Polls and the media - real news or fake!?

[get that board down!]

From the Express this morning:
Pound To Euro Exchange Rate: Sterling Climbs Back As Theresa May Soars In Polls

From the Independent
General election poll: Labour one point behind Tory party in latest survey with two days to go

It's easy to scoff at fake news and all that Trump bollux, but what actually is the news here and how can the polls show 1 point and 11 points on the same day and be called anything other than a quick show of hands in the pub.

Has anyone any idea what is going on? Anyone ...??

 

[knocky1]

Should have made it a Poll.

Looking forward to my 4 weeks in Utah. Should be cheap as fries, after todays massive rise in sterling.
US Dollar $1.2925, +0.00200, +0.16%

 

[Bozza]

It was suggested to me at the weekend that YouGov are very pro-Tory. As such, they will tend to put out poll results that show Labour performing better than expected in order to motivate Tory voters to get out and make a difference.

Contrastingly, ICM are supposedly pro-Labour and do the complete opposite.

I'm aware of some Conservative links amongst YouGov staffers, but I'd just put the variance down to pollsters trying different methodologies to try and avoid a repeat of the criticism they suffered after the 2015 General Election.

 

[get that board down!]

Allows the papers to make up pretty much any old rubbish and call it fact though doesn't it - as opposed to opinion. Not great for democracy really and just reinforces the fact that we genuinely struggle to trust anything.

 

[nicko31]

Euro is actually very strong right now, the rot has stopped with Macron winning in France and Merkel set to win in Germany. Good growth outlook too, USD is weakening with that fool at the helm

 

[Surrey_Albion]

89% of statistics are made up

 

[ditchy]

Euro is actually very strong right now, the rot has stopped with Macron winning in France and Merkel set to win in Germany. Good growth outlook too, USD is weakening with that fool at the helm

Wait for Italy to join the fray . They want to have elections the same weekend as Germany , and the outcome is far from certain .

 

[Deleted member 2719]

Should have made it a Poll.

Looking forward to my 4 weeks in Utah. Should be cheap as fries, after todays massive rise in sterling.
US Dollar $1.2925, +0.00200, +0.16%

How many wives have you got

 

[Jim D]

It was suggested to me at the weekend that YouGov are very pro-Tory. As such, they will tend to put out poll results that show Labour performing better than expected in order to motivate Tory voters to get out and make a difference.

Contrastingly, ICM are supposedly pro-Labour and do the complete opposite.

I'm aware of some Conservative links amongst YouGov staffers, but I'd just put the variance down to pollsters trying different methodologies to try and avoid a repeat of the criticism they suffered after the 2015 General Election.

So the pollsters are all over the place as they each hope to exclusively correctly predict the result? There should be lots of failed psephologists heading to the Jobcentre on Friday then.

 

[Titanic]

It was suggested to me at the weekend that YouGov are very pro-Tory. As such, they will tend to put out poll results that show Labour performing better than expected in order to motivate Tory voters to get out and make a difference.

Contrastingly, ICM are supposedly pro-Labour and do the complete opposite.

I'm aware of some Conservative links amongst YouGov staffers, but I'd just put the variance down to pollsters trying different methodologies to try and avoid a repeat of the criticism they suffered after the 2015 General Election.

That would seem a pretty dangerous game to play... if you over-do it, despondency could set in, and it also encourages Labour to think they have got a chance and go the extra mile in the closing stages of the campaign.

 

[Seagulltonian]

It's all spin and double-speak, and we can all re-write our posts on Facebook.
1984 is here, and fake news can be written and rewritten, and changed to suit whoever it wants to enforce their message!

 

[Machiavelli]

It was suggested to me at the weekend that YouGov are very pro-Tory. As such, they will tend to put out poll results that show Labour performing better than expected in order to motivate Tory voters to get out and make a difference.

Contrastingly, ICM are supposedly pro-Labour and do the complete opposite.

I'm aware of some Conservative links amongst YouGov staffers, but I'd just put the variance down to pollsters trying different methodologies to try and avoid a repeat of the criticism they suffered after the 2015 General Election.

Well, I agree with the last sentence, but not the first two paragraphs. 2015 was a bad one for the pollsters (although not Curtice's exit poll), and they're obviously over-compensating. Pollsters like to think their methodologies allow them some privileged access to reality, enabling them to predict the future -- they're positivists -- and this means that they conceive of themselves as neutral and independent, rather than carrying out party loyalties.

 

[m20gull]

A lot of it is to the emphasis placed by different news agencies on the different polls. Each side of the press divide want to scare their own side in to voting by publicising the worst predictions for themselves.

 

[Jim D]

Well, I agree with the last sentence, but not the first two paragraphs. 2015 was a bad one for the pollsters (although not Curtice's exit poll), and they're obviously over-compensating. Pollsters like to think their methodologies allow them some privileged access to reality, enabling them to predict the future -- they're positivists -- and this means that they conceive of themselves as neutral and independent, rather than carrying out party loyalties.

So, will there be another 'I'll eat my hat' moment when the exit poll is revealed - and by which party?

 

[pb21]

Individual polls are meaningless, but what is less meaningless is the general trend, which seems to be Labour reaching maximum support ~8% behind the Tories (36% to 44%)

Polling for the 2017 UK General Election from 18th April onwards, including polls released by 6pm on 5 June 2017 (moving average is calculated from the last six polls)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_United_Kingdom_general_election,_2017

 

[beorhthelm]

It was suggested to me at the weekend that YouGov are very pro-Tory. As such, they will tend to put out poll results that show Labour performing better than expected in order to motivate Tory voters to get out and make a difference.

