2 obvious points Sunny:

1) You’ve advocated “tactical calculation” as the way forward for EdM. These figures are bad for you also.

2) EdM’s results are not much better than Cameron’s. I don’t see the benefit of you ignoring this.

I think it’s not a good idea to try and correlate how people feel about the reasons politicians do things to how much they’ll vote for them to do it.

The question is how many people accept Cameron is probably just doing it to get votes, but will give him that vote because it is actually what they want? Camerons line about it only happening if the Tories win an outright majority is a strong line in a sense, though I’m not sure it’ll work either.

What the pollsters need to do is generally ask whether Cameron makes ANY policy because he believes in it rather than being a tactical calculation, and pick a few more policies as individual examples, and then see how this one compares.

Only 3% more people think Millipede is acting on principle: the more interesting statistic is that a whapping 28% don’t have a fucking clue if Millipede is acting on principle or not. If the best argument for being a man of principle is that people don’t know or care enough about you to say for certain you aren’t principled that’s not really a vote winner, is it?

As to the people who don’t know whether Ukip are against Europe on principle, are they really eligible to vote? As far as I can see they’re basically a one-issue party like the Greens.

2 points Sunny

1) What do voters know – they are the same stupid clowns who voted this rabble in!
2) What do voters know

Keep them ignorant and they will eventually run into the arms of those offering the ‘simplest solution’

That’s how the fascists take control.

The idea that leaving the EU will be a ‘simple act’ surrounded by benefits smacks of the typical lowest common denominator argument presented to the fearful in a depression.

Cameron is a clueless spineless wimp

Ukip now set the agenda and the clown cameron follows like a lost lamb,
sooner the country is rid of him the better.

@2. Lee Griffin: “I think it’s not a good idea to try and correlate how people feel about the reasons politicians do things to how much they’ll vote for them to do it.”

I don’t know if I have unravelled that sentence correctly.

25 years ago I worked with a bunch of market researchers analysing consumer purchase of domestic goods — chewing gum to cars. They were a pretty political bunch, involved with different parties nationally and locally. All of them considered it unacceptable to adopt the analysis tools used to assess toothpaste and garment acceptability, to use them to sell politicians.

It was considered by them OK to develop policy and, afterwards, ask people what they thought about it; it was unacceptable to conduct broad behavioural research and use it as the foundation for “acceptable” policy.

From the OP: “Peter Kellner adds:
‘Voters, and especially floating voters, tend to decide which party to support on character more than policy. Parties and their leaders attract more support if they are regarded as principled and competent. If they are thought to be driven by tactics rather than belief, they risk being seen as weak and losing respect and votes.'”

Peter Kellner appears to speak a truism. But what if a party privately assessed the prejudices and gut instincts of voters, conducted some preferential analysis that twisted the inevitable contradictions into a semi-coherent platform? What if nobody realised that they were being analysed and manipulated?

Thankfully the openness of mainstream political parties means that the above hypothesis is marginalised at this time. Aspects were certainly present during the New Labour years. To carry it off requires a new technocratic, centralist party; a heartless SDP.

UKIP do not have the money to assemble a policy document, let alone the cost of analysts to collect data about prejudices. UKIP do not need to collect data about prejudices; the party is a prejudice data foundry.

But we are all prejudiced or suffer from cognitive biases. I am almost perfect, but can occasionally be corrected. Most people hold inconsistent or contradictory opinions. Here are two plausible survey questions:
* Should all hospitals offer the same treatment to cancer patients? 75% say yes (I’m making this up).
* Should more money be given to hospitals offering experimental treatment to cancer patients? 60% say yes (I’m making this up).

And returning to the OP, about voter perception of politicians… If you ask 1,000 typical voters what s/he thinks about ill delivered words from an uninformed politician trying to recount the rambling nonsense from the most recent policy statement, there is nothing to analyse.

Political philosophy? What is wrong with that?

6. Charlieman

If I understand you correctly then you are spot on. Politics these is all about “delivering what the people want” rather than delivering what they need.

I think the public have a hands off approach to the Government, (some) of them turn up every 5 years and vote a new guy in – but they don’t want to be bored with the details of the day to day – they just want to be called when the job is done.

