Each Way
If the pollsters aren't careful they'll talk therh- selves out of a job. The headline and the first part of the Sunday Telegraph story gave the Tories a lead sufficient for a working majority, Part II, taken on a different sampling method, gave the Socialists a somewhat similar majority in terms of seats. Averaging them out, D. Gallup/Durant concluded breathlessly that the Labour lead was 2 per cent, which is in practice roughly a dead-heat. Unless the Liberals vin, Dr.. Durant seems safe enough. Actually, in 1955 Gallup got the Tory margin exactly right at per cent. But, and I quote from The Times.House of Commons book for 1955, Dr. Durant 'did not trust his own figures' and produced three alterna- tive sets of proportions, none conclusive.
If, as we are repeatedly told, there is no statistical significance between the present, and even much wider divergences, one day the news paper proprietors are going to ask themselves what the point is in publishing them at all.
Meanwhile the NOP continues to publish cheerful Tory figures. Mr. H. Wilson must re-
, gret his earlier enthusiasm for their methods.
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