A piece of surprising polling data

The excellent Political Betting website reports

The chart(s) ...based on the finding new form of questioning which has just been tested by Opinium for its latest Observer poll.

After the main voting intention question the firm asked “You said that you would vote [Party] if an election were held tomorrow. Would you say that this is because you’d want to vote for [Party] or because you’d want to vote against someone else?”

For those who indicated that there choice was wholly or partly negative this was followed by a second question “You said that you’d vote [Party] mainly/partly to vote against someone else. Who would you want to vote against?”

Hree are the charts and they are fascinating as well as surprising...

So, proportionally, more Conservative voters are voting for a party rather than against a party, and the proportion of UKIP voters voting as a protest vote is no higher than Labour or Lib Dem voters!

Ed Balls 'daunted' by chancellor task - but the BBC will do their best to ensure that Ed Balls is in that position

The BBC report that:

'Ed Balls has told me that he is "daunted" at the prospect of becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer, given the scale of cuts a future Labour government may have to make.'

There follows a list of the key points that were discussed, unsurprisingly the matter of the last Labour government's overspending from 2003 not 2008 as Ed Balls and other Labour ministers have decided to claim was the case.

Here are the facts, I wonder if the BBC's Nick Robinson is aware of them, or does he prefer to take Ed Balls line?

Maybe the British public aren't as stupid as the BBC would like them to be as the latest IPSOS MORI poll finds Osborne leading Balls as the " most capable potential chancellor" by 38 to 33. Personally I'm staggered it's that small a margin...

The Palestinians view of Israel per Pew's latest market research

So we are told that the Palestinians want to live in peace alongside Israel but Pew's market research shows that only 14% of those in the Palestinian Territories think that there is a way for Israel and the Palestinian Territories to coexist peacefully and that 45% support armed struggle as the best way to achieve statehood with another 22% supporting armed struggle along with non-violent and negotiations.

It's strange that the BBC and many western politicians keep telling us that the Palestinians want peace and that Israel's actions are the main obstacles to peace, when the Palestinians have been saying the opposite to pollsters for years. In a 2007 poll, 77% Palestinian respondents said “the rights and needs of the Palestinian people cannot be taken care of as long as the state of Israel exists.” In a 2011 poll, 61% of Palestinians said they saw a two-state solution only as a stepping-stone to Israel’s ultimate eradication.

To give the Palestinians their due, they don't hide their aspirations, it's idiot Western journalists and politicians who should know better, unless their real aim is also the destruction of Israel.

US Polling update

Whilst the US electorate votes after being told how close the race is, this article struck me as interesting:

'While every single poll on the planet predicts Democrats will enjoy a turnout advantage of three to eleven points, the latest Rasmussen survey of party affiliation taken throughout October shows that Republicans enjoy a  huge 5.8% Party ID advantage going into the 2012 election.

According to Twitter's invaluable NumbersMuncher, Rasmussen correctly predicted 2008 would be a D+7 election and incorrectly predicted 2010 would be D+3. (2010 was D+0, or even, so Rasmussen gave an edge to Democrats they didn't have.)

If the 2012 race is D+2, Romney's probably going to win. If the race is R+6, Romney's going to enjoy a landslide.

The most important piece of information in this poll, though, is that Rasmussen's sample is a monstrous 15,000 likely voter. Moreover, Rasmussen's Party ID results match similar results found by Gallup and  Pew.

Again, if Rasmussen is anywhere near as correct as he's been in the past, all of these polls showing Obama holding small leads, are dead wrong. They're under-sampling Republicans in a major way; predicting an electorate that looks like 2008.'

I hope Rasmussen is correct.

An interesting opinion polling result

YouGov report an interesting finding:

'Our latest daily voting intention shows the Conservatives at 40%, Labour at 41% and the Liberal Democrats at 7% - the second time in a week they have hit this new low.

While our polling is now giving Labour a consistent lead in the polls, if asked a forced choice question on whether people would rather have a Conservative government led by David Cameron or a Labour government led by Ed Miliband, the Conservatives lead by 41% to 36%. Partially this is probably the effect of including the leaders' names in the question, as David Cameron has much higher net approval ratings than Ed Miliband. Mostly, however, the difference comes down to how the preferences of supporters of the Liberal Democrats and other parties split between Labour and the Conservatives.

This is more than just of academic interest, it is also a good rough guide towards which parties the alternative vote would help. The alternative vote is generally perceived to be most helpful to the electoral chances of the Liberal Democrats and to Labour, a belief that is backed up by polling at past general elections. This is because as a centrist party, the Liberal Democrats have been well placed to get second preferences from both Labour and Conservative voters, and because historically Liberal Democrat supporters have tended to say they are far more likely to give their second preferences to the Labour party.

In our recent polls the remaining Liberal Democrat supporters say they would prefer a Conservative government to a Labour one by 51% to 16%. This is not a reflection of shifting Liberal Democrat opinion, rather it is that many Labour-sympathising Liberal Democrats have deserted the party. Regardless of the reasons though, it suggests that if AV were to be introduced, the remaining Liberal Democrat voters would tend to give their second preferences to the Conservative party. AV may in fact end up helping the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives rather than Labour.'

Now I find that fascinating, I wonder how the LibDem preferences have changed since the election...

Spot the difference and anyway...

The BBC report that:

'The proposed wording for the question in the referendum on changing the UK voting system needs to change, the Electoral Commission says.

Some people - "particularly those with lower levels of education or literacy, found the question hard work and did not understand it" - its report says.

The watchdog says the structure, length and the language used made the question "harder to read than it needed to be".

The final wording of the question is a matter for the UK Parliament.'

Wow the wording must be really complex, maybe it includes the exact way that AV systems work? Well no:

'The proposed wording for the question at the moment is: 'Do you want the United Kingdom to adopt the "alternative vote" system instead of the current 'first past the post' system for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons?

The Electoral Commission's suggested redraft is: At present, the UK uses the 'first past the post' system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should the 'alternative vote' system be used instead?'

Two points; first ss the second wording much, if at all, clearer than the first and second if someone doesn't understand either question then should they be allowed to vote? The natural extension of this second point is that all electors should have to sit a short economics, history, mathematics and English test to see if they are intelligent enough, and have enough knowledge of the historical context to issues, to be allowed to vote. This is of course in addition to my 'no representation without taxation' rule. So long as the unemployable, dispossessed and intellectually challenged can vote on a par with taxpayers and intelligent human beings, this country will have to fear a return of the Labour party to power and that must not be allowed to happen.... (Only slightly tongue in cheek).

A political pundit getting it wrong on the Labour leadership

No, not Nick Robinson although he did make a rather embarrassing cock-up on Saturday.

The pundit I have in mind is Sky's Jon Craig who writes:

'I wondered here back in June whether David Miliband might live to regret nominating Diane Abbott and ensuring she got the required number of nominations.

Having looked at the final results, I think Diane's intervention probably didn't make any difference to the result.'

Hmm as I blogged on Saturday 'Diane Abbott's votes went to Ed 3.14% and David 1.11%' That makes a difference of 2.03%, far more than the eventual difference between Ed & David Miliband...