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Ken Livingstone's pollster is facing a formal inquiry by the industry watchdog amid claims that City Hall "misrepresented" the findings of polls it commissioned and misused public money to carry out party-political polls for Mr Livingstone's re-election campaign.
In an unprecedented development, the British Polling Council (BPC), the body governing the integrity of opinion polls, has appointed a top-level panel to investigate Ipsos Mori's polling for the Mayor and TfL. This follows Mori's refusal to publish detailed data from a poll it did on the congestion charge for TfL last year.
According to a City Hall press release on 18 December, the poll showed that "two-thirds of Londoners" backed Mr Livingstone's plan to charge highemission cars £25 a day and "63 per cent" said the charge would give them an incentive to use lower-C02 vehicles.
Under BPC rules, a full data breakdown-including all the questions, the sample size and the age/class split, must be released within two days of any published poll to prove that the sample was representative, the questions were not loaded and the findings were not misrepresented or used selectively.
However, nearly two months after the congestion charge poll, Mori has refused to release this breakdown, saying this has been forbidden by TfL.
Mike Smithson, editor of the respected politicalbetting.com website and a leading commentators on polling, said: "It looked very odd the way the data was presented [in the press release] and this looks very strange. Normally the data comes within two days but why is Ken refusing to allow it to be released? This is public data funded by the taxpayer."
Asked why he thought the data was being withheld, Mr Smithson said: "My understanding is that Mori provided some extra services for Ken to help with his re-election. If they were obliged to publish the full data, they would have to publish the party-political questions that shouldn't have been asked."
In a comment posted on Mr Smithson's site, another leading expert, Robert Waller, author of the Almanac of British Politics, said: "It could well be that some questions about Ken or Boris or other policies and strategies, including for the election, are hidden [in the poll] that the client does not want everyone to see. There has also been controversy, has there not, about [Mr Livingstone] using public money in a partisan manner."
Mr Livingstone is already the subject of an Electoral Commission investigation after claims by Channel 4's Dispatches that he used publicly-funded GLA officials to work on his 2004 reelection campaign. His now-suspended race adviser, Lee Jasper, is accused of using GLA resources and GLA-funded groups to mount a campaign against Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission on Equality and Human Rights and an opponent of Mr Livingstone.
THE BPC panel could expel Mori from membership. It is understood the pane l comprises Peter Kellner, director of the pollster YouGov, Peter Riddell, the political commentator of The Times, and Professor John Curtice, the election expert from Strathclyde University. Mr Kellner and Mr Riddell could not be reached for comment but Professor Curtice confirmed to the Standard that an inquiry had been launched.
"I have been asked to sit on a BPC investigative sub-committee in relation to a complaint that's been made," he said. But he refused to discuss the possible outcome, saying: "You wouldn't ask a judge to talk about the matter he's judging."
The Standard has been investigating allegations from one senior polling industry source that Mr Livingstone is using publicly-funded polling to help with his re-election campaign. The source said that potential "campaign messages" and manifesto pledges were tested for Mr Livingstone as part of broader polls paid for by the GLA. Both City Hall and Mori deny this. "The Mayor has not used opinion polling for party political purposes," said a City Hall spokesman.
But one Evening Standard journalist who was polled by Mori on TfL's behalf two weeks ago said that as well as questions about transport, he was also asked about his voting intention - possibly in the context of the Mayoral election.
Another reason TfL may have blocked the release of the detailed data is that its publication may expose the misrepresentation of questions or answers. A Standard investigation shows that Mr Livingstone often commissions opinion polls to justify policies he has decided to pursue then sometimes misrepresents their findings.
For instance, a City Hall press release on 12 February 2007 claimed that a Mori poll in September 2005 had found "80 per cent support" among Londoners for the Mayor's heavily-contested policy of giving under-18s free travel on buses. In fact, the detailed data breakdown shows this poll asked Londoners only for their views on allowing free travel by under-16s, a group less likely to cause crime and misbehaviour than 16 and 17-year-olds.
In a press release on 26 July 2007, Mr Livingstone cited another opinion poll showing that his controversial Thames Gateway road bridge was opposed by only "two per cent of local people". He failed to mention that this poll was carried out in 2003, four years previously.
Another poll in 2004 produced the perhaps surprising result that 43 per cent of Londoners wanted to pay higher bus fares. Mr Livingstone, who was proposing fares increases at the time, repeatedly used the poll finding as a justification for the rise.
However, the poll's detailed data breakdown shows the question was loaded ("would you be prepared to pay a higher bus fare if the increase helped to pay for improving London's transport system?") and also understated the actual increase proposed.
Mr Livingstone has also been accused of misrepresenting a separate consultation on the new congestion charge. The consultation, also carried out by Ipsos Mori, found that 60 per cent of respondents believed the £25 charge would be "not very effective" or "not at all effective" as an incentive to use a lower-carbon car. However, the Mayor claimed that the consultation had come down in favour of his new charge.
RICHARD Barnes, Tory group leader on the London Assembly, said: "Mr Livingstone commissions opinion polls to get the results he wants but when the results don't go his way he suppresses them. And if it is true that he has been using yet more public money for his own private political campaign, it is a scandal."
Ben Page, of Ipsos Mori, said: "Our position is that ongoing satisfaction surveys and policy surveys of the kind we do for TfL do not constitute a poll and are not covered by the BPC rules. We believe they are covered by the rules of the Market Research Society, which do not require us to publish immediate data breakdowns. If there is a conflict between staying in the MRS and staying in the BPC, we will have to choose the MRS."
Mr Page also denied that City Hall made any use of his firm for improper party-political purposes, saying: "These surveys [for TfL] are all about transport in London. There is nothing in those surveys about the elections, or Boris. We have not been paid by the Mayor to ask voting intention questions."
Mr Page said Mori had asked TfL for permission to publish the breakdown but had been refused. "They are within their rights to ask us not to publish," he said.
Mori, City Hall's main pollster, has received more than £1 million from the Mayor and his agencies in recent years.
Reader views (2)
This is yet another smoke and mirrors revelation exercised by Livingstone. He continues to manipulate surveys and polls to suite his own agenda,(the congestion charge and related taxes are only the tip of the iceberg). He is a complete control freak and runs London as his own Stalinist fiefdom, by surrounding himself with like minded acolytes. He punitively crushes any opposing views within the ruling Labour group and promotes only those who totally agree with his policies. Wake up Londoners, your disposable income and standard of living are under serious threat from this man and his anti car, anti freedom of choice policies. Use your vote wisely at the Mayoral elections.
- Pip, Sutton, 18/02/2008 21:05
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Once again, great thanks to the Evening Standard for doing a job which Ken desperately didn't want anyone to do; giving the public the full information they need to exercise their vote confidently in the upcoming elections. For the simple fact alone that Boris plans to cut the Mayoral spin-team he should get our votes. Fingers-crossed for a return to merit politics and a rejection of the smear-politics operated by the current Major and his huge team.
- St, London, 18/02/2008 14:09
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