What are next month’s polls going to look like?

Just over a week to go before the coalition’s big statement on how its going to achieve its ambitions to cut back public expenditure. With Labour having its new youthful leader can what’s going to happen to the polls? Specifically can you make a guess on what the Guardian’s November ICM poll will show.

Here’s your chance to try to make a prediction.

We are entering into uncharted territory and nobody can really predict what the reaction will be - but make a guess. Let’s see how PBers view the prospect.

Mike Smithson

Why have the numbers of general election switchers stalled?

The above is taken from the latest ICM poll and shows the party splits to an ICM question that we see from time to time - “Putting aside your own party preference, which one of the following party leaders do you think best understands you and your family’s financial situation?”

Inevitably respondents tend to go with their own allegiance though Labour might be concerned that nearly one in ten of its voters went for David Cameron compared with the one in fifty Tories who said Ed Miliband.

The split I find interesting is amongst the Lib Dems - where Ed Miliband is doing quite a bit better than David Cameron. Clegg is picking up just under half his party’s support. That might point to progress in the future for the reds.

It must be central to the new leader’s strategy to try to eat into the Lib Dem base and the voting intention data shows that Labour’s inroads here have stalled. The proportion of general election Lib Dem voters saying they have switched to Labour has remained the same, at 17%, in every ICM survey since July.

Mike Smithson

2010 General Election - vote change by tactical situation

Why did the election see so little new tactical voting?

The above table is based on data from Denis Kavanagh’s and Philip Cowley’s The British General Election of 2010 which was published a week and a half ago. The numbers are featured in a lengthy appendix by John Curtice, Stephen Fisher and Robert Ford.

This seeks to look at the mean vote changes of the main parties in different categories of seats based on which came first and second in 2005 and in doing so gives an interesting picture of what happened with, perhaps, some pointers to next time.

The Labour vote showed the largest range with, interestingly, the biggest drop-off in support in those seats where it didn’t matter - those where the Tories were in first place over Labour in 2005. Notice how in that segment the LDs enjoyed their best performances - where it had no impact on the overall election outcome.

In seats where the yellows were fighting Labour there was no sign of any anti-Labour tactical voting from Tory supporters. In LD/LAB seats both the Tories and Labour did better than average whereas in LAB/LD seats the vote share for Clegg’s party rose by only 0.4 percent - half the national average.

In CON-LD battle-grounds there doesn’t seem to be much evidence of any new tactical voting by Labour supporters to stop the blues making progress.

The table also suggests that the much vaunted concept of “tactical unwind” didn’t seem to happen. There was an expectation the Labour could suffer in LAB/CON clashes as a result of LD tactical voters from previous election retuning to their allegiance.

What will this all mean for 2015? Who knows but five years of coalition government, assuming that survives, might change perceptions of a hung parliament.

Mike Smithson

Is this the new leader’s first big mistake?

News is just coming through that Ed Miliband has made the controversial Oldham East and Saddleworth MP, Phil Woolas, a member of his shadow ministerial team for the Home Office.

Woolas, of course, is waiting for the verdict of the court hearing into the way he conducted the election campaign.

Maybe they’ve had an indication that the court will find in the MP’s favour? Who knows but the evidence that came up about “seeking to get white folk angry” hardly reflected well on Labour.

Even if Woolas is cleared what sort of message does this send out about EdM’s approach to this ultra-sensitive area? And what does it say about possible future relations with the Lib Dems?

Mike Smithson