For the third election in a row, I've been plotting the opinion poll results on various charts. The latest data is shown below for you to draw your own conclusions!

BEEBMASTER GLOAT - 16th May 2005

I think I discharged myself very honourably with my first ever General Election Prediction, the details of which are given below. I predicted a Labour majority of 46 on a popular vote of 37%. The BBC/ITV exit poll had it as a Labour majority of 66 also on a 37% share of the vote, which was more or less right in the event.

So, not bad for an amateur with a sheet of graph paper and a slide rule!

BEEBMASTER PREDICTION - 5th May 2005

Today's the day so it's time to unveil my General Election 2005 prediction!

The Labour lead in the polls has remained strong although it has dipped a little from the heady heights earlier in the week. I still believe that the polls are wrong, underestimating Conservative support and exaggerating Liberal support. I think it is going to be a very close general election in terms of share of the vote between the Conservatives and Labour.

My prediction for final share of the vote is as follows:

The changes are based on the 2001 general election results. On a uniform national swing, this would work out as:

The actual swings are likely to be a little bit different. I think there will be a slightly higher swing to the Conservatives because turnout amongst Conservative voters is likely to be higher than turnout amongst Labour voters and because there is anecdotal evidence that Conservative candidates are fighting very hard in key Labour marginals.

The swing to the LibDems in Labour marginals is also likely to be higher because the Liberals are benefitting from dissatisfaction with Labour amongst traditional Labour voters over issues such as Iraq, student tuition fees and involvement of the private sector in public services.

The Liberals are also likely to register a slight swing away from the Conservatives in key Con/LD marginals so I am basing my final figures on the following average swings:

Apply this swing would give the following seat changes:

We also need to factor in the changes in Scotland. There are 13 fewer Scottish constituencies than in 2001 and it is widely predicted that this will almost exclusively harm Labour. So I have taken 10 more seats off the total to give my final seat prediction as follows:

Only time will tell if I'm right!

BEEBMASTER COMMENT - NO LAUGHING MATTER - 1st May 2005

This election is no laughing matter at all. Every politician will tell you that the vote on May 5th is the most important election ever (at least since the last one) and the decision made will shape the direction of the country for the next four or five years. I am inclined to agree.

But that's not what I mean.

Quite literally, the general election campaign has been no laughing matter all round. No humour, no jokes, no laughter, no wit. It has all been far too serious for my liking. I have always felt that politics works best when liberally sprinkled with humour. There is no better way to rubbish your opponent than ridiculing his position by making others laugh about it. It is certainly far more effective than ranting and raving or calling him a liar.

The 2005 campaign has been totally devoid of it. To be honest, Tony Blair doesn't do jokes. Whenever I have heard him speak and a joke has been slipped into his script, the delivery has always fallen flat. And attempts at humour by Michael Howard and Charles Kennedy are few and far between. So we face a depressing choice of three humourless leaders on election day.

Think back to the days of Churchill, every utterance lined with wit and perfect comic timing, or even more recently during William Hague's stewardship of the Conservatives, who used humour to very great effect, and I can't help thinking that politics is so much the worse without it.

The Sunday papers have produced another rash of polls and the Labour lead is holding very firm. Tony Blair does not appear to have been damaged by all the Conservative attacks on his trustworthiness. The publication of the Attorney-General's minute to the Prime Minister on the legal case for war has defused the Iraq situation. We can only wonder why it wasn't released months, or even years, ago.

If anything, the Conservatives appear to be suffering as a result of their personal criticism of the Prime Minister, with polling evidence showing a slight majority are less inclined to vote Conservative as a result of Michael Howard's gamble.

With only four days to go, a Labour victory seems assured but nobody should take this for granted. This election will be won and lost in the marginal seats and in those key areas, the Conservatives are polling ahead of Labour by as many as four of five percentage points. The 2005 general election promises to be the closest contest for decades.

BEEBMASTER COMMENT - RABBITS ALL ROUND - 28th April 2005

At last, a Labour rabbit!

What am I talking about? Well, it's very simple. During any election campaign, the main parties invariably come up with unexpected policy announcements to enthuse and excite electors into voting for them. In other words, they pull a rabbit out of the hat.

Last week, the Conservatives produced two rabbits on successive days, both aimed at home-owners. First it was the abolition of the Council Tax revaluation which they say would cost us all more in Council Tax in the future. Then the very next day they announced that they would raise the stamp duty threshold from £120,000 to £250,000 if elected.

