Today’s polls

There are a few polls in today’s press, but they tend to use more newsprint than they’re really worth.

In order of uselessness, we firstly have a British Polling Index poll for the Mail on Sunday which has topline figures of Con 40% Lab 30% LD 14% – all three major parties down one point. All BPIX polls should be taken with a bucket of salt, however. Their website has been “under construction” for over a year, so they do not publish internals and they do not submit to British Polling Council guidelines.

The Scottish Mail on Sunday runs an unsourced poll on Scottish voting intentions, but a story that doesn’t even name the poll which it reports on is such bad journalism that it is best ignored.

The Observer meanwhile reports selected findings from the MORI Political Monitor, comparing various perceptions of Blair and Brown. Interviews were mainly before this week, which obviously rather reduces their relevance – a fact that the Observer neglects to flag up.

Most of the findings are fairly unsurprising – Blair wins on personality, patriotism and leadership, Brown wins on judgment. Most striking is the 51% who think Blair is out of touch with ordinary people – only 24% think this of Brown. Blair’s ratings have nose-dived over the last year, but we knew that already from countless other polls.

Finally, the Sunday Times reports on a YouGov poll in Scotland of voting intention for Holyrood. This was conducted mid-week, so it is possible that Labour support was hit by recent events. Constituency/list figures are: Lab 30/27 SNP 29/29 Con 14/14 LD 18/15. Green and SSP support were not reported, while Sheridan’s new Solidarity party was at 1/2.

The results are out of synch with the recent System 3 polls but similar to others before that. Good summary here.