Poll Fever

Q... Why and how was the ICM poll weighted?

A... All polls need weighting to be accurate. This one was weighted to reflect the views of the business community equally across the entire spectrum of size.

Q... How did ICM arrive at 25 per cent as the proportion of its sample to devote to big business.

A... There are too few large companies (only 0.5 per cent of the total of around 4 million UK companies) to be sure that the name of more than a handful would have come up in a random search. That would obviously have done the large corportate sector less than justice.

Q... So the raw ICM data would have overstated the importance of large companies?

A... Yes. By a factor of 50 times in straight numerical terms.

Q... But surely a poll shouldoverweight their views to reflect their greater sophistication and size?

A... Not according to ICM - though at first blush it is a plausible point. It is an open secret that the boards and management of many of our great corporations are divided. So weighting by sales or employment would give the misleading immpression that whoever responds to a survey on behalf of a large company speaks for the whole enterprise. Moreover, much of the activity of our multinationals is located overseas, so the respondents do not necessarily have British interest uppermost in their thinking.

Q... The CBI has been widely reported as having minuted the need to avoid a random survey of all UK business, which would be the "true gauge of opinion", in case the result differed from the leadership's position. What is your take on that?

A... If this is an accurate quotation in its context, the ICM study must have been just what the CBI's leadership did not want to see - an impartial exploration of attitudes from the smallest business to the largest, conducted by the most reputable of polling organisations. But I must say that the quotation seems almost too self-destructive to be credible.

Q... Adair Turner (Director-General of the CBI) criticised the ICM poll for suggesting that the CBI's own membership was opposed to the Euro. Was there an error there?

A... No. That criticism would hold water only if the CBI confines itself to speaking for its 2,500 direct members - mainly larger companies. But it also has around 250,000 "affiliated" members and on that basis often makes the claim to speak for allBritish business. ICM took this bolder claim at face value and weighted the responses accordingly. It was this that led the pollsters to conclude that the wider CBI membership is against adopting the Euro. I understand that ICM has ffered to refine the numbers if the CBI will provide a detailed profile of its membership.

Q... Britain in Europe has pointed out that other polls have shown business to be on balance in favour of the Euro. Why the difference in outcome?

A... You would need to unpick each poll scrupulously to be sure. ICM's was an advance on previous polls, which eiother ignored small business - which accounts for 25 per cent of national output - or asked loaded questions. For example, a Mori Poll for the FTgave respondents three choices: enter EMU now; enter it "when the time is right"; or rule it out for ever. Thus, the moderate, wait-and-see majority was shanghai'ed towards the middle option and their votes were then shamelessly counted in the 'Yes' column. Those who preferred the 'No' position, but were reluctant to say never, were virtually disenfranchised, with no choice of answer that closely reflected their views.

Q... What did ICM ask that was different?

A... They gave respondents four choices: two positive and two negative - soon; probably Yes; probably No; and never. The wait-and-sees and undecideds were therefore allowed to indicate in what direction they are leaning.

Q... Technical arguments between pollsters apart, what did the BfSsurvey show?

A... On any analysis the main features of the ICM poll were...
(a) that business is divided;
(b) that a largish majority of individual business people would vote 'No' today;
(c) that a narrower majority of business people do not expect the Euro to be right for Britain in the longer term; and
(d) that resistance to the Euro is strongest among the smaller companies, which are the engine of growth in modern society.

Q... Any other comment?

A... The CBI's chairman is a distinguished and forthright businessman, whose views on Single Market regulations, on the proposed withholding tax Directive and on the best economic model for a 21st Century European society seem to be more or less identical with ours. We just wish the CBI staff would be less extremist in its fervour for the Single Currency. Who knows? That way they might even attract more members.

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