Skipper

The Political Studies Association has published a new journal today called Political Insight and it contains a surprising article by psephologist Paul Whiteley from Essex University. Surprising because he argues that polls taken all of six months before an election offer as good a predictor of who will win than many polls taken closer to the date.

Counter intuitive? It certainly is, but the data is compelling. This method produces spot-on accuracy for 1966 and 2001, pretty damn close for 2005 and an average of 3% margin of error for all the elections after 1945 when polling was in its infancy; that's as good as most polls gathered by top pollsters using the most up to date methods.

The statistical problem, apart from nobody being able to predict the future of course, is, according to the author, that the number seats to be won by the minor parties is so 'unpredictable'. Assuming they will win the same as in 2005- 31- he proceeds to make his own prediction based on the polls of November 2009.

So what does it produce? Labour-291 seats; Conservative 282; Lib Dems 42. This would be a hung parliament of course but with Cameron with a majority of 9 if he can cobble together an alliance with the Lib Dems. My bet is, as I've said before, he would opt to govern as a minority government for some months before asking us again if we think he is the man to lead us.