Let’s face it, it wasn’t just the pollsters who got it wrong. It was the whole political class, including the punditerati and the commentariat. Including me. We have egg on our faces, we were humiliated and we all need to look at why this happened. How could we all – and I mean all – have misjudged it? Well, I say all. I excuse Dan Hodges and LBC Political Editor Theo Usherwood who both predicted a Tory majority.
In an interview with the Telegraph today Lynton Crosby has added his twopennyworth.
“It wasn’t just Ed Miliband’s Labour Party that revealed itself as out of touch and remote from the people who are the backbone of Britain, it was a failure from the Westmister centric ‘Eddie the expert’ and ‘Clarrie the commentator’ who were tested and found wanting. It was a judgement day for them, as it was for Ed Miliband, and they lost. I’ve been around politics a long time. And I’ve seen people entitled to comment as they wish but some of the commentators, who claimed to be Conservative supporters – like Tim Montgomerie from The Times [also Iain Duncan Smith’s former chief of staff] – I think in the end, became slightly gratuitous participants. They say about teachers – those who can do, those who can’t teach. Well I think it’s very unfair – my wife was a teacher and I don’t approve of that. But I do think it’s fair to say in politics – those who can do and those who can’t commentate. The problem with political commentary and punditry in this country is that it’s conducted by a bunch of people most of whom live inside the M25 who could never live on the £26,000 that is the average annual earnings of people in this country. Most went to Oxbridge, talk only to themselves and last time they met a punter was when they picked up their dry cleaning.”
Ouch. Well, let’s face it, I can be included in all of that too. I put my neck on the line and tried to predict the result of the election seat by seat. In the end I predicted that 120 seats would change hands. I’ve just gone through all 120 and I had a 67% hit rate. That’s slightly better than Lord Ashcroft’s polls which I think I saw somewhere had a 63% hit rate, although as he will no doubt point out, his polls were snapshots not predictions. I haven’t got the heart to go through all 650 constituencies but I suspect if I did the hit rate would rise to nearer 85% or even higher, but then again any fool can predict the result in a safe seat.
Do I regret doing the predictions? Not really, because I think those of us who commentate on politics should put our necks and reputations on the line. So many so-called expert pundits refused to give a prediction or just went along with the flow. What I do regret is not following my initial instincts. When I did my first predictions back in January I originally had the Conservatives on 302 seats. I decided that was preposterous given the political climate at the time and what everyone else was saying and if I predicted that I would just be accused of Tory bias and not be taken seriously. So I changed the predictions in 20 seats to reduce the Tory total. What a stupid thing to do. I should have stuck to my guns and taken the four months of abuse that would no doubt have ensued. I genuinely felt that the LibDems would get fewer than 20 seats, yet didn’t have the courage of my convictions to stick to them. That’s a mistake I won’t be making again.
In the end you’re only as good as your last prediction. I may have got the 1992 election result bang on. I may have predicted the 2014 government reshuffle better than anyone. But in the 2015 election I, like virtually everyone else, failed. And I own up to that.
Ten days on from the election I don’t think we are any closer to the truth as to why the polls were wrong than we were on election night. Was there a last minute switch or were the Tories ahead all along? I don’t know. But I look forward to reading all the academic analyses and books that are no doubt all being prepared as you read this.
