My problem with the polls

Chasing the polls hobbles the leadership we really need.

Jean Kabasomi

Jean is a consultant working with financial and Christian organisations. She also writes and broadcasts.

A graphic shows two political opinion poll questions and bar graphs.

Political opinion polls.

YouGov.

Recently reviewing the media’s coverage of the riots in the UK, I came across an article in The Telegraph that both surprised and annoyed me. It outlined an opinion poll conducted on the government’s response to the riots. It claimed that 49 per cent of the population were unhappy with the Prime Minister’s response to the riots.

Now, you might be wondering why I was annoyed by the article. For me, IF opinion polling is to be used it has three principal applications. First, it might be used to understand how people intend to vote in an upcoming election. Secondly, polling might be used to inform governments or public organisations. They might want to understand how a policy could impact the general populus or a specific group of people. Or measure whether a policy is having its intended impact or not. Lastly, polling might be used by a government to gauge how its overall programme is being received by the population it was elected to serve.

Polling, in my view, is not supposed to be used to ask the general public about the day-to-day functioning and decision-making of a recently elected government. Again, you might wonder - why does this matter?

Well, you don’t need to be a polling expert to know that trust in politicians in developed democracies around the world is at an all-time low. The prevailing view is that politicians are out for themselves, lack integrity, do not believe in anything in particular. They are happy to provide their opinion based on whichever way the wind is blowing.

The blame for this is often placed at the feet of those politicians. The argument is that the calibre of people choosing politics is far lower than it has been in previous generations. As such we have a group of leaders who do not believe in what they tell us. Others argue the toxic culture of social media, the overall decline in moral standards in Western democracies and the rise of the culture of the individual, also contribute to fewer common norms on moral expectations.

All of these are true and do intensify the situation we find ourselves in. But I think there might be a more fundamental problem that is rarely addressed. Instead of politicians getting on with the job they have been elected and therefore delegated to do, they are constantly trying to please people instead of serve people.

Politicians are having to constantly try and not say the wrong thing on social media or in a tough interview. They are, more and more being urged to respond to polls (often commissioned by the media) and the resulting stories about the day-to-day functioning of government. In any sphere of life, it is virtually impossible for any leader to make a good decision if they are constantly forced to question whether they are making the right decision not because it might harm the people they are leading or serving but because it might not be received well.

If we want the calibre of our politicians to improve, our current crop needs the freedom to govern, oppose and lead without the need to please us.

Both Jesus and St Paul spoke of the contrast in pleasing people instead of being led by God (or your convictions). Jesus said that you cannot serve two masters. You will either hate one and love the other or be devoted to one and despise the other. Here, the contrast in question is between money and God. But the principle remains the same. Politicians cannot govern effectively if they are trying to win a popularity contest at the same time.

This does not mean that politicians should not be held accountable. They should be able to explain and justify the policies and decisions they make within the confines of the system that they have been elected into. In the UK, this includes Parliament, engagement with constituents, in-person surgeries and meetings, party management, and dialogue and examination by the media. It should not include weekly polling data which seems to serve the purpose of generating cheap content and fleeting headlines. It prevents the politicians from taking difficult but necessary decisions and stifles debate on challenging topics.

If we want the calibre of our politicians to improve, our current crop needs the freedom to govern, oppose and lead without the need to please us. They need to feel compelled to serve us. Not only will this lead to better decision making but it will also encourage ‘stronger’ candidates to enter politics knowing that they have the freedom to contribute to a better society for all.

Article

America

Church and state

Comment

Idolatry

Politics

7 November 2024

4 min read

Trump's triumph is not the end of the world, nor the dawn of a new age

Donald Trump may not be as bad as many fear and not as good as many hope

Graham Tomlin

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

Silhoutted by a sun rise, a helicopter flies over The White House

Marine One Flying over The White House, Inauguration Day, 2017.

Anthony Quintano, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Reading reactions to Donald Trump's election win across different news outlets over the last couple of days has been an education in the contemporary political landscape.

