The public is paying more attention to Leveson than Westminster thinks


by Leo Barasi    
10:54 am - June 18th 2012

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The Leveson Inquiry is increasingly being talked about as a Westminster soap opera, of no interest to the bulk of the country who have better things to do with their time than read (or write) political blogs.

And so Labour’s continued efforts to keep the news focus on Jeremy Hunt have frustrated those who think the party is missing much more valuable opportunities to attack the government on the economy. The former Labour general secretary, Peter Watt, argued that for the vast majority it’s “a hugely embarrassing waste of time and money”.

But public opinion data suggest a more mixed response to Leveson.

In August ’11, after the Milly Dowler story broke, MORI found that only 1% put phone hacking in their list of most important issues facing the country, and revelations about the relationship between the government and News Corp haven’t registered in the index at all. At the end of last year, only 4% said that phone hacking and the Leveson inquiry was the most important news event of 2011. So the numbers suggest that despite repeated news coverage of the story, the public refuse to see it as a top issue.

And yet, I increasingly think it’s more complicated than that.

Though not many people think phone hacking and Leveson is one of the biggest issues facing the country, it’s doesn’t seem to be an irrelevance either.

Exhibit A: Google’s search volume index. A comparison of searches for “economy” and “recession” with “phone hacking” and “Leveson” since June ’11 shows that it isn’t the case that the economy has always been of more interest than phone hacking and Leveson. “Leveson” and “phone hacking” have often been searched more than “recession”, and in three one-week periods were searched more than “economy”.

Exhibit B: Results of a MORI poll from May hint that the public haven’t been ignoring Leveson. A question on trust shows that Jeremy Hunt is far less trusted than the party leaders (the negative scores for everyone reinforce the conclusions of Hopi Sen’s excellently named post, Dear politicians, You suck. Yours, the electorate):

While I can’t find a directly comparable question from before this year, the difference between Hunt and the leaders in the latest poll doesn’t look to be down to his being less well known.

Exhibit C: The revelations about the Cameron-Brooks relationship might in principle have driven the recent fall in numbers who think the Tories have succeeded in leaving their past behind – but the timing also points to the importance of the Budget in affecting that.

So is it sensible for Labour to keep pushing the Leveson story, rather than trying to turn every debate into one about the economy? Of course it’s not the case that Labour always have to make a choice between pushing Leveson or focusing on the economy.

But the claim that Leveson is only of interest to Westminster geeks is too strong, and the government are still being damaged by the Inquiry revelations. Labour’s continued efforts to keep it in the news aren’t as crazy as some suggest.

—
A longer version of this post is at Noise of the Crowd

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About the author
Leo is a regular contributor to Liberal Conspiracy. He manages communications for a small policy organisation, and writes about polling and info from public opinion surveys at Noise of the Crowd
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Story Filed Under: Blog ,Media ,Westminster


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Reader comments


1. Sally

Well of course. First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they attack you.

All other issues stem from this govt/Murdoch criminal conspiracy. If you don’t like the govts handling of the economy, and the poor being hit the hardest, or the sell off of the NHS, or tax cuts for rich people, or cuts for the poor then you need to understand that Murdoch has helped bring this about through his propaganda rags.in exchange for sleazy deals to buy up tv stations.

I’m not interested in what they are talking about in the imaginary Dog and Duck, but if they are not interested in how corrupt their govt is, more fool them.

2. Guano

Brian Cathcart suggests that we are about to experience megaphone diplomacy from the newspaper industry that does not want to accept that anything was wrong with the way it operated.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/brian-cathcart/press-launches-operation-megaphone-to-drown-out-leveson-inquiry


Reactions: Twitter, blogs
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