This is an analysis of today's Observer poll from Opinium via Flavible.com:
I do not trust many polls, and Opinium seems to produce much stronger Tory results than most right now.
There is one thing to note though: look at Scotland. Not a single Tory or Labour seat.
I stress, I am not convinced, but that is still a pretty staggering forecast.
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Bear in mind that, North of the border, the LibDems are now perceived to be so far from the “moderate with a little more conscience than the others” party of Charles Kennedy, than many regard them as pretty much Tories minus the unelectable badge – a calculation which Jo Swinson also made, just slightly earlier.
LibDems getting 4 seats? nope, I’m not convinced either.
Richard — I understand British Sugar is cultivating vast quantities of cannabis in Downham market via one of its isubsidiaries.
You haven’t been overdosing have you?
I thought I’d ask given the rationales in above article.
I live in Ely
They grow dope around here too
Didn’t I provide enough caveats
For the Conservative and Labour parties to lose 20 Westminster Scottish seats between them is not impossible, but I’m not convinced either. Too many variables and some of them unknowable until a General Election is called. I can’t see them all going SNP, so the LibDems would have to benefit electorally. An increased SNP-presence at Westminster would be no bad thing tho’.
I can see it….
Of course polling is inaccurate in real terms. How could it be otherwise? It is just a snap shot of opinion among a relatively small group (usually around 2000), with the outcome depending upon the skill and orientation of the pollster. When aggregated, they give a reasonably accurate picture. Besides they’re all we have to go on. So we read into them what we will.
This is the current Poll of Polls https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom.
Clearly both Labour & the Tories will do badly in Scotland. That’s a given. And my guess is the Tory lead nationally is due to a combination of the Boris boost and Corbyn’s unpopular leadership (ruthlessly exploited by the Sun, Express, Mail, Torygraph, et. al). It seems to have little to do with reality and the declining socio-economic state of the nation. It seems the country is having a nervous breakdown.
In terms of a GE, my personal nightmare scenario is that Johnson will do some sort of last minute deal with the EU on the Irish border, tell Farage to go fxck himself (which he says he’s already done), fire Dominic Cummings, welcome back the Tory rebels, run an expensive election campaign (financed by his billionaire mates) claiming he’s the only person to sort out the mess, threaten communism under Corbyn, conclude a C & S agreement with Jo Swinson, promise lots of cash for schools, police, housing etc. etc. persuading the Geordie turkeys to vote for Christmas, and thus be restored to power.
However, as we know, FPTP can produce some unexpected results. And although that Opinium map is scarily blue, it does depend how and where the votes fall on the night. Nevertheless, beyond the Scottish border, it’s not looking good for progressives, is it? I’m depressed 🙁
Lovely picture… but beware of the dirty doings of 2017 being repeated. In a number of seats, either the LibDems or another ‘Unionist’ party ran virtually no campaign and/or ‘selected’ candidates of spectacular vacuity and electioneering incompetence. This came after a widely rumoured set of meetings between leading elements in the three ‘Unionist’ parties. The result of this was the loss of a number of excellent SNP MPs, some of long standing – and the rumour of another such maneouvre, especially by Swinsom and Rennie’s LibDems is already running strongly this weekend.
So…. while I am very certain of a significant number of SNP gains, perhaps not all that glisters in your image may turn gold on the night. The fundamental truth, however, cannot be glossed over. The Tories are heading, with whatever slippery scrabbling, for the bin. The Labour branch office has become even more confused than before and could well soon join them. As to the Lib’Dems’, Willie Rennie’s latest demand that there should never be another independence referendum while he lives, should certainly act as a health warning to anyone who thinks that the ‘Dem’ bit of their title means anything at all. Certainly, they are no democrats.
Not to mention that in some places like Perth the Labour activists decamped wholesale to campaign for the Tory candidate. Also Kezia Dugdale the Scottish Labour leader then told Labour voters in SNP/Tory marginals to vote Tory to keep the SNP out.
Also the SNP stupidly ran a campaign which didn’t make a single mention of independence then when the Ruth Davidson Party bleated No Referendum the SNP were like rabbits in the headlamps and made no defence. So independence supporters in many seats sat on their hands dismayed at the supposed party of Independence.
I voted SNP though it was more of a personal vote for Stuart Hosie than anything else. He came out canvassing with us in Dundee RIC several times just as another pair of boots on the ground and while recovering from a heart scare. I helped get the vote out locally as well that election but the vote was getting itself out without my urging.
Here in Scotland we have the two most marginal seats in the country, North East Fife held by the SNP against the Lib Dems by a margin of 2 votes and my own constituency of Perth and North Perthshire held by the SNP against the Tories by a margin of 21 votes.
Certainly not difficult at all to see Perth and North Perthshire going back to the Tories at the general election, not because of any particular love of the Tories, but because of dissatisfaction with the SNP.
Why the dissatisfaction with the SNP? Is it because they do not charge £9 per prescription (https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/nhs-prescription-charges-from-april-2019) or the £9250 tuition fees (https://inews.co.uk/news/education/university-tuition-fees-england-world/) due in Tory England?
What distresses me about opinion polls is that they are not neutral in the way a weather forecast is neutral. It matters not one jot what the Met office says the weather will be like, we’ll get the weather that is coming our way.
Not so with opinion polls. What polls reveal in intentions (which may, or may not, reflect how the participants will actually vote on the day) sways public opinion. If a party is predicted to win a massive, or comfortable, majority does that persuade more people to join the bandwagon to be on the winning side, stiffen the resolve of those who would oppose and or persuade people they don’t need top bother voting because the result is a foregone conclusion ?
All three I suggest. But in what proportions?
I don’t see why we need these polls and I’m damn sure their publication should be forbidden once an election is called. (With very severe penalties for any breaches)
This map screams out the need for PR………..talk about non-representation.
Any prediction which predicts a uniform swing in Scotland is worthless. There is too much tactical voting up here and seats which have a fairly diverse make ups and are difficult to predict. Polls didn’t pick up the SNP winning 52 seats in 2015 and they weren’t very accurate in 2017 either. The perfect example is Angus which went from an SNP majority of 11,000 to a Tory win with a 2,600 majority in just two years. There are seven seats in Scotland where Labour are less than 1000 votes behind the SNP and should be able to take just on the strength of anti SNP feeling.
The SNP have a dilemma in that in 2017 they purposefully avoided independence as a topic and their 2015 voters stayed home so now they have to gamble on whether to be bold and try and regain those voters but with the risk of encouraging more unionist tactical voting.