A small but perfectly formed poll on PinkNews.co.uk puts Lib Dem mayoral hopeful into City Hall this May.
Although Labour’s Ken Livingstone wins a plurality of votes, he fails to get over the threshold of 50% needed in the first round for an Supplementary Vote win.
Second-placed Paddick takes enough second-preference votes to push him a hair-breadth ahead of Ken and win the mayoralty.
In the words of Peter Snow, it’s all a bit of fun, and the sample of voters asked is very low – well under the thousand often considered the gold-standard of political polls.
But it’s good news all round for the Lib Dems amongst those polled. Not only does Brian run Ken very close in the first round for London Mayor, and edge into the lead in the second, but also those asked which party they’d support in the London Borough elections also put the Lib Dems ahead of all other parties.
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13 Comments
This poll may have had a small sample size, but it’s slightly larger than that of the much-quoted poll putting Brian well behind – which had under three hundred Londoners polled. I bet this won’t get the same coverage, though!
I’d go for Brian Paddick any time.
Nice to see Lib Dems and Labour still neck-and-neck for the “pink vote” with the Tories clearly out of the running. It’s a swathe of the electorate where our polling is consistently about twice what we get nationally in general elections.
What a strange Lib Demmy definition of ‘coming top of the poll’ given that more people actually voted for Ken Livingstone. This is also a self-selecting sample not balanced for any bias, so it has no statistical relevance anyway.
Surely, David, you understand that it’s not a FPTP election? Seems a perfectly reasonable way to refer to an election Paddick would have won.
It is nice to see the Lib Dems doing well, but some of our MPs seem not to be putting liberal values first.
Theyworkforyou.com records that:
Greg Mulholland ‘voted very strongly against equal gay rights’
Alan Beith and Richard Younger-Ross have each ‘voted moderately for equal gay rights’
and as for Colin Breed ….
Seriously though, what’s going on here?
Greg’s rating is based on two votes and I think that TWFY has rather a harsh algorithm to calculate that. One of which was supporting the following amendment:
“When considering whether to consent to a prosecution under subsection (1) the Attorney General must have particular regard to the importance of the right to freedom of expression provided by the European Convention on Human Rights”
The other was on similar lines:
“Nothing in this Part shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion of, criticism of or expressions of antipathy towards, conduct relating to a particular sexual orientation, or urging persons of a particular sexual orientation to refrain from or modify conduct related to that orientation.”
He was voting the party line on the first but not the second. But still, leaping from that to saying he is “very strongly against gay rights” is a pretty massive jump!
By contrast Colin Breed (opposed equal age of consent) is only listed as having voted strongly against gay rights
I suppose it depends which perspective you come from Hywel.
Mine is that the party line was to vote to protect LGBT people from the sort of bullying and harrassment (not least from the pulpit) that wouldn’t be meted out to other parts of the community.
So, as i see it, 4 LD MPs voted in favour of the law permitting – as the amendment itself says – ‘expressions of antipathy … towards persons of a particular sexual orientation’.
If I were in the BNP I’d take my chances on arguing in the courts that a fist in the face was only an expression of antipathy.
On that basis, although I agree that Greg has a more mixed record than the TWFY assessment suggests, I’d support the way that their algorithm has worked in his case.
Colin Breed is in a different league, and in this case the TWFY algorithm has made him look more liberal than his record would suggest – he is shown as only voting ”strongly against equal gay rights” because he has missed so many votes on the issue. Another way to look at his record is that he is not listed as EVER having voted for equal rights legislation. Not once.
Sorry this is a long post.
“I suppose it depends which perspective you come from Hywel.”
Philosphically I don’t like hate crime legislation – is it worse to beat someone up because of their sexuality or because of the football shirt they are wearing? However such legislation does serve a valuable practical purpose as it sets out our position as a society that it is unacceptable that some groups are more vulnerable and suffer particular targetting than others.
I’d agree with you on the second one – I just don’t think it merits tagging someone as strongly against equal rights.
Though I should point out that you have AIUI slighly misquoted it as it relates to “conduct relating to a particular sexual orientation” rather than the orientation itself. That would cover criticism of cottaging or dogging, possibly even particular types of drug use for example.
A fist in the face would be an offence – with some pretty clear aggravating factors regardless of what was in this legislation!
TWFY seem to pick some odd issues in this category though – eg one of the reason Alan Beith might not have a “top” rating is that he voted on an amendment on the Civil partnership bill to extend civil partnerships to long-term co-habiting siblings. Whilst there were many people who supported that amendment as a way of opposing civil partnerships there is a valid point behind that amendment and supporting it doesn’t imply anything about an MPs views on gay rights.
“Colin Breed is in a different league”
I think we can at least agree on that!
The way that TWFY works out what you are strongly for and against or “moderately” for and against is unreliable to put it mildly.
The way they work out whether and how often you vote against the party line is even less reliable since it includes free votes on the basis of which side has a majority from a particular party. It has me as voting occasionally against the party when I have never done so (except once by accident when the line was changed at the last minute and I was late into the lobby so didn’t go to check with the front bench! – actually it was all the fault of Sally Greengross).
Tony Greaves
Gregs two votes were in favour of freedom of speach not particularly against gay rights. Have you ever heard the famous Voltaire quote, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”?
Can there be any more liberal position?
If that was what was said, maybe not. As I understand it though, What was being voted on was saying, really, ‘I disapprove of what you might do to express antipathy toward one section of the population but will let you do it anyway, just don’t do it to anyone else.’
Yet more evidence that the vote should be restricted solely to gay voters.