..which is why UKIP are so annoying, they want us to vote AGAIN on the EU – because they clearly didn’t like the last vote, and the coalition are worse as they inevitably U-turn every 5 minutes because they’re trying to pander to polls and popularism – rather than following well thought out and tested political philosophy.

“which is why UKIP are so annoying, they want us to vote AGAIN on the EU – because they clearly didn’t like the last vote”

When was the last vote?

As a persisting floating voter for decades, I’ve long held the deepest suspicions about the integrity and basic competence of politicans. On the present issues about holding a referendum in Britain on withdrawing from the EU, IMO it makes the most sense to look at the fundamentals.

The EU won’t disappear if Britain leaves but we will be obliged to accept EU decisions on technical standards, trade access, and, very importantly, currency transactions. Several financial centres in the Eurozone look with envy on the status of London as a global financial centre.

Meanwhile, the prospect of a referendum will continue to generate uncertainty and that will discourage the business investment we need to get Britain’s economy moving again.

Btw the previous in/out referendum was in 1975. Two thirds of those who voted favoured remaining a member of what was then the European Economic Community.

Famously, Labour went into the 1983 general election with a manifesto commitment to withdraw. Mrs T’s majority in that election increased to 140 seats.

Arthur Scargill and the Socialist Labour Party are committed to withdrawing from the EU.

@7. Tremor Mendous: “Politics these [days] is all about “delivering what the people want” rather than delivering what they need.”

Ouch, no. Rarely should politicians promise something that the voter wants, because the voter ideal point is usually impossible. Promise a direction or a philosophy, but not an end point.

And the philosophy “what the people need” always turns into Fascism.

Elected politicians typically enact laws that the population thinks should be the norm. Ish. Contrarily, UK elected politicians reject capital punishment.

Democracy is a strange business. Long term participants usually turn into small L liberals or Home Office security executives.

—
UKIP cannot and should not be ignored. If people are unhappy or ignorant about the EU, it is arrogant to disregard their concerns.

LibDems have to grow up a lot before they can participate in a national debate about the EU. The Euro was a joke before it was created; applause to the few LibDems who appreciated that it could not work in an economically diverse Europe. Yah, boo, sucks to Euro enthusiasts in all of the big parties who could not see the need for different bank interest rates in different countries.

A referendum would be a good thing. Debate for getting out will stir ideas within the EU in order to keep the UK inside. The EU is both brilliant and crap, and it needs a shake.

@9. Bob B: “Famously, Labour went into the 1983 general election with a manifesto commitment to withdraw.”

True, Bob. But it was one pledge in “the longest suicide note in history” (c) Gerald Kaufman.

Charlieman: “True, Bob. But it was one pledge in “the longest suicide note in history” (c) Gerald Kaufman.”

And he was absolutely correct. In the first national UK referendum in 1975, on whether British should leave the – as then – EEC, two thirds of voters voted to stay in. Come 1983 and the Labour Party was committed to pulling out. Whatever else, that looked plain daft.

The issues are different now. Global trade barriers have receded since though international trade deals, like the Uruguay Round in 1994. But note that Cameron is pushing hard now for a new free trade agreement between the US and Europe asap.

There are strong reasons for that, not least since the US has made it plain that it doesn’t want to have to negotiate separate trade deals between the EU and Britain. With the BRIC countries developing a common cause in international trade negotiations, Britain would become a very small party in crunch negotiations between the EU, BRIC and NAFTA. Britain standing alone would have little leverage in trade deals that will need to cover international investment and transfer payments relating to corporate tax liabilities as well as, perhaps, a financial transactions tax.

The impression that I’m getting is that all the stuff about Britain leaving the EU is just political froth generated by pols who have little understanding of the substantive issues – mainly because they are just ignorant and this is really about a civil war in the Conservative Party.

Try this for an illuminating and confirming insight into Conservative Party grass roots membership:

“There’s really no problem,” the Conservative figure said about the parliamentary turmoil. “The MPs just have to do it because the associations tell them to, and the associations are all mad swivel-eyed loons.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10065307/PMs-ally-our-party-activists-are-loons.html

@12. Bob B: “With the BRIC countries developing a common cause in international trade negotiations, Britain would become a very small party in crunch negotiations between the EU, BRIC and NAFTA. Britain standing alone would have little leverage in trade deals that will need to cover international investment and transfer payments relating to corporate tax liabilities as well as, perhaps, a financial transactions tax.”

