YouGov enters election 'close' period

YouGov's official response to the unsuccessful attempt by a party to influence the outcome of our polls

YouGov enters election 'close' period

There have been reports in parts of the blogosphere that certain YouGov members have been attempting to recruit BNP members to the YouGov panel, in order to influence the results of polls and generate revenue for the BNP. Here is YouGov’s response to these reports.

YouGov actively recruits the majority of our panel using a variety of techniques, although self-signup and referrals from other members are also possible. We constantly monitor the profile of new panel members, and track differences in survey results, to ensure that our panel is representative, and to protect the quality and integrity of our data. Moreover, YouGov’s sampling methods ensure that new members who sign themselves up cannot have a statistically significant impact on any YouGov polling results.

As a further test, YouGov has examined the results of the survey conducted after BBC Question Time poll. The survey, of 1314 electors, included 156 who had joined our panel since May 2009. This covers the period when, it is claimed, BNP bloggers advised party members to join our panel. Of these 156, just one respondent said they would vote BNP in a general election. Any attempts to infiltrate YouGov's panel with the aim of increasing the BNP's reported support have plainly failed. We are not surprised: the number and characteristics of people joining the panel since May have been no different from normal.

Nevertheless, to put the issue beyond doubt, and in line with our practice at the last general election, we had already started a "close" period, during which no new self-signups or member referrals to YouGov will be invited to take part in political polls. This "close" period started on September 1 and will last until after the election.

Any panel member who acts, or entices others to act, in a way that seeks to distort our data violates our rules. We apply various techniques to detect such actions and remove offenders from our panel. In practice the impact of this is statistically insignificant; but we consider it vital to take all possible steps to protect the quality and integrity of our data, and so maintain our record as Britain's most accurate survey research agency.

Peter Kellner
YouGov

Poll: BNP leader Nick Griffin 'lied' over Holocaust

More than two in three Britons believe Nick Griffin is a Holocaust denier despite the BNP leader’s claim to the contrary during his controversial Question Time appearance.

In a poll conducted exclusively for the JC by YouGov this week, 1,409 adults were asked if they were convinced by Griffin’s belated acceptance of the Holocaust. Sixty-nine per cent responded that “Griffin is still at heart a Holocaust denier and only pretends to have changed his views to make the BNP appear more moderate”.

Just 14 per cent agreed that Griffin now genuinely acknowledged that the Shoah did take place. Among Labour and Lib-Dem voters, four out of five said Griffin still denied the Holocaust. YouGov also asked whether British Jews had “reason to be fearful if the BNP gained significantly in strength”. Fifty-four per cent responded that Jews would have cause for fear — with the figure rising to 64 per cent among Londoners polled. Seventy-two per cent said Muslims should fear a more powerful BNP.

The responses demonstrate that the BNP has failed to achieve the hoped-for bounce from Griffin’s slot on Question Time, which attracted a record eight million viewers.

YouGov president Peter Kellner was surprised that “such a big majority thought Griffin was still a Holocaust denier”. It showed that attempts to convince voters that he believed in the Holocaust, and was a friend of Israel, had failed. “However, a lot of people still support what the BNP stands for.” If its support reached 10 per cent, it could become a serious and divisive political force.

In an earlier poll for the Daily Telegraph, YouGov found that 66 per cent of Britons would not under any circumstances consider voting BNP in a local, general or European election. Only four per cent would “definitely consider voting BNP”. Asked for their views on a variety of fringe parties, 71 per cent expressed negative opinions about the BNP, as opposed to two per cent who were “very positive” and seven per cent who were “fairly positive”.

Community and anti-racist leaders were split over the impact made by Griffin on Question Time. Veteran anti-fascist Gerry Gable said it had served to wake up the many who might have been persuaded that the BNP had reformed.

Holocaust Educational Trust chairman Lord Janner felt Griffin had come across badly, “but the fact of his appearance has given status to the BNP, which in the long run could do great harm to the Jewish and other minority communities”.

Jewish Council for Racial Equality director Dr Edie Friedman said “Griffin’s comment about the BNP supporting Israeli actions in Gaza was a sinister attempt to demonstrate pro-Jewish and anti-Muslim credentials.”

