Back in 1992, the incumbent Conservatives led by John Major went into the election slightly trailing the Labour Party in public opinion polls. In fact, they won a reasonably comfortable victory. Here’s what Wikipedia says:
Almost every poll leading up to polling day predicted either a hung parliament, with Labour the largest party or a small Labour majority of around 19 to 23. Polls on the last few days before the country voted predicted a very slim Labour majority.[8]
With opinion polls at the end of the campaign showing Labour and the Conservatives neck and neck, the actual election result was a surprise to many in the media and in polling organisations. The apparent failure of the opinion polls to come close to predicting the actual result led to an inquiry by the Market Research Society. Following the election, most opinion polling companies changed their methodology in the belief that a ‘Shy Tory Factor‘ affected the polling.
That was when the Labour party was still mildly socialist, before the Blair reforms. (Indeed the election led to the Blair reforms.) Based on the exit polls, it looks like a repeat of 1992. Perhaps Tory voters are a bit embarrassed to admit voting their pocketbook.
There is no better time to begin introducing NGDP into the monetary policy process. In the past few years it would have been entangled in election politics, with Labour claiming the Tories were abandoning control of inflation (even if they privately supported the move.) The BoE should consider a NGDP target with revisions every 5 years to account for changes in trend GDP growth. Since trend growth changes very slowly, that (unnecessary) compromise is a small price to pay for NGDP targeting.
Congratulation to the Tories—the better party won. (Something I could not honestly say about America’s right wing party.)