YouGov verdict on BNP’s Question Time
YouGov have a poll in tomorrow’s Telegraph, the first since Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time. It was carried out late yesterday and all day today. There isn’t actually very much detail in the Telegraph’s report, but there’s more at ConservativeHome.
The topline voting intentions, with changes from the poll last weekend, are CON 40%(-1), LAB 27%(-3), LDEM 19%(+2), BNP 3%(+1). So while the BNP support is up, it is nothing significant. 2-3% has been pretty much the norm for their support over the last couple of months, and the most recent YouGov/Telegraph poll at the end of September also had them at 3%. For the other parties, Labour are down from the 30% to 27%, more in line with the ICM and Ipsos MORI figures in the week. YouGov still have the Conservatives down at 40% in comparison to 44% and 43% from ICM and MORI.
Anyway, the poll will really be looked at for evidence of how the BNP’s Question Time appearance has gone down, rather than the main parties. As well as voting intention, YouGov asked whether people had positive or negative opinions of the smaller parties – questions that it last asked in June straight after the European elections. Back then 11% of people had a positive impression of the BNP and 72% a negative impression, today’s figures are 9% positive and 71% negative, so no sign of any improvement in people’s opinion of the BNP either. Despite all the hoohah and protests, despite the millions of people who watched Question Time, it doesn’t seem to have made any significant difference to how the public view them, or how likely they are to support them (or at least, not yet).
Asked how likely people would be to vote BNP in a future local, general or European election. 66% said there were no circumstances at all, 15% said it was “possible”, which I suspect is more of a “never say never answer”. More significant are the 7% who would definitely or probably consider voting BNP at some point in the future.
What has changed was attitudes to the BBC’s decision to invite Griffin onto Question Time. At the weekend 63% thought it was right, 23% wrong. Now the balance of opinion has shifted further in favour of the BBC’s decision, 74% thinking it was right, and only 11% wrong.
Filed under: Voting Intention, YouGov
Anthony – is there any reason in methodology why Yougov should have the Tories lower than ICM and Mori – is it to do with “certainty to vote?” Either way surely this poll is dreadful news for Labour – all this talk of a bounce etc has been well and truly blown out of the water./
Anthony
Were the questions about “smaller parties” restricted to UK ones as in June (and making the same assumption that the Greens are a UK party – which they aren’t).
Oldnat – yep, same parties, and no differentiation between the Green Party of E&W and the Scottish Green Party.
Peter – I don’t think it’s do with that, since Populus show the same sort of figures as YouGov and they use almost the same methodology as ICM. If the difference persists I’ll have to have a proper look.
The truth is out
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/6418456/Labour-wanted-mass-immigration-to-make-UK-more-multicultural-says-former-adviser.html
Can we prosecute somebody?
Anyjony
*Sigh* – I’ll just have to win the lottery to fund your doing proper Scottish polling. Mind you, I’d actually have to buy a ticket to do that!
OLDNAT
I’m not a member of your party, but I can’t help thinking that Question Time panel members opposed to the BNP did a second rate job compared with what Nicola Sturgeon could have done by herself and there are four others in your party who would have been nearly as good.
I’m sure you would agree.
John B Dick
I’m only very recently a member of “my party”. I really dislike all political parties!
However, It would be an interesting debate on “nationalism” to have Nicola (my favourite too), Plaid, Sinn Fein, English Democrats(?), and one of the Brit Nat parties (Con/Lab/LD – no difference) on the one hand and the BNP on the other -
Topic “Genetics and ethnicity in politics”.
Some of the polling was carried out “late last night” which may have been before the programme was shown, so the next poll(s) to come out could be just as interesting as this one in terms of the effect the programme may have had on voters.
All i know is that from watching question time Nick Griffin has shoot himself in the foot for not answering the question on the holocaust, not giving a stright answer on racisim and nazism within his own party.
Yes, there are people who are angry and irrtated with Britain’s overcrowding and believe immigration needs to be tightened or in some cases stopped. My view is that we should have australian type quotas.
But, these people that believe in tight immigration and vote for the BNP doesnt make them automatically racist so will lull into voting for them thinking they stand for no more immigration, not deportation (which is what they really stand for, secretly, in the same way Hitler turned his party from a violent into a moderate party that wouldnt masscure the jews but then did).
But after watching question i believe the BNP have really exposed themselves to who they really are and might get people, not in big waves, but a small miniority that would have voted for the BNP will feel uncomfortable now in this next election.
Overall, good to have them on the show. A win for democracy and a defeat for political ignorance!
Regardless of the outcome of Question Time, the BNP is unlikely to affect the outcome of the next election. However the last crop of polls have all been immediately before the announcement of negative GDP figures, so there is a good chance that any movement in the polls can be related to one event.
I suspect that the outcome will be negative for Labour, as their “green shoots of recovery” narrative has just disappeared into the abyss of “the longest recession since records began”.
Will the public discard Labour’s claim of the “best placed to recover” in favour of the more plausible “no boom only bust”?
I think Nick Griffin’s bady language let him down. He was laughing all the time, and also looked really mad on more than one occasion. But he really blew it by defending David Duke in my opinion.
Cynosarges
“the BNP is unlikely to affect the outcome of the next election.”
True – if the Tories avoid banan skins in England and polling stays at current levels. However, in a closer election could the BNP damage Labour sufficiently in Northern English seats to allow Tory/LD gains?
Not an area in which I have any knowledge, but could that be the case?
What we thought of the BNP’s performance is irrelervant. The real audience are those 7% who would consider voting BNP, and the 15% waievers. For me, I think the format was far too blatantly biased and will give the guy in the stockade a large sympathy vote.
Well WMA is still 42:27:19 which rather emphasises the point that just because 3 polls on the same day agreed doesn’t mean that they were all right.
