Politics

MORI chairman Sir Robert Worcester analyses the latest opinion poll data.

MORI chairman Sir Robert Worcester analyses the latest opinion poll data.

More Labour supporters are now galvanised to turn out to vote than at the beginning of the election, providing a boost to Labour's potential election victory on May 5.

MORI chairman Sir Robert Worcester analyses the latest opinion poll data.

MORI chairman Sir Robert Worcester analyses the latest opinion poll data.

MORI research director Bobby Duffy, standing in for Sir Robert Worcester today, analyses the opinion polls.

This short note tries to explain in simple terms the main elements of the way MORI conducts its election polling and what those polls mean.

Students are slightly more important in deciding the outcomes of British general elections than they have been in the past. There are many more of them now than there was 40 years ago. Students numbered around 400,000 in 1964 in an electorate of just over 36m (1.1%) but around 2m in 2001 in an electorate of 43.8m (4.6%).

By Dr Paul Baines, Middlesex University and Julia Clark, MORI