Exclusive: Support For Clegg’s Lib Dems At 8% screams Sky News’s report marking the 100 days of the Coalition. Disaster! Woe! Panic!
Erm, except Sky News isn’t reporting a poll conducted by a reputable polling organisation of a representative sample of the British public. I mean, you didn’t seriously expect journalistic integrity and news values from Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News-lite, did you?
The figure of 8% support for the Lib Dems is the result of a Sky News Panel survey. The surveys are open to any viewer to join and answer. Sky makes no claim that its Panel is representative, nor is it a member of the British Polling Council which has as its aim “to encourage the highest professional standards in public opinion polling”.
You can read into the results what you like. But this is nothing more than a ‘voodoo’ poll, a cheap way for dodgy news organisations to make a sensationalist splash.
PS: polling guru Anthony Wells puts it plainly enough – No, the Liberal Democrats are NOT on 8%.
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14 Comments
Do we even have any of those now?
Usual scaremongering from the world of 24 hour News Channels – they’ve got to fill their time. Polls, I take with a pinch of salt – unscientific polls like this with a shovel full of salt. I failed to get excited with the post-first Leader’s Debate when others around me did as it’s campaigning on the ground that matters.
What we have to do is re-invent our identity and work harder at doing so. When Nick Clegg makes comments on Trident, it is perceived as a ‘gaffe, threatening to de-rail the Coalition’ – this is despite our opposition being part of the Coalition agreement.
The media are not used to consensual politics, so any difference in opinion is seen as disastrous. Fact is that lazy political journalists are used to tribalism in politics and will pick what they perceive to be ‘holes’. The last few days have been encouraging and we need to work harder to publicise the positive affect we are having in Government.
We need to be sharper in publicising where we are making a difference, eg. The Pupil Premium, closure of the Family Unit at Yarl’s Wood, taking so many people out of the tax system altogether and easing the burden for others. We need to publicise the fact that we have linked earnings to pensions and much, much more.
Finally, we need to use our influence in Cabinet to put an end to the ‘dip your toes in the water and see what the temperature is like’ style of politics, so despised under Labour. A classic example was Cameron’s comments on Council Housing or Ann Milton’s comments on children’s free milk. It just makes the coalition as bad as Labour and Ministerial Responsibility should extend to actually announcing Government Policy and not speculating, seeing the public reaction and then U-turning!
Credibility slumps? They never had any.
Sky News has been the epitome of biased news reporting for in excess of a decade, there’s no-one that works there with even the vaguest pretensions of actually being a journalist.
poll is rubbish
but undoubtedly Tories doing very well out of Goverenmnet and Lib Dems not
thats just Fact
Tomorrows Guardian ICM 37/37/18. First time ICM has had Labour level for three years. The detailed policy/opinion questions make better reading for the coalition.
Not sure if Sky News ever had any credibility to start with!
I think this is just a result of Slow News Day, and they have to fill their 24 hours with something.
Someone Watches Sky News Shock!
We’ve had to moderate some comments in this thread and elsewhere, so a quick reminder about our moderation policy, particularly the point about off-topic comments: https://www.libdemvoice.org/the-liberal-democrat-voice-team
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2781?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+PollingReport+(UK+Polling+Report)
But this is reputable poll. Never mind the 18% figure. Check the approval ratings.
The coalition is trending worse than the governing party in any of the previous four parliaments (for ICM and this dataset). They are closest to John Majors 1992- 1997 administration.
There is a reason why Dave and Cleggie are running around the Country holding election rallies. There is a reason why Gideon is coming out of his hiding place and prefacing every answer with “Labour would have done the same or rather, they wouldn’t have done anything because they’re defecit deniers, oh blow it, I’m just going to keep repeating the words Brown, Labour and Greece and see what sticks”. Their private polling is scaring them witless.
A leaderless opposition is proving difficult opponents for this god awful government.
Imagine what’s going to happen when there’s someone steering the ship.
Which, given the condition of the economy compared to those times, is exactly what we expected to happen way back before the election, regardless of who was in power. Everybody predicted that.
I don’t think you’re watching the same channel as the rest of us.
“Which, given the condition of the economy compared to those times, is exactly what we expected to happen way back before the election, regardless of who was in power. Everybody predicted that.”
Which makes it even stranger that you’ve been trying so hard to deny it is happening!
Ah, surprise, surprise. Sky News is a particuarly dubious news station, so their polls should not come as a surprise at all. UK Polling Report has rather good analysis on this voodoo poll as well.
As for Cuse, may I remind him (like other Liberal Democrats have) that low poll ratings are to be expect considering the our economic climate overall, and the cuts that will be implemented in order to tackle our economic woes.
I’m not surprised that the government are going across the country to spread the message for the coalition overall – I believe that would have been the case whoever was in government. The coalition do need to emphasis the argument on growth though in particular to balance out their message on the neccessity of cuts.
On poll ratings, I wouldn’t invest too much effort into expected poll ratings – the time of analysing polls will be 2014 – 2015.
I thought murdoch support tory views
I know that wasn’t me, and I’m not responsible for whatever nutty blogs you’ve been reading this time.