More in Common Poll: the Ephologists are back
Opinion polls before the July 2024 General Election accurately predicted a Labour landslide. They also significantly over reported the share of the vote Labour actually got.
Why this was can only be speculated about of course (not as far I know that the pollsters have done). It may be that the predicted Labour polling was mainly those who just wanted the Tories out. It might be that tactical voting to get Tory MPs out took away from Labour’s actual vote.
Five months on ‘More in Common’ has published a poll which is featured in the Sunday Times (29th December) it rests on a MRP poll taken between October and December and has a seat by seat breakdown of where it suggests polling sits now.
Several of these detailed polls appeared before July. I studied them intently not least because they seemed to suggest Suella Braverman would lose her seat (she didn’t). Essentially they were only really of any use where one party was leading by a significant amount. Where results were narrower they weren’t much use.
The More in Common poll suggests that 70 odd Reform UK Ltd candidates could be elected. Looking at individual seat predictions the victories are mostly by a few percentage points.
The person who fronts up More in Common Luke Tryl appears to be keen to promote the idea of the break up of a two party system. In a first past the post electoral system this is problematic not least for opinion polls
However the 2024 General Election saw Labour and the Tories take a combined share of just under 60%. For reference in the 1959 General Election they got 93%
The problem with Tryl’s analysis (leaving aside the problematic polling) is that while he is right about the fracturing of a two party ‘consensus’ he sees this as being overwhelmingly about the rise of the far right.
Yet looking at the July result the Green Party came second to Labour across a swathe of North-East London seats. The poll suggests the Greens would get two seats down from four. Hmmm
Then there are the ‘independents’. A slight rise in seats is predicted. The ‘independents’ are equated with something called the ‘Muslim vote’. The label suggests a mindset which at best is not progressive. In reality the vote in 2024 was about (don’t mention the war) Gaza and also a concern that austerity would continue whoever entered No.10. In short it was a left of Labour vote. I think Tryl struggles with this concept but its one we may hear more about in 2025.
The late socialist historian E P Thompson wrote the following on opinion polls in the New Reasoner in 1959 (the NR went on to be part of New Left Review from 1960)
A psephologist is a man employed by the mass media to research into what people think the mass media has told them to think. An ephologist is a man employed by the ‘Observer’ or BBC to interpret the results of psephology and who makes an ephing good thing out of it
Opinion polls were still in their infancy 65 years ago and today regular updates from YouGov and others appear. While based on surveys of voters they can tell us little about what is actually happening on the ground in Constituencies.
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