A deluge of data was over-hyped in Britains 2015 general election. But politics that proceeds without any hard information approximately public opinion produces problems of its own. A new report on better polling is therefore welcomeLooking back,the hubris was extraordinary. Courtesy of cut-price internet surveys and the deep pockets of Lord Ashcroft, general election 2015 was awash with more data than any before. The abundant numbers were crunched into unwisely precise predictions approximately the next House of Commons. The political class – yes, and including the journalists – forgot that the quality of information counts for more than the quantity. The failure to spot David Cameron’s majority coming embarrassed players from across the field,and for those on the Labour side obscured an urgent need to sharpen the message. Britain’s politics was left blinded by semi-science.
The trust the pollsters lost may never be completely restored. That’s no inappropriate thing; claims to see the future should always provoke a miniature scepticism. And yet data-free politics is even more prone to confusion than politics rooted in flawed polling. Ahead of the Oldham West byelection final month there was another surge of groupthink approximately Labour’s chances based less on statistics than lies. And remember this: a few months earlier, Britain awoke to the barely conceivable reality of the career rebel and initial long shot Jeremy Corbyn leading Her Majesty’s opposition only because a couple of bespoke polls showed him building an unstoppable lead. As rage approximately the mammoth miss final year recedes, or the polls’ success in predicting several other earthquakes – the SNP landslide in Scotland,the collapsing Liberal Democrat vote and the extent of the Ukip surge – inspect more impressive.
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Source: theguardian.com