The two posts below - on overall satisfaction with David Cameron and concerns over his education and candidates' policies - summarise the main message of the latest ConservativeHome Members' Panel survey. Selected findings are reported in today's Observer.
How does the survey work?
This poll was conducted on ConservativeHome's ConservativeDemocracy.com website between 19 and 21 January 2006. We report today the results for the 1,351 Conservative Party members who participated. We emphasise that the data has been weighted to a control group of respondents from a previous ConservativeHome poll taken in the days leading up to the leadership election. The proportion of Cameron/ Davis supporters has been matched to the actual outcome of that election. We are therefore confident that this first CH Tracker Poll fairly reflects the views of active Conservative Party members, and will continue to do so in all future tracker polls.
Here's how it works:
Email addresses for DD and DC voters were retained.
The new poll also required email addresses. We found out how the previous DD/DC respondents voted in each of the options of the first question ('satisfied with DC'). The options were then weighted so that there was the correct proportion of DD to DC voters in all - and all other questions weighted accordingly.
In fact, all this made less than 1% difference.
However, it does mean that in future, if one set of respondents becomes less enthusiastic in taking part than others, we will still be able to produce robust tracking data.
Why are we doing the survey?
During the leadership election ConservativeHome.com became the place where party members met up to discuss the qualities of the candidates. The site also helped to lead the fight against the outrageous attempts by the party's high-ups to take away the members' vote in that election. Many journalists and MPs visited on a daily basis to check the party's pulse - including the Tory Chairman, Francis Maude. Mr Maude described the site as a "goldmine". It was, he said, the "only way of finding out what’s going on".
We intend for ConservativeHome to stay the place for party members to meet up, share ideas and record their thinking.
Every month we'll track members' views on the issues of the day and on the performance of the people that speak in their name. Gone are the days when CCO can purport to speak on behalf of members to the press without fear of contradiction.
Over coming months ConservativeHome is planning an explosion of campaigning activity. We may have very different politics from Howard Dean but his 'you have the power' message to his WebRoots supporters was 'on the money'. His insurgent campaign failed for all sorts of reasons but the power unleashed by the internet will transform politics and Britain's political leaders have hardly begun to appreciate how. The ConservativeHome Members' Panel is one small but important part of the looming revolution.
Does this mean that, as a 'supporter' but non-member, you're not including my responses in the results?
Posted by: Tom Ainsworth | January 22, 2006 at 15:36
If you put yourself down as such, yes.
We'll see tomorrow if there is much divergence between the two groups, although the vast majority of those polled were members.
Posted by: Sam Coates | January 22, 2006 at 15:49
Sam don't ask us to contribute if you aren't going to use our views remember we aren't the ones 100% convinced already, the danger of only listening to people who think the same as you is the danger of not being able to get your points across to the people whose votes you need to attract.
I was surprised to read that you banned Mike Smith if conservative contributors can't deflect his blows on this site and answer his points of view what chance have you got of winning the next election, don't you think it is important to know the opinion of the people you're fighting?
It is this sort of intolerant approach to politics that the Labour party have instigated over the past decade that have turned people away from expressing their opinions. This pc world is destroying our freedom of speech.
Posted by: a-tracy | January 22, 2006 at 16:03
a-tracy, 'supporters' views will be published tomorrow, they are as welcome as anyone's.
Publishing in seperate groups is partly because the vast majority of contributors are members - a clearly defined group - so it doesn't make sense to skew the results with a much smaller and less tangible group.
This site is nothing if not a champion for the views of the average member/supporter - its opposition to disenfranchising the vote of party members was instrumental, and its readers concerns about the A List is well noted. Indeed, many of the top dogs in the party use this site daily to keep tabs on the thoughts and feelings of party supporters. Not only that but, as you will see increasingly when the Ed gets back from his trip, we are about fostering a wider conservative movement which is bigger than the party (see EU Serf's post in Platform) and its official members.
We don't filter comments or ban users unless they breach site policy on racism etc - this keeps it open whilst preserving a quality like that of the filtered comments in BBC Have Your Say sections.
The whole idea of Conservative Home and webroots in general is the absolute antithesis of New Labour's centralised, authoritarian approach to managing a political party, I hope you would agree.
Posted by: Sam Coates | January 22, 2006 at 16:40
Quite so and an excellent site it is.
Posted by: Frank Young | January 22, 2006 at 17:35
Spot on Sam - exciting times for conservativehome me thinks!
Posted by: Jonathan Sheppard | January 22, 2006 at 18:20