YouGov has recently had a slight tendency to underestimate the CLead but only by 0.7 (since the start of Sept) and overall remains very accurate. The previously-noted stability of the state of the parties remains. Whether the dreadful economic news today will make any difference remains to be seen. Politically it should – but statistically it may well not
It is a fact that 23% of live births in this country in 2007 were to foreign-born mothers (National Office of Statistics). The majority of immigrants are concentrated in big cities – latest figures for London are 54% of births are to women born outside the UK. Colour of skin is irrelevant.
Does it make someone a racist to be a little concerned about this? The statistics do not count second and third generation immigrants. I find it quite easy to understand why the English in the areas largely populated by immigrants feel threatened, and the only party that seems to stand up for them is the BNP.
I am surprised only by the low level of support for the BNP. As I have said on another thread, perhaps there are more ’shy’ BNP voters than for other parties. I agree with Oldnat that they might well affect the result of seats in some inner city areas.
I THINK THE BEEB HAVE TAKEN LEAVE OF THEIR SENSES IN GIVING THE BNP AIRTIME LIKE THIS. THE QUESTION TIME DEMOLITION OF GRIFFEN, WHO IS A COMPLETE BUFFOON, IS A TINY FRACTION OF THE COVERAGE THAT THE BNP HAVE GAINED.
CERTAINLY THE SNP’S STURGEON WOULD BASHED THE FASCIST BUT SALMOND WOULD HAVE DESTROYED HIM IN A WAY THAT NONE OF THE PANEL MANAGED ON THURSDAY.
THE ARTICULATE AUDIENCE CAME TO THE PROGRAMME’S RESCUE BUT THE POINT REMAINS THAT THIS REPRESENTED ZILLIONS OF TOTALLY UNNECESSARY PUBLICITY FOR THE BNP.
AND THE BEEB SHOULD BE HANGING THEIR HEADS IN SHAME.
Pete B
Just did a quick check. The Scottish figures are pretty similar!
21.5% of live births were to women born outwith Scotland.
9.2% were to women born in England.
0.9% to those born in NI.
0.4% to those born in Wales.
4.1% to those born in other EU countries.
3.9% to those born in Commonwealth countries
2.9% to those born in other countries.
That’s stretched the Scottish NHS maternity services a bit – but they’re all very welcome.
Your figures will have a different balance, of course, since you include London. I’m afraid that’s the other side of having one of the world’s great cities within your borders.
This report could prove damaging for Labour:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/6418456/Labour-wanted-mass-immigration-to-make-UK-more-multicultural-says-former-adviser.html
The only reason NG didn’t answer questions is because he was constantly shouted-down. The audience and panel were a hand-picked joke.
The Guardian has details of another poll (I think – it’s not worded very clearly), which would indicate that there has been a considerable but somewhat diffuse boost for the BNP. Figures:
22% would “consider” voting BNP at a local, EU or general election – 4% who would “definitely” vote BNP, 3% “probable” and 15% “possible”.
They also report that the YouGov/Telegraph poll found that two-thirds of voters would “never” vote BNP – but one-third might or definitely would.
It seems to be the case over a period of time now that when Labour claw themselves up a little and get their heads to and just above the 30% mark, the next set of polls comprehensively kick the stool from under their feet.
I am starting to wonder where and when the Labour party are going to get a chance to boost their poll ratings, only their core traditional inner city vote seems intact, and if people are threatened enough by the issue of immigration and asylum then even that could come under scrutiny.
As it stands, David Cameron may not even need to take his gloves off. The first 150 target seats for the Tories look a dead cert.
I think only finishing of Devon Lock proportions would stop them now.
A lot of Labour voters i know seem keen to try and remind me that the boot was on the other foot in the lead up to the 1992 GE, but this is not the case.
Labours lead was small and inconsistent ,and during the last two days of campaigning all but disappeared.(Largely thanks to Neil Kinnock landing a swift knockout blow on his own chin)
Labour went on to poll just 35% in that election, i think that figure is going to be unobtainable for Gordon Brown.
There is no doubt that Nick Griffen came across poorly on Question time. He was hopelessly inconsistent and evasive. He also could not expalin his way out of some of his own sinister utterences or shared appearances with the Ku Klux Klan.
However, it was monumentally inept of Dimbleby to allow most of the programme to be devoted to the BNP and its appearance. Jack Straw was catestrophic.
The end result was that Griffen was able to portray himself as a victim of a stitch up and bullying. As a real hater of the BNP and all they stand for I regret to say that I think he is right.
Until the main parties really adress the real issues that stem from a prolonged period of uncontrolled immigration the likes of the BNP will continue to attract support from ordinary people.
I also think opinion polls will not reflect the fact that BNP support tends to be in very concentrated areas. So a national support level of 3/4% fails to show that in certain towns and cities in the north particularly it’s support exceeds that of the main stream parties. Apparent bullying on Question time will serve only to harden that support .
James – it’s the same poll, I refer to that question above.
It would be wrong to conclude that it shows any increase in people saying they might be willing to vote BNP, since we don’t have any previous comparable questions.
In 2006 YouGov did find 20% of people saying they would consider voting BNP, but that question had already asked them about a list of BNP policies, and only gave them the option of “seriously consider” voting BNP, not the less exactly option of “possiby consider”, is not comparable on two fronts.
Anthony,
Do you have any information on the breakdown in terms of current voting preferences of the 20%, who could possibly vote BNP.
I would assume that most would be Labour supporters and least would be Lib Dem, but that is just opinion and not backed by facts.
Thanks for the clarification, Anthony, though I don’t find it at all reassuring that two separate polls 4 years apart show that around a quarter of voters consider an overtly fascist party to be a viable possibility.
Why is all in statistical format? What are the actual figures and how many people were polled? Where were the people polled?
Without this information the poll is meaningless and open to any intrepretation journalists want to put on it.
Can’t find the Poll ANYWHERE !
