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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The limitations of polling: How Americans responded when asked if a law that didn’t exist should be repealed
When phone samples were asked for their views about the repeal of the 1975 Public Affairs Act, a piece of legislation that doesn’t exist, 20-40% of those questioned were ready to offer views even though this was entirely fictional.
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"I agree with George Osborne that the welfare system in Britain is broken":
Agree: 66
Disagree: 20
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/poll-reveals-more-half-people-1815925
Latest YouGov / The Sun results 11th April - CON 32%, LAB 42%, LD 9%, UKIP 11%; APP -33
http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/hg95lj9txi/YG-Archive-Pol-Sun-results-110413.pdf
Some interesting changes in the supplementaries, which may, or may not, be Thatcher related:
Succeeded in moving on & left its past behind it:
Con : 18 (+5)
Lab : 21 (-3)
Appeals to one section of society rather than whole country:
Con : 52 (+3)
Lab : 22 (+3)
App: -33
More Scotland VI Variations
Scotland Subsample
Cons: 25; LAB: 43; LD: 5; SNP 17; UKIP 8
Yesterday
Cons 17; Lab 40; LD 8; SNP 32; UKIP 2
Previous day:
Cons:14; LAB:35; LD 24; SNP 17; UKIP:9 :
All in all it's a good article, with some thought-provoking results.
I expect BenM to be along to condemn the "splitter" Blair for leading to Labour's "slump"! Or not.
As an aside, according to Guido the single's only been downloaded 20,000 times, yet is high on the provisional charts. My (perhaps faulty) memory from the 1980s was that a single needed at least an order of magnitude more sales in order to be at a hope of reaching No. 1 . Have single sales / downloads really fallen that much?
(fx: checks. It seems it vaties, but has dropped: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UK_Singles_Chart_number_ones )
"TALKING of the importance of free speech . .
On Sunday, Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead could well be in the Top Ten.
Hijacked by those celebrating Lady Thatcher’s death, the BBC is likely to play it on the Radio 1 chart show.
Yes, the very thought is truly abhorrent. But there is a big principle at stake.
As Tory MP Rob Wilson has said, Maggie “didn’t free millions of people in order to censor a tiny number of nasty idiots”.
The BBC and other broadcasters should play it — but clearly disassociate themselves from the sentiment behind it."
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/4508014/The-Sun-says-Building-for-the-future.html
Next they will suggest that the minister for Silly Walks is an anachronism, though I do accept that the ministry does struggle with contemporary attitudes to disability.
" As Tory MP Rob Wilson has said, Maggie “didn’t free millions of people in order to censor a tiny number of nasty idiots”."
Stuart Bell, co-founder of the PR firm DawBell, said: ‘A quote including “no recollection” for this particular situation is a PR crime. Phrases such as “I can’t say for certain” almost scream out “yes, it was me, I did it”.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2307514/Labours-Chuka-Umunna-remember-DID-use-law-firm-liken-Barack-Obama-Wikipedia.html#ixzz2QE5A4VxK
"What seems to fluctuate with YG is the Tory number. The Labour one is remarkably steady."
Correct - my own guess for what it's worth is there are more shy/disaffected Tories who can't be added to respond to the survey requests - I typically get about a dozen every month and delete most.
Personally, however, I'd play the record. It's poor taste and reflects very badly on the buyers, but the same could be said of two thirds of the top 40.
This will be filed under great victories for the left - up the with getting 44% in a yougov.
The reverse is also true. People will offer an opinion on any issue that's been in the news. But we wildly exaggerate the extent to which it makes them rethink how they'll vote.
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2013/04/1992-the-last-elected-conservative-government/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=1992-the-last-elected-conservative-government&utm_source=Lord+Ashcroft+Polls&utm_campaign=fbd39c2a70-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
"John Major had a number of advantages. One was that after only 16 months in
office, people were willing to give him the chance to show what he could do (the
same chance they would have given Gordon Brown in 2007). Another advantage was
Neil Kinnock. Cameron can take no comfort from the first, but nor should he from
the second: while many potential Labour voters find Ed Miliband unconvincing,
they do not see him as a liability."
http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1979/1979-labour-manifesto.shtml
Interesting to see that a wealth tax, and a promise of a job to everyone unemployed for a year look likely to reappear for 2015, though in 13 years of New Labour government these were not enacted.
Interesting to see advocacy for EU budget reform, sales of council housing, and targeting 5% inflation there also.
Pollsters should be doing this kind of thing as a matter of course to give us a baseline to interpret the real results, in the same way that a medical study will have a placebo group. If a pollster tells us that 37% of voters think minister X should resign over affair Y, we should have a dummy poll telling us how many support the resignation of a made-up minister so that we can compare the current scandal to the Null Scandal.
