Seat Calculators, UNS and the 2010 General election

Summary
Yep - summary up front. This post has grown hugely 'cause I wanted to cover the details of what I'm summarising, which are:

- UNS performed slightly worse (for Tory seat share) than in 2005 and 2001 but better than 1997.

- Regional effects were minimal (about 2 seats difference to the totals)

- "Unwind" occurred to about 50% and was dented by a surprisingly high incumbency boost

- Demographic and ethnic differences between seats had a large effect

- UNS calculators beforehand all predicted heavily hung Parliament, no minority governments feasible, both Con/LD and Lab/LD coalitions possible

- Alternative calculators varied greatly but almost all had Tories over 300 but short of 326 - Tory minority or Con/LD coalitions as the realistic alternatives. Lab/LD total close but overpredicted LD at Lab expense.

- My spreadsheet had more inputs that had to be estimated (a weakness); with the suggested figures I gave just before the poll of 66% unwind, sd's of 4, 4.5, 4, it gave Con 312 (+/-6), Lab 235 (+/-6), LD 70 (+/-4). LD underperformance in hitting possible/probable targets and defending possible/probable holds and strong Labour defences (incumbency) are suggested.

- "Electoral geography" has improved the Tory vs Labour position - the gap between them at level polling has reduced from 89 seats to 54. Labour majority threshold has moved from 0.2% Con lead to 2.5% Labour lead, equal seats from 6.8% Con lead to 3.9% Con lead. The Tory majority threshold hasn't twitched, though, due to a low density of seats between the current point and 2% swing - 10 seats per point against the 20 seats/point reached to here. Accordingly, the hung parliament zone has widened from 10 points to 13 points.

- Without the Clegg surge, the Tories would have achieved more than 320 seats on the 7 point lead they got and the Lib Dems been heavily squeezed.

Review

So, how did the forecast models do? One additional headache has always been the reliability of the input data – if the polls over- or under-represent any party, there’s a problem even if the model is right. So we’ve got to look at what the outcome should have been with perfect knowledge.

Sleazy broken UNS on the slide?

The simplest model is to use additive UNS – add the national swing to every constituency and count which ones change hands.It’s invariably carried out without provisos by the media and has been subject to considerable questioning here on pb. Before this election, we were well aware that the errors could, for the first time since 1992, result in a wrong prediction for the overall result: in 1997, 2001 and 2005, the only error would have been in misjudging the size of the Labour majority. However, virtually every poll in the week or so before the election, put through UNS, resulted in a hugely hung Parliament, with the Tories around the 280 mark and Labour plus the Lib Dems together with a comfortable majority – if they so chose to ally themselves. Mitchell Stirling had an excellent series of posts comparing the UNS predictions to the “alternative” predictions. The final table was here.

Interestingly, the final averaged UNS prediction (based on the polls) had Labour spot on, but the Tories under by 25 seats and the Lib Dems over by a similar amount. Lib Dem kingmakers, who could go almost equally easily with the Tories or Labour.

The final averaged alternative predictions had the Tories over by 8, Labour well under at 40 below and the Lib Dems over by about 25 seats. Either a Tory minority Government, or Lib Dem/Tory Coalition.

Why the surprise, then?

So why were we on pb.com so surprised at the result? The UNS calculators were pointing at a far worse Tory result, the non-UNS ones were pretty close to the mark for the Tory seat total (and were correctly pointing to a hung parliament with potential of Tory minority or Con/LD coalition). We were really knocked off target because we expected both that the UNS calculators would fall short and that the polls would noticeably understate the Conservative lead. To be fair, the Golden Rule had worked for so long that it did appear to be exposing a suspected methodological flaw in British opinion polling. As it turned out, the best triumph of the night (to my mind) was the long-delayed vindication by Nick Sparrow of his method of estimating the "spiral of silence". In 1997, it was inconclusive, in 2001 and 2005 it didn't change the final scores - but this time around it did, and seems to have exposed a very real tendency of voters to be attracted to their last voting choice.

The above table glosses over the variability between the non-standard predictors, ranging from 292 to 363 Tory seats (but with 15 of 18 predicting Tories short and one of the other 3 a razor thin majority prediction of 0). Labour, on the other hand, were clustered in a far lower range, from 199-235 seats. The Lib Dems ranged from 57 seats to 114. To be fair to all methods, if you put in the wrong inputs, you cannot expect to get the right outputs, and the polls failed with respect to the Labour/Lib Dem vote split. In computer programming they call it "GIGO": Garbage In, Garbage Out.

What should the models have predicted?

Many people (including journalists) went straight to Anthony Wells’s excellent UKPollingReport site, which included a weighted poll average and UNS calculation. Now Wells highlighted that UNS is an estimate, not a rule of law, but the final estimate was Con 274, Lab 264, LD 81 with vote shares of Con 35, Lab 28, LD 27 (Con 7 point lead). Almost a dead heat (Conservatives 52 short), with Lib Dem kingmakers (Con/LD majority of 50; Lab/LD majority of 40) – a minority government would be definitely impractical on these figures.

With correct data in (GB shares of Con 36.9%, Lab 29.7%, LD 23.6%, giving Lab-Con swing of 5.1%, Lab-LD of 3.7%, LD-Con of 1.4%) UNS would predict that:

- The Tories would (on the Wells figures) pick up 66 Labour seats (Overtaking Labour in Edinburgh South, but losing to the Lib Dems), 7 Lib Dem seats and maybe the IKHH seat (up by 74 seats from 214).

- The Lib Dems should pick up 6 seats from Labour and lose 7 to the Tories (down one from 63).

- Labour should lose 66 seats to the Tories and 6 to the Lib Dems, down by 72 from 344.

So final scores of Con 288, Lab 272, LD 62.

Conservatives 38 short, Con/LD majority 50 or Lab/LD majority 18.

Lib Dem kingmakers again, with Labour not too far behind the Tories. Con minority government not really feasible. Errors of 19 seats underpredicted for the Conservatives, 14 overpredicted for Labour and 8 overpredicted for the Lib Dems.

Regional UNS wouldn’t do much better – Conservatives would have won 71 seats from Labour, and 5 from the Lib Dems, with the Lib Dems exactly making up their losses from Labour: ending with Con 290, Lab 268, LD 63.So the effects of the regional swing variations pretty much cancelled out - the source of error wasn't the non-uniformity regionally.

How close could that 7% lead have taken them to a majority?

While we’re on UNS and the “11% lead needed for a majority” question, Peter Kellner wrote a piece on the election recently. He pointed out that although Lib Dems were disappointed that the Clegg surge hadn’t fully materialised, their position was far better than it had been before the surge, and estimated that the House of Commons would have been (on 19% Lib Dem score) 321 Con, 264 Lab, 37 Lib Dems.Looking at the YouGov polls of 9^th-15^th April, the Lib Dems are on an average of 19.7%, with Con and Lab on 38.9 and 31.9 respectively – so it seems as though the surge that did occur damaged both parties relatively equally and a 7 point Con lead before the Clegg surge would have put the Tories right on the very edge of an effective majority. Arguably, the Clegg surge did end up putting the Lib Dems into Government, as it turned out.

