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Leading Questions - Yes Prime Minister

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Satire & parodyFilm & TV clipsData science & statistics

What it is

A clip from Yes Prime Minister in which Sir Humphrey shows how leading questions can make a survey support or oppose national service. It is a short satirical scene.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN commenters bring it up whenever a poll or survey result looks suspect, as the classic illustration of biased question framing.

  • 4 people recommended it
  • 4 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2012, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “An excellent illustration of this”

    waterhouse, 2020-08 · Recommendation · in “Gallup: 81% of Black Americans Want Police to Retain Local Presence”

  2. “One of my favorite shows”

    Jalad, 2022-03 · Recommendation · in “Walgreens replaced some fridge doors with screens, and some shoppers hate it”

  3. “I recall an excellent segment on Yes, Minister that explains it”

    roenxi, 2023-02 · Recommendation · in “We are dropping the Dilbert comic because of creator Scott Adams racist rant”

  4. “A humorous take on this I love”

    graemep, 2024-11 · Recommendation · in “Statistical challenges and misreadings of literature create unreplicable science [pdf]”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: yes prime minister, polling, survey bias, satire, bbc

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