14 AUGUST 1964, Page 10

Polls Apart

BY CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS

What is important is that there is an almost total failure in this country to use and extend the methods of opinion measurement developed in the United States; this failure is entirely due to the absence of adequate finance.—Professor Eysenck, Professor of Psychology at London University, on opinion polls.

Our pollsters may be corny, yet Americans are even cornier,

To judge from the results they get

In recent weeks in California.

Since for the lavishly equipped The cost is demonstrably steeper And either, way we're wrongly tipped, Where both are wrong, let's choose the cheaper.