This week, the Liberals produced their rabbit in the form of Mr B. Sedgemore, a Labour MP for (depending on which television station you watch) 23 years, 27 years or 37 years (or perhaps all three added up) who was defecting to the Lib-Dems on account of the Government's involvement in Iraq.

Only a week until polling day (that's 5th May, remember, in case you had forgotten) and I was beginning to wonder if Labour would come up with any rabbits.

Oh yes! The Prime Minister announced that he was abandoning his plan to abolish the Pound, throwing caution to Mr. Brown's carefully crafted "five economic tests", relations with Monsieur Chirac and Herr Schroeder, and probably Labour party unity all in one go!

Rabbits all round!

Whether any of this has any effect on anything will not be known for another seven days but judging by the polls, the Labour lead is as strong as ever.

This week has seen a change in the tone of the general election campaign, almost universally seen as a lowering of the conduct of political discourse in Britain. The Conservatives' branding of Tony Blair as a liar has been the most remarkable turn of the election campaign so far. Not exactly a rabbit, I would say, but certainly a talking-point.

The trustworthiness of the political leader of the country might well be an issue which ought to be put to the British people but the unusual ferocity with which the Conservatives have attacked Mr Blair has caused great disquiet. There may be validity in what the Conservatives say but perhaps the argument could have been put with a little more elegance.

Michael Howard says he is "telling it like it is", egged on by private polling which suggests that trust in Mr Blair is a key election issue and potential vote-winner for the Conservatives. Everybody else, from political commentators, opposition parties, religious leaders and some senior Conservatives, think that Mr Howard has gone too far in personally attacking the Prime Minister. The final judgement will be made by the British people as to whether it is a mark of desperation or a ticket to Number Ten.

BEEBMASTER COMMENT - 25th April 2005

The continuing Labour lead in the opinion polls is perhaps surprising given the difficulties which Mr. Blair has faced in his second term over matters like the war in Iraq, identity cards, student tuition fees and measures to increase the involvement of the private sector in public services.

For the lead to have increased during the campaign is most unusual and must be desperately disappointing for the Conservatives whose campaign has focused on areas where they believe the Government is vulnerable. A modest narrowing of the gap between the two main parties could have been expected but has not materialised.

It has been a fairly smooth campaign for both of the main parties so far with no major gaffes from either side. Whilst they may be breathing a collective sigh of relief, smooth-running campaigns do tend to mean dull campaigns and so voter interest (or disinterest) is bound to be affected.

The Liberals are a poor third in the ratings, but they are polling significantly higher than at the last election, and better than at any time since the days of the Liberal/SDP Alliance in the mid 1980s. There is no escaping the reality that the British political system is still a two-party system and despite the Liberals' good poll showing and some impressive by-election victories during the last Parliament, there is a still a perception that Charles Kennedy is failing to make inroads on the long path to Downing Street.

Every election produces a "rogue poll" and MORI can take the credit this time round for an absolute clunker of a poll issued on 5th April, their first barometer of public opinion after the election was announced. Compare their 5-point Conservative lead with their 7-point Labour lead in their very next poll just five days later and MORI's methodology really must be called into question.

Of course, methodology is the key and each opinion polling organisation employs different methods, both in gathering the data in the first place and then in the number-crunching to produce the final figures, so comparing a range of opinion polls is not the same as comparing like-for-like. All poll results should be taken with a pinch of salt, but they can provide an interesting and useful source of public opinion data during an election campaign.

The opinion polls tend to exaggerate Labour support and underestimate Conservative support. If we factor in these "natural biases" and think that the actual result on election day might be a couple of points lower for Labour and a couple of points higher for the Conservatives than the opinion polls are showing, then with an average Labour lead throughout the campaign over just over 4 percentage points, the battle certainly seems a lot closer than newspaper headlines are predicting!

Many people think the British voting system is unfair but we are the in the middle of a general election and not a presidential election. On May 5th, the election will be 646 local constituency battles rather than a huge nationwide referendum on who should be Prime Minister. Our voting system always throws up the odd anomaly at local level but in this election, the anomaly could turn up on the national stage. The latest figures show that even a slim Conservative lead in the opinion polls by the end of the campaign could still lead to a comfortable Labour win. To be certain of victory, the Conservatives need to be several points ahead of Labour by polling day. Even if Mr Howard polls marginally more votes than Labour on the day, Mr Blair could still retain his premiership.

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