And of course, it shows that many people are willing to venture opinions on subjects about which they know absolutely nothing. That's stupidity, I'd say.
Still 27 minutes of P2 to go. Massa's fastest so far, and let's hope (cf pb2) he stays there.
Interesting poll. It's a shame that some of the most interesting psych experiments (Milgram experiment, Stanley prison) are ethically dubious, because they threw up some fascinating results.
In the same way, decades ago psychologists deliberately frightened very young babies, and in so doing found that physical contact mattered more than appearance. This changed because babies had previously been kept separate from mothers, but afterwards were encouraged to be held a lot. For millions it will have been a benefit, but it's hard to argue the traumatised babies involved will be glad to have participated.
Oh, and on a similar note to the above polling there was a fun homophobic psych experiment (well, questionnaires) I read about. It was about gay rights. Most homophobes, obviously, were against gay people having equal rights regarding adoption and so forth. However, when informed gay people themselves were against themselves having such rights the homophobes did a volte-face and *wanted* them to have rights of adoption, and so forth.
So, disagreeing with the group they disliked mattered more than giving them greater rights.
So his five years of faux outraged posturing regarding it here turned out to be all froth.
It was merely a question of pressing the buttons marked outrage.
Never mind tim 99% of people wouldn't know what Section 28 amounted to either and 90% wouldn't care one way or another even if they did.
Incidentally did you know it was the Thatcher government which legalised homosexuality in both Scotland and Northern Ireland?
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2013/04/people_in_the_south_are_not_so.html#incart_river_default
Mrs T was also a supporter of legalising homosexuality among men in the 1960's; homosexuality amongst women was never illegal, I believe.
As Tory MP Rob Wilson has said, Maggie - “didn’t free millions of people in order to censor a tiny number of nasty idiots”.
Nail on head - Sounds like an eminently sensible chap.
I wasn't aware of the camapign to get the song to Number 1 until I read about it in the Mail and Telegraph.
There was also an article containing private family information in the Mail about the Thatchers that left me feeling queazy. <blockquote class="Quote" rel="tim">@JosiasJessop
Of course the hysterical press campaign is driving the downloads now.
They are like Mary Whitehouse searching for something to be disgusted by.
And I see anti-censorship campaigner Guido Fawkes is demanding censorship.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="Quote" rel="tim">@JosiasJessop
Of course the hysterical press campaign is driving the downloads now.
They are like Mary Whitehouse searching for something to be disgusted by.
And I see anti-censorship campaigner Guido Fawkes is demanding censorship.</blockquote>
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02533/120413-MATT-web_2533890a.jpg
Whilst we may debate whether levels of certain crimes are rising or falling, the continued growth of the electronic media and its cheap availability to all has allowed the public pain and humiliation of the victims of crime to be prolonged.
More and more frequently, the press has accounts of people (frequently young girls) who have been abused or raped and their perpetrators of those crimes have posted videos and/or pictures of the action of those crimes on social networking sites such as Facebook. The frequent result has been that the crime victims have committed suicide.
It would appear that our criminal justice system is very slow to react to such events. Whilst it can be difficult to legally control the transnational owners of social networking sites (and I suspect that Facebook is not able to control its site any more), the perpetrators of such crimes are often known to the police who appear to be unable/unwilling to take any action.
At the same time, suspicion of anyone holding but not 'broadcasting' pictures of paedophilic activity brings down the full force of law and a probably a criminal record. Also the same happens if one uses any words that are deemed 'racist' or 'homophobic' etc, but these victims are not publicly and eternally branded as those depicted on Facebook (as copies of their personal abuse is often copied to other websites.)
Our forefathers in the Middle Ages used public humiliation to control those who offended public decency. Did they know more than we do? Of course they were not inhibited by an human rights legislation.
Can't let one day go by.
Can't let one thread go by.
Can't let one comment go by.
Get a life.
Will it ever make Number 1?
It was the Greenham Common women who ended the Cold War and the TUC that helped engineer the downfall of Soviet oppression...
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4883826/Labour-snob-Chuks-1m-Ibiza-pad-no-West-End-trash-allowed.html
I was sad enough to download music from Kate and Will's wedding, and wonder if there will be downloads of Margaret Thatcher's funeral music available later on Wednesday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3rD8fUmbRA
Curiously enough mentioned in neither his Wiki entry nor constituency profile.....
......just as well no one holds wealthy parents or going to a posh school against anyone......
