Two recent issues of public concern over healthcare, though very different in their details, demonstrate some common threads in the way public opinion on such issues arises and the importance of good communications in averting such potential crises.
In the current edition of the Spectator, Stephen Glover attacks MORI in particular and the opinion polls in general on the basis of their performance in last year's general election. His argument depends upon a number of inaccuracies and misunderstandings.
The National Health Service has regained poll position as the issue of most concern to most people in Britain, pushing the war into second place. Service delivery (lack thereof) by the Blair government is salient. Recently the media are talking about the Tories' resurgence. The runes I read do not look happy for the occupants of Nos. 10 & 11.
Our poll figures are usually reported giving percentages of the whole British adult population who hold a particular opinion, but it is sometimes instructive to break them down geographically and consider to what extent national opinion is simply an aggregation of different regional opinions.
Satisfaction with Ken Livingstone's performance as Mayor of London has risen, with a significant increase in the number of Londoners expressing this as their view. The finding comes from the Annual MORI London Survey, commissioned by the GLA and released today, which finds satisfaction with the Mayor's performance has increased by 5 percentage points since the previous survey carried out in 2000.
MORI's 2001 survey of "Captains of Industry" [Business Leaders' Support Grows For Single European Currency], published this week, finds these representatives of Britain's biggest companies divided by more than three to two in favour of Britain joining the euro. This, of course, contrasts with the opposition to joining of the majority of the public. The Captains have always been more euro-friendly than the public, but in the last two years before the 2001 study the gap had been narrowing; the most recent figures show a sharp business swing in favour of the single currency, though as the table shows the balance of opinions has effectively simply reverted to that from 1999.
The attention span of both the British public and the news media that serve them is a short one. When there are no new developments in a story it quickly slips from the front pages, whatever its real importance, and for the public out of sight is often out of mind.
