Talk:Opinion polling for the 2010 United Kingdom general election

Events

I've begun to add specific 'events' to the article in grey coloured boxes, in order to give a bit more perspective as to what is going on in the country that could affect the opinion polls, for example a conference speech or government annonouncements. What do people think of this - good idea or not - let me know and if it isn't liked, I'll get rid of them.

Spiritofsussex (talk) 08:35, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea but some edits being added aren't really contributing anything, i.e. I just deleted one saying Andy Burnham had been recorded talking about cancer ... well yes he's the Health Secretary how is that news? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.197.50.114 (talk) 16:52, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Your right, its not an event and you were correct to remove it. - Galloglass 20:09, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Request

Please could we have sample size and field dates included, if only from now onwards? It's quite important to be able to make best use of this data. RodCrosby (talk) 02:38, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank-you for your prompt update. RodCrosby (talk) 15:09, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

2005 election result

The polls, IIRC, are only conducted within GB, and not the UK, so it's a bit jarring to see the UK election result here. Plus swings are usually calculated with reference to the GB result. Perhaps change it to the GB result, with a note? RodCrosby (talk) 23:35, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Polls and Declaration Frauds

How can it be that the polls give almost no change among voters while everybody nowadays is flabbergasted by the unethical declaration behavior of almost all our politicians. How much fraud is there in the polls? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.168.243.40 (talk) 20:45, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

In the polls on this page - none. 92.3.54.58 (talk) 03:37, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

The name

Why is this article so peculiarly named? Should it not be called "Opinion polling on the next United Kingdom general election"? --81.108.132.49 (talk) 10:57, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

If you replace "next" with "2010" (or whatever it ends up being), as will happen after the election, it sounds less peculiar, so I guess that is why it is so named. The election itself and all the surrounding events and activities are being considered as a single subject. --Tango (talk) 02:47, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Sounds very strange to me. Certainly it sounds better if you replace "next" with "2010". The problem is the title doesn't say 2010 and the wording is incredibly awkward. Seems wrong to keep an ungrammatical title on the grounds that when the name is changed it will sound less awkward, if that is indeed the reasoning. Surely when the name is changed it will be just as easy to change two words instead of one? Any objections to a rename as Opinion polling on the next United Kingdom general election? --Lo2u ^{(T • C)} 19:48, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Graph

graph needs updating? RodCrosby (talk) 11:17, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Angus Reid poll

I'm a little concerned over us reporting the Angus Reid polling. The issue is that unlike all other polls here, this is not a voter intention poll. The specific question is "If a General Election were held tomorrow, which one of the following parties would you be most likely to support in your constituency?" not a variant of the more common used "If a General Election were held tomorrow, which one of the following parties would you vote for?". This makes it a "Party Support" poll, not an indication of how the respondent intends to vote. There is significant difference here, as a supporter of X Party might say they will support X Party but do not intend to vote for them this election. ie, stay at home protest votes, single issue disputes, or personal dislike of their local MP.

I think this needs to be noted somewhere, or AR removed from the listing. --Barberio (talk) 16:01, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Or perhaps separate it out into Voter Intention polling and Party Support polling, but then AR would basically be on it's own in the Party Support polling table. Unless other polls ask a party support question. --Barberio (talk) 16:31, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

This opinion poll is however conducted with the purpose of determining voter intention, regardless of the wording of the actual question asked.--Pontificalibus (talk) 10:12, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I do think something needs to be added here, AR polls in 2010 show a Conservative lead of 16-12%, while all the other polls seem to show 6-9% ... why are they so different, which one should we have more faith in? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.206.120.41 (talk) 23:32, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

YouGov polls Jan 2010

There appears to be a problem with the latest 10,344 sample poll in that i) it is an aggregate of the two previous polls ii) the voting intention sample size was not 10,334 iii) to include the aggregate would mean counting most (or all?) of the data twice. Yougov/The Sun have messed up. I suggest ignoring the aggregate poll entirely. RodCrosby (talk) 16:11, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree, it's pointless having the aggregate poll up now it appears to be simply a mash-up of two other polls. I've therefore removed the aggregate poll from the article. Spiritofsussex (talk) 17:44, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Chronological tabulation

