08/03/2016 Daily Politics

Hello and welcome to the Daily Politics.

The EU and Turkey have agreed terms of a wide-ranging deal designed to

stem the flow of migrants into Europe.

The Turkish government has said it will take back all illegal migrants

arriving on the Greek islands, as long as the EU accepts

an equivalent number of Syrians from camps in Turkey.

The EU Commission President, says it's real game-changer.

Women who campaign to leave the European Union

So says Employment Minister, Priti Patel, who wants out.

She says she's fighting for her "democratic freedom".

As MPs prepare to debate International Women's Day,

we'll be asking should we be celebrating it at all.

And, we'll be talking to the comeback kid,

The former Conservative MP has topped the candidates list for local

All that in the next hour and with us for the duration,

President of the polling company, YouGov, Peter Kellner.

Now let's talk first about the migrant crisis.

The EU and Turkey say they have agreed the broad principles

of a plan to ease the current crisis.

But while yesterday's summit in Brussels was hailed

as a "breakthrough" by European Council President Donald Tusk,

The EU has been trying to strike a deal with Turkey whereby

the country will prevent more people from the war-torn Middle East

Turkey is already sheltering more than 2.7 million refugees,

most of them from the civil war in neighbouring Syria.

However, each day another 2,000 refugees - mostly from Syria,

Iraq and Afghanistan - cross the Aegean sea into Europe.

Under the plan agreed yesterday, all irregular migrants arriving

in Greece from Turkey would be returned, at the EU's cost.

For any Syrian returned, Turkey wants the EU to accept

a recognised Syrian refugee from one of its camps.

Migrants who are intercepted and who aren't from Syria won't be

Turkey also wants its citizens to be granted visa-free travel in Europe

sooner rather than later - by the summer of this year

Turkey is also said to have requested another 3 billion euros

of EU aid to cope with the refugee crisis,

on top of the 3 billion euros already pledged.

Finally, Turkey wants to advance its bid to become

The plan is not yet binding, and there will likely be further

discussions at another EU meeting next week.

While the European Council President Donald Tusk

was optimistic, some EU leaders have already voiced their opposition

We can speak to our Europe correspondent in Brussels. Who is

voicing their concerns about the steel? What we have heard today is

particularly coming from the United Nations, and its refugee agency.

There have been concerns raised about the legality of this plan.

Already yesterday as the details of what the EU and Turkey were

discussing were leaking out, there were voices starting to be raised

about this idea of taking all the arrivals in Greece and returning

them immediately back to Turkey, and then having this one for one plan,

where 41 refugee returned to Turkey, one refugee would be taken from a

camp in Turkey and shifted to the EU and have their asylum claims

processed and accepted and taken to the EU. Now, the problem with this,

the UN is saying, is a legal one. Under international law, mass

returns of groups of people from one country are not allowed. Refugees

under international human rights conventions, to which the EU and

European countries are parties, or are signatories and follow, states

that individuals who arrive somewhere seeking international

protection can only be returned if their claim will be heard when they

return to that third country. If it is clear that they will still have a

hearing. Last night the EU leaders were talking about those being

returned going to the back of the queue. It sounds complicated and

begs the question that before the ink dries on this deal that has been

described as a breakthrough by Donald Tusk, is it actually going to

work in practice? There are two big questions. The first one, prior to

that, is probably slightly premature to call this a deal actually. We

should probably say that this is a proposal on the table, an idea. The

EU countries were not able to agree yesterday said the first big

challenge is, will they all signed up to this? We know countries like

Hungary don't want to accept people, refugees shifted directly from

Turkey into the EU. They have threatened to veto that part of it.

Potentially they can put up roadblocks, and so can other

countries, to the idea of granting Turkey major concessions in terms of

free travel to the EU. If it goes through, would it work? We are

already hearing refugees saying they would not be put off because they

are so keen to reach Europe, and their situation they are leaving

behind in Syria is so bad. Thank you.

