Saturday 7 January 2023

UK Polling Archive

Ever wanted to know what such-and-such a party was polling at such-and-such a time? Fret not, because I've added a UK voter intention poll archive to the blog. Updated weekly from now on, the archive goes back to July 2021 when, in many ways, the Conservative Party were still sitting pretty. There was no Party Gate, Boris Johnson looked unassailable, and the idea the following year would see three Prime Ministers was unthinkable. Still, someone carried on plugging the idea that the Tories were in long-term decline ...

This archive was inspired by that maintained by Anthony Wells on his UK Polling Report website. As a resource, it was indispensable while writing the book. But unfortunately he stopped updating his polling archive in 2020 and has since handed the site over. Sadly that archive, which went back 40-odd years, has now disappeared. For work and geek reasons, I've been tracking polls for a while and so thought it worthwhile to plug a gap by collating and republishing the data, as per council by-election results.

The archive will be updated weekly and presently leaves off Reform UK. This is partly technical (I can't fit them onto my table) and part political. Pollsters flatter them by prompting for the party, but unlike their UKIP forebears they rarely stand in local authority by-elections. For example, of the 71 contests that took place in October-December last year, Reform could only be bothered to stand in one of them. That's two fewer than what's left of UKIP managed. Why should they be given attention? Just because the right wing media are working hard to big them up? I don't think so.

Anyway, the data's there so if polls are your thing fill your boots.

3 comments:

Bob Appleyard said...

Could this perhaps be available in CSV?

Anonymous said...

I find it useful to keep an eye on "polls of polls" like Politico's: https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/

Blissex said...

«I've added a UK voter intention poll archive to the blog.»

Unfortunately its value is very limited by its lacking actual polled numbers (not percentages) and numbers of "don't know"/"no reply" etc.; in this respect the local council by-elections archive is somewhat more valuable as at least it reports absolute numbers for "Total Vote" and "Avge/Contest" which is better than just percentages. In particular in the UK case actual numbers of votes and non-votes are essential to understanding electoral trends.