Is there anything useful in tabulating the poll results in chronoligical order? Comparisons between polls are only valid when comparing results form the same pollster. A seperate table and graph for each pollster would therefore enable trends to be seen much more easily. --Pontificalibus (talk) 10:15, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

"Comparisons between polls are only valid when comparing results form the same pollster" That is a rather bold and rigid assertion. Do you have any reliable source for that? RodCrosby (talk) 10:28, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

As they all use different methodologies, I would have thought this would be obvious. It's like claiming that violent crime rose by comparing police statistics in one year with a victim survey the next year. --Pontificalibus (talk) 10:36, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

And if the different methodologies produce statistically indistinguishable results (as most polls do)? RodCrosby (talk) 11:05, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

The results are evidently not "statistically indistinguishable". Take this adapted example. It appears to show a 5% drop in Labour support since the economic growth announcement. However this is misleading. In actual fact there has been no change whatsoever in the Labour share reported Angus Reid, or the Labour share reported by ComRes.

Date(s) Conducted	Polling Organisation/Client	Sample Size	Labour	Conservative	Liberal Democrats	Other	Lead
26-27 Jan	Angus Reid Strategies/PoliticalBetting.com	TBC	24%	40%	19%	17%	16%
20 Jan	The Office of National Statistics announces that the UK economy exited recession in the fourth quarter of 2009 with growth of 0.1%
20-21 Jan	ComRes/Sunday Mirror	1,004	29%	38%	19%	14%	9%
20 Jan	The unemployment level unexpectedly falls to 7.8%, the first fall since May 2008.
13-14 Jan	ComRes/The Independent on Sunday	1,005	29%	42%	19%	10%	13%
9-10 Jan	Angus Reid Strategies/PoliticalBetting.com	2,010	24%	40%	20%	17%	16%

--Pontificalibus (talk) 11:33, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I said most polls. Angus Reid are clearly measuring something different to the rest of the industry with respect to the Labour share of the vote in the population. And they are in a minority of one... RodCrosby (talk) 11:39, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

But all the pollsters use different methodolgies, what makes you think Angus Reid is an exception? One might equally say that ICM report a higher LibDem share than YouGov. The point is that by creating a table like this, we are effectively creating a misleading synthesis by implying the figures are directly comparable and that the methodology used is the same. Having a seperate table for each pollster would solve this by accurately report the trends as reported by each pollster.--Pontificalibus (talk) 11:48, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

"we are effectively creating a misleading synthesis by implying the figures are directly comparable and that the methodology used is the same." You are hugely reaching there. Have you actually read the intro to the article? Anyone who wants to analyse the polls separately can do so by copying, pasting and filtering. Splitting them up (as no academic study of an election I've ever seen does) would mean anyone who wants to analyse them together would have the onerous task of re-interpolating them by date. Which would be easier for any user? RodCrosby (talk) 12:02, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I made the tables sortable by pollster, which should make using them easier. However this currently includes subsorting by client, and I'm not sure if methodology varies by client? If not, the client might be better off in a seperate column. I will look at expanding the intro another day so as to more clearly reflect the concern I have raised.--Pontificalibus (talk) 20:14, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Pontificalibus I see what you are trying to do. Unfortunately it simply doesn't work and the sortable addition you have made simply produces a mish-mash of polls. For the general reader chronological order, ie the most recent at the top is whats used throughout wikipedia when giving polling details. Anything else is, at best misleading. - Galloglass 20:51, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I am not "trying to do" anything. I have simply added the option of re-sorting the tables to group polls from the same pollster in date order. Personally I think this imporves the article, but if you won't find this feature usefull the tables are still displayed initially as they always have been.--Pontificalibus (talk) 22:05, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Why is this a problem? Listing the leading party's margin is no more misleading than listing each party's poll result. Though a 12% Tory lead in one poll means something different from a 12% Tory lead in another, a 42% share in one poll means something different from 42% in another poll. This is really much ado about nothing. -Rrius (talk) 21:01, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I didn't mention margin at all. Whatever figures you take from a poll, they can only be meaningfully compared across time with figures from other polls that use the same methodology. It's would be like trying to see if inflation rose or fell by comparing the CPI from one month with the RPI from the following month. --Pontificalibus (talk) 22:05, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Excuse me, but this seems like an aggressive WP:POV. I have asked for sources for your assertions, and all you can do is produce selective data, which in your opinion supports your argument. In any case that is not the issue. Anyone can use this data anyway they wish to, "right" or "wrong." Some media outlets use simple averaging, which could be considered "wrong" from a pure statistics viewpoint. So what. Nobody is doing that here in this article. Only you are asserting that the way the data is presented implies something that is not actually there. It's just a list of numbers. Get over it. RodCrosby (talk) 22:34, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