I'm joined now by the foreign affairs analyst Tim Marshall,

and the Conservative MP Heidi Allen, who visited the island of Lesbos -

on the frontline of the migrant crisis -

Is this really a breakthrough deal? Not yet. Mr Tusk was full of

hyperbole yesterday. He said that the days of irregular travel to

Europe are over. Quite a statement to make. They are not. There will be

another 2500 people coming today anyway. The practicalities of the

deal, theoretically it looks good, 141 is a great idea. But the

practicalities of sorting out who is Syrian and who isn't, which country

they come out of and which country they go to, and the biggest thing,

Libya has not been mentioned and that is getting worse. What happens

if you go across to Italy? Because the agreement is going from Greece

back to Turkey. But the biggest problem is the one for one. I was

asked to be on this programme last week and I said Angela Merkel had

nothing but Plan A. And this is just Plan A with finesse. Plan is that

each European country will take a proportion of these refugees. Well,

they won't, so who is going to take them? That quota system has a ready

been rejected by leaders like David Cameron. Do you think that is what

is necessary to make anything work in terms of solving this crisis?

There has to be an element of that. I agree that it sounds great in

principle but it is getting people to sign up and agree. I think to be

fair to European leaders, so far I suspect they have been rabbit in the

headlights, and this may focus their minds and at least are talking. But

it will come to an end point where this is about numbers. You think in

the" as will be necessary. We'll EU leaders -- will be EU leaders sign

up to take a proportion? If they cannot come to a sensible decision

between themselves it may well come to that. These are free travel for

75 million Turks, is that Aaron acceptable price to pay for their

cooperation? I am not an expert on Turkey, I don't know. Do we need to

do a deal and find things that work for each party. It sounds like this

quid pro quo is necessary in desperate times but it is quite a

big price to pay. Turkey, rightly or wrongly, has extracted quite a big

price. They are in the driving seat, and they have doubled the amount of

money they have asked for. If the deal goes through, there are a bunch

of problems we can come up with. Some of which we have a ready said,

but here are another two. For visa-free travel for all 75 million

Turks starting in June, Cyprus, an EU member, has to agree. The price

for Cyprus agreeing that Turks can travel in the EU free are, you

recognise the Greek Cypriot government in Cyprus. That's

probably not going to happen. So that's one reason the deal may not

happen. The other thing I would say, at the moment, and this is looking

at it very unpleasantly, you are making huge profits out of these

jackets that don't work at the moment. People are dying, you don't

care, you are making money. There is a huge market and they simply don't

work. Dive out of that, no pun intended, and get into paperwork.

Because the paperwork, if you've got 75 million Turks, every single one

of these refugees will try to get Turkish papers, and some will get

forged papers and they will keep coming. The unintended consequences

do seem to be never-ending. I'd like to hear about your experiences in

Lesbos talking about these life jackets, what did you see? Foolishly

there was me when I saw branded with Yamaha or something on the back, I

thought at least that was a proper one. But they print them with known

brands. They are knock-offs. These are what are being handed out? Not

handed, people pay for these. They simply do not work. What else did

you see in Lesbos? To some extent something has to be done because the

front line is struggling, to put it mildly. Absolutely, that is what I

saw. Greece was desperately under resourced, left on its own. The

Greek restaurant is where backing up vans with food, not the humanitarian

agencies. If this focuses minds and gets European leaders round the

table, it has to be a good start. What do you think about the EU opt

out of resettlement of asylum seekers already in Europe? Do you

think that is justifiable and sustainable? Probably from a legal

point of view and from our desire about how our role in Europe is

going forward, yes. At morally, I would question that. Have you made

that clear to the government? Yes, I said I think it is a fluid

situation, the volumes of people coming are just incredible, and our

decision number is has to be fluid as well. In terms of public

sentiment, has it changed, has it gone from sympathy because of that

very emotive picture, perhaps before a lot of people had sympathy for

migrants coming from Syria, has that changed? There has been some change.

