YouGov finds voters suspicious of David Davis' motives

"The Conservative Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, has resigned as an MP in order to fight a by-election in his constituency on the issue of 42 days. Which of these statements comes closer to your view?

He is doing it mainly as a genuine act of principle in order to defend civil liberties: 29%

He is doing it mainly as a cynical ploy to help the Conservative Party and his own career: 41%

Don’t know: 30%"

The poll finds that the overall Tory lead is 22%, 47% to 25%.  More in this PDF.

Comments

[John Leonard]

Of course Davis didn't actually resign to fight a bye-election over 42 days. He resigned to fight a bye-election on the issues surrounding the EROSION OF CIVIL LIBERTIES and the Governments PORK-BARREL TACTICS.

Interesting how Yougov seem to be teaming up with the 'serious' newspapers to distort the narrative?

Twice in one week that is good going!

[Phil]

don’t understand it all, if he was a man of principle and seeks to take it to the people, then why fight it in a constituency that he knows he can return a majority, fight it in a constituency where there is no clear majority, but then he may not get is job back! I do have a few unanswered questions. Does a resigning MP get severance pay i.e a lump of money, if so how much, who pays for the bye election, if it the local council and its estimated at 30K, i guess that a least one home help for a year that no one is going to see

[Helen Wright]

It's emabarassing when a man hides behind a skirt; but when the Prime Minister of Great Britain hides behind a Rupert Murdoch stooge, it's downright shameful.

[Alan S]

You are splitting hairs John. YouGov's question is perfectly fair. I'm surprised. I thought voters would be more favorable to him. Clearly not.

[ChrisD]

Tim, the initial media coverage was bound to create that suspicion?

[eugene]

Reading the poll another way, the minority believe Davis to be ill intentioned.

[David Galea]

This is one of those issues where the polls can go to hell because they don't represent people.

[stephen hoffman]

how does it help his career - if anything on a matter of principle he's destroying his career.

[stephen hoffman]

the government has been rupert murdoch's stooges since 1997 what do you expect.

[stephen hoffman]

if the papers and online media(tv) actually gave a fair pictur of the david davis events ie presenting both sides and not just criticising david davis then maybe , just maybe people would be more favourable - but then that would involve the westminster village media developing a conscience

[Tony Makara]

John Leonard, what you say is true. We have never previously had a Labour government for this long and the normal checks and balances that come into play when a Conservative government is elected and rolls back the state haven't applied for the last eleven years. So statism has had time to build its superstructure without fear of it being dismantled.

Until recently statist government felt confident enough to speed up its legislative base but the recent surge in Conservative support has caught them in mid-gallop. David Davis is rightly exposing this gallop to statism with its oppresive style of legislating. To paraphrase a true champion of freedom, Mr Reagan, it looks like Mr Davis may have got there, just in time!

[Rich Coe]

Only a lead of 22%! A projected majority of only 238 seats!

How long before Heffer/Hitchens and the other headbangers who read this site are calling for Cameron to resign?

Virtually everyone I know is counting down the days before we get rid of the bankrupt, disrepuatble and duplicitous government.

[Vine]

If DD had actually resigned on an issue that voters actually cared about he might have struck a chord. The civil libbers who dominate these threads need to realise that voters like CCTV and locking suspect terrorists up. Cameron is astute enough to realise that a doctrinaire approach to 42 days is dangerous. Crazy Davis doesn't.

[truth]

The conservative party, having had three consecutive defeats in the polls should rally behind their wise and intelligent leader.

We all know that since Cameron took over the party, everything has been going fine. The paarty is now being liked by the electorate. So please give cameron a chance.

Davis has made a tragic mistake. The British people are too intelligent to be carried away by this stunt.

Do you think if Davis were leader, he could have reversed an 11 point lead to a -6 point deficit causing brown to cancel the election?

[Patrick Ratnaraja]

I have just got back from a dinner where David Davis was the Guest speaker and I understand why He made that decision.

It is not a stunt. Throwing away a senior postion in the shadow cabinet is not a stunt.

Sometimes you have to stand up to what you beleive in.

[Andrew]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4138809.ece

Poll analysis article is here.

[Rod Sellers]

This is one of those issues where the polls can go to hell because they don't represent people.

Posted by: David Galea | June 14, 2008 at 22:36

This is all that needs to be said. We are in completely new territory and gut instinct says that DD has connected with an underlying contempt for conventional politics.

[Patrick Ratnaraja]

Sorry about the spelling mistakes in my last post. It was too late at night.

