Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

They don't use the same set of people to see of their views have changes. That means they have to select a new population. That means a new unreliable poll from scratch. I am signed up to YouGov and I don't get repeat polls asking about change of views on polls that I have previously filled in. The polls were unreliable partly because they only use people who sign up to be polled. You can't get reliable results from self selected populations.

Not disputing the reliabilty of the selection process or the reliability of the result but this wouldn't invalidate a swing.

Of course it would. It wouldn't even be a swing. It would just be two different sets of data with no connection between them. To calculate a swing, you have to be sure that the two populations are statistically representative of the general population regarding their demographics.

It would be like comparing the results of two biased dice. The results are only internally consistent within the results for each of the dice. the results would show you how the dice differed but nothing about the real odds of good dice. If I get a 6 half the time with one die and then get a 6 three quartets of the time with the other die, is that a swing?

If you reinterviewed the same set of people the second time them you might measure a swing. However, the result might have little actual meaning if the selected group were not representative of the general population. For instance if I interviewed, for a poll, only members of the Socialist Workers Party, I could measure a swing in their views if I then reinterviewed the same people. But their views are not representative of the general population.

Of course the data is connected. They use the same selection criteria for the second poll as the first just the same as everyone else.

No one reinterviews the same people they just use the same selection criteria based on age , race , income , location blah blah blah.

merely a one-liner (poetic licence!) as i now pretty much avoid this thread - it's too repetitive

the incumbents have certainly cocked-up quite badly in a number of areas - though done very well in others
what is most noticeable however, is that labour, who should be romping ahead, are doing no such thing
further, i'm sure i saw a survey just the other day that showed EM's public rating was even lower than DC's

No, of course they don't. That's really the point. The main pollsters can choose a representative sample just as good as the last one to test swing because they are going out into the general population and using random methods.

YouGov can't do that because they don't have representative populations to start with. Any selection they make of their members is just as unreliable as another selection. The people who have joined YouGov are not a randon sample. They have self selected. It is a lot like when Sky TV have online polls. Their results have little meaning because firstly they are just Sky viewers and secondly they are the ones who voted in the poll. All that can be said is that they are a group that voted that way.

This, from a few days ago

Asked about his awkward performance during yesterday's BBC Radio 4 World at One – when he was asked 13 times how he would fund policies intended to boost economic growth – Mr Miliband admitted the interview could have gone better.

Prime Minister David Cameron plunged to a rating of -27, his lowest rating in a poll since the awkard alliance of opposites called ConDem snuck into government without a true mandate from the people.

He’s faring best of the bunch just because he is adroit at managing to shift the blame to coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats.

Ed Miliband fares even worse, the Labour leader drops to an approval rating of -41.

With all the charisma of Mr Bean on valium and a collection of equally useless policies to match, poor Ed can’t even manage to make ground in the face of a coalition government which is almost universally despised by the electorate.

As for Deputy PM Nick Clegg, he’s languishing on a rating of -53 and is about as popular as a dose of flu – at least the flu is gone in a week or two.

A woman has been pulled out alive from the collapsed building in Bangladesh. I am sure that whatever religion she belongs to will claim it as a miracle for the home side.

Spire installed atop World Trade Center 'Freedom Tower'

The spire has been installed atop the skyscraper of New York's World Trade Center, making the Freedom Tower the tallest building in the Western hemisphere.

Seven members of a child prostitution ring, guilty of exploiting girls as young as 13, have been jailed.


The convictions include brothers Ahdel and Mubarek Ali, who ‘systematically groomed’ several teenage victims in Telford, Shropshire, alongside five others.

Mubarek, 29, and younger brother Ahdel, 24, have been jailed for 32 years for grooming teenage girls, before ‘pimping them out to workers at a curry house for £150 sex sessions’.


they should be returned to Pakistan for their crimes and let them decide their punishment not in our prisons put the on a plane and tell the Pakistan gov to do the right think with them .stone them to death

They were jailed for 32 years in total. One got 18 years and one got 14 years. That's not enough. There were several others in the gang.

It would be nice to deport them if they are foreign. however I suspect that some of the gang may be British born so we are stuck with them.

And if they aint British born and bred Haystack ?

At least Cam in his own way is trying to put issues like this back in our own hands only thanks to his kicking by UKIP ..

and that was a real poll voted on by real people as predicted by yougov et al !!!

Miliband is taking a chance.

He is due to make a speech later in which he is expected to complain about Cameron promising a referendum on the EU.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/may/09/labour-election-victory-2015-distant-prospect?INTCMP=SRCH

Labour election victory in 2015 looks a distant prospect, says pollster

'Troubling' research, suggesting party is perceived as incapable of making tough decisions, will be put to conference

Labour has a mountain to climb to win the next election outright, and is still failing to chalk up big enough leads on image or leadership to make it likely to secure an overall majority, according to polling which will be put to a Labour conference to be addressed this weekend by Ed Miliband.

There has not been a single time in more than 80 years when an opposition has returned to power at the first attempt with an overall majority. He also suggests no opposition has gone on to win power without at some point achieving a lead of at least 20%.

The biggest Labour lead recorded by any opinion poll during its current period of opposition was 16%, recorded by TNS last September.

"No opposition could be happy with the fact that, when the economy is flatlining, just one person in three thinks it [the Labour party] would take the right decisions to secure greater prosperity.

By two to one, voters think the Tories have the courage to take tough and unpopular decisions. By three to two, voters think Labour lacks that courage.

I have just put a potential loaf of soda bread in the oven. It was almost too easy. I wonder what will go wrong.

At a Labour think tank conference today in London, Ed Miliband has restated his opposition to David Cameron's position on an EU referendum. He has also said that he won't promise a referendum if Labour wins the next election.

That looks to be a dangerous stance.

I wonder why!