There's a profound paradox in play at this election. The Tories are clearly leading opinion polls and yet polling by YouGov for IPPR finds that many are very fed up with the form of capitalism we have had for decades, which would imply even greater alienation from the model that the Tories who might form an incoming government desire. A summary of the IPPR polling is as follows:
- 60% are in favour of the next government making “moderate” or “radical” changes to the way the British economy is run, while only 2% said the government should leave the economy as it was. Those in favour of change split between 29% who backed moderate policies and 31% who wanted a more radical agenda.
- 64% support more investment by government in combatting climate change, including investment in renewables and insulating homes, with only 9% opposed
- 61% support increasing taxes on those earning more than £100,000 a year, or approximately the top 2.5% of earners. Only 15% oppose.
- 62% support increases in the taxation of capital gains (28% supporting higher taxes on capital gains than on income, and 34% supporting equalising the two), with only 11% supporting the status quo (in which income from work is taxed more highly than capital gains).
- 57% support increased regulation of banks and financial companies, with the same number believing they presently “focus on short-term profits over the interests of the economy as a whole”. Only 7% oppose more regulation, and only 9% believe banks and financial companies act in the interest of the economy as a whole.
- 52% support stricter regulation of working conditions for the self-employed and contract workers, with only 12% opposed.
- 45% support devolving more powers over investment and planning to the English regions and the devolved administrations, with only 9% opposed.
- 59% believe the economy is currently run in the interests of the wealthiest people or big companies
- 56% believe the gap between the wealthy and the rest of the population has widened too much - including 40% of Conservative voters.
- Three in five people (61%) think public spending cuts have damaged public services, including 53 per cent of Conservative supporters.
- Workers having shares in the companies they work for gained 54% support, much of it from the 43% of Conservative voters. There was even more support for a requirement on companies to share their profits with workers more generously (66%) and to have worker representatives in the boardroom, also 66%.
Take this as an example of how, in a sense, extreme the shift in opinion is:
Even Tories, albeit by a small percentage, think inequality has grown too much, and absolutely everyone else thinks so.
And then look at this:
Everyone thinks we should invest in a Green New Deal.
And yet if the Tories get into office inequality will grow and the chance of anything approaching what is required on the Green New Deal is remote.
What people want and what they are voting far are far removed from each other. It's a paradox I fear that we will pay for, very heavily.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Interesting that pretty much all LibDem voters want what the party has just ruled out (Fig 2), but equally surprising to find a few LibDems who think that inequality hasn’t widened at all.
Historically polling has usually shown that progressive policies are supported by the majority, but the progressive parties usually either have too much baggage or the parties play the man not the ball and people fall for it. Exactly as we have now. Corbyn “is not fit to govern” because of ‘anti-Western views’, but the serial liar, backed by Russian money, etc Johnson is fine. Corbyn’s spending is “unaffordable and will bankrupt the country” but the Tories (despite a decade of evidence) are trusted on the economy.
Parties use propaganda because they know it works far better than reason. The work that you do is admirable and easy to understand with (my level) just basic intelligence, but unless there are ways to reduce it to a soundbite, people don’t listen.
My feeling is that the polls at the moment are methodologically flawed – in particular the estimates of turnout by age group for the under-40s are much lower than the actual turnout in 2017. The sampling of the phone polls is poor and is getting poorer – how many people agree to answer a phone poll on their landline these days? The online polling should be better, but the main YouGov polling was way off in 2017 and I don’t know if they’ve made any improvements since then.
I would say that the Tory lead is more like 5 or 6 points at the moment than the sort of 15 point leads a lot of pollsters are recording at the moment. And with the debates and the manifestos still to come, Labour could still end up in front. It’s a much smaller gap to close than at this stage in 2017 (IMO)!
Howard
I have to hope your are right
Lunch on me if you are
Richard
Your lunch bet looks to be safe. It’s Monday morning & I’ve just noticed the Conservative lead has increased by a couple of points since I last checked – https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom. While the polls are not as accurate as one would like, they are an indication of trends. So wtf is going on? Is it all down to a basic fact that Corbyn is less appealing than BoJo? In a Gary Gibbon C4 interview, John Curtice and Prof. Matthew Goodwin (University of Kent) both agreed he was a vote liability for Labour.
But Survation had a Tory lead of 17% at this stage last time…..
That paradox will continue to exist until we break free from this economic neoliberalism choke hold or it will carry on until we pass out!