Basically British people do not want the problem in any way to come to

Britain. Of course the practical point is not what our polls show day

in, day out, but the impact on the referendum debate. And I think the

problem that David Cameron faces as Prime Minister is that if he did not

have the referendum hanging over him he'd probably feel he had some

flexibility about what to do. The problem is, if he does something

which is represented, fairly or unfairly, as being soft on Europe,

soft on immigration, that will play into the European referendum

campaign. The referendum campaign closes his options in a bit in terms

of domestic politics. Looking at it from a geopolitical point of view,

looking at Turkey if there is visa-free travel and further

discussions about potential membership down the line, Turkey of

course it's in a strategic position. On its right hand side is Syria. It

is sort of the border through. How could that changed the whole terms

of trade of this debate if those things come into play? They have the

whip hand, Turkey is the dominant partner in this discussion which is

why the EU is bending over backwards to give it what it once so far. But

that's Donald Tusk and Angela Merkel bending over backwards. You get down

to the 28 leaders of countries, I'm not sure they are going to bend over

backwards. So you don't think this deal will hold? We have already

named many problems with it holding. Your correspondence pointed out the

legal problems, as brought up by UNHCR and others. Turkey is doing an

amazing job of taking care of people, albeit under difficult

conditions. They've already spent 10 billion of their own money, they are

about to get four and a half billion out of the EU. I'm just not sure

that the deal will go through next week. If it does go through next

week, will it stick? Two final things to say, it is coming too

close for Angela Merkel's regional elections on Sunday. And secondly,

not the EU accession but the visa talks for the Turks, they are

demanding that they talk in June, not October. And in June the Brits

have the referendum. And all this plays into the referendum. Thank you

both very much. On According to pollsters like Peter

here, Jeremy Corbyn is the first new Leader of the Opposition

to score negative approval ratings. So the question for today is,

which of these future prime ministers scored the highest net

approval ratings when At the end of the show,

Peter Kellner will give us Now, it may have escaped

your notice but today is International Women's Day

and to mark it, female campaigners from both sides of the EU debate

are setting out their stall. Some people have criticised

the campaign so far Thank you very much,

it's great to be here in Slough, And if they come through

the tunnel, we haven't It is actually an internecine war

in the Tory party that is now being played out across

a whole continent. The debate has been so much

about Conservatives But ultimately it's not about me,

it's not about you, any individual, it's

about this country. The alternative is a big leap

in the dark with all the risks There's no animosity, we're working

together, we are one family. I don't think I'll say

anything, after that! Alan Johnson lost for words for

once! And with me now, the Conservative MP

Anne-Marie Trevelyan from Women for Britain and Labour MP

Liz Kendall, who's a member of The six cabinet attending ministers

who are with you on the Brexit side, two of them are women, so how has

this been a male dominated campaign? We've had voices slowly coming into

the debate. A lot of them are men because there are more men still in

the House of Commons than there are women. Those of us who have got

strong views, like myself, put themselves forward into the debate

very early on. Does it feel as if women haven't had enough to say in

politics about this campaign? I'm very proud that we've got brilliant

women like Angela eagle and others making a strong case for Labour but

I think the campaign has been to bloke -ish. When you look at that

film, all of the leading politicians were men. This is a problem because

women are more likely to be undecided about how to vote in the

euro referendum and they're unsure whether they are going to vote at

all so it's really important that their views are heard. I would say

that if you look at the business world, so very male dominated, and

the economic case is very important and we need to get more within

voices. So it is symptomatic of a wider problem? Well, it's a societal

problem that there are still too few women in top leadership positions,

whether that's in politics, business or the law. That's why it's so

important that an international Women's Day we make the case about

why Britain is better for women, what their kids get out of it and

why it's a positive message for the future. Priti Patel said today that

women in Britain are fighting for the same cause of the suffragettes.

