Senior Tories "annoyed" at Sun's coverage of Mori poll

Earlier today we noted the Mori survey for The Sun.

The survey found that the Tories were 10% ahead but that Brown was (narrowly) the preferred PM.  It appears that the samples were not the same.  The 10% lead came from those very likely to vote but the lead for Brown was from amongst all those sampled - not necessarily the people who will decide the next election.

Helpfully, Mori will be publishing the full data set for their poll on Monday on their website.  We'll then be able to see if those who are certain-to-vote will rate Brown quite so well as every eligible voter.  PoliticalBetting.com's Mike Smithson has much more on this.  The Sun's treatment of the story has certainly annoyed senior Tories who think much more should have been made of the headline voting figures.

A poll for tomorrow's Sunday Telegraph will, ConservativeHome understands, have solidly good news for David Cameron - on personal ratings and headline voting intentions.  More later.

Comments

[Jennifer Wells]

Annoyed are they?
Politicians always say they never worry about polls!

:)

[Ted]

Julia Clark of Ipsos-Mori, in her very helpful postings on PoliticalBetting today, has said they will publish both the figures using all respondents and a set reflecting the Voting Intention sub sample on their website on Monday.

[HF]

Annoyed? It was just Gordon Pascoe Brown and his scottish Labour bias.

[Steve]

McMORI do as McLabour tell them.

[Editor]

Come off it Steve. You may not like Mori polls but it is wrong to imply that they distort opinion polls.

[Kevin Davis]

This was a very intersting extract on PB from Mori's Julia Clark:

"My point here is that Labour support is unlikely to drop BELOW this figure because it represents the core of Labour voters — however ‘floating’ and otherwise unaffiliated voters who are unhappy with the problems that Labour party is having are more likely to allocate their vote to the Tories or LibDems — and it looks as though they have chosen the Tories."

The big news for me is still the floundering Lib Dems. Despite all Labours problems and a new leader they are just tanking.

It looks like those who argued that Ming was not the problem are right after all!

[Stephen Haraldsen]

"The big news for me is still the floundering Lib Dems. Despite all Labours problems and a new leader they are just tanking.

It looks like those who argued that Ming was not the problem are right after all!"

That could be true, or it could just be the aftermath of Ming i.e. the LibDems will improve as Clegg starts to get some sort of message out there.

They'll just bang on about how they always rise in opinion polls during elections anyway. Same old story.

[Ted]

Steve
Ipsos-Mori do the polls in accordance with rules; it's Mr Pascoe-Watson who decides what editorial to overlay. We had the benefit of this on Tuesday when the Times led (as did the Sun) with the leadership & other questions rather than the overall lead. In Populus our lead had fallen but the Times led on Brown's leadership ratings dropping.
Where the Sun misled was that their polls also showed large falls in Brown's polling leads on those questions but Pascoe-Brown cross-referenced to the Tuesday Populus poll (different sampling methods) to try to show that Gordon's re-launch had been effective. Possibly he was assisted in this conclusion by the discussions he had had with Labour on the poll he refers to in his article.

[Paul D]

The pollsters all have their own issues - it's fairly well established that Populus's methodology is better for Labour, and that ComRes's overstates us, Yougov consistently reports lower LD shares than the others etc

This one is interesting because of the application of the data - only "certain to vote" included in the top-line figure but all respondents included in the other questions

As for The Sun's reporting, well all it shows is that they've yet to board the Cameron bandwagon. If we want The Sun on-side, there's more work to be done

[Cllr John M Ward (Medway)]

Interesting poll, interesting comments...

I have good reason to believe that Ipsos-MORI do not distort results. Their reputation has been built up over many years, and it certainly wasn't on a basis of manipulation.

It is the interpretation and style of publishing of (some of) their results, and the "spin" put upon them (possibly without any context explanation) that is at fault here, and that fault stems from the newspaper -- hardly a surprise, of course...

Regarding the "worrying about polls" issue: real-world politicians know of the impact of poll results upon public opinion (the "floating voters" particularly) so are right to be concerned about both the results themselves and the way they are presented. That is fair enough.

What they don't do, if they are being wise, is to dwell too deeply on any single poll. It is also a fact that all significant political parties conduct (or commission) their own polls, and those tend to be more useful to the parties themselves.

