Tory lead down to four points in latest YouGov tracker poll

strapworld

Cameron will not speak to people who can help. People who can suggest real policies that will resonate with the people. If Cameron cannot or will notm and still relies on the Letwins, Maudes or Osbornes all will definately be lost.

The time has come for Cameron to step down.

Beer Moth

Bloody hell James, we've got weeks before the election. Is your life going to be given over to picking over the figures turned up by this imbecile industry?

I've had two calls from ICM this week, asking a load of dumbarse questions, none of which were aimed to give a realistic picture of how I feel and am likely to vote, nor anyone I speak to.

They do not know as much as they would have you believe. Calm down, do.

TrevorsDen

Can you give a rational explanation of why the LDs, after months of being marked down by YouGov compared to other pollsters, should suddenly leap by 25% in a single day?

I'm listening.

Dean

It used to be said that polls come and go, and should not be taken seriously as the only poll that matters is the one on election day. Now, it seems, the polls just keep coming, one after another, until we are so bored that we no longer have the will to live, let alone vote....

TrevorsDen

A Metro Harris poll: Con 37%, Lab 29%, Lib Dems 18%, Others 12%..... allegedly.

William Blakes Ghost

Yougov Polls are about as credible as the European Foreign Minister.

Bexleyite

Don't give a toss about the polls. But someone somewhere in the Conservative Party needs to give a serious message about where they're going.

Natasha

I suspect that what is starting to happen here is analogous to what is called Goodhart's law in economics, whereby the measurement tool (in this case a daily opinion poll) begins to affect and distort the phenomenon it seeks to measure. YouGov polls that show a narrowing Conservative lead result in increased criticism of Cameron's modernising strategy from the Right. The public then perceive that the Tories are either (a) divided or (b) shifting to the Right, which is for many floating voters an unwelcome development. This leads to a further narrowing in the polls, and the cycle repeats itself. The only way Cameron can break the vicious circle is to signal clearly that his modernising strategy is still on course.

John

I did a YouGov poll a few days ago.
Two or three questions were so loaded toward favouring the Labour Party, that I complained. No response yet.
Frankly, I wouldn't trust Kellner any more than I trust the BBC to be even-handed.

Percy

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

emil

Switch on the telly and you've statistically more chance of seeing Mandleson or Del Boy Trotter than a Tory. Once the election campaign officially starts we might get some balance (and Cameron might actually pull his finger out of his rear orifice)

Simon Denis

Don't give out the only poll that counts rubbish. Polls are quite possibly accurate; they are widely held to be accurate and in consequence they are influential. Waving them away with affected Macmillanish indifference will not do. Cameron simply has to up his game. The current one isn't working. His slogans are flabby, his direction uncertain. If the Beeb is biased then he should have the guts to complain about it - out loud! Even Mr ever-so-reasonable Gove was visibly angered by the loaded tut-tutting of Wark the SuperFrump on Newsnight. Let it rip, lads - you've nothing to lose but an election and if you don't show some metal you'll have lost that anyway.

Edward Sutherland

Are we going to have this every night until the election? How about posting on some real news: the diabolical trade figures, the warning from Fitch ratings agency,or the coroner's verdict today on inadequate equipment for the troops? And why aren't you gunning for Labour after Grayling's been vindicated on the crime statistics?

TGF UKIP

I'm sure James will tell us that all it will take is for The Mekon to receive some new vision and all will be saved for Dave.

Richard

The trouble with opinion polls is ..they never sample enough people.

Take a 50/50 possibility like red or black on a roulette wheel. Sample the last 100 spins and logic would tell you 50 reds and 50 blacks. However when done enough times you will get hot spots, where red or black is more represented.
So what you see is what everyone knows is a possibility but not the probability.
increase the sampling to the last 1000 spins and the hot spots are reduced but not eliminated.
10,000 and you get an even more deminished variation but still the possibility of a few hot spots.
so in the polls you sample 1500 people from a voting population of 20 million you really are just asking for trouble.
Its not more scientific than averaging out the worlds fav colour from looking at the curtains of the last 10 houses in the street.
So don't worry the good guys will win in the end as every western will tell you.

Alex

Please can you post on important political news - independent schools proposed by the Tories, the latest crime stats etc.

