There are just two things polling organisations have to do when it comes to general elections. They must be able to establish a representative sample of the electorate and they must have a clear idea of the reliability of what those people say about their voting intentions.

Unfortunately our pollsters are unable to do either very well. Typically, this has resulted in a marked underestimation of the Conservative vote. It has been excruciatingly embarrassing when the battle between Labour and Conservative is close, which in 1992 and 2015 had the pollsters fooling people into imagining there would soon be a Labour prime minister in No 10. Alas for Neil Kinnock and Ed Miliband, until the results piled up neither had seen the need to prepare