[stephen hoffman]

crazy davis - the voters have never had a proper discussion on civil liberties -as soon as you say it suddenly the government says your soft on terror

cameron also supports 28 day , so excuse me he is also giving what you call doctrinaire support

conservatism is about conserving liberty

[Winston C]

I am deeply troubled by some of the comments made on this thread.It appears to me that some individuals are prepared to doubt David Davis's motivations whatever he says or does.

It is absolutely fine to disagree with the stand he is making and indeed to support 42 days but to question Davis's integrity is to misunderstand the man.We should let these unworthy arguements come from the hacks and what is left of the Brownite cabal.

I would declare a bias here,I voted for Davis in the leadership campaign.That is not to say I don't respect the work Cameron is doing and obviously sincerely hope that he gets into number 10.

There are however some things that transcend the Westminster village.The insidious march of the state into all of our private lives is one.The problem with this is that the real issues are not fully understood and the implications of what our Government are doing will only be felt in the future.The pressing demands of struggling to survive the fiscal assault of New Labour is the number one priority.

The real arguements about the liberties we all are entitled to expect must be heard.We need more politicians like Davis not Blair.Let us not do the work of Brown for him by smearing Davis with the same tawdry tag that could be hung around the neck of any Labour frontbencher.

The Westminster Village should not tell us how to think about this whole issue nor how it will play.

[Bishop Hill]

Does it matter why he is doing it? Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is fine with me.

Only the political classes are worried about motives.

[David]

Political Betting reports an ICM poll in H and H showing overwhelming support for Davis, and an 11 point jump to 59% in Tory support there.

[Dave B]

"The one single question on Davis (suggesting it was very much shoved in at the last minute as the news broke) asks if people think it was a genuine act of principle or a cynical ploy to help the Conservative party or his own career - 29% thought it was an act of principle, 41% thought it was a cynical ploy. Of course, this would have been asked people people had had time to digest the news or read the print media’s reaction, so opinions may since have changed massively - given the last responses from David Cameron and media speculation of internal ructions and Conservative bewilderment, I suspect considerable fewer people would now think it a cunning party ruse! I’ll be more confident judging the public’s response to David Davis - both directly and in terms of voting intention - when we see polls conducted once the news had time to sink in." Anthony Wells, UK Polling Report

[Conand]

So in one poll we went up and the other is unchanged. YouGov (polled entirely post 'Hero Davis') gives us a bigger potential vote share than Labour and LibDems combined, and a huge predicted majority.

AND THESE POLLS ARE SOMEHOW BAD?

It's like we're living in a parallel universe to that which some of the media inhabit. I think I've found the 'Quantum theory of politics'!
Meanwhile Brown is... yep you guessed it! He's dithering, some things never change.
C'mon Labour, bring it on! I'm sure you can find someone who will fight an election on one of Labour's policies. No?..just one though, they wouldn't have to defend the whole pile of ****.
Where's the Labour analogue of Shami Chakrabarti's 'Celebs for Davis'? Can you not 'round up the usual suspects'? (no pun intended)

[Winston C]

It would be interesting to find out just how confident the public would be in an ever increasing share of their own private information ending up in Gordon's hands?

Would they really trust him ? on a day when yet more sensitive documents are found on a train!!following on from the loss of child benefit claimants personal info.

What would the state under Gordon do with sensitive info on each and everyone of us?

Any thoughts?

[Marian]

"He is doing it mainly as a genuine act of principle in order to defend civil liberties: 29%

He is doing it mainly as a cynical ploy to help the Conservative Party and his own career: 41%

Don’t know: 30%"

I have no argument with the first option but the 2nd is as biased as it gets. "Cynical ploy" what sort of question is this ? I think its a statement, and clearly demonstartes how the press and poll pundits distort politics in this country.

[A]

Doesn't the poll show a 2 percentage point increase for the tories?

[Mike Routhorn]

To me this shows that support for a Tory government is rather more solid than the pundits would have you believe.

I am of the view that the population has terminally turned against Brown and is now only listening to what Cameron has to say.

I wonder when Brown/Darling will stop insulting everyone's intelligence with their insistence that the economy couldn't be in better shape to face the hard times.

They're not exactly enhancing their reputation by their apparent inability to spot warning signs that the rest of the country can plainly see.

[Patsy Sergeant]

Good for you Patrick Ratnaraja, and compared to many of the spelling mistakes or grammatical errors (which make it difficult to understand WHAT the blogger means - grammar is there to make prose easier to understand!), in evidence on CH, just getting the i and the e mixed up is peenuts!

