Compare and contrast

A couple of weeks ago someone sent me a link to a "poll" in the Tab (which, one understands, is some form of newspaper for students) that claimed to show Conservatives were in the lead amongst students. Nonsense of course, it was an open access voodoo poll with no attempt to get a meaningful or representative sample (hell, 10% of the sample were Cambridge students!). Of course, it was only a poll in a campus newspaper so I didn't bother writing rude things about it, the only other media I found foolish enough to cite it were Vice and Breitbart.

Just for the record though, today's Independent has a properly conducted poll of students by YouthSight (we've met them here before, under the name of Opinionpanel). This was a panel based survey amongst undergraduate full-time students, recruited via UCAS and validated through an ac.uk email address, weighted by type of university (Russell, pre-1992, post-1992, specialist), year of study and gender. In contrast to the voodoo poll above, it shows Labour with a solid lead amongst students who say they are likely to vote - Labour 43%, Conservatives 24%, Lib Dems 6%, Greens 14%, UKIP 5%. Compare and contrast.