For left-leaning media the future is dark. An Atlantic opinion piece laments that “we must learn to live in an America where an overwhelming number of our fellow citizens have chosen a president who holds the most fundamental values and traditions of our democracy, our Constitution, even our military in contempt.” The Guardian called it “an extraordinary, devastating moment in the history of the United States.” It is a secular version of the sermon: “The End Is Nigh”.

Yet turn to the Daily Telegraph, The Spectator, or anything on the right, and you find a mixture of gloating (“Trump’s triumph is a disaster for Starmer and the self-regarding, virtue-signalling elites!”) and optimism that a new day is dawning. Trump himself hailed the advent of a ‘golden age’ for the American people. Having been mired in misery since the Conservatives’ routing in the UK general election here is a welcome bit of good news for those on the right.

On either side the apocalyptic note is hard to miss. A Telegraph writer says: “2024 is the real deal, a revolutionary moment, a reconstitution and realignment of American and Western politics around fresh principles.” A Guardian writer says that “there is nothing but bad news for Europe in Donald Trump’s US election victory. The only question is just how bad it will get.”

Immediately after elections there’s always a bit of this apocalyptic tone. When Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party dismantled the ‘red wall’, winning traditionally secure Labour seats in 2019, the rhetoric was that this was a generational change, a fundamental re-alignment in UK politics to the right. Labour, surely, was finished. Five years later, after Keir Starmer’s landslide and the routing of the Tories, it all looks very different – at least here in the UK.

Politicians always, in the long run, fail... The question is how badly they fail and whether they are able to do some good along the way until they do so.

Tony Blair fell from grace due to misleading us all over the Iraq war. David Cameron fell because he lost a referendum over Brexit. Boris Johnson was ousted because he allowed parties in Downing Street while the rest of the country was locked down. George W. Bush pursued a disastrous campaign for regime change in the middle east. Barack Obama started with great hope, won a second term, but didn’t change gun laws and was widely thought to have weakened the US through a failed foreign policy. Joe Biden is thought to have failed because he let inflation grow rampant and allowed American borders become too porous.

Donald Trump will fail too. He may, as he promised, deliver an improved economy. He may stem illegal immigration. That, after all, is why many voted for him. But eventually he will disappoint. So would Kamala Harris if she had won. So will Keir Starmer. And that is not to criticise these particular leaders. Like football managers, they all get sacked in the end, and there are very few who like Sir Alex Ferguson, or Jed Bartlett, get to wave farewell to the crowds at the time of their own choosing. Even then, Fergie’s legacy was tainted by his inability to create a legacy, and Bartlett was, despite our misty-eyed nostalgia, a fictional President.

It’s always tempting to reach for apocalyptic language at times like this. Yet the real meaning of ‘apocalypse’ is ‘revelation’, or ‘unveiling’. Taking the longer view, perhaps the real apocalyptic moment at times like these is the unveiling of the true place of politics – as important, but not ultimately important. These moments reveal the inadequacy of all human kingdoms, and our longing for a different kingdom, a kingdom of ‘righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit’ as the Bible has it, things that no government or election result can ever deliver.

Politics matters because the way we live together matters. Yet what politics at its best can provide – a well-functioning economy, law and order, managing good international relations - only go so far in enabling a flourishing life. Like returning to a familiar drug that we think we can once and for all make us happy, despite the numerous times it has failed before, we still somehow believe that politics can solve all our problems. “Trump will fix it” said the banners – though in fact that is what every politician promises. Jesus warned: “Many will come in my name and say ‘I am he’, and lead many astray.”

Most probably, Donald Trump will not be as bad as many fear, and not as good as many hope. Because politics is never the final word. As American theologian, Matthew Burdette put it recently: “The solution to our politics is not a political solution. Voting for the right or the wrong candidate will not change the situation: the devil is happily bipartisan, so long as politics is our idol. No, what is needed is fundamentally and thoroughly spiritual. Only when we can say with the prophet Isaiah that “the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as dust on the scales,” that is, only when we can see against the horizon of the ultimate how small are our worries, will these relative, penultimate things like politics be set right and take on their true meaning in our lives.”