"A rule of thumb, not a rule of law"

Overall, UNS didn’t do much better or worse than recently. I've had a glance back and it seems that antifrank was the first to put it in these words “It’s a rule of thumb, not a rule of law” in reply to my series of articles on UNS and how it can err (saving about 3,130 words from how I put it ...). It was worse than in 2005 or 2001, but better than 1997. The Labour “seat advantage” (their lead in seats on level pegging in the polls with Lib Dems unchanged) continued to drop. The 2001 peak was 144 seats. In 2005 it was 89 seats (so UNS claimed that a dead heat would see a narrow Labour majority, 89 seats ahead of the Tories). Today it’s 54 seats (so after seeing how things changed during the election, we can say that a dead heat would have been a hung Parliament with the Tories 54 seats behind Labour – not the 89 that UNS from 2005 would have predicted). The Tory damage since 1997 continues to unwind – in 97 they fell behind UNS by 41 seats and in 2001 by a further 15, being 56 seats behind UNS (measured from 1992) at the peak. In 2005 they pulled back by 13 seats and this time by a further 19-20, so pulling back about 32 seats of their disadvantage. Still behind the 1992 relative position, but with the distortion unwinding considerably.

Running it backwards - a 25 seat advantage

It’s also sometimes educational to run an election in reverse – what should the 2005 notional figures have been if created by UNS from the current position? Feed 33.2, 36.2, 22.6 into the (commendably swiftly) updated.additive UNS calculator on Anthony’s site: Con 239, Lab 330, LD 55. So zero swing from the 2005 position would have obtained quite a difference, illustrating how the electoral landscape shifted (again) during the election.

Alternative calculators

On the “what would the answer be with the right question” front, the only alternative calculator I can easily use is my own. This adds another level of challenge with the input parameters – it allows the adjustment of the level of “unwind” of the accumulated tactical voting/marginal boost that progressively damaged the Conservatives from 1992 to 2001, pushing them way below the levels that UNS would expect. Some partial unwind occurred in 2005, but much was still locked up in the electoral landscape.

One way to estimate it would be to try to measure the relative unpopularity (the straight poll figures give us popularity; unpopularity is governed by who the electorate would most like to deny). Through 2009, the second choice of Lib Dem voters was preferentially Conservative. This advantage declined as 2009 slid into 2010 and became about level by February. From then, Labour built up an advantage, although never to the degree of their advantage in 2005. I’d estimate then that the unwind would have been greater than 100% through most of 2009 (giving the Conservatives an advantage to the extent that the political landscape would have possibly looked biased towards them), declining to about 100% around February and lower as the election neared. Had Labour built up their advantage to an equivalent level of 2005, they’d have reduced the unwind to 0%. An even greater advantage would actually produce a negative unwind. As it was, it appears to have been about 50%. On the eve of election, I estimated 66%. I also stated that I reckoned there would be a higher than normal variability (giving higher standard deviations of swing) of 4, 4.5 and 4. These input variables with the correct poll shares gave:

Con 312 (+/-6), Lab 235 (+/-6), LD 70 (+/-4). So Tory minority or Con/LD coalition.

Errors

The Tory share was within the error margins (5 seats off), but the Labour and Lib Dem shares were out by 23 and 16 seats respectively (although the total of them was within a few seats). The Lib Dems were over-forecast with respect to Labour – the anticipated Lib Dem targeting/defensive boost never materialised. Breaking down further, they undershot specifically in England against the forecast – seats that should have turned yellow like the City of Durham, Hampstead & Kilburn, York Outer and Oxford East simply didn’t.

Losses like Newton Abbot, Oxford West and Abingdon, Camborne and Redruth, Richmond, Cornwall South East, Harrogate, Rochdale, and Winchester further damaged the Lib Dem picture. Wins like Redcar and Wells helped, but very few of the “Lib Dem possibles” (like Watford, Guildford, Meon Valley, Ealing Central & Acton, Derby North, Blaydon, Romsey, Birmingham Hall Green and Leicester South were held by or taken by the Lib Dems – they significantly underperformed on the probabilistic front (Lib Dems – what happened? Failure of targeting? Third party squeeze?).

Labour defended well, overperforming slightly in Wales against their poll share – they should have lost three or four more (holding Ynys Mon against the odds and not losing any of Vale of Clwyd, Newport West, Gower, Bridgend, Swansea West, Clwyd South or Delyn. Most of these would have needed above-average swings (in some cases, well above-average), but the high level of variance in swing didn’t materialise in these seats where it would have been very bad for Labour. In England as a whole, they defended very well, getting a noticeable incumbency boost (especially in places like Broxstowe, where the odds of Nick holding on were down around 7% and he very nearly pulled it off, and Birmingham Edgbaston, where the model gave Gisela Stuart only an 11% chance of holding on) as well as an ethnic vote which swung their way. It looks as though there were class based swings as well, with C2s swinging far more to the Tories than ABs (on the whole – with some significant local variations).

I’ve been rather down on my model for the Lab/LD inaccuracies, but I am going to be pleased that the Tory seat share was far closer than most other models and – unlike UNS – the actual result (Choice between Con minority or Con/LD coalition on my model versus no chance of a minority for either and equal feasibility of Con/LD or Lab/LD coalition) was correct. However, with the “GIGO” problem that we were faced with, the fact that there are additional parameters that need to be estimated (primarily the unwind percentage) is a problem – a way of calculating this factor rather than estimating it was needed.

Actually, what may have happened with the Labour seats might be well explained by Martin Baxter – when the Lib Dem vote share during the middle of the last Parliament was plumbing depths and his model started predicting zero Lib Dem seats, he adjusted his “Transition Model” (based upon Proportional Loss) to allow for core and floating voters – the “Strong Transition Model”. I believe that his predictor did very well – with the correct vote shares, he got 299, 255, 65. Maybe the Additive UNS versus Proportional Loss debate needs to be reopened? Certainly his method of adjusting for “strong” and “weak” voters seems to have done very well.

The Future

Interestingly, the regional swings don’t seem to have had a very large effect, changing the result by two or three seats at most. Definitely demographic swing is more important than regional swing. Ethnic factors and incumbency are also necessary.

So – in order to predict reliably, we need:

- Reliable poll data to input

- A way of judging whether or not to adjust for incumbency

- Reliable ethnic breakdowns and a way of highlighting affected constituencies

- Reliable class-based breakdowns and a way of highlighting effective constituencies

Unfortunately, with extra inputs we have the problem of judging what they should be – one significant issue with my model. My estimate of 66% unwind with those particular swing standard deviations was pretty good for Tory seats and the overall outcome, but having to estimate the inputs like that is a weakness. Unfortunately, UNS again had significant problems (the area of hung parliament predicted being rather different to the reality, with Tory minority closed off and Lab/LD coalition very much on the cards). However, as a rule of thumb, it’s a general guideline, but we do need to estimate how far it will be out and in which direction.

And all of this may well be redundant - a change to AV with heavily redrawn constituencies to reduce MP numbers will be a total step change.

Is there a Poll out tonight?

Back in 1992, John Major’s led a Government with a c20 seat majority. But the cumulative majority of those 20 seats was just 2000 votes.

Two Thousand votes in the right places out of 45 million cast determined the fate of the Government. Of course, you can never predict such narrow margins, which is why we were all probably nuts to even try to predict seat numbers.

The narrowness of the majorities in the top 50 seats means that, despite polling 2,207,400 votes more than Labour and 3,980,917 votes more than the LibDems, on Thursday night the Tories [10,808,749 votes] just missed-out by a whisker. 10,000 votes in the right place would have swung-it for them.

Just 1000 votes in the right place take us to seat 11 - Solihull
Just 2000 votes in the right place take us to seat 16 - Mid Dorset & Poole
Just 5000 votes in the right place take us to seat 24 - Swansea West
Just 10000 votes in the right place take us to seat 33 - Great Grimsby
Just 20000 votes in the right place take us to seat 44 - Morely & Attwood
Just 50000 votes in the right place take us to seat 65 - Newport East

But the battleground ahead will be more complicated than that. Each party will have its targets to win and targets to defend. So, I've created four tables - one for all parties and one-each for the main-parties showing their top-50 marginal seats. This is the4 list the party strategists will be looking at and deciding whether to fight [another party] or defend their own.

