No pollster can be sure how this election will end

Much has been made of YouGov’s MRP poll predicting a Conservative majority of 68, which moved the money markets and has the political parties and media in a tizz.  Labour has already pivoted its entire election strategy to target Leave voters in the north in its wake.

MRP is a new methodology that YouGov used for the first time in a UK General election in 2017, which was ‘the only poll to correctly predict a hung Parliament’.  Yet YouGov’s prediction on the night before the election was: “Tories lead by seven points and set to increase majority”.  Err?  Well that was the result from another poll using a conventional methodology.  So, if I had conducted two polls with different predicted outcomes I would be able, like YouGov, to retrospectively choose the one closest to the result and trumpet how clever I was.

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