Could a good Dunfermline showing be Ming’s salvation?
February 7th, 2006-
Populus poll boost for Lib Dems on eve of by-election
With just a day to go before the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election the betting markets seem to think that the Lib Dems, in spite of all the recent troubles, look set to beat 
the SNP and hold onto their second place of last May.
Using “advanced Lib Dem bar chart technology” and a guest appearance by Charles Kennedy the party seems to have had a good campaign.
There was a buzz amongst their workers after the first postal votes were opened yesterday and some heady souls were even putting their money on a win.
Latest prices have them at 7/1 with the SNP easing back to 29/1.
The Lib Dems will be boosted by the February Populus poll in the Times showing the GB shares as CON 37%(+1) LAB 36%(-3) LD 18% (+2). This is the first time that the Times’ pollster has had the Tories ahead since the leadership changes.
Since the awful week of Simon Hughes and Mark Oaten things have been a lot more stable and clearly the public has other things to focus on.
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Dunfermline and West Fife comes at a critical time in the party’s leadership election, especially for the acting leader, Ming Campbell. He is a local Fife MP and a poor showing on his doorstep could have undermined his campaign.
A poor result for Labour tomorrow would not be welcome by Gordon Brown - who is just starting his tour of the country as “Prime Minister to be”. He has already run into trouble by making pronouncements on the Forth Bridge toll increase - which as his party colleagues in the Scottish Parliament have reminded him have nothing to do with Westminster.
Mike Smithson
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I see another bar chart, how 8,000 works out to be around 2/3rds to 3/4 of 20,000 (as the bar chart clearly states if it were to scale) I do not know. The Lib Dems would try and say a contest for a seat was a 2 horse race if the party in third were barely 1% behind them.
And i say this as someone who voted lib dem last time, in a seat where it truly was a two horse race (well, a one horse race with the lib dems the only remotely viable opposition to labour). The seat being Liverpool Wavertree (which I am pleased to say has a far smaller majority).
The best result for Ming is a narrow loss in Dunfermline. A good Lib Dem win would reinvigorate the party, and give the members confidence, which may result in them plumping for somebody other than good ol’ Ming.
Always difficult to tell how much the movements on Betfair are due to ramping especially if you are like me and do not bet and barely understand it but it would seem there has been a significant move to the Lib Dems and against the SNP today but with Labour still favourites but not quite justifying such tight odds .
The Populus poll again encouraging for the Lib Dems with abed rock of support on which the new leader can build if he is able enough .
For what it’s worth, the emails emerging tonight from the Cowley Street campaigns department urging people to go north really do sound like the party is scenting the narrowest of victories - even Brent East wasn’t treated like this in its final days.
3 Somone is laying down a lot of money to stop the Lib Dem price shortening any further.
Any bets on the Lib Dems are being snapped up swiftly.
1: In Bristol West they said it was a “two horse race” when the 3rd party was just 0.07% behind them (39 votes)!!
They won the seat though
6 - and in Bermondsey in 1983 - even further behind - but that’s another story!
What a lie that barchart is!
Even if those numbers were correct (remember this is the libdems!) the red one should be nearly 2.5 times taller!
Why the fuzzy number for Labour?
Why not show the others?
We all know why, after Kennedy, Oaten and Hughes the Libdems have learn’t nothing and continue to lie and misrepresent.
PS I heard of a strong LD postal vote from a contact in Dunfermline but didnt post because I’m not sure of the legality of it?
8 - Lie is far too strong aword to use . You would never be able to get ajob in marketing LOL
8-10. Look at this barchart from Stafford:
http://by-elections.co.uk/2005/libdem15a.jpg
DC - why? There is no x or y axis on the graphic so it is perfectly possible to show the gap as they have done.
Or do you expect all politicians to be accurate statisticians?
11: that’s not an unreasonable way of representing the situation if you’re in a no-hope situation but are benefiting from what little movement there is. At least it’s better than the one off my leaflet in the 2001 general election, which was a bar chart representation of what would happen if you took the previous election’s results and applied the swing from an opinion poll that demonstrated how much our vote would shoot up if people thought we could win. On that basis, I was home and dry despite starting from a nine per cent base!
