Ah, opinion polls. Love ’em or hate ’em, you just can’t ignore ’em.
Today’s Telegraph reports a typically anti-Lib Dem story, Voters fail to recognise ‘invisible’ Lib Dem ministers. It claims to show that “Liberal Democrat cabinet ministers are far less likely to be recognised by ordinary voters than their Conservative counterparts”. However, the real clue to its accuracy is in the next few words, “a survey by The Sunday Telegraph has revealed”.
So how did the Telegraph commission its survey, you might ask. Did they pay a beyond-reproach polling firm (or even YouGov) to talk to a representative sample of the British public? Did they ensure at least 1,000 people were included to allow for a statistically significant margin of error? Nah, sod that for a game of dodgy polling soldiers. Instead they sent their reporters “to market towns and cities across the country” and talked to 200 people.
If you think the results have any merit you’re welcome to follow the link and check them out yourselves. Maybe they’re accurate – who knows? (Though for what it’s worth I doubt Iain Duncan Smith is better known than Vince Cable, but I may simply be betraying my own bias). What they are not is credible polling evidence.
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13 Comments
“Did they pay a reputable polling firm (or even YouGov)”
It seems “potentially defamatory” comments are fine when they’re made by Lib Dem staff!
their fact checkers are clearly also on holiday – Mark Oaten is surely no longer a back bench MP?
Turns out people can easily identify former party leaders, chancellors, former chancellors, and mayors of London. 3 months into governemnt, people aren’t so good at identifying other members of the cabinet and parliamentary undersecretaries.
Revolutionary research! Thanks The Telegraph!
Anthony I must have missed the announcement about Stephen leaving Oxford and getting a job working for the party.
Anthony, actually there is a difference – I’m happy to acept liability for what I write, but not for what you write!
However, I’ve substituted the word ‘reputable’ for the words ‘beyond reproach’ to show I was being no more than ironic.
For heaven’s sake make an effort: this was not a YouGov poll, we switched from the Telegraph months ago.
I’m so sorry, that was ME getting it wrong! I got a faulty google alert. I see you don’t blame us, apologies
“Anthony I must have missed the announcement about Stephen leaving Oxford and getting a job working for the party.”
Of course, I should have written Lib Dem Voice staff.
of course the question they didn’t ask was funniest: Do you feel that the newspapers/TV News media keep you sufficiently well informed to answer the above question?
It’s August – I guess they’ve got to fill the papers with something, so it might as well be completely spurious.
Lib Dems really need to grow a pair and stop whining about every vaguely critical article. We are in power, those in power get a harder time than those in opposition.Deal.
“Lib Dems really need to grow a pair …”
To replace the ones that ended up “impaled on a distant fence”?
@MPG, if you can’t understand the difference between whinging and ripping the piss out of the Telegraph then I think you might be on the wrong blog.