If by "tabulating" you mean "listing", say that. In any event, there is nothing wrong with listing all the polls chronologically. People like you and me, who recognize that each poll is different, can simply pick those out by eye. On the other hand, all of the polls taken within a brief window of time do present a picture of where the campaign is. In other words, there really is no problem here. -Rrius (talk) 00:08, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

One problem with mixing results from different pollsters is that they seem to have very different ways of dealing with parties other than the top three. I've copied and pasted the table (from 1 Oct 2009 onwards) into a spreadsheet and done some calculations which seem to demonstrate this quite strongly. The standard deviation for Labours poll result is 2.44%, but the (unweighted, because I couldn't work out how best to weight it) average of the standard deviations for Labours poll result from each pollster is only 1.68%. If we look, instead, at the Labour result added to the Other result, we get a stdev of 1.84% overall and 1.83% when done by pollster. I think that shows quite conclusively that some people are being counted as Labour voters by some pollsters and as Other voters by other pollsters. Which of those pollsters is more representative of how people would actually vote in a general election, I have no way to know. --Tango (talk) 18:42, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Graphical summary

Is there a reason we favour the Ipsos Mori polls above all others? Why doesn't the graph use an average of polls like similar ones at other election articles? -Rrius (talk) 20:48, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

ComRes

ComRes now seems to be a rolling poll with 500 new respondents added every day. Shouldn't there at least be a note to this effect? RodCrosby (talk) 09:07, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

If that is the case, then yes, we need to add a note explaining it. What is your source for this? --Tango (talk) 16:22, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

How to display lead

The extreme fluctuations that the polls are showing now would appear to create a problem with the way the lead is displayed in the poll tables. Up until a couple of days ago simply showing the figure in a coloured box appeared to be enough. However, with the Lib Dems now movng into first and second in some new polls, it is a bit difficult to simple put the lead without saying who the lead is over. Therefore, what are people's opinions of actually adding the phrase 'over [party]' to the lead box to try and add some clarity, for example:

Date(s) Conducted	Polling Organisation/Client	Sample Size	Labour	Conservative	Liberal Democrats	Other	Lead
16-17 Apr	ComRes/The Independent on Sunday/Sunday Mirror	1,006	27%	31%	29%	13%	2% over Lib Dem
15-16 Apr	YouGov/The Sun	1,290	28%	33%	30%	9%	3% over Lib Dem
15 Apr	ComRes/ITV News	4,032	28%	35%	24%	13%	7% over Labour
15 Apr	The first ever televised Prime Ministerial debate, and the first of three in the election campaign, was held. The debate featured Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg, and was produced and broadcast on ITV.
14-15 Apr	ICM/Sunday Telegraph	1,033	29%	34%	27%	10%	5% over Labour

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Spiritofsussex (talk • contribs)

Yes, seems like a good idea to me. If we don't want to bother doing this all the way down where it's always a two-horse race, we could simply start a new table starting with the first debate and explain that from this point onwards, we state over whom the lead is, but before that, it's always Labour vs Tories...? —Nightstallion 18:54, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

There are a couple of polls further down where Lib Dems beat Labour too. --Tango (talk) 18:57, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

We should do something. I wonder if we should give the lead over both parties so they can be compared over time. I can't think of a clean looking way to do that, though. --Tango (talk) 18:57, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Why not just say at the top, "Unless otherwise noted, the "Lead" column refers to a lead of the Conservatives over Labour or vice versa", then say, "X% over Lib Dem", where appropriate? -Rrius (talk) 19:19, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I've added an explanation at the top of the results section that says the lead given on polls prior to the election debate is that over Lab/Con unless otherwise stated. After the debate, I've added the lead over both parties - this seemed the best way of getting around the fluctuations that are going on at the moment. If anyone has any ideas of how to display this in a better way, please feel free to do so. Spiritofsussex (talk) 19:44, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the double-difference presentation is all that helpful. If people want to compare all three, the math isn't that hard. -Rrius (talk) 21:12, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

