YouGov Shock Hung Parliament Poll, Labour Could Win General Election 2017!
ElectionOracle / UK General Election May 31, 2017 - 03:06 PM GMTBy: Nadeem_Walayat
The media has gone into a frenzy over YouGov's latest poll and resulting seats forecast that creates an illusion of a tight election race when in probable reality no such tight race exists. So the mainstream media has been busy all day reporting on YouGov's headline grabbing shock poll of the Tories losing 20 seats on their current standing by falling to 310, whilst Labour adding about 30 rising to 257 seats resulting in a Hung Parliament. Implying a nightmare election scenario of a weak Labour government controlled by the SNP that like vampires would seek to bleed the United Kingdom dry of its financial blood which has already had an immediate effect on the markets by sending sterling temporarily lower with the real world impact as holiday markers now get less foreign currency for their sterling.
It was only a few weeks ago that the polling industry including YouGov were forecasting that the Conservatives would win a landslide victory, with many such as Sky News forecasting the Tory's winning over 400 seats.
On the basis of the trend trajectory of YouGov's latest shock poll to garner maximum media and public interest of the Tory's falling from 411 to 310 in just 2 weeks then it is possible that in the countdown to polling day that the likes of YouGov could even put Labour ahead of the Tories in the polls! And thus imply an outright Labour election win!
Such a shock poll would immediately have the mainstream media jumping up and down like demented rabbits, frothing at the mouth, hardly able to get their words out on the likes of Sky News. Whilst Labour politicians would look on in bewildered hope that its their time to get lucky, whilst the Tories sharpened their knives for Theresa May as Gove and Boris throw in their hats for the leadership once more.
I well understand Labour voters and supporters will be salivating at such a prospect, but of course it's nonsense, as i illustrated in my recent video analysis of how and why the pollsters keep getting election after election very badly wrong. It's because opinion polls are a propaganda tool for the mainstream media to peddle an agenda in their self interest of selling garbage to the masses.
Furthermore a spokes person for YouGov stated that the same model had correctly predicted the LEAVE vote, which illustrates the point I have been making since 2015 that the pollsters are RIGHT even when they are WRONG. Publish enough polls, and have a wide enough margin of error then virtually every possible outcome is covered so the pollsters can claim victory no matter who wins! Here's what YouGov actually stated on BrExit night, when after the polls closed YouGov called it for REMAIN on 52% against LEAVE on 48% and now YouGov a year on are saying that they had a model all along that had correctly predicted LEAVE would win but kept quiet about it at the time instead publically stating that REMAIN had won:
My analysis of last 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.
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By Nadeem Walayat
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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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