To say you will ‘consider’ doing something, even ’seriously consider’, does not mean that you necessarily think there’s any realistic chance that your consideration will result in your doing that thing. 78% of people would not *even* consider doing it…
@ Wes – true. But it also suggests that under certain circumstances, a substantial minority could be fairly easily persuaded into it as they already think it’s acceptable.
To return to this poll rather than having a political discussion
I am slightly concerned about this poll which was published LESS than 24 hours after the Question Time programme which sparked it. Despite the obvious speed that internet polling allows, analysis, and weighting procedures all take time and need checking and frankly this is not sufficient time to carry that out and publish it. Normally the Telegraph tells us the number of people sampled and the dates of questionning. While the latter is there the former is not. In all the reports about the BNP it is passing strange that no figure is published of the proportion of the sample who actually watched the programme. (In due course this will be on YouGov’s website!)
I would not treat this as a very serious piece of market research
@Christina Speight – I would tend to agree, but none the less I am very worried. My view is that the BBC was right to air NG. They could not realistically bar a legally constituted and elected party – the error lies with the electoral law that allows a party to stand with a clearly racist constitution, and that is the fault of the political parties. Where the BBC have grossly miscalculated, along with the rest of the political elites, was in the show format. Yes, NG embarrassed himself much of the time, but what do his target voters care? The ‘BNP as victim of the liberal system’ image is just what they wanted, and will serve them well. I’ve often posted about what I see as the divorce between the political elite and the real world – do we realise that top rate taxpayers are amongst the highly privileged 10%, not some struggling group of ‘Middle England’ that desperately needs help? Everyone, Labour included, has become so insulated from reality that there is a real danger to the fabric of society. Immigration is championed by businesses and those who want to employ cheap cleaners and gardeners – it’s an economically ‘good thing’. Top company directors massive pay continues to increase regardless of performance. City bonuses are back, built on the backs of derivative trading and debt fuelled growth with apparently no regard to how the cirisis started or for the massive state aid that dug a bankrupt system out of it’s hole.
To date, no one within the political system has grasped the anger swirling around. Unless one or all of the main parties really gets to grips with this, there is an open door for outsiders like the BNP, and then the dogs really would be let loose, with some pretty dreadfull consequences.
@ Christina – “In all the reports about the BNP it is passing strange that no figure is published of the proportion of the sample who actually watched the programme.”
This would be hard to quantify meaningfully. There are those who watched all or part of it live, others who will have watched it online after reading media reports, still others who will have watched only extracts (YouTube) or highlights (the BBC), and yet more who have read partial or complete transcripts on various sites. The impact and viewing of a TV programme is much wider and more complex nowadays that a conventional “who watched it?” question can cover.
Alec – This is a POLLING blog – there are plenty of places to have a politivcal discussion.
I am concerned that YouGov was driven by the need to demonstrate speed at the expense of accuracy. That questionnaire must been finalised before the lynch-party assembled – I hope it weasn’t answered before it was broadcast, How on earth in the time available – less than 24 hours could they possibly have done a proper sampling and structuring and publishing. That’s what I’m writing about.
Christina
I agree.
Maybe Anthony can explain the mechanics, but if the polling was done post broadcast, then the panel may well have known in advance that they were going to be asked, and therefore, watched QT. There seems to have been too little time to get a sample which included lots of people who didn’t watch it.
Christina
A sample can be constructed in advance, it doesn’t come into it at all (it can’t be done that far in advance, because people join and – more importantly – leave the panel, but certainly it can be done several hours or days in advance.)
Ditto the survey questionnaire, there are no questions there that needed to be written after the programme – nothing like “did you agree with what Jack Straw said about X”, it’s all stuff that could be written in advance and timed to go live when the programme finished,.
Weighting procedures are largely automated. It depends on the sample size because of processing time, but really we are talking about 10 minutes. Ditto analysis – writing the syntax for it can take longer, but you can start doing that as soon as the survey structure is finalised, and then run the code when the survey has finished collecting data.
Fancy bespoke cross breaks, complicated analysis and beautifully formatted tables would all take longer, but cleaning, weighting and producing standard tables really is a very quick process. Done it hundreds of times.
Sample saize was 1314
Anthony
Thanks very much – that’s very helpful. You’ve settled the mechanistic queries, but it still strikes me that to pre-ordain the analysis in advance of getting the responses is like trying to squeeze a right hand foot into a left hand shoe. I was on the instant panel for the Cameron conference speech – answered the questionnaire the results of which were not published as such.
The sample of 1314 was 1/3 down on its normal size presumably because that’s what the response was ? . Since that factor was unknown beforehand how could they do the pre-prepared weighting in advance ? If responses were that much down it could have been severely skewed. Or did they use the voting intention figures from their last poll as a rough-and-ready weighting process ?
I can see that internet plus computerisation can speed things considerab;ly but this speed strikes me as excessive!
@alexander anderson
Rather than all this liberal blah blah blah (Griffiths is a buffoon ect) start seeing the real facts. If Griffiths IS A BUFFOON the BBC do right to show him and his “mob” up for what they are.
The trouble is, the people betrayed by the liberal”elite” can see the liberal left for what they are. And it is not a pretty sight.
I think it would be very interesting to have a similar poll about the other parties, or has this been done?
i.e. What percentage would say there were ‘no circumstances’ where they would vote Labour, Tory etc. For what it’s worth, I suspect the Liberals might come best out of a poll like that.
Pete B
“I think it would be very interesting to have a similar poll about the other parties”
How silly! It would be like the Telegraph poll suggesting very little of substance. No doubt commentators and at least one political party would use the results out of context to make a political point as has happened with the Telegraph poll
The biggest winner from the BNP being on question time is Labour!
For it is a great distraction from the historically worst piece of economic news, namely, that we have now entered the longest period of recession ever.
It seems to me that Labour’s relative improved position is due primarily to a naive over-optimism about the economy and Labour’s forecasts concerning it.
The reality almost certainly is that we will see about a 0.25 growth in the first quarter and about one point growth in the last quarter of next year.
