The centre ground's there for the taking

Rhoda Klapp

Should candidates run to where the votes are? Or should they get a set of principles, and try to persuade voters that they are correct? An old conundrum of democracy, and I would not presume to answer where the balance between these positions might lie. In a democracy, I wouldn't, that is. But we are missing the essential pre-requisites of a democracy. An education system that doesn't tilt the playing field. Media which will fairly present all positions. A plitical class which are not allowed to ignore the issues which affect the people in favour of a bowdlerised agenda, a set of acceptable topics and choices which is OK with all concerned, and any item from outside to be decried with ad hominems and censorship. Oh, did I mntion parties which give us a real choice? No, we will never get that while power-seeking scum pore over graphs as presented above looking for the best places to garner votes, and triangulating the desires of the electorate against their own advantage.

Can Rhoda fix it? No, of course not. Can the Spectator fix it? No, but they could at least give it a go, instead of going along with the status quo.

MilkSnatcher

Who on earth can possibly know what someone means when they describe themselves as "centre" in these surveys: are they a social liberal but a fiscal conservative, or an economic liberal but a social conservative, a foreign policy hawk but a prison reformer, a supporter of gay marriage but a flat-taxer? Any other combination equally valid. And if that is correct, the scramble for the mythical centre ground is in fact a scramble for something unknown. In which case we have politicians detaching themselves from principle, consistency and follow-through to chase after a chimera. How can you run a country on that basis?

Dennis Churchill

People lie to pollsters.

Luke

How polite, to ignore the fact the polling suggests people see Cameron as more right-wing that they see Miliband as left-wing

TGF UKIP

The very stuff of which the Cameron Tory Party and the Cameron Spectator is made.

Goodbye conviction and arguing your case politics, here comes Dave with Andrew Cooper.

Sir Graphus

Unfortunately, the centre ground involves listening to soothing music while all around us burns.

It means wishing the deficit wasn't so big while not wanting to cut anything. We can't afford the centre ground anymore.

Dennis Churchill

In a society that believes you are free to hold and express any political beliefs then political polling is as accurate as polling brands of washing powder. In a society that enforces conformity to certain political beliefs it is not.
We use criminal laws to suppress many beliefs so even nationalist movements in England, such as the BNP, don’t publicly advocate compulsory deportation of immigrants.
We are expected to treat the NHS as the only acceptable form of health care, free at the point of delivery and funded by taxpayers.
We are supposed to accept the judiciary merely interpret the law and never impose their political views on society regardless of the law.
Up to recently we were supposed to agree that Multiculturalism was the pinnacle of societal progress.
Asking questions about politics in such a society is a bit like asking Argentineans if the Falklands are British or the Irish whether they should rejoin the UK.
When you create a society that enforces political conformity political polls become inaccurate. The polling techniques are those used in the USA where freedom of speech and minority political views are much more acceptable.

Publius

As Rhoda says, this piece, these graphs, and the superficial questions that back them up, encapsulate what is wrong with our politics.

Stepney

The final graph will do for Milliband. That perception is lodged in the public mind, is irremovable and can only get worse.

HMS Milliband is holed blow the water line and leaking badly.

In2minds

The middle ground, it's what people want, so they say.

Mike Smithson

The polling that should concern the Tories was the 13,000 sample phone survey funded by Michael Ashcroft and published last month. This showed a huge shift of declared Labour voters to the Lib Dems in seats where the blues and yellows were fighting it out.

It also showed that in these battle-grounds the yellows were getting more leaflets out and doing more canvassing than the Conservatives.

See here http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CCcQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lordashcroft.com%2Fpdf%2F25092011_poll_summary_of_conservative_marignal_seats.pdf&ei=TciWTqD3J5Lz8QO7kr3OBQ&usg=AFQjCNFrdsUfFyR86XrPpvI5z_-iL8A2mQ

With the LDs it's not the national picture that matters - but what's happening on the ground in key targets.

Steve Tierney

The old left/right spectrum doesn't mean anything. It's a nonsense. I regularly meet grass roots lefties who have views to the right of me on some issues, and Conservatives who have views to the left of Lenin on others. If my definition of left and right means anything either. Which it doesn't.

Dave B

Norman Tebbit wrote a good piece on political positioning:

"...any move to the centre moves the centre itself away from one's own ground and towards one's opponent.

The art of political positioning is to seek out and possess the common ground on which your own and your opponent's supporters stand.

As Ed Miliband in his speech conceded, Mrs Thatcher's council house sales, tax cuts and union reforms were right – that is, they appealed to many Labour voters, but not Labour activists. They were on the centre ground. Indeed, Ed Miliband tiptoed on to the home ground of "right-wing extremists" with his words about immigration and welfare scroungers because that is where his lost voters are encamped."

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/norman-tebbit-cameron-must-escape-nevernever-land-2364260.html

Peter From Maidstone

A Conservative councillor has been thrown out of the Conservative Party for holding conservative views on gay 'marriage'. In such circumstances I would be interested to see some graphs showing where on the left-right spectrum conservative voters think the Conservative Party is? As far as I can see it has abandoned the centre ground and is fighting for the left-centre space.

So who can all these conservative voters actually vote for? No-one who supports their own views.

Andy Carpark

Whoopee. We can vote for whomever we want to so long as it is a bunch of green lunatics.

Dennis Churchill

Peter From Maidstone
October 13th, 2011 12:23pm
This is the point I make above. How would a Conservative councilor answer a poll about homosexual marriage? How would a teacher or police officer answer a poll on the BNP when membership, and by extension support for, could endanger their jobs?
A society where the police warn café owners to stop playing religious videos in their premises and airline staff are suspended for wearing crosses is not one where you will get accurate political polling.

