BBC Newsnight Falls for FAKE POLLS, Opinion Pollsters Illusion for Mainstream Media to Sell

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Apparently the boring election that everyone knew the Tories would win with a landslide is no more, for the Tory's 24 point lead over Labour has not just narrowed but collapsed to just 5% over the course of the past few days (Yougov Con 43%, Labour 38%). Which the BBC's flagship current affairs programme Newsnight made a good job of regurgitating at length. Emily Maitlis did her thing of prancing around the studio as intelligent eye candy so as to hold the attention span of viewers as the talking heads one after another explained the shock narrowing of polls which if it continues could even result in Labour winning the election!

However, as my earlier analysis on Friday warned that what we are seeing are FAKE POLLS, for I have seen this several times before, where a polling industry desperate to sell polls coupled with the mainstream media desperate to sell publications always demand a CLOSE election so as to garner the greatest amount of public interest, when in fact the reality is that the polls are FAKE :

26 May 2017 - Opinion Pollsters UK General Election Seats Forecasts 2017

Fake Polls

The latest opinion polls show the Tory 20% lead of a month ago has slumped to just 5%! However I consider this to be Polling BS, FAKE POLLS! I have seen this behaviour before, for instance with the Scottish Independence Referendum that the polling industry MANIPULATED into a 50/50 position. Instead my analysis at the time warned that the polls were deliberately WRONG so that the polling industry could sell their worthless pile of dog poop to the gullible masses as demanded by the commissioning broadsheets so that they can sell their garbage to the masses. FAKE POLLING !

12 Sep 2014 - Main Reason Why Scotland Will Vote NO to Independence, 70% Probability

The opinion polls paint a picture of a too close to call Scottish Independence vote on September 18th which even saw a 51% to 49% lead for the YES campaign just a few days ago that triggered much panic across the political spectrum and financial markets.

However, as I concluded in my recent in depth analysis that the actual probability for Scotland voting YES is just 30% rather than the near 50/50 proposition that the mainstream press has itself in a frenzy over:

So I am going to stick with the average of polls as they are today for this analysis rather than wait for the fake polls to make already weak polling data even more worthless.

Furthermore the UK General Election of 2015 similarly witnessed FAKE POLLS so as to create the illusion of a tight election race as my following analysis explained -

14 May 2015 - Deconstruction of UK General Election 2015 Result - Why Opinion Pollsters Got it Wrong

Why the Opinion Pollsters Got the 2015 Election Badly Wrong

Since my view was consistently contrary to what the opinion polls were stating, therefore I have had the whole year to ponder why the opinion were wrong, some of which I illuminated in the lead up to election day -

01 May 2015 - UK Election Forecast 2015 - Who Will Win?

Therefore come May 8th virtually all pollsters will have egg on their faces as the mainstream media will have flushed untold millions down the drain on commissioning opinion polls that turned out to be WRONG just as the polls were wrong in the run up to the Scottish referendum that was never a 50/50 proposition which at the time I concluded was mainly so as to allow pollsters to sell opinion polls and the mainstream press to sell copy and so it is the case with today's election campaign.

29th Sept 2014 - UK Saved From I.S. Threat But Scottish Independence Nightmare is Not Over!

There is another reason as well for why the polls were so close and that is one of SALES, the polling industry SELLING a tight election so that the gullible mainstream press would buy their polling services. Therefore painting a picture of a tight race by manipulating the data will have turned out to be a huge money spinner for the polling agencies.

My article concluded in the most probable forecast for the outcome of the result would be for at least show a 10% gap between NO and YES, and definitely not reflective of the mass hysteria.

Therefore the most probable outcome is inline with the polling ranges of before the YES campaigns intimidation and fear phase began to play a prominent role in the frenzy of campaigning of September that rather than a 50/50 tight race is more probably going to result in at least a 55% NO vote victory, and I would not be surprised if the NO vote even breaks above 60%!

Therefore here is my list of 7 key reasons why the Opinion Pollsters got it wrong, most of which the pollsters will never ever be able to arrive at as reasons for being wrong.

1. Back Fitting Data - Lack of Mechanism to Say the Methodology is Wrong

Virtually every experienced 'successful' market analyst / trader understands that 'Trading Systems' just do not work going forward i.e. all that trading systems do is back fit data onto what has already happened and thus WILL FAIL going forward. Which is the precise mistake that opinion pollsters tend to make as they weight, adjust and fine tune to take account of this, that and other which just as is would be the case for systems that trade the markets and so is the case for public opinion polls that fitting data to mast past election outcomes just does not work!

And worse for pollsters is that they do not have any daily mechanism to demonstrate that they are wrong for general elections only come along every 5 years or so, which means that there is no data to test the opinion polls against in real time and hence why opinion polls can be wrong for years as was the case for the 2015 general election.

2. Opinion Polls Sales Industry - Fear Sells!

As I covered earlier that the primary objective of opinion pollsters is to SELL their daily polling services. Where it is to the benefit of the pollsters and the mainstream media that commission the polls for the election race to be very tight, exciting or frightening rather than a dull certainty. Hence the picture painted did not reflect probability even if the pollsters methodologies actually worked, for reality does not sell daily opinion polling services or mainstream media copy. Just as market realities of a dull 6 year relentless stocks bull market will not sell much media copy hence the constant obsession with stories that always warn of an imminent stock market crash, collapse, meltdown, bear market etc that has failed to materialise for 6 years as I have covered at length in articles and my stocks stealth bull market series of ebook's (FREE DOWNLOAD).

4. Opinion Polls are Political Propaganda

Just as economics is mainly economic propaganda to massage the general populations future expectations, for instance the Bank of England's persistent propaganda of the danger of always imminent deflation when the reality is one of the UK being immersed in an exponential inflation mega-trend.

The solution is as my Friday's analysis concluded is that if you are going to rely on the polls then USE the AVERAGE of polls AND forget polling conducted in the final 2 weeks, especially if they start to broadcast a ridiculous tightening in the race as we are now witnessing, which at this rate could even put Labour into the lead by voting date, despite the fact that REALITY IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE.

Ensure you are subscribed to my always free newsletter for the next analysis in this series as I countdown to my UK general election 2017 final forecast conclusion and to our youtube channel for videos in this and the BrExit War series.

By Nadeem Walayat

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk

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Nadeem Walayat has over 25 years experience of trading derivatives, portfolio management and analysing the financial markets, including one of few who both anticipated and Beat the 1987 Crash. Nadeem's forward looking analysis focuses on UK inflation, economy, interest rates and housing market. He is the author of five ebook's in the The Inflation Mega-Trend and Stocks Stealth Bull Market series that can be downloaded for Free.

Nadeem is the Editor of The Market Oracle, a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication that presents in-depth analysis from over 1000 experienced analysts on a range of views of the probable direction of the financial markets, thus enabling our readers to arrive at an informed opinion on future market direction. http://www.marketoracle.co.uk

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