The Blogger Who Beat the British Political Pollsters
One U.K. election analyst saw the Conservative victory coming — and put his neck on the line to say so. Now he's set his sights on the Labour leadership contest.
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The night before Britain's general election, Matt Singh, a 33-year-old former trader who'd set himself up as a political blogger, published a post arguing that the opinion polls were all underestimating Conservative support.
For the next 24 hours, the post was the subject of lively online debate. Then the polls closed, and the television exit poll suggested David Cameron was on course for victory by an unexpectedly large margin. Ten minutes later, Singh's website crashed under the weight of traffic.