In the second half of the year the government will need to begin the process of cutting spending. This nonsense spoken by Brown that the Tories would cut spending NOW is a hypothetical impossiblity.
Nevertheless, after this economic report I think we will have less nonsense talked in the media about green shoots of recovery and a more realistic perspective of the long way we have to go. This will make very difficult for Labour to rise above 27% in the polls.
AW – forgive my ignorance, but is there any indication that the YouGov panel is made up of people generally more interested in politics. I ask, as I would imagine that those who take more interest in polics might reasonably be considered to be less inclined to support the BNP. If so, it may make this poll slightly more worrying (for non BNP voters). I assume YouGov would allow for this, but can you shed any light?
@Mike
You could make the same point about any poll. One party will claim that their share has gone up, while another will say that their rate of decline has reduced, etc etc. Politicians even say the same sort of thing about real elections, saying things like “Well we lost the whole of the south-west, but we did win Hull” or something similar.
I just thought it might make an interesting change from the normal polls, and also give a reference point for this one. For instance, it could be that (say) 45% of people would say that they would never consider voting Tory, thus giving a theoretical ceiling to their possible share of the vote of 55%.
Christina, on analysis I meant what we use the word for at work. Specificially, once we get a great big data set of individuals’ responses and weighted it, we call turning that weighed data into tables analysis. At the most basic level (and this would be the most basic level) all the coding needs is the question numbers, what type of questions they were (single option or multi options), the question text, and what the answer options were – then the software tots up the answers and you get the results. So you really don’t need any responses at all to plan it and write the code in advance, then once the data is complete, you run it.
I guess you meant the more normal use of the word analysis though! The pollster doesn’t really do that, we just provide people’s responses to the questions and tabulate them. Deriving meaning from that and saying what it means is down to the client, the Telegraph in this case.
You can’t weight in advance at all, you do indeed need to have all the respondents and their demographic data to do it. It just isn’t a task that takes very long to do, since it’s automated and the computer does the work.
PeteB – I think questions like that have been asked quite often for the main parties. I don’t have a set to hand, but dig around and you’ll find some (and yes, you’re right, it shows most people would consider voting Liberal Democrat.
Alec – YouGov have spent most of their existance allowing for that! Their recruitment targets non-political people (so will be through polls about sport, or shopping or pizza or whatever, or advertising on very unpolitical websites). When it comes to actual polling, weighting by newspaper readership (or non-readership) should also control it.
Either way, on previous occassions when the BNP have increased their support, YouGov have tended to show higher support for them than other pollsters (presumably because of the lack of interviewer bias), so I don’t think you need to worry about them under-reporting BNP support.
Anthony
A technical question again!
How do you deal with weighting by newspaper readership in Scotland, where the pattern is different. When I see the polling data, it looks like the Record, Herald, Scotsman etc are just basketed under others (or does that conceal a more sophisticated analysis?)
I don’t think they are. The Record is definitely grouped with the Mirror, I expect the Herald and Scotsman are actually included with similar English papers for weighting purposes too. Can’t tell you for certain.
Anthony
Thanks. These picky Scots! (but take it as a compliment that polling matters).
I note that you are right (of course) about the Record. Presumably the disparity in “other papers” between GB and Scotland in the YouGov weighting data is due to the strength of the Scottish regional press north of the Central Belt, which won’t correlate at all with political leanings.
Still 30% of Scots being in other papers for Scottish polls seems an awfully high number if it’s being used for weighting purposes in political polling.
Paper, GB, Sco
Express/Mail, 21%, 13%
Sun/Star, 22%, 15%
Mirror/Record, 16%, 20%
Guardian/Independent, 5%, 2%
FT/Times/Telegraph, 8%, 5%
Other Paper, 12%, 30%
No Paper, 17%, 15%
I have not got much of a unique additional contribution but have to join in to object at the ‘fake’ Jim Jam appearing again.
Please can you use something else?
Another no change poll for the headline figures.
last weeks Labour 30% was never accurate and it looks like the Angus reid 40/23 was neither. (others too high at 17%)
Re Economic news, it may hurt Labour for a day or 2 but figures have less saliance than real life experiences anyway.
Darling’s own forecast only expected growth in the last 1/4 this year.
BBC 24 and SKY News have been hammering home all day the 22% ‘could possibly’ voting figure for the BNP, rather than the actual 3%. It makes you wonder what the General Election coverage is going to be like?
I’m sure I remember a YouGov poll from about 5 years ago which showed that 21% might consider voting BNP. If that’s right it means nothing much has changed since then.
I think it is wrong for YouGov to include the BNP maongst three major parties in this poll. If we are to apply the Question Time criteria, then if the BNP are to be included in all polls then the Greens and UKIP MUST be included given that also have two MEP’s and won them on a bigger share of the vote than the BNP.
Since I follow the Scottish results, I’m also puzzled at the 30% Other Paper that Oldnat pointed out. That doesn’t even seem possible. 2.5 times the rest of the UK? I’m no statistical anorak but that is strange.
There are certainly differences in Scotland and the rest of the UK but it does make one question if there isn’t a problem with Scottish weighting.
Oldnat,
Would the FT not be better grouped with Grauniad/Independent than with Times/Telegraph?
FT doesnt really fit into either category – it is not as leftist as the Grauniad or Indy, but definitely not as right wing as the Telegraph, or even the Times either. I think it leans more to the left than the right.
Possible ICM poll in N of the World. They mention large Con lead but article so far mainly about immigration & the BNP.
Neil
That’s the YouGov groupings – not mine.
Anthony,
I can’t believe you’re correct with your “I expect the Herald and Scotsman are actually included with similar English papers for weighting purposes too”. Given their pro-Labour bias, the only possible comparison would be with the Indy/Grauniad group yet the YouGov weighting for that is only 2% vs 5% for the whole island.