That’s a good rational argument in defence of EU membership. But the debate is not about rationality. Dig out “Yes, Minister” and reflect on sausages or the curvature of bananas.

The anti-EU lobby say that we could be like Norway, Iceland and Switzerland. It is true that the UK could get many EU privileges without being a member, without participating in EU governance. This is an incoherent argument given that the antis, the ones who hate EU rules, would have to impose them without participating in the decision making process.

Bring on the referendum, humility and a bit of national self understanding. If we’re lucky…

Charlieman: “The anti-EU lobby say that we could be like Norway, Iceland and Switzerland.”

Yeah, I’ve heard/read that for many years. All those countries just have to accept EU decisions on trade relations, technical standards, international tax cooperation, currency transactions etc with no negotiating position.

Norway has massive oil reserves as a cushion and neutral Switzerland is home to all sorts of international organisations – like the Red Cross, the Bank for International Settlements and the ILO.

Britain currently has the sixth largest world economy but with dwindling North Sea oil and gas reserves. True that London is a global financial centre but what if tabled EU proposals to relocate all transactions involving the Euro to a financial centre located in the Eurozone are pushed through – such as to Frankfurt or Paris?

At the very least, the anti-EU lobby is naive and uninformed. It is no accident that FT columnists foresee high risks for business in Britain from the prospect of exit. Until that matter is resolved one way or another, a cloud of uncertainty will hang over investment decisions.

Consider where the Japanese car companies based in Britain will want to locate manufacture of their next models with Britain outside the EU. Cut losses and rebuild plants in Poland or the Czech Republic must look attractive options with all the UKIP flagging waving.

The description of “mad swivel-eyed loons” is about right IMO.

This headlined report in Saturday’s Financial Times may well be what is generating the pressure for Britain to withdraw from the EU: Bonus cap to catch tens of thousands more bankers in Europe
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d379d10a-bee8-11e2-a9d4-00144feab7de.html

Recap: In testimony on 24 October 2008 to the US House of Representatives Oversight Committee, Alan Greenspan said: “Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief.”

“The Financial Times has examined what has happened since the crisis to the payrolls of 13 glocal financial institutions – expressed as a proportion of pay plus net profits (including those distributed as dividends). This approach allows you to see how the ‘cake’ has been shared out between employees and shareholders.

“What the analysis shows is that the lion’s share has been taken home by the bankers in the form of pay and bonuses, rather than paid out to investors or left in the business to support lending activity. The part represented by payroll has on average gone up from 58 per cent in 2006 to 84 per cent last year. Meanwhile, the share accounted for by dividends has slumped by two-thirds – from 15 per cent to just 5 per cent. . . Banks’ return on assets – an unleveraged measure of performance – has barely changed in decades.” [Financial Times 5 June 2012]

@15 – if the EU ‘force’ (strange word, considering they can’t do anything about tax evasion) transactions of Euros to a Eurozone member, coupled with a Tobin tax then how would that impact on London? I put it to you that it would strengthen London, that trades would be reduced in Euros, that the 1st trade would be the swap, that the Euro would diminish and for political reasons rather than economic it would be an unmitigated disaster for EU longevity.

The EU has always been political and they’ve been reckless, if not wholly indignant, of economic realities. The whole referendum debate is predicated on the EU surviving which is by no means certain. It isn’t only the UK wrestling with its electorate. I don’t know how long a country can sustain a modicum of order with unemployment of 20% and over, with provinces, regions and whole countries going bankrupt, with bank accounts pilfered and no opportunity to devalue as a means of escape.

I personally think one of the best reasons for coming out is to prevent being on the hook for the inevitable costs that break up would incur. It’s all about the German elections, really.

“The EU has always been political and they’ve been reckless, if not wholly indignant, of economic realities.”

IMO that’s not the appropriate diagnosis. Political leaders in the Eurozone failed to understand the conditions that have to be met for a monetary union to function sustainably because they believed politics trumped economics and Mrs Merkel kept pushing the notion that fiscal discipline is what mattered.

