I was disappointed to see Len McCluskey’s letter attacking YouGov polling of Unite members – on whether Jeremy Corbyn should step down as Labour leader – as malicious, unrepresentative and lacking integrity (Poll does not represent members of Unite, 4 July), especially when he was happy to quote YouGov polling of Labour members on the same day in support of his arguments.
YouGov regularly undertakes research of membership organisations by drawing on our UK panel of 800,000 people. We have a proven track record in this area, having correctly called each of the past four leadership elections among the two main political parties, and with an average error of less than 1%. We were the first to identify Jeremy Corbyn as the frontrunner for the party’s leadership when everyone else said he had no chance.
For our Unite poll, only the gender composition of union members is known, and our sampling here was spot-on. Any large skew in the sample would have been indicated in the gender split. Statistically, a sample of 775 people gives a margin of error of 3.5%, compared to a typical nationally representative poll of 1,000 people, which would have a margin of error of 3%. No demographic breakdowns on the membership are publicly available, but if Mr McCluskey, or anyone at the union, would like to supply YouGov with a breakdown of membership by age, industry and region, then we would be happy to weight it and publish the results.
Stephan Shakespeare
CEO, YouGov
• “Man of steel” – Stalin – was the Russian pseudonym chosen by Joseph Jughashvili. Is Len McCluskey intentionally making a connection between the two when he uses the phrase (Labour prepares leadership deal, 4 July), or is he thinking of Clark Kent?
P Winnack
Leicester
