Political Betting reports a poll by Yougov for Nottingham University on satisfaction with MPs in general and with the local MP.
The result that people generally rate their local MP higher than MPs in general is well known, and thought to be due to the fact that one perception relies on reporting, which is usually negative, and the other relies more on personal experience. But this poll also reveals that voters with Liberal Democrat MPs rate them significantly higher than those with MPs of other parties.
That’s a net satisfaction of +14% for local Liberal Democrat MPs, -5% and -13% for local Labour and Conservative MPs respectively.
I like to think this is not just because our MPs work harder for local people, and not just because we have more marginal seats to fight. (It would be interesting to see satisfaction plotted against size of majority.) And I don’t think it is because we are, uniquely, paragons of public service. But there has to be something in our belief in community politics, in listening to and empowering the people we serve, and in the view that politics isn’t just a means to an end, that gives us an edge.
* Joe Otten was the candidate for Sheffield Heeley in June 2017 and Doncaster North in December 2019 and is a councillor in Sheffield.
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8 Comments
level of work and size of majority are pretty congruent as far as I recall.
What a load of bumf!
On the train today people were grumbling about energy prices and how the Libdems have added £150 onto their bills because of green taxes. May not be true but if people believe it then it’s difficult to convince them otherwise.
Jennie, I don’t doubt there is a large effect due to size of majority, but it should be possible in principle to control for that and see how much of a party effect remains. Though it is possible the sample size is too small for a reliable two-variable regression when the two variables are correlated like these.
Martin, you are mixing people’s perceptions on Lib Dem MPs and people’s perceptions on their MP. When I worked for an MP, if I said, “I work for a Lib Dem MP”, I would mostly get looks of mild disapproval; however, if I said, “I work for Mr X MP”, then people would often respond with “Oh yes, I met him a few weeks ago at X event; he was such a nice fellow who is working so hard for the community.”
As with anything, the general presumptions people have about things are actually challenged by their personal experiences, people just put their personal experiences in their own box.
Sorry, that should read, ‘the general presumptions people have about things are not actually challenged by their personal experiences, people just put their personal experiences in their own box.’
Joe yeah, my stats a-level was a long time ago but my rusty memory says that the confidence interval would be so large as to render it meaningless.
“Though it is possible the sample size is too small for a reliable two-variable regression when the two variables are correlated like these.”
Talking of sample sizes – when you spoke in your article of a significant difference between Lib Dem MPs and others, did you mean statistically significant? I couldn’t find the information to justify that conclusion.
Chris, clearly we’ve only been given point estimates here, but if the overall figure were to conform to the typical standard for polls of +-3%, then we should perhaps allow +-5% for the Tory/Labour figures and +-7% for the Lib Dem figure, on the basis that the samples are smaller.
That would give a statistically significant difference of at least 7%, and possibly as high as 31% between Lib Dem and Labour, and 15% to 39% between Lib Dem and Tory.
Clearly it would be good to have the raw data to be able to confirm this.