Just to give you all a break from tedious internal Labour debates about economic policy, I have an article in the latest Fabian Review concerning a tedious Labour internal debate about polling and political strategy. (I know how to pick the sexy topics, right?)
The article an attempt to take a serious look at the oft heard claim that since Labour has lost substantial numbers of DE voters since the 1997 election, the solution is to move to the left to attract them back to the Labour party.
Warning: There are charts. Mmmmmm.
Nice charts
I have a theory that C2, D & E people are more susceptable than As or Bs to the "politicians are all a bunch of rogues" argument that the media has been increasingly pedling over the last few decades. This might help to explain the rise in non voting amongst this group and also partly explain the drift to the Lib Dems who were trotting out a "we're much nobler than the two main parties" message pretty successfully (until they made the awful mistake of getting some of their trotters under the cabinet table).
The expenses scandal helped to reinforce the "they're all as bad as each other line" especially for people on incomes significantly lower than those that MPs receive.
But I have no evidence or charts to support my theory and no advice as to how Labour might counter the "bunch of rogues" propaganda.
Possibly, – it may also be of course, that if you are in lower social groups you will be more aware of the mismatch of the rhetoric of politics and the grubby reality of what society offers. This can cut both ways – a receptiveness to change messages, and then disillussion when, at the end of it all, not all that much has changed, and the state is still seemingly dysfunctional..
That's probably true and Labour perhaps paid a price for appearing to have promised too much and apparently having delivered too little. The harsh reality of life is that governments are powerless to make major or obvious changes to most people's lives, the best they can do is nudge things slowly in a better direction. And then there's "the inevitability of gradualness" that that nice Mr Webb once mentioned…
If we're after expectation management or following the Balls mea culpa line, maybe our strap line next time around should be "not quite as awful as the others"
PS from today's Guardian:
Straw said he believed newspapers had debased public discourse about government and democracy and had contributed to the low turnout at elections because they portrayed politics as "boring" and "completely self-serving".
In a barbed remark about journalists, he said: "As John Major famously said, 'the only people who've never made a mistake are the people who have never made a decision'. To which I would simply add: they are called journalists."
One thing that is missing from the analysis is how political support varies between regions, I heard someone say recently that Labour had stronger support among ABs in the North than it did among DE's in the South, not that it might not lead to similar conclusions.
Brian
I think the evidence is beginning to suggest that journalists are more than capable of making mistakes even without the burden of making decisions.
Good research, good analysis.
Another way of looking at voting changes is not by % swing among a certain group but by the number of voters involved in each such swing. After all, a big swing among a small group might not be all that significant.
But doing it that way gives a similar result to yours. Using the MORI figures (and assuming a constant electorate of 2010 size and social structure), I get these changes between 2001 and 2010:
Labour –80,000 ABs, –560,000 C1s, –990,000 C2s, –650 DEs
Tories +370,000 ABs, +530,000 C1, +490,000 C2s, +510,000 DEs
So the biggest shift of voters was among C2s, then DEs only a bit ahead of C1s, and ABs well behind.
Here is the statistic from my own exepeirnce………. Of the same batch of students graduated during the same semester in my college in USA, only 3 of the 12 students returned to Malaysia so far. None of them intend to return in the near future. Right after graduation, my friend went to Melbourne to do her masters, with one objective on her mind, she wants to get a PR there.Of the 100000 or more Malaysians who have emigrated to Australia, most are professionals. Their offsprings more often than not, are some of the best performers in schools here (Australia).Someone mentioned that two-thirds of the community of practicing doctors in Singapore is Malaysian Chinese.Don’t forget Singapore’s Netwater that is founded by Olivia Lum, and presently also a nominated member of parliament in Singapore who made it only because she left Malaysia for Singapore!Our Malaysia country is so lucky to be blessed with abundant of very best quality resources including human resources. I leave it to you yourself to go and find out who is who.You name it and we have it. We just have a lot of very talented people from all fields, be it finance, IT, R D, and etc. These people are highly sought by not just first world countries but the developing ones as well. They willing to offer everything they could even citizenships and needless to say about monetary rewards.I am pretty sure they (from Mahathir to Pak Lah) know about these very well and they even know more than what we do. But question is, why nothing could be done to curb the losses? NEP is the key, from the past until today, no Umno leader dare to bet on their entire political career by abolishing the NEP and revoking malay special rights.Our Malaysia competitive edges like better educated workforces, better financial and legal systems, better infrastructure etc, are no longer better. It is either being offered or better by other Asian countries which are hungrier than us.The developed countries like Australia know this and continue to pursue brain-gain policies which partly resulted in their 5% economic growth. Malaysia has not even reached there in its economic development and we are struggling with the current growth rate.For them to survive, they have to be global citizens. I am making sure they master global languages like English and Chinese. The world will compete for the brightest to maintain their edge. If one’s parents continued here (Malaysia), it would have been such a waste of talent. Look around us, everyday you see such wastage in our human resources.It is not a loss to Malaysia, as Malaysia simply does not have a culture and material to nurture genius brains, due to its non-competition policies so to take care of fools……….Some person is lucky to have parents with a foresight who would be able to get him out from the black box on time. The right type of soil will produce right type of fruits. In Australia, he becomes a sweet orange, if he were to be in Malaysia, he would turn into a sour lime.I agree that has nothing to do with the Bolehland.If he were to be in Malaysia at this present age, our Malaysia leaders would simply tell him: Oh! Sorry, actually English is very important, let us start all over again to teach English in mathematics and science subjects beginning from primary school. The current Malaysia education system still incapable of maximizing the full potential of the younger generation (even the older ones). A revamp is needed!Go to the local premier university, see for yourself how the professors recruit research assistant, to help them prepare journal and PowerPoint. Then you will realise how the professors get the title. Afterward, you expect this kind of environment can nurture talent?Yes……….another Malaysia Boleh!Because Bolehland universities got a quota to meet……….Because Bolehland lost all the talents with no regret……….Because Bolehland got double standards for everything……….What a sad, sad loss to Malaysia and its economy.?!
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