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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Leading psephologist argues that likeability ratings are better predictor of voting behaviour than “best leader” questions
Prof Paul Whiteley, of University of Essex who ran BPIX, posted an interesting article last night suggesting that some of the standard measures like “best leader” might not be a good indicator of electoral outcomes.
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Looks like Opinium have released their tables on a Sunday, so, as hinted at earlier, here is this week's Sunil on Sunday ELBOW (Electoral Leader-Board Of the Week): 10 polls with field-work end-dates from 2nd to 8th November, total weighted sample 12,891.
Lab 33.4% (+0.8)
Con 31.6% (+0.1)
UKIP 16.3% (-1.0)
LD 7.8% (+0.1)
Lab lead 1.8% (+0.7%)
comparisons with our first ELBOW on 17th August:
Lab -2.8%
Con -1.5%
UKIP +3.2%
LD -1.0%
Lab lead -1.2% (ie. was 3.0%, now 1.8%)
So this week, looks like Labour claw back a little of their lead, at UKIP's expense.
Was it all you were hoping for?
And one thing is certain Mr. Ed doesn't get a great deal of respect.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-26787677
Goodnight.
RE this
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29978194
Are we to expect Kinnock to say "we're awwwwright"
Based upon "likeability" she wouldn't have won a thing. Feared by the left, respected by the large % of the middle classes, that is what won her all those votes in places the Tories can only dream of winning now. But I think those same middle class voters wouldn't have wanted her round for Sunday Lunch, as scared s##t of her (as was most of her cabinet).
Cameron doesn't have the respect of the middle class, they see him as a weak PR man, who isn't a leader, but not as bad as Ed.
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDsQtwIwAw&url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrZ_v8cwFPk&ei=BvlfVP68C8zSaJ-kgFg&usg=AFQjCNHQ8ZBDuLWImuE0dyPBhkuZ1f3t8w&bvm=bv.79189006,d.d2s
And given UKIP have no desire to undermine their status as outsiders, even as they begin to get seats in the Commons and become as professional as the professionals they despise, I find myself unmoved by the whines from Kippers about being left out. UKIP want to be left out of such things to bolster that outsider status.
And yes, I say 'whines'. I welcome UKIP gaining enough seats to be meaningful as much as the next person, but as much as they do find themselves under concerted attacks which can be overblown, it is also true they can whinge like the best of them, and sometimes disingenuously at that, particularly when it comes to being not being included among the traditional leaders, which is the last thing they want outside of the key and public occasions.
Good night all.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/11219710/Ukip-plot-to-unseat-Ed-Miliband-at-the-general-election.html
I think not...
UKIP have been backed to win 50+ seats at the #GE2015 forcing William Hill to halve their odds from 16/1 to 8/1"
https://twitter.com/UKELECTIONS2015
Why, I wonder?
I think it could be because the paper particularly detests UKIP and they've come to the conclusion that the purples will do pretty well in Labour areas unless Miliband goes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-29974635
Catalan leaders hope big turnout will send independence signal
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1211e7ce-6819-11e4-acc0-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3IcSICqvZ
Sunil on Sunday ELBOW (Electoral Leader-Board Of the Week) update 9th Nov. Lab 33.4%, Con 31.6%, UKIP 16.3%, LD 7.8%
https://twitter.com/Sunil_P2/status/531584914605764609
"Vice President Joana Ortega said that more than two million people had taken part in the poll and that with almost all votes counted, 80.72% had backed independence."
"The government considers this to be a day of political propaganda organised by pro-independence forces and devoid of any kind of democratic validity,"
Not going to be any problems there then....
If there were a proper real referendum, organised under the proper auspices of the authorities in Spain, it would be a different kettle of ballgames.
It would be like a massed movement in Cornwall wanting to leave the UK, with quite a lot of separatist MPs, but not enough to win any votes in parliament. London tells them to go to hell and refuses to countenance a referendum on Cornish Sovereignty, as they would. So their only alternative short of just declaring independence unilaterally is to demonstrate support and try and generate moral authority. Even if the referendum is unconstitutional, it would tell London that 2m+ people in the region don't want to be part of the UK, and they are not likely to be going away.