The trouble is that fiscal discipline isn’t a sufficient condition for macroeconomic stability – the governments of Spain and Ireland exercised budgetary discipline but their national banking systems collapsed through reckless lending: property price bubbles were the result.

With a monetary union, national governments and national monetary authorities lose the autonomy to set interest rates to suit national conditions and it is no longer possible to restore the competitiveness of national economies in their trade relations by changing the exchange rates of national currencies. Try De Grauwe on: The governance of a fragile Eurozone (2011):
http://www.econ.kuleuven.be/ew/academic/intecon/Degrauwe/PDG-papers/Discussion_papers/Governance-fragile-eurozone_s.pdf

Better still, his text, now in its 9th edition: The economics of monetary union (OUP 2012).

Prof De Grauwe recently moved to the London School of Economics.

@18. Nothing to disagree with except the first premise with ‘failed to understand the conditions that have to be met for monetary union’. I think they understood perfectly and thought, ah fuck it.

“I think they understood perfectly and thought, ah fuck it.”

There’s little in Eurozone government rhetoric to show they understand the economics of monetary unions and Mrs Merkel has persisted with insisting on budgetary discipline without any indication that she realises that is not a sufficient condition for stability in a monetary union. The property price bubbles in Ireland and Spain, despite fiscal discipline by the respective governments, showed those two countries were unable to cope with loss of national autonomy to set interest rates to suit national conditions.

I’m a veteran from ferocious online debates c. 2000 when any posters suggesting that European monetary union wasn’t a good idea were subject to personal abuse and hacking. Critics of EMU were dubbed “insane”. The Europhiles were fanatical and beyond reasoned argument. But current Europhobes are also beyond rational argument.

My esteem for the Conservative leadership has escalated since reading of their recent assessment that much of the Conservative Party membership is comprised of “swivel-eyed loons”.

Personally, with the legitimation of civil partnerships, I’m not much bothered, one way or t’other, about same-sex marriage but it amounts to lunacy to suppose that is the most important issue facing the country – more important than national economic recovery, more important than sorting out the banking system, more important than the threat of terrorism, more important than preventing the abuse of vulnerable young girls by paedophiles . . . ? C’mon.

@Bob B – cool. Ry Cooder or Daft Punk? What the Papers Say is perhaps the best prog on Rd4! Take care, dude.

9. Bob B

The EU won’t disappear if Britain leaves

Are you sure about that Bob? It won’t disappear over night I admit. But anything run this badly needs to reform or it will disappear.

but we will be obliged to accept EU decisions on technical standards, trade access, and, very importantly, currency transactions.

So what? We are obliged to accept them now. Just as we are obliged to accept India’s and China’s and America’s. How does this hurt us in any way?

12. Bob B

The issues are different now. Global trade barriers have receded since though international trade deals, like the Uruguay Round in 1994. But note that Cameron is pushing hard now for a new free trade agreement between the US and Europe asap.

In other words Britain’s tradition free trade view is winning out hands down and the European protectionist point of view is on the decline. So why would we want to join their suicidal economic policy and reject all the benefits of this free trade?

There are strong reasons for that, not least since the US has made it plain that it doesn’t want to have to negotiate separate trade deals between the EU and Britain.

And our position should be predicated on what the US wants?

With the BRIC countries developing a common cause in international trade negotiations, Britain would become a very small party in crunch negotiations between the EU, BRIC and NAFTA. Britain standing alone would have little leverage in trade deals that will need to cover international investment and transfer payments relating to corporate tax liabilities as well as, perhaps, a financial transactions tax.

Britain is already a small party. It cannot be any larger. The question is whether we will get to put our point of view at international gatherings, or whether our voice will be drowned out by the EU. The choice is between whatever status our size provides if we are out, or no influence at all if we are in. Given the Americans support our views on tax, trade and financial transactions how are we better off subordinating our interests to those of the French and Romanians?

The BRICS will not last long as a trade block, but even if they do, so what? We are better off coming to the table as the fifth biggest economy in the world than as the third biggest province of the EU Empire.

This is an incoherent argument given that the antis, the ones who hate EU rules, would have to impose them without participating in the decision making process.

Except we would not have to impose them. We could sell all the bendy bananas we liked at home or overseas. We would simply have to sell straight ones to the EU. Just as we have to obey Chinese law in exporting to China. As for that “participation” what you mean is that we need to stay in to create job opportunities for some hacks in the Foreign Office who would be underemployed otherwise? That is not a sensible reason for joining.

