Last Tuesday, I referred to a New Statesman article about a YouGov poll showing Ed Davey well ahead in the future Liberal Democrat leadership contest.
I mentioned in the piece that I was unable to find the data behind the poll.
Julian Heather (@JulianHeather1) kindly messaged Professor Tim Bale at Queen Mary, University of London.
Professor Bale then kindly tweeted a link to the data for the poll, which is here.
The slide shows that 1028 Liberal Democrat members were interviewed between “20th – 6th January 2020”. I am not sure whether that should say “20th December 2019 – 6th January 2020” or “6th – 20th January 2020”.
The group of members was made up of 703 males and 325 females, which seems surprising.
15% of respondents (which is 154 people) said “don’t know”.
Many thanks to both Professor Tim Bale and Julian Heather for their help.
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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10 Comments
Just shows that more males waste their time messing about on the internet than females so.
I think they actually phoned the 1028 people, Tony.
With all the issues over data security where on earth do such polling agencies get membership lists and telephone numbers from?
The New Statesman reported the other day that Christine Jardine is going to stand. https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2020/01/christine-jardine-stand-liberal-democrat-leadership
David – the polling companies may well have details of people they’ve polled previously who have identified themselves as LD members.
David: Dan M-B is correct. If you are on the YouGov panel, as I am, you will have been asked multiple times about your political views, party membership etc. The latest poll also asked whether I was a registered supporter of a party.
Finding names and contact details of 1000 LibDems UK-wide is a pretty trivial task. MPs, peers, councillors, parliamentary candidates, election agents, many contibutors or commentors on LDV are on public record. That’s before you start looking for local Focus leaflets with contact details on them…
Whether that produces a representatove sample of members is another question.
I think Christine Jardine standing for the leadership is a worrying sign of self aggrandisement. After the salutary example of Jo Swinson’s pretty disastrous term in office somebody with experience is badly needed.
@Steve Magner
Surely anyone expressing interest in leading their party (which covers virtually all politicians) is by definition seeking self-aggrandisement?
And why, precisely, is that worrying in Christine Jardine’s case, if indeed she is seeking to join the leadership race?
“somebody with experience is badly needed” – Oh, so 30 years experience in journalism doesn’t count, then?
It is not just Christine Jardine, the same applies to Wera Hobhouse and Daisy Cooper. I think that political experience is absolutely crucial to success. One only has to look at the different approaches adopted by Vince Cable and Jo Swinson to see how Jo’s lack of experience and political nous showed up big time. Sadly perhaps the same could be said of Tim Farron although personally I have always been a fan of his political perspective.