How to improve your YouGov ratings
March 1st, 2005
- Get invited more and increase your weighting
Ten days ago I reported here how in recent surveys the weighting given to Sun readers was almost double that attached to Guardian and Indy readers.
After doing that piece I decided to see if I could improve the chances of me being invited to take part in polls by changing the basic information that YG have stored on me and, presumably, is used to determine which of the 50,000+ members on their panel are invited for a particular survey.
- The result has been astounding. In just nine days I have been asked to take part in three opinion polls
Site users who are on the YG panel will back me up when I say that to receive so many invitations in such a short period is extraordinary. So what can you do to increase your chances? This is what I did.
Say you voted Labour in 2001. YouGov operate on past vote recall weightings of C 28 Lab 56 LD 13.4 so Labour voters would seem to have a better chance. By contrast ICM’s weightings are C 30.1 LAB 46.5 LD 17.6
Say you read the Sun. In almost all of their surveys they do not reach their target for Sun or Star readers.
Deny that you ever watch Newsnight This question would appear to be there to identify those with a bigger than average interest in politics.
Down-play your personal economic position. This is what I did.
The amazing thing is that YG’s system allows you to go into your personal detail pages and change what you told them when you first registered.
© Mike Smithson 2005
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I have a nagging feeling in the back of my head noting that the labour 6 point labour lead last time appeared to come after you first raised this point and wondering, coincidence?
That is rubbish Paul. Go into the site archives and you will see that I have been raising these issues for nearly 3 months. My Sun point came out 5 days before ths latest survey.
It was on Feb 20 that I raised the Sun issue and announced that I was seeking to change my registered details.
On Jan 23 I had Mai.n feature headed “How much can we rely on YouGov?” which pulled together a number of key questions.
On January 8th I wrote about YG not including enough over 65s, the group that is most pro Tory.
It was on November 27 last year that I first raised YG weightings on past vote recall that seemed way out of line with other pollsters.
Well, when I read that Mike had changed his profile on YouGov and this had apparently provoked more contact from them I did wonder how many activists would follow suit. Mike has reiterated this today, so I suppose even more people will now change their profiles. Must there not be a point at which the level of inaccurate profiles renders the YouGov database inaccurate, along with their survey results ? Perhaps YouGov should no longer poll those who change their profiles, as well as those who have multiple profiles from the same IP address.
I’ve just checked my YouGov profile: having registered at the end of 2002, I was asked to do 25 surveys in 2003 (and got a cheque in October that year!), but only 9 in 2004, and none so far in 2005.
I’ve amended my newspaper from the Indy to the Mirror, and changed my voting preference from LD to DNV. I’ll see what happens.
I thought the whole advantage of YouGov’s system with respect to past vote was that people’s recollection can’t change over time (dependent on who is perceived to be doing well, or whether they remember the LibDems or not etc) - yet being able to change seems to make a mockery of this. Stephen Pollard wrote a (far more strident)piece about this and seemed to get a fairly convincing response from Stephen Shakespeare but this seems to reinforce a lot of what he was saying. In the interests of accuracy will you contact them to ask them what safeguards they have against this (or are you worried they’ll take you off their list and you’ll lose your 50p? ;-))
I think Paul’s point was that you said you were carrying out an experiment of changing your profile (and no doubt a fair few others did after reading it) and then ‘hey presto’ YouGov produce a suspicious poll way out of line with anything in the last 15 months. Coincidence?
I’ve also changed mine in the way Mike suggests.
In my own naive and innocent way, I thought that selection by YouGov was rather like winning the Premium Bonds - the more recent the information you gave them, the more likely you were to be asked to participate. (More cynically, I had also assumed that the probability of participation was inversely correlated to the likelyhood of Messrs. Shakespeare and Kellner having to write a cheque.) Certainly, it has been many months since I was last asked any questions by them. Maybe I should change “Financial Times” to “Daily Sport” and see what happens.
You would have thought that as Yougov use a higher Labour recall figure than ICM, that Yougov figure’s would tend (all other things being equal - which obviously they aren’t!) to favour Labour more than ICM. One more reason to doubt the accuracy of individual polls.
You despicable fiends. The polling industry, which actually provides a fine service to people has enough trouble without people attempting to distort it.
