Talk:Opinion polling for the 2015 United Kingdom general election/Archives/2015/May

BMG/May2015.com Poll

Should this be included? I see it's been put into the table but BMG aren't members of the British Polling Council. I know - Ashcroft and Ni Life & Times aren't BPC members either, but NIL&T is a serious academic survey, and Ashcroft exclusively uses BPC companies for his fieldwork and seems to be a sort of de facto member (the reason he's ineligible is that he doesn't poll for multiple clients - http://www.britishpollingcouncil.org/reading-the-polls-election-2015-and-the-british-polling-council/ ) with other member organisations regularly citing his work. BMG are non-members and don't appear to have any track record of VI polling so I have to say their inclusion makes me a little uneasy. 3fingeredPete (talk) 16:16, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for that link 3fingeredPete, I can feel an update to the Lord Ashcroft description coming on. Saxmund (talk) 08:10, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

The article states that "BMG are not yet members of the British Polling Council but are in the process of applying to become members, and abided by BPC rules in carrying out their poll." And May2015.com/New Statesman is a reliable source. So I recognise the reason for concern, but I'm happy to include it. What do others think? Bondegezou (talk) 16:58, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I think it should be included, they are a market research company that is taking its first steps into political polling so not an entirely new entity. Anthony Wells reported it here http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/9386. It's not our job to decide which polls are reliable, just to weed out anything that might not really be a properly conducted opinion poll at all, and then put the rest up for our readers. Saxmund (talk) 08:07, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Adding SurveyMonkey poll

SurveyMonkey put out a large scale survey earlier today-- Washington Post Story. Full tabs here. Would like to add the survey results to the table. Is there a process to follow or rules about what surveys are allowed to be included? Nobleksm (talk) 22:09, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Reading the article, it is not a standard opinion poll of the form we would normally include. Bondegezou (talk) 23:01, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Seconded, there's no weighted numbers that we can check to see if the "headline numbers" (34%, 28%, etc) are correct. Itching to delete it - for those reading Politicalbetting.com who are familiar with my "ELBOW" series of weekly polling aggregates, I haven't bothered with it :) best, Sunil060902 (talk) 12:51, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

But despite the obvious "dodginess" it seems far more in tune with the final GE result, save for getting Greens and LibDems wrong way around! best, Sunil060902 (talk) 12:53, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

I think it probably counts. The washington Post article cited by Bondegezou seems to credit it with being an opinion poll. I was surveyed for it, and it included political weighting questions - as well as some demographic ones, it asked me how I voted in 2010 and which party I normally identified with. Maybe some more research is needed into their methodology. Saxmund (talk) 17:03, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

The Washington Post article is clear (see right at the end) that this isn't a proper poll, so I still oppose its inclusion. If it is included, it should be with a footnote explaining the methodological differences. Bondegezou (talk) 17:09, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

I would also oppose including this for much the same reasons as Bondegezou. A different methodology, and not considered reliable. As pointed out, it has reflected the outcome, but we don't know if this is more by coincidence than anything. This is Paul (talk) 17:44, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

The Dan Balz WaPo article I linked to in my initial post includes a line about how "survey is not a random sample of the population" in keeping with the Washington Post's polling standards about non-probability samples (more on this). Unlike in the U.S. where YouGov's non-probability panel surveys were met with revolt, the U.K. polling industry is comfortable with non-probability samples. The table with the SM poll also includes many, many non-probability samples (for example, all the YouGov surveys).

For a more detailed methodology statement, see the last few rows of the tabs file.Nobleksm (talk) 17:49, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Scottish Greens

In the chart: "green for the Green Party of England and Wales". Is this correct, though? I'd have thought that most pollsters gave a combined figure for the GPEW and Scottish Green Party. If that is the case, green wouldn't mean just the GPEW. 81.151.46.42 (talk) 10:04, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

I have made an amendment showing the Scottish and E&W Greens are combined for the purposes of GB polls. Saxmund (talk) 20:09, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

This page...

... seems to be linked as the talk page for both Opinion polling for the next United Kingdom general election and Opinion polling for the 2015 United Kingdom general election. Does something need to be done to create an independent Talk page for the new article? Saxmund (talk) 20:12, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Saxmund, I have created a new talk page at Talk:Opinion polling for the next United Kingdom general election. Harej (talk) 06:48, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Independent enquiry

Professor John Curtice (president of the British Polling Council) has announced an independent enquiry into the polls and why they got the final result so wrong. Does this merit a new section on this already long page or a new page all to itself? --Wavehunter (talk) 16:49, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

I am in favour of some discursive text here on the matter, although depending what comes out of that process, there may be too much to include here and we should have a new page, with a link to it here. Note there is already an article Shy Tory Factor that might also be a good place for material (not that we know whether that is definitely what went wrong this time). Bondegezou (talk) 17:09, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

The fact that the polls were so wrong about the Conservative/Labour race is one of the most notable aspects of this topic. Additional coverage of the post-mortem is definitely warranted, in my opinion. 109.152.146.160 (talk) 03:11, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Previously unpublished Survation final poll

Have we included this one? Fascinating result. Bondegezou (talk) 14:53, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

I have added it. Saxmund (talk) 17:00, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Why should this unpublished poll be added? How reliable is it? Survation consistently showed Tories behind Labour and UKIP on at least 16%. (Coachtripfan (talk) 10:55, 23 May 2015 (UTC))