Who is fooling us?

A common thread ran through Twitter after the last leaders debate. “Were the pollsters watching the same debate as us?”

This was the case not only in the “Twitter-sphere,” but the right wing Andrew Neil pop-politics show panel named the debate as being Browns.

Channel 4’s live poll, like quite a few of these live polls, named Cameron as a poor third or at least, neck and neck with Brown or Clegg as second place.

Even Murdoch's Sky, in a poll it has no members on the board – ie. a radio listeners poll, put Brown in first place.

So what is going on?

The biggest and most quoted pollsters in the media at the moment are You Gov. YouGov, like all polsters, tell us they are “neutral.”

Let's see. The CEO of YouGov PLC, Stephan Shakespeare, is a business associate, close personal friend and former campaign manager of Jeffrey Archer, the disgraced Tory Lord. He owns the ConservativeHome website, was Jeffrey Archer's spokesman during his London mayoral bid and was the Conservative candidate for Colchester during the 1997 election. Archer, by the way, was on telly last night for the first time in years - STRAIGHT AFTER THE DEBATE ON NEIL'S BBC PROGRAMME "THIS WEEK", calling his man the winner because of the "polls." Ahem.

An “ex” YouGov CEO Nadhim Zahawi is standing as a Conservative MP for Stratford Upon Avon in the 2010 General Election. Nadhim Zahawi also worked on Lord Archer's mayoral bid. Nadhim has stated he is not CEO anymore however he is still an active board member
see

HERE

HERE

and HERE

After Craig Murray published evidence that YouGov’s polls were rigged, they (or more specifically, Sheakspeare) denied it -But where did they publish their denial? ConservativeHome!

I am at present trying to get info on ComRes, the polsters that seem to be the second most quoted.

The Daily Mail were caught out rigging their polls and had to change the result after 1o,000 people read the analysis of how they were doing it

As has been pointed out on the Campsie website before, Murdoch and the Daily Mail have made a deal to back each others editorial in order to get the Tories in AT ALL COSTS. So, not only do the Tories at the moment own the press, they own the “independent pollsters.”

Don’t get me wrong – I cannot defend Labour in this – they quite happily took support from the Murdochracy from 1997 until this election – and their spin has been overtaken by the Tories ability to pay to buy search terms on google (enter “Leaders debate" into your google search engine and notice the advert from the tories at the top of the page).

The New Labour project has failed - and the public's Clegg/Lib Dem love in has shown that (even though the Lib Dem message is full of HUGE holes and spin) the truth starved public want to hear alternatives to the non-answers the politicos throw at us.

But what has become clear in this election – the media needs to be separated from the political parties in the way the BBC are supposed to be (though Nick Robinson, the Tory political editor at the BBC needs a slap) – and this would be a priority of a Scottish Socialist Party politician.

Follow the debate on the pollsters

HERE

Campsie articles relating to this

HERE

HERE

and HERE

Polly Toynbee on Murdoch's scandalous influence on our political system HERE