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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » With perhaps just 6 months before EURef and just 1% tell Ipsos MORI that EU most important issue facing the country
With perhaps only months to go before Britain votes on whether or not to remain in the EU the latest Ipsos MORI Issues Index shows that those thinking this is Britain’s biggest issue is just 1%. Another 4% named it as one the other issues facing the country but that only makes a paltry 5%.
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First, the framing of the question. What is the most important facing Britain today. That focuses the interviewees mind on immediate problems, which is strongly correlated with issues with a direct personal impact. It is no surprise that something at such a meta- and impersonal level as the EU does not spring to mind unprompted.
Second, the EU impacts virtually all the issues listed.
Third, the question does not even give a good clue as to what importance means. Is it urgency, is it impact (and for whom), is it significance?
Ask this sort of question and you'll get a mishmash of what is occupying peoples' minds in the moment, not a considered response as to the very big, more abstract issues of the constitutional type.
So go ahead, believe that the constitutional issues of the UK's role in the EU are considered of importance by only 1 or 5% of the population if you want. That is clearly bollocks. Is it at the forefront of consideration in the moment of that number. That would be unsurprising.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/35155892
IN
In SINDYREF we had a fully engaged electorate where OUT had "won every argument" (sic) and yet the losers voters still voted for the status quo.
Given the "certainty" of "nailed on Independence" the Zoomers TRAITORS might want to get themselves a new electorate - the current lot only rate constitutional issues at 1% as the most important and 8% among the most important of issues...
I'm not sure about yr analysis. At least the Scottish referendum was fought about Scotland.
Looks like the EU referendum is going to be fought on issues more or less tangential to the EU. Which makes it more unpredictable, maybe
Membership of the EU is fundamentally about who controls the UK's borders, which is absolutely the key issue on controlling both immigration and terrorism. Open borders means no security, and ultimately no welfare state, and impacts at least to some extent on almost all the issues in list.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/16/big_brother_born_ntac_gchq_mi5_mass_surveillance_data_slurping/
Or just that when put on the spot people's views are thinly spread across a broad range of issues.
:off-topic:
Saw the last ten minutes of 'Bad Education' on Al-Beeb III last-night: Was that a cameo apprearence from Unckie-Clown? Oh, Xmas-merriment....
That said, immigration, employment, security etc clearly have strong EU angles - so even if people do not link them immediately, there's no doubt referendum campaigning and media coverage of thiatbwill bring the connections to the fore.
My strong impression is that there are more committed Leavers than Remainers, but that most people at this stage are there to be convinced - or, more accurately, made to care. It will all be about turnout. The lower it is, the better it will be for Leave.
Also, I notice that people seem even less concerned about inflation. Not surprising, as it is 0% at the moment, but it doesn't mean it is unimportant.
@MTimT: would you be able to resend me your email link please. I wanted to follow up on your Nature article. Many thanks.
From the article you link, "The phones were then targetted for MI5 "implants" (malware), authorised by a ministerial warrant."
I'd rather just ban them, but that's easier said than done no doubt.
From the article you link, "The phones were then targetted for MI5 "implants" (malware), authorised by a ministerial warrant."
To be fair, you've also missed the key part. Why this needs to be in central London rather than a provincial town, say Cheltenham.
There is something in this, I think.
I expect I will be criticised but anyhow I will go ahead. Yesterday morning on Radio 4, one of Janner's accusers was complaining that he and others would not get "justice" and yet he refused to reveal his name. I am troubled by this. Anonymous accusations years after the alleged events when the risk of retaliation is non-existent is not really compatible with transparent justice. Justice requires that we know the names of the accusers, it seems to me, and can test what they have to say, at least as much as testing what the accused said and did.
I found it troubling that no-one challenged the person making the accusation about why they were unwilling to reveal themselves while at the same time making and repeating very grave accusations against a dead man within 48 hours of his death.
Have we forgotten Lord MacAlpine so soon?
Because it is run by the security service, based in London, not GCHQ, based in Cheltenham, at a guess.
It's a strange society where we're terrified of protecting women and children for fear of being branded. I shake my head in disbelief that a separate justice system runs alongside one that was established here centuries ago.
It should be possible to ban but it is politically easier, I expect, to do so on the basis of evidence. And that makes - or should make - for better legislation and, crucially, effective enforcement. It may also be possible to make changes which could make them, in some cases, compatible with and subject to English law.
There is absolutely no way I would have mentioned the EU (not least because my associate membership of the fiscally dry, socially liberal not obsessed with gays and Europe party might be suspended before the national launch and inevitable victory) and I have recognised on here that I think about it a lot more than pretty much anyone I know in the real world.
The EU seems to matter a lot to a very small number of people whose idea of self and concept of nationhood is tied up with self determination and sovereignty. Almost all of these people, so far as I can tell, are leavers. NickP is probably the closest we have to a Europhile on the Board and even he gives the impression of generally going through the motions.
Does this suggest turnout is the key to the result? The fewer people vote the greater say the obsessives have. Maybe this poll is not that bad for out after all. The EU makes AV look almost interesting.
