Campaign Week 3: The Manifestos

Ah, manifesto week.  The week where we see all of the parties making pledges for the people of this country, telling us where the priorities for our very scarce resources lie.  It's a welcome, even if temporary, break from the usual mudslinging that goes on during the campaign.

So whose manifesto was most convincing to voters?  Well, it's a bit surprising what the pollsters are finding.

Average of opinion polls released up to Saturday evening

If you look at each of the individual polls, they are somewhat all over the place.  Even yesterday, the two polls that came out from YouGov and Survation showed two different stories, with the former showing a 20-seat Labour lead and the latter showing a 30-seat Conservative lead.

When you average out the polls, a uniform swing puts Labour slightly ahead.  However, there is no such thing as a perfectly uniform swing, and the swingometer is currently at a point where, particularly in the south of England, an uneven swing is more likely to benefit the Conservatives than Labour.  That's why, on balance of probabilities, the Conservatives have moved slightly ahead.  The swing to the Conservatives was led in the South East and North West of England, though I'm struggling to find a specific incident that led to this.

Now, there was that blip in the polls earlier this week from ICM showing the 6-point lead for the Tories, including being ahead of Labour in Scotland and the north of England.  When you take out that poll, the two parties would be right beside each other (both in the 260-290 range).

It's not just the polls that have swung towards the Tories this week.  While the bookies have always favoured the Conservatives finishing ahead overall, when looking at the individual constituencies, the deadlock between the two parties is breaking for the first time since the start of the campaign.

Number of constituencies where each party has the shortest odds

Now, even though the Conservatives may be pulling ahead in both of these measures, you need to remember that simply having the most seats is not enough to be able to form a government.  326 remains the target for a functioning government, and even on the less optimistic (for Labour) bookies' odds, it's not hard to find a feasible combination to put Labour above that line and allow Ed Miliband to lead a minority government.

Combining Labour, the SNP and LibDems is just one way to get a majority in parliament

To Watch This Week

We don't have any debates coming up this week, meaning the leaders will be heading up and down the country promoting their local candidates in key marginal constituencies.  Questions are still going to be asked of the Tories and their sudden windfall of money to pay for manifesto pledges, as well as of Labour and whether or not they will come to arrangement with the SNP.

And of course, now that manifesto week is behind us, the mudslinging will continue. *sigh*