Unless it already includes the Herald and Scotsman, other is probably much too high, with the Courier and the P&J having barely a third of the Record’s 350,000 circulation between them.
Brownedov
I’d correct the “pro-Labour” to pro-Union – less so in the Herald’s case. But in reality these broadsheets are essentially regional in nature with the Scotsman predominant on the East Coast, and the Herald on the West. It’s difficult to believe that either correlates with political leanings – other than with the underlying East/West political split – which is far too disparate to allow accurate placement of either within the English spectrum.
It also seems unlikely to me that you could place a sliver of silicone enhancement between the readers of the Record and the Scottish Sun.
Oldnat,
I accept pro-Union but as they’re not mad enough to suggest voting Tory it comes to much the same thing. I agree they’re regional, but not sure what that would help to measure.
LOL re “sliver of silicone enhancement” but isn’t that exactly what Mr Murdoch’s new policy is trying to do?
ICM poll in News of the World:
The paper, citing the poll, claims that:
(a) “almost two-thirds think mainstream parties have no credible policies on immigration”
(b) “one third believe British-born people from ethnic minorities should lose all state benefits, including NHS treatment”
(c) “narrow majorities oppose the teaching of gay and straight sex in schools”
(c) “44% say white working class people have been abandoned”.
Andy Stidwill
(the previous Tele makes me think of you as bald, sucking lollipops and solving crimes in 70s New York!)
ICM Research interviewed a random sample of 504 adults on 23-24th October 2009. …
Don’t think I want to put much credence on that.
@PeteB
“It is a fact that 23% of live births in this country in 2007 were to foreign-born mothers (National Office of Statistics). The majority of immigrants are concentrated in big cities – latest figures for London are 54% of births are to women born outside the UK. Colour of skin is irrelevant.
Does it make someone a racist to be a little concerned about this?”
Yes, it does.
Those stats are utterly irrelevant to anything.
@BenM.
Really? I think you’re probably slightly out of tune with the feelings of the average voter there.
If being “a little concerned” about the fact that England is going to be buried under new housing, due to an unprecedented rise in population caused by immigration and the associated increase in birthrate, makes you a racist then no wonder the BNP vote is rising.
It was interesting to me that all of the panellists on QT used the expression “Of course we don’t want to pull up the drawbridge and stop all immigration” when I suspect if the public were polled on that question a large minority, possibly a majority, would answer “Yes we do”.
Err, that should be “all of the panellists except Griffin” of course.
Trevorsden that link makes my blood boil. But it makes sense: Labour could not rely on native British people to consistently win elections and since immigrants overwhelmingly vote Labour they flooded the country with immigrants in order to ensure more votes for Labour. Simon Heffer wrote that some time ago when he said Labour did it on purpose, that link just proves it to be the case. I can only call it treason.
Anthony
Political discussion – even if only loosely related to polling – is fine.
But if it’s going to be a site that accepts racist propaganda , I’m off.
BenM
It is indeed relevant .
, MPs Nicholas Soames and Frank Field, chairmen of the cross party group for balanced migration, said the UK was “on course for an unsustainable and unacceptable rise in population”.
That is why it is relevant.
That is why Immigration ranks only behind the economy in people’s concerns.
It is people like you with your politically correct censorship of discussion on this hugely important subject who are driving support for BNP.
On QT it is beyond me why Griffin didn’t press this point home. It was the one topic on which he would have gained support.
Why did he not ask the simple question of the other panelists-” How many people is too many-or do you think population density & it’s attendant infrastucture requirements is of no concern?”
Andy – it did, though it really isn’t comparable. See my comment at 9:39am
Bobby A – they didn’t, they were grouped with all the minor parties as usual. I just mentioned them in particular in my analysis because it was interesting what the effect of Question Time would be on their support. YouGov put them with the minor parties as usual in the survey.
Brownedov – looking at Oldnat’s figures I think you’re right. It must be the Record put with the Mirror and the Herald & Scotsman in as Others.
Anthony
If, as I suggest, there is no demonstrable political link between the tabloids in Scotland and voting patterns – simply an assumed extrapolation from English patterns onto Scotland, then YouGov has problems.
It doesn’t matter for UK polls but if you are weighting by newspaper readership and 65% of the sample is weighted inappropriately for Scotland (30% others + 15% Sun/Star + 20% Record) then the commercial worth of your Scottish polling seems to be severely compromised.
More bad news for Brown: it is being reported that the UK economy has been overtaken by Italy’s.
Oldnat – the purpose of the newspaper weighting is largely an attitudinal thing – broadsheet vs tabloid. It isn’t intended as political weighting, which party ID handles.
Really though, Scottish polling isn’t my thing (hence why my reports on Scottish polling figures are normally no more than a dry relaying of the figures) – you probably want to drop Peter Kellner a note.
Thanks Anthony
Anthony,
Thanks for the response. If indeed you want “broadsheet vs tabloid” weighting then for all their faults the Herald and the Scotsman should certainly be counted as broadsheet, but definitely more Grauniad/Indy than Thunderer/Torygraph.
Anthony – please remove the annoying ad that comes up when I come onto this site. It cannot be deleted for 5-10 seconds. Are you really needing the extra money?
David E. Jones
“BBC 24 and SKY News have been hammering home all day the 22% ‘could possibly’ voting figure for the BNP, rather than the actual 3%. It makes you wonder what the General Election coverage is going to be like?”
I wonder if this will actually have the effect of increasing the BNP vote? The fact that over 20% of voters could possibly consider voting BNP might make it seem more respectable to some, and thus translate possible votes into actuals? I would stress that I am not a BNP supporter, it just seems to be the most interesting aspect of the polls and political scene generally lately.
Oldnat
“Political discussion – even if only loosely related to polling – is fine.
But if it’s going to be a site that accepts racist propaganda , I’m off.”
