Commentators and pundits, never mind the politicians and the public, continue to be misled by their focus on the gap or lead, and not the share of the vote for each party. I'd go further than that, and say watch the Tory share, for the way ICM have been asking the voting intention question, 'prompting' the respondent with the names of the parties, has led to a higher level of support for the Lib Dems than MORI, NOP and Gallup. Now that Gallup have changed their methodology to more closely approximate their American practice of reporting voting intention on those they think will be 'certain' or 'very likely' to vote, and focusing on the vote in the constituency, is likely to do the same.
The omens for turnout at the election remain poor. The figures from our latest poll for the Times, put into context by the corresponding figures from 1997, are in the table below.
Pulse Check
Pulse Check delivers key insights from Ipsos' Political Monitor, Political Pulse, and Public Services data, along with reactive polling, to help you navigate the evolving political landscape.
The Conservatives are continuing to say that, despite what the polls say, they can still win this election. There are, they argue, still enough undecided electors whose votes they can swing; Labour's vote is big but soft.
A newly published MORI poll for the Stop Esso Campaign shows 53 percent of petrol buyers would boycott Esso because of the company's attempts to block action on global warming. Figures for Esso's existing customers are virtually identical. A telephone survey by Greenpeace of leading supermarkets revealed that ASDA, Tesco and Morrisons do not supply Esso fuels, Safeway's does supply Esso fuels and Sainsbury's refuse to reveal its suppliers.
Three weeks today the country will go to the polling booths and elect the next government. Never before has the outcome seemed so certain. So far nine polls with fieldwork taken after the announcement of the date of the general election have been published. All nine have projected seat calculations showing an increase in the Labour majority in the House of Commons over all other parties.
Today's Daily Record carries polling results from six marginal seats in Scotland, and compares the results with those that it published in the same six marginal seats last week; both polls were conducted by Scottish Opinion. All very well, except that the first poll interviewed only 744 respondents in total (an average of 124 per constituency), and today's interviewed 911 (average about 152).
