YouGov have come in for a fair amount of flack online following last night’s instant debate poll for The Sun. Some of the criticism has been wrong or misplaced. Yes, one of their senior figures has Labour roots. But then one has Conservative roots and other staff support the Liberal Democrats. They’ve even done polling for the Lib Dems in the past.
But – and it’s an important but – that was not the whole story. In amongst all the chaff were claims that YouGov’s polling started before the debate had actually finished and that it was collecting people’s verdicts on …
Earlier today Lib Dem Voice published a post asking the question, Are YouGov and Murdoch ‘push-polling’ for the Tories? This followed internet reports that the online pollster had been posing deliberately leading questions designed not simply to test public opinion, but to lead it.
Liberal Conspiracy picked up the story and put the question direct to Peter Kellner of YouGov, whose elliptical reply stated:
As with all agencies, we ask all kinds of questions for all kinds of clients; some public, some private. For purposes of testing theories, messages or policies we will often test statements phrased one way
‘Push-polls’, for those unfamiliar with the term, are a political campaigning technique “in which an individual or organization attempts to influence or alter the view of respondents under the guise of conducting a poll” (Wikipedia).*
And it looks like Rupert Murdoch’s Sun newspaper someone [EDIT 20/4/2010 – see Update below) has been paying internet polling firm YouGov to undertake some ‘push-polling’ against the Lib Dems, following the surge in support for Nick Clegg’s party after last week’s televised debate.
Former British ambassador Craig Murray spotted the following comment on the PoliticalBetting.com website, and noticed its significance:
Time to say, “Oh sod it” to the usual rule on The Voice of not reporting individual polls on headline voting intentions:
Conservative: 33%
Liberal Democrat: 30%
Labour: 28%
Others: 9%
Fieldwork: 15-16 April.
The last time the party was this high in the polls was after Sarah Teather’s victory in the Brent East by-election, when YouGov made it C32, L31, LD30 and ICM had all three parties tied on 31%.
The next round of phone calls between party press officers and the media could be quite fun. What was that about giving the third-placed party less media coverage?
Continuing my occasional series of opinion poll results that newspapers have paid for but then not published (all for reasons of space you understand, nothing to do with editorial lines and not liking the result, oh no of course not) we have the latest YouGov poll for The Sun:
Do you think the following will or will not happen if the Conservatives win the coming election?
The number of crimes committed each year will fall: 22% will, 47% will not – net -25%
The quality of education in state schools will improve: 25% will, 46% will not – net -21%
Britain’s economy will …
Last week’s Daily Telegrapharticle attacking YouGov’s polling raises some disturbing issues about the quality of political debate as we fast approach the general election.
Firstly, the article’s authors seem to have no understanding about how polls should be conducted. They complain that the raw data in one large aggregated survey “were…‘weighted’ using an undisclosed YouGov formula which reduced the lead to sex per cent .” But all reputable pollsters know that their sample will not usually be representative of the population, for example by having too few women or too many Guardian …
Indeed, the piece takes such a suspicious attitude towards weighting that it puts the word in inverted commas and talks about YouGov having “admitted” that it uses weightings.
My puzzlement is quite simple.
Every single political opinion poll published by The Telegraph during your time as editor has also involved weighting.
If it’s such a questionable act, why hasn’t your newspaper shopped itself first? And will you be abandoning your own practice of publishing weighted figures?
Two different stories today, unconnected in one way but both – particularly when put together – speaking volumes for the current state of the Conservative Party. Obviously, panic or disagreements are in no way involved. Not at all.
First we have ConservativeHome’s take on the party starting to use YouGov in addition to Populus:
Up until now now the Cameron team has had only Populus telling them what the outside world was thinking. The intelligence from Populus was brought to them by the same team who run operations in the party’s marginal seats. In other words our marginal seats operation wasn’t
I pointed out before that the key to getting a boost in support out of TV leader debates isn’t so much winning the debate as beating expectations: if people expected you to do dreadfully and you come out doing ok that’s almost always a boost to a campaign, whilst being seen as doing ok when the expectations were that you would walk it means you lose support.
So the pressure really is on David Cameron as he’s the one going in to the debates with highest expectations on him according to the latest MORI opinion poll:
Does the expenses scandal… Makes me more likely to vote at the coming election, to express my anger at the way some politicians have behaved 14%< Makes me more likely NOT to vote, because politicians are much the same, and I don’t trust any of them any longer 12%
Net: +2% Make no difference, I will vote anyway 64% Make no difference, I will NOT vote anyway 5% Don’t know 5%
The usual caveats apply that this is only one poll and also that people are often more likely to give what is seen as a socially acceptable answer than to …
Just over a year ago, I highlighted how YouGov consistently found the Conservatives relatively more popular amongst women than men compared to other pollsters:
YouGov, MORI and ComRes are the three of the main polling companies who also provide a gender breakdown of party levels of support using the same methodology as for their headline voting question…
Whilst YouGov consistently finds the Conservative party more popular amongst women than men, the other two consistently find the opposite. There is a similar difference amongst the pollsters when it comes to Labour support, though this time the gender pattern is reversed.
