I have been unmasking the sleazy Murdoch propaganda vehicle that is YouGove, founded by the current Tory candidate for St Albans, and whose Chief Executive Officer is “Sleazy Stephan” Shakespeare, close friend and former PR adviser of Jeffrey Archer, failed Tory parliamentary candidate in Colchester (where he was unexpectedly beaten by the Lib Dem, explaining his huge bitterness towards them), and co-founder of Conservative Home website.
Michael Crick has revealed how YouGove fixed the instant poll after the last leaders’ debate. This was an internet poll taken between just 9.27pm and 9.31 pm. Which means that, voting opened immediately after David Cameron finished his closing statement without waiting for the other candidates’ closing statements. Voting closed just after Nick Clegg’s closing statement got started.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/michaelcrick/2010/04/polling.html
This poll enabled YouGove’s main customer Murdoch’s Sky News to shrill an instant victory for Cameron, ignoring all the other Clegg victory polls that were taken after he had had a chance to give his closing speech.
YouGove is a disgrace.
This reminds me of Michael Moore’s movie-documentary where one of Murdoch’s US TV station announced the winner of the Aemrican Presidential election, then chnaged their minds, and elected someone else instead, George W. Bush I think his name was.
Good stuff, Craig. Keep up the questioning. There is a near hysteria amongst the Murdoch press and their allies that their customary manipulating of the British public is not working as it used to. It would seem that there is no depths to which they will not sink in their determination to call the shots. It is understandable in light of the Cameron intention to get rid of Ofcom, which will open the door for Sky to become a UK Fox – imagine people like Gaunt and Littlewood endlessly haranguing us under the guise of news and chat shows. There are many reasons to oppose the less than honest Tories, but surely this is one of the most important.
Sadly a lot of our world is rigged, but people aren’t as stupid as the riggers believe:
“Sign of the Times: Amazon Rank Spencer 40 v. Romm 2087
Dr. Roy Spencer’s new book The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World’s Top Climate Scientists is the 40th best selling book on Amazon. Also just released, Climategate: A Meteorologist Exposes the Global Warming Scam by Brian Sussman is the 52nd best selling book on Amazon. In contrast, Straight Up: America’s Fiercest Climate Blogger Takes on the Status Quo Media, Politicians, and Clean Energy Solutions released 5 days earlier than the 2 books above by climate hyper-alarmist Joe Romm has an Amazon rank of 2087, despite a push by Al Gore. Spencer outselling Romm 52 to 1: Another inconvenient truth.”
Temp>CO2 not v.v.
YouGov appear to be financially rather fragile at the moment:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/marketforceslive/2010/apr/12/market-report
This might also contribute to their apparent need to provide the ‘right’ answers for their clients…
I’m confused. Is ‘YouGove’ the same as ‘YouGov’, or is it a different bunch of chancers hoping we won’t notice a misspelling ?
If people started answering the survey before Nick Clegg had made his final speech, then isn’t it conceivable that those people had already up their mind?
Reading some of the comments here, that’s over a thousand people giving their opinion before the final speech was over:
http://www.research-live.com/why-the-thirst-to-be-first-can-leave-you-high-and-dry/4002548.blog
IanM I think you mean Littlejohn?
PS Where are Eddie and Larry from St Louis these days??
Hardly surprising. However, you put it all together so well so you deserve a round of applause….clap…clap…clap…clap. What would you do Craig if you were prime minister? I suppose that is a big question, if any what of what you would do…do you think would make a difference. Would you pull troops from not just Afgh & Irq but other places they may have no purpose other than to satisfy a foreign policy which can never change, and never will.
Richard
sorry, standing joke conflating YouGov with Tory neo-con jerk Michael Gove.
gudj
The point is that nobody had the opportunity to see all of Clegg’s closing speech then vote. When you think about it, only Cameron supoorters would be like to watch just his closing speech then think “sod the others, I’m voting now”. Clegg supporters would be likely to want to hear him speak. So of course it distorts.
Just had a twitter argument with a bod from C4 production team who says ‘he knows a director’ of last week’s Debate and the accusations of bias are ‘paranoid hysteria’ – has anyone actually tallied the cuts-away from Nick Clegg vs the time when Cameron was speaking? (and where to – I swear I didn’t see a cut to behind from Cameron, and several for Clegg… it was hardly his best side…)?
I saw it within 5 minutes of the start, but I’m used to Fox News playing tricks and was expecting it (thought the graphics behind were particularly neat – a red tick over Cameron, Brown slanting to one side like a drunk and Clegg cut off at the neck… – classically subtle stuff)
SO anyway – anyone got a spare 90 minutes with nothing better to do?
“sorry, standing joke conflating YouGov with Tory neo-con jerk Michael Gove”
Thanks, Craig. I thought it would be something like that, what really confused me was discovering that http://www.yougove.co.uk exists.
Many people in the UK and USA as they get older and things change, they are sat at night in front of their Television Screens and they think it no longer exists – or maybe they never even found it as a Child
But Community does Exist
It is out there – You just need to leave your house.
It doesn’t matter if you are 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 or even 90 coming on 100…
It is still there…
It is about being nice to people and talking to them about their real lives – not what their jobs are – necessarily – but about how they are – about their relationships with their family and friends
It is O.K. to be 15
And behave as if you are 15
And dance and play like you are 15
So long as you talk and show interest in other peoples lives….
Like the Talking Heads Song
You may find yourself 75 years Old
And you are not worrying about death…
You are Dancing and You are Talking and You are Drumming…
And You and Your 79 Year Old Mates
Just Decide To Do it For Fun
You Perform an Ancient Old Play
Just Like Willian Shakespeare…
Except it was written before his time
And then later – you look around you and everyone has discarded their Zimmerframes and are Dancing as if they were Still 15 Years Old
If you don’t understand what I am writing, then you have never really understood how Good We Are
Us Human Beings
We are Really Nice
Tony
Ipsos-MORI cites UK pollsters’ “sophisticated methodology” as possible bias highlighted
http://www.rssenews.org.uk/articles/20100419
More polling bias
Tony, it would be nice if all of us were as nice as you say. Unfortunately there are exceptions, notably the owner of this website, witness his hate campaign against YouGov. He’s a pot calling the kettle black.
Richard L – hate campaign? I guess you think the charges of bias to be groundless, then? And do you regard the yougov screenshot in the ‘Push Polling’ post as fake?
I’ve no ideological axe to grind here – well, so far as I am not a Lib Dem. But if a respected pollster can be persuaded to create this sort of aggressive propaganda, then shouldn’t Tories worry about how fair it is, even if it gives them some temporary marginal advantage?
I have taken the liberty of copying and pasting the offending pages onto my blog, in case the thought-police succeed in their attempt to stifle debate. I suggest other bloggers here do the same.
Craig
I have taken the liberty of copying and pasting the offending pages onto my blog, in case the thought-police succeed in their attempt to stifle debate. I suggest other bloggers here do the same.
Marvellous stuff. I do hope they continue with the action, as it would be disatrous for them. Not sure what you said that was wrong. I actually took part in the first debate and was unashamedly Cleggy in my leanings. They didn’t ask for my ‘immediate’ reaction for the next two.
Read into that what you will. I’m sure it was just an oversight.
Keep up the free speech, after all that is what OPINION polls promote isn’t it?
htt://theurbaneguerilla.posterous.com