JC Online

Griffin TV appearance fails to lift BNP support in latest polls

The public is more balanced about the British National Party than Peter Hain and other alarmists. Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time last Thursday has had no effect on the BNP’s rating. There is a big difference between public anxieties that the BNP seeks to exploit and voters’ willingness to back the party.

Two polls since Question Time show no evidence of any BNP bounce. Its support remains in the recent 2 to 3 per cent range: and between 1.5 and 3 per cent over the past year according to Populus. (These ratings are below those recorded by the Greens and the UK Independence Party.) Small fluctuations at this low level do not mean anything because of the margin of error. Moreover, the number having a positive impression of the BNP has fallen from 11 to 9 per cent since June.

Anthony Wells, of UK Polling Report website, concludes: “Despite all the hoo-ha and protests, despite the millions of people who watched Question Time, it doesn’t seem to have made any significant difference to how the public view them, or how likely they are to support them (at least, not yet).”

Not yet is an important caveat. The alarmists have focused on last Saturday’s YouGov poll in the Telegraph identifying 15 per cent who say it was possible that they would vote BNP in a future local, general or European election, and the 7 per cent who say they would “definitely or probably” consider doing so. But the same poll showed BNP support still at just 3 per cent.

An analysis on the Political Betting website of a mass of polling data shows that two thirds of BNP supporters did not vote for any of the big three parties in 2005, and most did not vote at all. Only a fifth are former Labour voters. Overall, they are more likely to be working class than other parties’ voters. The BNP’s real success is in mobilising previous non-voters.

This is not, however, an argument for complacency. There are high levels of support for issues championed by the BNP. An ICM poll for the News of the World had two thirds believing that recent immigrants get more favourable housing and state benefits compared with “Brits”. Three fifths say mainstream parties have “no credible policies” on immigration but only 44 per cent agree that the white working classes have been abandoned by the mainstream parties, with 52 per cent disagreeing.

The BNP matters because it articulates and distorts the fears of the disaffected about being squeezed out of public services. The party will probably win votes in a few areas but it is not a serious electoral threat nationally.

Times Online

YouGov defrauded in BNP poll sting

YouGov - being conned by the BNP

We've all known for ages that the BNP's legions of keyboard warriors are encouraged to vote in online polls where the result, if tilted, is advantageous to the party, but the BNP now appears to have taken this con trick one step further and is supporting a call on its own website to defraud money from YouGov and pay it into the party's coffers.

British Patriot, an administrator on the BNP's own social network, has called on members to join YouGov so that they can be on the list of people to be called when there is a poll to be carried out. As members, these people are given 50p per survey which is paid to them when the amount owed reaches £50. British Patriot suggests;

'Despite recently getting two MEPs elected our support in Yougov polls has recently dropped to 3% (just 1% in Scotland). One of the main reasons people don’t vote for us is because they believe we are a wasted vote, and it’s online polls such as Yougov that give them this impression! If EVERY BNP supporter joined Yougov, we could put our support on a par with the Lib Dems and possibly higher!

On top of this we could actually raise money for the Party via Yougov as you actually get paid for participating in surveys. I have already been sent a £50 cheque by Yougov which I donated to the party. Imagine if every BNP supporter signed up to Yougov and every few weeks, raised £50 which was donated to the party. The party could potentially get £100,000’s per year via Yougov!!!'

British Patriot compounds this suggested fraud by extending it;

'Also if you join Yougov via the referral link below Yougov will send me the equivalent amount in survey credit for each survey they complete during their first three months of membership. Therefore potentially DOUBLING the money raised for the party! You can also send your referral link to your friends and family, and therefore increasing the amount you raise for the party. I’m very close to receiving my second cheque which I would really like to donate towards the legal battle against the treacherous extremist-lefties of the CEHR.'

Regular readers might recall a similar fraud carried out by the BNP on Usborne Books back in April of last year, where the party sold the publishers books illegally via its own tat-flogging Excalibur arm, earning commission on sales despite the breaching of a number of rules. Thanks to swift action by our readers and Usborne, this was stopped in a day or two and the BNP were deprived of any further money from that particular con trick.

