Opinion Polls
I have believed for some time that opinion polls in election campaigns should be banned. They have this attitude in France. It is something I discussed with David Cameron during the campaign. It seemed to me that pollsters and indeed the media spend half their time convincing us how important polls are and analysing them to death, and the other half of the time seeking to explain how the polls got it wrong.
This election campaign was no exception. Both the NOP polls were wrong, the first overstating Labour and understating Plaid, and the second overstating Plaid and understating us.
I remember discussing with our Director, Matt Lane, our own gut feelings that we were highly competitive in Delyn and the Vale of Clwyd (which certainly proved to be the case) , though on the opinion polls that we were seeing, would not have been the case. The same polling organisation, of course, called Blaenau Gwent for the Labour Party in the Blaenau Gwent by-election - a gross error!
Clearly private polling is something that political parties do and opinions polls out of election periods may have some relevance in demonstrating trends, but during an election period they become the focus of debate rather than the issues themselves, and I think there is a strong case for banning them during the heat of such campaigns.
