Express reports UKIP is in second place. It isn't.

24 November 2014

The front page of today's Express claimed UKIP is now the second most popular party in Britain, according to opinion polls. It isn't.

Express front page

The Express's figures are from a YouGov poll conducted last week, but instead of taking the poll's overall findings - which cover a representative sample of the population - the newspaper instead reported the voting intentions of Sun readers.

The actual - representative - findings show that UKIP is still in third place on 15%, behind the Conservatives on 33% and Labour on 34%.

Nowhere in the online report is this made clear, and the print article waits till the fourth paragraph to contradict its own headline.

This obvious, significant, and prominent inaccuracy was quickly pointed out by polling analyst Mike Smithson. Since it joined the new press regulator IPSO we've contacted the Express once about a correction and had no reply from the newspaper until we asked the regulator. We hope to get a prompt response this time.

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