With regard to YouGov, the implications are rather more sinister. Apart from the fact that BNP members are being encouraged to obtain money by false pretenses which will then be donated to the party, the party is also deliberately loading the YouGov member base with numerous BNP members, thus skewing any survey or poll result in, where relevant, the BNP's favour. This latter point ties in nicely with a section of YouGov's terms and condition for what they term 'panel members'.

'3.6.6. In the course of using the YouGov WebPages and / or participating in YouGov Activities or YouGov Panels, you agree not to:

h. attempt to submit more than one vote per survey or do any other act that may affect the validity of any result obtained through any YouGov Activity or YouGov Panel.'

Clearly, British Patriot has breached this condition. So who is British Patriot? I've no idea, though I suspect it's that well-known liar and Nick Griffin ghost-writer Paul Golding. But YouGov can find out very easily because whoever it is has helpfully provided us with his referral ID number, which is

5e61b7ea-317c-4005-94d0-fcdd2f2d8b0d

I'm assuming this is all that's needed to identify this fraudster to YouGov but just in case it isn't, here's the full referrer link;

http://my.yougov.com/go.aspx?id=5e61b7ea-317c-4005-94d0-fcdd2f2d8b0d

There's no way of knowing from this end precisely how many people the BNP has fed into this fraud but a quick look at the post on the BNP's social networking set-up (a replacement for its disastrously-managed forum) reveals that around 25 members have joined up to YouGov from that post alone plus an unknown number who have been sent the referral link via those who've joined, their friends and families.

Nor, we discover, is this a new fraud the BNP has set up to raise money. One post from a Stephen Palmer says

'I had already joined YouGov after reading the thread about it on the old BNP forum.'

so it looks like this con has been going on for some time - which makes me wonder about ALL the poll results that place the BNP rather higher than one would expect.

Whether all this is illegal is debatable and I'm no lawyer but it's certainly unethical, definitely skews YouGov's polls which are generally highly-regarded for their accuracy and clearly puts even more money into the Welshpool pig-farmer's already well-stuffed pockets. And we would like to see it stopped.

We'd like you to ring, write to, fax or email YouGov to tell them of this fraud and to let them know who it is being perpetrated by, by referring to the ID number quoted above. If YouGov has any sense, it will close down this fraudster's account and its referrals and demand its money back from the BNP. If not, we can safely assume that it is happy to be funding the racist BNP.

You can contact YouGov in the following ways;

YouGov
50 Featherstone Street,
London, EC1Y 8RT

Tel: +44 (0)20 7012 6000
Fax: +44 (0)20 7012 6001
Email: info@yougov.com

Stay polite (difficult when referring to the BNP, I know) and let us know any results via the comments section. Go for it...

Thanks to NG (no, not that one) for the heads-up.

YouGov verdict on BNP’s Question Time

YouGov have a poll in [today’s] Telegraph, the first since Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time. It was carried out late yesterday and all day today. There isn’t actually very much detail in the Telegraph’s report, but there’s more at ConservativeHome.

The topline voting intentions, with changes from the poll last weekend, are CON 40%(-1), LAB 27%(-3), LDEM 19%(+2), BNP 3%(+1). So while the BNP support is up, it is nothing significant. 2-3% has been pretty much the norm for their support over the last couple of months, and the most recent YouGov/Telegraph poll at the end of September also had them at 3%. For the other parties, Labour are down from the 30% to 27%, more in line with the ICM and Ipsos MORI figures in the week. YouGov still have the Conservatives down at 40% in comparison to 44% and 43% from ICM and MORI.

Anyway, the poll will really be looked at for evidence of how the BNP’s Question Time appearance has gone down, rather than the main parties. As well as voting intention, YouGov asked whether people had positive or negative opinions of the smaller parties – questions that it last asked in June straight after the European elections. Back then 11% of people had a positive impression of the BNP and 72% a negative impression, today’s figures are 9% positive and 71% negative, so no sign of any improvement in people’s opinion of the BNP either. Despite all the hoohah and protests, despite the millions of people who watched Question Time, it doesn’t seem to have made any significant difference to how the public view them, or how likely they are to support them (or at least, not yet).

Asked how likely people would be to vote BNP in a future local, general or European election. 66% said there were no circumstances at all, 15% said it was “possible”, which I suspect is more of a “never say never answer”. More significant are the 7% who would definitely or probably consider voting BNP at some point in the future.

