Opinion Poll weightings.

From Political Betting Feb 26th

Guest slot from flockers on yougov

What is it about their weightings?

For good reason, all polling firms apply weightings to their raw data in order to derive the final figures. There is little value in seeking to predict the responses of the electorate from the responses of a sample if that sample is not representative of the electorate as a whole; a poll taken in the Birkenhead working men’s club would have very little predictive value.

Looking at the YouGov data, I was immediately struck (see table above) by the resilience of the unweighted Conservative vote share and of the unweighted Conservative lead over Labour.

Read the whole item at Political Betting.


Mike Smithson is ...

... on holiday ... at the moment and this guest slot submitted by Flockers echoes quite a lot of comments that we are getting whenever YouGov polls are published - which is now five times a week. When I return next week I’m hoping that the firm’s Peter Kellner will take part in an online Q&A session - no doubt this will form part of the conversation. I should emphasise that these are the personal views of Flockers - Mike Smithson

The Q & A will be interesting to read.

....

Frank Field is first!

Actually, Mrs Rigby doesn't know if he is first, but he's the first she has noticed in her wanderings round the internet.

Frank Field, who is Member of Parliament for Birkenhead, has published his expenses on his website. They can be found on the front page of his site, which is here

Hat's off to you Mr Field, for doing the decent thing.

Separately, Iain Dale had an informal poll for, asking visitors to his site who they would most like to see as Speaker. 2,100 people (members of the public who visit his blog) voted and this answer caught my eye. Mrs R hopes he doesn't mind it being shown here.

who you would like to succeed Michael Martin
Frank Field 19%
Sir Ming Campbell 18%
Sir George Young 15%
Kate Hoey 13%
David Davis 6%
Sir Alan Haselhurst 6%
Ken Clarke 5%
Alan Beith 4%
John Bercow 3%
Keith Simpson 3%
Sir Patrick Cormack 3%
Richard Shepherd 2%

Mrs Rigby thinks Mr Field would make an excellent Speaker, but she thinks his job on the back benches is more important to his constituents.