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New Labour And Delivery
Received political wisdom is that modern governments, especially the present British government, are and will be judged by the public on whether they have "delivered". So "Has New Labour delivered?" will, it is suggested, be the key question on which the outcome of the next general election may turn (assuming, of course, that the opposition has regained a sufficient degree of political credibility for anybody to take them seriously as an alternative). Sir Robert Worcester analyses.
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A Majority Of Over 100 With The Women's Vote? Or, No Overall Majority?
Dr Elizabeth Nelson, the founding partner of Taylor Nelson, now one of the world's largest market research groups, leads the London arm of the International Women's Forum, and asked me recently to have a look at the upcoming elections in the USA and here in Britain. I'll confess, I hadn't been paying enough attention to what's been happening to the women's voting intentions since the last general election. Mea culpa!
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The Grand Tradition
Peter Snow, perhaps Britain's keenest poll watcher — and his super wife, CBC Bureau Chief Ann McMillan — were at the American Ambassador's President's Day reception last month. He wanted to know what in the world has happened to the polling fraternity and was MORI going to restart (sic) our regular series of monthly poll reports again now that we have an election looming (15 months and counting). I was surprised he's not hardwired to our website (although he says he is), and reminded him that our monthly poll record is still unbroken since it began in 1979, nearly 25 years ago and is there for all to see.
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After Duncan Smith: What Now For The New Tory Leader? - MORI Political Monitor - Political Attitudes in Great Britain
MORI's latest Political Monitor shows that Michael Howard, or any new Tory leader, faces a tough task if the Conservative Party are to make a significant dent in Labour's parliamentary majority.
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Lies, Damned Lies And Opinion Polls
What's one to do? Polls are being dumbed down daily, and no matter how hard I try, the polls' equivalent of Gresham's Law seems destined to drive out quality, to the detriment of the proper use of polls to support advocacy, illuminate debate, control demagoguery, and inform people what others are thinking.
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What Do The Public Make Of Local Elections?
MORI's research for the Electoral Commission is published this week
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Consumer Power
Who exercise 'consumer power'? Do you recall that at the turn of the year I wrote about Consuming Passions in my monthly column? That article warned PR practitioners to think about who wields consumer power, and gave some clues of who in our society does what to express their ire against organisations which failed to live up to expectation.
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Blair Cannot Count On Baghdad Bounce
The British participation in the American-led invasion of Iraq was, at the moment it began, possibly the least popular war with the British public of any in which British troops have joined since opinion polls first began. But no sooner had the first shots been fired than public opinion started to swing in favour of British involvement in the war and kept on going. Within a couple of days the polls were finding solid majorities in favour where previously they had found solid majorities against, a movement which even reports of civilian casualties, "friendly-fire" incidents and later widespread looting and lawlessness apparently did nothing to check. The scale of the change of opinions makes it one of the most dramatic turnarounds that MORI has measured.
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Consuming Passions
For many years I've been an interested observer of people power. Who are the 'movers and shakers' of British Society? What is their profile, how do they influence others, and what do they read. My first exposition of this interest was in 1972, when the long lamented magazine New Society printed an early article of mine, "The Hidden Activist", which examined what I termed the socio-political activists (S-PAs) in Britain who I defined as that c. 10% of the public who tended by their actions to stand out from the crowd, to be elected officers of clubs or groups, make speeches and write letters to editors, stand for public office and otherwise take part in an active way in order to influence the course of British political events.