Things that have happened in recent polling

We've had a few interesting things in Opinium polling over the last few weeks.

The first is that we asked who voters think is likely to win the next general election with all the realistic options being shown (i.e. Conservative majority, hung parliament with Conservatives as the largest party, hung parliament with Labour as the largest party, Labour majority). We asked this back in March and again in September and the major difference is that the Conservatives are a lot more confident of victory than they were six months ago.

Counting a majority or being the largest party in a hung parliament as a "win" for each side, 54% in March expected a Labour win in 2015 vs. just 24% for the Conservatives. In September the figures were 42% and 37% respectively with the main difference coming from the fact that more Conservative voters expect a win.

We also had a look at intra-party approval ratings (e.g. how many supporters of a party approve / disapprove of their leader) and why Ed Miliband's ratings have tumbled recently. My theory about why Labour voters were suddenly less positive than usual about their leader was that this was because of media criticism of Miliband by people from his own side (e.g. John Prescott) which wouldn't make Labour voters any less likely to vote Labour but would make them less likely to approve of their leader.

It also mentions why I thought Ed Miliband's own-party ratings were lower than those for David Cameron and, given that we've just had a Labour party conference where the main announcements were policies that the Labour base will love, it'll be interesting to see what happens to his figures in the weeks ahead.

Enough with the "anglosphere turns right" rubbish!

Since Tony Abbott's victory in the Australian federal elections I've seen numerous right wingers on Twitter boasting about how four of the five main English speaking countries have centre right leaders:

Australia: Abbott (Liberal/National Coalition)

Canada: Harper (Conservative)

New Zealand: Key (National)

United Kingdom: Cameron (Conservative)

United States: Obama (Democrat)

The problem with this though is that right wing / left wing is entirely relative. Centre right in Britain is probably less right wing than the equivalent in Australia or the United States. Obamas signature healthcare reform is more right wing than any mainstream Conservative could advocate in Britain and acceptable Australian rhetoric on immigration would (rightly) be decried as racist if any mainstream British politician spoke in the same way. 

But the other problem is that it implies that Obama is the strange outlier, the deviation from the norm. 

This always makes me laugh because here are the vote totals for each of the leaders mentioned above:

Australia: Abbott (5,274,954 after 2nd preferences allocated)

Canada: Harper (5,832,401)

New Zealand: Key (1,058,638)

United Kingdom: Cameron (10,703,654)

United States: Obama (65,915,796)

Any of those stand out particularly? Not all "anglosphere" leaders are created equal I suppose. 

(Totals from Wikipedia)

Intervening in Syria is in our national interest

I've blogged earlier about how the Commons vote against intervening in Syria was accidental and blamed that largely on David Cameron (though Ed Miliband didn't exactly cover himself in glory).

For what it's worth, I think there should be some sort of punitive action taken against the Syrian regime and if the UK is not going to be part of it then I hope the Obama administration goes ahead regardless.

Lots of the debate around the merits of intervening have focused on the things like whether there is a detailed plan (and exit strategy) for any intervention and what impact intervention would have on the balance of power in the Syrian civil war. The other phrase trotted out regularly is a variation of "it's none of our business and we should not get involved".

As horrific as the suffering has been, caused by both chemical and conventional weapons, intervening in Syria is not really about Syria at all. It doesn't matter whether intervention overthrows the Assad regime or tips the balance of power in the Syrian civil war. The effect of intervention is that it maintains one of the norms of how states behave, namely the taboo against the use of chemical weapons.


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There's a hole in the floor because David Cameron dropped the ball so hard

The news is full of coverage of David Cameron's humiliating defeat in the Commons vote on whether to take military action in Syria. And with good reason, it's a huge event politically and constitutionally. I'm going to deal with the first in this post and the second in another so watch this space. I'll also deal with the actual merits or demerits of intervening in Syria later on as well.

We seem to have arrived, accidentally, at a situation where the leadership of both the Labour and Conservative parties are open to taking part in punitive action against Syria and, where a majority of MPs are likely open to this as well, yet the House of Commons has rejected the very principle of military action outright.

It's hard to decide whether to blame David Cameron or Ed Miliband more for this situation but the title of this post should give an idea of where I fall on that scale. There are two reasons for this (after the jump).

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