Honorable mention? Could this curdle milk at five hundred paces?
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Congratulations to reader Doug, the clear winner of Missing Link’s prediction competition. I use the word ‘clear’ advisedly: I was intrigued when I tabulated the predictions to find that there was a very large gap between Doug’s specification of 84 seats to Labor and the group above it, clustered between 100 and 90.
Doug got quite a few details right, including the results in Wentworth and Bennelong. He over-estimated Labor’s gains in Victoria and underestimated their gains in Queensland, but apart from that, it was a very accurate forecast four weeks out from the election, and better than Malcolm Mackerras’s. He has a promising future in psephology, if he’s not making a living from it already.
Note: Readers inclined to form a harsh view of Robert’s prediction and my picture should understand that we are taking part in an elaborate scientific project to discover the borders of misogyny.
Thanks for the reminder of that tip – I am a peruser of the professional psehpologists – currently earning my crust as a public servant.
I have a memory that I may have speculated on a third independent – to take the gloss off my efforts
Currently waiting to collect a bottle for red from a friend with whom I bet back in February this year that there would be a change of government.
Your point that Doug’s prediction was better than Malcolm Mackerass’s is a bit silly. Statistically speaking, given enough participants in your exercise, it would be extraordinary if the winner’s prediction had not been better than Malcolm’s. The real test is how, on average, your amateur psehpologists compared with Malcolm.
Let’s hope that bit of silliness can be forgiven under the circumstances, Tom. People will make a judgement, as a well-known sage was wont to say. Malcolm did pretty well, actually, though he read Wentworth wrong.