Is there anything the lib dems and greens do to get more of the dropping labour support? It’s scary to me how little of that drop has gone to the left.
Comment on BBC under fresh pressure over extent of Reform UK coverage
tal@lemmy.today 1 day agokagis
Ah. I hadn’t realized that Reform’s polling was nearly that high.
ambitiousslab@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
Lastangel@feddit.uk 1 day ago
Fun thought experiment: have you ever met anyone who has replied to opinion polls?
I asked my dear 80 year old mother that a while ago, she hadn’t. I haven’t.
They are generally conducted by phone, cold calling landlines, or by someone going door to door with a clipboard.
Many unofficial (but still very influencial, including gov.uk) polls are online, and users have to complete hundreds of them to get a nominal payment, £5 I believe.
Now imagine the sort of person who answers their ringing landline/ door and says ‘why yes, stranger, yes I do have 10 minutes to discuss my voting intentions’, and you have the entire ‘over 40 years old’ demographic represented in these results.
Imagine someone who has actively sought out survey websites and sits though at least 100, over 6 months or so, for a tiny amount of pocket money - or even weirder, someone who just decided to do it anyway - and you have the entire ‘under 40 years old’ demographic in these results.
And now, thinking of those door-answerers and survey-clickers, imagine how colourful and exciting their lives must be, and then ask yourself what possible incentive they have to tell the truth when absolutely nobody will ever know if they liven up the tedium slightly by claiming to be a 45 year old self made millionaire with 12 lovely children all planning to vote Jedi in the next election.
And that is why opinion polls always come out way, way more fringe than the reality ever is. Because normal people do not answer them unless they have a strong opinion or an incentive, and those with an incentive generally have no incentive to be honest.
(For reference, I’m not dunking on people who have done these things. I spent about a year answering yougov surveys until it dawned on me that it worked out at less than 5p an hour. If you’re bored or just want to contribute to the national knowledge pool, awesome, but you probably already know you’re not exactly an average voter)
tal@lemmy.today 1 day ago
Maybe. But if you look at the local elections from May:
www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yg467m8mjo
…Reform got 31% of the votes cast. The chart of polls is pretty close, and actually slightly underrates them for May 2025. Now, maybe voting in the general election and local elections have different groups of people show up. I know that here in the US, that’s a factor for midterm elections. That could affect outcomes in the general election. But…my guess is that the chart probably is at least in the neighborhood of being representative of their support in society.