Perhaps I’m getting old myself but I couldn’t see any racist propaganda in any of the posts. How can concern that your culture could be swamped and your country vastly over-populated be considered racist? Are the Welsh racist for wanting to preserve their own culture? Or the Scots? Why is it that only the English are not allowed to have an identity? I echo Neil A’s point that if to be concerned about your own cultural identity is considered racist, then it is no wonder that BNP support is rising.
Pete B
Perhaps you don’t log on to many blogs.
Nicholas’s post above is exactly the same BNP garbage as is being posted across the English/UK blogosphere, though I haven’t seen it on a single Scottish site so far.
“How can concern that your culture could be swamped and your country vastly over-populated be considered racist?”
Your country is only marginally more “over-populated” than the Netherlands. Your country contains one of the world’s great cities. It’s not an English or a British city, it’s an international city like New York. Revel in it! It’s one of the most exciting places to be!
@ OldNat – “Your country is only marginally more “over-populated” than the Netherlands. ”
That’s far too overpopulated for my liking. And I don’t think the issue of population – which is to do with quality of life, sustainability, and the environment – should be tied to BNP politics. It’s perfectly possible to be an advocate for population reduction without being a ranting racist – as David Attenborough could testify.
PETE B
“Are the Welsh racist for wanting to preserve their own culture? Or the Scots? Why is it that only the English are not allowed to have an identity? ”
Good question.
England has a population density which ranks 4th in the world if you exclude small islands & enclaves, & places like Vatican City.
It is 3 times the density of Wales and 6 times the density of Scotland .It is more dense than India.
And according to ONS it will grow by 10 million more people over the next 24 years on current trends.
Half of this rise will be due to future immigration, and the other half included the high birth rates associated with past immigration.
Of course this is a concern in England.
If OLDNAT understood these matters properly he would understand why we have the BNP & he doesn’t-but I,m sure that won’t stop him in the Scottish Nationalist’s favourite passtime-preaching & pontificating.
James Ludlow :-
” the issue of population – which is to do with quality of life, sustainability, and the environment ”
Absolutely spot on.
It is the exponential growth of the human population which is destroying this planet-something that no one-least of all the Greens-ever wants to talk about.
@Oldnat,
Having living in London most of my life until a couple of years ago, I absolutely agree that it is a wonderful and exciting place and that it owes a lot of that to immigration. However it is also a massively overcrowded place, and its expansion has destroyed a great number of very beautiful places around it.
Although many immigrants move to London and stay there, many subsequently move on to other parts of the UK. Also, there is a massive flight of Londoners both to the surrounding commuter towns and to other parts of the UK. Whether they are leaving because they are racist or because they want their children to grow up in something bigger than a 1 bedroom flat is hard to know, but the effect of this outflow is that much of England is lost to new development in order to provide housing for them.
Personally, I care deeply about the physical environment of my country. Where I live, we have numerous beautiful hillsides with stunning views across valleys, moors and coast. Most of them are buried under unspeakably ugly concrete housing that is the legacy of past population booms. Whenever I drive past a new development that has killed forever a piece of English countryside I feel literally heartsick. I suggest you zoom in and out on Google earth and see just how close the edges of English conurbations are coming to each other already.
I have been to the Netherlands. It is basically one large city, and apart from the preserved centre of Amsterdam, mostly grotesquely ugly. One thing that struck me as I took the train from Den Haag to Amsterdam was that although sometimes there was a field on my left, and sometimes there was a field on my right, there didn’t ever seem to be a stretch of “open countryside” with fields on both sides of the tracks. Thanks, but no thanks.
For me the argument over immigration is, and always has been, summed up by the slogan “Space, Not Race”.
@NeilA
“It was interesting to me that all of the panellists on QT used the expression “Of course we don’t want to pull up the drawbridge and stop all immigration” when I suspect if the public were polled on that question a large minority, possibly a majority, would answer “Yes we do””
Which is why the political class is correct to ignore the ignorant ravings of a large minority of the electorate.
Makes me glad we live in a liberal parliamentary democracy where minorities are defended from such warped, selfish, indulgent, press-driven views.
@ Colin
“It is indeed relevant .
, MPs Nicholas Soames and Frank Field, chairmen of the cross party group for balanced migration, said the UK was “on course for an unsustainable and unacceptable rise in population”.
That is why it is relevant.”
That doesn’t prove it is relevant at all. This is just the opinion of a single group of MPs. I support Labour and happen to think Mr Field is wrong – and danerously so.
Kids born to so-called “foreign” mothers will – the vast majority of cases – become excellent British citizens.
That is why the stat is utterly irrelevant.
BENM-
In your opinion-is there an upper limit to the number of people who can co-exist comfortably in this country-Yes or No.
If Yes-how many?
Immigration is controllable and we shouldn’t forget that those who emigrate white British or not, reduce the population. I’d like to think that more of those who say Britain is “finished” (not least the BNP) would do so as well as all those higher earners who say that they would leave if they were taxed more.
Higher reproductive rates of recent immigrants are nothing to worry about. Historically they align with the host population in two generations. Ghettoisation probably delays this.
Fundamentalism and bigotry of any sort, religious, political, feminist, vegetarian or multiculturalist are a danger, but the key to opposing them – freedom of speech – has been understood for centuries.
We need to be open and inclusive. The Founding Principles of the Scottish Parliament and its procedures and standards are designed to promote these values
Anthony:
It isn’t “Analysis” of either sort that bothers me, it’s just the questions.
The answers are no problem either if the questions are clear.
I’ve moaned before about not knowing what country I was in. With a pragmatic non-doctrinaire workaholic minister in charge of the NHS system I use, and formerly worked in, I am very happy about “the way things are going” in the Scottish NHS and when my wife was lying on a trolley in an A&E treatment room a couple of weeks ago I was very glad I was living in Scotland.
I have often “… considered voting for the [Conservative] party …” because there is usualy one (or someting like it) on the ballot paper.
