Politicalbetting manipulating their own Data? I hope not.

I remember n 1997 telling a Friend in London who was a bit of a compulsive gambler that Michael Portillio would lose his Enfield seat.

He replied that with his luck the bastard would win so he was not going to make my advice.

As we all know Portillo's defeat became the highlight of the election night.

Personally I wouldn't   recommend any one placing a bet on the election outcome

Still I often look at politicalbetting.com solely out of interest.


However I sometimes question at least their analysis if not Impartiality.


Recently for instance they wrote

The SNP’s been issuing lots of data from its latest Panelbase poll but no GE15 voting intentions. Why?


Could it be that the lead over LAB is fading?


Above is a table with all the Scottish GE15 voting intention polls that have been published since June and I was hoping this morning that a final survey could be added to the list.
Over the last three nights the SNP has been emailing me detailed findings from its latest Panelbase poll on things like Devomax – which have all reinforced its position. The latest email was headed “POLL – LAST FINDING, DEVO MAX” doesn’t include any voting figures which seems very odd.
It is hard to believe that a poll that was commissioned by the party did not seek to find out how Scottish voters were currently thinking about the May 7th general election just four and a bit months away.
Doing well in that election has become a key objective following the party’s double digit defeat in the IndyRef. Yet there is no information about GE15.
If the numbers had shown that the party was maintaining its lead then I’ve little doubt that this would have been published.
The Panelbase survey is a private poll and the SNP is free to issue whatever it likes.
Draw your own conclusions.

The conclusion it would seem that the SNP had discovered a fall in their vote and sought to conceal it.

Some might ask why the SNP were wasting money on polling for the GE2015 when others were doing it for them as the table shows.


It seems they weren't doing so and  it was a poll to see voters views on the extent of devolution they wanted in order to tailor the SNP's GE2015 campaign

The author  pf the politicalbetting article was forced into a humiliating climbdown.

Well at least admit his error .

Mike Smithson @MSmithsonPB
Follow

Both the SNP and Panelbase have confirmed to me that there were no GE15 voting intention questions in their poll

10:02 AM - 30 Dec 2

I would not go so far as accuse the site of trying to manipulate the odds but it seems that if you wanted to look at the Scottish political scene you would be better of looking elsewhere.