Another poll shows Labour ahead in Glasgow East
Progressive Scottish Opinion have produced a second poll for the Glasgow East by-election. As with ICM, it shows a substantial Labour lead with voting intentions of LAB 52%, SNP 35%, CON 7%, LDEM 3%. The poll was conducted between the 14th and 17th July, and interviewed 509 people.
Progressive Scottish Opinion are not registered with the BPC, so they are not obliged to publish results. Some people get very sniffy about pollsters who aren't registered with the BPC. It should be pointed out that membership of the BPC isn't compulsory - it's a voluntary agreement between the pollsters who produce high profiles polls for the media agreeing to publish their tables and answer questions. Companies outside it are often perfectly reputatable companies, often highly experienced, working inside MRS rules and codes of conduct. There's nothing stopping them releasing their tables either if they wish to (hint!)
The downside is we don't know things such as how the poll dealt with turnout, or don't knows, what weighting they used and so on. We don't though if they faced the same problems ICM did getting a representative sample. Thus while it seems likely that this poll is backing up ICM's findings and showing a substantial lead, we can't be certain that it isn't just using some form of methodology that is more generous to Labour.
