Just a snippet here, but don’t cha just love the way the papers can spin data about the populations voting intentions. Saturday’s Guardian began the article connecting the expenses scandals with the coming election with:
More than a quarter plan to reject mainstream parties in European vote (Guardian)
And along with the desire for a general election now, they ‘reflect deep-seated public anger over the way politicians have played the allowances system’. Or do they?
I ask this because in January 2007, the same poll showed 76% of voters wanted a general election that year if Gordon Brown was to take over from Blair, 10% more than are now saying that they want a vote this year. And the finding that 27% of people plan to vote for a ‘minority party’, that is not the big three, is unsurprising when in the last European election in 2004, 35% of voters plumped for minority parties.
If I could get the academic equivalent of a front page splash with analysis like this, then I wouldn’t be needing to do real research.