And one interesting fact to emerge from this analysis is that Ed Balls' seat is unique in that it turns out that he is the only one in the list to have been fought under the Lab-CoOp banner rather than The Labour Party. There were 16 of these Morley and Outwood; Luton South; Harrow West; Feltham and Heston; Cardiff South and Penarth; Barrow and Furness; Liverpool Wavertree; Nottingham East; Ilford South; Preston; Edmonton; Kilmarnock and Loudoun; Islwyn; Rutherglen and Hamilton West; Glasgow South West; Liverpool West Derby. Does this give us a hint of the Union influence to come?

Here's a link to the Raw Data


Top 50 Marginal Seats - all Parties

Order Seat Total Of CalcMajority Alliance
1 Fermanagh and South Tyrone 5 SF
2 Hampstead and Kilburn 42 LAB
3 Warwickshire North 52 CON
4 Camborne and Redruth 68 CON
5 Bolton West 90 LAB
6 Thurrock 92 CON
7 Oldham East and Saddleworth 102 LAB
8 Hendon 107 CON
9 Sheffield Central 166 LAB
10 Oxford West and Abingdon 175 CON
11 Solihull 176 LIBDEM
12 Southampton Itchen 191 LAB
13 Ashfield 193 LAB
14 Cardiff North 195 CON
15 Sherwood 215 CON
16 Dorset Mid and Poole North 267 LIBDEM
17 Norwich South 309 LIBDEM
18 Edinburgh South 315 LAB
19 Stockton South 332 CON
20 Lancaster and Fleetwood 333 CON
21 Bradford East 364 LIBDEM
22 Broxtowe 390 CON
23 Truro and Falmouth 434 CON
24 Swansea West 505 LAB
25 Newton Abbot 521 CON
26 Wirral South 531 LAB
27 Amber Valley 538 CON
28 Chesterfield 550 LAB
29 Derby North 613 LAB
30 Hull North 643 LAB
31 Dudley North 649 LAB
32 Wolverhampton South West 691 CON
33 Great Grimsby 715 LAB
34 Waveney 767 CON
35 Wells 799 LIBDEM
36 Carlisle 852 CON
37 Morecambe and Lunesdale 868 CON
38 Rochdale 891 LAB
39 Telford 979 LAB
40 Weaver Vale 990 CON
41 Walsall North 992 LAB
42 Harrogate and Knaresborough 1041 CON
43 Lincoln 1056 CON
44 Morley and Outwood 1099 LAB-COOP
45 Plymouth Sutton and Devonport 1150 CON
46 Montgomeryshire 1183 CON
47 Antrim South 1184 DUP
48 Brighton Pavilion 1254 GRN
49 Birmingham Edgbaston 1272 LAB
50 Stroud 1299 CON

Top 50 CONSERVATIVE Marginal Seats to Defend

Order Seat Total Of CalcMajority C Majority%
1 Warwickshire North 52 0.11
2 Camborne and Redruth 68 0.16
3 Thurrock 92 0.2
4 Hendon 107 0.23
5 Oxford West and Abingdon 175 0.31
6 Cardiff North 195 0.41
7 Sherwood 215 0.44
8 Stockton South 332 0.66
9 Lancaster and Fleetwood 333 0.78
10 Broxtowe 390 0.74
11 Truro and Falmouth 434 0.89
12 Newton Abbot 521 1.08
13 Amber Valley 538 1.17
14 Wolverhampton South West 691 1.72
15 Waveney 767 1.5
16 Carlisle 852 2.02
17 Morecambe and Lunesdale 868 1.99
18 Weaver Vale 990 2.25
19 Harrogate and Knaresborough 1041 1.96
20 Lincoln 1056 2.31
21 Plymouth Sutton and Devonport 1150 2.62
22 Montgomeryshire 1183 3.5
23 Stroud 1299 2.24
24 Brighton Kemptown 1328 3.11
25 Bedford 1353 3
26 Watford 1424 2.58
27 Dewsbury 1528 2.83
28 Warrington South 1553 2.83
29 Pudsey 1659 3.38
30 Enfield North 1694 3.81
31 Hove 1868 3.75
32 Corby 1893 3.49
33 Northampton North 1937 4.81
34 Brentford and Isleworth 1957 3.64
35 Hastings and Rye 1993 4
36 Halesowen and Rowley Regis 2023 4.6
37 Nuneaton 2067 4.63
38 Ipswich 2079 4.43
39 Blackpool North and Cleveleys 2151 5.3
40 Aberconwy 2181 11.34
41 Bury North 2244 4.99
42 St Albans 2304 4.36
43 Gloucester 2421 4.77
44 Wirral West 2437 6.19
45 Kingswood 2443 5.1
46 Hereford and Herefordshire South 2482 5.13
47 Erewash 2501 5.25
48 Chester, City of 2583 5.52
49 Wyre Forest 2642 5.19
50 Weston-Super-Mare 2689 5.1

Top 50 LABOUR Marginal Seats to Defend

Order Seat Total Of CalcMajority Lab Majority%
1 Hampstead and Kilburn 42 0.08
2 Bolton West 90 0.19
3 Oldham East and Saddleworth 102 0.23
4 Sheffield Central 166 0.4
5 Southampton Itchen 191 0.43
6 Ashfield 193 0.4
7 Edinburgh South 315 0.72
8 Swansea West 505 1.42
9 Wirral South 531 1.33
10 Chesterfield 550 1.2
11 Derby North 613 1.36
12 Hull North 643 1.93
13 Dudley North 649 1.68
14 Great Grimsby 715 2.17
15 Rochdale 891 1.94
16 Telford 979 2.37
17 Walsall North 992 2.74
18 Birmingham Edgbaston 1272 3.06
19 Halifax 1472 3.38
20 Newcastle-under-Lyme 1551 3.59
21 Plymouth Moor View 1586 3.82
22 Wakefield 1613 3.63
23 Newport East 1650 4.79
24 Eltham 1662 3.96
25 Middlesbrough South and Cleveland East 1678 3.63
26 Edinburgh North and Leith 1724 3.64
27 Walsall South 1754 4.29
28 Nottingham South 1770 4.34
29 Blackpool South 1851 5.26
30 Gedling 1860 3.86
31 Westminster North 2126 5.37
32 Bridgend 2262 5.9
33 Delyn 2271 6.14
34 Southampton Test 2413 5.46
35 Derbyshire North East 2446 5.2
36 Ynys Mon 2459 7.14
37 Wolverhampton North East 2484 7.12
38 Vale of Clwyd 2509 7.06
39 Tooting 2523 4.98
40 Scunthorpe 2548 6.88
41 Chorley 2593 5.21
42 Dagenham and Rainham 2632 5.95
43 Gower 2684 6.44
44 Exeter 2722 5.21
45 Stalybridge and Hyde 2743 6.71
46 Birmingham Northfield 2781 6.65
47 Pontypridd 2783 7.59
48 Clwyd South 2833 8.17
49 Alyn and Deeside 2918 7.31
50 Penistone and Stocksbridge 3047 6.55