Peter From Maidstone

Dennis, I agree entirely. I am actually appalled that a Conservative councillor is unable to express a conservative view on gay 'marriage', but this is all of a piece with the condemnation of Christian foster-parents by this Government, and the harrassment of Catholic adoption agencies.

This is not liberalism, it is left-wing totalitarianism.

Dennis Churchill

Peter From Maidstone
October 13th, 2011 12:40pm
Whereas opposition to homosexual marriage is considered incompatible with membership of the Conservative party belief in Britain being part of a federal European Union subservient to its laws isn’t…a strange situation.
I wonder if there is an agreed list of unacceptable beliefs and whether the party membership was ever asked to vote on them.

Edward

I think the issue with the comments made by the Christian councillor is that he expressed his view in a manner construed as insensitive. As a practising Christian myself, I happen to agree with what he said, in that marriage is the union of one man and one woman for life to the exclusion of all others. However, there are ways of expressing that belief. It may well be that Stonewall and other such organisations would take offence even at the simplest statement of Christian belief, such as "I believe homosexuality to be a sin", but he ought to have expressed himself better. I agree with some of the comments above in that there is a growing left wing orthodoxy that says that every time you step out of line with a perceived 'social norm', be it acceptance of homosexual marriage, acceptance of membership of the EU, acceptance of high levels of immigration etc you are pilloried and forced out of public life. Most of the population accepts the right to hold certain views that differ from the political consensus, it's just a shame that our elected leaders do not.

Dave B

Some LD panic there from Mr Smithson. Enjoy the local election results?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/election2011/council/html/england.stm

Dennis Churchill

Edward
October 13th, 2011 1:09pm
“Most of the population accepts the right to hold certain views that differ from the political consensus, it's just a shame that our elected leaders do not.”
Yes but have we conceded that we can’t express unfashionable political views even in polls? If so polling will become obsolete as it would be in more traditionally oppressive regimes.
It is fashionable to be “centre” with regard to political views and we are a conformist society. What this actually equates to when we vote is another issue.
Our political class see politics in terms of marketing and have little experience outside politics. Without polls they will have very little idea about the general publics’ views.

Thucydides

Blimey. That homosexuality is a sin is now a simple Christian belief? I thought simple Christian belief was more sort of son or god/rising from the dead stuff, being nice to people, or the ten commandments, perhaps.

salieri

It's ridiculous to ask people where on the political spectrum they stand, even in relative terms let alone absolute, and even if they are being truthful. Practically all LibDems are going to say the 'centre' because that's their sole raison-d'etre. They're deluded. Most of the trolls on CH insist they are of the centre, and they are deluded too. Some of the nastiest trolls of all say they are on the right - but they are dishonest as well as barmy.

Footnote to Nicholas: no, none of the above was intended to apply to you.

David Lindsay

Even cut down to the bone, this apparently cannot be posted here. It begins, “Calling one’s position “the centre ground” is a way of claiming that is the only acceptable position. But where do the views of our “centrist” Political Class and its media courtiers actually come from?”

oldtimer

The term centre ground, if it has any meaning at all, is best defined by the group think that prevails in the HoC. Anyone who who voices a different opinion is, as often as not, branded as an extremist or, in milder terms, of holding politically incorrect views. You even risk having laws passed to suppress your point of view - as someone above has pointed out.

The terms right, centre and left are nearly meaningless today, unlike in the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s. Different issues prevail, relating to immigration, the green agenda, the EU, the debt debacle. Current party labels and policies do a bad job of defining the issues and the differences that most people worry about.

Dave B

Re: Ashcroft poll mentioned by Mr Smithson above

Lord Ashcroft published an analysis of the results on ConHome.

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2011/09/lordashcroftmarginalpolling.html

Baron

salieri gets it spot on, the poll’s an idiocy of the first order, hence the results showing an almost perfect distribution one would expect if people were asked where they would position themselves on eating lunch, watching the TV and stuff, who the heck comes up with polls like this.

Edward

Thucydides,
Yes, of course, the simplest Christian beliefs are that Jesus is the Son of God and died and rose again to save us from our sin. I merely use the example of homosexuality as an illustrative point to show that holding beliefs that some actions are sinful is not really protected in mainstream political culture.

In terms of the centre ground, I think MilkSnatcher has made an astute point; how can we ever define something as being centrist? I suppose one way of doing this would be to suggest it is an 'ideology-free' zone, where left and right overlap. Yet at the same time we often hear of parties 'moving the centre ground', so in reality it is always further to the left or right. Labour under Blair moved it to the soft Left, Brown went further still, Miliband would enter the Jurassic period. Cameron is busy trying to emulate Blair, so I suppose it probably is to the left at present!

daniel maris

There isn't one spectrum, there are many e.g.

imposed morality---individual liberty
state action --------individual action
internationalism--------nationalism
pacifism----------------bellicosity
unitary state---------------federal state
common ownership-----------private ownership
family orientated-----individual orientated
non-racist--------------racist

You can have all sorts of combinations. You might think nationalism is opposed to pacifism. But Welsh nationalists are infused with pacifism. There were pro-family Thatcherites but also individualist Thatcherites.

The left-right spectrum analysis impoverishes political life.

Archie

I'm confused. I thought Cameron was occupying the centre ground with what's left of our armed forces? If not, does this mean he'll lurch further left in pursuit of this electoral Avalon?