Sure, I consider it, but always come up with the same answer. I can imagine circumstances when I might even do it, but these special circumstances havn’t happened yet, and it is very unlikely that they ever will in my lifetime in my constituency.
Given what has happened, your point about the BNP becoming more respectable to vote for is a good one; they certainly seem to be making huge gains, particularly from the traditional working-class Labour voters.
I wonder though, whether UKIP will see an opportunity to sweep up the ‘respectable’ protest and ultimately be the party that really gains from all of this?
@Pete B
Pete – having problems with this CAPTCHA code: the above comment was a reply to your helpful contribution.
OLDNAT
Your point about the press north of the central belt raises consideration of aspects far more important than the editorial position of the P&J or indeed the too-obvious anti-SNP stance of The Scotsman.
Of necessity, weighting by large circulation newspaper readership is all that is available to pollsters, but it may not be where voters get the information that influences them most.
Local newspapers such as The Oban Times or The Buteman and the Stornoway Gazette usually do not overtly take a party line, but there are now two other kinds of print sources which may be more influential in the part of Scotland where the SNP and the SLD’s have their regional strengths.
The newer of these is the community freesheet printed on someone’s home computer. If there is no local issue of importance, these publications have no influence on elections. If, however, there is a controversial local issue, in all probability there will be an articulate local activist who is better informed, more committed, and focused on only that issue who will put his or her case and not be shy about exposing the shortcomings of candidates who are in less than full agreement.
I would expect the Trump proposal to provoke much debate in community freesheets and that they would influence voters. I do not know which way.
The effect of local issues of that sort can only be assessed within the constituency itself not least because there is a four party system and many combinations of two, and often three, parties in contention.
The second news source is trade press.
The point in a long decline when I made up my mind that the time was up for the last Conservative government was when I read a savage and well argued attack on education policy in Double Reed Magazine. This is a quarterly niche publication read by oboe and bassoon teachers, and their pupils. The readership must be in the low hundreds.
At the same time, a radio arts panel broadcast listened to by almost nobody morphed into a similar no holds barred attack on Conservative policy by composer Sally Beamish. No balance there either.
I realised then that small interest groups and not just large ones matter if there are enough of them and people are sufficently angry to set aside their normal voting pattern.
North of the central belt there are many industries and issues which are far more important than the Sun’s support for the Conservatives in its English editions.
Most of these are devolved issues, or – to take the most important one – North Sea fishing – those most involved think they should be. They are therefore the concern of Richard Lochhead, who hardly rates a mention in The Scotsman, still less a concerted attack like MacAskill or Hyslop. His dozens of minor initiatives are about things that urban populations neither know or care about, from bees, to pig welfare and marketing, sport, farmed and wild fish, mink badgers and raptors.
I’m not even sure what a raptor is. Still less do I know whether the SNP government is doing the right thing, but they are doing a lot of doing where the urban parties had little interest when they were in government.
Better then to read The Farmer, than read The Scotsman if you want to know what issues are important in the SNP target seats.
I don’t see what use this is other than to reassure the “chattering classes”… how many plausible British NP voters do you think watch Question Time or take part in polling?!
I think the “mainstream” is in danger of serious complacency, and of underestimating the British NP’s ability to reach the parts other parties can’t reach – the alienated.
BENM
“Makes me glad we live in a liberal parliamentary democracy where minorities are defended from such warped, selfish, indulgent, press-driven views.”
One of the problems of modern politics is that “liberal” and “democracy” are not synonyms. If the popular will in such areas as immigration, the death penalty, membership of the EU and other policies identified with liberalism is ignored by political parties then we are not truly a democracy. If we take democracy to the point at which minority views are overridden and we have government by referendum then we cease to be a liberal society.
I am unashamedly a liberal, but I recognise that this means we are not as democratic as we would like to believe. This is a weakness because it allows parties like the BNP to pose as the defenders of true democracy with some justice.
We absolutely must find a way of addressing the concerns of many people that they are losing control over their lives and the nature of their society by an honest debate that rejects misleading charges of racism otherwise we will force them into the arms of the far Right. And the far Left’s cry of “no platform for views with which I disagree” is a serious threat to both liberalism and democracy.
John Dick,
“I’m not even sure what a raptor is ” – yet living in rural Argyll – surely you jest ? Some raptors (typically birds of prey) have a good press, others (typically possesing four legs) do not. Perhaps this was a tongue-in cheek dig at metropolitan Labour’s stance on fox-hunting – as a result of which we have too many of these pests in our suburban gardens – eating pet bunnies and the like..
Just as I wonder at the lack of popular understanding of the food chain, I sometimes think our urban liberal “elite” don’t understand the industrial supply chain either – hence their focus on boosting consumption without understanding that if you do not develop your production capability first, you merely suck in imports or create inflation.
Returning to your basic point, I agree that the SNP has understood the importance of being relevant to rural voters. This is necessary if they wish to retain their existing seats while seeking (greyer) pastures in the urban central belt.
Labour has never been a rural party, but I fear that the LDs may be forgetting this important anchor, as they plan their advance into Labour’s urban heartlands, hence their increasing weakness in SW England.
Colin,
“On QT it is beyond me why Griffin didn’t press this point home. It was the one topic on which he would have gained support.
Why did he not ask the simple question of the other panelists-” How many people is too many-or do you think population density & it’s attendant infrastucture requirements is of no concern?” ”
Herein lies a paradox which begs the question as to what purpose the BBC really thought they were serving in this edition of QT.
The programme was almost entirely devoted to questions which the BNP might regard as “their” subjects, yet failed to engage with the underlying issues. Griffin was understandably defensive, but yet he never took the argument to his opponents, showing a lack of debating skills.
If the BBC were trying to be truly impartial, the programme would have concentrated on “ordinary” issues like health, education or the economy. Had they done so, it would have been evident that not only do the BNP have nothing meaningful to say on most such issues, their party leader (and by – albeit a little stretched – extension, their candidate for PM) is incapable of engaging in proper political discourse.
