Tories pulling clear in latest guardian poll

[dotski_w_]

The tories have increased their lead to 9% in the latest guardian poll
Tories-40
Labour-31
LibDem-20
Others-9

Looks like the Brown bounce has come too soon and he has made a major error in delaying the election until May. Although the same webpage shows the Tories may inherit an economy in dissarray.

Politics news, UK and world political comment and analysis | Politics | guardian.co.uk

The YouGov poll (also yesterday) shows a different story, with LP 5% behind

UK Polling Report

There is very little change in today’s YouGov poll for the Sun. The topline figures are CON 37%(nc), LAB 32%(nc), LDEM 19%(-2). So Labour and the Conservatives are unchanged, and that temporary conference boost for the Lib Dems has started to recede.

[locke]

Does anyone know much about Opinium as a polling organisation?

There have been a couple of polls attributed to them (15th March and 8th March in dotski's link).

From looking at their company website, they seem to be online only.

From looking at their opinion polls, they seem to put the Lib Dems well below where other polling companies have them.

From looking at the raw data, there seem to be no "Don't Know"s there.(IMO Very Dodgy).

But does anyone know about their previous reliability?

[dotski_w_]

Does anyone know much about Opinium as a polling organisation?

There have been a couple of polls attributed to them (15th March and 8th March in dotski's link).

From looking at their company website, they seem to be online only.

From looking at their opinion polls, they seem to put the Lib Dems well below where other polling companies have them.

From looking at the raw data, there seem to be no "Don't Know"s there.(IMO Very Dodgy).

But does anyone know about their previous reliability?

Never heard of them before, that site I think just puts all the polls up without prejudice. Googling them makes them sound a bit crap, mind
opinium.co.uk - Review - 50p a go anyone?

On a related matter, this is a good page from the other site for working out the likely seats from percentage votes. Interestingly, the result I predicted would - apparently - see Tories 289, Lab 286, Libs 45, others 30, although as I said I think the Tories would do somewhat better in the marginals.

UK Polling Report

[locke]

I also reckon the Lib Dems will do better in seats that they already hold.

They have a few shaky ones in the West Country and in the London subrubs, but then they have a few where they could gain from Labour.

Overall, I'd say that even with a significantly reduced national performance, they might come back only a seat or two down.

[Chrisco]

The YouGov poll (also yesterday) shows a different story, with LP 5% behind

UK Polling Report

Yes, but it is also a daily tracker poll, so you wouldn't really expect it to show the same changes as one compared with a week ago.

[Chrisco]

I also reckon the Lib Dems will do better in seats that they already hold.

They have a few shaky ones in the West Country and in the London subrubs, but then they have a few where they could gain from Labour.

Overall, I'd say that even with a significantly reduced national performance, they might come back only a seat or two down.

They'll probably come back about 10 down, losing 20 to the Tories and picking up 10 off Labour.

[dotski_w_]

Yes, but it is also a daily tracker poll, so you wouldn't really expect it to show the same changes as one compared with a week ago.

But it showed no change at all for either main party. Tracking only slows the swing, it doesn't wipe it out.

[sandar]

To be honest the LibDems would be mad to put Labour back in after all the damage they have done. They should squeeze as much as they can from the Tories.

our policy is that we wont decide the people will, we will negotiate an agreement with whichever party gets the largets vote share

[odie1kanobe]

326 gives you an overall majority but really 322 will do that as well given SF will not take seats and seat of speaker.

[KingKane]

It would appear that the Tories are having problems breaching the 40% barrier with any consistency, looking at the polls page on the BBC site what struck me was that there tends to be one party that is polling ahead of expectations in the lead up to the election but never does quite so well on polling day. So in 1987 the LibDems (Alliance as was) were up close to and even level in one poll with Labour in Mar but well off that after the campaign. In 1992 that party was Labour, in 1997 they didn't actually get nearly into the high 40%s what the polls had been predicting in the long lead up to polling day, and again the same in 2001 when the gap was 8/10% but ended up just over 3%.

BBC News - Poll tracker: Interactive guide to the opinion polls

In other words the support for one main party will likely over stated and the campaign will pare that support back though it might not show polling day.

The question is which party is it this time, is it Labour or the Tories or the LibDems?