Team Livingstone fabricates polling data

It is becoming clear that Livingstone desire to "shoot the messenger" when something irks him is inherent and entirely built into his psyche. If we look at the Lee Jasper story we see the instant charges that it's all about racism, and now he has gone on the attack against YouGov because they published polls showing he was being beaten by double-digit margin. A statement put out says,

"YouGov has a record of significantly underestimating Ken Livingstone’s vote in London. On the day before the last Mayoral election YouGov put Ken Livingstone just two per cent ahead of the Conservative Steve Norris, leading to an Evening Standard headline of ‘It’s Neck and Neck’ even although Livingstone actually won by nearly 11 per cent."

However, as Mike Smithson at Political Betting has noted, the statement about YouGov and previous polls is actually a complete fabrication.

The facts are that on the day before the 2004 vote the Evening Standard carried a report of a YouGov survey which found that amongst all potential electors Livingstone was beating Norris by 37% to 26%. When the second preference votes were taken into account, YouGov found a split of 55% to 45%. The actual result after the second preferences were counted was Livingstone 55.4% to Norris’s 44.6% - which meant that YouGov was right to within 0.8%.

SO let's get this straight. YouGov published a poll saying Livingstone had an 11% lead, Livingstone won with an 11% lead, YouGov's numbers were almost exactly on the money, so the Livingstone campaign decides to make stuff up about the pollster which isn't actually true?

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