Treating the BNP as “just another politcial party” would actually have been more effective in rendering them irrlevant than the onslaught which allowed Griffin to proclaim himself a “victim” of the liberal media.
In that context, I have to agree with Seal Pup that this was more about reassuring the chattering classes in their complacency than really tackling the issues which have enabled the BNP to build up its current levels of support.
A John B Dick
“I’m not even sure what a raptor is”
Then you will not miss them when your crazy on-shore windfarm programme decimates the two large species that your country is home to.
……………how on earth can any one who calls the Scottish Highlands home not be aware of the Golden Eagle?
Paul-yes I agree.
I was very much in favour of giving Griffin a platform -but expected him to be well briefed & to produce considerable embarrassment for the other panelists with simple questions on immigration-which the main parties have flunked.
In the event the “loaded” audience & partial Chairmanship ( both disgraceful) gave Griffin a degree of sympathy vote & the feeling that he had been ambushed.
Nevertheless , for me, that he was unable to discuss the very important issue of the uncontrolled immigration of the last few years, except in terms of colour & race, indicated that his focus is very narrow.
ie-the WWC areas where availability of jobs & housing can be linked to high immigrant populations & immigration flows are his target. He has no pretentions to a national political platform & as you say, this would have been exposed completely if QT had not held that kangaroo court.
@Leslie Moss
I think your post does highlight the semantic problems with politics.
These words: democracy; liberal; racism, are all quite ill-defined and can conjure up quite different images in different people’s minds.
My understanding is that Liberalism is meant to be a description of ideology in terms of economics; as opposed to Libertarianism which is an ideological descriptor of the opposite of Totalitarianism; Democracy is merely a vehicle for delivering a mandate – China operates “democracy” at local levels; but certainly not Liberalism or Libertarianism.
My understanding is of a cubic spectrum of personal liberty; political liberty; and economic liberty, where various ideologies, parties, and personalities can be adequately located and described.
Frequently the Brit NP is described as “far right”, which doesn’t really adequately or accurately describe their left-of-Labour economic perspective… and gets them muddled up with UKIP and the Tories… this kind of muddled way of depicting them is to me a sign that they are, as a phenomena, not properly understood by their opponents in the establishment.
“Liberalism” is not meant to be about social issues: that’s Libertarianism. The Brit Nats, are not a “far right” party (as right is supposed to describe laissez-faire economics), they are a centre-left palaeo-conservative ethnocentrist group – but no-one wants to hear that, because it doesn’t trip off the tongue as well as shorter epithets do.
The QT “event” was a foolish debacle on the part of the establishment. Because what they did is dispelled any pretence of their impartiality towards the Brit NP, polarising the situation into a “them and us” struggle; in doing so, they have also effectively (i.e. in deeds rather than words) made a statement to the effect of confirming that the BBC/public sector and the main parties represent a united establishment. The reason why this is unwise, is that it is these uptilnow unlinked institutions that have been progressively alienating much of the public; hence what we have now is an emergent new ideological conflict, where there was none.
Recent news along the lines of: immigrant reproduction rates will push the population to 70m in a decade or so; and Mr Neather’s recent leak that Labour consciously hid a policy of deliberate ethnic demographic engineering over the last 10 years are serving only to play into the hands of one side in this; and incidents such as the QT event in context look more like impatient outbursts of exasperation from the establishment at it’s failure to keep the Brit NP out of official politics.
Frankly, I think the whole Brit Nat thing is a red herring… they are simply being used to draw fire from the main parties so that they can depict themselves as morally upright, after the expenses scandal has put that into question. I think the Brit Nats also serve another useful function for the main parties: of enabling them to pursue watered-down versions of their policies, all wrapped up in fluffy PC language.
For the media – well, 8.3 million viewers never came so easy did they!
The Brit Nats are not the story here… don’t take the bait.
“Nicholas’s post above is exactly the same BNP garbage as is being posted across the English/UK blogosphere, though I haven’t seen it on a single Scottish site so far.”
Frank Field, a Labour MP, said pretty much the same thing as I did. Is he spouting “BNP garbage” as well? I guess you find it bizarre why a native people do not want to see their country populated by foreigners. To me it’s blindingly obvious. This is what Enoch Powell said : “…we have an identity of our own, as we have a territory of our own … the instinct to preserve that identity, as to defend that territory, is one of the deepest and strongest implanted in mankind”.
(By the way, I’ve never voted BNP, nor would I.)
“Nicholas’s post above is exactly the same BNP garbage as is being posted across the English/UK blogosphere, though I haven’t seen it on a single Scottish site so far.”
Aye, but that’s ‘cos we’re yet to rid ursels o’ the sassenachs! Once they’re gone, who else will there be to blame for all the smackheads, neds, and doleys?
A week after the Question Time broadcast, I am wondering whether this storm in a teacup, about a party whom events have shown few people support broadcast or no broadcast, actually suited the Government and other established parties (and “the establishment”). It created a great deal of political debate in a week ly little of import has actually happened or indeed been discussed.
I guess the Government is treading water because it no longer has time to get legislation through before the election, and voters are treading water because they have made their minds up. And of course many MPs are demoralised and distracted by expenses problems.
This is very worrying to many people, as reflected in the opinon polls, because there are desperate needs to address economic problems – but none of the three major parties are offering anything remotely sufficient – and plenty of other issues such as the environment. But we’ve been very worried for a year now.
I suspect there are plenty of people who realise that the BNP are not the answer but who would look in desperation to a more plausible new option, as is hinted at by stated intentions such as low propensity to vote and weak loyalty to the party currently preferred.
I’ve been out of the frame for the last fortnight.
Hhas there been any polling that postdates last Friday’s announcement of GDP for Q2? The 0.4% fall was unexpected and led to falls in the pound and the stock market. Together with today’s announcement of a rise in the US economy over the same period, this news cannot be helpful to Labour’s image.