Why Did the Polls Get it Wrong in 1992? Opinion polls play a major role in politics, they can be used by the Government to decide when to call and election, and, among other things, how their pre-election campaigns are run. Throughout the history of opinion polling, from the time when polling began to be widely used before an election, in 1945, until 1987, the last general election before 1992, the polls have on average been correct to within 1.3% …showed first 75 words of 1350 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1350 total…Harvester Whitsheaf, Hemel Hempstead. Coxall, B. & Robins, L. (1994), Contemporary British Politics (2nd Ed.), Macmillan, London. Crewe, I. (1992), 'A Nation of Liars: opinion polls and the 1992 general election', Parliamentary Affairs, Vol. 45, pp. 475-495. Crewe, I. (1992), 'Why did Labour lose (yet again)?', Politics Review, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 8-9. Jones, B. & Kavanagh, D. (1994), British Politics Today (5th Ed.), Manchester University Press, Manchester. Ippolito, S.D. (1976), Public Opinion and Responsible Democracy, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.