Opinion Polls – Page 2

UK Opinion Poll Tracker #13 – December 2018

January 5, 2019 By Nigel Marriott

The Conservatives have lost their lead over Labour but despite the parliamentary turmoil over Brexit in December, the polls do not show much movement in the grand scheme of things.

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UK Opinion Poll Tracker #12 – October 2018

November 4, 2018 By Nigel Marriott

Here is a long overdue update of my UK opinion poll tracker and in this post, I going to take a closer look at the key trends over the last 12 months.

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Forecasting#2 – Do Election Pollsters Show Forecasting Skill?

September 28, 2018 By Nigel Marriott

As I write this, a plethora of economic forecasts are making the rounds in the news in the UK. In all cases, the forecasters have failed to publish their track record and these days, I will not pay attention to what they say unless their forecasts are accompanied by a track record. But, how does one go about presenting a forecasting track record to prove that one has forecasting skill? To demonstrate, I will analyse how well opinion polls have predicted General Elections in the UK and measure their track record. I must confess I was surprised at what I found out and I would urge all opinion pollsters to take note of my results.

UK Opinion Poll Tracker #11 – March 2018

April 6, 2018 By Nigel Marriott

For my latest Opinion Poll Tracker, I will explore 4 points currently being debated by political pundits.

Have the Conservatives taken the lead in the polls?
How much weight should we give to Survation polls who were the most accurate in 2017 and are the outlier poll today?
Was there a “Youthquake” in the 2017 general election?
What would the effect be of allowing 16 & 17 year olds to vote in general elections?

UK General Elections #3 – Who is the most accurate pollster?

March 31, 2018 By Nigel Marriott

The last 3 general elections have seen some significant polling errors. In 2010, the Lib Dems were significantly overestimated, in 2015 the Conservatives were underestimated and last year saw the largest ever underestimate in the Labour vote. Whilst these errors suggest that the polling industry is struggling with general elections these days, a natural question to ask is “are all pollsters equally bad or are some better than others?”

UK Opinion Poll Tracker #10 – January 2018

February 2, 2018 By Nigel Marriott

Labour continues to hold a small lead over the Conservatives at the start of 2018. Little has changed from the end of 2017.

UK Opinion Poll Tracker #9 – December 2017

January 13, 2018 By Nigel Marriott

Labour continues to hold a small lead over the Conservatives as the nation entered the Christmas holidays. There is evidence of some voter movement towards UKIP which indicates that their true national level is around 4% or 5% and their General Election performance was distorted by so many of their candidates standing down.

UK Opinion Poll Tracker #8 – November 2017

December 3, 2017 By Nigel Marriott

Labour’s 2 point lead over the Conservatives disappeared during November and they now hold a very slight lead. There is evidence of some voter movement towards UKIP which indicates that their true national level is around 4% or 5% and their General Election performance was distorted by so many of their candidates standing down.

UK Opinion Poll Tracker #7 – October 2017

November 4, 2017 By Nigel Marriott

This is my first opinion poll tracker post since the General Election on 8th June 2017. Nearly 5 months have passed and only now can we say that politics is starting to move on from the election. I thought it was worth updating this post to see what current voting intentions are but this will not be an in depth post compared to earlier posts.

Since the election, Labour has been leading the Conservatives in the polls by 2% or so. This is mostly due to defections by some Conservative voters other than that, voter movements have been minor.

UK General Elections #2 – How accurate are the opinion polls? – updated with GE17

July 2, 2017 By Nigel Marriott

Ahead of the 2017 general election, I predicted that the opinion polls would be wrong again and that the Conservatives lead over Labour would be underestimated by 2.6%. I based this on data provided by Mark Pack who has systematically recorded every opinion poll published since 1945. In the event, I was right that the polls would be wrong but instead of an error favouring the Conservatives, the polls recorded the largest ever underestimate of the Labour vote. As a result, election forecasters were blindsided yet again and the result was a hung parliament which few saw coming.