Top 50 LIBDEM Seats to Defend

Seat Total Of CalcMajority LD Majority %
1 Solihull 176 0.32
2 Dorset Mid and Poole North 267 0.57
3 Norwich South 309 0.65
4 Bradford East 364 0.9
5 Wells 799 1.43
6 St Austell and Newquay 1313 2.78
7 Brent Central 1346 2.97
8 Sutton and Cheam 1606 3.31
9 St Ives 1717 3.74
10 Burnley 1816 4.34
11 Somerton and Frome 1818 3
12 Manchester Withington 1896 4.21
13 Dunbartonshire East 2182 4.55
14 Chippenham 2473 4.72
15 Berwick-upon-Tweed 2691 7
16 Cornwall North 2979 6.36
17 Birmingham Yardley 3002 7.35
18 Cheadle 3271 6.23
19 Argyll and Bute 3431 7.59
20 Eastbourne 3435 6.59
21 Aberdeenshire West and Kincardine 3683 8.15
22 Brecon and Radnorshire 3749 9.65
23 Edinburgh West 3804 8.19
24 Eastleigh 3863 7.2
25 Taunton Deane 3995 6.87
26 Torbay 4080 8.29
27 Cardiff Central 4577 12.66
28 Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross 4827 16.78
29 Cheltenham 4920 9.32
30 Portsmouth South 5199 12.6
31 Redcar 5216 12.43
32 Carshalton and Wallington 5262 11.46
33 Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk 5676 11.58
34 Devon North 5820 11.34
35 Southport 6025 13.77
36 Hazel Grove 6373 15.18
37 Gordon 6746 13.83
38 Cambridge 6793 13.55
39 Hornsey and Wood Green 6875 12.49
40 Colchester 6981 15.13
41 Thornbury and Yate 7118 14.76
42 Kingston and Surbiton 7561 13.24
43 Lewes 7648 15.27
44 Ceredigion 8325 21.76
45 Bermondsey and Old Southwark 8528 19.1
46 Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey 8763 18.61
47 Fife North East 9046 22.58
48 Leeds North West 9101 20.93
49 Orkney and Shetland 9928 51.32
50 Bristol West 11368 20.54

Looking Ahead to the Second Debate

In this post, Bunnco - Your Man on the Spot, looks ahead to the second Leader's Debate and wonders how the battle will be fought on the ground and which weapons will help Clegg, Cameron & Brown

About 10 years ago Bunnco was involved with the fundraising campaign to rebuild the American Library in Norwich, which had been lost in a disastrous fire in 2004. People in Norfolk have long memories about how the Over-Sexed-and-Over-Here Yanks fought alongside us in WWII and the USAAF 8th Airforce, 2nd Air Division Association is still going strong with a New Generation of supporters.

The money was raised and the Library was opened just after 9/11. And every year-or-so the Association asks a prominent politician to deliver an address around about Armistice Day on foreign affairs and defence in a keynote speech. Douglas Hurd delivered one a few years ago and last November it was Gen Sir Richard Dannatt's turn. Dannatt's a local man in Norfolk and Bunnco went along to hear.

As an aside, I was privileged to sit alongside two genuine WWII airmen, one of whose Texan wife had some quite fruity things to say about Obama! But that's another story.

The obvious topics for Foreign Affairs are Europe, Immigration, 'The Global Recession', the 'Global Consensus' on Terrorism. But what's not so obvious is the link between defence and foreign affairs.

And what Dannatt told the audience last November made the non-obvious connection between Foreign Policy and Defence, which I want to highlight because the next Leaders' Debate is all about 'Foreign Affairs', which will inevitably include Defence, an area where I consider Brown to be weak at a point in time where he is weakened himself.

Now I know Dannatt has been revealed to be a Tory, but no matter, he explained quite lucidly that Military Force is the means by which you prosecute your Foreign Policy when you can't get your own way by talking alone. As they say, 'jaw-jaw is better than war-war' but if jaw-jaw fails...

Like all good ideas, it's obvious when it's pointed-out but it got me thinking Politically and, now that the Leaders debate is upon us, it's worth thinking about what that obvious link between Foreign Policy and Defence means for next week and who might do best.

My initial observation is that, under Labour, the tight link between Foriegn Policy and Defence hasn't been obvious. Milliband appears to me to have been focused on Europe and 'Terrorist' Issues. Brown's clearly never been interested in the Military. And the MoD has been caught in the middle, unloved, and treated like just one of the other 'spending departments'.

And because the Political Case for the various wars was not clearly articulated to the population, the Military have not had the clear steer about how to fight and certainly it's been stop-start on the equipment required. The reasons for Afghanistan have drifted from 'peace-keeping' to 'terrorism' to 'drugs' to 'Iran'. It's hardly surprising that we're in a military muddle with Brown and Milliband disinterested in the consequences of their actions, whilst briefing against each other in the real war - that between Blairites and Brownites.

Meanwhile, the Public is behind 'Our Boys' and the love of our Servicemen contrasts with the loathing of those that have put them in harm's way.

Brown simply has to keep the Foreign Affairs brief away from Defence but it's difficult to see how he can when military action is the expression of foreign policy.


Ok, so let's conflate Foreign Affairs and Defence and try to see how the Leaders' Debate might pan-out next week.

In the Blue Corner, Europe's an issue Cameron seems to have taken the rap for even though it's Labour that's broken its Manifesto promise to hold a referendum. The debate is probably his chance to set the record straight and claw-back the UKIP-waverers.

Cameron's made a big play of setting up a War Cabinet to address the Afghanistan issue properly and I think this will be popular and be seen to be decisive and supporting 'our boys'. Immigration is also something that plays to foreign affairs, where Cameron scored well last Thursday. He could build on the success here in a Stateman-like manner.

In the Yellow Corner, Clegg's a bit of a one-trick pony on defence - stop Trident and that alone cannot sustain a 90-minute debate when we're fighting a war. The LibDem europhile tendancy could be damaging in the South West, where there's a healthy scepticism.

Perhaps he'll fall-back on the anti-Iraq meme that played well in 2005... it's about the only USP that might help. With the spotlight-on, Clegg's got an uphill battle to develop a coherent foreign/defence strategy that holds water without sounding too pro-European or Pro-Euro at a time most of the EuroZone wants to get out.

In the red corner, Brown's on a bit of a sticky wicket at the worst possible time. He's on the back-foot and Foreign Affairs & Defence are away from his 'secure-the-recovery' comfort-zone. His mis-handling of The Military Covenant will leave him exposed to questions from servicemen in the audience. Cue the drop-jaw and Clunking Fist.

He's going to have to rely upon is his work with the G20 where he 'saved' the world. But didn't. And this will invite comparisons with the relative economic performance of our overseas peers. Copenhagen wasn't exactly the big success he hoped for and can anyone remember that Yemen conference in February? His best shot is having a go at the Global Bank Tax that he tells us has worldwide backing but of which we are still to see the evidence. It's all a bit flakey really.


The Sky News guys must be rubbing their hands with glee as the viewing figures in digital-TV households go through the roof. Boulton is a more robust interviewer than Alistair Stewart and there'll be some more rigour there. It will be his job to keep to the Foreign Affairs subject matter - a hard task. And away from Tractor Stats.

But it certainly isn't going to be a re-run of last Thursday. The subject matter is heavier and more demanding. Cameron should be best prepared and able to fight this battle on the ground more to his liking. Clegg's got a lot to catch-up on and I'm not sure that Saint Vince is going to be much help. Who is the LibDem head of foreign affairs?

If Brown can keep the debate away from defence and immigration and onto the 'Global' Recession, he'll be best-advantaged but this is fraught with difficulty as we have compared poorly economically with our peers. I just hope all three Leaders are less practiced and more 'themselves' - we'll get more out of it and the narrative will turn again just as the postal votes are issued.

Bunnco - Your Man on the Spot

A Moving Target – How Well Do You Know Your Neighbours?

