14% of voters can remember hearing about imaginary Labour MP Audrey Cockburn using union funds to redecorate her home

By Tim Montgomerie
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Earlier today I noted that 41% of Britons couldn't spontaneously identify one single political event from recent weeks.

The finding came from a Lord Ashcroft poll that asked another slice of voters to look through a list of political events and say whether they'd heard a great deal, a bit or nothing of certain events*. Click on the table below to more clearly see the results...

Voters might not be being honest but it is encouraging - on the face of it - that they do regard economic growth, new measures against burglars and capping rail fares as much more important than whether, for example, Cameron accidentally left one of his children behind in a pub.

The findings I most love though is the fact that 14% of voters remembered imaginary Labour MP Audrey Cockburn using union campaign funds to redecorate her home and 11% recalled hearing about married Tory MP David Williams having a gay affair. Perhaps the story fits what many voters expect of MPs?

> Read Lord Ashcroft's commentary on his poll.

* The exact question was: "Below is a list of political stories that you may have heard about in the last few weeks or months. Some of these are true, and some are invented. We would like to know whether you have heard about each one. For each story please indicate whether you have heard a great deal, a bit, or nothing at all about this. If you have not heard about a story please be honest and say so – this is not a general knowledge test. // Please say how important you think each story is on a 0-10 scale, where 0 means “not important at all” and 10 means “extremely important”."