What do polls tell us...
29 October 2012
... Not a lot really. They represent a snapshot in which the raw data is played around with based around all sorts of ideas about who reads what newspapers etc. etc.
... Not a lot really. They represent a snapshot in which the raw data is played around with based around all sorts of ideas about who reads what newspapers etc. etc.
OK - they are fun and, yes - they are a 'rough guide' to how people feel about events and public opinion and we cannot ignore them specially when it gets close to an election.
Let is take a look at one of the most recent.
It was a poll on attitudes towards our living Prime Ministers and the most interesting aspect was how people viewed their competency or otherwise.
Most competent PM - Mrs Thatcher with 33%, Blair with 25% then there was Cameron/Brown/Major on 7/6/5 - statistically nothing between them.
For the most incompetent PM - Brown had 43%, Cameron 17%, Blair and Major each had 11% and Mrs T just 7%.
But what did this poll actually tell us? Nothing really that we did not know. Few people will disagree with the top finding in each, the truth is self-apparent and written in our history, the competence of Mrs T and the incompetence of Brown. For the others it is meaningless though, particularly Cameron as it is too early for an objective opinion.
But polls can be dangerous.
Politicians need to lead based on conviction, they need to sway and motivate public opinion to their view. We need politics to be a battle of ideas. Too often these days policy is made and changed based on opinion polling and focus groups rather than conviction. Too much of our 'political debate' is around perceived scandal and trivia, this is lazy politics, the lowest common denominator. It bodes ill for the future. That does not mean that there are no ideas entering the political arena, there are, but these get drowned out by the rest. A sad state of affairs.
- Sorry but I feel this is out of order it should stay on his own blog, .thank you,must say this is the second time I have said this,I know the forum is free to us and that we do not run it,
- This is the blog Vic.
Glad that you take an interest in it. - Sorry but I am not and do not read it. thank you.
- My opinion on the current PM is that he simply does not grasp the seriousness in the fact that Britain's Public Debt requires - as of 2011 data - £50 billion a year interest servicing. A figure destined to rise each year as the Debt goes up (talking here of the basic £1 trillion Debt, forget for now the other £1.3 trillion added Debt with all its added implications).
Unable to grasp that our economy is being bled dry to pay huge sums on interest on the Debt, the PM is kicking into the long grass the inevitable consequences of our present economic situation: namely that one day a British Government will start a drastic Wealth Redistribution programme.
So if it won't be this PM and Government, it will be another.
This is my opinion, and could possibly reflect one day in polls.
(Barry, I have also responded on your previous blog post). - Alexander - you keep coming up with your recipe for economic suicide and can only be implemented by an authoritarian/totalitarian state. Even then it would beggar the economy, drive out businesses and vital investment turning this into a third world country.
Government is the problem, governments spend too much money and tax too much. The last government was a total disaster for that and the present one is not cutting spending enough and passing on the proceeds as tax cuts to help stimulate growth.
I can assure you that the only way to solve too much spending is by cutting spending. There is no other way. - competence rate - thatcher 33% and blair 25%, considering things look rosier in the passage of time so things could look better for blair in the future.
not a vote of confidence for either though. - Barry, the constant invectives, about making the super-rich pay up some of their surplus paper-wealth equating to a totalitarian state, is just a spin.
You wrote yourself that Brown and Balls (for some reason known only to you never the former PM Blair though) failed to bring in revenues to the Treasury in the years of financial boom.
The people who shamelessly grabbed heaps of financial gain in an absurd and over-bloated manner as a result of New Labour's failures. you protect, however.
You are just scare-mongering, Barry, when you keep using the terms "third world" and "totalitarian state" to defend the ill-gains of the speculators and money-grabbers who thrive on ripping off the economy that belongs to us all.
After all, this is OUR economy, and we have the right to demand a Wealth Redistribution.
Spins won't deter people! But rather open their eyes as to whom and what is being "protected". - You can see the Government clawing some of this wealth back on the new HMRC thread I've just put up on the forum Alex...take a look.
- 'Surplus paper wealth' what total rot Alexander.
Do not misinterpret what I have said. The problem is government spending full stop. Under Brown as chancellor the share of the economy sucked up into the bottomless pit of the State reached an appalling 53% and that is the cause of many of our problems.
Cutting back on the State is the only way to deal with that.
I do not scare-monger - I am telling you what reality is. get away from your student debating mode and into the real world is my advice. - Barry, I've just replied on your previous blog post to an identical invective.
- as this blog is about opinion polls the one out from "comres" today makes for uncomfortable reading for the government with the reds on 44% 11 points ahead of the blues. more tellingly 67% thought dave and george were out of touch with ordinary voters including 40% of blue diehards.
- In the same comres poll, the LibDems got 12%. So adding that to Labour's 44%, that makes 56%.
Barry, as things are standing now, the Tories are losing support rapidly. It's going downhill, and yet, as the major Coalition partner, they are in a position to make the right decisions. - Polls are a snapshot, no more.
One campiagner might have a good week and this will reflect in a poll surge, the trick is getting the surge the day before the election itself, if you pull that off you can be almost certain of a win. This is particularly important when its a close run thing as is the US Election at the moment.
The current poll of polls for the US Election is showing Mitt Romney in the lead on 49% with Barack Obama on 47%...who would have predicted that 2 months ago. However if Barack Obama has a good 'Frankinstorm', and is seen to be helpful and in charge and in there in the thick of it. He may well enjoy a..ermm.. storm surge in the polls too!