Notice that all the polls conducted for CPHA, Mail on Sunday and The Economist show a consistent majority against hunting.

And all the polls conducted for the Countryside Alliance show a consistent minority.

And the Countryside Alliance have arranged them in "date order", but with nearly all the most recent pools shown having been conducted for the Countryside Alliance.

What can we infer from this? Have there been no polls conducted recently by anyone other than the Countryside Alliance? And does the way they pose the questions have anything to do with the results?

Example: "‘hunting should not be allowed to continue at all because cruelty is more important to me than civil liberties".
What a leading question!

This is the same Countryside Alliance against which a complaint was recently upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority for misleading statistics.

You do your case a disservice by quoting data from publicly discredited groups like the Countryside Alliance.

Lies, damn lies - and opinion polls?

A £1bn industry is accused of distorting results to produce what clients want to hear, writes Nick Mathiason

Sunday June 6, 2004
The Observer

An unholy war has broken out among opinion poll firms, and the fallout threatens to tarnish an increasingly influential £1 billion industry.

Riven by accusations of compromised research, inappropriate political connections and links with public relation firms, industry in-fighting is spilling over to Westminster.

High-profile MPs are demanding a government investigation into pollsters' methodology, the possibility that questions are loaded to suit clients' interests and establishing if shareholding links to outside organisations harms the industry.

Loved by newspapers and devoured by politicians, opinion poll findings make for guaranteed media coverage. Whether research based on the public's political mood or testing a new product, they have become a vital marketing tool.

But there is growing concern that polling firms' links with public relation firms and the nerve centre of the Conservative Party are damaging the industry's credibility.

Leading the MPs' campaigns is Barry Sheerman. The Huddersfield MP will this week call for a debate on the issue. At the heart of his concerns are new-style internet polling firms such as YouGov and Populus.

Founded four years ago, YouGov has Bell Pottinger, the PR firm, and Radio 4 Today presenter John Humphrys among its shareholders. Its meteoric rise has sparked resentment from traditional pollsters, but its ability to predict events with a fine degree of accuracy has won plaudits from blue-chip clients. And YouGov is inexpensive. Traditional opinion poll firms charge about £900 per question, using 2,000 respondents. YouGov charges just £300 for the equivalent service.

But Sheerman is questioning whether YouGov's links with Bell Pottinger, which retains a stake of about 3 per cent in the firm, can lead to research tailored to meet the requirements of Bell Pottinger's clients - a charge vehemently denied by YouGov chairman Peter Kellner.

'Certainly nothing has ever happened to us that's compromised our independence,' he said. But he added: 'There are clearly issues with PR firms where they own polling firms or buy research.'

Kellner did say he was approached by a prospective client - with no links to Bell Pottinger - asking YouGov to load questions to guarantee a result, but he sent them packing. They hired another, unnamed, rival to do the work.

One Bell Pottinger senior director said: 'I can understand why people are making the link, but I have never been asked to push clients into using any polling [from YouGov].'

There are also criticisms of internet polling's methodology, which critics say is far from transparent.

Kellner again vehemently denies that his firm is guilty, saying that the level of respondents and the way results are broken down are beyond reproach and set new standards for the industry.

In the bitchy polling world, attention has been drawn to the involvement of former Conservative Party Central Office staff. Internet poll firm Populus is headed by an ex-Central Office pollster Andrew Cooper. Populus has now replaced Mori as the Times polling firm. Working at the Times is Daniel Finkelstein, former adviser to William Hague and one-time colleague of Cooper. In fairness, such proximity often occurs in the closed world of Westminster.

Meanwhile at YouGov, the director of public opinion research is Stephan Shakespeare, former adviser to Jeffrey Archer. Until recently, YouGov was retained by the Tories.

'The whole industry is like an octopus, with Central Office at its heart,' said one industry insider.

Meanwhile, doubts have emerged about whether the Marketing Research Society, the industry's professional body, is up to the job. Critics say that leading firms have left the organisation, making it powerless to enforce codes of conduct.

'We're in favour of tighter regulation,' said Kellner. 'We're worried about the rise of companies outside the network who don't go to the lengths we do. We're very concerned that internet polling could get a bad name.'

Last week the industry was hauled through more mud after the Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint against pro-hunting organisation the Countryside Alliance for its use of a poll which it claimed showed majority support for hunting with dogs.

The ASA upheld a complaint made by the League Against Cruel Sports that the Alliance advert, claiming 59 per cent support for hunting, had 'flawed methodology and unreliable results'. The ASA called the advert's use of poll results 'misleading'.

The Market Research Society has made similar criticisms against NOP, the well-regarded polling company used by the Countryside Alliance.

Combining two poll questions, the ad said 59 per cent of the population want to 'keep hunting'. But the MRS criticised NOP for failing to ask objective questions, failing to carry out research 'objectively and in accordance with established scientific principles' and for 'being guilty of conduct' that 'might bring discredit on the [market research] profession'.

'The Countryside Alliance has purchased the appearance of public support by using a polling company which, according to the Market Research Society, is willing to act without objectivity and outside established scientific principles,' said the League against Cruel Sports. 'Public opinion on hunting is being maliciously misrepresented by a pro-hunting group which has no evidence to defend a pastime the majority want to see stopped.'

When opinion poll findings set the news agenda, give fringe parties momentum and boast that they help business understand customers, any doubt about pollsters' inner workings could send the industry into a tailspin.