Just an aside Steve, the song ‘The Ace of Spades’ was actually about Lemmy’s addiction to a one armed bandit in his local chippy. I don’t know what relevance that has to MH. Maybe it is a new Conservative crime policy to make all bandits one armed - prevention is better than a cure
Mike - I seem to remember receiving an e-mail 3 or 4 years ago suggesting that I register with YouGov using ‘false’ details (eg claim to be a Labour voter etc). This was probably within a year or so of the last GE. I’ve long since got rid of those e-mails so I can’t remember any more of the details (and to be honest it seemed too much hassle so I didn’t bother registering).
However YouGov DO seem to produce results that are more closely aligned to actual election results than the other pollsters.
However if anyone from YouGov is reading this, it would seem to be a sensible precaution to ensure that knowledgable users can’t change their profiles willy-nilly and start to distort the results of a poll. Otherwise YouGov’s good reputation may start to suffer.
10 - the only other thing I know about Lemmy is that he has a largee collection of Nazi memorabillia.
Hey Stephen. It’s great to be in agreement. I see this as the start of a beautiful friendship
Steve. He started out as Jimi Hendrix’s roady, before joining Hawkwind - who threw him out because they were jealous that his forst outing as singer on ‘Silver Machine’ was their biggest hit. And he’s got a big mole on his chin!
11 - I suspect the danger is not large. Mike’s site is popular, but there are over 50,000 registered users and I suspect less than 1% visit here.
14 - Meanwhile on poptrivia.com …
I am a multi tasking anorak!
Ah but Tabman the whole point is that certain categories of people
1) are, I think, far more likely to be selected for a poll in the first place, because of a shortage of them on the panel
2) have far more influence on the polls outcome because of the large weighting given to their opinions.
An extreme example, but say that they need 15% of the poll to be Sun readers to be representative but only they can only find 5% then those people’s opinions are going to be massively important. And I’m also a bit suspicious (notwithstanding Mike and others mucking about) that any Sun readers replying to online political opinion polls are going to be representative of Sun readers as a whole.
Alex. I agree with you (is this the day that hell freezes over
). Running panel surveys is a very difficult business - we run a number for local authorities. However, I think that the point is is that from such a large database the Sun readers will be ‘over included’ in the sending out of the survey (we do similar things to get certain under represented groups) meaning that the final survey has a very reasonable balance. This should minimise the amount of weighting in the end. This is one of the major advantage of panel surveys rather than random samples. Amongst 50,000 therefore it would need an awful lot of people to alter their details to make any real impact on the panel.
There I was thinking that all these allegations of Lib Dem dirty tricks were so much Tory propaganda and Labour disinformation, and suddenly I’m exposed to them in the comfort of my own home… I think, Alex [18] we all have a gut feeling that internet polling ought not to work - how many “C2DE” women over 40, for example, have an e-mail address - yet so far Mr K and Mr S have got away with it.
Hi pop pickers - Bet fair have markets for turnout and size of majority (doesnt matter which party).
Current favourite for turnout is 55.00-59.99%
We probably agree more often than you think Graham. It’s just if you put an argument first, I sometimes feel compelled to take the opposite side (probably as a result of some pedantic error (pedantic error? - you know what i mean) you’ve made)
18-20 - I take all of your points, but you’d be surprised, I think, by the penetration of the internet into people’s homes now. I work in Telecoms, and there has been a massive take up of Broadband in the last couple of years. Plus, many people hitherto untouched by computers are having to use them in their jobs. Plus, as kids move away or travel many chose to keep in touch via email.
Admittedly, there will be groups where the economics of computer use won’t allow them to participate, but these are shrinking.
Good point, not many Sun or Star readers are going to be logging onto political sites compared to readers of higher quality papers.
YouGov it seems have a gaping whole in their selection/self-selection methodolgy and are likely to have a high number of members changing/giving false details compared to other pollers.
These false details could be from organised groups as directed by a spin doctor, or even members of rival polling organisations.
Yes YouGov may have been most accurate in the past, but effectively their polls have been rendered useless.
Alex. Do I make ‘pedantic errors’? I feel my weakness is my lack of pedantry and a tendancy to make broad sweeping statements, which I then under fire have to check my facts. As for errors - few so far
“Pedantic error” - an error (caused by ‘broad sweeping statements’)which I pedanticly pick up on
Alex me old mucker - I will endeavour to check all my facts before getting my argument right
There may be 50,000 members registered with YouGov, but how many are ACTIVE and take part in polls? I bet most aren’t.
I registered with YouGov when they started, expecting to see results rather than wanting to take part and have never replied to any of their later emails.
