Nate Silver has a lot to answer for. Yes, he called the US general election correctly – but he then led the fashionable view that opinion polling technology is now so advanced as to be able to predict what people are feeling to a high degree of accuracy. So confident was Silver in his computers that he thought he could, from the other side of an ocean, predict the UK general election with ‘90 per cent confidence.‘
The BBC lapped this up, and filmed a Panorama with the hubristic title “Who will win the election?”. Richard Bacon joined Silver as he visited the UK ‘to try and forecast the outcome of the most uncertain British election in decades’.
And then, Silver revealed what ‘the data’ said: the Tories would have 283 seats (they ended up with 330) he put Labour at 270 (they ended up with 232) and the Lib Dems at 24 (they won 8).
The Tories won more seats than all of the other parties put together.
Get Britain's best politics newsletters
Register to get The Spectator's insight and opinion straight to your inbox. You can then read two free articles each week.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in