As to the increase in crime and benefit dependency in the 1980s those were bad things but I suspect that both had increased substantially in the 1970s as well and likewise they would both have increased in similar countries around the world.
I do suspect that they would also have increased under whichever government and prime minister Britain had had during the 1980s.
But as you seem to have the numbers tim perhaps you could let us know the number of people who were benefit dependent in 1970, 1979, 1990, 1997 and 2010? I would be genuinely interested to see the changes.
As to the ANC I think it was perfectly justifiable to regard Nelson Mandela as a terrorist in the 1980s, he did after all plead guilty to acts of terrorism.
I would also say that those acts of terrorism were justifiable for someone from Mandela's background.
And that it was fortunate for South Africa that the ANC's military activities were such dismal failures otherwise the country might have fallen into civil war. Perhaps some people here would have preferred that as long as they could have blamed Thatcher for it?
"Staunchly anti-communist Margaret Thatcher was key in hastening the fall of the Iron Curtain, Poland's former president and anti-communist freedom icon Lech Walesa said Monday, hailing the late former British leader.
"She was a great person. She did a great deal for the world, along with (late US president) Ronald Reagan, pope John Paul II and Solidarity, she contributed to the demise of communism in Poland and Central Europe," an emotional Walesa told AFP."
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130408/thatcher-hastened-fall-iron-curtain-polands-lech-walesa
Wales' seven health boards were asked for a list of stolen property during the last five years under a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by BBC Wales.
The most expensive theft was £78,000 worth of cable. Across Wales, the list also includes wheelchairs, a Philips X-ray machine and a £4,128 Transit van.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-22109590
Hospitals are quick enough to impose fines for over-parking - but to lose a transit van and beds - MODERATED
It is the first time I realised that Maggie's actions lead to increasing the diversity of the nation by setting in train the events that enabled people from Eastern Europe to eventually settle in the UK.
http://web.archive.org/web/20070818063344/http://www.knittingcircle.org.uk/gleanings2889.html
(picked this link up from wikipedia's piece on the Section)
tim, if I have wrongly tagged you as coming from Birmingham then let me apologise.
Your knowledge of things Brummy suggested as much to me.
With the exception of Aston Villa's celebrity fans Birmingham must be the most unfashionable of Britain's cities.
And with that a good day to all at PB.
It looks like Chuka is making enemies. Personally, I am warming to him. I see why he fits so well into Millibands shadow cabinet. Both have inheireted well.
RT @CataNigra: I hope M Thatcher's death was degrading and painful, tweets sick Scotland Yard sergeant http://t.co/aXLmrlkxZM via @MailOnline
RT @PaulGoodmanCH: "We have the sixth largest aid programme in the western world." #Thatcher #CompassionateConservatism #87Manifesto
I might be wrong, but if I remember correctly, the idea was that the more E European countries that joined, the weaker would be the centralisation powers of the EU? The idea was to dilute the powers of the organisation and the E Europeans were seen as potential allies against the Franco-german bloc?
If he were sacked, what would his pension situation be?
That was the theory, it hasn't worked in practice.
The bloke will probably lose his job, for not much really, other than having a hatred for Thatcher, and venting that hatred online.
Now, though, after one of their own has been fingered for dodgy tweets, the Police might have a think about chasing after other keyboard warriors.
Also, used to go with a friend of mind to the Czech and Slovak Club for a decent beer near West Hampstead.
Since you are such a Chuka fanboy, perhaps you could clarify what is meant by "Jetrosexual"!
Come on Bob, Chukka has shown himself to be a vain, arrogant, rich-as-feck, out of touch poshlad.
We've got more than enough of those in all our mainstream parties, so he deserves as much ridicule as the rest of 'em.
I might, or might not, have a ticket to go along tonight (I forget). So does anyone have any ideas for questions that might be asked?
Given that Thatcher was a scientist, and two of the panellists are lawyers, I'm tempted to ask whether there should be more scientists and fewer lawyers in politics...
And the overwhelming response was "I think Obama edged it", as one might expect in a heavily democrat area.
The problem ? The debate was that evening - it hadn't taken place yet !
O/T On "Ding dong" Well not to my taste but its a free world. The controversy and press coverage will probably drive sales amongst people who didn't even live in Thatcher's Govt.
This chap was clearly very stupid - that he tweets about the police/has a plod related Twitter name doesn't help as he's blurring the line between his private opinions and the public office he holds. So Misconduct in Public Office charges will no doubt be forthcoming as a result.
Conservatives are so tribal.
http://tinyurl.com/d3gsay8
I look forward to your future defences of Tories from "bumpkin prejudices"
His favoured holiday destinations appear to be Ibiza and South Beach....