She made a comparison between the Democratic reason she's fighting for

and what Emmeline Pankhurst was fighting for. Really? I think her

point fighting for. Really? I think her

where there has been a democratic fighting for. Really? I think her

deficit it has often been women who have

deficit it has often been women who this referendum. You're shaking your

farcical comment to make. The suffragettes fought for equality

farcical comment to make. The statutory holidays

like Toyota and Rolls-Royce saying, look,

like Toyota and Rolls-Royce saying, I've had... This is one

like Toyota and Rolls-Royce saying, like? Yes, out is very clear. On the

like Toyota and Rolls-Royce saying, resigned. I really

person. Did he stepped over the line when he

person. Did he stepped over the line understand he said he didn't

the menfolk talking about politics. Today there

the menfolk talking about politics. Day. Many men have pioneered to help

women who are survivors of domestic violence and so on. I think it is

just an opportunity to remember our key goals. But how is this they

going to really help you achieve goals of equality or defeating

domestic violence or equalising the pay gap if it still exists? I think

it allows us to focus our work on it. You have the celebration, but

also for example I went into a girls school this morning and we had a

conversation such as the one you had with the two politicians in here,

and they are all firmly in the in can. They seemed to be worried about

travelling. They were trained to encapsulate the mood or a feeling

about something to do with the out campaign, something negative and

match. Let's stay off the EU referendum for a few moments. The

pay gap. Are you saying there are no issues left that women to campaign

on because life is equal in every way? There is certainly no pay

discrimination. There are single cases, of course, but no evidence

that women are being discriminated against doing huge extent. In fact

women out there and then under the age of about 35. Before they have

kids, basically. Then women decide to have children and also to care

for them. We are led to believe this is a terrible thing, women taking

time out of their careers to raise their children, care for them and if

then the care they need. Well, do you think that is terrible? Over a

52 year lifetime of working women are ?300,000 worse off, that is the

evidence by a well respected consultancy. I think what matters, a

lot of women don't have a choice, maybe they are a single-parent

household, they have to pay their rent, pay their bills, and they have

to work. So this idea that there is choice, certainly in an expensive

city with housing at the cost it is in London, many women don't have

that choice, they go out and find what they can. Pants over a life

span. I use saying women choose to invest -- that is over a life span,

I use saying women choose to earn less? A recent report said that

middle-class women would work less than they currently do and look

after their children if they were able to. What about women who do not

have the choice, those who need to go out to work? They are supported,

there is a very big welfare state and most childcare is covered in the

tax credit system. But just in terms of when men get older and do earn

more money, that money is being spent on women. The money that men

are earning is being spent on their families. Only in the West would

that be seen as a bad thing. We should celebrate the fact men are

providing for their families. As the token men in this discussion. Not

token, but DS. Let me make two points. The first is

token, but DS. Let me make two children, they still do not do as

well, not as many get to the top in different areas, profession,

business or whatever. That's not the evidence I've read. Let Peter

finish. And my second point is, I think we need to make a cultural

shift that as women become mothers, come back to paid work a few years

later, why don't we, instead of saying it is a career break, why

don't we say these are people who become immensely skilled at

multitasking, time management, conflict resolution, being able to

work flat out when dog tired, and I think we should be making those

four, five, six years part of a positive aspect of your CV. And

women coming back into the workforce, especially when they want

to go far in their careers, are given more opportunity to do so

because of their writs periods of mother had. On that note we have to

end it. Now, one of the defining moments

of the 1997 general election was the sight of Neil Hamilton

losing his parliamentary seat. Since then the former Conservative

MP has kept himself busy appearing on chat shows and in pantomimes,

but in May he will stand for a seat So is the start of Neil Hamilton's

political comeback? So, congratulations in topping the

Ukip Welsh candidate list. Have you received congratulations from Nigel

Farage? He is in Strasbourg at the moment, he has been out of contact.

He is said to be furious. You would have to do ask him. The newspaper

reports were that he was incandescent with rage. You read it

in the tabloids so it must be true. I'm not sure it was a tabloid

actually. The Times is a tabloid now. Are you really saying he will

be pleased? I don't think this is a vitally important question in the

grand scheme of things and I will not get involved in Tinseltown.

