Westminstenders: "They are ahead in the polls"

[RedToothBrush]

The nominations are in!

A reminder about polling...

... And its significance in this election.

In 2017 YouGov got it right. They did two types of poll. One was a general poll which was done on regional polling. Early versions of this during the campaign discounted the don't knows. Later ones guesstimated how the don't knows would vote. This polling turned out to be close to the result but not exact.

The other poll you Gov did was on a constituency level. It was right before the election and it proved to be the most accurate of all, until we saw John Curtice's exit poll (which was spot on).

This time around YouGov have just switched to a constituency version of their polling because its much more complex this time with various pacts in action. They will be promoting respondents on the basis of who is standing in their constituency.

I'm not aware of other pollsters and their methodology but YouGov is interesting because of how close they were to the result last time.

This time around we are also seeing the active use of polling to lead voters, rather than necessarily reflect it. The Lib Dems and Remain have done a lot in what they see as key marginals to aid their credibility as realistic challengers. It's a more sophisticated version of their infamous, 'Only the LDs can beat X here' barcharts of shame. But it's unlikely they will be the only ones to try and use the technique. They probably will just be a little more transparent about it.

John Curtice has gone on record as saying there are only two realistic outcomes for the election: A Tory Majority or a Hung Parliament.

For the Tories to win they need a significant lead in the polls. To be sure probably 10% lead because of the regionality and constituency anomalies. Anything less than 6 or 7 percentage ahead and it tips to a hung parliament. YouGov currently have them on 13pt lead... BUT that's without fully accounting for the 1/5 of voters who are currently undecided. Last time around those who decided at the last moment tipped heavily in favour of Labour rather than the Conservatives.

Who stays at home, or who spoils a ballot could have particular significance this time around as disenchanted voters are made up of a higher number of voters who do usually vote than usual and a broken tribalism. Thus making it more difficult to predict than ever before.

So be a bit wary of polls and what they show - and what they don't show...

Rachel Wearmouth
@REWearmouth
·
5h
Asked on BBC how he is relatable, Boris Johnson struggles a bit and says "I've had a very happy and wonderful life".
He seems to think the Q is unfair and says it is "the most difficult psychological question anyone has ever asked me".

Does he know what job he is applying for?

That interview was just 😮. Worth finding on Twitter.

Boris’s most surprising fail in an extensive BBC broadcast round this morning: thinking the proportion of EU and non-EU net immigration is 50/50.

Are Full Fact wrong?
August 2019:

"For the 12 months ending March 2016, it estimates 207,000 more EU citizens immigrated to the UK than emigrated, whereas previously it thought that figure was 178,000. (The ONS hasn’t created new estimates for years more recently than 2016)."

"For the 12 months ending December 2018, it estimates that 214,000 more non-EU citizens immigrated to the UK than emigrated from it. Previously that figure was 232,000."

fullfact.org/immigration/eu-immigration-uk-has-been-bigger-we-thought/

Has this YouGov poll about freedom of movement been posted yet?

clavinova those two figures are for 2 different years

Clavinova
The ONS figures are from 2019 and ref to NET immigration:

Take away the emigration from the immigration,
e.g. EU (200 - 141) = 59k
non-EU (333-133) = 200k

BJ is lying about 50:50 EU / non-EU

(If the govt's own statistics are wrong or misleading, then the PM is responsible for this)

..

There won't be a reply

"clavinova those two figures are for 2 different years"

Pick and match of different years is the most BLATANT Tory trick and / or complete ignorance of statistics

I wonder if Cummings did this for BJ

clavinova those two figures are for 2 different years

Yes, I know, which is why I left in;
(The ONS hasn’t created new estimates for years more recently than 2016)

I'm only quoting FullFact;

"But as Professor Jonathan Portes of King’s College London pointed out last year, there’s a mystery: the figures we get from this survey haven’t been telling the same story as other sources of data on immigration."

And broadband nationalisation is now “just a taster” of what’s coming in the manifesto? What’s the main course? Full communism?

We can but hope.

I know the PC councillor newly elected in Rhos, Neath. Genuinely nice person and pleased for her but I don’t necessarily think it’s indicative of the whole constituency. Be nice if it was.

But your ignoring the fact you were talking about different things.

No I wasn't.

