British pollsters – and how they get misused

British pollsters present their headline polls for “all voters” (i.e. the whole of Great Britain). This combines each party’s popularity in each nation as a proportion of the total GB voting population. These headlines are the ones the British media promotes.

As a way to predict power in Westminster that’s fine. But these polls are quoted for many other reasons – and this is where the problems start. Outside of Westminster election campaigns they’re regularly used as general indicators of current political party and British government popularity.

It’s exclusionary. It hides the politics of all nations except England. And when these politics reflect widely differing voter priorities, that’s an issue. It means that British political commentators and the parties that dominate Westminster naturally bias towards England.

How big an issue is this? Let’s look at how much each nation contributes to each party’s popularity in that “whole GB” result. It’s clear that five parties essentially represent England. Two represent Scotland, and one Wales.

But hold on – the British media and English parties regularly present this as the view of the entire country! They mostly only talk about “the main parties” – meaning those that represent England. There is more.

Pollsters like YouGov routinely present “Green party” popularity across GB as though this were one party. English parties and the media present this as though it were the popularity of the Green Party of England Wales – ignoring the fact that it also includes a share attributable to the Scottish Greens. It might be a small share, but its not insignificant. At the moment it adds about 1% to the “Green” vote share.

All of this wouldn’t be a big concern if the English parties only stood candidates for election in England. But they don’t. Again, this wouldn’t be a concern if the English parties were equally popular in other nations as they are in England. But they aren’t.

In fact if we look at Scotland and Wales, most (Wales) or all (Scotland) of the English are distinctly unpopular! Compare this with England, which only has English parties.

Unless it’s a run-up to an actual Westminster election, pollsters and those who use them should take a national view of politics. Yes, this is more wordy. It’s more difficult to get that one-sentence “hook” for online attractiveness. And yes, it needs more thought – and understanding – about the politics of the UK beyond the border of England. But those are all good things, surely?

Something like this would be an improvement:

And in reality, who are the UK’s main national political leaders? Well they’re not just the ones in England, that’s for certain.