NOT a proper poll of European Election VI in the East

A couple of years ago I wrote a piece giving advice on how to report opinion polls, or rather, how not to. Look specifically at the third point on being careful of extremely small sample sizes in cross-breaks.

There was a cracking example of the media failing on this front on BBC Look East this week, which has done the rounds on Twitter. The clip is here, the offending portion starts at the three minute mark. It claims to show the results of a poll of the Eastern region that put UKIP on 44% of the vote.

The figures come from page 36 of this ComRes poll. It wasn't a bespoke, properly weighted poll of the Eastern region. It's a crossbreak on a normal national poll. The figures are based upon only only 58 respondents, giving a margin of error of plus or minus 13 points. The figures are not even accurately quoted, the Lib Dems are actually on 7%. The were no caveats about sample size offered (the youtube clip from UKIP cuts out suddenly, but at the moment the full programme is on iplayer). This is truly appalling reporting of polls - they is no way that such a tiny cross-break should be reported out of context as if it were a representative poll.

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