The polls say...

ComRes have published results of a poll of the Crewe & Nantwich electorate, it shows Conservatives on 48%, Labour on 35% with the Liberal Democrats on 12%. There is only one slight problem, of those polled only 13% are certain not to vote while 73% are 8/10 or more likely to vote. Now the question here is if this is a poll predominantly of those most likely to vote then the results could be fairly safe, but history indicates that turnout in by-elections is usually closer to 30% than 70%; Leicester South saw 41%, Brent East 36%. So should we trust this poll? If of the general electorate, as is claimed, it seems there is some reporting error so how many respondents will not vote and will they be equally spread across the parties or are one party's suppoters less likely to vote? Interesting huh?

The Crewe TV blog's poll, just as an aside, seems to have had a sharp injection of Labour voters; suddenly Dunwoody has shot up to 26%, second place is UKIP on 25% with the Conservatives and LibDems tied on third; but of course the beauty of this polls is that getting 40 people to sign up, or one person to vote 40 times and you can see a visible shift. Gordon Brown is perhaps wishing he could make Labour support shift as easily!