Public opinion moves further against cuts

by Nigel Stanley    
January 12, 2011 at 8:30 am

In my presentation at Netroots UK I included graphs showing how public opinion on the cuts has moved since the election using data from YouGov.

Yesterday they published a further data set for a poll conducted Jan 8-10 in which they have again asked these questions.

In a weak joke I have made far too many times I say one pole does not make a telegraph system. I have high regard for YouGov, but the laws of probability mean that polls are occasionally inaccurate.

But if today’s polls are right then there has been a significant move in public opinion as the astute Anthony Wells notes. More people expect to be diectly hit by the cuts, there is a marked shift in whether people think they are good for the economy (which is the one I think is crucial) and the majority who say they are unfair has increased again.

Net directly affected by cuts (ie those who think they will be directly affected by the cuts minus those who do not)

.

Net good for the economy

.

Net being done fairly

Public opinion is therefore moving away from the coalition.

But there is no room for complacency.

For the first time YouGov has asked the question that I would have liked to have been there from the beginning, which is whether the cuts are necessary or unnecessary:

• 52 per cent say necessary
• 35 per cent say unnecessary

As a snap-shot question it doesn’t tell us a great deal as some people would have said “necessary” even if they think the depth and scale of what the government is doing is too great, but if it’s going to be used as a tracker question in future it will be interesting to see how it moves.

And while I’ve not tracked this question in previous polls (though it has been asked):

• 40 per cent say the last Labour government is most to blame for the cuts
• 22 per cent say the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.

So things are a little better than they were in the pre-Christmas polls – particularly on ‘good for the economy’ – but there is still a long way to go so nothing in what I said needs adjusting despite some encouragement in this latest data set.

Why the BBC and Charlie Brooker are wrong over Eastenders

by Ellie Mae    
January 11, 2011 at 6:03 pm

For those of you that don’t follow life in Albert Square: a controversy has engulfed Eastenders’ baby swap story. It focuses upon the eternally tragic Ronnie Branning (neé Mitchell), and the loss of her newborn son to cot death.

After discovering her son, a grief-stricken and confused Ronnie wandered into the Vic and swapped him for Alfie and Kat’s baby. Since then, Ronnie has become increasingly irrational and paranoid as she attempts to keep her actions secret, whilst Alfie and Kat have been grieving for the child they believe to have died.

Charlie Brooker used his column in yesterday’s Guardian to dismiss the controversy and the 6,000 complaints it has elicited.
continue reading… »

Have Libdems broken electoral law in Oldham?

by Sunny Hundal    
January 11, 2011 at 3:11 pm

The Labour MP Jon Trickett has today written a letter to the cabinet secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell, asking to rule on whether Lib Dems had breached ministerial code by promoting a government announcement during Oldham and East Saddleworth campaign.

Trickett told Liberal Conspiracy:

This appears to be a clear breach of the rules surrounding how Ministers make policy announcements. Andrew Stunnell’s statement was issued by the Liberal Democrat candidate’s agent, on a Lib Dem press release, in the middle of a by-election, which appears opportunistic at best. I am yet to receive a response from Sir Gus O’Donnell but have urged him to investigate the matter immediately and I am sure he will appreciate the serious nature of the issue.

The Guardian reported earlier that in the letter to O’Donnell Trickett said:

I know that you take your role as guardian of standards for government communications very seriously and that you will be very concerned if indeed there has been a breach. I am sure that you will wish immediately to instigate a review to determine the nature of the actions taken by the minister, and any involvement by the departmental civil servants. Can you please confirm that you will indeed conduct an enquiry?

The issue has arisen after the Libdem communities minister Andrew Stunell visited Oldham armed with an announcement that highlighted government achievement.

A press release from the Communities department said:

Communities Minister and Hazel Grove’s Lib Dem MP Andrew Stunell was in Oldham Saturday with Liberal Democrat candidate Elwyn Watkins to highlight the problem of empty homes in advance of new government proposals that would help bring some properties back into use.
…
On a visit to vacant property in Springhead that has been brought back into use by the Lib Dem Council, Andrew Stunell urged local communities to work with the council to identify where empty homes are blighting the neighbourhood. The new government proposals include plans to invest £100m in bringing empty homes back into use as affordable rented housing, and making empty homes eligible for the New Homes Bonus that could see council’s benefitting from additional funding.

A Libdem spokesperson said:

No announcement was made on the campaign trail. The DCLG [department for communities and local government] announcement was given to the press on Friday embargoed until Monday morning. The visit took place on Saturday. No announcement was made on Saturday and no announcement was publicised on Saturday. Following the visit the regional Liberal Democrat group, with the approval of the DCLG, put out a press release to follow the government announcement on Monday.

Suggestions for #NetrootsUK organisers

by Guest    
January 11, 2011 at 11:20 am

contribution by Maeve McKeown

The Netroots conference on Saturday was a great opportunity for activists to share ideas and tips and to network in person.

