After the Reform scandal - does anyone still trust pollsters?

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

This is a Global Production.

Emily Maitlis (0:04)

Nigel Farage's former aide, Dan Dukes, went on an all-expenses-paid trip, courtesy of the polling company JL Partners.

Jon Sopel (0:15)

There's only so much distance that Nigel Farage is able to put between himself and Dan Dukes.

Emily Maitlis (0:20)

Dukes was asked, what does a reform government want from a polling company? And he replied, showing that we're winning.

Jon Sopel (0:28)

Well, if JL Partners are up to it, are others up to that sort of thing as well?

Emily Maitlis (0:33)

This will raise questions in people's mind. What polling is for, who it's for, and whether we should trust it.

Luke Tryl (0:41)

I think there is a little bit of, like, informal rule-vending that we did with our last one. So, like, you know, when we published those results, we should have just goes to the bottom first.

Emily Maitlis (0:50)

That is James Johnson from the polling company JL Partners. And it was taken from a Channel 4 documentary two weeks ago, a scoop in which the pollsters are admitting to bending the rules, to conceal that the Reform Party were behind the polling that was then splashed all over the newspaper front pages. Reform deny they were involved, but an inquiry is now underway.

This is just one company, one pollster. But today, we want to look more widely at polling and public trust. Polling is everywhere. How much does it tell us and how much does it decide our own behaviour?

Welcome to The News Agents.

Luke Tryl (1:39)

The News Agents.

Jon Sopel (1:42)

It's Jon.

Emily Maitlis (1:43)

It's Maitlis. We're going to start today's episode on the Red Sea Resort of El Cusir.

Jon Sopel (1:50)

That's nice.

Emily Maitlis (1:50)

December 2025 And the reason we're starting there is that Nigel Farage's former aid, Dan Dukes, went, we now understand from Politico, on an all expenses paid trip there, courtesy of the polling company JL. Partners. This is an internal email that Politico has seen.

Now, why did he go? He went to give a talk for the company, which subsequently released opinion polls without then disclosing they were financed by, you now understand, supposed donors to reform. This is part of that channel for the Betum Scoop that came out a couple of weeks ago. And what we now learn from that trip, Dukes and JL. Partners, was the extent of the business relationship. Somebody with knowledge of the trip said that the company took a limousine from the airport to the hotel, also at JL. Partners' expense. And during that trip, Dukes was asked, what do you want? What does a reform government want from a polling company? And he replied, showing that we're winning.

We know what subsequently happened to Dukes. He was essentially chucked out of the party and what Farage has said is that was nothing to do with reform. That trip was nothing to do with us. It was, you know, in a different capacity.

Jon Sopel (3:24)

Well, we know that Nigel Farage thinks that Dan Dukes was just a contractor that was working for reform when, in fact, he was the de facto chief of staff to Nigel Farage and had been at his right hand for absolutely years. So, I mean, so much, there's only so much distance that Nigel Farage is able to put between himself and Dan Dukes.

Emily Maitlis (3:44)

But I think one of the secondary question it asks is not just about Dan Dukes or even reform, but about the polling company at the center of this story, Jail Partners, which was pretty well established. It was, I think, owned or half owned by James Johnson, Theresa May. It had come out of sort of, you know, the political establishment, essentially, there was nothing in what they were doing to suggest that they were taking off members of a party and sort of chauffeuring them by limousine and then saying, what do you want your polling to show?

And yet, I think inevitably, this will raise questions in people's mind about what polling is for, who it's for, and whether we should trust it as much as we quite often do.

Jon Sopel (4:37)

I think this is such an interesting and controversial area.

All through the 2016 presidential election in America, anytime there was a poll that was unfavorable to Donald Trump, he would say, this is a fix, they're working for the Democrats, they're against me. Donald Trump has sued polling companies in America for producing polls that he felt were unfavorable. And when, I think it was in Iowa, Des Moines, the Des Moines Register, there was a very well-respected pollster there. And she was sued by Donald Trump for producing a poll that suggested that the Republicans were going to lose Iowa.