One shouldn’t forget that for the majority of the country (i.e. 51+%) life isn’t all that bad … yet. On the surface the UK economy is performing pretty much in line with other major EU countries. It certainly hasn’t tanked as predicted by the government’s Remain propaganda at the time. However, I believe the underlying reason for the paradox is basically down to marketing in its wider sense (PR, advertising, ‘packaging’, etc.). I can recall a few years back (can’t immediately locate the ref.) that when respondents were asked to judge 2 anonymous manifestos they preferred what turned out to be that of the Green Party. But when they had to choose between ‘brands’ they chose Conservative. Or something like that. Why indeed do turkeys vote for Christmas? It’s a complex issue that encompasses human psychology (fear of change), historical themes and present day personalities. Books have been written about it.
In a nutshell, when it comes to actually putting an X against a name, it’s an issue of ingrained perceptions and confidence/trust. Here, as in the US, since 1979 any proposed socio-economic programme that’s not orthodox/mainstream is trashed by the well-oiled Conservative publicity machine, which embraces a plethora of academics, journalists, media proprietors, lobbyists etc. Dog-whistle words & phrases like ‘communist’, ‘Trotsky’, ‘North Korea’, ‘strikes, blackouts and piles of rotting rubbish’, ‘Weimar Republic’, etc. and more recently ‘there is no money left’. The Clinton/Blair 3rd Way strategy was simply light-blue wash – albeit convincing at the time.
If it all sounds crudely simplistic it is but it really does work for a big chunk of the electorate. However, I believe there’s a generational churn that is signalling change down the line and a shift of ‘Overton’s Window towards the progressive left. Early days but it would appear that younger and in particular new voters want change. And, of course, the environmental agenda is primarily emotionally driven by them, and they’re up for excuses. It seems to be happening across the Pond – https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/socialism-poll-millennials-generations/2019/10/28/id/939028. So maybe here too. Hope springs eternal.
In the context of evolving political preferences, this election is something of an aberration for a number of different reasons, not least the wretched ‘Brexit’ & not to forget Scottish Independence. The 2014 GE will arguably be more interesting and offer a more accurate indication of the majority mood of the nation.
Thanks
Oops! Erratum: should read ” …. and they’re NOT up for excuses.”
Reminds me of the clip of the home counties woman in the town street who was read out a list of policies by a journalist and agreed with them all. Asked what she voted she replied Tory. When informed that everything she had previously agreed with were actually Labour policies, she expressed some surprise.
The really serious issue in this country: and it is truly serious because it affects absolutely everything, is the mainstream media: effectively controlled by less than a handful of offshore billionaires and controlling not only the information the public require for proper assessment of the facts but how that information is presented. It’s not a short term thing either; it habituates and tribalises; which is why the above home counties woman has doubtless still not changed the way she votes .
Free broadband, free tuition fees etc what’s not to like? Where’s the catch?
Howard, Ken and John D make really good points and I concur.
But also meditate on the fact that we live in a society dominated by lies. Well constructed and highly organised lies.
When Corbyn released his broadband policy, I had to sit there and listen to the Lib Dems and Martha Lane Fox of all people say that they were worried about how ‘ the big brother’ state might abuse its power if involved as a provider of such services. I mean, the reason why the internet is the new Wild West is because you could argue the State has not made its presence felt enough.
With all the issues pertaining to Facebook and other private platforms sharing people’s data and the use of algorithms, the shambles that was the Refrendumb, Cambridge Analytica (a private concern) why would people still mention the state like that?
Why? Because a big lie has been planted and persists – that’s why – just like the lie that Corbyn is somehow a threat to this country even though those who threaten it are already actually in power.
These days polls reflect the symptoms of a public that is being lied to 24/7. Whether its in car adverts where the vehicle is never depicted on a congested road to those who say you can have low taxes and world class public services, such polls are the flotsam and jetsam of the tsunami of lies we put up with everyday.
Agreed
I agree entirely with everything you say
I think the paradox is resolved by assuming a disconnect between the act of voting and the actions of the elected representatives. I think it was Hobbes who first introduced the idea of owning ones actions, but that was presumably lost when Bentham swung English society towards utilitarianism. Those Conservative voters that I speak with are horrified at the thought that they are responsible for people dying on the streets, or waiting in a queue to get into A&E; they do not accept that at all. They teach their children and grandchildren to tell the truth and to obey the law, and for male children to not treat women inappropriately, yet they elect people, who should be role models, who openly lie, flout the law and behave in a disgracefully racist and sexist manner. Clearly this is partly due to simple lack of information, and indeed much misinformation, but there is still a lot that is absolutely blatant, yet ignored.