So far it's just showing us how much Con or Lib Dem have over each other. Which is completely useless because most seats belong to labour. We need to know how far the other parties are above Labour. 82.44.169.198 (talk) 10:39, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I partially agree. Labour and Conservatives will be the two largest parties in parliament by far with all the recent polls, even if LibDems should get the highest number of votes. So the difference between Lab and Con is essential in predicting the election winner, not the difference between the two highest-polling parties. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 22:08, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps we should include uniform swing predictions of number of seats per party (or maybe just the basic result like "Hung - Tories 40 seats short"). The idea of a "lead in the polls" only really makes sense in a two-horse race, so we should probably just get rid of that column. --Tango (talk) 22:16, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Problem is, there's no way to do that without it being OR. You may know what the votes will be, but you've no way of knowing where they'll fall. You could assume UNS, but it's been rather inaccurate in recent years, and certainly won't be able to deal with a Lib Dem surge. Wereon (talk) 13:35, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

If you use the BBC's election seat calculator[1] it does take into account the fact that the Liberal Democrats share of the vote is much more distributed, however it would take a life time to work out and add figures for the whole 5 years... Editor5807^speak 14:10, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

The BBC's calculator uses uniform nation swing, the same as all the other calculators on the web. That naturally takes into account the geographic spread of a party's past supporters, but it does assume that any change in support will be evenly spread. That assumption can lead to very large mistakes, but it is the only assumption that allows for converting national voting intention polls to seats won in a remotely meaningful way. We don't need to do it for the last 5 years, just for polls since the first television debate. Before then it was a two-horse race, so the difference between the top two parties was informative. --Tango (talk) 15:19, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

It wouldn't be OR, since we could use a calculator from a reliable source (the BBC, say). I know UNS isn't perfect, but it is the best we have and is very widely used. --Tango (talk) 15:19, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

OnePoll

There have been two election surveys from this polling firm; [2] & [3] I'm unsure about adding them although they both seem legitimate, its not a polling organisation I am too familiar with. Opinions please - Galloglass 13:21, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

The second page you link to says: "OnePoll interviewed 3,715 voters online between April 15-17." That is a good sample size, but online polling can go horribly wrong. It seems they are polling people that sign-up with them (and get paid to do so). I'm not any amount of weighting can compensate for the unrepresentative sample that will produce and I can't find any methodology for the poll anywhere to check what they've done. We probably shouldn't include them in our table. Perhaps we should remove BPIX too - I'll start a new section for that, though. --Tango (talk) 13:42, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

BPIX

BPIX aren't a member of the British Polling Council, don't publish methodologies and are getting results significantly different from other pollsters (ie. Lib Dems in the lead). Should we really be including them in the table? --Tango (talk) 13:43, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps at the end of the page we should have a separate table for non British Polling Council polls, i.e. BPIX and OnePoll. At the top of the section, we could say that they neither are members of the BPC, and therefore do not release their tables, might not have a representative sample etc. Not sure... Spiritofsussex (talk) 14:02, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Their field work is all done by Yougov and BPIX although not a member of the BPC are accepted as a credible pollster. - Galloglass 14:06, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Accepted by who? They aren't included in the BBC timeline of poll results. --Tango (talk) 15:04, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

By other academics and polling professionals. - Galloglass 15:58, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

BPIX are accepted by most because of their connections with YouGov, so I don't see a huge problem with BPIX polls being included in the article. I think 'OnePoll' is different - there is very little known about them, and I think we should hold off including them until some information is known - such as how they interview, how they weight etc. Spiritofsussex (talk) 16:28, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, and it was Anthony Wells comments along the same lines which made me most dubious about OnePoll. - Galloglass 16:32, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

"Significantly different"? Their recent poll showing the Lib Dem's in the lead is only a couple of percentage points out from the other polling bodies. With the generally accepted accuracy (or lack thereof) of the polls, is a variation of a couple of percent really statistically valid enough to consider BPIX less meaningful than the other polls?

