…so said Niels Bohr.  Or Karl Kristian Steincke, or a Danish proverb – take your pick.  In any event, PB posters found it rather tough to make accurate predictions this year. 

In January 2024 we launched a PB Prediction Competition with 10 questions and a scoring scheme that generally allocated 20 points for a correct answer and 10 points for a near-miss.  We had 82 entrants. 

Here are the questions with their answers and some commentary where appropriate:   

1. The smallest Labour lead with a BPC registered pollster in Q1 2024. 

Answer: 11%, More in Common (7–11 Feb).

14 people guessed 11% and received 20points; CD13 guessed 11.3% for 10 points. The rest of us got zero.  Harsh but fair.

2. Date of the next UK General Election. 

Answer: 4th July 2024.

Well, who saw that coming?  Only No_Offence_Alan, for 20 points; no one else got within a month, so zero points for the rest of us. 

3. Party leaders of Con, Lab, LD, SNP, and Reform when the GE is called.

Answer: Sunak, Starmer, Davey, Swinney, Tice.

No one guessed Swinney would be SNP leader, so no one got 20 points; 10 points each for the 59 who guessed Sunak, Starmer, Davey and Tice for the other four parties. (Bad luck if you opted for Farage – he of course was not Reform leader until 3 June, 12 days after the GE was called.)

4. UK General Election outcome: winning party + majority (±10%).

Answer: Labour 172 seat majority (±10% range = 155 to 189).

Four people guessed the Labour majority to within 10%: Cyclefree NickPalmer TheWhiteRabbit and closest of all: GF2 with 180.  Those four each got 20 points.  We gave 10 points to those entrants who guessed majority to be 90 to 254 – equivalent to guessing the Labour seat total within 10%.  That may seem generous but it still left 57 of us scoring zero for this question.

5. 2024 US Presidential Election: nominees for the GOP and Dems.

Answer: Trump and Harris

No one got this right.  54 people guessed Trump, two people guessed Harris, but no one got both.  10 points each for those who got one candidate right.

6. 2024 US Presidential Election: winner.

Answer: Trump

Only 17 predicted Trump to win and got 20 points each – I hope you’re pleased with yourselves.  Nil points for the rest of us.

7. UK base rate on 31 December 2024.

Answer: 4.75%

Eight people got this right for 20 points; 10 points each to the 20 who were just 0.25% out.  The mean of our predictions was 4.12% so interest rates have stayed higher than we thought as a collective.

8. UK CPI figure for November 2024 (Nov 2023 = 4.2%).

Answer: 2.6%

Gingray, Morris_Dancer and OnlyLivingBoy got this spot on for 20 points; six others were with 0.1% for 10 points each.  Actual CPI inflation undershot our PB mean prediction of 3.1%.

9. UK borrowing in the financial year-to-November 2024 (Year to Nov 2023 = £116.4bn).

Answer: £113.2bn 

Congratulations to david_herdson who was closest with £113bn for 20 points.  Seven people guessed within 5% of the actual figure and were awarded 10 points each.  £113.5bn was the mean guess and £113 was the PB median, so collectively we did all right there!

10. GB total medal haul at the 2024 Olympics (2020/21 = 64).

Answer: 65

Here’s another one nobody got right.  Six people guessed 64 or 66 medals though, so we gave them 10 points each.

And so the winner is:

No_Offence_Alan with 80 points.

Alan played a blinder with the election date and nobody ever quite managed to catch him, congratulations on winning £100 worth of Amazon vouchers.

Four people share second place on 70 points: Cyclefree, david_herdson, IanB2 and

spudgfsh.  Well done to Alan and to the runners up.

One entrant heroically managed to score zero points across all 10 questions – BJO fans please explain…

Thank you all once again for participating – watch this space for the 2025 competition.

Link to the scoring spreadsheet if you want to see how you fared:

PB Predictions 2024 – Final Scores

Any disputes: speak to my lawyer!

Benpointer

PS 1 – No Offence Alan – TSE will contact you soon with details on how to claim your prize

PS 2 – We plan to launch a 2025 predictions competition (complete with £100 prize in Amazon vouchers) in the next week.