Opinion Polls

[David Johnson]

Blimey how do you get a job as an opinion pollster? Come bottom in the class at school?

Correct me if I am wrong but the various polls that have been gone through with a fine tooth comb by political parties and TV programs have been predicting a result too close to call for months.

Didn't the same happen in the Scottish Referendum vote which given it was a simple Are you going to vote yes or no,vote you would have thought was easier to get right?

I don't know how Peter Kellner dared show his face on the BBC Election Program at the end of the night given the huge disparity between his Yougov polls and the exit poll that Curtis did. I seem to recall Kellner making a contribution to the effect that one of the things his poll got right was that the SNP would have a stunning success. Now even me and next door's cat could have figured out that this is what would happen given that 45% of the vote in the Scottish Referendum went for a YEs vote for independence. So given the pro-union vote was split between Labour, Tories, Lib Dems, UKIP etc. it was hardly surprising that the SNP won a shedload of seats.

The worrying thing is that political parties now seem to mould their policies depending on what the polls appear to suggest. The polls showing the Tories and Labour neck and neck resulting in the Tories flinging promises and unfunded money about like a Euro lottery winner on a country wide scale. If Cameron meets all his promises made in the last few weeks, I will eat my.......hat.

[Arginald Valleywater]

Opinions are like arses. We all have one and some stink.
A glorious victory btw.

[David Johnson]

"Opinions are like arses. We all have one and some stink."

Err, I don't think you grasp an important difference.

Opinion e.g. I think Manchester City are the best team in the world.

Opinion poll A scientific attempt to use a methodology to predict the outcome of a forthcoming event.

I don't think they are the same, do you?

As for your opinion "A glorious victory", I suspect you will not take a similar view if a public sector worker like yourself gets the push as a result of Cameron's plan to give Housing Association tenants the right to buy Housing Association properties at a huge discount.

As I recall you were unable to challenge any of my reasons as to why your job is at risk with this policy.

[Arginald Valleywater]

I did some marketing at college. A poll is just a poll. Human beings are allowed to change their mind, lie or just give any old answer to get an annoying pollster out of their face or off the phone.

[David Johnson]

Fair comment.

However, you don't seem to understand how polls work. You give the impression that it is a bit like a company making unsolicited calls re. ppi or requesting their views on the service they have received from company x, y, z.

This might help

[Arginald Valleywater]

No matter the polls say people can change their mind. I have done many a poll and consultation event through work and I take many of the answers with a pinch of salt. In the end the polls were wrong, Labour lost and their union backed leader is now enjoying more time with his family (his brother aside).

[planeterotica]

The main reason the polls got it wrong was because they didn't take into account that at the last minute English voters woke up and realised that if they voted Labour then Nicola the Lochness monster could be pulling the strings in Westminster, as it is she now has to put up with a majority Conservative goverment, we are a canny lot us English aye aye that we are...

[David Johnson]

Agreed that the polls were wrong. No-one could deny that. The question to ask is whether it is due to a weakness in the methodology or perhaps, the phenomenon of the "shy Tory".

The last time as far as I can remember, that the pollsters got the general election vote catastrophically wrong was in 1992 when Kinnock was expected to win and Major got in instead.

The "shy Tory" is the voter who realises that the Tories are about people who tend to only care about themselves, believe that the state as far as possible should not support the unemployed, the sick and the disabled and the public sector such as the one you work in should be very, very small.

The essence of Toryism was rather hilariously summarised by Thatcher when she told the story of the Good Samaritan in terms of the Samaritan would not have been remembered unless he had been wealthy and able to help the person by the roadside.

This is what Thatcher used to defend the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few as not being a problem so much as a wonderful opportunity for generous philanthropic giving.

The "shy Tory" is typically some one who is doing alright or very well, is ashamed of voting Tory so they keep it to themselves even though they realise they are allowing personal self interest override the common good.

[Arginald Valleywater]

DJ. A poll is a poll. Labour lost badly and were destroyed across the border. You now have to choose a new leader from a pathetically weak group of candidates. Many are still from the Nu Labor VP Bliar era and the others, like Harridan Harperson are dinosaurs.

[David Johnson]

You appear to have been fooled by the non-stop rhetoric from the Tory party and Tory press that the SNP are an extremely left wing party, that Nicola Sturgeon is the "most dangerous woman in Britain" and that the SNP would have been pulling the strings of any Labour minority government.

What you and most forumites appear not to realise is that the Tories themselves supported the "horrible, evil, dangerous SNP" in the SNP minority government of 2007-11. They even voted in support of the "horrible, evil, dangerous" SNP budget.

Hypocrisy is the overriding factor of British politics as it is in the overwhelming number of countries. The role of the individual in this situation is to try to separate the truth from the horrendous hypocrisy and cant spewed out by the political parties. Not to do so is to live in a world of delusion.