What has changed was attitudes to the BBC’s decision to invite Griffin onto Question Time. At the weekend 63% thought it was right, 23% wrong. Now the balance of opinion has shifted further in favour of the BBC’s decision, 74% thinking it was right, and only 11% wrong.

UK Polling Report

Ukip, not BNP, set to benefit from anti-politics mood at EU elections

Poll puts the United Kingdom Independence party on 15%, compared to 3% for British National party

The UK Independence party rather than the BNP appears to be the main beneficiary of public disillusionment with the political elite, according to polling this week. In a YouGov survey for the Sun published today, 15% of voters said they would vote Ukip in the coming European elections and 3% for the far-right British National party.

Paul Nuttall, Ukip's chairman and a candidate for the European parliament in the north-west of England, said: "This ties in with everything we are seeing when we are out campaigning and everything we are hearing on the doorstep. It is good that people are starting to see that the voice of protest is not the BNP but Ukip."

This week Ukip said they would replace the expenses system with one similar to that of Sweden, where second homes in Stockholm for members who live outside the capital are provided by the parliament, the Riksdag, and let to MPs free of charge.

A Times/Populus poll this week put Ukip on 6% and the BNP on 2%. BNP polling figures may be an underestimate, however, since voters can be reluctant to declare their support for that party.

The BNP launched their local and European election campaign this week concentrating on the expenses scandal. Four men in pig masks appeared on the stage behind Nick Griffin, the party leader, stuffing fake money into their pockets before actors dressed as "workers" wearing fluorescent jackets and hard hats beat them away with placards.

Griffin claimed his party would win six or seven seats in the European parliament at the elections.

About 100 workers have told Royal Mail bosses in Bristol and Somerset that they refuse to deliver BNP leaflets. A Royal Mail spokesperson said: "Where possible we will try to be flexible and sensitive to individual personal circumstances or beliefs. However, we need to balance this with Royal Mail's legal obligations under the Representation of People Act, to deliver election material."

Guardian

BNP leader Nick Griffin hit with legal claim in website picture row

BNP leader Nick Griffin was served with a legal claim yesterday for an £8,000 debt as he launched the far-right party's Euro election campaign. It follows the continued unauthorised use of a picture of UKIP leader Nigel Farage on the party's website.

The BNP has refused to remove the shot by freelancer Mark Croucher, despite being warned of court action in January.

A party spokesman said: "We'll probably challenge the judgment." Bailiffs handed over the documents as the party gathered in Grays, Essex. Mr Griffin is standing as a candidate in the North West where the party needs less than 10 per cent of the overall vote to gain a foothold in Europe. A seat in Brussels would allow them to claim tens of thousands of pounds in taxpayer-funded aid.

But a YouGov poll showed four per cent support for the BNP which, according to a leaked memo, has abandoned a national campaign to concentrate on targeted areas.

Anti-fascist group Searchlight said: "Its support appears to be fading."

Mirror

Main parties unite to tackle BNP threat in European elections

The three main political parties will meet tomorrow tomorrow at Westminster to try to agree common ground rules on how to fight the British National party in the European election on 4 June.

The meeting will look at a loose code of conduct, including an early warning system if any party finds a rival candidate is resorting to semi-racist remarks or literature. The idea of imposing a blanket policy of refusing to share a platform with the BNP, something the Tories oppose, will also be discussed.

The meeting will be held between the Tory chairman, Eric Pickles, the Labour deputy leader, Harriet Harman, and Lady Scott, the Liberal Democrat president.

The BNP launched its European election manifesto today, hoping that it will be able to exploit public anger over MPs' expenses. Its leader, Nick Griffin, said the party would threaten "tired, corrupt old politicians".

Behind the scenes, the Tories are angry that it has taken so long to set up the meeting and claim it has been cancelled twice at short notice by Harman's office. One source claimed it even looked as if Harman would not mind if the BNP did well because it would provide Labour with an alibi if it came third in the elections.

Privately, MPs from all sides recognise that they are likely to be victims of an anti-politics vote in the European and county council elections. They can only hope other minor parties such as the Green party, Ukip or Libertas benefit, rather than the BNP. A YouGov poll for the Sunday Times at the weekend, put Ukip on 7% and the BNP on 4%.

Guardian