Sixteen weeks to go
I'm in meetings and out and about tomorrow, so I'm doing week two's round up tonight. The second week of 2015 and the long campaign we saw the first two phone polls of the year - Ipsos MORI's monthly political monitor and the first weekly Ashcroft poll of the year.
YouGov/S Times (9/1/15) - CON 32%, LAB 32%, LDEM 7%, UKIP 18%, GRN 6% Ashcroft (11/1/15) - CON 34%, LAB 28%, LDEM 8%, UKIP 16%, GRN 8% Populus (11/1/15) - CON 32%, LAB 37%, LDEM 10%, UKIP 13%, GRN 4% YouGov/Sun (12/1/15) - CON 32%, LAB 33%, LDEM 6%, UKIP 17%, GRN 6% Ipsos MORI (13/1/15) - CON 33%, LAB 34%, LDEM 8%, UKIP 11%, GRN 8% YouGov/Sun (13/1/15) - CON 32%, LAB 33%, LDEM 7%, UKIP 14%, GRN 7% YouGov/Sun (14/1/15) - CON 32%, LAB 34%, LDEM 6%, UKIP 15%, GRN 7% YouGov/Sun (15/1/15) - CON 32%, LAB 32%, LDEM 6%, UKIP 16%, GRN 8%
Ashcroft's poll looks like an obvious outlier with a six point Conservative lead, most polls however clustered around a wafer thin Labour lead. The UKPR average of the latest polls now has figures of CON 33%(nc), LAB 33%(-1), LDEM 7%(-1), UKIP 15%(+1), GRN 7%(+1). Lord Ashcroft also started the year with a change to his methods, like YouGov moving to include UKIP in the main voting intention prompt.
Week 2 of the long campaign
The week started in the shadow of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, and there was some polling in the YouGov/Sunday Times poll on people's attitudes towards free speech and religion. Around a quarter of people thought the media should not be allowed to mock or ridicule religious beliefs or figures and 18% think the media should not even be allowed to criticise or question religion. Asked about Charlie Hebdo itself 69% of people thought it was acceptable for them to publish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, 14% unacceptable. 63% think that other newspapers should have reprinted the cartoons, 71% that the media have an obligation to show newsworthy items even if they might upset people.
Most of the political week though has been dominated by debates over debates. David Cameron refuses to take part in debates without the Green party being invited, and the broadcasters have yet to agree to invite the Green party. Public opinion is fairly clear - two thirds of people think that Natalie Bennett should be included in the debate... but in the event that she isn't, a majority of people think David Cameron should take part anyway.
I wrote more about the potential impact of the debates not happening yesterday, but this week the effect seems to have been an opportunity cost for the parties (time spent debating debates is time spent not talking about issues like the economy or NHS), and a spike in the Green party's membership, which they claim has now overtaken UKIP and the Liberal Democrats.
BBC Larger and smaller parties
Following OfCom's consultation paper last week, the BBC have released their guidance on party coverage at the election for consultation. They put UKIP in with the larger parties (Con, Lab and Lib Dem) saying "programmes must ensure that UKIP is given appropriate levels of coverage in output to which the largest parties contribute and, on some occasions, similar levels of coverage." The Greens are under smaller parties with guidance that "programmes must ensure that the Greens are given proportionate levels of coverage in output to which the larger parties contribute, and, on occasion, similar levels of coverage, if appropriate."
Projections
The latest forecasts from Election Forecast and May 2015 are below - both are showing a hung Parliament with Labour the largest party. Steve Fisher's Elections Etc should be updated tomorrow.
Election Forecast - Hung Parliament, CON 277(-7), LAB 289(+8), LD 27(+1), SNP 32(-1), UKIP 3(nc) May 2015 - Hung Parliament, CON 273(nc), LAB 280(-1), LD 24(nc), SNP 46(nc), UKIP 4(+1)
