General Election 2005

Details from Broadcast:

The BBC and ITV are to commission their first joint exit poll for next year’s general election in a bid to minimise the risk of miscalling the result.

The survey, which will question voters across the country on how they voted, will be broadcast on both BBC1 and ITV1’s election specials following the closure of polling stations at 10pm.

Broadcasters have previously had problems with exit polls and BBC head of current affairs Peter Horrocks admitted the corporation was "within minutes" of calling the 1992 election in favour of Labour rather than eventual winner, John Major. Meanwhile, in the US, exit polls gave distorted results in the presidential elections in both 2000 and this year.

The general election is expected to take place in May.

ITV News assistant editor Craig Oliver said it was hoped the joint poll, which will be undertaken by NOP and Mori and analysed by a BBC/ITV team of political specialists, would help cut down on mistakes as well as reducing costs.

"We are working with NOP and Mori to ensure we have a robust model," Oliver said. "The pressure to get the story is clearly primary in our thinking but we want to make sure we get it right."

He added that if the prediction was "incredibly close" a result wouldn’t be called. The fact that postal voting will be a bigger element in the next election also has the ability to make any prediction susceptible to error, he said.

A previous BBC plan to commission a joint exit poll at the 2001 election fell down after ITV rejected the idea.

Sky News is not expected to commission an exit poll for its election coverage, although it is thought it is planning a huge opinion poll through internet polling group YouGov.

Both BBC1 and ITV1 will broadcast count-by-count coverage on election night.

The BBC is also planning to send a group of its correspondents on a "battle bus" tour of the country in a bid to circumvent spin and find out what the real issues facing voters are. The idea was also used by US network ABC in this year’s presidential election. Reports will be broadcast on BBC News 24 and BBC1’s Six O’Clock News, which is alsoexpected to base one of its two presenters on the bus.

BBC1’s flagship 10 O’Clock News is expected to be extended by six minutes, while a Saturday edition of BBC2’s Newsnight could also be screened.

From memory, Newsnight did a parody of the American networks' ''Battle Bus'' coverage nonsense with a VW wagon at the last general election... and now they are doing it themselves. Wonders never cease.

As for YouGov, they were the most accurate at the last general election out of all polling organisations. Sky have never commissioned an exit poll for a general election; last time's was a Sky News Active vote, the previous times were massive phone polls.

Personally don't see that the BBC and ITV commissioning a joint poll is going to make much difference. ICM and MORI + BBC and ITV working together might reduce the risk of getting it wrong... but then it also means that they have just the one poll to go off, rather than the regular quoting of each other's. Quite common on election night to hear Dimbleby J and Dimbleby D and Adam Boulton saying ''ITV/BBC/Sky are projecting..."

And I think the 1992 election is a pretty poor example. Almost everyone - except the first edition of The Times, with a late exit poll - thought Kinnock was heading for Number 10. Hardly justification for overhauling the entire process... likewise for the US result in 2000.

That's jumping the gun a bit, isn't it? What if it's held in 2006?

It's almost certain the election will be in 2005, the most likely date being 5 May 2005 (as it coincides with local elections in parts of the UK).

Although the current Parliament does not reach its 5 year maximum limit until June 2006, it is always perceived as a weakness if a government allows a Parliament to go far beyond 4 years. So unless their is a massive economic crisis, or some other unforeseen event that would be very very bad indeed for Labour, the election will be in 2005.

ITN's openine line that night (on ITV) was that the result was too close to forecast, but that the Conservatives looked like being the largest party in a hung parliament. It was based on its exit poll by Harris, the last time Harris conducted exit polling for ITN, MORI taking over in 97.