Sunday, May 10, 2015

The Election... One more thing

Aside from the thrill of getting my Tweet to Adrian Lester outlining my support for 75% FPTP/25% PR Retweeted, that is...

Anyway, the final thing to talk about regarding the election is the polls. It turns out the fact they were all so far out is a big deal, because it could be argued that it influenced the final outcome. For example, had I known the Tories were six points ahead of Labour going into the polling station, I'd have probably backed the Liberal Democrats. How many Tory voters toying with UKIP might have actually gone through with their threat to vote for Farage's party?

The analysis of why the polls were so far wrong has been done (there's also a fair bit of stuff about whether or not all the austerity we've gone through so far was actually a valid economic argument, particularly given the fact we're still running high annual deficits and piling up the national debt like there's no tomorrow, which sadly for our children, there is). There's talk of an inquiry, and people are rightly asking if this isn't an area that ought to be more tightly regulated in the future (unlikely, given the Tories see regulation as a dirty word). But I can't help indulging a little conspiracy theory, and wondering if the Tories knew how inaccurate the polls were. Having them neck-and-neck with Labour suited their negative campaigning very nicely, as it must have firmed up a large number of their core votes when for the first time ever they were at risk from a party on the right. No, that's a step too far, even for them. Isn't it?

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