[Votedave]

To quote Anthony Wells from UK Polling Report;

"to reiterate, the comparison is pretty much worthless. The diffence in Tory support between the “pre-Davis” polling and “post-Davis” polling is 7 points. The margin of error on the sample sizes for those two sub-sets is around 5 points. More importantly, you interview different socio-economic groups at different times of the day when doing a poll, so the two groups won’t be comparable."

[Phil]

come on people it s just a big joke, the guys got nothing to loose all to win, on this stunt who wants a big hitter on the back benches waiting in the side lines for the leader to make a mistake and step up to the mark, does any believe he is going to loose the bye election, it just a way of unnerving the leader of the opposition, who has now no option other than to support him.

[Conand]

Phil

Who knows? Maybe Labour will put up a Pro-42 Days candidate that wins around H&H, afterall Widders and Tim Montgomerie are convinced.
I know it seems unlikely in that their policy is evil rubbish and any Labour toadie prepared to do it is probably terrible at rational argument..BUT you never know.

[Phil]

Conand

sorry didn't get your reply, i doubt anyone is unable to to give rational arguments for their views, other wise you are writing off 50% of the population off.

[Phil]

wish i new the answer to my other queries, do you get a severance package when resigning and who pays for the bye election.

as a swing voter I'm dead set against the fuel strikes, but if Davies, can incur on a principle 30k plus, the why should anyone deny the fuel protesters 5k for the same reason

[Rev Smurf]

I am absolutely in favor of what Davis is trying to do. Of course the Government will attempt to rubbish it. However it really is about time we had a debate about the creeping nature of the surveillance state and the erosion of long held liberties by this increasingly authoritarian labour administration. Phil I don't agree that Davis has nothing to loose if this campaign goes badly his career is finished. Also it is going to interesting to see how the "people" will react if Brown doesn't bother to contest this seat. Of course if we had a constructive press in the UK , failing to contest the seat would be portrayed correctly as excepting the rightness of Davis's stand. Sadly it appears Brown has taken the view that he can trust the press to run Davis into the ground for him.

[Rev Smurf]

Phil makes a very good point, there is a real cost to the tax payers of the country of running a bye election. However I think in this case it is money well spent, as there really is an important principle being discussed here. Perhaps in the future an MP who calls such an election, should be expected to find the funding from his or his party's purse. That is something for the future perhaps. Otherwise this could become a habit.

[Phil]

just heard Davis on question time, how many here could hold their hands up and vote for him purely on the 42 or what ever days detention all the media reports say that he would loose on the one point, but i guess he is banking on the sheep just voting conservative, to return him, id love for him to stand up and direct is votes to vote on their beliefs, rather than their party lines, but i guess thats a pipe dream

[Dave]

YouGov can find whatever it's paid to find.

Load the questions, target demographics by calling at certain times of day, slant options . . . there's a million and one ways a pollster can get repeat business.

Perfect examples are the Evening Standard's polls while they were fighting the Mayoral contest in London.

As for Davis, I haven't met a single person since this all kicked off that doesn't back him.

Thinks he's a fool, maybe. Thinks he's let his heart rule his head, certainly.

But they back him all the same.

I say we see how the real poll works out and then contrast and compare with this froth that YouGov are selling.

[Alexander King]

Iain Martin has an excellent piece today on the strange contrast between the noisiness of Davis's supporters (not least on here) and the suspicion of the rest of the population.

He suggests that the Davis fans are the 1/3 of the country who are perpetually angry about everything (people like Iain on here would be a classic example). The rest of the population just finds them - and Davis's actions - a bit strange.

[Ken Stevens]

Rod Sellers June 15 @ 07:11
"..DD has connected with an underlying contempt for conventional politics."

I think that comment gets to the heart of the matter. Whilst Davis's action might well be illogical and perverse, the very fact of it strikes a chord with those who (despite supporting the 42 days that DD objects to ) see it as a symbol of rejection of the smug complacency of those who think the political furniture just needs to be rearranged a little, rather than replaced.

Alexander King refers to the quoted 1/3 of the country that is permanently angry about something. I would reinterpret that as 1/3 strongly for a new political dimension, rather than being grumpy about anything & everything. If you consider that much of the country doesn't seem to care enough to bother to vote, that proportion is more like 2/3 of those who do care. Those that moan without voting don't deserve to have their views taken into consideration. They moan that voting makes no difference; well, it would if they did!

I'm not one of those who, for instance, want PR. I'm a fan of First Past The Post but just wish that the top three runners didn't appear to wear the same sorts of colours and indeed swap between themselves at times.