The future of opinion polls
Thursday was a nightmare for Labour, horrific for the Lib Dems and a shocker for the pollsters.
The fact that all the polls got it so wrong made the exit poll, taken of actual voters at 140 polling stations after they had cast their vote, a massive shock to everyone not least the party leaders.
Since Thursday there have been suggestions amongst commentators that polls have no place in the election if they fail so spectacularly to reflect the actual intentions of voters.
Diane Abbott, the Labour MP, said that politics should think about banning them during the final weeks of the campaign.
She told the Murnaghan show on Sky News: “We need to look at whether we should ban polls for the duration of the short campaign, they distorted people’s thinking”.