Category Archives: Voice polls

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has sparked controversy with his lecture yesterday arguing that the adoption of some parts of Sharia law in the UK is “unavoidable”:

it might be possible to think in terms of … a scheme in which individuals retain the liberty to choose the jurisdiction under which they will seek to resolve certain carefully specified matters, so that ‘power-holders are forced to compete for the loyalty of their shared constituents’. This may include aspects of marital law, the regulation of financial transactions and authorised structures of mediation and conflict resolution … a universalist Enlightenment

…

For the last fortnight, we’ve had a poll running asking, “How many days should we permit detention without charge?”

In total, 69% of you reckoned this should be 14 days or fewer, compared with Labour’s full-throated support for 42 days to deal with “hypothetical” situations.

Here are the results in full:
• 14 days, as before Blair: 37% (165)
• Fewer than 14 days: 32% (144)
• 28 days, as Blair got: 19% (85)
• 90 days, as proposed by Blair: 9% (40 votes)
• 42 days, as proposed by Brown: 3% (13)
Total Votes: 447. 12th-31st January, 2008

Here’s what Nick Clegg has to say about extending …

Amidst all the excitement of the poll for Liberal Voice of the Year 2007 – have you voted yet? – LDV clean forgot to post the results of our earlier readers’ survey, which ran over the New Year.

We asked you: “Do you think the British monarchy should be retained or abolished?”

You told us, albeit by a slender majority, that you’re monarchists at heart. Here’s the full breakdown:

Retain the monarchy: 43% (148)
Abolish it: 40% (140)
Utterly indifferent: 17% (59)
Total Votes: 347

I’ll admit I’m a tad surprised, though perhaps that’s because I’m an instinctive republican who finds it hard to square meritocratic …

The poll for Liberal Voice of the Year 2007 will soon be going live – but, in the interregnum, we thought we’d ask that timeless classic: do you think the British monarchy should be abolished?

The hook to hang the question on is provided by the news that 78% of British people want the monarchy to be retained, according to a poll by Gfk NOP commissioned by historian Professor Peter Hennessy, a guest editor of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

Some 78% of respondents agreed that Britain should still have a royal family and 19% disagreed. Asked if the monarchy

…

This was one of the questions asked by YouGov in the party members’ poll commissioned by Sky News. I suspect I wasn’t alone in finding it hard to answer, as none of the eight choices on offer included the word ‘liberal’, a striking omission when surveying members of the Liberal Democrats. Instead, answers ranged from ‘very left-wing’ to ‘very right-wing’. (Click on the image to see my screen-shot.)

It seems appropriate, then, to ask the question in a slightly more sophisticated way than YouGov attempted… So the options you can plump for in …

Well, the newspaper front pages assert there’s no doubt who is responsible for the downfall of Ming Campbell: Lib Dem ‘plotters’. Which coming from newspapers which have constantly pilloried Ming simply for being in his 60s, and have blown up his light-hearted asides as gaffes, seems to me like breathtaking hypocrisy.

But over to you: who do you think gave Ming the final push? Was it:

– The media;
– The ‘young turks’;
– The bloggers;
– Ming himself;
– The polls;
– Brown and Cameron?

To vote, see the poll in the right-hand column.

Time for a new poll, wethinks. After a few days by the seaside the key question is: who had the brightest Brighton?

Here are the candidates:

Ming Campbell: swatted away the media-induced leadership speculation with a stirring end-of-conference speech;

Nick Clegg: cannily steered through a potentially controversial motion proposing a selective amnesty for illegal immigrants, but then allowed the media to whip up yet another fake frenzy by admitting he’d probably stand for the leadership next time.

Lady Elspeth: the Lib Dems’ very own Cherie – “I don’t know whether you are being helpful or not,” was her rebuke to Nick Clegg. “I’m …

The results of our latest poll are in, and it seems almost 70% of Lib Dem Voice readers reckon there will be a general election within the next year or so.

We asked: “When do you think the next general election will be?”

You said:
* 2007: 19% (40)
* 2008: 50% (103)
* 2009: 27% (56)
* 2010: 4% (9)
Total Votes: 208

In which case, go back to your constituencies and prepare to campaign.

Okay, we’ve got the message – so you like opinion polls… Here’s the result of the poll Lib Dem Voice has been running for the past week:

Should Lib Dem Voice report opinion polls?
Yes: 64% (76)
No: 21% (25)
Only if they’re good for the Lib Dems: 14% (17)
Total Votes : 118

Look out for Alex Wilcock‘s polling round-up… coming soon.