Express UKIP Poll Whopper

The remaining readers of the Daily Express, aka the Daily UKIP, may have been surprised this morning to see, at the top of the front page, the proclamation “UKIP Surge To Second Place In New Poll”. This news, which by the most fortunate of coincidences, exactly matches the paper’s pro-Kipper editorial line, cannot be found anywhere else. Has the Desmond flagship got some original news for once?

Ah, but you know the answer to that one: no it hasn’t. Another round of staff cuts means that the dwindling ranks of hacks have to depend on reheating stories from elsewhere, and this one is no exception. So the headline on Alison Little’s article, “Ukip is now MORE POPULAR than Labour: Nigel Farage gets polls boost as Ukip surges ahead”, should be taken with a suitably large pinch of salt.

Despite telling readers “NIGEL Farage won a fresh boost today when an opinion poll pronounced his party the second most popular after the Conservatives, pushing Labour into third place ... The YouGov survey also found that nearly three times as many of those asked thought the UK Independence Party leader would be the best Prime Minister compared with Labour's Ed Miliband”, it’s total crap.

It’s true that YouGov conducted the poll concerned, and also true that the numbers, showing 38% for the Tories, 28% for UKIP and 25% for Labour, were those recorded. However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, the poll was carried out for the Murdoch Sun, and was carried out only among that paper’s readers. The Express just stripped out that inconvenient fact.

Not, of course, that Rupe’s downmarket troops are blameless in this affair: the poll was a very deliberately calculated means for spinning against Labour, as witness the Twitter output of the paper’s non-bullying political editor Tom Newton Dunn, telling “Startling finding in YouGov poll of Sun readers today; 25% still vote Labour but only 6% have Ed Mili as best PM”. It was indeed startling.

Yes, even after being fed a constant diet of anti-Labour smears and lies, 25% of Sun readers still intend to vote for the party. So faithful Rupe retainer Trevor Kavanagh is probably wasting his time with his “Ed Miliband is the biggest loser of the Rochester vote” drivel. And back in the real world, Mike Smithson of Political Betting has not only rumbled the Express, but brought bad news for the Blue Team.

Having noted that the percentages quoted by the Express look the same as those in the poll of Sun readers, and given readers the lowdown on “Voodoo Polls”, which the one of Sun readers appears to be, Smithson then told that the latest Populus poll, the first to appear post-White Van Man-gate, had a Labour lead of five points, two more than its predecessor. What the Sun and Express won’t tell you.

The Desmond hacks prefer whoppers – another Benchmark Of Excellence!