More AV polling

There are no full polls in Sunday papers, but a couple of bits and bobs. The Sunday Times has a brief piece about a YouGov experiment on the AV referendum - rather than just asking straight voting intention in a referendum, they gave respondents 6 arguments in favour of AV, and 6 arguments in favour of FPTP - asked after this, support for AV fell to 33%, compared to 44% in standard YouGov polling at the time.

YouGov did a similar exercise prior to the North East referendum, which proved very prescient in suggesting there might be a big movement in favour of NO once the arguments got a hearing. Of course, it does depend on how well the statements reflect the arguments that actually end up being made during the campaign (if I recall correctly, for the North East referendum campaign the statements were sourced from the YES and NO campaigns, which was ideal. In the case of AV, there obviously aren't official campaigns yet). The info in the Sunday Times is very brief and I don't have the tables to hand, but it will be equally interesting to see exactly which pro- and anti- arguments the public found most convincing. I'll do a proper post when I have the full details in front of me.

The key point that Peter Kellner draws out in his comments on the findings is that Labour voters are key. Lib Dem supporters support AV to start with, and remain supportive after being exposed to the pro- and anti- arguments. The Conservatives start negative, and remain so. The big shift in support is Labour voters, who change from 59% in favour in normal polls, to 58% against after exposure to the arguments. This implies that how Labour voters split (and how the new Labour leader plays the referendum) will be key to the result.

The Times yesterday also had some brief details from some Populus polling, which apparently showed 45% in favour of FPTP, and 44% in favour of a change of system. Asked how people would cast second preference votes, both Labour and Conservative voters told Populus they would give the Lib Dems their second preferences, with Lib Dem voters splitting in favour of the Conservatives (not Labour, as they have in the past!) by 39% to 27%. That implies the Conservatives might actually do better than Labour from AV, but I will address that in much more detail during the week.