No, 80% of people do NOT "believe in prayer"

The Church of England have released a poll they claim shows the vast majority of people believe in the power of prayer, when it does no such thing. There is nothing at all wrong with ICM's actual polling, which asks people "Irrespective of whether you currently pray or not, if you were to pray for something at the moment, What would it be for?" (emphasis is mine). A perfectly reasonable question, asking people what they would pray for, if they were the sort of person who did pray.

However, the Church of England have gone rather rogue in interpreting the results, deciding that everyone who gave an answer to ICM's hypothetical question of what people would pray for if they prayed must therefore believe in prayer - putting out a press release claiming that "Four out of five British adults believe in the power of prayer". The Telegraph has gone on a similar flight of fancy, declaring "Six out of seven people still believe that prayers can be answered despite a dramatic drop in formal religious observance, a study has found."

In a population where only around half of people believe in a god at all, any claim that 80% of people believe prayer works should ring alarm bells anyway. For the record the last poll I can find that actually asked whether people believed that prayer worked was by YouGov for the Sun in 2012. That found 31% of people believed that prayer worked in some way (that is they thought prayers were heard by God, or were physically answered in some other way), compared to 45% who did not and 25% who weren't sure.

Hat tip to Alex Hern at the New Statesman for spotting it - his own mockery is here.

Meanwhile this morning's YouGov poll for the Sun had topline figures of CON 30%, LAB 41%, LDEM 13%, UKIP 11%. The thirteen points for the Liberal Democrats is the highest that YouGov have shown them since November 2010. While all the usual caveats about individual polls apply, it is indicitative of a broader underlying trend - since the end of last year there has been a definite uptick in levels of Lib Dem support in YouGov's daily polling. Last autumn YouGov were typically showing them at 8-10%, in recent weeks they have typically been showing them at around 11-12%.