General Election 2015: Voting intentions & general discussion

Please continue all discussion about the election campaign in this thread.

There is a new opinion poll at the top. With one week to go, I will close this thread and publish a new one, with a new poll. Finally, on election day, another new thread will carry an exit poll so we can see how the parliamentary constituency of Cable Forum Central has voted.

Labour are campaigning very well on the ground: http://www.economist.com/news/britai...c/on_the_march

But are the polls wrong:
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/ind...-simply-wrong/

[Dave42]

Originally Posted by Damien

Labour are campaigning very well on the ground: http://www.economist.com/news/britai...c/on_the_march

But are the polls wrong:
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/ind...-simply-wrong/

guess it depend on turn out on may 7th yes they got it wrong in 1992 but only one that I can remember they did get wrong

[Ignitionnet]

I'm inclined to think the polls have completely broken down.

We simply don't have the experience or background data to be able to assess what's going to happen in this election robustly.

This is all pretty new stuff, it'll take a while for there to be enough data to produce sound predictions.

EDIT: http://fivethirtyeight.com/interacti...n-predictions/

Just look at how wide the 90% confidence range is.

[heero_yuy]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

Just look at how wide the 90% confidence range is.

Doesn't look like the polls are going to be much of an indication with that range.

I still think a lot of people will put a peg on their noses and vote for a continuation of current policies, especially those who are now in a job that weren't before.

Never let go of nurse for fear of finding something worse.

[Taf]

I've seen very polarised opinions locally.

If you are pro-Con, you are a snobby twit.

If you are pro-Lab, you are a benefit-chasing layabout.

If you are pro-Lib, you are as daft as you look.

If you are pro-UKIP, you are racist ****.

If you are pro-Green, you are loony treehugger.

If you are pro-Plaid, you are a language nazi.

I've seen old mates roaring at each other about their respective political leanings.

From the previous thread

Originally Posted by Osem

Having not listened to the 'debate' and been avoiding as much radio coverage of it as I can, I wasn't aware that Farage had called into question the selection of the Beeb's audience but he does have a point doesn't he? Who decides who gets on these debates and how is it done?

The BBC didn't select the audience, ICM (an independent polling company) did.

Presenter David Dimbleby insisted that those attending had been chosen to represent the spread of opinion in the population. "This audience was carefully chosen by an independent polling organisation to represent the balance between all parties," he said.

HuffPost

[dave6x]

Originally Posted by Taf

I've seen very polarised opinions locally.

If you are pro-Con, you are a snobby twit.

If you are pro-Lab, you are a benefit-chasing layabout.

If you are pro-Lib, you are as daft as you look.

If you are pro-UKIP, you are racist ****.

If you are pro-Green, you are loony treehugger.

If you are pro-Plaid, you are a language nazi.

I've seen old mates roaring at each other about their respective political leanings.

Very good, love the stereotypes.

Funny though that all the people I know with racist tendancies are traditional "grass-roots" Tories!

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Hugh

From the previous thread
The BBC didn't select the audience, ICM (an independent polling company) did.

HuffPost

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...as-claims.html

The BBC commissioned ICM and didn't know the details or just refused to confirm them? Has ICM come up with any answers? Does ICM always get the job? Maybe the perceived 'bias' was due to all the Tory supporters in the audience having nothing to cheer about because DC stayed well clear...

Just found this in the Mail:

BUT this alone wasn’t the problem with the audience on Thursday night. After some investigation, journalists managed to convince the BBC – who initially promised ‘transparency’, then tried to suppress the information – to reveal the details of how they formed the audience.

They used a ratio, they said, to break the audience up according to which political party they supported.

The ratio was 5:5:4:3:2:2:1, with the Conservatives and Labour getting the 5s, the Lib Dems on 4, Ukip on 3, the SNP and Greens on 2, and Plaid Cymru on 1. This meant that roughly, in an audience of 200, only about 50 people were not of a Left-wing persuasion.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz3XqcW3aCh

[Media Boy UK]

Originally Posted by Chris

Please continue all discussion about the election campaign in this thread.

There is a new opinion poll at the top. With one week to go, I will close this thread and publish a new one, with a new poll. Finally, on election day, another new thread will carry an exit poll so we can see how the parliamentary constituency of Cable Forum Central has voted.

What about them not voting (Like me)?

The problem with UKIP's claims is that if it is done by a poll that reflects the make up of the British population is that UKIP are only at 15%. That's a small amount of the audience. It also depends if they included Tories or did it as a make up of the parties in the debate. If the Tories were included then you would imagine they're more receptive to Farage which does raise questions about how they made them up. Although it could just be that the left was more vocal.

Let's remember that it suits Farage to say what he did and to attack the audience. I suspect he planned that moment. His appeal to his base is that he is the lone voice of their concerns railing against the liberal establishment of the BBC, Westminster, the Press and pretty much everyone else. The same way the SNP did during the referendum. He is the positioning himself as the enemy of the establishment and he needs a bit of theatre to make that point clear and an establishment to attack. The debate suited him perfectly.

[Osem]

@ MediaBoy - If you're not voting in the election you can't vote here.

---------- Post added at 12:32 ---------- Previous post was at 12:30 ----------

Originally Posted by Damien

The problem with UKIP's claims is that if it is done by a poll that reflects the make up of the British population is that UKIP are only at 15%. That's a small amount of the audience. It also depends if they included Tories or did it as a make up of the parties in the debate. If the Tories were included then you would imagine they're more receptive to Farage which does raise questions about how they made them up. Although it could just be that the left was more vocal.

Let's remember that it suits Farage to say what he did and to attack the audience. I suspect he planned that moment. His appeal to his base is that he is the lone voice of their concerns railing against the liberal establishment of the BBC, Westminster, the Press and pretty much everyone else. The same way the SNP did during the referendum. He is the positioning himself as the enemy of the establishment and he needs a bit of theatre to make that point clear and an establishment to attack. The debate suited him perfectly.

I'm not greatly interested in Farage, but his comments got me thinking about how these things are done. Let's face it, if an audience is biased in one way or another then it's going to give a false impression to the viewers. I think it's an issue which should be transparent and from what I've read so far, that isn't the case. Maybe the fairest thing would be to have no audience to influence proceedings?

[Media Boy UK]

My own view is

-Labour and Liberal Democrat is all part of the Conservative family.
-UKIP (They are on something and it not beer).
-The rest (Ok for local Elections)

[MalteseFalcon]

Normally would vote Tories, but like the look of the English Democrats party standing in Stevenage. Agree with a lot of their policies. Like I said another time, shame we cannot mix and match policies from all the Parties.

Just heard Martha Kerney taking Stuart Hosie (SNP) apart on WATO. Very entertaining.

They reply don't like being reminded that education and health spending in Scotland has grown more slowly than it has in England since 2007.