Sunday 18 April 2010

Polls Show Election Too Close To Call As Media Are Swept Up By Clegg-Mania

The latest opinion polls have given a huge boost to Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, thanks to his competent performance in last week's Leaders' debate.

Some results have now pushed Labour into third place, even though it is widely accepted that Gordon Brown did far better last Thursday than many people expected.

But with the current ratings of the three main parties so close together can we really read anything significant into this?

Any polling expert will tell you that such results always carry a +/-3-5% margin of error. So when I see headlines claiming that Mr Clegg has suddenly become the man of the moment on the basis of no more than one or two percentage points' difference between the three parties, I do react with a very considerable amount of cynicism.

Even if they are currently in third place in the polls, the main anomaly of our First-past-the-post-system means that Labour could still emerge as the largest party after the election, if not with an overall majority.  There is still over two weeks to go before polling day and the result of the election is still too close to call.

I would like to see fewer polls published during election campaigns; perhaps done on a weekly rather than a daily basis.  Too many surveys only serve to give a very distorted picture of what the electorate are really  thinking.

Mr Clegg may have done well in last week's encounter, but we should reserve judgement on the leaders' overall performances until all three debates have taken place.

The media are doing what they always do; focussing on personalities rather than the policies the parties have to offer.

And by placing so much emphasis on daily opinion polls, it has become the norm for journalists and commentators to try and turn voter intentions and behaviour into an exact science; just so they can produce slick headlines.

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