The escalating Maurice McCabe scandal: Enda Kenny’s ship is heading for the rocks

Political polling, at least the kind made public, was once thought of as a science but recent, contrary-to-predictions results have made a reappraisal of polling methodology necessary.

Some results, especially David Cameron’s 2015 Tory majority, were so in conflict with what had been seen in the crystal ball that they suggest polling is more a finger-in-the-wind voodoo than a discipline.

Britain’s decision to quit the EU and President Trump’s victory were not predicted either but pollsters take comfort that the margins in those votes were so tight that the usual 3% wriggle room might save their blushes. Nevertheless, this unreliability led to a French newspaper — Le Parisien — to stop publishing opinion polls.