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Political polling

Part-timah said:
They are both propaganda weapons. There is no great fiendish conspiracy of fleets of pollsters fiddling data. All it takes is choosing a methodology that is helpful to your message.
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Not really in their interest to do that, as a polling outfit anyway. Papers are one thing because they know the base they're selling to and their readership know what they're going to get. Predicting an election among other polls about general social issues and the like is a different kettle of fish. You're after hard data and your balance sheet depends on that data being accurate. If it's consistently unreliable you're toast as a business. Many polling companies have been called into question since their failures to predict accurately the last three major votes.

I get what you're saying but I think it's a bit of a red herring and not really interesting to pursue. Even if it is as big an issue you think it is you can just pick and choose your polling companies like you do with your media sources and make your own judgment.
 
polling companies don't make money on election forecasting - its more about exposure. they absolutely want to be as accurate as possible so as to enhance their reputation and get the lucrative market research work. They are businesses - they want to make money - the idea that they would deliberately put out inaccurate polls so as to somehow influence the result (and how does that work anyway?) is bollocks.
 
How many of these current Con gain seats voted fairly strongly (higher 50s % or more) to Leave? The ones ive checked all seem to have. And ultimately thats most likely the decisive factor in the election. Getting Brexit Done. No children sleeping on hospital floors is going to change that.
ELdUAK8XUAISrRi
 
ska invita said:
How many of these current Con gain seats voted fairly strongly (higher 50s % or more) to Leave? The ones ive checked all seem to have. And ultimately thats most likely the decisive factor in the election. Getting Brexit Done. No children sleeping on hospital floors is going to change that.
ELdUAK8XUAISrRi
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War of Jennifer's Ear :(
 
I've resigned myself to this shit now, but as I've put a holiday in for Friday, I shall stay up watching anyway and take whatever pleasure I can get from it. After last time, I'd've liked to have seen Amber Rudd removed in a more traditional manner (I'm actually dreamily remembering Littlefinger pleading to the Lord Royce after Sansa's ascendance) but I'll settle for Raab, Villiers and other known cunts checking their career options on the public stage :thumbs:
 
Kaka Tim said:
They are businesses - they want to make money - the idea that they would deliberately put out inaccurate polls so as to somehow influence the result (and how does that work anyway?) is bollocks.
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Totally. But there's an alternative ray of hope. Election forecasting has become more complicated, and it's not really possible to be perfectly objective about it. For example, predicting demographic turnout in a context where it may be volatile has to come down to what feels right and seems to make sense, to some extent. So there is plenty of room for bias and groupthink, and pollsters' biases could turn out to be predictably pro-Tory.

I personally have a hunch that this is going on, although I have no idea how much it might actually be skewing the polls.

In any event, given the last ten years, I don't see why everyone is looking at the polls and thinking 'well, that's that then'.
 
Kaka Tim said:
polling companies don't make money on election forecasting - its more about exposure. they absolutely want to be as accurate as possible so as to enhance their reputation and get the lucrative market research work. They are businesses - they want to make money - the idea that they would deliberately put out inaccurate polls so as to somehow influence the result (and how does that work anyway?) is bollocks.
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You could say the same about the press.

You’d be naive not to question the scientific objectivity of these tory polls. Let’s see the results and compare it with this poll.
 
Proper Tidy said:
I've read the small print there and can't say I'm hot on NI electoral politics but haven't people pretty much universally been saying DUP would lose seats, wtf
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In Britain you have Johnson and ‘Let’s get Brexit done’

Here we have Arlene and ‘we must secure the Union’

This has been one of the most ugliest elections ever here, paramilitaries and all have been involved in acts of intimidation. The DUP know that they can rely on getting the vote out when they use scare tactics.

The silver lining though is that their base vote are people of an increasingly older, more loyalist in persuasion generation. In 10-15 years time (that’s if a United Ireland hasn’t already happened), you can bet their return of MPs will be down to 4-6.
 
