Miriam Cates: Have polls replaced principles?
Confidence requires clarity.
Miriam Cates is a television presenter with GBNews and the former MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge.
Has opinion polling ruined politicians?
Polling – rather than principles – now seems to underpin most policy decisions in Westminster. Is the growing abundance of public opinion polls ruining our politicians’ ability to think for themselves?
The science of polling is nearly 90 years old.
The British Institute of Public Opinion (BIPO) was founded in 1937 by Henry Durant, inspired by the American pollster George Gallup, and the first British poll measured attitudes toward the abdication crisis involving Edward VIII. During the second world war, the Government regularly commissioned polls and surveys to test public opinion on issues such as rationing and conscription. Although we often think of Churchill’s defeat in the 1945 general election as a ‘surprise’, most polls correctly predicted a landslide Labour victory, a success that helped to legitimise the polling industry.
The post-war period saw the rise of commercial polling, and after 2000, the growth of the internet transformed the industry. The days of postal surveys and newspaper phone-ins are long gone. Online panels have replaced many face-to-face interviews, large sample sizes can be collected quickly, and complex statistical modelling is performed in an instant.
Opinion polls are now a constant feature of British politics, increasing politicians’ awareness of their own party’s popularity and the public’s opinions on key issues. It is now possible to see the impacts of policy announcements almost in real time.
In the past, polls were taken with a pinch of salt; pollsters were often wrong in their predictions, including about the outcomes of the 1970 and 1992 general elections. In response to a particularly gloomy prediction about their party’s fate at the next election, MPs could tell journalists in all honesty: “You can’t always trust the polls”. But improved methodology has significantly increased polling accuracy. Although under the British First Past the Post (FPTP) voting system, it will always be challenging to project exactly how many parliamentary seats each party will win, pollsters’ vote share predictions in the last two general elections were broadly correct. And besides, polls are now conducted so frequently that taking an average of the different results – a “poll of polls” – gives a pretty accurate idea of the truth.
Every new day brings a new poll, published and shared on X (formerly Twitter). In the House of Commons tearoom, MPs are now just as likely to pour over YouGov analysis as they are the newspapers, checking their phones for the latest voting intentions like a gambler searching for the horse racing results.
Surely access to more information about what voters …
Confidence requires clarity.
Miriam Cates is a television presenter with GBNews and the former MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge.
Has opinion polling ruined politicians?
Polling – rather than principles – now seems to underpin most policy decisions in Westminster. Is the growing abundance of public opinion polls ruining our politicians’ ability to think for themselves?
The science of polling is nearly 90 years old.
The British Institute of Public Opinion (BIPO) was founded in 1937 by Henry Durant, inspired by the American pollster George Gallup, and the first British poll measured attitudes toward the abdication crisis involving Edward VIII. During the second world war, the Government regularly commissioned polls and surveys to test public opinion on issues such as rationing and conscription. Although we often think of Churchill’s defeat in the 1945 general election as a ‘surprise’, most polls correctly predicted a landslide Labour victory, a success that helped to legitimise the polling industry.
The post-war period saw the rise of commercial polling, and after 2000, the growth of the internet transformed the industry. The days of postal surveys and newspaper phone-ins are long gone. Online panels have replaced many face-to-face interviews, large sample sizes can be collected quickly, and complex statistical modelling is performed in an instant.
Opinion polls are now a constant feature of British politics, increasing politicians’ awareness of their own party’s popularity and the public’s opinions on key issues. It is now possible to see the impacts of policy announcements almost in real time.
In the past, polls were taken with a pinch of salt; pollsters were often wrong in their predictions, including about the outcomes of the 1970 and 1992 general elections. In response to a particularly gloomy prediction about their party’s fate at the next election, MPs could tell journalists in all honesty: “You can’t always trust the polls”. But improved methodology has significantly increased polling accuracy. Although under the British First Past the Post (FPTP) voting system, it will always be challenging to project exactly how many parliamentary seats each party will win, pollsters’ vote share predictions in the last two general elections were broadly correct. And besides, polls are now conducted so frequently that taking an average of the different results – a “poll of polls” – gives a pretty accurate idea of the truth.
Every new day brings a new poll, published and shared on X (formerly Twitter). In the House of Commons tearoom, MPs are now just as likely to pour over YouGov analysis as they are the newspapers, checking their phones for the latest voting intentions like a gambler searching for the horse racing results.
Surely access to more information about what voters …
Miriam Cates: Have polls replaced principles?
Confidence requires clarity.
Miriam Cates is a television presenter with GBNews and the former MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge.
Has opinion polling ruined politicians?
Polling – rather than principles – now seems to underpin most policy decisions in Westminster. Is the growing abundance of public opinion polls ruining our politicians’ ability to think for themselves?
The science of polling is nearly 90 years old.
The British Institute of Public Opinion (BIPO) was founded in 1937 by Henry Durant, inspired by the American pollster George Gallup, and the first British poll measured attitudes toward the abdication crisis involving Edward VIII. During the second world war, the Government regularly commissioned polls and surveys to test public opinion on issues such as rationing and conscription. Although we often think of Churchill’s defeat in the 1945 general election as a ‘surprise’, most polls correctly predicted a landslide Labour victory, a success that helped to legitimise the polling industry.
The post-war period saw the rise of commercial polling, and after 2000, the growth of the internet transformed the industry. The days of postal surveys and newspaper phone-ins are long gone. Online panels have replaced many face-to-face interviews, large sample sizes can be collected quickly, and complex statistical modelling is performed in an instant.
Opinion polls are now a constant feature of British politics, increasing politicians’ awareness of their own party’s popularity and the public’s opinions on key issues. It is now possible to see the impacts of policy announcements almost in real time.
In the past, polls were taken with a pinch of salt; pollsters were often wrong in their predictions, including about the outcomes of the 1970 and 1992 general elections. In response to a particularly gloomy prediction about their party’s fate at the next election, MPs could tell journalists in all honesty: “You can’t always trust the polls”. But improved methodology has significantly increased polling accuracy. Although under the British First Past the Post (FPTP) voting system, it will always be challenging to project exactly how many parliamentary seats each party will win, pollsters’ vote share predictions in the last two general elections were broadly correct. And besides, polls are now conducted so frequently that taking an average of the different results – a “poll of polls” – gives a pretty accurate idea of the truth.
Every new day brings a new poll, published and shared on X (formerly Twitter). In the House of Commons tearoom, MPs are now just as likely to pour over YouGov analysis as they are the newspapers, checking their phones for the latest voting intentions like a gambler searching for the horse racing results.
Surely access to more information about what voters …
0 Comments
0 Shares
39 Views
0 Reviews
