The last time Peter Kellner forecast the result on the eve of a major British vote he was accused of costing UK taxpayers tens of billions of pounds. For much of the Scottish referendum campaign, the outcome had seemed a foregone conclusion. Yet on 7 September – 11 days before Scots voted for or against independence from the rest of the United Kingdom – a poll by YouGov, of which Kellner is president, suggested that the outcome was too close to call: the Yes camp was ahead, by the narrowest possible margin. YouGov put its lead at 51-49, well within the pollsters’ margin of error. The 307-year-old Union seemed in doubt. David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg cancelled their commitments and travelled to Scotland bearing inducements designed to halt the Yes surge.
It has since been calculated that the promises the three party leaders made to Scottish voters – by way of amendments to the Barnett formula for allocating public spending to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – would cost the UK £45bn over the next decade. And the Daily Mail blamed Kellner, Britain’s pre-eminent political pollster, for helping to run up the bill. Other polling companies had detected a shift in the public mood, but it was the YouGov poll that became the subject of debate, and the focus of irritation for those who believe that polling has too much influence on politics.
Content from our partners
