YouGov Push Polling 46

 in The Election by

YouGov spluttered and denied push polling in response to my exposure of their push polling.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/04/sky_leaders_deb.html

Where did they publish their denial? Conservative Home!!!!! Entirely appropriate, in fact.

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2010/04/the-shakespeare-report-message-testing-v-push-polling.html

Here is what Mr Shakespeare, Chief Executive of YouGov, says:

Push-polling is a very different beast. Push-polling is unethical. Push-polling is conducting a poll to influence a respondent for some particular purpose. Mainly it is when people are pretending to conduct a poll, but actually they are contacting hundreds of thousands of people to repeat attack lines ?” it’s campaigning masquerading as polling, and in New Hampshire it’s even illegal (and quite right too).

Another variant of push-polling (at least that’s how the phrase is often used) is when you ask ‘questions’ designed to influence the outcome of a poll. For example, if I ask you to choose which you like best from a list of positive attributes about a candidate and then ask you who you would want to vote for.

Message testing is an extremely valuable and reasonable form of research. Push-polling of any kind is plain wrong. YouGov, like all members of the British Polling Council, does lots of message-testing, and zero push-polling.

I hope that’s clear.

Have a close look at Stephan Shakespeare

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That is the face of a liar. YouGov did ask the question I initially quoted, smearing Nick Clegg over campaign donations from a criminal. Oh, and here is a screenshot of a YouGov online poll:

pushpolling.jpg

I have been sent this by someone who assures me it is genuine. I should state that YouGov have refused either to confirm or to deny if it is genuine.

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46 thoughts on “YouGov Push Polling”

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  • Sarah

    Sky News have the brilliant John Kampfner giving his views at the moment.

    They’re way out of their comfort zone now!

  • Jiff

    Ken Clarke supports the Lib Dem position on Trident:

    http://www.iewy.com/8629-clarke-blows-hole-in-tory-trident-policy-says-davey.html

    Field Marshall Lord Bramall, General Lord Ramsbotham, General Sir Hugh Beach and Major-General Patrick Cordingley support the Lib Dem position on Trident.

    http://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/trident-under-fire-1.699085?referrerPath=home

    Who exactly is it that supports the Labour and Conservative position on Trident?

    It wouldn’t be the people who stand to make scores of billions of taxpayers money from its retention, would it?

  • Jiff

    Michael Ancram supports the Lib Dem position on Trident. Daily Telegraph editorial supports the Lib Dem position on Trident.

    Tories and Labour talking total cobblers about the Lib Dem position on Trident, using scare tactics, strawmen and voodoo pins.

    The sooner these old parties are consigned to history the better. They’re a total insult to democratic discourse.

  • Jiff

    Poll of 2,000 members of the diplomatic, defence and academic communities by one of Britain’s leading think-tanks, indicates support for the Lib Dem policy on Trident.

    “The poll, conducted over the past week, represents the views one of the most influential bodies in Britain.”

    “I think there is a growing awareness in the interested community that we cannot go on as we are,” said Michael Clarke, the institute’s director. “Defence has been running into a financial brick wall which everyone now accepts. And also the world is now changing around us faster than we can adapt.”

    “Only 7 per cent of respondents support the assessment of the Prime Minister, who argues that the Government is already adapting sufficiently to changing circumstances.”

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7104234.ece

    Just shows that Labour and Conservative have become very lazy in debate, relying on smear, strawmen and a compliant media to do the job for them.

    Let’s put them both out of our misery and get some real debate back into politics again.

  • Tris

    Is it not a case of whoever is PM wants to retain the nuclear weaponry because it entitles them to a seat at high table, and a place in history?

    The fact that the thing is useless and costs £100b, when the troops they have permanently at war can’t get a pair of boots, is of no import to someone who wants to have his place in history.

  • Ruth

    I agree with Mark. Craig’s doing very well.

    This shows most probably what the outcome of the election is going to be.

    The first debate as intended drove up the Liberal Democrat support, which obviously has taken away the Labour/Conservative so all parties have a similar percentage.

    Now we’re getting carefully sequenced statements that a hung parliament will be disastrous for the economy.

    So what will happen?

    The logical answer is a repressive government of National Unity, which has been predetermined.

  • Sarah

    Turns out Nadhim Zahawi, YouGov board member, worked on Lord Archer’s mayoral bid too, alongside Stephan Shakespeare.

    Consider this rather moving reflection on Stephan’s close relationship with Archer.

    “The first indication of the close bond between Archer and Shakespeare comes from the Andy Warhol originals which dominate the lounge of Shakespeare’s Barbican flat. Archer is a renowned art collector, and owns the Peter Gwyther Gallery in Mayfair, of which Shakespeare is director. They first met as Shakespeare stood for the Tories in

    Colchester in the 1997 general election. Considered unlikely to win,

    Shakespeare asked the populist Archer to come and help. This Archer did, and Shakespeare came second on a smaller swing to Labour than the national average.”

    http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/102129/

  • George Dutton

    Ruth

    Spot on.

    What we are watching is a fight between individuals standing for three far right wing parties with only one thing on their minds…their own self-enrichment,as time will tell.

