Peter Hitchens is not only spot on about Afghanistan, he also has this:
The Sunday Telegraph has just carried (very prominently) an ICM poll showing the Tories at 42%, Labour at 26%, the Liberal Democrats at 21%, and others at 11%. This was presented, as usual, as unequivocal good news for the Tories. Well, the same organisation gave the Guardian a very similar result in the third week of May, Tories 41, Labour 27, Liberal Democrats 22, Others 9.
Several things strike me about this. First, 42% is not very good. It's nine points short of the magic frontier all opposition parties need to cross at some time if they are to have any hope of winning a parliamentary majority. Second, an April poll for the same paper gave the Tories 43%, the Liberal Democrats 18% and Labour 32%. So the Tories aren't actually gaining, but just look good because Labour's vote has slipped. And what a slip it is.
How so? Well, if you use the Hitchens method, stick to raw figures rather than percentages, and ask about the people who are normally left out ( won't vote, won't say, don't know) you get these figures (courtesy of ICM, a fine organisation which is always very helpful with my requests for full data, and posts them on the Internet within 48 hours of newspaper publication).
First, the number of awkward persons (won't vote, won't say, don't know) is steady at 325 out of a sample of 1,023. If you total them alongside the parties, you get:
None of the Below....325
Tory............298
Labour.......175
Liberal Democrat......145
Others......76
If you add the None of the Below to the 'others', you get an even bigger raspberry to the conventional parties, showing that almost 40% of the electorate now won't openly support them. What does this mean for the general election? I haven't a clue. It's too far away and people behave quite differently when they can actually change the government from when they know they can't. It just seems premature to declare that this automatically means a Tory victory.
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Peter Hitchens is just wrong. From the ICM archive (http://tinyurl.com/67ladr) , which he is so proud of, we see that only 20 polls have *ever* had any party on 51% or more (all Labour). This is from a sample of over 300 polls.
ReplyDeleteOf those, only 9 were taken in what we might reasonably see as a run up to an election (ie not in the immediate aftermath of the 1997 election win)
And of those, only 3 came in the period between 1992 and 1997 - ie accurately predicting a Labour win. The rest were pre 1992 and pre 1987 and both wrong.
So in other words, far from "every opposition needing to get 51% to win the next election", we see that:
- this has only ever happened 9 times since ICM polling started with the Guardian in 1985; and
- only 3 polls out of over 300, or less than 1%, went on to accurately predict an election win by said opposition.
Back to school, Hitchens.
Oh dear, has someone touched the very raw nerve that you are not necessarily going to win after all?
ReplyDeleteTo anyone outside the political machine, it makes no difference whatever which party wins the next Election, a swansong for both of them considering how skint they will be, and how many of their members will be dead or in nursing homes, by the time of the Election after that.
But to those of you inside the machine, it is the only thing that matters in the world.
You mean Cameron, the most popular leader ever ever ever, isn't going to get 51% in the polls, Jon? You mean he hasn't already got it? Say it ain't so, Jon. Say it ain't so.
ReplyDeleteDavid - I don't know much about this issue but it does seem as if your first commenter has a point, surely? Not that you should be embarassed, but Peter Hitchens should be - he's a professional journalist after all with researchers and the like to check these things.
ReplyDeleteThat's hardly the main point.
ReplyDeleteJon, it must be said, has managed to embody the public school pomposity that will yet be the downfall of the Tories.
I don't quite understand. Surely that *is* the main point (in fact the only point)? I don't know who this Jon person is (he may well be pompous public school for all I know), but you wrote a post agreeing with PH that opposition parties should be scoring above 51%, and he simply pointed out that PH was wrong. Nothing more than that. Surely you should just acknowledge that he has a point? I don't think it casts you in a particularly negative light at all.
ReplyDeleteI have to say, I don't like what Jon normally writes, but on this occasion he seems to be right, and PH is wrong. More fool Hitchens, quite frankly.
ReplyDeleteWhat isn't the main point? Ok, so Jon may be pompous public school as you claim (I don't know him, but I'll take your word for it), but that doesn't make him wrong, does it?
ReplyDeleteHa! Peter Hitchens is a fool. Well done David for pointing out his mistakes on your blog - we'd never get this in the MSM.
ReplyDeleteNo, the main point is that the Tories are still nowhere near as popular as people are determined to pretend that they are.
ReplyDeleteAs for Jon's background, I'm not sure whether he has just spent too long around them, or whether he actually started out that way. Posh pseudo-comp, I suspect. Often the worst, of course.
Aaron, PH is not a fool, he's absolutely spot on - more people are not going to vote at all than are going to vote for the ridiculous Cameron, allegedly the most popular politician since ... well, presumably since Tony Blair, whose party took fewer actual votes in 1997 than the Tories had done in 1992, and who ended up having to be booed off and practically exiled.
ReplyDeleteBut PH made his claim that the Tories weren't popular based on false data. It's like if I said that "the Tories aren't popular - to win an election all oppositions have to have people donate at least £1m to you per year".
ReplyDeleteIf that statement was proved wrong - as PH has been - then his premise falls, surely?
How can PH be spot on when he said something in his article which is demonstrably false?
ReplyDeleteI agree with most commenters on here so far - Jon is right, and Hitchens is wrong. You do not need to get 51% in an opinion poll to win the next election.