I also don't understand why we introduce specific laws against FGM and forced marriage, and fail to use them, where existing offences such as GBH and conspiracy to rape would already seem to fit the bill.
For the avoidance of doubt. Everyone who disagrees with Dodd disagrees with God. That's why their names are so similar
"Those attending faith-based tribunals must be informed that they cannot be forced to
attend and that the rulings from such hearings may not be legally binding under
British law.""
That said, I agree that their evidence has to be properly tested. From my very limited experience of these things through clients and in my brief time as a prosecutor (some years ago now) many alleged victims have mental health and drug issues which they would maintain are a consequence of their dreadful experiences. This may be true and I think we generally underestimate how much drug use is or at least starts as a form of self medication for PTSD, nightmares etc but it does make their evidence somewhat problematic.
Two points against this thread:
1) It's irrelevant. A referendum was in the manifesto, and it's nice to see, unlike Labour's reneging on their referendum and Clegg's idiotic three line whip abstention, the Conservatives are actually going to do what they said they would.
2) One might argue that immigration is not entirely unrelated to the EU.
A difficult issue I know but there are good reasons why all decent societies have a horror of anonymous accusations.
For instance:
If we want to stop prisoners having the vote, we can't.
If we want to take VAT off tampons, we can't.
Not one for slogans myself, but they do play a role in how people vote.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/22/labour-people-optimists-see-no-hope-jeremy-corbyn
There were of course the usual howlers: There is such a delicious irony in a long-time scourge of the anti-democratic nature of the Lords complaining that reforming them in much the way she urged Tony Blair to is an 'anti-democratic coup.' A wicked slur. It is far more plausible and far less frightening to believe in a fat bearded bloke coming down chimneys and wandering into small children's bedrooms while they are asleep than to think of a senior member of Islington Labour Party who got two Es at A-level in a high-achieving school and who has spent most of his time since consorting with avowed enemies of the West, our allies and indeed things like 'common sense' and 'reason' becoming Prime Minister.
However, it is intriguing to note her overall conclusion - that Labour is heading for catastrophe. This from a woman who even clung to Gordon Brown for nearly three years when everyone passably sane could see the only question was whether Cameron would beat him by a fair margin or a huge one. Or whose admiration of the work Ed Miliband was doing led her to confidently predict he would see off David Cameron's attacks and be Prime Minister in coalition with the SNP, as his brilliance meant that would not frighten the voters - less than a month before five of his shadow cabinet ministers lost their seats. Is this the moment that the Labour party starts to collapse on itself?
Admittedly, as she is a former Gang of Four follower, she will doubtless be dismissed by the Jezziah's disciples and apologists as a Fascist.
Some people are bloody daft. It's also why surveillance powers should be strictly limited, and not available to any jobsworth who happens to work for the state.
AIUI, so do the Jewish Beth Din courts. To the extent of women being unable to divorce husbands, and people wanting to convert to Judaism being forced to live in certain areas to do so.
It's fine to say that there should be voluntary tribunals. The problem occurs when societal factors conspire to make them non-voluntary. And I'd argue that'll happen whenever it involves devout people of any religion. When 'religious marriages' become more important in a community than 'civil marriages', and hence divorces as well.
As long as there are religious courts, you will have people using them to gain advantage in a dispute in a manner that would not be allowed in civil courts. As long as parts of the population look to religious courts over civil courts, we will have problems.
And that's the same for Judaism, Islam or any other religion.
Polly is more reliably wrong than even Rogerdamus, yet she is predicting bad news for Labour.
Something somewhere is seriously out of whack
More seriously, while it is possible that Toynbee is as usual completely wrong, it is in this case more probable that Corbyn is such a disaster that even a severely retarded baboon with a visual impairment would be able to see it. The point is that to get her to break her record of tribal loyalty of around 25 years, things must be getting bad. Look at the last line, where she begs the Labour party to concentrate their fire on the Tories and not each other. It smacks of desperation - a frantic attack on the unpleasant symptom while ignoring the lethal cause.
The Church of England has courts as well, but they are effectively a disciplinary organisation for the clergy and senior officials for religious misdemeanours, e.g. a married clergyman running off with a parishioner.
@Maomentum_: Absolutely, Twitter is the correct medium for attacking fellow Labour members. https://t.co/oSN3vtWVKY
I think of the False Memory problems, the Satanic Abuse claims only 20 years ago, and the Cleveland cases where two Medical Consultant making wrong diagnoses caused 100+ children to be taken from their families. And I shudder.
Taking a child from its innocent parents is as much an act of child abuse as if they had actually done something.
Our authorities have spent the last 20 years creating structures to give "victims" revenge against their "abusers". Impact statements, right to review decisions, right to appeal sentences, an effective duty for the police to believe - there's no end to it. I think a cultural problem has been created.
ISTM That the place to start is with a statute of limitations to lay down a rule about the reliability of evidence 20, 30 or 40 years later.
I must admit though that I thought this line in the second paragraph encapsulated Labour's year absolutely brilliantly: