Boost for Nick & Dave from the pollster that can’t be arsed

Boost for Nick & Dave from the pollster that can’t be arsed


CON 40 (+4) LAB 25 (+1) LD 22 (+5)

All parties see increases from BPIX/YouGov

Thanks to “Me” on the ICM thread for picking up today’s BPIX/YouGov poll in the Mail on Sunday.

The shares above are compared with the last poll from the firm which appeared on August 23rd and had a massive 23% share for others. It seemed out of line then but this latest poll is very much showing the same picture as the other post-Lib Dem conference surveys.

What should be worrying for Labour delegates as they arrive in Brighton is that while the Lib Dems and Tories have benefitted from the big cut-back in “others” Labour has only moved on one point.

BPIX has been polling since before the last election and has never thought it necessary to join the British Polling Council. In all that time its website has consisted of a single page saying that the site is “under construction”. This must be one helluva job because it’s taken longer than T5 at Heathrow to build.

The result is that we can never see their detailed data tables and things like the precise wording of the questions that are put. This is an ongoing disgrace and I have a rant about it every-time one of their polls is published.

We do know that the fieldwork is carried out by YouGov and, I assume, uses the online firm’s polling panel. Given YouGov’s close involvement it ought to be making the detail available – perhaps this is one to raise formally with the BPC. I have spoken informally already with the BPC’s chairman.

Mike Smithson

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