NCRM Podcasts

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Inquiry into the 2015 British general election opinion polls

The night of the General Election 2015 was a surprising one in more ways than one! A series of opinion polls had led us all to believe that we were in for another Coalition Government, but, as we now know that turned out to be far from the case. For pollsters and statisticians it was a night of disappointment and even anger.  So what went wrong and what lessons have been learned? In this episode of the NCRM podcast, NCRM Director Patrick Sturgis, who led an inquiry into what has become known as the polling disaster of 2015, looks back at how events unfolded, the aftermath, the inquiry that follow, what it found and the recommendations made by him and his team to put things right in the future. 

The inquiry and the report that has been published are the focus of a key session at the Research Methods Festival 2016 - Can We Trust the Polls? Reflections on the 2015 Election Poll Miss.