The kerfuffle over Lord Ashcroft’s purchase* of a majority stake in PoliticsHome is not something, I suspect, that mch interests anyone beyond the Westminster village. That said, I think Hopi Sen has the best take on this midget-brouhaha:
The result of these expert polls was usually a story like “Westminster insiders think Clegg needs to up his game” a day after something bad happened to Nick Clegg, or “Westminster insiders think Cameron is struggling to convince” a day after a poll comes out showing Cameron struggling to convince. Well great. Now we know MPs and journalists read the newspapers and watch TV.
Now, you might think this is all just fine, but it’s not. We need polling and market research to tell us what people we don’t get to hear from all the time think, not to reinforce the validity of the opinions of those already in the magic circle.
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