LibDems ahead on 58%

by Chris Bertram on April 14, 2005

The preliminary results from the first 13,000 voters on the “Who Should You Vote For?”:http://www.whoshouldyouvotefor.com/press4.php site are interesting ….

bq. Party the user expected:
Labour 21%
Conservative 20%
LibDem 37%
UKIP 2%
Green 6%
NONE GIVEN 14%

bq. Actual party suggested: Labour 4%
Conservative 9%
LibDem 58%
UKIP 12%
Green 17%

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2005 UK General Election » General Election blog roundup #5: Friday 15th April
04.15.05 at 12:37 pm

{ 22 comments }

1

Sam Dodsworth 04.14.05 at 8:51 am

Not all that interesting, given that the questions seem to be a point-by-point presentation of the Lib Dem manifesto.

2

john b 04.14.05 at 9:02 am

Well, yes – but the answers would appear to indicate that people agree with the Lib Dem manifesto, which is perhaps relevant!

Disclaimer: despite being a Lib Dem supporter, I was among the Labour 4%…

3

Sam Dodsworth 04.14.05 at 9:22 am

But the points are carefully selected. In fact, it’s not so much a survey as way to present the Lib Dem manifesto to people who might not otherwise read it. Among market and social researchers, this is known as ‘sugging’ (from “Sales Under the Guise of research”) and is widely deplored because it poisons the well for legitimate research. Of course, it’s not as big a deal on the internet as it is with door-to-door or telephone surveys, but it’s still a bit sleazy.

For myself, I’ve previously voted Labour but expect to vote Lib Dem this time, so I wasn’t surprised by what came back – I just feel a bit irritated about falling for a sales ploy.

4

Steve LaBonne 04.14.05 at 9:58 am

This is a fascinating exercise for an American. I am a Democrat who by our standards counts as a mild liberal (I used to call myself a moderate but my disgust for the Bushies and the wacko Republican congresscritters is slowly edging me to the left). Yet the quiz told me in no uncertain terms that I was a UKIP voter! This really points up the disconnect between the political spectra in the US and UK.

5

Ravi 04.14.05 at 10:44 am

Sam, perhaps you don’t realize this, but you are accusing the creators of the site of lying. They claim that “this site is not designed to pursue any political agenda, it is intended purely as a comparative tool for voters.”

6

dave heasman 04.14.05 at 11:35 am

It’s a very selective and small set of questions. The UKIP connection comes from massively disliking the euro & the Eurpean Constitution, both actually Conservative positions.
The UKIP will win no seats, whereas the DUP will get between 8 & 10, but there’s no question directed at their position.

7

Steve LaBonne 04.14.05 at 11:45 am

It’s quite true that if I were British, I would identify on a lot of things with the Labour party, but the dog’s breakfast of an EU constitution and the Euro would be two big exceptions. I do think those exceptions are symptomatic of some differences in where the middle of the road lies in the two countries, in particular with how we view questions of national sovereignty.

8

Keith M Ellis 04.14.05 at 12:12 pm

Hmm. Another USAian taking the test. There’s a few questions I don’t really have enough information to answer, but my result was LibDem:

Labour 4
Conservative -22
Liberal Democrat 40
UK Independence Party -7
Green 17

…but the test didn’t ask about a few issues, for example trade, that would certainly have moved me to the right. Interesting in that the best description I have for myself in the US is “moderate Democrat”.

9

Peter 04.14.05 at 12:41 pm

Another observation from the USA:
Labour -4
Conservative 39
Liberal Dem -33
UKIP 38
Green 2
I agree with Keith: I simply have no frame of reference for some of the issues.
I went for the Dems in the last two in the US, but only barely. Engaging in gross casual empiricism, I interpret these results as follows: the Republicans have turned off allot of traditional conservatives like myself with this addiction of theirs to the religious right.

10

junius ponds 04.14.05 at 1:31 pm

This American identifies strongly with the historical Labour Party but expected to be matched with the Lib Dems:

Labour 3
Conservative -18
Liberal Democrat 40
UK Independence Party 1
Green -1

As other commentators noted, a large fraction of the questions concerned Lib Dem policy positions.

11

Answer Guy 04.14.05 at 4:24 pm

“The DUP will get between 8 & 10 [seats]”

They specificially did not cover any of the nation-specific parties (DUP, UUP, SF, SDLP, SNP, SSP, PC) – if they did, they would had to double or triple the number of questions.

I guess I’m thankful as an American – I follow UK elections in a casual way but I can’t say I’ve ever given much thought to, say, Welsh sovereignty. I have no idea what the Northern Ireland parties have to say about anything other than, well, Northern Ireland’s position vis-a-vis the UK. I’ve only gotten the idea that Plaid and SNP are vaguely left-wing in addition to being pro-devolution.

12

Answer Guy 04.14.05 at 4:25 pm

Oh, yeah….I came out as a LibDem (40, with UKIP interestingly enough not far behind) but I sort of expected that since Blair and New Labour rub me the wrong way.

In the USA I’m pretty well left-of-center.

