Tories beefing up poll results
Tories beefing up poll results
Thursday, 31, Jul 2008 03:05
The Conservatives have been caught manipulating media reports of David Cameron's popularity by getting party workers to beef up poll results.
The Western Morning News has been running an online poll to find out its reader's views on David Cameron to coincide with his holiday in Cornwall this week, but the results started going against the party.
That led one worker to put out an email encouraging colleagues to shift the result in their favour.
"Western Morning News is running an online poll to coincide with David Cameron's visit to Cornwall, asking if he would make a good leader," the email read.
"The bad news is that, as it stands, 76 per cent have said 'no'.
"So, if you can spare two minutes, can you please go on and register your vote for 'yes' – it shouldn't take long to change the percentage round. Please pass this on to all helpers, campaigners and members that you can think of."
To their credit, the Tories have issued an instant correction, saying they oppose this sort of thing.
"It was an over-enthusiastic response from a member of staff," a party spokesperson told
journalists.
"It is not something that the party would condone at all."
Steve Grant, news editor of Western Morning News, told politics.co.uk the events meant people would pay less attention to the poll's results.
"They got caught, didn't they?" he said.
"I wouldn't be surprised if other party's did the same thing, it's just their misfortune they got rumbled.
"Now it's been effectively rigged, I don't think most people will pay attention to the result anyway," he added.