Brexiteer accused of using questionable polling data to whip up anti-lockdown support

In a series of tweets, Daubney claimed his survey of 15,400 people on Monday showed “the direct opposite of the government/ YouGov polls” before querying their validity.

“I’m not saying Twitter polls are real world. They reflect followers, obvs,” he added before suggesting YouGov surveyed certain groups “to get a result they want”.

Daubney’s tweets were quickly shot down online.

Edwin Hayward responded: “The truth is that a Twitter poll can be made to say anything you like. I’ve run polls with in excess of 95% wanting to rejoin the EU. Why? Because those are the kinds of fantastic people my followers are. But I’m conscious they’re not *representative* of UK society at large.”

Daubney replied: “Twitter polls are about as accurate as tea leaf reading, agreed, esp your Rejoin fantasies. My bigger question is this: can the same now be said of @YouGov, too?”

“Of course,” Hayward jokingly responded. “Why wouldn’t a company with over 1,000 employees and £136.5 million revenue just make stuff up? That’s so much more logical than trying to poll fairly, with obvious biases eliminated.”

Others agreed. Andrew R quipped: “Hmmm, a nationally representative poll, by a well-establish organisation that’s a member of the British Polling Council, or a Twitter poll by some idiot who doesn’t understand sample bias. Nope, it’s simply impossible to know what the truth is.”

Stephen Way joked: “Siri, give me a great example of a Twitter bubble displaying confirmation bias.”

Referencing Daubney’s prior career as a reporter, New Statesman data journalist Ben Walker wrote: “Surely a journalist of 25yrs would be able to discern between a Twitter poll and a pollster’s nationally representative survey.”

POLITICO‘s Alex Wickham added: “YouGov’s (actual real) polls reckon 80% of the public support lockdown — if you want to know where the mood in the govt is now, one senior Tory half-joked the other day that ‘lockdown is the most popular Tory policy ever’.”