This, of course, doesn't look good. Labour have been chucking big, headline grabbing policies left, right and centre ... Well, maybe not right. Left, left and centre left, perhaps.Westminster voting intention:— Britain Elects (@britainelects) 16 November 2019
CON: 44% (+3)
LAB: 28% (-1)
LDEM: 14% (-1)
BREX: 6% (-)
via @OpiniumResearch, surveyed this week
Chgs. w/ 08 Nov
But then again, Opinium have always tended to show big Tory leads. The 16% there isn't too outlandish for them. Every single one of their last ten polls has given the Tories a double digit lead. And 5 out of that 10 have given it as 15% or 16%.
Another interesting (for me) feature of Opinium's polling is that they seem to have recently started including the nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales - and this seems to have coincided with the ballooning of the Conservative lead.
What could this mean?
1 - The Tories became wildly popular at that time and it is just a coincidence.
2 - Everyone in Scotland who supported SNP but didn't have the option said they'd vote Labour instead, and that was a lot of people; one they got the option of saying they'd vote SNP instead they did so, and Labour's vote collapsed.
3 - Opinium made some big methodological changes at the time and now their polling is completely bonkers.
Looking back at Opinium's polling pedigree, I find more reasons to be sceptical. In 2017, their polls in the month leading up to the election gave leads of 15%, 13%, 10%, 6% and 7% - so they did detect a narrowing of the Conservative lead, but seem to have consistently underestimated how tight the race was.
So if Opinium say the lead is 16% it is probably 8%.
1 comment:
Tory lead is clearly weaker now than at same point in 2017:
My Averages (Tory lead over 1st 10 days of campaign: 2017 vs 2019):
YouGov: (2017) 18% ... (2019) 14%
ComRes 18% ... 9%
Panelbase 17% ... 12%
ICM 20% ... 8%
Survation 18% ... 6%
Opinium 16% ... 14%
Kantar 16% ... 10%
Having said that ... all Pollsters have changed their methodology since 2017 (possibly in a Labour-friendly direction in some cases ... though need more evidence to be sure) ... and some Pollsters do have Tories increasing their lead over last couple of weeks ... I suspect Labour will ultimately manage to narrow the lead but not to the same degree as last time (though that still leaves the crucial question of the actual accuracy / veracity of current polling).
Labour's task is to convince as many LDs as possible to vote strategically, while holding on to its Brexit supporters by emphasising NHS / anti-Austerity / social policy.
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