This week, for the first time, public opinion was tested on the government’s proposals to disconnect people from the internet for copyright infringement.
The political implications are profound, if our poll is to be believed. While Labour have certainly got this wrong, we are yet to see any UK parliamentary party fully backing the public’s instincts shown in this poll. Perhaps the Liberal Democrats will be ready to pick up the challenge.
In our poll, 42% said that disconnection, should it be applied to them, would disrupt their …
YouGov’s now annual mammoth marginals poll is out. It’s heavily talked about elsewhere, so here are a few extracts that are likely to be of particular interest to The Voice’s readers:
As was the case last year, there is still no sign of Liberal Democrat supporters tactically voting Conservative to oust Labour though neither is there any sign of them voting tactically against the Tories…
Sitting Liberal Democrat MPs continue to benefit from both anti-Conservative tactical voting and a personal vote…
respondents are far more likely to recall having received literature or seen adverts from the Liberal Democrats than the Conservatives.
An interesting little stat from YouGov’s latest tracker poll (with a hat-tip to Anthony Wells’ UK Polling Report blog). The internet polling company asked the question: Gordon Brown was asked on TV to respond to media rumours that he had been prescribed pills to help him cope with the stress of his job. Do you think it was right or wrong to ask him about this?
And here’s how those polled replied:
>> 22% – Right: the public have a right to know full medical details
>> 73% – Wrong: everyone, including the Prime Minister, has a right to privacy on medical matters that do not materially affect their work
>> 5% – Don’t know
We don’t usually do individual polls on The Voice, relying instead on Stephen’s monthly round-ups. But we do make exceptions when there’s something particularly striking or interesting about them and one of the recent YouGov questions falls into this category.
With the usual caveats about it a poll that is carried out in the middle of one party’s conference and that policy proposals can look different once they’ve been subject to constructive debate frequent attack from other parties, here it is:
The Liberal Democrats have proposed a new tax on the most expensive houses. Householders would pay an annual tax of …
At the weekend, I saw a presentation of the June polling findings from the British Election Study. The BES is a collaborative academic exercise run before and at each general election. It is designed to gather some of the key raw material about the public’s opinions which will then be available to anyone who subsequently pours over the election, trying to explain why it turned out as it did.
The June results including some striking figures on the public’s reaction to the MPs’ expenses scandal:
Have you heard reports and MPs’ expenses? Yes: 95%
We tend not to be too poll-obsessed here at LDV – of course we look at them, as do all other politico-geeks, but viewed in isolation no one poll will tell you very much beyond what you want to read into it. Looked at over a reasonable time-span and, if there are enough polls, you can see some trends.
Here, in chronological order, are the results of the twelve polls published in June:
Tories 37%, Labour 21%, Lib Dems 19% – YouGov/Telegraph (4th June 2009)
Tories 38%, Labour 22%, Lib Dems 20% – ComRes/Independent (9th June)
Tories 36%, Labour 24%, Lib Dems 19% –
Which daily newspaper do you read most often?
42% Express / Mail / Mirror / Record / Sun / Star
25% No newspaper
18% FT / Guardian / Independent / Times / Telegraph
15% Other
Welcome to the Sunday outing for our Daily View. As it’s a Sunday, today it comes with a moving, talking, full colour Hugo Chavez.
2 Big Stories
Gordon Brown – too popular for Labour’s own good
Yes, you read that right. In amongst all the speculation and rumour, the one substantive piece of news is the YouGov poll for Channel 4 of Labour Party members. Although the reporting has hyped up how unpopular Gordon Brown is with party members, the real problem for Labour is actually how much popularity he still retains:
Gordon Brown should step down immediately 21%
Gordon Brown should stay for the time being but step down before the general election 26%
Gordon Brown should lead Labour into the next general election 46%
So 46% want him to stay and fight the next general election, and 47% want him to go before the next general election. It’d have been better for Labour if Brown was less popular with members, as that might have given the dithering rebels the prod to dither less and rebel more. But with that split, it’s just a recipe for more dithering.
D-Day anniversay
The other big story in the news is the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings. It’s already been covered extensively elsewhere, so here instead is Vera Lynn singing at the 50th anniversary:
Today is (in case you hadn’t realised) polling day – for much of England that means local elections, for everyone it means European elections – which means it’s our last chance to look at the polls for the Euros, and try and make some sense of them. There have been 11 polls in the last month asking voters to say which party they’ll choose on 4th June:
Here they are in chronological order:
>> Con 37%, Lab 22%, Lib Dem 19%, Ukip 7%, Green 4%, BNP 4%, Nats 5% (YouGov certain to vote, 10th May)
>> Con 34%, Lab 25%, Lib Dem 20%,
Here are some proposals that have been made for reforming our political system. In each case do you agree or disagree with it?
