Wednesday 22 October 2008

YouGov marginals poll suggests Tory majority of 54

Sorry - the main site is down.

A new YouGov poll of 60 marginal seats where Labour's majority was between 6% and 14% suggests that there's been a significant move to the government in the past month.

In September the poll projected an overall Tory majority of 110 seats - today's survey puts that down to 54 seats.

The actual voting shares in the poll have the Tory lead at 5% - but remember the seats polls were all solidly Labour last time.

The poll was carried out by YouGov for Channel 4 - see here

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

A solid outright majority after weeks of good coverage for Brown. No problem, and a lessening of a daft lead to be expected. However, they have to put the work in to maintain and extend the lead.

Anonymous said...

Still having difficulties with your web host Mike?

Anonymous said...

105 Yes, that's all understood, SeanT.

We're talking fine margins here. A Glenthroes win would certainly put any Leadership change on the back burner temporarily, possibly right through to the election. A narrow defeat and it would simmer away quietly. A heavy defeat and it might boil over quickly.

Figures? I reckon a loss of under 1000 is bearable. Anything over that is dodgy. Anything over 5000 and the chefs will start sharpening knives.

Mike Smithson said...

Martin - yes we are.

This emergency site is going to ve very useful.

Ted said...

Seems to bear out the current polling of a Labour recovery to 31/32% with Tories still in lower 40's.

Its an improvement for Labour and shows they have managed to consolidate the advances made at Conference. However they are faced with quite a firm Tory share, which doesn't seem easy to shake. IMHO the appearance of unity and a much enhanced PR operation have delivered this improvement.

That's why I think Glenrothes will be important - a narrow Labour win will give the party activists confidence that they can fight back and that the next election will not be a disaster. A narrow SNP one will influence the media narrative and might start some wondering if Gordon is the dead weight. A large SNP win and its back to post Glasgow East situation.

Anonymous said...

Andrew Neil is destroying Yvette Cooper. The Conservative Party should watch the video and copy the approach.

Anonymous said...

Stopped watching PMQs just before the end, so not seen any of the Cooper bit. Neil's undoubtedly the best journalist the BBC has.

Brown's performance was better at PMQs. He still didn't answer any bloody questions but seems a little more assured. Cameron could've and should've done better. However, the repeated lack ofa response to ending boom and bust may play well in the news.

Disappointed Cameron didn't raise the issue of Brown ignoring the ONS of debt.

GavsWeatherVids said...

I agree with ted. This poll implies the ICM vote share is about where we're at; so 42/30/20, something like that. Very solid stuff for the Tories.

Of course some would like to see a landslide majority, but a Tory majority of 54 would actually be much more healthy for democracy, IMO.

Jonathan said...

The smaller the Tory majority the healthier democracy gets.

Shame about the site. Not good.

Anonymous said...

I agree a majority of 50 is better than 150, but it's also of paramount importance that the leftwing authoritarians get properly shafted for ID cards, 90/42 days etc etc.

Anonymous said...

Story on LabourHome: http://www.labourhome.org/story/2008/10/21/151429/44

Harman may be upsetting some of her supporters if the story proves true.

Anonymous said...

Aye, watching the unlovely Yvette being skewered by the Brillo One was a joy to behold.

Thought Cameron 'won' PMQs, but, like Morris Dancer, I think his final repeated boom and bust question didn't end the round on a high: he should have varied it for any chance of a knock-out.

Anonymous said...

Morris Dancer, yeah I saw that wonder if has anything to do with the 42 days vote and the DUP vote at the time.

Anonymous said...

(By the way, has Robert forgot yet again to put 5 pence into the blog-meter thinggy)

Anonymous said...

It might be interesting to see what effect an investigation into the affairs of George Osbourne dose.
It would be difficult for the conservatives to avoid the house authorities, and its difficult to prove what's actualy happened if anything. But we all know how fun lengthy investigations can be, I for one love spectator sports.
I noticed Gordon Browns use of the word judgement during PMQ's, i'd imagine that judgement will be the key word in political retoric over the next 6-12 months.

Anonymous said...

And mike, the prolonged outages on the main site are anoying the hec out of us.

Get a grip!

Anonymous said...

I just wonder if Politics Home is going to shell out for another mega poll in the marginals. That could be tres interessant!

Anonymous said...

Please FIX pb.com; high traffic just shouldn't be a n issue for a website in 2008. If necessary switch your hosting provider to one with lots of redundancy!

Anonymous said...

Not Mike's fault about the site's periodic breakdowns, but I honestly can't seeing it lasting very long on US election night or for Glenrothes a couple of days later. Perhaps Shadsy could open a book on the exact time the site collapses.

Anonymous said...

I like this place better :)

Does PB.com use 1and1 hosting? If so, dump ASAP.

Anonymous said...

john o - betting on when a betting site crashes due to overuse. That would open interesting philosophical questions!

Anonymous said...

lol Over to you and Morus... Moi...I'm just a tone deaf dead beat.

Mike Smithson said...

What we I hope to test next week during PMQs is one of the self-refreshing comments system that some site now use. This means that people can post and others others can follow without the need to refresh the main PB site. This should have a massive effect.

Mike Smithson said...

PB main site back to normal

Anonymous said...

What are the odds for Peter Mandleson having to resign by next summer??

Anonymous said...

The simplest change Mike could make would be to put in paged comments as I have on the constituency bit on UKPollingReport so each time people refresh it only downloads 10 comments (or 20 or 50 or however many comments Mike set it to) rather than the whole thread.