Tories discover margin of error

Posted on September 23, 2004 by Ken Parish
Posted in Politics - national

Isn't it interesting how captive Tory mouthpieces like Tim Blair and Terry McCrann only become interested in emphasising (or even mentioning) opinion polling margins of error when the polls start showing a clear ALP lead?! Left and centre blogs (like Troppo, Chris Sheil and Bryan Palmer) have been actively discussing the significance of the polls, margins of error and a range of other issues throughout the campaign period. Moreover, the real problem for Blair and McCrann (which neither bothers to mention) is that the results of the latest MorganandNewspoll both show a clear Labor lead even allowing for margin of error. And the fact that they confirm each other increases still further the probability that this is a real lead not just a statistical artefact. But you wouldn't read either Blair or McCrann if you were looking for a thoughtful analysis.

5 Comments

  1. Martin Pike
    September 23, 2004

    You wouldn't read either if you were any more than functionally literate, except as confirmation that natural selection did a very incomplete job on the brain.

  2. TJW
    September 23, 2004

    It's your website so you can call anyone anything that you want, but I disagree that McCrann is a "Tory mouthpiece". Boring, definately. But he still made a valid point, regardless of the timing.

  3. Factory
    September 23, 2004

    I came upon a realization after Kenett's defeat that polls are rubbish, even on the day before the election they were completely wrong about who would win the election.

  4. Mark Bahnisch
    September 23, 2004

    One of my students remarked last week that she worked for Newspoll and got bored about halfway through her $18 hours and rather than listen to the pollee's "waffle", alternately wrote down "Labor" or "Liberal", while thinking about when her next essay was due, what she was doing on the weekend, etc.

  5. Homer Paxton
    September 24, 2004

    This has been a common talking point at Back Pages. Mind you thats only because that have some dill talking on and on ans on about it.

    for others interested in this and the US election there is a very good article yesterday on a 40,000 ( just under actually) which shows a very close contest on Brad De Long's site.