YouGov has denied claims it spiked a poll in the run-up to the General Election 2017 because it was "too positive about Labour".
Chris Curtis, former member of staff at YouGov, alleged on Twitter on Wednesday that he was banned from publishing a poll following a debate in Cambridge Jeremy Corbyn took part in which results were "stark" and showed Labour had won "by a mile" and one in four Tory voters thought Corbyn was best.
But YouGov has hit back and said this is "plainly wrong".
Curtis said: "We did a fantastic debate poll in the hours following the debate that Corbyn took part in. The results were stark - Corbyn won by a country mile, and one in four Tory voters thought he was best
"Despite having written the story and designed the charts, we were banned from releasing the story because it was too positive about Labour."
YouGov bosses said when the poll was reviewed by the team, it was clear the sample of people who watched the debate "significantly over-represented Labour voters from the previous election".
In a statement, YouGov said: "Chris Curtis’s allegation that we supressed a poll because the results were 'too positive about Labour' is incorrect. There was a poll run by Chris following the debate in Cambridge on May 31, 2017.
And this meant our polling and coverage was a lot worse for the rest of the campaign. We did a fantastic debate poll in the hours following the debate that Corbyn took part in. The results were stark - Corbyn won by a country mile, and one in four Tory voters thought he was best.
— Chris Curtis (@chriscurtis94) June 8, 2022
"When reviewed by others in the YouGov political team, it was clear that the sample of people who watched the debate significantly over-represented Labour voters from the previous election.
"We take our responsibilities as a research organisation seriously and we could not have published a poll from a skewed sample that favoured any party. No serious polling organisation would have published this.
"The idea that YouGov would suppress a poll that was 'too positive about Labour' is plainly wrong – as evidenced by the fact that in the 2017 election YouGov published an MRP model showing Labour doing significantly better compared to most other polling organisations."
Curtis also claimed now education secretary Nadhim Zahawi threatened the job of YouGov CEO Stefan Shakespeare over the company's prediction of a hung parliament.
YouGov or Zahawi have not yet responded to this claim.