How long have you lived in your home? It’s not a trick question but it’s worth thinking about how often people move house when considering making comparisons between polls especially when there are five years between elections.


In this quick post I just want to show the results of a little research I’ve done into the electoral roll on a single district council ward in the part of the South Norfolk constituency, where I live. I’ve got hold of the electronic electoral register between 2003 and the present day.

With a little jiggery-pokery on Access I’ve been able to use the unmatched-records query function to work-out exactly how many people move each year in the electoral ward.

The results are going to surprise you, especially when the ward in question is a rural one made-up of six villages which I’d have thought had a stable population. The ward comprises 2105 electors this year.

Parish Number of Electors
VillageA - 383
VillageB - 1058
VillageC - 50
VillageD - 205
VillageE - 138
VillageF - 271
Total - 2105

In the table below, I’m going to show how many brand new electors appear on the roll each December. It’s more than you’d think. 2003 is the base year with the changes to the electoral roll printed for the subsequent years


About 175 electors seem to be changing each year. That's about 8.4% of the electorate.

With the figures to hand I thought it would be useful to see the changes in the roll since the last General Election in 2005.

On the face of it it look like the total number of new electors was 880 or 42% of the total. That’s quite a lot but then I realised that some people, for example in the old-folks-home, have moved-in and-out in the period 2005-2009. I’ll call this a double-churn so these people need to be discounted when considering the nett change from 2005-2010 position so we can accurately assess the effect on the General Election.

So, in a separate analysis I worked out the five-year change from 2005 to 2010 and it turns out that the difference is 655 electors or 31.1% of the total. About a third.


The percentage changes for each village are printed below and they all show a pretty consistent churn rate. It’s not as if one village has a particularly big churn. They’re all pretty much of a muchness. About a third each.



So, in this sleepy rural area just under a third of the electorate has changed since the last General Election in May 2005.

Wow.

People have moved-away. Others have moved-in. Some have died. Some have divorced. Some have married [name changes are included in my churn figures]. We’ve had some youngsters come onto the roll for the first time. A few have moved within the village from a larger house to a smaller one and vice-versa but the bottom line is that a third of the roll in this countryside ward has churned in five years.

The churn’s got to be bigger in University towns, in areas where there’s been mass immigration and where there’s been large-scale housing development. You know, it might be in these urban areas that there’s been a 50% change in the electorate in five years. I can’t say what the exact figure here would be but I’d call it significant. And it’s another reason not to rely on the UNS. With upto 50% churn, what's a few percent on the UNS between friends anyway?

:puts on tin hat:

Okay, this is an analysis for a single ward, in a single local authority area, which, in turn, makes-up just one part of a Parliamentary Constituency. But these facts don’t lie.

So, look around you. Over the last five years have either you or your two immediate neighbours moved? Has one house out of three changed hands? I thought so. Just think about it when betting on narrow swings on the 2005 result. And when the papers keep going on about UNS, you'll know that as long as democracy relies on one-man-one-vote, it pays to think where those 'men' live.

Bunnco - Your Man On The Spot

Double or Quits – Brown bets the farm on St George’s Day

Today was the day in which I was convinced that the budget would be held paving the way for an immediate dissolution of Parliament tomorrow and the commencement of the shortest-possible 17-working-day campaign to Thursday April 8th, when Brown reasoned many Tory voters in marginal seats would be on holiday during Easter Week. Sorry. I got it wrong.



During the Norwich North by-election campaign I got to bump into quite a few leading personalities from the various parties but it was a chance conversation with a senior Tory that suggested that Labour's election tactic would be to hold a budget and then immediately call the election without the inconvenience of a Finance Act debate in Parliament, when the budget figures would unravel.

So, back on 1st August when the Norwich dust had settled I started to look at the dates. My mistake was to assume that an election date would be chosen that allowed a budget to take place before the election yet allowing a Finance Act debate to take place afterwards in April having allowed time for the delays for the swearing-in of new MPs. I figured the whole job would be knocked-off by the first week in May.

I concluded that, particularly with the coincidence of Easter, the budget would be delivered on March 10th, one of the earliest practical dates. As it happens of course, the budget date has been announced on March 10th one of the latest practicable dates for delivery on March 24th. So what went wrong?

For ages, it looked like my insight was correct. The PBR was set for 9th December and a budget cannot be held within 3 months of that. So it looked like a 10th March budget was ‘on’. And I’m sure that was part of the plan in Whitehall. A March 10th Budget gave ‘options’. And that’s what politics is all about.

And then in February when it became clear that the first quarter’s economic figures would be severely knocked by the loss of 2 weeks output to the snow and ice and the 1st quarter’s stats being released on St George’s Day, it seemed that hanging-on for May 6th was very risky.

So, when the polls appeared to narrow and the sense of momentum seemed to be swinging towards Labour, on Valentines Day I updated my August analysis in 'Two Stags Lock Horns, Budget or Bust'.

In that article, I made a passing reference to the feud between Chancellor and Prime Minister that seemed to determine the election date. Who would be most dominant? Darling: the man to choose the budget date or Brown: the man to choose the election date. That day, Darling announced in the Telegraph that there would be a budget thus scotching talk of a March 25th poll. He boxed the PM in. With Brown on the rack from Bullygate, Darling was on-top.

The fact that the PM today announced the budget date rather than the Chancellor indicates a role reversal and now neither of them trust each other with the lights out. Sparks ahead for the Budget narrative.

So, with April 8th now out-of-the-window and May 6th nailed-on, not least because of the local elections in the Mets, Parliament must be dissolved by April 12th.

The decision to go to a May poll is high risk for Labour. Although Parliament must be dissolved by April 12th at the latest for May 6th, there’s an Easter recess to be squeezed-in before then, and I can’t see MP’s being called-back for a day just for prorogation, not that they actually have to return to London, nowadays. [Note that the Easter recess dates are still to be set.]

The brutal practicalities of this mean that the Election campaign will start on Thursday 25th March, the day after the budget and immediately before Easter, meaning a long campaign during which the broadcast media will be compelled to give equal weight to all parties. I think this is a really significant thing. It's why I wrote about the rules that strict cover broadcasting during the campaign here.

So, I’m not sure why Labour is risking a free-pass to the other parties for longer than absolutely necessary. You’d have thought that they’d have learned from John Major in 1997, who allowed one of the longest campaigns in history and paid the price accordingly.

Perhaps they think the momentum really is with them but when it comes to elections, Mike’s third rule applies. If you’re defending a lead, keep it short and sweet.

I’ve written before that Labour & LibDem’s are fishing in the same pool. The longer the campaign, the more the exposure the LibDems will get so the better the LibDems will do at the expense of Labour and, all other things being equal, that means that the Conservative lead will increase, even if their share remains constant at 38-40%.

I still think that Labour could have sealed-in some of their recent advances by going early. There’s a saying in politics, ‘Quit whilst you’re ahead’. But now they’re risking it all. The more you’re on the box, the better you do in the polls. And Labour have most to lose from a long campaign.

With equality of media coverage during the campaign, they’re betting the farm on those Q1 figures on St George’s Day being positive. If the figures reflect the shocking start in January, it will derail their ‘don’t risk the recovery’ meme with a fortnight to go. Ouch. And with unease in the currency market, who knows what could happen.

Of course, Labour could maintain the fiction that June 3rd is still on the cards but even I can’t see the generally risk-averse Brown throwing their local councillors to the lions on May 6th, from whom the party will rebuild itself in the event of losing control in the General.

So, whether by his own decision or having been forced to by Darling, going for May 6th Brown is now throwing caution to the wind. But then, Labour’s got nothing to lose. It’s double-or-quits.

