People: Zahawi predicts victory

Nadhim Zahawi is to move from online polling to the political sort after deciding to step down as chief executive of AIM-listed market researcher YouGov and stand as a Conservative candidate in the forthcoming general election.

Picked by Tory party members as the candidate for a safe blue seat in the Stratford-on-Avon constituency, Zahawi will be unusually confident of taking his place behind David Cameron in the House of Commons later this year. YouGov, where his role will be taken over by co-founder Stephan Shakespeare, has long boasted of its ability to predict the winners of political polls, having correctly forecast Barack Obama’s win in the US, recent European elections and Boris Johnson’s mayoral victory to within a margin of less than 1 per cent.

However, Zahawi has himself not always been as successful in politics, having not so long ago failed in an attempt to be chosen as the Conservative candidate for Devizes and Suffolk and longer ago being part of the team, with Shakespeare, that mercifully failed in their bid to promote disgraced peer Jeffrey Archer as Mayor of London. Furthermore, YouGov’s polls in recent weeks estimate the likely Conservative lead has shrunk from a one-year height of 19 percentage points to just six percentage points at 39 per cent, ahead of Labour’s estimated 33 per cent.

YouGov, where Zahawi’s family vehicle has claims over 11 per cent of its present £41.38 million market value, has itself shrunk since its peak in 2007. The shares, then worth more than £2, now trade at 42.75p, up from a recent low of 29.75p.