Should we remove the "Angus Reid Public Opinion" from 15/16 March because it had a Conservative lead 2% higher than the next nearest poll and several percent higher than the rest? Or how about the "Ipsos MORI" result from 17-22 January 2008 which was the only poll in that month to show a Labour lead? Road Wizard (talk) 15:39, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Galloglass, I've seen you around Political Betting from time to time, so I know you know that no-one takes BPIX seriously! I wouldn't recommend filtering polls based on a "smell" test - we'd exclude ICM from 1992 were that the case - but I do agree with isolating BPIX, OnePoll, and any other non-BPC members.

It has been the case before that polls undersample one region and oversample another, leading to odd results; without their data-sheet, we have no way of knowing how reliable BPIX is. Wereon (talk) 16:30, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Usually I'd say exclude non-BPC, but as the fieldwork is done by you-gov, which is BPC...I'd say BPIX qualifies. Has it been objected to before it showed cons not-leading....92.3.54.58 (talk) 19:00, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

There has been no previous objection to BPIX as far as I know. - Galloglass 19:15, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

One of the key points of the BPC rules is that they much publish methodologies, which BPIX doesn't. The fieldwork being done by a BPC pollster isn't really relevant. --Tango (talk) 12:19, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Electoral graph

Copied From Talkstosocks' User Talk

Hi Talkstosocks,

I'm afraid I've had to remove your average polling graph. You're not User:Ar558a, are you? They added a very similar one quite recently, which was flawed for many of the same reasons - principally in that it assumes that if you average out the polls you'll get closer to the truth, when that's not necessarily the case. I advise you to look at the message I left on their talk page.

There's similarly the question of arbitrariness - why confine yourself to this month, rather than the whole period since the last election? Also, I advise you not to include the date in the filename, but rather to update any graph as necessary.

Finally, can you please tell me where on earth the purple = others thing comes from? Ar558a did the same thing, and I've never seen it before. It's far more usual to use grey. Wereon (talk) 23:11, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I am not User:Ar558a. I think it is wrong that there is a graph of just ICM polling. An average, I agree, is not a perfect solution for polling data, but I was looking for a way to compactly display the info.

It is good to have a graph of only the data since the election was called as it is easier to see what's been going on lately. Just take a minute and look at the graph that's there and see if you can tell what's going on lately, it's impossible. This way, people who want to see long term trends can look at the existing graph and those who want to see the recent changes can look at the one I put up

Purple is just the colour that came up on excel, no reason for it, I realise it's not the best to use 'cause of UKIP, so I can change it, but I'd also like to put my graph back up for the reasons listed above. I think it is unreasonable for you to have taken the graph down before having this conversation with me, but we can figure it out. - The Talking Sock talk 01:18, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm kinda with Talkstosocks on this one - an average, while not infallible, is useful. A concievably *more* useful graph though is to give all the points for all the pollers, as a scatter chart, together with an average line. And secondly, there is a pressing need, given recent events, for a graph to show a shorter period than five years. Otherwise you cannot successful depict the post debate effect, which is pretty darn important and noteworthy, temporary blip or not.--Fangz (talk) 02:29, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I understand. The ideal solution would be to have graphs for all of the regular pollsters, but it might be a bit of an information overload.

My main concern with this graph is that it is too susceptible to differences in polling methodologies. Angus Reid, for instance, poll Labour lower and Others higher than the other pollsters. Look at the 19th of April, when the last ARPO came out, and you do indeed find a dip in the red line and a bump in the grey one.

Apologies for removing it without asking you. I recommend that we take it down for now, and start a debate on one of the talk pages about what ought to go in its place. Wereon (talk) 21:35, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I still think a simple average is a succinct way to present the data. At any rate, I feel it is unreasonable to only present ICM data in graph form and that it is also unreasonable to only present data in a graph spanning from 2005 to 2010. If you have an idea for a better way to combine data into a single graph, I'm all ears. Honestly, I think that combining polling data taken using different methodologies is a good idea, not a bad one, because this way, the biases of one methodology are cancelled out by the biases of the others. Yes, it's simplistic, but it gives a good idea of the trends etc. and it's not pretending to be anything better than what it is. Maybe a disclaimer would do it?