After discussing the day with other attendees, I would like to share five suggestions:
continue reading… »

Conservatives and the media are being left behind on public opinion

by Sunder Katwala    
January 11, 2011 at 9:05 am

An 8 point lead for the Labour Party in one opinion poll is just one poll, though the party has good reasons to be confident about its prospects not only in Oldham East and Saddleworth on Thursday, but also in national elections in Scotland and Wales as well major local elections in four months time.

But this may tell us something about how the government is turning voters off – and about how most media commentary has missed how they have done so for most of the last six months.

“There is no alternative” isn’t working – and it will now have diminishing returns with people who aren’t core supporters of the government.
continue reading… »

Why reducing employment rights won’t boost employment

by Nicola Smith    
January 10, 2011 at 12:48 pm

Today’s Telegraph reports that David Cameron hopes relaxed employment laws will help to boost the private sector and encourage firms to take on thousands of new workers.

The theory appears to be that if it’s easier to sack and mistreat workers then employers will be more likely to create jobs.

But, as last year’s comprehensive TUC research (undertaken by Landman Economics) showed, this assumption is false.
continue reading… »

How voters changed minds on Control Orders

by Chris Barnyard    
January 10, 2011 at 12:30 pm

Never mind the ‘liberal intelligensia’, is the public for or against Control Orders? Yesterday the Sunday Times published details of a poll saying that most people supported them.

But it comes down to how the question is asked, as YouGov show today.

The Sunday Times poll for YouGov asked this question:

Current laws allow the government to impose control orders on people who they suspect pose a serious terrorist threat, but who they do not have evidence to prosecute. Control orders can restrict where suspects are allowed to go, items they are not allowed to possess, and who they are allowed to see or communicate with. They do not require a trial and there are only limited rights of appeal. Do you think the Government should or should not have the power to use control orders?

A big majority, 73% say ‘should’, while 15% say ‘should not’; the rest don’t know.

They also asked:

Some people have suggested a compromise, where people subject to control orders would be allowed the freedom to leave their house, but would still be banned from going abroad and have limits on who they could meet. Which of the following best reflects your response to this suggestion?

This time, 38% said: ‘These changes would weaken control orders to an unacceptable extent and put people at greater risk from terrorism’, while 31% said ‘These changes are an acceptable compromise that would impact less on people’s freedoms while still keeping us safe from terrorism’. A further 31% said ‘neither’ or ‘don’t know’.

A clear cut case? Not necessarily.

YouGov also did a poll for the human rights group Liberty, which phrased the question differently:

Which of the following is a better way of dealing with people suspected of terrorism, when they have not been arrested or charged?

• Restricting where suspects can go and who they can meet, electronically tagging them and banning them from using telephones and the internet

• NOT imposing such restrictions, but instead placing them under intensive surveillance and monitoring their communications, in order to gather evidence with which to prosecute them

40% supported the Control Orders option, while 46% supported the second one.

YouGov’s Peter Kellner draws three conclusions from this:

First, our findings are consistent with our past surveys: that if there is a trade-off then, for most people, national security trumps civil liberties. Those who argue for civil liberties to be upheld regardless of the risk of terrorism are in a small minority.

Second, that supporters of human rights and habeas corpus need to challenge that trade-off, rather than argue that civil liberties matter more than the threat of terrorism. If they can win the argument that control orders in practice do more harm than good (for example by alienating ‘moderate’ Muslims or because some of those subject to control orders still manage to evade their restrictions), then they can win over millions of voters.

Third, public opinion is fluid. When minds are made up, then question wording matters far less. People know which side they are on, and are less prone to be swayed by specific words or assumptions underlying the different questions. But when attitudes are less fixed, different questions can produce very different results. That is the position today with control orders.

But the biggest danger to the Coalition would be that the public were convinced that the fudge over Control Orders was engineered to keep the government afloat rather than a concern for civil liberties or public safety.

Why Labour was right to run a deficit before banking crisis

by Chris Dillow    
January 10, 2011 at 10:02 am

Ed Miliband’s claim that government borrowing owes more to the global financial crisis than to Labour’s over-spending has met with a – ahem – sceptical response.

It is certainly true that Labour were running a large deficit even before the crisis. But there is, I think, a defence of this.
continue reading… »

We have to embrace our differences when opposing cuts

by Sunder Katwala    
January 9, 2011 at 5:46 pm

Saturday’s first netrootsuk conference was an interesting attempt to bring people together to discuss the links between online and offline campaigning.

My central point was about the limits of marching-in-step unity give the scale of the diverse and plural coalition we will need. The event brought together hundreds of people, representing organisations and networks with the ability to mobilise many tens of thousands.
[links to round-up of coverage below]
continue reading… »

After Gabrielle Giffords: violence in US culture

by Dave Osler    
January 9, 2011 at 4:33 pm

It wasn’t Sarah Palin’s finger on the trigger, it was Jared Loughner’s. It would be intellectually lazy to suggest a straight cause and effect read-off between a cartoonish graphic on Facebook and an unhinged individual’s decision to send a bullet through the head of Gabrielle Giffords.

The question is how far the American populist right in general – and its principle figurehead in particular – can be held responsible for last night’s mass murder in Tucson.

continue reading… »

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