The real problem in this image-conscious age is what is put across to the public-at-large -- something I personally still manage to largely ignore, while realising that it would be foolish for any party machine to ignore or downplay this area.

We have become primarily a "style over substance" society, and that is why polls and their publication take on a disproportionate significance.

[olivepeel]

It could be that this week saw the 'shift' in ecconomic analysis of Labour. The mood has changed.

[Mr Angry]

What I find interesting is that around here Cameron is more popular with the non tories than he is with the Conservative voters but that everyone despises Brown.

Ultimately though, as was proved once again in the Democratic Caucus in New Hampshire, the polls are often wrong and anyway it is real votes that actually count.

[activist]

There's no magic here. As suggested by Andrew Woodman on the thread on the prior poll, all holiday polling is suspect; Tories are away.

They're back now, so the polls revert to the (relatively) steady position.

[Edison Smith]

What I find interesting is that around here Cameron is more popular with the non tories than he is with the Conservative voters

If you had to pick one, it's better this than the reverse. Better to have a leader such as DC who appeals beyond the party, than one who is a party golden boy unloved by the floating or wavering voter. Look at Obama in the US - making hay with 'independents'.

[Tapestry]

http://the-tap.blogspot.com/2007/12/brown-tries-to-bring-murdoch-to-heel.html

maybe the arm twisting strategy is starting to take effect

[Sean Fear]

ICM have Conservative 40%, Labour 33%, Lib Dem 18%.

[Paul D]

A measure of how things have gone recently that I was disappointed to see we had a lead of "only" 7 points

[Sean Fear]

Apparently, Yougov have a new poll giving us a double-digit lead, but I have no further details.

[Tapestry]

or see http://the-tap.blogspot.com/2008/01/murdoch-responds-to-browns-arm-twisting.html

[Ted]

Its apparently (YouGov) : 42:32:14.

So Labour back in low 30's, Tories up in low 40's and Lib Dems little changed from where they were. Good news for May elections if we can keep those figures.

[Paul D]

Politicalbetting says 43/33/14 for the yougov poll

[Joe James Broughton]

Good figures.
Many people forget that Mrs Thatcher's Tories often struggled to lead more than 3-6% after the IMF crisis subsided during the summer of 1977 (apart from a few 20 point leads in January and February 1979), and also trailed Jim Callaghan.
Cameron is actually leading the PM, although Brown does still seem to score on things like "good in a crisis". We'll see this year.

But we still need to knock the Lib Dems back a bit further - although they are in danger of electoral meltdown - and whereas it's often true they can rise in a campaign - in 1992 (a close election like the next one) - they went backwards at the end.

[Oberon Houston]

During the fateful weekend that Brown dithered over whether to call a General Election, he received a visitor at Chequers: Rupert Murdoch (bet thats the only Rupert dismal Broon admits to the 'Manse'.

Its interesting that the scoop over the Murdoch visit that weekend was broken by The Guardian's political commentator, Jackie Ashley, Andrew Marr's wife, and the daughter of Labour MP Jack Ashley.

Andrew Marr, of course, was the man who Brown hit speed-dial on his mobile for and summoned to No. 10 to explain to the BBC why he had bottled the election. Why would Marr get the call you might ask? Andrew Marr, political editor of the BBC from 2000-2005, and successor to Frost on Sunday...I'm sure you will be aware, has vehemently denied bias in his reporting, commendable as he must find this difficult, once a member and activist of the group 'Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory'.

Back to Murdoch. There are wheels within wheels within wheels here. At the extremely powerful epi-centre lie the Whitehouse, and the big gun's they need to get major foreign policy moving i.e. Murdoch is one of the biggest, and at the outer rim, close to Pluto (very cold and dark) we get to Brown - British PM so he can influence British foreign policy now - specifically Iraq & Afghanistan and also, very importantly the EU. So far Brown has been, from Murdochs point of view, and ours, disappointing.

So why is Murdoch using carrot & stick with Brown over Cameron? Brown is in power now. Unless we can show our election victory is a cert, or that we can topple the Government on the EU (but not out - for a version Murdoch wants) then he's only going to tickle our fancy to scare Broon witless.