ReplyDeleteDo you deny what Jon has pointed out? I've looked on the link he provided - he's right, unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteThe Tories may not be as popular as people say. But it seems as if they don't need to get 51% to win the next election. That just looks like fact.
ReplyDeleteNo, Sally, PH's data is entirely correct. Assuming that Jon is right, then one throwaway remark is wrong. That's all. And who denies that more people are going to abstain than vote Tory? Everybody knows it.
ReplyDeleteCameron is even reduced to stitching up a No Contest by-election with the other two trading names of the One Party in this One Party State (previously known as Britain), lest someone who does quite a good impersonation of a proper Tory score a magnificent victory on a point with which Cameron, like the rest of the One Party, does not really agree.
Gosh, they are all out today, aren't they? The mere suggestion that there isn't going to be a Continuity New Labour landslide (in fact, Cameron doesn't even dare have a by-election in the leafy East Riding, which says a very great deal), and hysteria breaks out.
ReplyDeleteBut it's true. More people are going to abstain than vote Tory, and everybody knows it. All you've managed so far is a crudely projected forty-four per cent of thirty-five per cent, and overturning a mere seven thousand majority in Cheshire fully two years before a General Election.
And now Cameron has had to call in favours in order to avoid having to defend even Haltemprice. Which frightens him more? Losing it? Or David Davis romping home and being Leader by the time of the State Opening of Parliament on 3rd December?
David, you're veering off the topic of discussion, At least now you've acknowledged that PH made a mistake (and for what its worth, you're wrong accusing everyone of being a Tory - I'm not). But it wasn't a throwaway remark - it was the centrepiece of his column. And he was wrong.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a Tory. I just thought that Hitchens made a mistake, and you should admit that.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean, assuming Jon is right? Haven't you checked his link? Do you normally rebut accusations without seeing if they are right?
ReplyDeleteI'm not a Tory. But don't change the subject. Hitchens wrote something, it was premised on false data, and he is wrong. Jon pulled you up on it. I think you should admit that.
ReplyDeleteDavid, what makes you think I vote Conservative? I've voted labour all my life, and I hope they win the next election. I think the Tories are a lot less popular than other people claim as well. But none of that detracts from the fact that Hitchens was erong on his central allegation.
ReplyDeleteI've only been following the conversation so far, but I don't think anone is hystericcal. I don't think anyone is denying or confirming the fact that the Tories might win or not next time. Only you have mentioned either of these things.
ReplyDeleteBut what every single person on here apart fropm you has mentioned is that with regard to the specific thing you posted from Peter Hitchens, he was wrong. That's the beginning and end of it, it seems to me.
Ralph.
I desperately want Labour to win the next election. But to suggest we will unless Cameron polls 51% is just silly.
ReplyDeleteAnything, anything at all, to avoid the main point.
ReplyDeleteOne throwaway remark entirely beside that point - which is that more people are going to abstain than vote Tory - and you are all off.
If someone disagrees with you, does that necessarily make them a Tory?
ReplyDeleteOh no, lots of Tories agree with me about a lot of things.
ReplyDeleteIf someone wants David Cameron to become Prime Minister, can they really be a Tory at all?
Then why are you accusing people who corrected you of being Tories? It seems to me you're ducking the issue here, as Ralph pointed out. PH predicated his column on a 'fact'. That fact was wrong. Jon proved it, as everyone else here agreed. I think people are only commenting now because you refuse to acknowledge that. Acknowledge he was wrong, and people will be satisfied. Don't throw mud to obscure the issue.
ReplyDeleteSo he was wrong on one minor point apart from which his main point easily stands. So what?
ReplyDeleteAnd I think we all know who engages in a concerted and relentless trolling operation in order to insist that the Tories are much more popular than they really are.
If you now admit that he was wrong, why has it taken you 30 comments to do so? Why didn't you say "ok he was wrong but his main point stands" in reply to Jon's first point?
ReplyDeleteFinally, we have the truth! Thanks David for beging the big man and accepting you were wrong. Though I'm opuzzled why you couldn't have done this before - after all, all anyone else did on this thread was look at the link themselves - they didn't provde new facts. If you see he was wrong now, surely you could have seen that before?
ReplyDeleteIt does seem odd that it's taken you so long to admit this. Its Hitchens who looks the fool, not you.
ReplyDeleteIn blogging, I've found the speedier you admit an error, the more your readers respect you.
By comment five, I had said exactly that. Comments one, three and four were not by me.
ReplyDeleteBut still they came...
Amazing!
ReplyDelete30 comments and not a word from them about the real point of the post. Are they admitting that Cameron will never get 51% in an opinion poll? Yes they are.
And not a single comment on your post today about how Cameron might be replaced after all, by someone who is certainly not one of their beloved Heirs to Blair.
I know, it says it all. And they are still at, I'm just not putting any more up.
ReplyDeleteWhat will become of them if Davis becomes Leader?
You should be flattered that the Cameroons see fit to mount this sort of assault on your blog, interested that they are so thin-skinned about their hero's much vaunted popularity, and amused at just how thick these dribbling, inbred, drunken coke-heads really are, posh schools or no posh schools.
ReplyDeleteI am all three, let me assure you.
ReplyDeleteNow, no more comments unless they are about the real point.