Quite you must be disappointed if that is the case? I am delighted I

am the choice of the Ukip members in Wales. Whatever the views of Nigel

Farage, you did not have a vote in this election process but the

ordinary Ukip members did. I am delighted to say they have chosen me

to be the top candidate in my region of mid and West Wales. Are you going

to meet up with him soon? I meet with him regularly and I don't know

when our next meeting will be. We have a meeting at least once a month

through our national executive and I'm looking forward to meeting him

again. It has also been reported, prominent party members in Wales

have complained that you were foisted on them, is there any truth

in that? I have been foisted upon them by themselves, then. Because I

am the top candidate in my region as the result of a ballot of all

members in Wales. So there is no question of being foisted,

parachuted or any other pejorative words which some people have applied

to me and other candidates. These complaints normally come from people

who are disappointed themselves. Do you think it is wise to come back

into politics? Why would you want to do it? I'm not doing it for myself,

I'm doing it for my country, that's why I went into politics in the

first place. I have strong beliefs. One thing which has been a thread

through my life since 1967 when I joined the anti-Common market league

is opposition to what we now know as the EU. What I want to do more than

anything else in the world is to free our country from the tentacles

of Russell 's and restore responsible democratic government in

Britain -- tentacles of Brussels. Will you be working in Wales? I will

be working in Cardiff at least three days a week through the assembly

meeting, and having a constituency which covers 80% of the landmass of

Wales I will have to make some tough decisions about to base myself. In

the first instance I will be looking for somewhere in Cardiff where I can

base myself during the working week. And then my constituency will go

from the Menai Straits in the north to Saint Davids head in the south,

so I am probably better off getting a mobile home in that case. Thank

you. Now our guest of the day,

Peter Kellner has made the odd buck or two from finding out,

or at least attempting to, He's not always right of course,

and pollsters in general have come So do you know an online poll

from a phone poll? What's the point of them,

and why are there so many These pollsters are talking

to people like you. Do you intend to vote

Labour, Liberal Democrat, Conservative or for

another candidate? Politicians and journalists

are often obsessed with political They shouldn't be, and the public

aren't, but they remain part of the fabric of politics,

despite being a fraction The general philosophy

of polling is a Thoroughly mixed, it shouldn't be

necessary to sample the whole bowl to know exactly what it's

like or made of, but you've got to take a decent spoonful

and the ballpark figure for most pollsters is between

1000 and 2000 people. For many years, polling

involved doing this - door-to-door, face-to-face

conversations. People randomly sourced, visited and

followed up. Now, one reason why people don't use

face-to-face any more is because it's incredibly

time-consuming and the fact is that people's opinions

can change whilst it takes time These days things are much more

rapid and, of course, they are using technology,

albeit some of it not that modern. Yes, can I ask you a few questions

about telephone polling? We at ComRes use it

for all our election work, which is quota sampling,

so we know we need the right amount of men, women, different age groups,

regions of the country, and we randomly dial numbers

until we get those exact numbers, to reflect

the population as a whole. There is a new way of doing

things - online polling. Now, this is a page

from the website of Here is a poll I can

take part in right now But that's not quite what we mean

because this is self-selecting. I'm not necessarily

representative of After all, I'm a guy

