I read on Sky News yesterday that there is a slight difference of opinion on ‘which party’ is currently out in front? There were three poll results published: ComRes, YouGov and Populus who conducted telephone interviews over two days between the 18th & 20th of April
- ComRes – interviewed 1012 adults on April 18th & 19th puts the Conservatives 9 points in front on 35% with Labour and the Lib Dems both on 26%
- YouGov – interviewed 1595 adults on April 19th & 20th and puts the Lib Dems back in the lead on 34%. With the Conservatices on 31% and Labour on 26%
- Populus – interviewed 1501 adults on April 19th & 20th and puts the Liberal Democrats a 10 point increase from last week (31%), just 1 point behind the Conservatives (32%) down 4 points, and 3 points in front of Labour (28%) down 5 points
Confused? Yes… me too. So I thought I’d add some additional keywords into my General Election dashboard on Radian6 around the subjects of:
- Will vote
- Won’t vote
- Not sure
I set the date parameters from the 18th up until today and there’s a total of 35,336 posts with 7,124 posts mentioning keywords from within the 3 areas above. Not a bad sample I thought – at least 4 times as many as the official polls…And here’s what I found:
- 46.8% will vote (3336 posts)
- 45.9% won’t vote (3271 posts)
- 7.3% not sure (517 posts)
The next question begged to be answered: What percentage % of the ‘Will Vote’ would be Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem… and this is what I found:
- Lib Dem 42.2% (1484 posts)
- Labour 31.2% (1098 posts)
- Conservative 26.5% (932 posts)
And this is the total online conversation split between Conservatives, Labour and the Lib Dems
And this is the sentiment split over the last 5 days:
Click to enlarge
…And finally
For me, the parties need to engage with the people that are openly stating that they ‘won’t vote’ and address why directly with them – rather than push the traditional ‘Vote <insert party name here> with no substance or perceived value behind the conversation and expect people to say ‘ok, I’ll do that then…!’
It’s quite obvious that so many people cannot separate the parties, which potentially makes people think:
a) ‘What’s the point’
b) ‘My vote won’t make a difference’
c) ‘I don’t understand how to tell which party is right for me’
d) ‘They’re all as bad as one another’
All the political parties need to start addressing these ‘common’ thoughts, and engage with honesty and transparency. And the first one to do so, implementing the new ROI (return on involvement) will have an edge going into the General Election on May 6th…
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Lee your summing up is so accurate, it is amazing that so many folks moan about who runs the country and yet have total apathy about voting at all! Or worse they just trot out word for word what the media feeds them. I Suspect the 'what's the point 'angle is particularly true too. Great post.
Thanks Robbie.
Looking through all the posts it's amazing to read how many actually say:
'don't vote <insert party name> it's a wasted vote' or
'whatever you do don't vote <insert party name>' or
'I don't care if <party name> has done <whatever>, you cannot vote for <insert party name>'
For me, these comments come from a place where:
a) the consensus is better the devil you know
b) the lack of a clear understanding (if that's possible in politics!) invokes apathy
c) the feeling to do the right thing leaves people with indecision
The above isn't helped when some party's bicker between themselves, it's a valuable waste of time where they could be engaging with people trying to explain the thought process behind the 'why' they want to do what they're proposing – thereby letting people make an informed choice…
If the parties where back at school, their report cards would read…
“Could do better if they applied themselves and focused on the job at hand'
Subjective opinion?
I must admit to feeling very apathetic about the election. I didn't even bother to watch the first leader's debate. I do feel a slight stirring of excitement at the possibility of a change to the old two party politics, though.
I thought your analysis was fascinating, Lee. The on-line community does seem to be running with the idea of change … but how representative of the whole community is that? Speaking as someone of – ahem – mature years … most of my friends don't pay any attention to social media.
With the old fashioned media so partisan … and – as far as I know – NOT advocating the sort of “honesty and transparency” that you think is necessary … do we stand any chance of getting more people to vote and maybe seeing a real change?
Hi Majjie. ( @majjie )
Thanks for commenting and for your kind feedback.
The online community is extremely vocal – one of the benefits of being 'shielded' by a piece of equipment, it allows people to air their – I beleive – really thoughts…
However, these vocal people are only represent the smallest % of users but are – and I'm generalising here – considered to be key influencers.The majority being 'spectators' – those that watch/read what other people – the key influencers – are writing about…
We'll have to wait until the 6th of May to see whether the writen 'vocal' pieces on twitter, blogs, forums etc by these 'influencers' will have an impact on those that are
a) yet undecided on who to vote for or
b) persuade people to actually vote rather than abstain
and motivate them…
The online community is diverse – all ages, sizes, religions, beliefs and races and is growing everyday.
What is so fascinating for me is that for the first time we have the technology in place to monitor what 'people' are actually thinking/feeling online in real-time regarding this General Election and although we're merely dipping our toes in the water for this election, social networks I predict – will play a BIG part in the next one.
Thanks for commenting
Lee