Contrastingly, ICM are supposedly pro-Labour and do the complete opposite.

I'm aware of some Conservative links amongst YouGov staffers, but I'd just put the variance down to pollsters trying different methodologies to try and avoid a repeat of the criticism they suffered after the 2015 General Election.

all a bit conspiracy theory for my liking, however the thought did cross my mind looking back over polls - for some time the Mirror/Guardian polls tend to give higher Tory results while Times and Sunday Telegraph give the higher Labour results. its a bit odd looking through poll results how the same polling company can provide differing results for different clients on the same day.

 

[larus]

all a bit conspiracy theory for my liking, however the thought did cross my mind looking back over polls - for some time the Mirror/Guardian polls tend to give higher Tory results while Times and Sunday Telegraph give the higher Labour results. its a bit odd looking through poll results how the same polling company can provide differing results for different clients on the same day.

As much as I'd like to have polls which are accurate (within the 3% margin etc.), I do wonder how feasible this really is. Also, as we are all aware, having a national opinion poll to try to gauge the outcome of 650 different constituencies across 4 countries and numerous regions is damned nigh impossible. The sampling is about 1000 usually I believe, so that equates to around 1.5 people per seat.

I also wonder how true this 'shy Tory' adage is too. Are there really that many people who feel embarrassed to divulge their voting intention? Maybe the methods of selection of interviewees is flawed which leads to more labour voters being questioned.

Whatever it is, this Thursday night will be fun and (whatever your allegiance) I'm sure there will be some extremely unhappy people on Friday, as the differences are more extreme now than in the past I feel.

 

[Machiavelli]

So, will there be another 'I'll eat my hat' moment when the exit poll is revealed - and by which party?

They might have learnt to rein things back a bit but, then again, maybe not.
I suspect the exit poll might be less accurate for this election, because it seems as though the 'tectonic plates' are shifting and there will be a few unusual, unexpected results in some constituencies. My impression is that Curtice, etc focus their attention and major resources on key marginals (producing larger samples there), and less so in those that are marginal but less so, and ignore long-standing party-aligned seats. It'll be those mid-ranged seats that turn up the odd surprise.

 

[Audax]

It was suggested to me at the weekend that YouGov are very pro-Tory. As such, they will tend to put out poll results that show Labour performing better than expected in order to motivate Tory voters to get out and make a difference.

Contrastingly, ICM are supposedly pro-Labour and do the complete opposite.

I'm aware of some Conservative links amongst YouGov staffers, but I'd just put the variance down to pollsters trying different methodologies to try and avoid a repeat of the criticism they suffered after the 2015 General Election.

Saw an article on the Guardian recently that addressed this quite well. Yes, YouGov was set up by pro-Tory people, but the narrow gaps they are reporting are pretty easy to see are due to fairly transparent methodology reasons: they're predicting a higher than normal turn out from students, and students are leaning towards Labour; hence, their poll results prop Labour up. YouGov are, from what I've seen, one of the few polling companies that's fully trusting what the students are telling them. That's risky, but it's a valid approach.

So the pollsters are all over the place as they each hope to exclusively correctly predict the result? There should be lots of failed psephologists heading to the Jobcentre on Friday then.

They're all (except Survation, apparently) adjusting - independently - their methodology after they all ballsed it up in the 2015 GE and the Brexit polls. The key differences are in how they're treating the turn out prediction. Some are more trusting (eg YouGov) of a student body that's claiming they'll definitely vote, while others are ignoring what the students are saying and using the turn out figures from the last two major elections as their guide. The latter are producing a more favourable result for the Tories.

The exit poll got things right in 2015, but it's worth noting that an exit poll is always going to be more accurate because they don't need to make the turn out prediction. They're polling people who have actually voted, so as long as they poll representative samples they should be pretty accurate.

That would seem a pretty dangerous game to play... if you over-do it, despondency could set in, and it also encourages Labour to think they have got a chance and go the extra mile in the closing stages of the campaign.

Yeah, I really don't think any of the polling companies are deliberately attempting to skew their results. I think it's far more plausible (and thus far more likely to also be true) that they're all trying to figure out how to adjust their methodology to deal with the failures from the 2015 GE and Brexit votes.

The key to who gets it right this time around will be in who has correctly predicted the turn out figures, and the demographic breakdown of the turn out. The Tory-leaning "grey vote" is pretty stable and easy to predict in terms of turn out: they'll go vote in high numbers, and will favour Tory. At the other end of the spectrum we've got the students, who are clearly favouring Labour but have historically not had the turn out rate.

There's rumblings out there that this election could see that trend for students to not vote get broken. If that happens, we could see the Tories lose their majority and YouGov will be justified. If it doesn't, YouGov will have egg on their faces.


Edit to add: YouGov's also being really, really brave and attempting to model the most likely result on a seat-by-seat basis. Will be really interesting to see how accurate it is, although their error margins are HUGE. Current prediction is a hung parliament with Tories on 304 seats, but the error range is anywhere between 265 and 342 Tory seats. I'd suggest that if they've got it wrong, it's most likely favouring Labour so I'd suggest the most likely variance is that the Tories end up closer to that 342 figure.

2nd Edit to add even more: There's also the complete unknown of how effective the "Tactical Voting" drive will be at this election. There's never previously been an organised effort anywhere near the scale of what we're seeing this time around. It's highly unlikely, but plausible, that Labour and Lib Dems could hoover up a bunch of marginal Tory-held seats on the back of strong tactical voting.

 

[get that board down!]

[MENTION=33374]Audax[/MENTION] Great post.