In effect what would have happened in Scotland if London has refused to let them hold the recent referendum.
http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/public-perspective/ppscan/22/22015.pdf
"A Gallup poll in July 1990 found that 61% respected her but only 28% liked her. The number who both liked and respected her was a small minority of 21 %. The number who both disliked and did not respect her was also a minority-30%. The single largest category of electors-40%-respected her, while disliking her."
Its almost pointless trying to describe it to some young warriors on the left today who have 'read up on Thatchers reign, and now have it ingrained that the country was fine before Thatcher came along and destroyed it'. I was in my early teens, but very interested in politics and the fact that we might finally elect our first female PM, so my parents actually let me stay up to watch the 79' GE as a result! And the most ironic point is that Thatcher in the early days was the in her way the biggest rebel on all sides of the political divide!
Seriously, this was a GE where the 'its the economy stupid' that really overrode anything else, and it was only Thatcher that promised real change. Not long after she was elected, I remember being in one of the earliest Modern Studies classes in a Scottish Comprehensive, our Mods teacher was the school Union Rep and as Red as they came, he was devastated the Tories won. He asked the class to put their hands up if they would voted for Thatcher if they were old enough, everyone did bar one, and this was rural Scotland in the late 70's! Its often forgotten that Thatcher simple wouldn't have achieved the things she did without the electorates full support at that time.
http://www.comres.co.uk/poll/1293/sunday-mirror-independent-on-sunday-poll.htm
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2014/09/27/comres-poll-farage-as-popular-as-cameron/
Bizarrely has Callaghan down as most capable (just), and most able to deal with the unions (massively)
Answer on the Scottish Assembly interesting as well!
what do you think of this opinion?
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/apr/01/falklands-war-thatcher-30-years
"British PM's lucky gamble not only repelled the Argentinian invasion but also paved way for her ideological reforms"
1979, 43.9%
1983, 42.4%
1987, 42.2%
It's an impressive solidity of support and could be fully ten percentage points than either party of Cameron or Miliband achieves in 2015. Interesting also to compare to Blair's three general elections as Labour leader:
1997, 43.2%
2001, 40.7%
2005, 35.2%
In percentage share terms Blair lost nearly five times as much support between his first and third elections than Thatcher did.
[NB I've used UK-wide shares from Wikipedia for my convenience, rather than GB shares that are comparable to opinion polls. I think that GB share ~ UK share + 1]
Polling is carried out on a GB basis (excluding NI)
Also 42% can hardly be described as "full support". Three out of five people were not for her.
In any case national vote shares have zero relevance in terms of determining GE outcomes.
My hunch is that the Professor has spent a little too much time on this, and Mike has swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
Likeability isn't a criteria for PM, and I've voted for people I don't like but who I thought would do the best job. In fact, some would say you do not want a likeable character. John Major remained likeable enough despite being useless.
I remember someone once comparing it to your bank manager. You don't want them to like them. You want them to be good at their job.
Callaghan is an odd one, he was thought more competent than Thatcher according to that 1979 poll, and much more able to handle the unions, he was the incumbent, he was more likeable, he lost. God knows how he was thought more competent and capable after the Winter of Discontent.
And is the leading party the Frente Catalan?
So, while you're being churlish allow me to join in.
"national vote shares have zero relevance in terms of determining GE outcomes"
If a party gets zero percent of the national vote share they will get zero seats. That implies some (ie more than zero) relevance of vote share in terms of determining GE outcomes.
As fitalass says, you had to live through that era of disaster, remember the trip to the IMF?
Hmm, I don’t need to ‘like’ someone in order to vote for them, but I do need to respect them. – Likability, imho, is an entirely arbitrary response as to be almost meaningless, there are lots of people I ‘like’, who I doubt could manage a small business, let alone run a country.
The “who would make best leader” question, although not entirely free from an emotive response, focuses the electorate’s mind on the practicalities of running the country successfully and the individual leader’s perceived abilities in achieving this.
Thatcher was never particularly ‘liked’ if memory recalls, but she certainly knew how to run a country and was reelected 3 times on the back of it.
"It turns out that likeability is closely associated with other desirable traits that a successful leader needs, such as being competent ..."