Bob B

True that London is a global financial centre but what if tabled EU proposals to relocate all transactions involving the Euro to a financial centre located in the Eurozone are pushed through – such as to Frankfurt or Paris?

What if they did? Europe has long had Eurodollars. We would just have British Euro markets as well. They cannot make water into wine or sow’s ears into purses. If they want to try to regulate their economy to death, we should let them, but watch from afar.

At the very least, the anti-EU lobby is naive and uninformed. It is no accident that FT columnists foresee high risks for business in Britain from the prospect of exit.

And of course British policy ought to be determined not by what is good for the British taxpayer but by what is good for big business?

18. Bob B

Political leaders in the Eurozone failed to understand the conditions that have to be met for a monetary union to function sustainably because they believed politics trumped economics and Mrs Merkel kept pushing the notion that fiscal discipline is what mattered.

So Bob thinks that the leaders of the EU are utterly politically and economically incompetent.

With a monetary union, national governments and national monetary authorities lose the autonomy to set interest rates to suit national conditions and it is no longer possible to restore the competitiveness of national economies in their trade relations by changing the exchange rates of national currencies.

And that monetary union is stupid.

Bob B

I’m a veteran from ferocious online debates c. 2000 when any posters suggesting that European monetary union wasn’t a good idea were subject to personal abuse and hacking. Critics of EMU were dubbed “insane”. The Europhiles were fanatical and beyond reasoned argument.

And that previous attempts at monetary union were bad even though the EU pushed them, and supporters of the EU are derranged and impervious to logic,

But …..

But current Europhobes are also beyond rational argument.

He still wants in? I am baffled by the logic of that.

Well not really. I know Bob. But after making a great case for why we should be out, I think most people would be inclined to disagree with Bob and think we should be out. The EU brings no advantage except to our Tuscany-villa-owning ruling class. Hello Polly by the way.

SMFS: “So Bob thinks that the leaders of the EU are utterly politically and economically incompetent.”

No I don’t think that. The launch of the Euro was pushed by EU politicians who believed that monetary union would hasten European integration so they ignored technical advice from EU Commission officials and the conditions needed to put monetary union on to a sustainable basis set out in an extensive academic literature.

I had long experience c 2000 of debating online with Euro fanatics and they just didn’t want to know about the conditions needed for monetary union to succeed or the warnings of the hazards from Rudi Dornbusch, Martin Feldstein, Milton Friedman, Olivier Blanchard . . . . Recall that interview of Delors in the Telegraph in December 2011:

Jacques Delors interview: Euro would still be strong if it had been built to my plan

Former president of the European Commission Jacques Delors talks to Charles Moore about the fate of the euro.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8932640/Jacques-Delors-interview-Euro-would-still-be-strong-if-it-had-been-built-to-my-plan.html

The fact is that only Luxembourg was eligible to join the Euro according to the eligibility criteria in the Maastricht Treaty – check out the deatil in: Birth of the Euro (Penguin Books)

Successive American administrations have made it clear that they see Britain as part of the EU and that Britain will have less influence if Britain leaves. How come columnists in the FT are warning of the risks to business that would come from leaving the EU? The last thing we need right now is more uncertainty to frighten off business investment.

24. Bob B

No I don’t think that. The launch of the Euro was pushed by EU politicians who believed that monetary union would hasten European integration so they ignored technical advice from EU Commission officials and the conditions needed to put monetary union on to a sustainable basis set out in an extensive academic literature.

So what you think is even worse? That they deliberately took Europe into a monetary union that they knew would fail because they also knew that the only solution would be further integration which the *voters* had rejected?

So appallingly cynical and morally bankrupt rather than merely incompetent.

Successive American administrations have made it clear that they see Britain as part of the EU and that Britain will have less influence if Britain leaves.

So we should stay in because it suits American foreign policy? Is that really your argument? And as it happens, we would have more influence as an independent veto power in the UN than as a large-ish province of the European Empire. Whatever the Americans might think.

How come columnists in the FT are warning of the risks to business that would come from leaving the EU?

Because it is a leftist rag that has long since sold out its birth right and nationality to some pathetic liberal notion of themselves as citizens of the world?

The last thing we need right now is more uncertainty to frighten off business investment.

Indeed. We need certainty. Which means a firm and prompt decision. To leave. The voters would never agree to go back in and so business would have the certainty they need. Anything else just threatens to drag the whole business out indefinitely, or at least until the EU collapses.

Not that British policy ought to be run for the benefit of big business.

The cynic in me feels it worth noting that all the chart really says is that the public, by and large, don’t trust authority figures but do trust rebels.

They thus tend to think Cameron and Miliband are calculating rather than honest, compared to Farage and Clarke, who are in the public’s eyes, honest rebels.

Who’d have thunk it?

SMFS

From back to c. 2000, I guess that I had more online experience of Euro fanaticism than most. Euro fanatics simply don’t want to know of any impedient to realising their objective of European integration – because they believe that their political aspirations trump economics.

For a sustainable monetary union, it is necessary for super competitive areas – such as Germany and the Netherlands – to continue to make fiscal transfers in favour of uncompetitive areas. Without that but with fiscal discipline, there will be a continuing deflationary bias. But such fiscal transfers are very unpopular with the German electorate – which is why the Eurozone is where it is, in recession.

That condition for a sustainable monetary union is in the technical literature and not some personal notion on my part. The alternative to fiscal transfers is mass migration of the unemployed from uncompetitive to super competitive areas. In Britain, to maintain the UK as a Pound zone, super competitive areas – like the London and South East regions – continue to subsidise other regions through fiscal transfers and regional policy grants for job-creating business investment. But even with that, UK regions such as Merseyside, the North East and Strathclyde have stayed relatively depressed for the last 50 years.

In some southern parts of the Eurozone, current unemployment rates exceed the unemployment rates in America at the bottom of the slump in the 1932. Youth unemployment rates in the 16-24 years old age group exceed 50%. That is the state of the Eurozone.

Try Wolfgang Munchau in Monday’s FT: It does not make much sense but I’m a eurofanatic: “If you want to make a rational case for the EU, it is better to make it on the basis of political power, not economic efficiency.”

He is right about that.

27. Bob B

From back to c. 2000, I guess that I had more online experience of Euro fanaticism than most. Euro fanatics simply don’t want to know of any impedient to realising their objective of European integration – because they believe that their political aspirations trump economics.

And yet your response is not to run a mile but to join them. Strange. A logic that escapes me and which you have still not explained.

For a sustainable monetary union, it is necessary for super competitive areas – such as Germany and the Netherlands – to continue to make fiscal transfers in favour of uncompetitive areas. Without that but with fiscal discipline, there will be a continuing deflationary bias. But such fiscal transfers are very unpopular with the German electorate – which is why the Eurozone is where it is, in recession.

Well that is not true. Fiscal transfers will make the process less painful but they are not needed and in fact will not solve the problem. The solution is for either Germany to become as spendthrift as the South or for the South to become like the Germans. Either way, productivity must converge.

The alternative to fiscal transfers is mass migration of the unemployed from uncompetitive to super competitive areas.

There is that too. Which we are seeing.

In Britain, to maintain the UK as a Pound zone, super competitive areas – like the London and South East regions – continue to subsidise other regions through fiscal transfers and regional policy grants for job-creating business investment. But even with that, UK regions such as Merseyside, the North East and Strathclyde have stayed relatively depressed for the last 50 years.

Well no. The pound would survive either way. We transfer the money because we have elections and the Left depends on the votes of the feckless – who threaten to self harm if we cut their money. It has nothing to do with monetary union at all. They have stayed depressed because we have the monetary transfer. If we let the market rip, they would all be in work by now.

In some southern parts of the Eurozone, current unemployment rates exceed the unemployment rates in America at the bottom of the slump in the 1932. Youth unemployment rates in the 16-24 years old age group exceed 50%. That is the state of the Eurozone.

And it is remarkable that they tolerate it. Thatcher could never have done anything like this. Nor Reagan. So we see the Left’s complaints are not about suffering but about politics – they opposed Thatcher and so talked up whatever suffering existed under her rough regime, they are in favour of the Euro so they are ignoring the pain their policies are inflicting.

He is right about that.

And yet you continue to support British membership.