  • tony_opmoc

    Some people are getting all excited about the Political equivalent of Simon Cowell’s productions…

    Pop Idol – later inflicted on the USA with American Idol…

    Britain’s Got Talent

    The X Factor…

    etc…

    What the audience doesn’t realise, is that the vast majority of these “Musicians” have hardly any talent at all. They haven’t worked and learnt their Craft for Years from being a Child. Their talent is superficial. Whilst the captive audience will buy their product – they only do so, because they are completely unaware of anything else.

    The current political debate is much the same. The 3 main parties have all been bought and paid for and are being stage managed not to represent the views of the people of this country – but to represent the views of the rich elite who are in control.

    Wendy got it completely right on another thread when she said

    “i think you dont understand, all of the party leaders are signed up to the pro israel (ie not for palestinian people rights) and neo conservative foreign policy. you will not get anything different, that is iran paksitan and the african wars are all on the table.

    it was not without reason that from the iraq war usa politicians and generals claimed it to be a ‘war of 100 years’.”

    By all means partake in this farce if you want to…

    But the real views of a large percentage of British people will not be represented – and anyone who actually may want to present them will never be given the opportunity to do so…

    You cannot therefore vote for anyone who will represent your views.

    This is not democracy.

    Even I only discovered Rage Against The Machine nearly 20 years later – and that was as a result of seeing some young musicians playing it live.

    Extract

    “This time the bullet cold rocked ya

    A yellow ribbon instead of a swastika

    Nothin’ proper about ya propaganda

    Fools follow the rules when the set commands ya

    They said it was blue

    When the blood was red

    That’s is how you got a bullet blasted through your head

    They load the clip in omnicolor

    They pack the 9, they fire it at prime time

    Sleeping gas, every home was like Alcatraz

    And mutha fuckas lost their minds

    Just victims of the in-house drive-by

    They say jump, you say how high

    No escape from the mass mind rape

    Play it again jack and then rewind the tape

    Play it again and again and again

    Until ya mind is locked in

    Believin’ all the lies that they are tellin’ ya

    Buying all the products that they are selling ya

    They say jump

    Ya say how high

    Ya brain dead

    Ya gotta fuckin’ bullet in your head”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0j0GCbMC7A

    Tony

  • Tim

    The point, Tony and George, is to get proportional representation.

    Without that nothing else is possible.

    One of the reasons that elites win so easily is that they are practical people who consider process and logistics when planning their campaign. Their enemies are often wooly airheads who live in the abstract impossible.

  • George Dutton

    “proportional representation”

    Tim

    You mean like the one they have in the(so called)scottish parliament. Yes indeed, they now have five far right wing parties.

  • Tim

    Well George if that’s what people vote for that’s what they vote for.

    The point is that you’ve no chance of changing anything with FPtP whereas with PR you’ve got some chance.

  • Tim

    You can’t change the past.

    The point is that with PR we’re unlikely to be so easily led to war again.

    What you’re arguing for is in effect to continue the past.

  • George Dutton

    Tim

    You miss my point. I cannot vote to kill people/to do something that is wrong no matter what the gift is.

    The emphasis being on “I”.

  • tony_opmoc

    What really pisses me off, is that I think he is a good man. He has got his heart in the right place. I think he is very good at what he does. I think he is one of the best.

    But I will not vote for him again, unless as I have previously stated – he publicly terminates his connections to a Foreign Government

    I want him to represent My Interests.

    Not someone else’s

    I am not paying him anything to represent me.

    The State of Israel has paid all his expenses – to travel and see what The State of Israel wants him to see – no doubt under the Protection of the State of Israel.

    I don’t mind him having had the experiences of seeing what the State of Israel have done to Palestinians…

    And I am not asking him to pay any money back to them.

    I just want him to publicly renounce and resign from his Israeli connections.

    Perhaps say sorry, and do his best to raise the funds that the Israeli Government paid for his expenses to help do something for the Children of Gaza

    Otherwise He Can FUCK OFF

    Tony

  • Mark Golding - Children of Iraq

    Perhaps this will change Nick Clegg’s mind:

    U.S. and allied special forces in Afghanistan killed 2 civilian men, 2 pregnant women and a teenage girl in Gardez, and they then tried to hide their crime. We can’t let them get away with a cover-up. Watch our new video featuring an exclusive interview with a survivor, and sign our petition calling for an independent, U.N.-led investigation.

    In this night raid on Feb. 12, special forces mistakenly attacked a baby shower. Instead of getting immediate medical treatment for the wounded, special forces personnel focused on destroying evidence, digging the bullets out of the bodies.

    Gen. McChrystal’s P.R. team fought for weeks to obscure the truth. They lied about finding the women dead when they arrived. They smeared journalists who questioned their story. On April 4, they admitted to killing all of the innocent victims, including the women.

    After this outrageous behavior, McChrystal says we should trust his forces to investigate themselves. That’s ludicrous.

    Watch the survivors video and sign the petition

    http://www.facebook.com/rethinkafghanistan?v=app_10531514314

    Thank-you

  • mike cobley

    LWTC249 – get your facts straight. Nick Clegg clearly stated that the invasion of Iraq was wrong. Nor would the LibDems keep quiet about Gaza, Yemen or helicopter murders in Baghdad – I’m in the Liberal Democrats and I dont stay silent on these matters. And I’m not the only one. But hey, I know that doesn’t fit the neat little hater picture you have of us so I’m sure that what I’ve said here wont make any difference to your views. Some day you’ll realise that we’re on the same side.

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