Another day, another bout of fake news. Contrary to the buzz on social media, YouGov polling is not saying there’s just three points between the Conservatives and Labour.

The polling isn’t real, even though a parody social media account has managed to produce some fairly genuine looking tables. The tables have just been slightly modified from actual tables produced by YouGov for the Sunday Times published on 8th December, carried out 5th – 6th December.

Advertisements

Beyond the fairly obvious clue that the account is named “Britain Erects” (a parody of polling site Britain Elects) the numbers don’t add up either, coming to 97.

It’s surprising it has taken this long for the fake poll to be shared widely. A link to the fake polling tables was first tweeted early this morning, and the PDF itself was created at around 03:00 on the morning of the 9th December according to its metadata.

This Twitter user was informed the tables were faked, later describing it as a “well done fake”.

The fake polling has already been shared by Tory MEP Daniel Hannan, Labour MEP Jude Kirton-Darling, and Labour First secretary Luke Akehurst.

They could have been retweeting it ironically, though we doubt it.

The next YouGov polling to come out will be this evening at 10pm for The Times, an MRP poll. Analysis by Scram News on tactical voting will follow tomorrow.