I blush to remember the chart I produced when I did the leaflets for a council by-election in our number one target ward back in 2000. Try as I might, I couldn’t make a mathmatically correct bar chart look helpful - so I did a pie chart instead, a 3D one that I tilted so you were almost looking at it edge-on. It had to be mathmatically accurate because our candidate was a former army surveyor - as it was, when he saw the leaflet for the first time he apparently stared at it in silence for rather a long time.
We won the seat off Labour on a 15 per cent swing, held it in the council elections of 2002 when a strong Tory campaign made it a three-way marginal, and now I’ve come out of retirement in an attempt to help him survive the additional threat of a rogue ex-Lib Dem councillor who’s now gone independent. I don’t think even a pie chart will cut it this time - I may have to investigate 3D modelling!
You know, sometimes I really wish that we didn’t have a rule in the Lib Dems that all of our charts have to be mathmatically accurate, it would be so much easier if we could cheat in them… :o)
LibDems won the postal vote in Dunfermline - just. SNP will come an adequate (but downwards) third. Tories and SSP at saving deposit levels.
11 - Andrea - that has to be the king of bar charts, especially when you consider the polled numbers in 2001, and the result in 2005….
still, he succeeded in increasing the numbers again, what’s betting he shows a 10% hike over the past two elections compared to a 10% drop in labour over the same period, completely ignoing the conservatives and trying the “Only the Lib Dems….”
6 - but that does not mean it was a two horse race. It was a three horse race which the lib dems managed to do well in and therefore win. Three parties could have won the seat, so it was not a two horse race.
To be honest I do laugh now when seeing a lib dem leaflet come through the door, as the first thing I look for is a bar chart. I remember one which in Liverpool Wavertree said “Lib Dem 48%, Labour 46%, Conservative 6%). The result was Labour 52%, Lib Dem 37%. From “Labour 62%, Lib Dem 24%” They honestly thought they were going to win it. It would have needed a swing similar to Manchester Withington to grab it.
Re: 14 Isn’t it illegal to report on postal vote openings before polling day?
14 - how does this work? how and why are postal votes opened before the actual count? there is no excuse, and no validation, for any council to open postal ballots any earlier than 1 second after the ballot boxes officially close. And if the argument is raised about proper scrutiny, that can still be given - it is perfectly possible to have enough people there to scrutinise and validate the openings at this time, and it will not add that much to a properly organised count (I stress the last words!)
How did they cope in the past, when you had 75%+ turnout with minimal postal ballots (as you had to validate why you were unable to get to a ballot box at any point in the day), and yet still count that night?
I feel a rant coming on (my why don’t they move voting to a Saturday so that more people are around and can vote in person, and so that those of us volunteers who attend the count and don’t get home until 7 in the morning don’t have to use up 2 days holiday????)
oops, it slipped out
I find it odd that these LD tactics are considered so dubious. In the FPTP system (which the Libs want to abolish), there is an enormous premium in establishing that you are the only chance of beating X (ususally X is the government candidate, not always, but usually). The Wavertree story from Nathan shows that the LD leaflet was a more accurate guide to the outcome than the last GE result. Of course, its propaganda. Of course, it shows the LDs in the most positive light. BUT that’s what political literature does. I don’t think I have ever seen a party distribute a leaflet saying “To be brutally honest, we’re electorally stuffed here. We will probably lose our deposit. But please vote for us anyway”
For the LDs, this is a particular issue as one of the biggest barriers for people voting LibDem is “I don’t think they can win”
If the LDs don’t win Dunfermline, I reckon their barchart will be a better indication of the final result than the figures from May 2005.
My comments on the postal vote return were a total guess…apols for any illegality….
Re: 18. Postals can be opened early in order to save time at the count. These votes are not counted at this point they are simply opened and the declarations of identity are checked. As there are two envolopes to open for each vote this can all take a bit of time hence why it is done before-hand.
