By all expectations, on Tuesday morning Gordon Brown will travel to the Palace, seek the Queen's permission to dissolve Parliament and then announce the worst kept secret in British politics since the fact that he was going to be the next Prime Minister after Tony Blair by calling the general election and with the polls pointing to a hung parliament you might think that would be the end result? Not in the slightest! Every campaign since 1992 has seen really quite marked movements between the start of the campaign and the final result and these changes could have a massive impact on your betting strategy.
In 1992, the last poll before the election was called put Labour 3% ahead, but as the campaign ended Labour was only 1% ahead, the exit poll put the Conservatives 4% ahead and as we know on the night the Conservatives ended 8% ahead, a swing of 5.5% from Labour to Conservative during the course of the campaign. But it wasn't just 1992!
General Election 1997
Pre Election Poll: Lab lead of 29%
Last Campaign Poll: Lab lead of 14%
Exit Poll: Lab lead of 17%
Final Result: Lab lead of 11%
Swing during campaign: Lab to Con of 9%
General Election 2001
Pre Election Poll: Lab lead of 22%
Last Campaign Poll: Lab lead of 17%
Exit Poll: Lab lead of 12.5%
Final Result: Lab lead of 9%
Swing during campaign: Lab to Con of 6.5%
General Election 2005
Pre Election Poll: Lab lead of 6%
Last Campaign Poll: Lab lead of 5%
Exit Poll: Lab lead of 4%
Final Result: Lab lead of 3%
Swing during campaign: Lab to Con of 1.5%
So with the average of this morning's polls indicating a Con lead of 7%, and over the last four elections an average swing to Con of 5.5% during the campaign, that suggests a Con lead of 18% (and all the suggestions of a Conservative landslide of almost Blairesque proportions suddenly became a reality again)
Raynergate isn’t cutting through
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4 comments:
Haha, I'd certainly enjoy such a result, especially the pulverising of Balls.
However, I suspect the final result won't be quite so good for the Tories, though I hope and expect them to win an outright majority.
It depends if you think there has been a swing to the Cons in all these elections, or a swing to the opposition. Would be nice to see some older data.
Interesting post. Of course, you could argue that since 1997, the gap between first poll of the campaign and the actual result has been falling. If this is a trend then we might expect either a swing from Con-Lab during the campaign or virtually no swing at all...
I'm more of the opinion Brown is going to drag Labour down during the campaign, but I doubt Dave will have an 18% lead at the end.
A good thought provoking piece Harry. I suppose a swing of this magnitude during the fothcoming campaign is more unlikely since polling over the past 13 years has become more sophisticated and therefore suppopsedly more accurate. That said if there is to be a late swing, I sense it will favour the Blues.
Were they to achieve over 40%, then all bets are off.
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