Tories up by seven in new YouGov poll

Nash

Still ridiculous that a 5% Tory lead gives Labour the most seats.

In fact, the whole fuss about Ashcroft is ridiculous - if Labour was so bothered, why did they not change the law to stop it? Could it be that Labour received more from their "non-doms" than the Tories did?

Ludwig von Crises

Interesting to see what happens on GBP:USD/EUR and to bond yields tomorrow. If they retrace today's losses, it strongly suggests the wobble was in prospect of a Brown win not a hung parliament.

Cogito Ergosum

You political nerds are so self important: you seem to think these poll movements are important. They are as random as raindrops, a statistical blur.

Too many essay-writing arts graduates involved.

TrevorsDen

Why should one poll, be right and another wrong? Why should a poll change so much in 2 days?

Do you believe any of this - ?

Again you fail to discuss the relative methodologies and consider the raw data. Do either of these pollsters add in the don't knows and the will not votes?
Why do you place such importance on information which you clearly do not understand.

This is becoming something of an issue actually. Before climategate people thought scientists were normal people, not lying dissembling self serving opportunists. We took their word (or some did) with not a care that they did not comprehend a blind wprd that was being said.

This is happening in all works of life and the great British public is reduced to getting its info from such luminaries as Robinson and Marr whose bona fides I leave to you all to digest.

2trueblue

James 39 is not above 40%, so not sure if you got it wrong or if You Guv got it wrong, again. Their unweighted result of the last You Guv poll was 41 to 31, and ends up with the Tories just 2 ahead. What a hell of a weight to be carrying! There is something very wrong going on with the media and the polls. Sticky fingers are everywhere, the question is whose?

They are messing with the very fabric of our freedom to unbiased information.

John Law

All a load of Boll*cks.

The polls are so manipulated as to be useless. To many un decided and p*ssed off people refusing to cooperate.
My prediction 20 to 40 seats majority for cons.
Brown is toast, just a matter of how many of the generally discontented (plague on both their houses) join the in, which will determine the size of the kicking Brown gets.

As eurosceptic as I am, I think this kicking should be our priority.

General Zod

These daily YG polls are ridiculous.

RKing

Someone should have advised Kirsty Wark on Newsnight.
Job well done by Gove and he got her losing her rag over the non-dom story.
I think her wearing her red coat told all!

Occasional Ostrich

And the pollsters still try to assure us that, after the F-Us of the '80s & 90's their methodology is much improved, to the extent that they can call it "reliable"?

kevin atkinson

Gawd: Are we going to have this up/down everyday until the election? zzz zzz zzz

mitch

I always lie to pollsters, it may be a bit sad but they get what they pay for.
So according to Yougov I earn less than £5k, drive a Porsche, take 4 holidays abroad and drink Stella.......oh and vote Green.
Take no notice I don't.

TomTom

These polls are a waste of time. They are narrow because they do not capture "Other" and this area is growing. The Establishment Parties are corrupt with expense fiddles, Non-Dom scandals, and hopeless leaders....voters, especially in the North are moving away from these parties and so the gap between two big parties shrinks as it did in 2005 results - with 2% between Labour and Conservatives

THX1138

James funny how you don't mention the ComRes poll in the Indy this morning.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/hung-parliament-looms-as-tory-poll-lead-cut-to-5-points-1914288.html

Nicholas

RKing - yes indeed, demolition job on the Labour supporting Wark who was most disconcerted by Gove's determined attack on BBC bias and hurriedly tried to terminate the interview in Marr style when the interrogator suddenly became the interrogee. I noticed also that the odious slimeweasel Crick (did a BBC Labour stooge ever have a more appropriate surname?) was also sporting his red scarf.

The least said about the three "panellists" the better. They remind me of the pub bores ones tries to avoid like the plague.

Richard Holloway

All this talk of the polls narrowing is, I believe only the core Labour vote shoring up. The first true poll will be the one 48 hours after the election is called. Even then it won't be totally accurate as the work in the marginals that has been going on for years will mean that there will not be a uniform swing.

Sean Haffey

All this poll shows is that, astonishingly, the Tories are a little less unpopular than Labour. This is truly appalling.

Ian Walker

Blimey, just watched Newsnight on iPlayer. Wark was a complete disgrace, and Gove was excellent. The Beeb's lefties had better hope he doesn't move to CMS after education...

Right On

Thought Gove was superb on Newsnight last night, though I'm not waiting with baited breath on these questions being asked of Labour or the Lib Dems. As someone else has said if this was such an issue then why has the law not been changed?

toco

Peter Kellner's YouGov poll is very interesting and certainly proves just how dynamic the electorate has become.It also blows away any conspiracy theories which were floating around last weekend.

GDT

@ John Law
March 1st, 2010 11:01pm

Well said!

denis cooper

"The key thing to watch is if the Tories, who have gained two points since the last poll, continue to trend upwards."

From the changes reported in the last three polls, it can't be said that the Tories are trending upwards, or that there's any other clear short term trend:

Poll published on Sunday - Tories down 2%, Labour up 2%

Polls published on Tuesday - Tories down 1% and up 2%, Labour up 1% and down 3%.

Since last November the trend has been downwards for the Tories, and it's too early to say whether that trend is now being reversed.

John David Barnett

Glad to hear Gove flayed Wark. Wark is one reason for my abandoning Newsnight. Detestable woman.

oldtimer

The uniform swing is a convenient but useless shorthand to measure the effect of voting shares in terms of seats won. It is on a par with some of the more foolish proxies offered up by the AGWarming brigade.

The election will be settled in c150 marginal or near marginal seats. Past voting habits suggest that the voters in these constituencies are well aware of the power of their vote. They are quite capable of thinking for themselves and to vote tactically for or against a candidate that is not their natural choice. The evidence of past elections have demonstrated this beyond doubt. Plenty has been written about this on ThePolling Report and politicalbetting.com.

I think the Sun/YouGov polls are there to generate headlines and to sell newpapers.

Percy

@ John Law

Totally agree, these polls are so volatile they can only indicate that they are pretty crap. Just bring on the date that Chernenko can get his well-deserved shoeing, it will happen.

GoodbyeGordon

I suspect that staring into the Dantean abyss of 5 more years with Saint Gordon might just have clarified the thinking of one or two poll respondents!