The postal votes are held securly and then mixed in with all the other ballots after polling has closed.
In the same way that you cannot publish an exit poll until voting has closed it is also illegal to report figures taken by party workers ’sampling’ at the postal vote opening. That’s why I raised the query about comment 14; I don’t however know if what is said there goes too far for the law.
Re: 19 It is one thing to show yourself in a positive light and it is quite another to completely distort a graph.
“I don’t think I have ever seen a party distribute a leaflet saying “To be brutally honest, we’re electorally stuffed here. We will probably lose our deposit. But please vote for us anyway””
But presumably, Archibald (19), the new-look nice Cameron Tories are on the point of putting out a leaflet in Dunfermline, saying just this…..
Theres no actual scale stated on the graph so there cannot be any ‘distortion’ as such. The numbers are cleary given, if rather hard to read on the lab column
And I can remember from my schooling long long ago where we used graph paper with the lines coming closer together the higher you went. Obviously this graph was set out on its modern equivelent 
You can make stats say anything you want when you put your mind to it, don’t see why the Lib Dems are taking any more flack on this than anything else.
Just wrote a long post on the previous thread, but hadn’t realised this one had opened up, so will copy over. References to previous thread though:
_________________________
I see that as the night draws on, the insults fly and the discussion crawls…
The poll figures would make sense, although I’m disappointed with Hughes’ figure…he shouldn’t be as far behind as that.
Huhne has momentum, but is the campaign too short for him? I can’t help thinking that he would do better in a Conservative-style election over months and with rounds. He is emerging as a credible stop ming candidate though.
SH needs to step up a gear; he’s not the loony leftie he’s made out to be, and has a credible policy platform, and in many ways is the natural heir of Charles Kennedy’s ‘not another Conservative party’ direction. He needs to make that a key message! As said above, he’ll connect with natural Labour voters better than Huhne and far better than Campbell. But he won’t go down so well in the middle class intellegentsia, so will have a tough ride in the media, especially with recent revelations.
My pack arrived today, containing an A3 statement from each candidate.
Ming’s is mainly namechecking with photos of Kofi Annan, Paddy Ashdown, and a huge list of supporters etc, with some vague stuff on why he would be so good that could apply to any of the candidates.
Hughes scans like a Lib Dem election leaflet, plenty of photos, slogans, extended personal letter, and of course the obligatory bar chart. The reasons he gives why he is the best candidate seem better thought out and for me, more compelling.
Huhne’s is dull but slick, making much of his time outside politics. Will this be a key issue among members? He seems to say that he’s the ‘non-politicians politician’ I think he has better strengths than that, as shown by his 4 point manifesto at the end (poverty, foreign affairs, environment, local spending.) For the record I’m voting
1)HUGHES - looks like a leader, acts like a Liberal, he will win votes and seats.
2)HUHNE - has really impressed me, I don’t mind dull when I can have slick and knowledgeable. Bit worried with how some of his (e.g. green) policies will play in key seats, he will have a hard job selling them.
3)LEWIS - Dark horse but with increasing support across the country his moderate views (have you heard him say anything extreme?) and lack of enemies make him a credible candidate.
4)CAMPBELL - I’ll still support if he becomes leader, but our great statesman doesn’t look like a leader right now, and has too many question marks over his role in Charles Kennedy’s departure.
264: ukPaul-a floating voter resting with the Lib Dems on principle, great! I was that way for ages, joined about a month ago and haven’t regretted it. Like you say, I hope I don’t turn into a manifesto spouter, and keep the ability to criticise my party constructively.
256: Crossing over live to Rik W with the Defectometer-what’s the latest?
“Exciting developments over here tpfkar-Mrs Miggins of Cheshire has been thinking about defecting all evening, and a previously loyal Bassett Hound in Dunstable has been seen doing his business in the garden of a prominent Lib Dem activist. More on these stories as we get it.”
226: “Basically nobody is doing wonderfully or terribly at the moment.” Sounds about right to me, and I can sleep in peace now - Thanks Nick p.s. i voted for you
Late at night, eh TPF? - but somebody has to watch the fire… On Betfair, the Chris Huhne and Ming Campbell prices are slowly converging. And when we wake up…. ?