For a start, "It turns out ..." is a phrase that always makes me suspicious. If you have evidence, or a logical chain, that supports an argument, you give it. You don't say "It turns out ..." Whenever the phrase is used, I feel the wool being pulled over my eyes.
And second, it is demonstrably false. Likeability is not correlated with competence in our everyday experience.
Miliband doesn't have a likeability problem, he has a huge competency problem, as indicated by two catastrophic conference speeches.
And he has a problem connecting with the working class vote (evidence: Scotland). Of course, almost all our politicians have no idea how life is lived by the working class, but it is a particular problem for a leader purporting to run a party that represents them.
If the Falklands had been lost then almost certainly HMG would have been blamed for the defence cuts and in particular the withdrawal of HMS Endurance which had encouraged Argentina to invade. Mrs Thatcher would have resigned or been forced out (and remember, before the Falklands, she was not very popular with her own party).
I agree that 42% is not full support (though obviously this would be a bit higher on a GB rather than UK basis), but I think that the consistency of her support is politically relevant. It is remarkable that in 1987 she retained the vast majority of the support that she was elected on in 1979, despite some incredibly contentious times. This shows that after eight years she had maintained the trust of the electorate who had elected her. What other political leader - in any country - can say the same? I can only think of FDR.
Zero relevance is a bit strong. In a five-party system you still require more than 10% national support - optimally distributed - in order to achieve a bare majority. Neither the Liberal Democrats or the Greens are currently polling at that level...
Ed is speaking today to offer big business a deal - he'll never take Britain out of the UK providing they raise pay to Living wage levels. However, the proposal, in my view has 3 potentially fatal flaws:
1. Higher UK wages will draw in even more immigrants than ever.
2. There is no guarantee that indigenous people will out-compete them for these jobs unless the incentives to opt for benefits are much more significantly reduced.
3. Labour will never tackle number 2.
Of course also while sympathising with higher wages as an aspiration for any good business there is also the danger that the trade-off would inevitably be higher unemployment once the bottom -line kicks in.
It's hard to tell how close it really was on the Falklands, the British Army was pretty resilient at the time. Hell, they even walked across the bleedin' Island after their helicopters had all been destroyed.
I will say thank F. I never ended up there.
Until the Falklands War started to be being won, the probablity, as I recall was that, FPTP permitting, there would have been a strong third party presence in the HoC after the next election. Even afterwards many were surprised at the size of the Tory majority.
If the Falklands War had been lost the Government would have collapsed. It had been quietly discussing some form of joint Government of the Islands with the Argies but when that was revealed there was a vocal, cross-party group which caused problems. Even then, if Galtieri hadn’t jumped, there was still a chance that some sort of deal could have been struck.
Not forgetting the NI 'Troubles'.
So many euphemisms for war these days.
The basic problem is that comparing a Prime Minister to a Leader of the Opposition is "apples and oranges".
Even more basic than that is whether people are using "type 1" or "type 2" thinking. (Broadly speaking, intuition or reasoning.) An example might be: Blair came across as intuitively likeable - so much so that some people (on both ends of the political spectrum) concluded (type 2 thinking) that he must be a snake oil salesman. Of to-day's leaders, probably Farage comes closest to that profile. It's much easier to sustain in opposition than Government (ask Nick Clegg) - Blair's gift was to reproduce it in 2001.
The Tories won in 1979 despite Thatcher, who was heartily disliked within and beyond her Party until the Falklands War. After that she was adored by "type 1" thinkers who distrusted their reasoning powers (often because those powers were derided at home and school). There were and are a lot of people like that.
I really don't recall anyone who liked Mrs T in 79. She was much shriller and less polished than she became. But she came across as a woman with a plan whilst poor old Jim just looked bewildered that a movement that he had been a part of his entire life had destroyed his government.
In modern times the Postman is clearly likeable but even Ed is better than that. Running a country is difficult and I want people much smarter than me to be doing it. They will still make mistakes and I in the cheap seats will continue to throw the odd egg but my number one concern is that they understand the problems even if I don't agree with their solutions. Likeability is a second or even third order consideration.
