The Telegraph goes all BBC and pimps up a “survey” about small businesses opposing a UK exit from the EU without saying much about the source
“Almost two thirds of the 1,600 companies surveyed by SME networking business BNI said staying in the EU would be better for business”
Fortunately, if you look at the comments you will see that readers expended a little more shoeleather on BNI than the DT
BNI is a networking company (http://www.bni.eu) with just under 6300 members. The survey had 1600 responses, almost two thirds of whom believed Britain would be better off in the EU. So, under 1100 (less than a fifth of BNI’s UK membership) people thought that Britain should stay in the EU. It’s not exactly representative, is it?
This…
would like to know, before giving any credence whatsoever to this ‘survey’:
1) Were any of the sample actual exporters to the EU, if so what percentage
2) What EXACTLY was the question
3) How was the data treated in coming to the ‘results’
4) What do the surveyed firms think the situation will be, as far as exporting and trade is concerned, AFTER a negotiated EU exit.
And This..
I always thought that SMEs in this country were represented by the BCC, whose attitude to the EU and its reams of regulation is markedly less enthusiastic. And of course, there are far more SMEs in the UK (like mine) which do not belong to any trade organisation at all because we consider them to be a waste of money and representative of vested interests that run entirely counter to our own business interests
That this ‘survey’ has beenn presented without reference to such essential background information about the participants makes one conclude that standards at The Telegraph have really slipped, particularly with regard to the misleading headline, since it cannot possibly claim to speak for a majority of UK SMEs
Standards slipping at the Telegraph? Surely not….