If we want to read daily polls, we can go to Political Betting.

Frank P

Kellner was, is and forever will be a Labour Party apparatchik. Some of us have long memories.

Lee Jakeman

Cameron is a loser.

The winning policies are:

Give England its own parliament.
Hold referendum on EU membership.
Stop immigration.
Repeal Human Rights Act.
Bring back grammar schools.
Deport all illegal immigrants.
Cut foreign aid.
Make people on benefits do some work.
Abolish Sharia courts.
Expel all militant Muslims from the country.

And that's just the start of a long, long list .....

Major Plonquer

David Cameron needs to show the British voter that he's got a pair. He needs to take a lesson or two from the Master, Brown.

Cameron needs to start throwing phones around the office - but he should throw iPhones instead of Nokias to show he's more in touch with the liberal side of Britain.

To get my vote I'd like to see Dave kick a hoodie's arse on national TV. He could feed the hoodie to a husky but the Guardian would likely accuse himn of pandering to the animal rights lobby.

Jonny Jimmy

For those Conservative souls
Worried by narrowing polls
There's no need for panic
So stop acting manic
Remember for whom the bell tolls

David

Why should LD percentage increase?

Possibly because, unlike the Conservatives, they have some clearly differentiated policies. E.g.

First £10k tax free
Mansion tax
Repeal Labour’s inroads into liberty
Do not renew Trident.

I’m not agreeing with these just noting that they come easily to mind and set the tone for the type of policies they are putting forward. I can understand the underlying principles.

I just cannot do this with the Conservatives. If I think about Tory policy nothing comes easily to mind.

I will vote Conservative. Not because I’m a great supporter ( I don’t know what they’re about) but because they’re not Labour and because I don’t agree with the LDs.

Vulture

The only Tories who have been making any impact at all this week are Grayling and
Gove.

Dave has been invisible and so
(mercifully) has been Boy George.
Every time his smirking, supercilious little face appears in public another percentage point drops off the Tory poll lead. At least Dave seems to have got the message that his best chum is electoral poison and makes Alistair Darling look like George Soros, and locked him in a dark room until the election is safely over.

It now only remains for 'Team Drip' to announce some Conservative policies to turn those pesky polls around.

Liz Brown

How come that the meeja doesn't give time to the Tories apart from to cast them in a negative light/ I confess to seldom (if ever) watching the news on Brown's Biased Crap but not a mention on Jon Snow's show on CH4. I thought that the public paid for these channels so we should get an even balance. Ha!

Ricky

I am seriously beginning to think that it is now a deliberate policy of Tory High command to be almost totally invisible in the 2010 Election battle.

That's because they simply do not want to win it.

I believe they do not want to take on the poisoned chalice that running UK Bankrupt plc will entail.

They are not hungry enough. They are not a government in waiting. They are as silent as the lambs.

Perhaps they are playing the long game. Brown scrapes back in with tiny minority. Does deal with LibLab Dems. 12-18 months of rising unemployment, huge cutbacks, endless strikes, internal divisions.....a growing realisation by the droogs that Brown is responsible for a stasi state and economic meltdown...might finish the Project forever....

Irene

What about the Metro/Harris poll showing a 8% gap, or as it seems the YouGov family are dictating at the moment, because that's what it looks.
Kellner has popped up too many times for my liking with very opportune poll results for labour. he did it last year at the conference.

ollie

These yougov daily tracker polls are losing credibility - because nobody believes Labour have only lost 2% of their votes since 2005. Even Blair lost more support than that with a benign economy.

I would take these daily polls with a tremendous pinch of salt - and so should the Spectator.

AngloWelshDragon

These daily polls are ridiculous. By following them we are like dieters who get on the scales twice a day. Day to day fluctuations mask the trends only time will tell.

Paul Hawkins

Would this piece of journalism match the previously posted garbage about polling being even in the marginals -in that case the poll was completed in a subset of all the marginals. A fact curiously absent in most of the media.

I tire of lazy,state owned journalism...Are YouGov going to be polling every half hour soon? Their methods are way out of step with other polls and they have an affinity with Labour -please print a health warning with every poll result they produce.

IH

If you go back to 1997 - labour were overstated by 21% - 31% - when actually they ended up with 13%!