Raheem said:
Good luck with that logic, seriously, but it didn't work on the mainland with thatcherism.
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N.Ireland is completely different kettle of fish to Great Britain. It’s demographics mate. The Protestant population is going down here and is projected to keep going that way. Very few non-Protestants vote for the DUP so I’m pretty sure you’ll see their vote go down over the next few elections.

Unless, of course, they manage to gerrymander constituency boundaries but they’d never do that here would they? :rolleyes:
 
Part-timah said:
They are both propaganda weapons. There is no great fiendish conspiracy of fleets of pollsters fiddling data. All it takes is choosing a methodology that is helpful to your message.
Click to expand...

In what way are you suggesting they are being helpful to the Tories? Do you mean they over estimate or under estimate the lead, because surely it can't be both?

Yet, in 2015 most polling companies under estimated the lead, and in 2017 over estimated it, perhaps you can enlighten us to what was going on in these two GEs?
 
There's no conspiracy to falsify or manipulate opinion polls at the behest of the Conservatives.

...but data doesn't exist in a vacuum.

In the case of opinion polling, it's not (necessarily) the data itself that reflects the interests of the status quo, but its framing and interpretation.

So we can, and must, contest the role of opinion polls of leading pre-election agendas.

We can, and do, challenge how the data presented is interpreted. Both in terms of what this means for results but - crucially - resist the push to insert an "anti-Left" narrative and the crude stereotyping of the w/c that we are seeing so often in the commentary drawing from the polls.
 
Smokeandsteam said:
i fucking despise them. I live under the rule of Birmingham City Council. I’m trying to suck it up until 10 tomorrow (and failing)
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On a local level they're probably worse than tories, certainly Labour councils put more effort into pursuing people for non-payment of poll tax than tory ones and Labour councils seem to put more effort into gentrification than councils of other political hues
 
chilango said:
There's no conspiracy to falsify or manipulate opinion polls at the behest of the Conservatives.

...but data doesn't exist in a vacuum.

In the case of opinion polling, it's not (necessarily) the data itself that reflects the interests of the status quo, but its framing and interpretation.

So we can, and must, contest the role of opinion polls of leading pre-election agendas.

We can, and do, challenge how the data presented is interpreted. Both in terms of what this means for results but - crucially - resist the push to insert an "anti-Left" narrative and the crude stereotyping of the w/c that we are seeing so often in the commentary drawing from the polls.
Click to expand...
The polls being out last time fucked the Tories more than it did Labour: they spent millions on ads in areas they turned out not being competitive in, all their resources were focused on seats they had no chance of winning.

On the other side, Labour's campaign was mostly a defensive one, pouring resources into former marginals which turned into fairly safe seats. This time round Labour have been on the offensive despite the polling: I've already seen some complaints about a lack of campaigners in heartland seats which the various MRPs have suggested are now at risk - depending what happens on Thursday this offensive campaign will be in the history books as either the worst directed campaign ever or a work of tactical genius...
 
killer b said:
NI poll here:

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Interesting that Maguire thinks it possible that the DUP could lose 3 seats (down to seven) SF could win 8 (which would mean retaining Foyle and gaining N. Belfast which is significant and ties in to what N_igma says up thread), while the SDLP could win one (S. Belfast) and Alliance could gain two.

Everything is all over the shop, like in the UK.

eta the Belfast telegraph thinks it possible that the DUP could lose South Antrim to the UUP.
 
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killer b said:
The polls being out last time fucked the Tories more than it did Labour: they spent millions on ads in areas they turned out not being competitive in, all their resources were focused on seats they had no chance of winning.

On the other side, Labour's campaign was mostly a defensive one, pouring resources into former marginals which turned into fairly safe seats. This time round Labour have been on the offensive despite the polling: I've already seen some complaints about a lack of campaigners in heartland seats which the various MRPs have suggested are now at risk - depending what happens on Thursday this offensive campaign will be in the history books as either the worst directed campaign ever or a work of tactical genius...
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or perhaps both: it being on a strategic level it would have foundered.
 
I've just checked the Yougov MRP predication for Jo Swinson's East Dunbartonshire seat, LDs & SNP are both on 37%.

She lost it in 2015, only to regain it in 2017, how exciting.
 
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