I bet most members aren’t active. If they were there wouldn’t be an apparent shortage of Sun readers.
Even withstanding the fact that a smaller percent of Sun readers might register than Mail or Independent readers etc, if the figure of ACTIVE members for YouGov was 50,000 there would be plenty.
If members are changing their details to become Sun readers and then are suddenly being selected for polls, it suggests a shortage of active members at YouGov and that their polling figures can be distorted by organised groups.
Pedantic Error - an error that would only bother a pendant - perhaps
Happy St Davids day to one and all……
Opinion poll by ICM on bbc.co.uk\wales
shows that 50% of people want the assembly to have most say on what happens in wales…
there is significant difference in choice of issues when people are asked what is the most important issue and what is the most important issues in wales….with affordable housing and council tax making it on to the welsh list..(which does not add up to 100% on bbc site)
Regardless of how you intend to vote which party has the closest policies to you:
Lab 30%
PC 12%
COn 10%
LD 9%
Dont know 33%
I am always surprised that pollsters ask what is the most important issue. Its a silly question as one issue alone rarely sways voters….when deciding the key priorites for local government its usual for surveys to ask people to pick the 3 most importants from perhaps 7 or more…why is this not done in political surveys..?
30 - not changed to cymrumark24/18 yet?
fantastic result though it was its just not the same as beating the world champions
Roll on March 19th Mark!
Betfair also have markets up on the number of seats to be won by each of the three main parties.
Anthony - I see only the Lib Dems 45 or less has actually been bet on yet
Assuming we beat Scotland Mark - will you become cymrumark5-0 when we finally throw the Irish monkey off our back at Cardiff?
Graham…bitter experience teaches me to never tempt fete
Have you looked at the poll stuff I posted above? Why do pollsters ask people to pick one issue instead of 3 or more from a selection…
There is an Irish monkey right here on your back Graham that has no intention of going anywhere!
Chrisco. Nothing perjorative was meant - meerly it is time that we finally won in Cardiff against the Irish - 22 years is a long long time.
cymrumark - I tend to agree with you - although I think that 2 choices would probably be enough. What we normally find with priorities is that after the second people become a great deal more ‘random’. It is a strange fact that ‘normal people’ (and I include nobody on this site) seem to get ‘hung up’ on one or 2 issues. There also appears to be less coherence in people’s views compared to the politically committed. It makes sense then to not look too hard at priorities for a market researcher, because multi answer variables take far longer and are far more complicated to analyse than single response answers.
Don’t worry Graham, I thought it funny: Monkey happens to be a nickname of mine…
It’s a decent argument against the STV as a voting system IMO.
I won’t ask Chrisco!
My longest running nickname is ‘Dumps’. I would stick with Monkey if I were you!
You could say it was a decent argument against democracy alex.
its intersting because mori…who did the polling in leicester about priorities never indicated that there was a problem asking people to pick up to three issues….but they were not assking all that many other questions….perhaps people just want to get it over with quickly…
the welsh poll on the face of it looks to be good news for us….or at least bad news for labour which is usually good news for us
I don’t want to get into a discussion about Mori again - I don’t think I could stand the pain.
. Seriously though, I am not saying that you can’t ask for 3, I just wonder about the usefulness of it.
There are other considerations. When compiling a questionnaire one of your aims as a researcher is to try to reduce the data as far as possible. People hate it because they think that you are trying to put them ‘in a box’. However, what happens if you give people greater free rein (i.e. an open question) is they tend to give you an answer that you had already provided a box for, and then you spend hours and hours sticking them back in those boxes.
The real answer to your question Mark is that surveys are there to give you general guides. They give you a feeling for the weight of support / lack of support for a party/policy/priority etc. If you want to get ‘richer data’ you need to employ other techniques like focus groups, observation, hall tests, in-depth interviews etc. A modern university research project will employ all of these techniques to build up a comprehensive picture - unfortunately the ‘real world’ doesn’t have the time or money to do this so we have to create surveys that provide answers to questions that are fast to the point and cost efficient.
Not really Graham - most people will give some thought to their first or second choice. Give them 5 or 6 and you end up having people elected because they’ve got a nice name, or because they have an interest in birdwatching or whatever. It happens all the time in university student union elections - where people who are at the top of the list, providing they provide a moderate manifesto, usually have a serious advantage.
Sorry alex. I was being facetious before
. However, just to be bloody minded (and because we have had our ‘love in’ for the day!) you could argue that because a large number of people have not thought their personal beliefs through carefully they are not in a position to make an informed choice at all. It therefore leads to the kind of campaigns where impression, image, presentation, spin and all the rest become paramount.