But with the benefit of hindsight that tip-off in the Oaklands Hotel in Norwich last July that Labour would have the budget and go straight to the country without the inconvenience of a debate now turns out to have been right all along. I just misinterpreted it datewise. Logic indicated that Brown should go early. But Hey! This is politics. Who says that Logic applies?

But that’s no consolation to those that bet on April 8th. Sorry guys. We can’t win ‘em all. I really thought I'd got it nailed.

Bunnco – Your Man on the Spot

WattsUp with YouGov? Haven’t we Been Here Before?

In this article following on from Flockers on the main site last Friday I want to see whether there are parallels between the excessive reliance on black-box computer modelling in the Climate Change debate and the way in which the pollsters use models to systematically reweigh the raw polling data.

Whenever you go and collect data and do an initial analysis on it, there’s always one reason or another why it just doesn’t seem to fit with expectations. Perhaps there have been some gaps in the data? Or perhaps one series of data points seems to be over-represented? So, it’s the most natural thing in the world for the statistician to seek to fill-in or even-out these gaps, perhaps by reference to some sort of historical pattern or even by some sort of fudge-factor until the result seems more sensible and in-line with what you’d expect.

And, of course that’s what Phil Jones at his colleagues at the University of East Anglia just down the road from me did for about 15 years with his climate change models.

With hindsight it’s fairly easy to see that Jones and his colleagues had bought into a fixed notion that temperatures would be expected to rise as the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere increased. And so he designed his models accordingly. And then he got into a series of positive-feedback loops that progressively increased and then exaggerated the minor increases in the temperature record to fit into the peer-reviewed collective wisdom.

It didn’t matter that the fastest rises in CO2 occurred in the mid-1800’s [Krakatoa?] or that the weather during the Battle of Hastings was warmer than today [the Medieval Warm Period], a narrative had taken hold and people then became so engrossed in the computer models and their assumptions that they forgot to look out of the window to see what was really happening outside.

So, are the 2010 political polling reflecting what we’re seeing as we look out of our own windows? Is this poll narrowing really reflecting the conversations we’re having with colleagues at work or in the pub?

Have the Pollsters’ models got out of kilter with what we’re experiencing on the ground? Which is why I want an answer to Richard Tyndall’s Kellner Killer Question from February 20th, 2010 at 10:06 pm.

But I do have doubts about these Yougov daily polls. The difference between the pre and post weighting numbers seems to me to be unjustified and I would like to see this confirmed by a ‘real’ poll before saying whether or not the Tories are getting what they deserve for their recent mishandling of policy.

But before I highlight a worked example, let’s just get some things straight so you don’t characterise me as a Climate-Change or Polling denier. Let’s review some of the events of the last few weeks.

• As Bob Worcester says, it’s the share, not the lead that’s important. You only need a majority of one to win a seat. It’s clear that the Tory’s lead has narrowed over the last few weeks, even if their share has remained quite stable in the 38-40pc range.
• Labour’s share has increased. It’s been wall-to-wall Labour on the telly so Mike’s third rule applies: The more you’re on the box, the better you do in the polls. Their improvement over the last week seems to partly prove the saying that ‘There’s no such thing as bad publicity’.
• The LibDems have dropped and are flat-lining at 17/18pc and their misfortune has been Labour’s gain. The LibDems and Labour seem to be fishing in the same pool. As the LibDem vote falls, Labour’s rises, which has contributed most of all to Labour’s recovery.
• We also know that all-of-a-sudden Labour is doing substantially better in Scotland at the expense of the SNP so in aggregate over the whole of Great Britain, Labour’s percentage is higher. It’s debatable whether the increase is reflected in the English Towns, where the battle will be won or lost.

Oh yes and we also know a few weeks ago YouGov changed their weighting methodology in preparation for their daily polls, noting that Tory voters tended to respond more quickly to invitations-to-survey and older voters often missed-out because they only check their emails every few days.

The goalposts just got moved. Someone at YouGov just pressed the ‘Reset’ button. What’s the effect of this been?

So, let’s have a look at one of the recent polls by having a close look at the YouGov results from 25th February, for which fieldwork was conducted on 23/24th February.



First of all, the sample was reported to be 1473. Of the 1473 sample, the ‘Headline’ result was said to be Con 38%; Lab 32%; LibDem 19%; Others 10%, amounting to 99% with rounding errors. This excludes the don’t knows and the will not vote.

Of the 1473 sample just over 400 respondents were either in the others [10%], will not vote [7%] or undecided/Don’t know [13%] categories. That surprised me and suggests that all the parties still have a lot to play for. With 10% on ‘others’ and 20% of voters undecided, it’s still Game-On for the big parties.

The press is lapping-it-up. The Hung Government narrative sells papers.

Now, the pollsters job is to try and predict the national share. But is estimating the national share the same as predicting the result of the election? Andy Cooke has been postulating that the marginals are behaving differently and Blair Freebairn’s suggested that the key battleground is the METHHs, the medium English Towns and their hinterland. I agree.

So, now I’m going to do something controversial to illustrate a point. Just hear me out while I construct this straw man. There’ll be plenty of people lining-up to demolish it in the comments so I’ll put my tin hat on now!

I’m going to make the simplistic point that in the English METHH marginals, the battle is going to be a three-way fight. The contaminating effect of the nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales [SNP/PC] will be zero. I’m also going to make the intellectual leap that in a ‘change’ election, UKIP and the Greens [except Brighton & Norwich South] will be squeezed too.

So let’s just see what happens in what’s left of the YouGov weighted sample when we discount all except those who say they’ll vote for the main parties. In this scenario, what’s left are 1057 [71% of the whole sample] respondents out of the original 1473. I’m going to suggest that this forms a proxy for the 3-way English-Town fight, where the battle will be won or lost.

In the 1046 Raw Sample, there were 496 [47%] Con; 333 [32%] Lab & 217 [21%] LibDem. In 1057 weighted Headline Result, there were 453 [43%] Con; 375 [35%] Lab & 229 [22%] LibDem. Oooh. That's a big difference between the two!

In the weighted-sample three-main-parties-only figures, the Tories are 8% ahead… and that’s including Labour’s Scottish vote, which we know is disproportionately high north of the border and irrelevant for the METHHs. In the unweighted one, they're 15% clear.

Interestingly these are pretty similar results to the Angus Reid polls that have been studiously ignored by the national press, which have showed an additional swing over-and-above in the marginals.

In the weighted result, the Tories have been scaled-back from 496 to 452 [-43] and Labour improved from 333 to 375 [+42]. The LibDems have been boosted by 12 moving from 217 to 229. That represents a swing away from the Tories to Labour across the whole country of 5.7%. That’s quite a difference in a poll that gave the Tories a 6% lead.

If we accept that the 3-way fight is a proxy for the METHHs, for the Tories, there is still some comfort in the polls. They’re ahead where they need to be but it's still squeaky-bum time. Their campaign has faltered by firing out a series of policies in a scattergun approach without communicating a core narrative since January. It’s has been exposed as a great mistake, which is being punished.


But this weekend allows them to press their own ‘Reset’ button before the voters become engaged in the campaign proper.

I fully accept that the pollsters must re-weight their samples and the way in which they do this is their intellectual property and the value in their business. And it’s good business. I’ve used YouGov myself. And been pleased by the results.

But today's gap apparently narrowing to 2%, betting money at stake, and the future of the country hanging in the balance, we’re putting a lot of trust in the YouGov computer models, which have been recently tweaked. Are the tweaks, in this case resulting in a 5.7% Con-Lab swing over-cooking it? The Tories were 6% ahead overall. The weighting is as much as the lead. It's non-trivial.

