Pollsters
Predict Catastrophic UK General Election Defeat
For Conservatives
UK polling organisations
have today published their predictions for the
June 8th UK General Election.
They forecast unanimously
that the Conservatives will suffer a crushing
defeat, losing their majority in parliament.
The pollsters have further
predicted that the UK will be governed by a
coalition of the Labour Party, the Liberal
Democrats, the Scottish National Party, the
Democratic Unionist Party, the Green Party, Plaid
Cymru, the Co-operative Party, Sinn Féin, the
Social Democratic and Labour Party, UKIP and the
Ulster Unionist Party.
‘This evaluation may
seem surprising,’ said a spokesperson for
the pollsters, ‘but due to the disastrous
inaccuracy of recent predictions, we have totally
revised our methodology.
‘Previously,' she
continued, 'we interviewed a statistically valid
sample of the voting population to draw our
conclusions. You only have to look at what
subsequently happened, however, to see that this
approach must have been fundamentally flawed: the
Brits voted for Brexit, the Yanks voted for Tump
and the Turks voted to replace democracy with
autocracy – all in total contradiction to
our best, statistically based predictions, and,
indeed, contrary to common sense.
‘It became clear that
mathematics and logic could no longer be applied
to national elections or referenda. On recent
reckoning, it appears to be just a matter of time
before the popular vote leads us all to abandon
the wheel, outlaw fire and reside in caves.’
The spokesperson went on to
explain that the new methodology had been derived
from the actual outcomes of recent elections and
referenda.
‘The one common
feature of recent ballots,’ she explained,
‘is that results turned out to be the polar
opposite of predictions made by the educated,
liberal, middle classes.
‘As a consequence, our
new predictive methodology simply requires a
pollster to drop into any UK pub and strike up a
conversation with the first intelligent, educated,
liberal, middle class person they encounter.
Predictions are then based on the reverse of that
person’s expectations.’
Current predictions
regarding the 2017 General Election are based on
a reversal of views expressed by George Edmonds
of London.
George was interviewed by a
pollster at the Dog and Ferret in Neasden on the
22nd April 2017.
George is a university
educated civil servant who owns a detached house
in Wembley Park. He is an active member of his
community, has a keen interest in current affairs
and leans politically towards the Liberal
Democrats. He fits perfectly the newly
established profile of a person whose predictions
about the outcome of any election or referendum
will be as inaccurate as they could possibly be.
George thought it was an
inspired political move by Theresa May to call an
instant general election. He thought she would
win with an increased majority and thus have a
mandate to crush all opposition to her government’s
policies – particularly in respect of Brexit.
He thought Mrs May would
deal with Scotland by building a wall. He had
read how this idea had occurred to her when
Donald Trump had rung to ask for Hadrian’s
phone number.
George further believed
that Jeremy Corbyn provided slightly less
opposition that a chocolate teapot, and expressed
bewilderment as to why Labour Party activists
believed their leader’s brand of nineteenth
century Marxism could possibly inspire any
significant number of the UK's population to vote
Labour. He predicted, therefore, that the Labour
vote would plummet.
In summary, therefore,
George was convinced that Theresa May would wrong-foot
weak and intransigent opponents and would end up
in a position akin to Boudicca – as the
Iceni queen rode, sword in hand, to obliterate
Colchester, London and St. Albans.
‘In the past,’
concluded the spokesperson for the major polling
organisations, ‘George’s perspective
might have seemed to be a fair analysis, and it
would almost certainly have been supported by
conventional surveys.
‘The new methodology,
however, predicts that the exact opposite of his
analysis will occur for reasons that God only
knows.
‘Our new analytical
model anticipates, therefore, that George Edmonds
will once again be saying to the barmaid of the
Dog and Ferret on the 9th May: “I don’t
believe it. How could everyone have been so
stupid again?” On this occasion, however, he
will add: “And how on earth could Jeremy
Corbyn have possibly become Prime Minister?”’
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