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11:27 am, September 14th, 2026 - 4 comments
Categories: atlas, election 2026, elections, labour, national, taxpayers union, uk politics, uncategorized -
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In the United Kingdom a huge scandal has erupted that will hopefully result in Nigel Farage, the UK equivalent of a Winston Peters David Seymour cross, being consigned to the distbins of history.
Fresh from an unconvincing win over an opposition candidate whose main feature was wearing a bin over his face Farage has struck new problems.
Secretly filmed footage appeared to show senior Reform UK figures discussing methods to avoid UK electoral laws regarding illegal foreign funding and arranging for a US donor to pay for political polling which was then plastered all over UK media and used to attack the Labour Party.
The sense of unease is compounded by the fact that different crypto billionaires have made huge recent donations to Farage. I wonder what they want in return?
The use of the polls has been subject to particular scrutiny.
From the Guardian:
A polling firm at the centre of allegations that Reform UK breached electoral law is being investigated by two industry bodies.
JL Partners, which is run by former Conservative aides, has been accused of breaking transparency rules by failing to declare that three separate polls had been commissioned by the party.
The company is a member of the British Polling Council and the Market Research Society, who say the identity of a client commissioning a poll should be disclosed when the results enter the public domain.
The rationale is clear. The United Kingdom does not want anonymously funded poll results being used as a political weapon.
Yes they have laws against this sort of thing.
But in Aotearoa we are, to use the expression, a little bit more relaxed.
We allow front organisations, who possibly receive significant funding from overseas, to commission polls that are out of kilter with other polling and to then use their accounts to hide details of how the polling was funded.
Like for instance the Taxpayer’s Union.
In possibly associated news in Aorearoa The Taxpayer’s Union has forgone its attempt to resemble a democratic organisation run by its members by becoming a private company. The immediate benefit is that there is no transparency.
Previously according to its Incorporated Society filings the public could find out that for the financial year ending December 31, 2024 the party claiming that it was representative of a mass membership party received $336,000 in membership payments but $1.9 million in donations.
For that same year Labour raised the same amount in donations. It paid less in employee remuneration than the TPU.
We will no longer be able to make this comparison. The Taxpayers Union has become a fully fledged corporate entity and now does not have to disclose anything apart from what it may need to as a third party promoter under the Electoral Act. And the cost of polling does not have to be reported.
This entity whose funding is hidden engages a pollster who polls for the National Party and who has previously had code of practice complaints being upheld regarding questionable poll design and transparency. It comes up with a poll result that is out of kilter with other polling but is used as a political weapon by right wing media to attack Labour.
Of course there may be nothing to see here. Things may all be above board, the TPU may not be funded by Atlas aligned organisations, Curia’s polls may be straight up and they may have captured a feeling that other polls may not have sensed.
But the worry is that they may have put the thumb on the scale and that foreign funded attack polls are being used to subdue support for Labour.
This Newsroom article authored by Associate Professor Ben Gray provides further cause for concern.
He notes that Curia use 700 landline and 300 mobile calls as well as an internet panel, that weighting is by gender age and area, and that undecided or refused calls are not included in the report. He states that the use of their name creates automatic bias, created by people who distrust the TPU refusing to take part.
He concludes with this statement:
Political polls are research, and to be trustworthy they need to be conducted ethically. None tell us who they poll, there is no external quality control, some are funded by vested interests, and there are many ways a poll can be skewed either inadvertently or deliberately to influence the result. Without more scrutiny and better information, we cannot know whether they can be trusted.
It is a shame the media is not asking hard questions of the polling and that so many have taken rhe result at face value. I would not trust a Curia poll as far as I could throw it. And if the TPU wants to have any credibility it should disclose who its donors are.
Thanks MS.
The Whangaparāoa LEC had a public meeting on Saturday with the candidates from Whangarei, and Whangaparāoa, Gary Payinda and Estefania Muller Pallarès respectively.
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the Delmore housing project on Orewa’s back door. The way it has been fast tracked, overriding any semblance of democracy. Gary’s involvement was based around the fact that semi treated and raw sewage is going to be trucked from the development to the treatment facility In Whangarei. Let’s hope there are no slips on the Brynderwyns eh!
The meeting, and the questions that followed the speeches were more and more focused on the eroding of our democracy. Fast tracked legislation, polling shenanigans, the way our law allows lies to be told about other parties, without any real consequences, were all canvassed.
There is no doubt our democracy is under attack.
Unfortunately, it is not a hot button issue when putting food on the table is. So, although Labour has policies to deal with the problem, we can’t afford not to focus on jobs, health and homes.
"It is a shame the media is not asking hard questions…………."
Well now, a question or two….what "media" specifically and……..who owns that "media"………?
In my mailbox this morning is a set of questions about the recent Curia poll by one of Curia's persistent critics who has me on speed-email.
They cut directly to the question about how as a pollster or in commissioning a poll, just you can hold down the scales of a poll to influence narrative.
Now, for me, those are all very pertinent questions when you're looking at a poll commissioned by the TU influence group who primarily seem to target media rather than policy, especially when there are a lot of questions about its funding, and by a pollster so ardently interested in not having close examination of his operating practices.
It just reeks of corrupt political practices.
Thank you Iprent.