ANOTHER VIEW OF THE LORD ASHCROFT POLL

Let us now take another look at the Times report of 17 August that was based on a telephone poll conducted by Lord Ashcroft and, presumably a group of helpers, between the 8th and 11th August with a sample of 1,502 adults in the Corby and East Northamptonshire constituency. The intention of the poll was to assess how the departure of Louise Mensch, MP for the constituency, would affect voting at the inevitable resulting by-election and how it might influence the results of a future General Election. Of the 11 questions Number 4 concerned the attitudes of those polled towards Mrs Mensch and her reasons for leaving.

The Times article carried a photo of Mrs Mensch and the caption ‘Louise Mensch: voters backed her right to quit’. Within the text it of the article it said “The poll revealed widespread sympathy for Louise Mensch’s decision to join her husband in New York – 83 percent of Corby voters backed Mrs Mensch’s decision to quit as the constituency’s MP, agreeing she is ‘perfectly entitled to put her desire for a better family life ahead of continuing as an MP’”.

The official summary of the poll’s findings as it related to Question Number 4 was rather more comprehensive than The Times’ article. There were, in fact four statements put to the sample of 1,502 adults who were asked if they Agreed or Disagreed with each statement. Under ‘Agree’ they were asked if they felt Strongly or Somewhat (which we might reasonably interpret as meaning ‘A Bit’), under ‘Disagree’ they were asked to categorise their feeling under Somewhat or Strongly. There was also the option to answer ‘Neither’ which we might interpret as ‘I have no opinion on this’.

The first statement, A, was ‘She is perfectly entitled to put her desire for a better family life ahead of continuing as an MP’. In The Times article agreement with this statement was interpreted as meaning ‘sympathy for Louise Mensch’s decision’ (these are the words used in the article). Agreeing that someone is ‘perfectly entitled’ to do something is not the same as having sympathy for someone. A Customs Officer is perfectly entitled to pull you over as you leave the security area and ask to search your luggage – you do not necessarily have sympathy for his doing this. Far from it if you are in a hurry. An alternative interpretation would be that these ‘Agree-ers’ simply recognise the facts of the situation; there is no written or legally enforceable contract to keep Mrs Mensch doing the job.

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As can be seen from the section of the poll results that I have scanned in for you it can be seen that 57% of those polled said they agreed Strongly with Statement A; 25% said they agreed ‘Somewhat’, ie A bit. So that gives The Times its 83%.

What The Times entirely skimmed over was the response to the second statement, B. ‘She should have thought through the difficulties of balancing family life with the life of being an MP before she stood for election to parliament’. You will see that 42% agreed Strongly with this and 23% ‘A bit’. That’s 65% agreement. I should think that the response to B somewhat qualifies the response to A – and if you accept my interpretation of statement A, delivers a substantial kick in the backside to The Times’ view. Of course those polled who agreed with A did not necessarily include those who agreed with B but as both levels of agreement were high there must have been a substantial overlap.

If you take another look at my blog post LOUISE MENSCH – THE DISAPPEARING MP you will see that my argument is largely based on statement B with which I most thoroughly agree.

I cannot imagine why The Times could have been so selective in its reading of this extremely impressive poll which, as far as it concerns Mrs Mensch, leaned too far, much too far, in putting out something that gave support to Mrs Mensch’s position while ignoring a large body of opinion that thought she should have looked before she leaped.

Note that 35% (14% + 21%) of those polled thought she was a good MP. In another section of the poll (not reproduced here) it said that of those who said they will vote Conservative in the next General Election 63% agreed that Louise Mensch was a good local MP, 36% of Lib Dems agreed and 26% of Labour voters also agreed. These percentages cannot be mixed with the figures of those responding to statements A and B because they are based on different figures but they are nonetheless worthy of consideration and add another dimension to the Louise Mensch saga. Had it ever occurred to you, Mrs Mensch that you might have been doing a good job and that people might miss you ? The figures suggest it.