For now I will put up a graph of YouGov from April 6, because I seriously believe there needs to be an alternative to what's up there already. Sorry if my comments were a little harshly worded yesterday. Not a good day in general. Cheers. - The Talking Sock talk 22:08, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree that an average is useful, but I suggest we use an independently calculated average, rather than our own. How about the BBC Poll of Polls? --Tango (talk) 22:13, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

That's a possibility, though we shouldn't really be including Harris, as they do.

How about this: for each day, we take the average of the most recent polls for each of the four pollsters who've been going since the last election, and who poll regularly: YouGov, ICM, Populus, and Ipsos MORI. If we do a zoomed-in graph, we could also include ComRes and Angus Reid. Wereon (talk) 22:24, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

"If a poll is indicated to cover more than one date, it was used in the average for each of those dates." Isn't that a major flaw? If you have a poll with an unusual result that covered 5 days then including it in the averages every day will give 5 days of distorted results. Wouldn't it be better to have each result appear once only, perhaps on the last known date of the poll/publication date of the poll? Road Wizard (talk) 22:45, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I concur. Here's my effort, using the method I described above:

Here's the same done for the election period, but using YouGov, ICM, ComRes, and ARPO. A lot of the noise has been removed due to the averaging. Wereon (talk) 00:08, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

What about the Guardian Aggregate poll? It includes ICM, YouGov, Populus, Ipsos-Mori, ComRes, BPIX, and Opinium. It looks like this:

- The Talking Sock talk 00:56, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I've excluded Populus because they've only done two polls so far. BPIX is excluded because it's not a member of the BPC. And Opinium, that's an oversight. Wereon (talk) 01:15, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

[4] <- for anyone struggling to find it

It's nice, but we can't use a three-day average if we're just plotting since April 6. If indeed we are. Wereon (talk) 01:19, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

What if we did a slightly longer time frame? Would you then be ok with the Guardian Aggregate? Just so long as the time frame is significantly shorter than 5 years. Or is it still no good 'cause of BPIX? 'Cause I really like this idea of using an agregate done by someone else like the BBC or the Guardian, so the averages are done properly. - The Talking Sock talk 03:34, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

If we need a longer period, how about polls since the New Year? As arbitrary dates go, it's as good as any. -Rrius (talk) 23:18, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I likt this idea, but I don't have time to do it. I will keep updating the YouGov chart instead. - The Talking Sock talk 15:17, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Missing Polls

The polls are coming thick and fast now, and it's hard to keep up. Either we make a note here of polls not yet included in the table, or insert partial details in the table. RodCrosby (talk) 12:26, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

• TNS-BRMB, L29,C34,LD30 Now added
• OnePoll? seem to have done a couple

See the section above on OnePoll. There are some objections to quoting them here. Road Wizard (talk) 13:56, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Anthony Wells seems to have strong doubts about OnePoll and tbh I can see where he's getting them from. Best not to include them until we know thay don't pushpoll. - Galloglass 16:01, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

What's the rationale for excluding Northern Ireland?

Why do the poles never include Irish voters? Doesn't the result of voting in Northern Ireland play a potential role in what government is ultimately formed? --194.98.58.121 (talk) 12:48, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I suppose because since 1974 NI has been completely outside of the mainland party system, although there are signs that may be changing. It also makes (or certainly used to make) sense for swingometers to run off GB vote forecasts when predicting GB seats. RodCrosby (talk) 13:34, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Nice work

The page is looking good. Are there plans to start up a topical page that follows the last part of the run-up to (and aftermath of) the election? Tony (talk) 11:26, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

There are lots of pages on the election. I don't think we need to start any more. What information do you feel isn't currently included in any of our pages? --Tango (talk) 15:22, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

My comment was intended to be in a positive, complimentary frame, as you can see from the title, but was taken as a criticism and responded to a little aggressively.