We know what’s going on here: Pollsters know that, back in 2005 a certain proportion of people backed Labour. This year the pollsters are calling voters and not as many people are saying that they’re voting Labour as before. We can see that in the raw data.

So, it may well be that either a large number of people reallyaren’t going to vote Labour after all. Or the pollster may infer that, on an historical basis, his sample is just under-weight in Labour supporters and increase the Labour share with technical adjustments over-and-above normal demographic/occupational adjustments to align with the long-term model trend.

And if so, this is the fudge-factor. This is Dr Jones’ of the UEA “Mike’s Nature Trick”. That fudge in this case amounts to 5.7%. It needs to be explained.

Which brings me back to my initial point. Are there parallels here between the muddle with the scientists down the road at the UEA over ClimateGate and what we’re seeing here? Are we seeing too much reliance on black-box systems, whose complexity is now divorcing them from the system that they’re trying to model?

I’m not having a pop at YouGov. I don’t know the answer but you’ll excuse me from posing the question with a seeming 5.7% structural adjustment being applied.

As Political Punters, we now have a judgement call to make safe in the knowledge that if things generally look too good to be true, then they are normally are too good to be true.

• Do the national voting intentions accurately reflect the likely result of the election in 640 seats?
• Is the evidence of our own eyes telling us that only one voter in twenty has changed their mind since 2005?
• Do we trust the black-box polling models when the weightings are so large. Are they arbitary?
• How much of the polling is science and how much of prediction is art. And is this why the betting markets have been relatively stable over the last few weeks.

Peter Kellner’s coming on the site on Tuesday. I hope that this thread can collate the questions that we need to ask him.

Tell No Lies. How the MSM Will Report the Campaign

In this article Bunnco, your man on the spot, reviews the BBC's Election Reporting Guidelines which will be published in the next few days by The BBC Trust and wonders how the current reporting of the Wild West phoney campaign will change after Gordon goes to see Her Majesty.



Over the last 24 hours there’s been a frenzy of media speculation focused upon whether Gordon really did kill the butler in the library with a length of lead pipe. Or not.

Over all it’s been a good week for Labour, which seems to have owned-the-media-space in a co-ordinated campaign kicking-off with the Tears4Piers show last Sunday. The Tories have hardly had a look-in apart from the unfortunate gaffe from Nick Winterton, rather bemusingly characterised as ‘a senior Tory’, about not being able to get on with his confidential paperwork in standard class on the train to Cheshire.

There’s a perception on the main site that the smallest Tory transgression is seized upon where more substantial Labour problems are glossed-over. In my view, the ‘Nothing to see, move along meme’ does make it difficult to disbelieve that there is an institutional media bias against the Tories. I’ll leave it to others to question why this should be.

So, with Labour’s wall-to-wall coverage, we shouldn’t be surprised that the polls have tightened somewhat. And that apparent narrowing of the polls rather proves Mike’s Third Golden Rule, which states [and here I paraphrase] that the more you’re on the gogglebox, the better you do in the polling.

But this is all about to change because in the election period, strict broadcasting rules apply. The BBC’s Guidelines will be formally published in the next few days but the draft rules have been available on the BBCTrust’s website since December.

The Editorial Guidelines set out the standards required of people making programmes and other content for the BBC. They exist to guide content producers in making considered editorial decisions that take into account their responsibilities to the audience, contributors and others...

…The BBC is required by Parliament under the terms of its Charter and Agreement of 2006 to ensure that matters of political controversy and matters of public policy are covered with due impartiality.

Elections are major matters of political controversy and for elections the BBC produces Election Guidelines in addition to and alongside the standards set by the BBC Editorial Guidelines. The Election Guidelines set out the particular standards set by the BBC during the period leading up to and including an election day. They are additional to the standards set by the BBC to ensure that its content is duly impartial.

I downloaded the draft guidelines this morning and I reproduce the elements, which I think many PB readers will find most useful below: The document is 14 pages long so I have highlighted the key passages below. If you want to read the whole document, you’ll have to download it yourself.

These guidelines come into effect from the day on which the Prime Minister offers his resignation to the Queen and the General Election date is announced – this may well be a longer period and before Parliament is dissolved. The guidelines remain in effect until the close of polls.

These Guidelines are intended to offer a framework within which journalists:
• can operate in as free and creative an environment as possible,
• deliver to audiences impartial and independent reporting of the campaign, giving them fair coverage and rigorous scrutiny of the policies and campaigns of all parties.

The BBC is also required, under the terms of its Charter and Agreement of 2006 to ensure that political issues are covered with due accuracy and impartiality. These Election Guidelines… which say we must ensure that:
• news judgements continue to drive editorial decision making in news based programmes.
• news judgements at election time are made within a framework of democratic debate which ensures that due weight is given to hearing the views and examining and challenging the policies of all parties. Significant minor parties should also receive some network coverage during the campaign.
• we are aware of the different political structures in the four nations of the United Kingdom and that they are reflected in the election coverage of each nation. Programmes shown across the UK should also take this into account.

Mandatory issues and referrals
During the Election Period:
• Any programme which does not usually cover political subjects or normally invite politicians to participate must consult the Chief Adviser Politics before finalising any plans to do so.
• All bids for interviews with party leaders must be referred to the Chief Adviser Politics before parties are approached. Offers of such interviews should also be referred before being accepted
• Any proposal to use a contribution from a politician without an opportunity for comment or response from other parties must be referred to a senior editorial figure and the Chief Adviser Politics.
• The BBC will not commission voting intention polls
• Any proposal to commission an opinion poll on politics or any other matter of public policy for any BBC service must be referred to the Chief Adviser Politics for approval.
• There will be no online votes or SMS/text votes attempting to quantify support for a party, a politician or a party political policy issue.
• Any proposal to conduct text voting on any political issue that could have a bearing on any of the elections must be discussed with the Chief Adviser, Politics, as well as being referred to the relevant departmental senior editorial figure and ITACU.
• The BBC will not broadcast or publish numbers of e-mails, texts or other communications received on either side of any issue connected to the campaign.

On Polling day:
• No opinion poll on any issue relating to the election may be published.
• There will be no coverage of any of the election campaigns on any BBC outlet.
• It is a criminal offence to broadcast anything about the way in which people have voted in that election.

Impartiality and Coverage of the Parties
To achieve due impartiality, each bulletin, programme or programme strand, as well as online and interactive services, for each election, must ensure that the parties are covered proportionately over an appropriate period, normally across a week. This means taking into account levels of past and current electoral support.

Due impartiality must be achieved within these categories:
• clips
• interviews/discussions of up to 10 minutes
• longer form programmes

Previous electoral support in equivalent elections is the starting point for making judgements about the proportionate levels of coverage between parties. However, other factors can be taken into account where appropriate, including evidence of variation in levels of support in more recent elections, changed political circumstances (e.g. new parties or party splits) as well as other evidence of current support. The number of candidates a party is standing may also be a factor.

Impartiality in Programmes
Daily news magazine programmes (in the nations, regions and UK wide) should normally achieve proportional and appropriate coverage within the course of each week of the campaign. This means that each strand (e.g. a drive time show on radio) is responsible for reaching its own targets within the week and cannot rely on other outlets at different times of day (e.g. the breakfast show) to do so for it.

Programme strands should avoid individual editions getting badly out of kilter. There may be days when inevitably one party dominates the news agenda, e.g. when party manifestos are launched, but in that case care must be taken to ensure that appropriate coverage is given to other manifesto launches on the relevant days.