who's got a rubber duck No, this is what you

want to look at, the panels, because they have panels

of people that they go to repetitively to find

out what they think - between the random selection

of using the phone. The biggest obvious

issue at the moment is the EU referendum,

where telephone polls are showing a large lead for "remain",

whereas online polls are showing

the race neck and neck. We've conducted an experiment

conducting the same question, exactly the same, both online

and telephone and have found that same difference,

that the telephone poll So we've tried to understand

that difference, whether it's about the type

of people that we're interviewing, who they are, why they might be

answering differently. Therein lies the quirks

of polling and pollsters now are not the only

kid on the block. If you want to know

what's going to happen in an election some weeks,

some months, maybe even some years away, I think your best bet

is to look at a specific prediction market - and a prediction

market where money is involved, that really

keeps people honest, so we're talking about

betting markets here. They, I still think,

are a very, very good guide to what's going

to happen in the future. And it's a safe bet us politicos

will still be looking at both. And with us from Southampton,

Professor Patricik Sturgis, We will be with you in just a

moment. Peter, the final YouGov poll had Labour and the Tories pegging

before the last election, what was your reaction when you saw the

result? Probably not a word I would use on daytime television. All the

polls, telephone or online, we all made the same mistake. In that case

there was not a methodological difference. As Tom says on the EU at

the moment there is. I was not a happy bunny at 10pm election night.

The MP for Pudsey who said he would have lost his seat if the

predictions have been right, he said if anybody else failed so miserably,

they would be sacked or be considering their position. Did you

think about it? Knows. Would you have -- should you have done? That

is not for us to say. Pollsters got something is wrong in the election.

I'm not sure every politician or journalist was perfect with the

truth. And since the election people across the polling community have

undertaken the very serious business of finding out what went wrong. We

have looked into our failings far more than the journalist or

political communities have. Patrick, do you think they have listened, has

there been this soul-searching Peter is talking about? I think there has.

They have already been looking at some new procedures and so on.

That's undoubtedly going to go on and I would be expecting them to be

looking at the recommendations we make in our report that will be

published in about a week. I think it is also worth bearing in mind,

we've been focusing on where the polls went wrong, but the polls were

also right in a number of respects. They were almost exactly correct in

terms of the shares of the smaller parties. And if you go back from not

just the days and weeks before the election, over the entire

parliament, they told the story of the electoral dynamic, the decline

in support for the Lib Dems, the increase for Ukip and so on. These

are all things we would not have known without the polls. So I think

it is important to keep things in perspective when we are assessing

how accurate they were. Of course they did get the key thing wrong

which was the difference between Labour and Conservatives and that

was where the attention was rightly focused. What about the methodology,

though? There are different techniques as demonstrated in the

film by Giles. Are some more reliable than others?

If you are just talking about the difference between online and phone,

it is quite difficult to come to a proper judgment about that. The

polls right before the 2015 election, there was no difference in

the final polls between phone and online. If you go back a bit further

in the campaign and in the parliament, you do see that the

phone polls were giving a point or two higher in Conservative support.

