public opinion poll

   Opinion polling has been conducted in Britain since 1938. Most polls are concerned with the voting intention of the person approached, although others are designed to discover the attitudes of voters to specific questions. For party leaders, the polls are a useful guide to the state of public opinion and give a broad indication of their relative standing among the electorate. They have become important to the parties in making their policies and planning their strategies, for polling can highlight issues on which there is a need for a clear response to public anxieties. In the 1950s and 60s, the polls had a good record and several were remarkably accurate in predicting the outcome of elections. Since 1970, the performance has been more mixed, 1992 being an example of a campaign in which the polls (57 produced by 8 different polling organisations) got the result conspicuously wrong. Throughout the 2005 campaign, the polls generally agreed that Labour seemed destined to win, but with a reduced majority; they differed on how much the majority might fall. Collectively, the final surveys were the most accurate predictions ever made of the outcome of any British general election.