On the Dunfermline front, the Lib Dem prices are falling (closing? moving in?), which seems very reasonable, if it is indeed a straight choice (and a two-horse race into the bargain). The odds still favour Labour, however. But what will the turnout figures be for each party?
Meanwhile the Tories on Betfair are the same as Mark Oaten to win the Lib Dem leadership. 1000-1. Now, Rik, Marcus, Matlock, JohnO and others. How can you resist such tempting odds?
Remember, Lib Dem MPs in their droves are on the point of deserting to joint the Cameroons… Lib Dem polling is on 13% (or was, just once). Baxter shows just 11 Lib Dem MPs after the next general election…. Don´t you believe your own propaganda?
No? Oh, dear…..
Lib Dem market on Betfair (in Dunfermline) is staggeringly illiquid. A few hundred quid is shifting the odds by big chunks back and forth.
At time of post, it’s overround to 131.4%, because the Labour price hasn’t lengthened, presumably because all the money is going into the Lib Dem market. Someone should start laying Labour pretty hard. If they have any reasonable prospect of losing, you can trouser some serious cash in cleaning out the short odds-on bets.
Not sure I accept this ’salvation’ point.
Taking the supposed YouGov leak (MC 40%, CH 34%, SH 24%) seriously, Campbell is 6 percentage points ahead, with ballot papers being sent out two days ago. Most are likely to have been filled in or are about to be filled in.
According to these results, Hughes will be the one eliminated, but simply to catch up to Campbell, Huhne would need to lead by 6% in Hughes’ second preferences. This is not 6 out of 100, remember, but 6 of Hughes’ 24: he needs to get more than 15% to 9%. In other words, he needs more than 62.5% of Hughes’ second preference votes to win.
This talk of momentum misses the point: you can’t for ever rely on catching up, having the frontrunner in your sights etc. We’re approaching the finish line now, and Campbell is probably closer to it than Huhne is close to Campbell.
Huhne can pull this off, though perhaps only with a winning Question Time performance on Thursday. But to talk as if Campbell needs salvation is odd if he’s noticeably ahead this late in the race.
I´m a novice when it comes to betting, Richard. I see the Labour price has come out (got more generous?) a bit over the last few hours. Where ought it to be, if the Lib Dem price is correct?
(Where is a statistician - such as Anna - when you really need her?)
Re 25. Huhne is shortening on Betfair. MC 1.93. CH 2.1 and Hughes is out to 18.
Momentum is now with Huhne. Many people I speak to are even beginning to believe he could win.
Despite what Peter says about the immediate return of ballot papers, there are still two weeks to go…. Good fun, eh? Three good candidates, all potential first class leaders, and all very interesting. What a difference from the Tory leadership contest, which went on and on and on (just like Thatcher)…. And Dunfermline thrown in for free….
Thanks Mike, for organising all of this….
Depends on which Lib Dem price you’re counting - that market has no money in it at the moment; it just went crazy last night.
If we count that 2.5 as a real price, and not just a very optimistic layer who might get a backer they didn’t expect, then that’s equivalent to a Labour lay price in a two-horse race with no overround of about 1.67, so let’s say a back price with some overround of about 1.62.
lay = 1+(1/(back-1)) is the basic formula.
Despite what Peter says about the immediate return of ballot papers, there are still two weeks to go…. Good fun, eh?
The result will be announced on 2 March, so it’s closer to three weeks. I’d be surprised if it wasn’t effectively over after this coming weekend, though. It’s too late for Huhne to have the momentum to be in the lead by 20 March: he needs to be ahead by Saturday at the latest.
John13. Has anyone ever told you the kind of terrific prick you come over as ? To your credit, you fit right in with the other Lib Dems around here. Well done !!
Thanks for your kind comments, Interested (33). They are currently offering odds of 1000 to 1 against the Tory candidate winning Dunfermline. I thought that some Tory optimists here might not have realised, espcially since they (you) all seem to think that the Tories are doing so well. But perhaps, at heart, you are realists after all and don´t believe your own propaganda.
