Daily Telegraph Accuses YouGov of Labour Bias

In the UK, national newspaper The Daily Telegraph has accused online research specialist YouGov of overstating support for the Labour party in its pre-election polls - claims which the firm's President Peter Kellner strongly refutes.

The paper reports that YouGov and Experian recently conducted a study on the voting intentions of more than 16,000 people, from which the firms concluded that the Conservative lead over Labour was 12.5%, with the Tories on 40.8%, Labour on 28.3% and the Liberal Democrats on 17.4%.

However, information 'leaked' to the paper showed that these figures were then weighted using what the paper describes as an 'undisclosed YouGov formula', which reduced the lead to 6%.

In response, Kellner 'admitted' to the newspaper that his firm had adjusted its data, but explained that this had been done 'purely for statistical reasons to reflect the likely election result'.

On a blog which outlines his reply to The Daily Telegraph's claims ( http://today.yougov.co.uk/commentaries/peter-kellner/yougov-and-daily-telegraph ), Kellner stated that the raw data YouGov supplied to Experian was unweighted and from a number of polls, some of which were for market research purposes and not specifically designed to be politically representative.

'It is common practice to weight raw data - all reputable polling companies do this,' Kellner explained in his response. 'You say Experian regards the data as 'statistically sound', and so do we. That is not the same thing as saying it did not need weighting.'

Commenting on the leak to the newspaper, Kellner added his view that the person trying to persuade The Daily Telegraph that this is a serious issue 'is either ignorant, or mischievous, or both'.

For the past eight years, YouGov has conducted regular surveys for the Daily Telegraph, but recently agreed a deal with News International to supply daily polls to The Sun and Sunday Times.

Separately, following today's confirmation that the general election will take place on 6 May, YouGov's Joint CEO Nadhim Zahawi has stepped down from his role to begin canvassing as the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Stratford-on-Avon. Should he be elected as a Member of Parliament, Zahawi will immediately resign from the firm's Board.

Web site: www.yougov.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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