 27%. Using the electoral calculus Scotland UNS calculator, I have determined that a 6 point swing from this position from SNP to labour would be enough to put labour on a greater number of seats than the SNP. A six point swing in the last few months is definitely possible, considering the campaign hasn't really started.
ReplyDeleteI would also say the average of the YouGov crossbreaks is showing a long term shift from SNP back to labour.
I think you have not factored in the most Scots do not like Murphy including a large part of his own Party. The BBC are going into overdrive promoting him and this will backfire and result in them losing votes.
DeleteBy May most of the Scottish population will be utterly sick of him and his spin and consequently Labour will flop.
Also you have not factored in that the SNP have not even started campaigning yet. In some seats they have over 10 candidates standing so they are going to get some really excellent candidates to take on the dead wood of Slab and the remainder of the Lib-Dems.
And then they of course have over 90k members to support these excellent candidates up to May and beyond.
If you think Labour can maintain most of their existing seats then you are deluded.
hoss
I'll repeat, a 6 point swing puts them on more seats than the SNP, by a quirk of the FPTP system. That's not a huge shift. One thing that could definitely bring it about is if the tories surge in England, as I suspect they will the closer we get to the election. Growth in the popularity of the Green party in England could also spread up here, pulling away some of those SNP votes to the Greens. The Greens in Scotland are pro independence. But that doesn't matter in a FPTP system, where they will act as a spoiler.
DeleteThen there's the polls themselves. Are they accurate? Are they overstating SNP support? They have done in the past. The SNP over read in the 2014 european election polling was appalling. They emerged with less than 30% of the vote and were denied an extra seat, by UKIP of all people! The referendum campaign was well underway and everyone knew which side labour were on - the SNP still performed poorly.
In conclusion, between inaccurate polling and a natural reversion to mean, labour will either be in a dead heat with the SNP or slightly ahead of them on polling day. Labour will win more seats. Nationally, we'll either see single party majority government or a lab/lib coalition. The SNP will do extremely well by historical standards but it will look and feel like a failure. Almost immediately, people on sites like this will begin talking up May 2016 and the Scottish Parliamentary elections as the big "comeback" moment. Meanwhile, the rest of us will continue to live in the real world - which includes chronically short staffed hospitals, oil crisis and a 400 million underspend...