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Straw poll

Posted by Duncan O'Leary at 11:28am on Monday, 6th September 2004

There’s a bit of an experiment taking place on Tom Watson's blog at the moment. He’s doing a straw poll on fox-hunting, and has asked for a vote either way, suggesting that he may refer to the results in any parliamentary debate on the subject. This comes after the Hansard Society suggested recently that politicians’ blogs should be used more to ask questions than provide answers.

Comments

1
Not sure if I can quite see the point in this. Surely, if politicians are going to rely on polls to decide how they vote at Westminster, it should be scientific polls surveying a wide sample of public opinion, rather than just random straw polls like this? As far as I know (and please correct me if I'm wrong), scientific polls on fox-hunting generally come up with 2 consistent findings: a) a sizeable majority of the public is in favour of an outright ban; but b) they tend to regard the whole issue as rather inconsequential in comparison with bread-and-butter issues like the economy and public services. With this information readily at hand, does Watson really need to conduct another poll before choosing how to vote?
Posted by Shaun Shaun  at 1:30pm on Tuesday, 7th September 2004
2
It's certainly not scientific - by definition it only involves people who know about/choose to go to his website etc etc. Perhaps it might become a more useful tool in the future if weblogs become adopted more widely by MPs - at the moment his blog is a national/international forum as much as it is a way of connecting with his own constituents. This brings about the problems that you suggest above, rather than offering a handy way of finding out what the people who elect him think about the issues.
Posted by Duncan O'Leary  at 2:48pm on Tuesday, 7th September 2004

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