Every week one of the major pollsters sends me details of what the public told them when they asked them to name a news story/ event from the past week. The results are always interesting and sometimes rather surprising.
I think politicians and their advisers can all too easily become obsessed with the news headlines and what is in the news and how it is reported. Of course polls are under scrutiny at the moment after their all round failure to suggest a Conservative victory in the general election and as I reported earlier this week their inquest has now concluded they interviewed too few Conservatives. Their sample was not representative. With this sort of news poll the results are less likely to be affected by a slightly skewed sample. It is the overall picture that matters. People are invited to name a story and they are not prompted.
In the latest poll 2,015 adults in Great Britain aged over 18 were interviewed online between 20th and 21st January. I can tell you the most noticed story in the past week was the death of the pop artist David Bowie. Not surprising his death led the news bulletins and was covered across the print media. So what percentage of people do you think mentioned this story? Answer tomorrow!
David Nuttall 
Given we are telephoned 4/5 times a day to remind me I haven’t claimed a PPI yet (coz I was never daft enough to take it out) I know the most frequently discussed topic in our household of 5 over 18 yr olds (all taxpayers) – immigration. Mostly concern that the so called clever people in charge of the various countries – failed to see it would create ‘problems’.