There is an episode of the West Wing (much missed by many of us political anoraks) which sees Josh running around the White House quoting a statistic along the lines of 30% of Americans thinking that the US Constitution is broken and 21% wanting a new Constitution. (If anyone can remember the actual statistics, please add them below - it does not change my point here but not remembering it correctly is annoying me!).
The point he makes, when no one seems to be as concerned as he is about these figures, is that it means there are 9% of people who think it is broken - but don't want to fix it!
Below the headline of the Tory lead being down to 2% in the YouGov poll in the Sunday Times today, is a pair of numbers I find as alarming as Josh found his poll stat but commentators are not really mentioning.
According to the poll, 31% think Cameron generally tells the truth. From a partisan point of view, like mine, that is a worrying number that we would want to see considerably higher. It is not that far below Brown's 35% rating, though, which is more of a comment on the general low-regard for politicians.
But the next question asked whether Cameron "has the character to be an effective Prime Minister", to which the answer is 40%. This is better news for Conservatives.
What it says about the respondents is not that reassuring, though. That means that at least 9% of the respondents think Cameron does NOT generally tell the truth but still has the right character to be an effective Prime Minister. In other words, to do the job well they they he should general lie.
Did the survey participants not think their responses through or is it indicative of the image of professional politicians that lying is now seen as a positive attribute? I hope it is the former.
