Election and Adultery Special
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Thank you for downloading this programme from BBC Radio 4. I'm Tim Harford. Hello and welcome to an unprecedented live edition of More or Less. We just thought the programme would sound a lot better unscripted and massively sleep deprived. Stay with us and let us know if you agree. The election is topmost in our thoughts, of course, and I'm joined by some of the country's most respected fact-checkers and opinion pollsters, if indeed The opinion pollsters still are respected and we'll be discussing the numbers behind the campaign, the polls and the result. But for variety, we'll also be discussing the statistics of adultery. Now, before any of that, I am being told by our Trumptonshire correspondent, Ruth Alexander, that the much anticipated declaration there may be imminent.
Yes, Tim, it's been a tense wait here in Trumpton Town Hall. There have been counts and recounts. This is a key marginal. But I think, yes, the results are about to be called. Here we go.
I, Sir Gordon Murray, being the returning officer at the election of the Member of Parliament for Trumptonshire constituency, do hereby give notice that the number of votes recorded for each candidate is as follows. Barney McGrew.
Labour.
14,246. Farmer Bell.
Conservative.
23,252. Dibble. UKIP. 7,133. Miss Lovelace.
Liberal Democrat.
1,827. Windy Miller.
Green Party.
1,370. The percentage turnout... Well, he's done it.
Farmer Bell's done it for the Conservatives. He's even increased his majority.
I now declare that Farmer Bell is duly elected as Member of Parliament for Trumptonshire constituency. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the people of Trumpton, I am delighted, absolutely delighted. Thank you all very much indeed.
It's been a successful night for the Conservatives across the country and in Trumptonshire too, apparently. I am now joined in the studio and down the line by some of the nation's leading polling experts. One of them is the BBC's very own David Cowling. He joins us from the epicentre of election watching BBC Millbank. I must remind David that he called Trumptonshire for Labour last week. Ben Page, the chief executive of Ipsos MORI, is here, and so is Deborah Mattinson from Britain Thinks. Her research company has been running focus groups, gauging opinions during the campaign. By no means least, David Spiegelhalter, Sir David Spiegelhalter, professor of statistics at the University of Cambridge. And everybody is giggling because one of our research team, Hannah Moore, has just brought in a marzipan hat.
You may...
Paddy Ashdown, is it?
Yeah, well, you may remember, yes, Lord Ashdown last night said that if the exit poll was correct, he would eat his hat.
What happened in the Trumptonshire result announcement and who won the seat?
And Alistair Campbell's going to eat his kilt, I seem to recall.
And I think he said he was willing to do it as long as Andrew Neil procured a marzipan hat. So we have a marzipan hat here. Sadly, we don't have Lord Ashdown. We have got Ben. Ben, one of the country's leading pollsters. Should you be eating the hat, Ben? Um... No, I don't think. Well, first of all, I haven't promised to eat it. I have. I did promise, actually, to eat my socks on live television. If UKIP achieved 18 percent of the vote share at the general election, prompted on by banter on Twitter with various avid UKIP supporters who felt that my polls were terribly, terribly biased against their dear party. But no, I'm not going to be at the K.O. 13%, we should say. So you were five percentage points away from sock eating.
I was. And at the last general election, Ian Dale promised to run naked down Whitehall if the exit poll, which David Cowling commissions each time for the BBC and ITV and Sky as a consortium, was correct. Because he's yet to do it. So people have a bad record of not delivering on their promises or their dares. But did you and your fellow opinion pollsters deliver before the election? Because people were telling us that this election was very, very close, that an overall majority was extremely unlikely. I mean, of course, everyone always hedges their bets and says it's difficult to call and so on.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–3:02
2
What happened in the Trumptonshire result announcement and who won the seat?
3:02–8:49
3
Which polling experts and statisticians joined Tim to analyse the election night coverage?
8:49–17:26
4
How accurate were pre-election opinion polls compared with the exit poll on election day?
17:26–23:08