13

Peter 04.14.05 at 5:14 pm

My wife explained to me that I am opposed to fox hunting, and so I re-took the test. I made some other very small adjustment and got

Labour 12
Conservative 33
Liberal Dem -33
UKIP 32
Green -6

I have found that the test can be fairly sensitive to small changes.

14

g 04.14.05 at 5:38 pm

The Liberal Democrats disagree with the Labour and Conservative parties more than they disagree with one another. This suggests a possible innocent explanation for the large number of LibDemmy things in their alleged neutral selection of issues on which the parties differ.

They do seem to state quite strongly that they aren’t shilling for any party, and I don’t see any glaring loopholes or weasel-words in what they wrote. Which doesn’t mean they’re honest, but it does mean that if they’re actually working for the Lib Dems then the latter are taking something of a risk of severe embarrassment if found out.

(Best candidate loophole I can find: they say that they haven’t “received payment” from any political party or politically motivated organization; that would strictly speaking be compatible with having been promised payment but not paid yet.)

15

jb 04.14.05 at 8:12 pm

Another USA (center-to-left Democrat) data point:

Lib Dem +30
Green +22
UKIP +10
Labour -3
Tory -17

Isn’t a test of this sort inherently biased against the party in government? If one thought that Labour was, broadly speaking, governing well (presumably a common opinion in Britain), that wouldn’t register too clearly with this sort of question. This may be responsible for some of the difference between users’ expectations and the site’s suggestions.

16

cdm 04.14.05 at 9:39 pm

The survey puts “With thanks to Chris Lightfoot” at the bottom, and it seems pretty certain that this is the same Chris Lightfoot who shows up on the CT blogroll. He produced this political survey which was widely discussed in the blogosphere (including on CT, if I recall correctly) and I think generally acknowledged to be better than the Political Compass that was also circulating at the time.

It’s unclear from this acknowledgement what role Chris Lightfoot played in the design of the test. Lightfoot evidently does hold some strong political views on certain issues, as this indicates, for example. He also pins down one corner on his own test.

Is this suggestive of a conscious or unconscious agenda in the choice and weighting of questions at “Who Sould You Vote For?” I’m honestly not sure. Your kilometrage may vary.

17

cdm 04.14.05 at 9:54 pm

Oops. I read this entry and posted my comment before seeing Chris Bertram’s previous posting, which identified the test as written by Chris Lightfoot. The basic point stands, though. As other commenters have noted, the selection of questions is small and selective, and seems to be giving results that do not align well with respondents’ expectations. One possibility is that people are ignorant of which party best represents their views. Another is that the questions have been chosen/weighted in a way that delivers a bias (probably accidental, but conceivably deliberate) in the voting recommendations.

18

Sam Dodsworth 04.15.05 at 3:31 am

Sam, perhaps you don’t realize this, but you are accusing the creators of the site of lying.

The site was created by an advertising agency, Thoughtplay Ltd, so I feel pretty safe in saying that it’s not a dispassionate exercise in curiosity. They’re not _technically_ lying when they call it a ‘comparative tool’, but what they mean is that it lets you compare your opinions with those of the Lib Dem manifesto. So I stand by my original diagnosis of ‘sleazy marketing trick’.

19

Chris Lightfoot 04.15.05 at 12:40 pm

“… which identified the test as written by Chris Lightfoot.”

I did not write this test — it was done by some people at ThoughtPlay. I did spend a couple of minutes doing some optimisations on the server setup, and I did make some comments about the questions, but I didn’t have any influence on how the test works. I’d be grateful if you could correct this in the post at the top….

20

reuben 04.15.05 at 1:06 pm

I won’t be eligible to vote in the UK until the next time round, but I’ve got to say I’ve got my doubts about the usefulness of this quiz – though it is mildly interesting. It seems that there’s a lack of weighting of issues, so if I vaguely agree with an issue that isn’t really important to me, but that apparently pegs me as UKIP, of all parties, then whaddayaknow? I should apparently vote UKIP before Labour! I’m an immigrant for godsakes! (NOt that Labour is exactly making me love ’em on that issue.) I’d sooner gnaw my own arm off at the elbow and then watch Robert Kilroy-Silk run it through his Magimix.

More importantly, though – I know that one of you CTers is a red (Liverpool not Marx). Congrats on a truly fine tie. Really lovely stuff.

21

cdm 04.15.05 at 11:39 pm

[chris lightfoot] Thanks for the clarification — and I have to say I am glad to learn that you didn’t write it, since it strikes me as much less careful than your political survey. And apologies if my speculations appeared to impugn you in any way; that was not my intention.

22

Andrew Chapman 04.18.05 at 12:47 pm

I must add my indignation to Chris Lightfoot’s! I’m one of the creators of WSYVF – we have no political agenda, and we are *not* an advertising agency, and we are *not* ‘sugging’! We set it up to help inform people and stimulate debate, with the added benefit of promoting our fairly new business and what we can achieve. The only client we have is ourselves. We are not party members, and have no axe to grind at all.

(And as Chris points out, he was not involved – his company hosts the site, and he helped with a bit of optimisation advice.)

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