Introduce a new voting system for electing MPs which would link the number of seats to the total vote of each party, and make it harder for a single party to win general elections outright.
Support: 52%
Oppose: 20%
Amongst Conservative voters:
Support: 40%
Oppose: 33%
Not surprisingly, Liberal Democrat voters are much keener, but it’s interesting to note that a majority of Conservatives agreed with this question.
The other question that particularly caught my eye was on MPs’ pay, where the …
We tend not to be too poll-obsessed here at LDV – of course we look at them, as do all other politico-geeks, but viewed in isolation no one poll will tell you very much beyond what you want to read into it. (And how true does that sentence read after the contrasting results in successive days from Populus and ICM, the former showing the Lib Dems as laggards, the latter as the real opposition.) Looked at over a reasonable time-span and, if there are enough polls, you can see some trends.
Here, in chronological order, are the results of the …
We’ve taken the slightly unusual step of inviting Tim Montgomerie of ConservativeHome to write this guest post as his latest internet venture is one on which there is much common ground.
It’s a great pleasure to write for Liberal Democrat Voice. I read it most days and learn a great deal from it. More than occasionally it gives me ideas for posts on ConservativeHome!
We have many things in common as Conservatives and Liberal Democrats and many things that divide us. Perhaps the most important area of common ground is our belief in a Britain where every person – regardless …
We’re mid-way through the campaign for the European Parliament elections – though, as yet, discussion of Britain’s role in the EU has not been the, erm, dominant story. But, still, there have been five polls to date in May specifically asking for the public’s Euro voting intentions, so let’s check out what they’ve been saying:
Here they are in chronological order:
Con 36%, Lab 25%, Lib Dem 20%, Ukip 7%, Green 4%, BNP 4%, Nats 4% (YouGov all naming party, 10th May)
Con 37%, Lab 22%, Lib Dem 19%, Ukip 7%, Green 4%, BNP 4%, Nats 5% (YouGov certain to vote, 10th May)
Okay, so it’s not the most controversial headline you’re going to read on a Lib Dem blog all week. But, still, I think it needs saying – because though we Lib Dems, especially in the blogosphere, tend to be quite good at criticising our leadership, MPs and other ‘powers that be’, I’m not sure we always spread the love when it’s deserved.
I kept my powder dry during the leadership campaign, didn’t declare my voting intention, have never publicly disclosed it since. I felt both candidates – Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne – had very real strengths. I also thought each …
We tend not to be too poll-obsessed here at LDV – of course we look at them, as do all other politico-geeks, but viewed in isolation no one poll will tell you very much beyond what you want to read into it. Looked at over a reasonable time-span and, if there are enough polls, you can see some trends.
Here, in chronological order, are the results of the eight polls published in April:
Tories 41%, Labour 34%, Lib Dems 16% – YouGov/S. Times (5th April 2009)
Tories 43%, Labour 30%, Lib Dems 18% – Populus/Times (7th April)
Tories 43%, Labour 26%, Lib Dems 21%
Yes, I know the monthly poll round-up here is sacred. But before we all chow down to our weekend Smeargate extravaganza, let’s briefly consider the latest exploits of BPIX.
As regular poll-watchers will know, we don’t incorporate BPIX’s figures into our monthly round-up at LDV because, uniquely among pollsters, their figures and filters are not published for scrutiny. It should be noted that BPIX commission Yougov to carry out the actual polling, but then apply their own undisclosed filters and methods to interpret the findings. BPIX only works for the Mail.
We tend not to be too poll-obsessed here at LDV – of course we look at them, as do all other politico-geeks, but viewed in isolation no one poll will tell you very much beyond what you want to read into it. Looked at over a reasonable time-span and, if there are enough polls, you can see some trends.
Here, in chronological order, are the results of the eight polls published in March:
Tories 42%, Labour 30%, Lib Dems 19% – Populus/Times (9th March 2009)
Tories 41%, Labour 31%, Lib Dems 17% – YouGov/S. Times (15th March)
Tories 42%, Labour 32%, Lib Dems 14%
For years, opposition parties have levelled the charge at Lib Dems that our supporters are chiefly a ‘neither of the above’ option, that the party is merely a repository for disenchanted protest votes. For years, Lib Dems have refuted the charge, arguing that the party is the only one which has continued to stand by its founding ideology, liberalism.
So I always take a close look at detailed opinion poll data to see if …
Rob Heale We must have more of an emphasis on HOUSING and HEALTH generally. The issue of Leasehold abolition, with the Government apparently prepared to wait 40 Years for...
Jason Connor The Greens, Lib Dems and Conservatives are all standing. They all see sense and believe in democratic choices....
Mick Taylor @Lawrence Cox. To read your comment one might want to believe that the Triple Lock has ensured pensioners have decent pensions. It hasn't and UK state pensions ...
Chloe A Blue Labour response recent events in Hampshire. Well worth a read.
https://www.paulembery.com/p/for-the-race-obsessed-british-state...
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