The News Channel and television and radio summaries will divide the 24 hour day into blocks and aim to achieve due impartiality across a week’s output in each one. Weekly programmes, or running series within daily sequence programmes, which focus on one party or another, should trail both forward and backwards so that it is clear to the audience that due impartiality is built in over time. In these instances, due impartiality should be achieved over the course of the campaign.

Any programme or content giving coverage to any of the elections must achieve due impartiality overall among parties during the course of the whole campaign. In all elections, the BBC must take care to prevent candidates being given an unfair advantage, for instance, where a candidate’s name is featured through depicting posters or rosettes etc.

Order of Parties
The order in which parties appear in packages or are introduced in discussions should normally be editorially driven. However, programme makers should take care to ensure they vary this order, where appropriate, so that no fixed pattern emerges in the course of the campaign.

Online
The same guidelines as those for programmes will apply to BBC Editorial content on all bbc.co.uk sites. These will apply to audio and video content as well as text content, e.g. blogs, podcasts and downloads, as well as any social networking which is associated with the BBC, including third party sites.

With user generated content, we must not seek to achieve what might be considered “artificial” impartiality by giving a misleading account of the weight of opinion. All sites prompting debate on the election will be actively hosted and properly moderated to encourage a wide range of views. Sites which do not usually engage in political issues should normally seek advice from the Chief Adviser, Politics, before doing so.

There will be no online votes attempting to quantify support for a party, politician or policy issue during the election period.

News Online will not link to the sites of single candidates, unless there is a very strong editorial justification on news grounds and then only for a limited period (e.g. a big row because major player publishes policy on his/her website which contradicts manifesto on their party’s website).
Any speeches which are carried in full will be selected on news value, while bearing in mind that due impartiality requires that an appropriate range of speeches are carried.

Reporting Polls
During the campaign our reporting of opinion polls should take into account three key factors:
• they are part of the story of the campaign and audiences should, where appropriate, be informed about them;
• context is essential, and we must ensure the accuracy and appropriateness of the language used in reporting them;
• polls can be wrong - there are real dangers in only reporting the most “newsworthy” polls – i.e. those which, on a one-off basis, show dramatic movement.

So, the general rules and guidance about reporting polls need to be scrupulously followed. They are:
• not to lead a news bulletin or programme simply with the results of a voting intention poll;
• not to headline the results of a voting intention poll unless it has prompted a story which itself deserves a headline and reference to the poll’s findings is necessary to make sense of it;
• not to rely on the interpretation given to a poll’s results by the organisation or publication which commissioned it, but to come to our own view by looking at the questions, the results and the trend;
• to report the findings of voting intentions polls in the context of trend. The trend may consist of the results of all major polls over a period or may be limited to the change in a single pollster’s findings. Poll results which defy trends without convincing explanation should be treated with particular scepticism and caution;
• not to use language which gives greater credibility to the polls than they deserve: polls “suggest” but never “prove” or even “show”;
• to report the expected margin of error if the gap between the contenders is within the margin. On television and online, graphics should always show the margin of error;
• to report the organisation which carried out the poll and the organisation or publication which commissioned it;
Take particular care with newspaper reviews. Polls should not be the lead item in a newspaper review and should always be reported with a sentence of context (e.g: “that’s rather out of line with other polls this week”).

Commissioning Polls
The BBC does not commission voting intention opinion polls during election periods. Editorial Guidelines say “any proposal to commission an opinion poll on politics or any other matter of public policy for any BBC service must be referred to the Chief Adviser Politics for approval”.

Care must be taken to ensure that any poll commissioned by the BBC is not used to suggest a BBC view on a particular policy or issue. A poll may be commissioned to help inform the audience’s understanding of a current controversy, but it should not be used to imply BBC intervention in a current controversy.

The Complaints Unit
The BBC will run a co-ordinated fast response unit which will handle any complaints about political bias during the General Election campaign.
The aim of the unit will be to:
• provide a one-stop shop for complaints-handling by the BBC.
• take pressure off individual journalists so they can concentrate on the journalism.
• reduce duplication of effort and cut down on the time BBC staff have to devote to dealing with complaints.
• try to achieve consistency of response.
• build up any picture of the pattern of complaints, especially from individual political parties.



So, what does all this mean for the Campaign itself and the effect on Polling and the Ballot.

1 I think we’re seeing that the Tory lead has been pretty stable over the last few months hovering around the 38-40% mark. Where we’ve seen changes, it’s tended to be as a result of the inter-play between Labour and the LibDems. As the ‘Others’ value has fallen over time, this has boosted the pool that both Labour & Libdems are fishing in.

As the BBC will be required to give more prominence to Nick Clegg when the election is called, we can expect his share to increase, probably at the expense of Labour.

“Others” may stabilise. In NorwichNorth, many Labour voters protested by supporting the minor parties, especially UKIP. Giving the minor parties a fair crack of the whip on the telly might start to crystallise the 40/30/20/10 polling.

As Bob Worcester so wisely said some weeks ago, “It’s the share not the lead.” What this tells me is that if the LibDems start do better in the campaign as a result of a higher media profile, I can see the Tory lead increasing even if they continue to hover at 40% as Labour leaks to the LibDems.

2 We know what happened in the Autumn with YouGov’s daily Conference Polling. It was jumping around all over the place. But when the Tory Conference came to town, the Tories benefited from saturation coverage. Cameron’s been squeezed-out over the last week so it’s not surprising the Tory share has slipped. If the BBC has to give equal coverage to the Tories his visibility and his polling is sure to rise.

3 Gordon Brown is ill-suited to being door-stepped and he’ll be under a lot of scrutiny in a 17 working day campaign. It seems to me that his lexicon is very restricted. “For the many, not the few”; “Schools and Hospitals”; “Hard-working Families” etc. If he keeps repeating these lines and doesn’t develop new ones in the full glare of media scrutiny, the public will quickly suss this out. The ability of Mandleson to carefully hand-craft the message for set-piece occasions will be limited. Seventeen working days is a long time in Politics.

4 Events: Remember the Battle of Jennifer’s Ear? There’ll be more banana skins like that.

5 Blogging: I’m intrigued by the way in which Iain Dale and Guido are breaking stories. Whilst not many people read their blogs in the wider electorate, they can set the narrative. Neither of these two are subject to media rules and it will be interesting to see how the BBC [& Sky] treat new blogosphere stories as they break. I’m surprised the guidelines don’t include a section on the blogosphere and other [non-BBC] electronic media.

6 The Leaders’ Debates. This is the big unknown and even now it’s not clear whether these will actually happen.

7 Reporting of Polling. There’s quite a chapter on this and PB has a role here to assist the BBC and other media outlets in interpreting what’s going on. I really hope that the site doesn’t just degenerate into a series of name-calling or willy-waving threads. This is where we collectively earn our spurs.

But after a week of saturation coverage when the starting gun is fired, I suspect that we’ll be longing for election day, whenever it is. Why? Because the BBC guidelines are quite clear

There will be no coverage of any of the election campaigns on polling day, from 6am until polls close at 10pm on TV, radio or bbc.co.uk. However, online sites will not have to remove archive reports. Coverage will be restricted to factual accounts with nothing which could be construed as influencing the ballots. No opinion poll on any issue relating to politics or the election may be published until after the polls have closed. Whilst the polls are open, it is a criminal offence to broadcast anything about the way in which people have voted in that election.

And the day after that? What are we all going to do with all our time then? After the excitement of the Norwich North by-election last year I told my wife that the aftermath was like having a bereavement in the family. I’m sure it will be the same for some of you too.

Bunnco – Your Man on the Spot