Who is the mystery person paying for private polling on Cameron’s holiday plans?

Recently, I was sent some screenshots of an online survey – conducted over the summer – on unfolding events in the Middle East. It appeared to be an attempt to gauge how the British public felt about the government’s handling of ISIS, and what should happen next. There were questions on whether and how Britain should intervene, and on how different international institutions/world leaders (including the Prime Minister) were handling the crisis.

One question in particular leapt out though, which was this one:

Who on earth would conduct polling on whether or not the PM should come back from his holidays to deal with an international incident?

The poll carried the masthead “Populus Live”. Populus is the polling company co-founded in 2003 by Andrew (now Lord) Cooper, who was until recently David Cameron’s Director of Strategy at Downing Street. However, when we spoke to Populus yesterday they told us that this poll wasn’t conducted by Populus, but by Populus Data Solutions (based in the same London address as Populus) who focus on “a full range of robust, cost-effective data collection and delivery services” – which sounds quite like private polling/research.

So we spoke to Populus Data Solutions, who weren’t able to tell us who the client was who commissioned this. We also asked Tory HQ if they/Downing Street had commissioned the poll – they gave an unequivocal denial that they’d commissioned the poll.

So the question is this – who is the person, or persons, who paid for costly private polling over the summer to work out what the public thought about the government’s handling of ISIS, and even whether the PM should return from holiday? And why would this mystery person use a private pollster that with links to (and sharing an office with) the Prime Minister’s former Director of Strategy?

Something doesn’t smell right.

You can the screenshots of the questions that were asked in the poll here.