A YouGov poll out today shows a 20pt lead for the Conservatives among ‘C2DE’ voters, which is often used as a proxy for ‘working class.’ There’s been speculation that the C2DE group includes wealthy pensioners who might skew the findings.

This speculation is wrong.

The categories come from the National Readership Survey, which has been used for decades to approximate social class by researchers. ‘ABC1’ is widely considered middle class while ‘C2DE’ roughly translates as working class.

‘Category E’ includes state pensioners, but only those with no other source of income. Retirees with a private/company pension or other finances are graded on their previous occupations. So a retired senior manager would still be grouped as ABC1 (middle class) by researchers.

@YouGov confirmed to @FactCheck that they use the Market Research Society methodology to classify retired people:

We shouldn’t put too much weight on one poll. But the idea that this poll is distorted by middle class pensioners sneaking into the ‘working class’ category is wrong.

On its face, it does show a 20pt lead for the Conservatives among working class voters.

@FactCheck has looked at the question of whether Labour is ‘the party of the working class’ as they sometimes claim. You can read the full analysis here: https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-is-labour-the-party-of-the-working-class