If we want to reintroduce ethics into politics it must be done from the bottom, by voting for candidates who show some moral sense, almost disregarding party. A government formed from people whose ethical principles come first must, almost by definition, tackle inequality and introduce measures to tackle climate change as the highest priority.
Apart from drumming into people at every opportunity that they are responsible for the actions of their elected representatives and aggressively questioning candidates to determine their moral stance, I am not sure what we can do. Without some such change I fear the paradoxes will remain and blight the future of our country into the foreseeable future.
Polls are used to influence voters rather than reflect their actual intentions. I used to have a quote saved from someone who worked for the Daily Mail and a polling company that said exactly that. YouGov was founded by a Tory MP – anything they do is heavily biased in favour of right wing positions. Survation were the only ones that didn’t embarrass themselves during the last election and they now have Labour only 6 points behind (6 points better off than they were this far out from the last election).
Mark my words, the Lib Dems are going to take seats from the Tories by gobbling up lots of Tory Remainers, especially as virtually all of the marginals that the Lib Dems are second in are held by the Tories. Brexit is well down the list of most people’s priorities, with 50% of the electorate having no strong feeling on it either way. The Tory base is eroded by the Grim Reaper every year as more and more of the most politically well informed generation of youngsters in history (thanks to being able to get real news from the internet rather than corporate propaganda from the MSM) reaches voting age.
Labour will win the most seats, hopefully enough for a majority, if not then a Labour SNP coalition government 🙂
Steve – could you comment more often please. My own view and those with whom I discuss politics is far more pessimistic, but reading your post quite cheered me.
This reminds me of the Doomsday Cults and their tendency to have renewed vigour in their beliefs following the failure of the apocalypse to materialise on cue. We’d rather lie to ourselves than face the knowledge that we were wrong in our beliefs. No wonder human history is the depressing morass that it is, when pride and ego gets in the way of common sense and humanity.
I’ve had discussions with colleagues and train buddies and find that it is impossible to shake anyone from an entrenched view. In fact, I only have to express a marginally socialist viewpoint for one of these people to wave their phone under my nose with a video of Jeremy Corbyn allegedly saying something outrageous and proof positive that he’s unsuited for high office. I don’t feel compelled to do the same about Boris Johnson, and make the point that unless I was there in person to hear Corbyn speak, I have almost zero confidence that anything relayed to me in the media is an accurate representation of the truth, even less so their doctored video clip that they’ve found on Facebook. But even if I point to evidence of video tampering from the Tory side, this doesn’t sway them. In fact, it makes them even more resolute in their determination to wave yet more “proof” of their world view under my nose. My counter arguments fall on deaf ears. They’re not there to listen – they’re there to proselytise and shore up their waning confidence in their overall “rightness”. The more I present a counter argument, the angrier and more red faced they become.
So, for those whose views align more with my own, I advocate they vote Labour unless there’s absolutely no chance of Labour winning in their constituency, in which case vote for the next most likely party, even, and this rankles, it has to be the Liberal democrats.
And as for the Liberal Democrats and the SNP, they’d rather put getting a few more seats and guaranteeing Brexit via a Tory majority than stepping aside for Labour in order to ensure at worst, a Labour minority government, and at a best, a majority one. And that I find almost unforgivable. If they truly wanted to stop Brexit, then working to facilitate a Labour victory is their only option. But it seems the lust for a seat on the benches outweighs whats best for the country. And that is shameful.
I have to say you’re wrong bout the SNP
Labour is completely dead in Scotland and that’s because it failed Scottish people, badly
Thanks for that reply to Miss N, Richard
It’s too easy for people outside of Scotland to denigrate the SNP, when they have no understanding of or interest in anything outside of England.
I am cheered by Steve’s comments too. This election is all about getting the Tories out for me. And that is a strangely easy campaign message. Vote for the party most likely to do that. In most cases it is Labour. In Scotland it is the SNP and in Wales sometimes Plaid Cymru. Always vote for Caroline Lucas in Brighton, and in other less fortunate cases it involves holding your nose and voting for a Liberal Democrat. This is a policy I have been endlessly pushing on Facebook threads, and something lots of others are doing as well. We might just get a Labour (or Labour/SNP) government this way. Then the hard work begins!