Menzies Campbell seems to being going into meltdown on Betfair. It looks like the Times poll, and postal vote returns are having an impact.
Not sure what you mean, Will. His odds have barely changed in hours. He’s gone from 1.9ish to 1.94.
Oh, just to explain. He’s gone from 1.64 to 1.94 in just a few hours. In contrast Huhne has gone from 3.1 to 2.1 over the last 24 hours.
Perhaps, the evidence indicates, Huhne has just enough momentum to pip Menzies at the finishing line. Certainly the polling evidence and betting markets both seem to now agree on this.
All this talk of bar charts reminds me that in the 1992 general election, ITN’s bar charts (on Channel 4 News as well as ITV) were biased against Labour without protest from Mandelson’s media-savvy yet presumably innumerate campaign team.
Cf Andy at 13, the issue with 3-d charts is the angle of presentation and, intentionally or otherwise, Conservatives were consistently favoured.
John 13 at 34 - Yes John we’re doing twice as well as the Lib Dems in all the polls - you’re only 20% behind the two main parties, but do keep whistling in the dark!
The election is pretty much over already. I did a few last phone canvasses last night, and 7 of 12 have already returned their ballot.
(4/2/1) since you ask with the 1 being a MC second pref).
Flash news
Aaaaarrrgghh!
If Ming gets into power we only have 24 hours to save the world!
Cheer up, Flash, Gordon approaches!
How many Lib Dem members do you think will already have posted they leadership votes by the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election? If the showing in Dunfermline is good (or bad), will there be enough members who haven’t yet casted their votes to change the result?
I would have thought that it is likely that those who have not cast their ballot are precisely those whose vote is still up for grabs.
As much as we all loath and detest these outrageous LibDem bar charts, they do work! They really are awful and yes, I do consider them to be lies. However, they are not illegal and maybe they should be? I believe that deliberately trying to mislead the electorate should be a crime - although how many candidates would end up behind bars?
What a lot of sanctimonious codswallop is being posted this morning!
If deliberately trying to mislead the electorate was illegal ALL politicians would be behind bars. And so would the entire advertising industry.
But who on earth would judge? The queen, maybe?
I have more faith in the electorate to be discerning.
’souls’ not ’soles’ surely.
Tone @ 46
“how many candidates would end up behind bars?”
The prospect is to vile to contemplate. The prison reformers would be up in arms; “it’s bad enough that we have to slop out but please don’t make us share our cells with candidates!”
8, 10, 11 - It’s not only the Lib Dems who use bar charts: http://www.clagnut.com/images/resultlasttime.gif
And now you want to fill our prisons with the marketing industry as well!
Have mercy on the good old honest villains - please
50. well, but it’s true only Des could stop the tories in Kemptown.
Maybe he had the LD column too low, but they were at 10% in 2001 IRC.
Anyway, I recall a Respect barchart for a local by-election where they tried to show it was a 2 horse race between them and Labour even if they were in 4th place.
Mike - “some heady soles” … are we going for the fish vote now?
52 - With a big enough swing to Lib Dems or Greens, it could have been them who would have stopped the Tories…
But the point is, that it is not only the Lib Dems who are deliberately trying to mislead the electorate by using the bar charts and portraying themselves as the only alternative to the candidate x.
Bar Charts, everyone does it, one gem was the 2004 Cons one at Hodge Hill, made up from what.
Who will be the first to stop, nobody I guess.
But the point is that the public, as opposed to the pb.com gliterate, don’t know they are fibs from whichever party. People shouldn’t trust bar charts, but explaining that is quite difficult. Why? The parties should be held accountable, perhaps by each other, for misleading bar charts after the event.
E.g. Rik had a wonderful piece on one of his Sutton newspapers where he re-printed the Hughes vs Ken “two horse race” claims … and then the actual result and asked if people could trust the LibDems. Now, of course, maybe more people will see that more as typical Tory negative campaign tactics? Did this pay off, Rik?
