Leading Questions - Yes Prime Minister

Polls may or may not be carried out in a neutral way. A good many are deliberately biased, even more have known flaws that are glossed over. A humorous take on this I love (from the 80s BBC comedy Yes Minister, which is often scarily realistic): ▶ this video

This is probably a good time to recall that polling in politics can be highly misleading . I recall an excellent segment on Yes, Minister that explains it [0, 1]. We really need to know the other questions they were being asked at the time to see if they were primed in some way. A near majority being uncomfortable with white people would be outrageous, but Americans are usually pretty tolerant so it is likely that Rasmussen is playing games here. [0] ▶ this video [1] link - For people who like text, search for "Have another opinion poll done"

Link for the curious: ▶ this video Starts at about 1:00. One of my favorite shows Edit: updated link, thanks @dvngnt_

> the questions can shape the response. An excellent illustration of this: ▶ this video Although in this case, it doesn't look like they had bad intentions and they seem to have dug at least a little below the surface and drawn what seem like sensible conclusions. I wonder if more detailed results and the full list of questions are available somewhere.

It depends on how you word the survey. ;-) ▶ this video (Yes Minster: the unofficial video on-boarding course for UK bureaucrats)

You are probably talking about the YouGov poll. The poll asked a clearly leading question IMO. You can get any result you want by asking leading questions on polling. This was of course satirised by Yes Minister. ▶ this video I can counter any of the iffy polls by simple point to the official online petitions service. There were a huge number of signatures to revoke OSA and two million signatures to abolish the plans for the Digital ID. While the Digital ID is technically a separate issue, many of the same privacy concerns are present. link link The number of people that signed these petitions is far more representative than any polling. On top of that, recently I've seen reportrs of both the Liberal Democrats and Reform (the two largest parties after the main two) recongising the OSA as unpopular and are likely to suggest reforming/removing it. On top of that. The labour government and the conservative government that proceeded it which created the OSA were/are both deeply unpopular. So any notion that there is a popular mandate for this is nonsense.

The tool would be useful as a QA step to test for leading questions in survey design. See Yes Minister's[1] explanation for how they can work. A simulation to see if the questions get the same response irrespective of the order they were asked in could improve survey quality. Obviously, the tool could be used in the opposite way too, to help design surveys that say exactly what the company/govt/charity wants it to. [1] ▶ this video

I'm saying that polls can be twisted however you want, if you're willing to put in the effort. [0] How the question is framed is a large part of the effort, and what the quoted doctor was complaining about. (Specifically, he was complaining that things were not sufficiently twisted in the direction they found favorable) Disaggregating the question based on trimesters is one form of twisting. Asking only a single blanket "are you for or against the right of a woman to choose" is also twisting. 0: ▶ this video

Can someone post an English translation of the "theses" or questions in the Wahl-o-mat? When I hear about such initiatives I am always wary of this kind of polling manipulation: ▶ this video

"We asked 100 people who were interested enough to write to their MEP about digital privacy and 80% of them said digital privacy was important" People who are motivated enough to know and comment about these proposals are not a representitive sample of the population. If you were to stand outside Old Trafford and ask people who the best football team in the UK is, you'll get the vast majority saying Manchester United. Do the same thing in London and you'll get people saying it's Arsenal. Aside from both being wrong, you can see the bias. Accredited polling companies adjust results to minimise sample bias, but even then have to be careful to avoid leading questions as shown in this 'documentary': ▶ this video

The most typical reason people don't like to answer that question is because they believe it is as setup for a followup: "Then why aren't you doing X?!" where X in this case could be "Fire this person", "Setup a committee overseeing all hires", "Commit to quotas", "Donate money to this cause." Also reminds me of this "Yes Prime Minister" skit about leading questions: ▶ this video

> As ever with polls it depends how you frame the question. Obligatory 'Yes, Prime Minister' clip: ▶ this video