Nick Clegg attacks “false science” polling industry

NIck Clegg has hit out at “soothsayer” pollsters whose “false science” predicts his party will be wiped out in 2015.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick CleggDeputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg

The Deputy Prime Minister has defended his party’s reputation after the latest polls suggested the Liberal Democrats would poll as low as six per cent in the upcoming General Election.

In an outspoken attack against a polling “cottage industry” which now produces daily forecasts of Lib Dem doom, Mr Clegg said the surveys published by research firms did not reflect the reality on the ground in seats held by his party.

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Speaking to The Yorkshire Post, he said: “We have got into this ludicrous game at the moment, where every single Tom, Dick or Harry can pop up with some entirely specious prediction on some entirely random poll and say that is going to happen.

“It is not going to happen. The idea that there is going to be a Lib Dem wipe out is nonsense.

“Unlike this great cottage industry of pundits I spend a lot of time in Lib Dem seats and what will matter is how people locally vote for their local MP, and none of that is picked up by this fake science where you take a snap shot view across the whole country.”

Mr Clegg added: “A snap shot poll says nothing about what people think of say me in Sheffield.

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“I know we are going to do much better than the critics say we are, I absolutely know it, but we constantly have this feedback about polls.

“The polls will be completely different each day, even on the same day two polls can have us half the rate of another.

“We have lost some support since going in to coalition, of course we have, but I am confident that we will make our case better than this false science of crystal ball predictions made with great certainty of what will happen to us.”