The logical conclusion to this argument is to have a set of ‘platonic’ electors who are well informed of all the relevant issues, policies etc. who will be better placed to choose a government that serves society to its fullest.
Having said that - they would be bound to become a bunch of self serving idiots, who ended up with their entrails in places they were not designed to operate in. It’s hopeless - it’s all hopeless.
47 - I’ve said it before, benign dictatorship is the only way! No good for betting though …
To “Dumps” at 47 - I recently heard of a book on that subject called “The Wisdom of Crowds”. Anyone know if it’s any good, or rubbish?
Here is an answer to a question from James Surowiecki, the author of ‘the Wisdom of Crowds’ that can make all of us on this website feel warm and fuzzy about what we do :-).
‘Can you explain how a betting pool can help predict the future?’
“Well, predicting the future is what bettors try to do every day, when they try to figure out what horse will win a race or what football team will win on Sunday. What horse-racing odds or a point spread represent, then, is the group’s collective judgment about the future. And what we know from many studies is that that collective judgment is often remarkably accurate. Now, we have to be careful here. In the case of a horse race, for instance, what the group is good at predicting is the likelihood of each horse winning. The potential benefits of this are pretty obvious. If you’re a company, say, that’s trying to decide which product you should put out, what you want to know is the likelihood of success of your different options. A betting pool—or a market, or some other way of tapping into the wisdom of crowds—is the best way for you to get that information.”
“The Wisdom of Crowds” is certainly a good read - I bought it from Amazon recently along with a copy of “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” written by by Charles Mackay about 150 years ago…….
Crowds tend to be very accurate predictors except when they get panicked and become mobs
Amalgamating the two viewpoints it seems the wisdom of crowds works well while you’re asking disinterested people to estimate the number of beans in a jar but breaks down when the twin demons of greed and fear get a hold. Then we get irrational bubbles, tulipomania, McCarthyism and so on. So if we ask a representative sample of two thousand disinterested people not how they intend to vote at the election, but rather what the result will be and the extent of the victory, you’d probably emerge with a pretty accurate idea of the outcome.
Alex. Which comes back to the ‘immigration debate’ and the problems of democracy. The majority of people, as has been shown have very sketchy and incomplete information about the reality of immigration, so it is very easy to ‘panic them’ into becoming a ‘mob’. This is of course true about other areas where people feel threatened such as crime, terrorism etc.
Unfortunately political parties use this to their advantage in appealing to the masses. Which is the big hole in the Rousseau, Voltaire et al style argument that assumes that the body politic is a reasonable beast and will rationally choose its governors in the ways described by the Social Contract. This may lead us to conclude that Pareto was fundamentally more correct when he argued that a liberal democracy was a sham with dialogue between the parties and the masses operating in only one direction.
I feel 21 again
Tabman at 48 - shucks, you’ve finally come round to my point of view - after all, I’m a pretty regular sort of guy
46. I have to say that your comments are extremely patronising to the electors of Ireland, Alex. There is no evidence that people in Ireland, in a general election, vote for candidates because they share an interest in birdwatching or any other of the facile reasons you gave. On the whole, voters tend to stop expressing preferences at the point they know little about the remaining candidates/parties/don’t care about them. Of course people in student elections give preferences to people they don’t know for stupid reasons, but it is easy to be immature with your vote in a student election because there is very little at stake.
Got things the wrong way round in that last post and inadvertently shared my email!
Re [57] - maybe not birdwatching, but isn’t there evidence from the Irish Republic that sons and widows of former TDs do better than other candidates?
kezhiwei - the fact that you acknowledge that people vote for stupid reasons in Student elections justifies my point that it is an argument against STV. That it might not be a good argument, or that it only applies in such situations does not invalidate it from being an argument. Quite where I mentioned the people of Ireland you tell me.
Graham 55 - it all depends what you expect from your democracy. I see it primarily as a means of removing bad governments, rather than a means of enacting the people’s wishes across all policy areas, which is about all we can expect from it. And I believe FPTP tends to be the best system for doing that
Define a ‘bad’ government alex.
59 - Mind you, without PR we have Ann Cryer, Hilary Benn, Bill Wiggin, Francis Maude…
LOL Graham. A ‘bad government’ is one rejected by the people
No alex that’s a rejected government.
