by Christian Wright

The headline trumpets: “Lib Dems step up Scottish campaign after polling boost”

Severin Carrell, the Guardian’s resident empty suit and Scotland correspondent, offers another cut’n’paste article constructed from a LibDem press release. Apparently Severin’s goal it to try to encourage pro-Union tactical voting.

“In Scotland… the party has increased its funding and tactical support after its own polling suggested they could hold the majority of their 11 Scottish seats… 

the party’s pollsters, Survation, found that 46% of Tory voters and 37% of Labour voters would back the Lib Dems if their own candidate had little chance of winning.

The private polling … suggest the party is in the lead in several constituencies. At least five more seats… could be held because of an upsurge in tactical voting by pro-UK party supporters, the party believes.“

All these internal LibDem comfort polls . . . then there’s the reality.

Strange Severin failed to include this health warning from Survation in his article, especially since the Guardian is directly named in it. Must have been an unfortunate oversight.

“In reference to polls conducted for the Liberal Democrats, which have been described in the Guardian, New Statesman and others as “private polling conducted by Survation”, we would like to clarify that the role of Survation in these polls was that of “field and tab” only.

Survation were not responsible for drafting the questionnaires used, sampling design discussions or analysis of the results. These polls should therefore not properly be described as “Survation polls”. As a consequence, Survation is not responsible for the publication of these polls under BPC rules. Any member of the public with queries regarding the detail or further information about the mentioned polling work should be directed to the Liberal Democrats.“