Wikipedia has shown that it can excel in the treatment of current events that unfold rapidly. Recent examples are the earthquake disaster in Haiti and the ongoing effects of the Icelandic volcano on international aviation. In the run-up to the election, which may be an historic event, what will people get when they google, say, "British election"? I wonder whether there will be an article dedicated to the process as it unfolds, from day to day. Wasn't there such a page during the 2007 US election? Tony (talk) 15:32, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I didn't intend my response to be aggressive. You made a suggestion for improving our coverage of the election and I want to understand it better. The main article on the election is United Kingdom general election, 2010, which is the top result on a Google search for "British election" (after some results from Google News). It doesn't currently contain a day-by-day summary of events. The last US presidential election had this section, United States presidential election, 2008#General election campaign, covering the details of the campaign itself, although it isn't really day-by-day, rather issue-by-issue. That is something we don't really have for this election. Are you essentially suggesting we create such a section? --Tango (talk) 15:46, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'd be delighted to see a high-profile election covered day by day at WP. But we'd need to gather a team for those few weeks to monitor the sources and keep modifying the text. I'm in a position to sift through copy-editing it on a daily basis, but not to add content. It could be most worthwhile, an intelligent, insightful blending of the sources, and could get WP lots of kudos. What do you think? Tony (talk) 10:15, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

err ... don't know why my edit summary said "kudos"; I meant "Tango". Tony (talk) 10:24, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Leader over whom

Why does the polls show over LD but not over LAB or over CON when labour held the lead ? Gnevin (talk) 16:29, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

It only recently became necessary to specify who was in second place, so nobody has gone through and added "over LAB" and "over CON" to the last 5 years' worth of polls. I think we should probably specify "over LAB" in the recent polls that have had Labour in second place, though. It would be clearer. --Tango (talk) 16:59, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Rather than clutter the table, I think it would be better to make more visible the note we already have saying the lead is Conservative over Labour or vice versa unless otherwise stated. -Rrius (talk) 17:03, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Why not show CON over LD unless otherwise stated. This looks biased Gnevin (talk) 17:24, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

It's a simple matter of there being, between them, hundreds of Tory over Labour leads and Labour over Conservative leads, but a manageable number of leads of Tories over the Lib Dems or the Lib Dems over anyone. Moreover, the leads involving the Liberal Democrats are ongoing and take essentially no extra effort to add a note for, whereas it would take a significant amount of effort to go back and pointlessly note the Lab-Con, Con-Lab leads. It is bizarre to assume it is bias. It wouldn't be ridiculous to add "Over Lab" and "over Con" for polls since the first debate, but it would exceedingly silly to go back over the polls before that date. If we do add "over Con" and "over Lab", I think it would be better not to put the labels in all caps. I do suggest we not add it at all, however, because as the table is now, you can spot a poll where the Liberal Democrats are in second at a glance, but would have to look harder to differentiate them if we added more labels. -Rrius (talk) 18:34, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Debates listings

Is there any reason in the "events" listings interspersed among the poll results to repeat, each time, that the debate featured Gordon Brown, David Cameron, and Nick Clegg (given that all three debates featured the same three leaders)? Or to indicate which television networks produced and broadcast the debate (which could be mentioned in another article, but doesn't seem relevant to the parties' relative standing in the polls)? --Metropolitan90 (talk) 21:08, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

It's not really necessary, but it does no harm, so why not? --Tango (talk) 21:32, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, in the case of the listing of the featured leaders, it not only makes the entry longer without adding significant useful information, but it also creates an inaccurate expectation. That is, if Wikipedia is listing all the participants for each debate, they must have some reason for doing so, like the participants vary from debate to debate. So the reader looks down to see if the SNP or UKIP or some other party's leader was allowed into the other debates. Nope, it's just Brown, Cameron, and Clegg in the other debates as well. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:39, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks!

whoever is doing the updates, have your significant other kiss you for me! Great Job@Ericl (talk) 21:22, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Exit poll

This should probably be included in this article. 84.92.117.93 (talk) 17:45, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Opinion polling in the next United Kingdom general election which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 20:30, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Opinion polling for the next United Kingdom general election which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 04:15, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

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Other parties

It seems this talk page hasn't been editied in a while, but seeing as they're on the graph, I think we should start to add the 3rd parties(UKIP, BNP, SNP+PC, Green, Respect). --BSMIsEditing (talk) 14:26, 12 September 2020 (UTC)