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London didn't shift to the right as much as the rest of England - and UKIP did very poorly there! (And the working class is not being squeezed out of London) The pollsters who designed the exit poll got it right Possible reasons 1. 'Spiral of silence' - Conservative supporters more likely to 'lie' in polls 2. Many undecideds till very late and majority went to the right 3. Very late swings - as in 1992 4. The fear factor - especially Cameron's 'Vote Labour get the SNP' More? On 8 May 2015 at 10:42, Simon P J Batterbury <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Can any political geographers tell us why the UK pollsters got the > election results so wrong? > > > > I was at a big lecture by Mike Savage last night in Brussels on ‘class’ in > Britain, and his multivariate reworking on the concept, which follows a > massive BBC poll on class a couple of years ago, suggested opportunity and > inheritance increasingly define class position defined in terms of > ‘capitals’, and redefinitions of traditional Labour-voting working classes > as well. > > > > With wealth now so concentrated in London and its hinterland, some shifts > to the right there may have been expected. But to the whole of England? The > Belgian papers are calling it a victory for the conservateurs over the > travaillistes but many working classes, increasingly non-white, actually > vote Tory (at least where I grew up in suburban London) > > > > Dr. Simon Batterbury > > Visiting Reseach Fellow > <http://www.cosmopolis.be/news-event/2015-visiting-fellows-brussels-centre-urban-studies>, > | Brussels Centre for Urban Studies <http://research.vub.ac.be/urban> | Vrije > Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium. (*community bike workshops in Europe*, > 10 March-15 June 2015 https://bikeworkshopsresearch.wordpress.com) > > > > Associate Professor| School of Geography | 221 Bouverie St (rm L2.33) | University > of Melbourne, 3010 VIC, Australia. +61 (0)3 8344 9319 simonpjb @ > unimelb.edu.au | http://www.simonbatterbury.net > > > > > -- Professor RON JOHNSTON, FAcSS, FBA, OBE School of Geographical Sciences University of Bristol Bristol BS8 1SS +44(0)117 928 9116 [log in to unmask] http://www.bris.ac.uk/geography/people/ron-j-johnston http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations? http://www.mendeley.com/profiles/ron-johnston/ user=QQoOCYsAAAAJ&hl=en