I AM intrigued by the implications of some of the Daily Polls published in The Bolton News.

The poll in the edition of May 2 showed the responses to the question “Where you at the Macron for the big game?” Responses given were Yes = 73%, No = 27%.

If respondents were taken at random from the people of Bolton so as to be representative of the total population (not, for example, from a few blokes quaffing pints in a pub near the Macron an hour or two before the match) and if and we take a round-figure of 270,000 for the population of the town then, just over 197,000 people were at the match.

With such encouragement, it is no wonder the Whites won, though I wonder where Health and Safety were on the day.

I understand that the polls are probably meant to be a little light entertainment, but such surveys only have any real value (and then only sometimes) if a sufficiently high number of respondents are enlisted by a process of random selection. Details of how you conduct the polls would be interesting and help better interpretation of your results.

It is, after all, perfectly possible to assert that the country consists 100% of Conservative voters if the only persons in the survey are the prime minister and her husband!

I enjoy the polls, but I hope your readers don’t read too much into them.

Robert Aston,

Horwich