Now, we don't know if that was accurate or not because we don't

have the barometer of the election results. I think it's not

unreasonable to assume that given that the polls have historically

underestimated the Conservative share that the phone polls were

doing perhaps slightly better. But the problem is, we genuinely don't

know what the true picture is until we have an election. We haven't got

the EU referendum result. We'll come to the EU referendum in a minute. To

go back to 2015, was there such a thing as shy Tories or was that just

a convenient cover for polling errors? I'm going to ask me to this

question. I'm accepting it but I'm putting a slightly different gloss

on it. I think there were some people last year, as in 1992, when

the polls got it wrong, when John Major remained Prime Minister and

the polls said Neil can it would become Prime Minister, I think then,

as last year, some people really didn't want the Conservatives to

remain in office and when asked by a pollster they'd say, "I don't know

the Tories, I'll vote Labour". That was their initial or expressive

view. When they came to cast their votes in the ballots, at the polling

station, they said, "I'm not sure I want to make that particular the

Bovo the edge," because although they did neither Conservatives they

didn't trust Labour on Labour's leader. I'm not saying that was the

whole explanation. I think it was perhaps a quarter or a third of it

but that factor was there. How confident are you about polling

leading up to the EU referendum? Ask me on June the 24th. Let me give you

a serious answer. There is cleared of his between telephone and online

polls. Historically I can of two contests weather has a diverging. In

2008 in London, we at YouGov online said Boris Johnson was going to beat

Ken Livingstone. All the telephone poles said Ken Livingstone was going

to win. Online was right on that occasion, telephone was wrong. In

2011, the alternative vote referendum, we all said we were

going to vote overwhelmingly to keep the present voting system but the

telephone poles were a bit nearer than the online polls. So

historically it was a 1-1 draw. Patrick Sturgess in Southampton,

thank you very much. And now for something

completely different. And now on the Daily Politics, it's

Peter Kellner's greatest hits. At number five, speculation about the

1987 election and a hung parliament. If there is a hung parliament, the

first thing that will happen is that Mrs Thatcher would resign as the

Conservative Party leader. In those circumstances, the Conservative

Party would be in the position of a menorah TV Labour government. At

number four, he predicted the results of the 1990 local elections.

Unless the government gets a big swing back in the next four weeks,

the Conservatives are going to wake up on the morning of May the 4th and

say, crikey, what on earth as it is? I think the Conservatives, Mrs

Thatcher in particular, will be needing some good news by July the

latest. Six months later, Margaret Thatcher resigned as PM. At number

three, on the money with the Scottish referendum... There has

been a clear shift today, a small but clear shift, from yes to know

and we also think that the no voters in the end were slightly more

determined to turn out that the yes voters. At number two, how the polls

can be widely wrong. The Conservative win in 1992. I'm not

alone, thank goodness, in getting it wrong. The polls were all wrong. And

number one, why you should all care about polls. Opinion polls provide

the best, most objective source of information about an election

campaign which is not controlled by the political parties. Peter was

really enjoying that! Yes, our Peter here has been around

the Westminster village for rather And at the end of this month

he hangs up his YouGov hat. Lets focus on your career, looking

back. We're not doing your obituary here! What to consider your greatest

pulling Triumph? The biggest triumph, because we were running

against other pollsters, was 2008 when we said we were polling and we

always had Boris Johnson in the lead and the other polls always had

Kennedy still in the lead. Ken Livingstone complained saying,

YouGov brings falling into distribute. That campaign somehow

went away. Are pollsters competitive? Yes but there is also a

degree of camaraderie. When it goes wrong? Not only that. We have our

own rules which we have set ourselves for transparency. In

Britain more than any other country in the world, anybody can go onto

the website of any pollster and get the full tables, the full

methodological details, the full question wording is. We are as an

industry, and we've come to this together, much more open than

anywhere else in the world and I'm proud of that. Will you jealous of

John Curtice when he was lauded for his stunningly answer it -- accurate

exit poll? I've known John for many years and the exit poll was very

good but as we saw there, we got the Scottish referendum right, we got

the Labour leadership right and people thought we got out of our

minds. At the previous general election, we had the Tory lead in

2010 spot on, 2005 was very good 2001 was very good. The euro

elections a couple of years ago, we were pretty well spot on. So yes,

we've got something is wrong but we've got many more things right

than wrong. Let's go back. In 1981 BST people do over 50 present. Did

you think they were on the brink of power? I wasn't sure but I was then

on the New Statesman and when I saw those poll figures, it was before I

was a pollster and I started a thing in the New Statesman of covering all

the local election results week after week and most weeks there were

four, five, six local by-elections and we found in the summer of 1981

that yes, indeed, where the STV were standing there were getting 40 or 50

present. Our groovy SDP. It didn't last but the Conservatives were in

trouble, the Connery was doing badly, Michael foot was leader of

the Labour Party. -- the economy was doing badly. Are you going to be a

commentator, speak freely, give us your personal opinions on politics?

