The last time Peter Kellner forecast the result on the eve of a major British vote he was accused of costing UK taxpayers tens of billions of pounds. For much of the Scottish referendum campaign, the outcome had seemed a foregone conclusion. Yet on 7 September – 11 days before […] Read more »
The Billionaire Baron Who Has Transformed How We Understand The U.K. Election
A conservative British tycoon and aristocrat is not the typical profile of a man of the people. But Lord Michael Ashcroft has done more than anyone else to find out who the people want to represent them in Parliament. In the lead-up to next month’s big national election in the […] Read more »
Canada, Great Britain Are Americans’ Most Favored Nations
Americans’ current views of foreign nations range from highly positive evaluations of Canada (92% favorable) and Great Britain (90%) to highly negative ratings of Iran (11%) and North Korea (9%). CONT. Jay Loschky & Rebecca Riffkin, Gallup Read more »
Why the betting markets disagree with the polls
The betting markets, the pollsters, even the voters are predicting the Conservatives will edge ahead by May 7. However, on the latest numbers, Labour are the likely winners. What’s behind this contradiction, and what does it mean for campaign strategy? I conducted an experiment which throws some light on the […] Read more »
The use and abuse of opinion polls
… As a pollster I naturally want politicians – and everyone else – to take our figures seriously. We help the public to speak and, we hope, politicians to listen. As democrats, we believe in the importance of the dialogue between voters and those who aspire to govern them. When […] Read more »
The Drilldown: Explore five years of UK polling
The British electorate is the most heavily polled in the world, our transparency rules are the most exacting and yet we use just a fraction of the data. The interactive database we are launching today on May2015.com is designed to change that picture. For the first time, we are putting […] Read more »