And lo, with one email Nick Clegg’s opinion poll rating did soar

By Mark Pack | Sun 21st February 2010 - 1:32 pm

I was rather puzzled by the Sunday Telegrpah’s report today by Melissa Kite on the standing of party leaders, which claimed that Nick Clegg’s net leader performance rating in polling for PoliticsHome had plummeted since last September. Puzzled because that would be way out of line with what the other polls have been saying.

One email exchange with PoliticsHome later and lo, what was reported as a +5% rating in the most recent polling turns out actually to have been a +15% when then suffered a typo.

At +15% the rating not only compares well to Cameron (+12%) and of course Brown (-33%), but is also pretty much the same as back in September (it was +19 in the three weeks up to 18 September, +13% in the three weeks up to 25 September and +12% in the three weeks up to 2 October).

Now, let’s see what I can do with my next email…

Note: the Telegraph story has now been changed, though by only giving the +19 figure for September, it still suggests a trend which isn’t really there.

UPDATE: PoliticsHome have been back in touch again and told me to disregard their correction of the +5 figure to +15 and +5 is correct after all. The Telegraph is therefore changing its figure back again. Ho hum. This leaves the most recent figure out of line with other polling figures, so let’s see what the next update brings.

UPDATE 2 (9 March): The next update is now here, and Nick Clegg’s rating has indeed bounced back. It’s back to +10.

3 Comments

Martin Land 21st Feb '10 - 2:22pm

Now, now, Mark, you are making the assumption that journalists should allow the facts to interfere with a good story.
sanbikinoraion 22nd Feb '10 - 10:52am

“been a +15% when then suffered a typo.”

Snigger.
j.k.beards 21st Sep '10 - 6:16pm

why should i pay somonelse council tax when they are making £20,000 or more profit from the rent of there house. lib dem coments please