Nobody Knows Anything: Why is Politics so Surprising?


The Political Quarterly Annual Lecture by David Runciman was given on
5 December 2017, with comment from Ed Miliband MP and chaired by Polly Toynbee. You can hear it in full below.
http://www.politicalquarterly.org.uk/2017/12/the-pq-annual-lecture-by-david-runciman.html?m=1


The 2017 General Election was the latest in a series of events that took pollsters, pundits, prediction markets and politicians by surprise. At a point when digital technology is supplying more information than ever before, politics is becoming more unpredictable.

How are these phenomena related? Why have the voters become so hard to read? And is the volatility of electoral politics a sign that democracy is still working or is it an indication of the trouble democracy is in?