According to the BBC report,
"It suggests that 44% of voters in key marginal seats like Crawley and Hove in the south of England would vote Tory at a general election - down from 48% last year.
Support for Labour is languishing at 20%, while the Lib Dems are down from 21% to 18%. But support for "others" - UKIP, the Green Party, the BNP and other small parties - has doubled, from 9% to 18%.The polling suggests a surge in support for UKIP, in particular.
In summer 2008, just 1% of people in marginal seats said they would back the party at a general election. Now that figure has risen to 6%.
The poll was carried out in July but nobody seems to have noticed this aspect of the poll until now. Con Home did flag up the main parties results at the time.
If this is real, and I see no reason why not(though the proximity to the Euro electios may have some impact) then these results will have the strategists of more than one party scratchig their heads. In how many seats is 6% going to make a difference to the outcome? Where are these votes coming from? After all its not just Tories as UKIP's success in the council estates of Norwich points out. Interesting indeed.
4 comments:
Very very strange series of polls those. Nobody seems to be able to agree on what the 2008 figures actually were
The figures that CrosbyTextorPepper and Flying Matters released last year were:
C: 41%
Lab: 17%
LD: 18%
Those were the figures that were published in the press in July 2008.
The higher figures (49, 20, 20) were extrapolations from the released figures to exclude don't knows and won't votes. Without data tables for this year's poll and the exact questions asked both years, we can't draw a meaningful comparison. Not even Flying Matters seems to know what the correct comparison should be, as their August 2009 press release just stated shares of the vote with no comparison to 2008 whereas their 2008 press release had included comparisons with 2007.
The 1% figure for UKIP in 2008 was clearly always ludicrously low. This year's 6% figure is probably about what would be expected from a poll conducted a few weeks after the European Elections and the height (or should that be nadir) of the MPs' expenses stories.
There is a much larger poll of marginal that is, I understand, due to be released in the next couple of weeks. Obviously a poll on that type of scale takes a while to analyse and interpret ready but I'm not sure that it is wise to conduct fieldwork over the summer recess and then release the figures after Party Conferences, by which time the political agenda could have moved on considerably - as happened last year with the Lehman collapse.
That poll might show exactly the same trends as this one or it could show something else completely.
Obviously the first rule of polling is that a rogue poll is one that you don't agree with.
Hmm I expect the UKIP/BNP vote to rise dramatically after the Tory party conference. When it is actually confirmed that there will be no referendum
6% is only realistic if UKIP run candidates in all seats ...
Nick
Good, hopefully a minority tory administration dependent upon the support of a few UKIPs.
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