I'm available for the political equivalent of birth, marriage, bar

mitzvahs. I'm hoping to come here quite a lot more. You will be

speaking freely with your opinions? I'm available. Pollsters are like

barristers, prostitutes and taxi drivers. We ply for hire. I will

continue to apply for higher after I leave YouGov. Thank you for that

interesting image at the end! Courtesy of our friends

at the Mirror, we now know who the MPs are that use

Twitter the most and least Out of the 650 MPs,

the Labour MP for Ilford North, Wes Streeting,

is the Commons' most prolific tweeter, having tweeted 68,800

tweets and counting. Tim Farron, the leader

of the Liberal Democrats, is the second most prolific tweeter

in the House of Commons, with 67,600 posts since he joined

the micro-blogging site. Stella Creasy is the Commons' third

most prolific tweeter with that amounts to one post every 44

minutes since she joined Jamie Reed comes in at fourth

place with 57,600 tweets. Eight of the top ten most prolific

tweeters are Labour MPs. The top-tweeting Tory,

in tenth place, is Karl McCartney At the other end of the table,

Paul Beresford - Tory MP for Mole Valley -

has tweeted just once. as well as Demos's social media

research director Carl Miller. Please don't ask B to repeat any of

those numbers again! Jamie Reed, you have treated 57,600 post-I've

distributed at - and counting. Are you addicted? Not at all. It is a

really good way to get your message out to people and do what politician

should be doing, which is holding a dialogue with as many people as

possible. I sometimes wonder why people get so hung up on this phrase

addiction. It takes ten seconds to send a tweet and that's it, it goes

into the ether and you hear the sound of breaking glass and it is

either gone down well or have gone down well. That's the addiction bit,

the reaction. How many people have looked at it, retweeted it. I think

that's the same with any political message you are trying to get over.

When did we see a step change in the Twitter usage? I think it was Barack

Obama's election victories in 2008 and 2012. I think politicians around

the world knew that social media was the new battle ground and was going

to be the new crucial way of fighting for power and was going to

be a place they needed to be on and they needed a picture on there and

they knew their parents would be there if they weren't. Was it really

won by social media in 2015? I don't think so. I think future elections

might be because I think parties will start to behave differently but

so far, no, I don't think they have as much influence as some people

say. We are seeing a vital shift. For young people, social media,

according to polls, was the second most important thing they made their

decision on who to vote for after the TV debate. As new generations

come into the letter it, social media is going to become more

important. Eight of the top ten are Labour MPs. Why do you think that

is? If I'm being entirely honest, I think it's because Labour MPs are

more plugged into modernity and the Conservative MPs are not and I think

that's part of the cultural brands of both parties. I think you will

find Labour MPs doing more on Twitter, Facebook and blogging and

flogging and other initiatives which are coming forward. -- vlogging. In

2008, it was not a Twitter election. Why did it work for Obama and not

the Labour? I think they used Twitter as a key data gathering

device. If you look at the last general election and how many Labour

people had their hopes dashed, they believed what they were reading on

Twitter. That's the point, it's an echo chamber. In that sense, maybe

that was partly why Labour didn't win in the end. I think it's a

factor. Do you think it's true that they are more modern, in terms of

their usage, Labour MPs, of social media than the Tories? I certainly

think there was a distinct difference between the strategy

would win the Labour and the Tories. Party activists wanted to use

platforms like Twitter to leveraged their numbers. We see targeted

messaging to reach people. An important point about platforms like

Twitter is you will never hear it would rob from the floating voter.

You hear from the excited party faithful. Those are the people who

are bothering enough to tweet in the first place. They follow MPs and

reply. Do you treat? I'm told I got about 57 followers but I've ever

said to tweet in my life. Have you got an account? Are you sure it is

you they are following? No, I don't. Should you be for your new career?

Possibly. I'll think about that. You can tweet about the programme as

much as you like and how wonderful the presenters are! Thank you.

There's just time before we go to find out the answer to our quiz.

The question was, which of these future prime ministers scored

the highest net approval ratings when they were in opposition?

So, Peter Kellner, what's the correct answer?

I think it was Tony Blair, who was incredible popular before 1997. One

of his staff are said to me, my job is to provide the water that only

walks on. But you were wrong. Everyone will assume it was Tony

Blair but it was Edward Heath. Something for you to ponder! You get

it wrong again. Sorry about that.