Leonardo Carella @leonardocarella
As promised, here's what @benwansell and I found out about actually-existing electoral deals, "unilateral alliances" and hypothetical pacts. What's a "Tim Walker Pact"? Do you want to know what's a "Reverse Farage" or are you too afraid to ask? Read on and you'll find out. (1)

We started from Ben's general election simulator, which draws on both current polling and 2017 results to predict English and Welsh constituency results, and added a Scotland mini-model alongside it. Based on current polling, we simulate 2,000 election results for E&W. (2)

Then we plug in the values for UK-wide parties from each electoral simulation in the Scotland mini-model, and get Scotland shares. Then we translate the shares into seats: the predictor offers various options as to how to do it, but we're starting with UNS assumptions. (3)

In the baseline scenario, with no alliances, and with distribution centered around polling averages of 38 Con 28 Lab 15 LD 8 BXP 4 Green 1 PC and SNP 39% in Scotland: we get

drumroll

Conservatives have a 78% probability to get a majority, Remain parties only 12%. (4)

"But what about the LibDem/Green/Plaid Cymry alliance?!" I hear you ask. Fear not. It turns out that on average it changes between one and two seats. The density plots are almost identical. (5)

Same story for the "unilateral alliance", whereby the Brexit Party stands down their candidates in Conservative-held seats (left). On average, about 4 seats change hands. And if you plug in both alliances at the same time, they essentially cancel each other out. (6)

^So, alliances don't work - or do they? What could they have done better? Here's where the Reverse Farage comes in. What if Farage had stood down candidates in Labour-held seats? It would have been much more effective. Conservatives now have 84% chances of a majority (7)

And what if the Brexit Party had gone all the way and stood down everywhere? Up against existing Unite-to-Remain alliance, the Conservative chances of a majority up to 88%, with a median expected number of seats of 360. We call this 'The Full Farage'. (8)

Let's assume for a second that Remainers were any good at politics - I know, it's a challenging thought experiment... But what kind of alliance would they strike?

A few days ago, Tim Walker, the LibDem candidate in Canterbury, stood down and endorsed the Labour incumbent. (9)

Assuming 70% vote transfers (we don't have any polling on this, so we guessed), if Labour and the LibDems did stood down in the seats held by the other nationwide, Remain would have 49% chances of a majority, higher than the Conservatives' 35% (10)

Now suppose they went all the way and stood down in every seat endorsing the most likely Remain winner (as recommended by Best for Britain's MRP model for E&W, and the highest polling in 2017 for Scotland). 74% chances of a Remain majority, Labour averaging 260 seats. (11)

We jotted down our thoughts on what all this means in an upcoming piece for @UKandEU. Head there for more details, caveats and hot takes!

We can but hope.

I'm sure that's true for quite a few Labourites. Never mind - the more insane Labour gets, the harder Tory Remainers will have to think in the privacy of the voting booth about whether they want to risk waking up to a Venezuelised economy if they don't stick with the Conservatives. I suspect a fair number will go back to the blues when the crunch comes.

Jonathan Portes writes here in August;
Current migration statistics: no longer fit for purpose

"In particular, as I wrote last June, the official labour force and population statistics, based on the Labour Force Survey, which try to estimate broadly who is resident in the UK at any one time, tell a very different story to the migration statistics, based largely on the International Passenger Survey."

"According to the former, the increase in the number of EU citizens resident in the UK far exceeds the numbers who have, according to the latter, migrated here. For non-EU citizens, the reverse is the case. I concluded “it is reasonably clear that in the recent past EU migration has been significantly higher, and non-EU migration significantly lower, than we thought.”

"I speculated then that the most likely explanation of these divergences was that “some EU citizens who arrive here thinking they’re only going to stay for a short time–and hence don’t tell the survey that they’re immigrants–end up staying.” Meanwhile, the overestimation of non-EU migration is likely to be down to undercounting students who leave at the end of their studies, as the university sector has long argued. ONS’s paper today comes to broadly the same conclusions."

ukandeu.ac.uk/current-migration-statistics-no-longer-fit-for-purpose/

Some details of the YouGov poll here - Labour arguing among themselves again;

"Labour is facing its own clash on immigration policy after Len McCluskey, leader of the giant Unite union and Mr Corbyn's chief trade union cheerleader, opposed party policy on freedom of movement."

"In an interview in The Guardian ahead of Labour's crucial meeting this weekend to agree its manifesto, Mr McCluskey said it was wrong to have a policy of free movement without stricter labour market regulation."

"But shadow home secretary Diane Abbott tweeted: "The Labour Party is committed to maintaining & extending Freedom of Movement rights."

news.sky.com/story/general-election-majority-of-voters-want-to-keep-free-movement-after-brexit-says-poll-11861365

Jonathan Portes writes here in August; Current migration statistics: no longer fit for purpose

But his figures must be all wrong because Jonathan Portes is a well-known fan of Boris, Brexit, and the Tories. *

• Editor’s Note: he’s the opposite.

My bil has been working in Valencia.

Letting him go at xmas.

Brexit innit

Most important for Conservatives:- get into power whatever the cost.