Pollsters: We are not skewing answers
By Aled Thomas
Polling organisation YouGov has denied suggestions the way it was conducting surveys is designed to diminish support for the Liberal Democrats.
Former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray attacked YouGov after a poster on his blog raised concerns about the “direct” nature of a question about Nick Clegg’s party.
The comment by Sealo0, on a discussion on ‘Cleggmania’ on politicalbetting.com, only paraphrased the YouGov question.
“Just done a YouGov, Mostly about Clegg & LD,” the poster wrote.
“Here was one of the question [sic]: ‘Nick Clegg says the other parties are to blame for the MP scandals, he has taken money from a criminal on the run, many of his MPs have been found guilty of breaking the rules and his own party issued guidance on how to fiddle the expenses system?’ I’d say that was fairly direct!”
Despite the paraphrased question not even containing an actual question, Mr Murray responded by calling on the pollsters’ senior management to resign.
His posted question was: “Actually that is important. Did they ask this non-question before asking about voting intention? If so, it is a clear attempt by Murdoch/YouGov to distort a poll to attempt to damage Lib Dem momentum.”
He went on: “That the Murdoch press pull such a stunt should surprise nobody. But even though they are getting huge money from Murdoch for these daily polls, YouGov must realise that this abrogates all professional methodology and breaches the ethics of the polling industry. The senior management of YouGov must resign.”
Mr Murray, now an independent writer and speaker on politics and international affairs, told politics.co.uk: “This is a totally unacceptable way of conducting polls. Even if they don’t do it to influence the voting intentions poll, this is push polling, which is used extensively in the US, but no reputable polling company would do it here.”
The YouGov poll for the Sunday Times and Sun was the only poll after Thursday’s debates to put the Liberal Democrats in third place.
But the polling company, which produces a daily tracker for the Sun newspaper denies all Mr Murray’s suggestions.
Director of political research Kate Davies said: “The Lib Dem statements were asked completely separately from our voting intentions polls for the Sun. We did not ask negative questions about the party before asking a question about voting intentions.
“YouGov conducts all kinds of research into all kinds of topics for all kinds of clients. The Sun is one such client of many. This poll was not conducted for a media organisation but for a private client looking to do private polling – and is not linked to our voting intentions polls. It was private polling for a private client. I cannot jeopardise client confidentiality by telling you who.”
Ms Davies added that Yougov does not engage in push-polling.
She said: “The accusations are simply not true. YouGov is a research company, not a marketing or advertising company.
“Research into attitudes towards policies or statements is something we conduct on a regular basis for research purposes, nothing else. This research was never destined for public consumption – and was conducted entirely separately from our voting intentions polls.”
