Would you vote for Plaid Simroo?

Mar 1 2008 by Martin Shipton, Western Mail

A POLLING organisation has apologised after one of its interviewers pronounced Plaid Cymru “Plaid Simroo”.

As we reported yesterday, an ICM poll for BBC Wales found that only 39% of the Welsh public knew the country was being governed by a Labour-Plaid Cymru coalition.

Rev Aled Edwards, chief executive of Cytun, Churches Together in Wales, and a former Commissioner for Racial Equality, said, “I was rung up last Sunday afternoon and asked to take part in the poll. I was rather surprised when the interviewer referred to ‘Plaid Simroo’. It seems to me that some people would be confused by this, and it might affect the results.”

ICM executive Martin Boon said, “We are very sorry about this, and it shouldn’t have happened. But it’s one interviewer, who would only have been doing a small number of interviews, and this would not have affected the overall result. Nevertheless, we will put some procedures in place to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen again.”