When Guido saw the i splash on a new poll claiming a majority now back single market membership, he foolishly assumed it was a real poll conducted by a polling company that meets the basic British Polling Council rules. Turns out it was an online survey of readers of Johnston Press, Trinity Mirror and Newsquest websites, with no methodology, tables or demographics published. Anthony Wells from YouGov and UK Polling Report is justifiably damning:

Anyway, back to the i/Mirror “survey”. As far as I can tell, this was conducted by putting up questions on the websites of the national and local newspapers they own

— Anthony Wells (@anthonyjwells) April 23, 2018

People were prevented from voting more than once, but that only addresses one source of potential bias in a sample. You’re still only going to get the sort of people who view newspaper websites, which will have its own skews.

— Anthony Wells (@anthonyjwells) April 23, 2018

A proper poll needs to collect demographics like age, gender, class, education (and for subjects like this, things like past vote & EU ref vote), allowing the sample to be weighted to ensure the correct proportions, to make it representative of the British public.

— Anthony Wells (@anthonyjwells) April 23, 2018

Polls from members of the BPC need to report all these things (if you look at the tables on pollsters websites, all those demographics will be listed – across the tops of the tables, or down at the end of the surveys).

— Anthony Wells (@anthonyjwells) April 23, 2018

Without that data, without being able to see if the sample is representative, or heavily skewed by demographics or attitude, a survey shouldn’t be taken as a meaningful measure of what the wider public think.

— Anthony Wells (@anthonyjwells) April 23, 2018

The i has actually splashed on their own online survey as if it is a real poll, when in reality it isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. The Mirror at least buried this guff on page 12. How is a survey of readers of three news groups’ websites possibly representative? Total amateur hour masquerading as news…