If you take the view that current benefit levels are at subsistence level - ie they are at the minimum level required to subsist given the cost of living in the UK - then it is obviously preferable to increase the incentive to work by increasing wages rather than by decreasing benefits.
You could argue that benefit levels for people with many children are above subsistence level, but I think that benefit levels for the childless are more clearly not. In the former case one then has the question as to whether it is morally acceptable to force children - who can do nothing to improve their material condition until they are old enough to enter the world of work - to live at subsistence levels because of the decisions of their parents.
In fact we all do - as long as they live far enough away (Africa, say).
One of the great what-if’s is what if Callaghan had gone to the country in the Autumn of 1978. He’d probably have just about squeaked back and the Tories would have dumped Mrs T.
The claim is not that likeability itself is important, but that it is a good, and crucially, unbiased proxy for the values that are important. Simply asking voters who they think would make the best PM will be biased by the incumbency effect - which one assumes that the Prof has evidence is stronger in opinion polls than ballot boxes. As countless posters to this board have pointed out in the past the alternative question "Do you think x is doing well in their job as y" is confused because many partisan Tories may believe that Miliband is doing very well in his job, thank you very much, while many automatic Labour partisans will think the opposite.
The chief problem that one is trying to address is that current voting intention does not correlate as well as we would like with voting intention in the polling booths in six months time. Likeability perhaps does.
Ozzy knows this and is pushing as hard as he can get away with to address the problem. See public sector headcounts fall. His challenge is that recovering GDP and falling unemployment are not generating much extra tax. Anyway - he's pointed in the right direction and is trying.
Labour? Away with the fairies. In deep deep denial. Ed even 'forgot' to mention the deficit in his big speech! If they scrape home next May thanks to UKIP eating into Dave's vote they will suffer a party-destroying crisis of competence in dealing with the deficit (or not). Markets will smell blood. PM Miliband will be overwhelmed by events. His own and his party's reputation trashed for a long time. In 6 months' time Ed is either going to lose or to face a drama he and his party are not equipped to handle. There's no happy ending for Miliband even if he wins the GE.
I also think that if Mrs T had been dumped the tories would have come up with someone pretty similar. The intellectual underpinning for what became known as Thatcherism was deep and wide. I really don't see a modern equivalent. All the current mainstream parties are in one way Thatcher's children but that over emphasises and over personalises a movement that was not at all restricted to the UK and which changed the world bringing on the collapse of communism and the creation of the modern world. Like Blair a generation later Thatcher rode the zeitgeist brilliantly but her role in creating it is over stated.
This is why I think Ed is in more trouble than the polls suggest. He doesn't appear to have a program to speak of, and he doesn't appear to be in control of his own, or the countries destiny. Cam mostly projects the impression of paternalism and noblese oblige, which gives him the air of being prime-ministerial and in control, its the time when we get the red faced blustering and his mask slips that you start to understand why he isn't higher in the polls.
In the polling booth, with pencil poised, people see a flash of their candidate in their minds eye making his acceptance speech, and they either smile, and tick the box, or wince, and look for another box.
Patrick I normally agree with the tone of most of your posts, but on Osborne pushing the deficit ? Well it gave me a chuckle on a cold wet morning in Brum.
Wasn't Sunny Jim much better liked than Thatcher?
For an over-25 the current rate of JSA is £72.40 per week. Is that not subsistence level?
It doesn't make unemployed British people more highly skilled - the argument has always been about incentives. In the case of incentives it's the differential that matters, unless you are prepared to take benefit levels to below subsistence rates so that people on benefits are physically suffering - and thus have a greater incentive to work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmrh8HhNgyI
(There's an annoying advert at the beginning...)
It seems as though there are people at the top of the Labour party would do believe this as well -- hence Ed's troubles.
The Labour party could win with (i) a personable & competent leader, or (ii) a poor leader, but an efficient and supportive team around him/her.
If Ed can't get his team onside, it really is over. He may limp on till May, till the final bullet, but it is over.
My feeling is the Labour party has now to defenestrate him.
Even if the new leader is Burnham or Cooper or Balls, the letting of the blood of the sacrificial victim provides catharsis.
Provided the new team can coalesce supportively around Burnham or Cooper, then the Labour party will be better off.