As I believe FPTP is the best at enabling bad governments to be removed from office the two are essentially the same. Where the system fails to remove bad governments any other system would be worse.
Essentially ‘a government cannot be rejected without being ‘bad”, although the converse is not true.
If you want to bet on an STV election Paddy Power has odds for the Meath and Kildare North by-elections on March 11th.
Ann and Alan Keene, Gwilym Lloyd George, Megan Lloyd George, Winston Churchill (x2), Nicholas Soames, Peter Mandelson…
66 - how do by-elections work in Ireland? Is just one candidate chosen to replace the deceased/resigned TD?
60. I didn’t say your argument wasn’t an argument, I just said it was patronising!
68, yes, in effect it is Alternative Vote.
68. A normal STV election bv, just where the number of positions to be filled is one, so the quota is 50% of votes cast plus 1.
70-71: Duh, I should have worked that out! Thanks.
If it wasn’t then I think it was more patronising to the people of the UK than the people of Ireland!
lol alex. That’s like saying because the baby spits out the nice mushy carrot but eats the chocky bar then the latter is better for him. That is quite patently absurd. All it means is that the baby likes sweet things. I want a proper definition of a ‘bad’ government.
That said, obviously STV does have its downsides, mainly parochialism, but I think that’s offset by breaking the power of party machines, which is in my opinion an increasingly serious problem here.
Lorcan, I read on RTE that there was an opinion poll at the weekend that had Sinn Fein’s vote in the Republic unchanged at 9%, but couldn’t find any of the other details. I don’t suppose you know where it came from?
76, it was in Friday’s Irish Independent. I didn’t see it myself - the only other figure I heard about was Gerry Adams’s approval rating down from 51% to 30%.
Can I start again? Forget getting hung up on an arbitrary point at which a government becomes ‘bad’.
In a democracy the people elect the government. I believe, and i will stand corrected, that the motivation for most PR advocates is to get a Government which best reflects the political views and make-up of the country. PR is a system about electing governments. In practice this never works very well, for numerous reasons - some of which are mentioned above.
By contrast FPTP makes no such pretensions. FPTP tends to operate on the assumption that the existing government should stay in power (”Governments lose elections, oppositions don’t win them”). By and large Governments will remain in power unless the public feel they have good reason to remove them. FPTP is a system about rejecting governments.
If you are a democrat then to some extent you must accept that “bad governance” is something decided by the public. The trade-off between PR and FPTP is that PR is more likely to produce (notwithstanding arguments about “strong vs weak government”) a government that has the support of the people, but FPTP is more likely to result in the rejection of a Government that does not have the support of the people.
Does that make any sense whatsover?
Graham [74] - do you want the definition from us or are you going to sign up for a PhD in political philosophy? I was going to say that the way to tell a bad government is afterwards, but then I remembered that God can’t change the past, only historians can do that - btw, anyone know who said that first?
I think that’s a fair summary Alex.
Alex @ 78 - No, I disagree strongly! PR is NOT a system about electing governments! It is about electing legislatures! If our legislature (i.e. Parliament) is more representative, then one of the consequences is that a Government chosen from amongst its members might be “better”, but at least if legislation is passed through the legislature voters can be certain that it was supported by a representative cross-section of public opinion.
FYI Lorcan…
The party ratings are: FF 42pc (up 5pc since November); FG 20pc (down 3pc); Labour 12pc (down 1pc); Sinn Fein 9pc (down 1pc); Greens 5pc (unchanged); PDs 3 (down 1pc); and Independents/others, 10pc (up 1pc).
Yes Augustus. I got slightly confused there. Rephrasing:
Under PR the Government is chosen by the legislature, which is theoretically as representative as possible. The corollary is that the people can’t reject them.
83 Which is another way of saying that the people cannot reject themselves, as they are themselves sovreign!
Reductio ad absurdam! The case for PR is demolished!
Not at all! The government is replaced with one which is more representative, which was the object of the exercise.
Under FPTP the governement is, in effect, elected by about 10% of the electorate in 150 marginals; likewise for rejection!
82. Thanks Chrisco. Maybe a first by-election win while in govt since 1982 isn’t out of the question for FF ?
Back to my original article and Ive just been invited to do another YG poll the FOURTH since last Tuesday. Alas the browser on my mobile phone wont let me log on.
Is all this switching on PB the reason why You Gov are going to get more and more abnormal as the election approaches?