If the Lib Dems win then it will just indicate that it doesn’t matter how ghastly they are people will still vote for them as a safe protest.
56 http://www.suttoncheamconservatives.com/getfile.php?selectid=18&type=local
56 - We used the Tory bar charts from the Brent East byelection to show how they couldn’t be trusted with their claims in Leicester South.
The Tory leaflets on polling day in Brent East said Con just 0.5% behind Lab with Libe Dems over 20% (I think) behind both.
And leaflets like that didn’t come from the candidate but from the ‘top notch’ Central Office Team.
It is possible that some of the leaflets in the early 80s (ie before my time) from Liberals were complete fabrication but we are relatively clear that they will be looked at after the event so we only tend to claim something in the right ballpark in my experience.
Re: Bar Charts. Of course the public know they are lies or at the very least distortions of the truth. Yes there are a small percentage of the electorate who vote on “that name sounds the nicest” basis and “that bar chart told me candidate so and so was better” but the vast vast majority are not like this.
Case in point, general election 05, Canterbury. Both Labour and Lib Dem leaflets had bar charts both presenting a Tory lead with (in the Lib Dem leaflet) the Libs in second and Labour a distant third whilst in the Labour leaflet the Tories in the lead and Labour a strong second with the Libs nowhere.
The Labour chart was the GE result from 2001 whilst the Lib chart was “number of councillors on the city council.” Both were accurate.
Brent East was even funnier. With no second place and few councillors a chart was produced showing the movement in the opinion polls over the last 12 months. Hence Libs were pointed as “the growing party” plus 7% or something like that and the other two with poll ratings falling back.
It’s politics. It’s part of what makes this so much fun!
An interesting report from the ground in Dunfermline:
Apparently the Labour campaign is in “meltdown” and one Gordon Brown is in a filthy mood.
Also reports of senior Labour figures being very unpleasant towards Lib Dems.
Labour are clearly worried.
60 Erland The ‘top notch Tories’ from Central Office will have to go a long way to match the Labour bar chart from the Ribble Valley by-election published by none other than Blair-baiter in chief, Peter Kilfoyle. They showed Labour neck and neck with ther Tories, with the eventually massively victorious Liberal/SDP Mike Carr on about 12 per cent.
12 No Dan, just to tell the truth
with apologies Dan, just seen the wink !!
21 To build on this, Postal votes being counted are witnessed by all candidates or their reps, and are very indicative to all concerned of the way things are going.
Apparently the Labour campaign is in “meltdown” and one Gordon Brown is in a filthy mood.
Also reports of senior Labour figures being very unpleasant towards Lib Dems.
Labour are clearly worried.
by Alex February 8th, 2006 at 3:40 pm
Well thats funny because I was talking to a local Labour councillor in Dunfermline and she said that ‘its good but not great’,so who do you believe?
In December 2005 I stood in a local council by-election in my ward (Croydon - Fairfield) which is a Con/Lab marginal. The Lib Dem leaflet said that it was a “two-horse race” between Conservative and Lib Dem, and included a bar chart indicating the number of councillors in the ward for each party (1 Con, 1 LD (and 1 vacant)). They did not need to remind the voters that the Lib Dem councillor was elected as a Conservative but defected to the Lib Dems. The by-election resulted in the Lib Dem vote going down from 13% to 8%.
postal votes being observed can be a little misleading. The Tories in our city always do very well on postal votes but on polling day poll a much lower percentage. Also if you have identified your supporters you can get them out. If the Liberal have done mostly a leaflet campaign but not identified their supporters then they will poll less on the day. The SNP I have heard have identified supporters to bring out on and should do better on the day.
Recent byelections in Labour seats seem to show that they perform better in the postal vote than on the day with GOTV. Birmingham Hodge Hill was a good example where the LDs ‘won’ the vote on polling day but narrowly failed to overcome the Labour PV lead.
68: John, as a resonably impartial observer, what’s your take on the likely outcome in Croydon in May?
I’ve posted my observations on the next thread up.
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