John Cooper: Who checks on the pollsters?

John Cooper is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Dumfries and Galloway.

Opinion polls, said playwright JB Priestley, are “rather like children in the garden, digging things up all the time to see how they’re growing”.

Priestley is most famous for An Inspector Calls, but these days it’s more likely be a pollster calling – there’s an awful lot of them about.

Why? I blame the media, something I do with some authority as I was a journalist for over 30 years.

In an era of scarce resources for newspapers, polls are a godsend. Think of a question, fire it off to the polling firm, pay a not insubstantial fee, and you’ve got a dripping roast of stories to keep your much-diminished political staff banging out splashes – as front-page stories are called – galore.

What’s not to like? After all, professional polling companies take great care to weight their samples, and ensure no bias. The gold standard minimum is 1,000 people whose thoughts will be rolled out across the land.

One of the most amusing examples of the antithesis of this was from, I think, the Daily Star newspaper which splashed “100 per cent support for war with Saddam Hussein!” as the clouds of war gathered over Baghdad.

The trick here was in the question: “Do you want war with Saddam – or are you chicken?”

Granted, such cheeky manipulation is not a serious issue, but who checks on the pollsters?

And the key question for me is what happens when the media stray from the numbers and invite pollsters to gaze into the future.

It happens all the time. No matter how often pollsters declare: ‘Remember, this is just a snapshot of a particular moment in time’ the media will always try the maximal: ‘Yes, but looking ahead to…’

Instead of calling a halt right there, pollsters tend to indulge in finger-in-the-air postulation about an election perhaps years away. Frankly, you might as well slaughter a chicken and try to read its entrails at this point.

It is dangerous, too. During the 2024 General Election, I turned on the radio to hear a pollster declare they thought Labour “could spring a surprise in Dumfries & Galloway”.

All the indications I was getting from extensive door-knocking right across my patch was that the SNP – not Labour – were the threat. So it proved: I pipped the Nationalists by 930, with Labour in third.

But it caused ripples. I had people tell me: “So I have to vote Labour to beat the SNP!” and it put a spring in the Labour candidate’s step.

That same pollster was back on the radio recently pouring cold water on the notion that immigration is a big deal even in remote and rural Scotland.

Reader, it is.

And the BBC are egregious as their pursuit of balance can lead them astray.

When Nigel Farage opined on the Scottish Parliamentary election this May, out came that a pollster with a rebuttal as though the politician were a clueless mangenue. Mr Farage is many things, but he knows his stuff.

This, then, is pollsters as actors; active players, and not mere observers.

Priestley’s children digging up the garden are stunting what grows, and deciding what withers.

The fad on X, formerly Twitter, is to run every contentious claim past Grok, its AI voice. Though people think of it as an honest broker, it can be wildly inaccurate.

Pollsters – especially when cast as seers and soothsayers – risk being the same.

The Commons’ Library confirms there is no official regulator for the polling industry in the UK. Polling organisations may choose to be members of the relevant industry bodies – the British Polling Council and Market Research Council, with codes of conduct.

Their focus, though, is on proper methodology, and the mechanics such as sample size.

The French have a Commission des Sondages, an independent body with a duty to review opinion polls and ensure that the body which conducted the poll used a “reputable methodology”.

That doesn’t address the Poundland Madam Arcatis out there, and I’m not advocating a total ban on all political polls – though a blackout a month out from polling day has its allure.

So what about a Royal College of Psephologists, with the power to set professional standards, and enforce them?

What if it could implement a three-strikes rule whereby those who indulge in these fantasy projections without making it as clear as a crystal ball that it’s mere guesswork – not fact – are out?

And a line in the BBC’s new Charter making it obligatory that fair warning is given that pollsters’ projections may have no value? Ofcom could bring other broadcasters into line.

My exclusive poll shows 100 per cent support for these measures…

And yes, that poll was by me – of, eh, me.