I would be surprised if they don’t post a response soon. It doesn’t do their business much good if there is a perception that this can take place
A genuine post from the Far Side: “Last Guest - Grow up you ugly Northern socialist trog - get back to your whippet and chips….”
LOL, the real posts on there are worse than the spam on here!
Chrisco, Which seat?
DD’s H&H (not being cryptic, just lazy as can’t remember how to spell it!)
83 - unfortunatly the people can never reject the govt, because it wins every general election…
I’d like to see a space on the ballot for ‘none of the above’ and if there are more ‘none of the above’s then that area doesn’t get an MP and an automatic vote against any proposed legislation is recorded in the House.
Even better, if there are more people not voting than the winning candidate’s tally then the above automatically applies.
That’d make politicians have to make themselves more relevant, and encourage turnout
I’m not sure there’d be many MPs after the 2001 Election under those rules :->
Ta. I know where you mean!
hang on. If you lie on the yougov site to get surveyed isn’t this fraud - since remuneration is involved? If this is the case then is this site now encouraging fraud?
Re [96] - something similar was tried in Russia IIRC after the fall of communism, but the number of seats failing to record a 50% poll (required to return a member to the Duma) became embarrassing…
91 - And with YouGov floating on AIM soon you would have thought that they would want this cleared up ASAP.
I’ve come to this a bit late, but my views, for what they are worth, are:-
1. An Independent candidate would only succeed against Blair if the other two parties stepped aside - in Tatton, Bell was not so much an “Independent” as a “Popular Front” candidate, which he was not in Brentwood (or was it Billericay? Memory’s gone!)
2. There is no way the Tories and/or Lib Dems would stand down - if only out of fear. If I recall correctly, candidates have a few days’ grace after lodging their Nomination Papers in which they can withdraw: if there was no Tory or Lib Dem in Sedgefield, I can envisage Labour candidates withdrawing (or being withdrawn) in West Dorset, Haltemprice, Inverness, even Folkestone and Hythe.
3. “That said” ™ it aint half fun trying to select the appropriate candidate! How about (in no particular order) Jonathan Porritt, Alan Shearer, Jim Naughtie or any Dimbleby that’s not working on election night?
Interestingly, just been asked to do my first YouGov poll in ages today. Included previous vote recall, how your family normally votes, and interestingly, you had to give your postcode as part of the poll, whereas they already have that on file…
I have been following this debate with some interest. For the record, we routinely monitor the changes in the details that YouGov panel members give about themselves. When necessary (and it is very rare that it is) we invoke Clause 4 of YouGov’s terms and conditions:
“When registering as a Registered User, and in consideration of YouGov granting you access to, use of, and the ability to participate in the ‘interactive’ elements of the Services, you agree to: (a) provide true, accurate, current and complete information about yourself as prompted by the Site’s Registered User registration form (such information being the “Registration Data”) and (b) maintain and promptly update the Registration Data so as to keep it true, accurate, current and complete.
“If you provide any information that is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete, or YouGov has reasonable grounds to suspect that such information is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete, YouGov has the right to suspend or terminate your current access to, use of, and/or participation in, the ‘interactive’ elements of any or all of the Services, and refuse you any future use of any or all of the Services.”
Fortunately, very few people seem to have taken your advice to breach this condition and tell lies about themselves.
Peter Kellner
Chairman
YouGov
How are your knuckles feeling, Mike?
Last Friday I corrected my YouGov details back to what they really should be.
Peter 103. Thank you for your comment. I wrote the original piece because I was amazed to discover that while changing my employment details on my YouGov profile that it was possible, also, to amend my 2001 past vote recall. That surely should be locked in and the system changed accordingly. Choice of newspapers does change and clearly provision for amendment should be possible.
In general the overall point I was making should be helpful to YouGov which is often criticised, here and elsewhere, about having an abnormal panel because, it’s said, that only those interested in politics would register.
I do worry, after trying my little experiment, about the base of Sun readers which would seem to have a big impact on the overall figures.
Ah, so ‘old’ YouGov has its own Clause 4…surely time for ‘new’ YouGov to abolish it.
Interseting article by George Trefgarne in the Telegraph today. He appears to be citing YouGov’s flotation as an example of an AIM bubble, inflated by Gordon Brown’s 10% Corporation Tax rate for ‘entrepreneurs’ and VCT tax relief.
OTOH he states that YouGov made £600K profit on £1.9m sales last year. Perhaps the YouGov pannelists should be demanding a raise ?
109 , free slots , Welcome to our musings , please join us on our recent threads.
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