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.

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War & peace

1 November 2024

5 min read

Put poppy politics in the past and give Remembrance a hopeful future

Memory without hope will lead us to a dead-end.

Mark Gilbert

Mark is a research mathematician who writes on ethics, human identity and the nature of intelligence.

A woman walls along a war memorial wall covered in red poppies.

War memorial in Canberra.

Raelle Gann-Owens on Unsplash.

Remembrance Day is complicated. A nation shows its gratitude for the service and sacrifice of its armed forces and tries to connect to its history. Never far away, are poppy politics, along with anxiety about identity and forgetting, and fears about nationalism and militarism. Is this the way to remember?

Last November, protests in solidarity with Gaza dominated the headlines. On Armistice Day, hundreds of thousands of people marched through central London to demand a ceasefire. In the preceding weeks, there was vigorous debate about whether the march should be cancelled. There were several motivations for this: there were genuine fears of violence and extremism, and of disruption at the Cenotaph, but also questions of whether marching on Armistice Day was inappropriate or disrespectful.

The march itself was organised to minimise the risk of disrupting public commemorations of Remembrance. It started several hours after the two-minute silence and followed a route several miles from the cenotaph. It was mostly peaceful, although there were arrests for anti-Semitism, open support for terrorism and violent attacks on police officers. Armistice Day did see violence around the cenotaph, but this was from the self-described ‘Cenotaph Defenders’ who had organised a counter-demonstration against the Gaza march. The group of football hooligans and far-right EDL members gathered with poppy emblazoned banners declaring ‘Have some respect for British Heroes’. Within a few hours, the calls for respect had degenerated into violent attacks on serving uniformed officers, in this case the police.

The far-right’s adoption of remembrance symbolism can be seen as an extreme form of a wider entanglement of poppies and politics. The red paper poppy is a symbol of remembrance, but it has other connotations. For some it invokes patriotism and feelings of pride in their country, for others it represents conformity and militarism. Whether television news presenters are wearing them attracts disproportionate attention. In 2019, one Australian TV network had a very tasteless segment denouncing a rival station whose newscasters failed to wear poppies. The non-poppy wearing hosts were accused of failing in their duty to respect their country and to help preserve its culture and traditions. Regardless of the presenters’ actual reasons, this feels like a lot of baggage to load onto the delicate poppy, a symbol of quiet remembrance and gratitude.

Unsurprisingly, this has led many to question whether Remembrance Day has become detached from its original purposes. Twelve years after the death of the last British First World War veteran, there is little living connection to either of the two world wars. With this passage of time, there is a growing danger of mistaking the symbols of ceremonial Remembrance for the thing itself.

The focus of remembrance can shift away from the sheer horrors of war, from awe at the sacrifice of our forebears, and from the resolved ‘never again’ to fixing our gaze on the processed goods: the ceremonial silence, the poppies themselves and even the quality of our own emotional response.

Some commentators have suggested that organised Remembrance has served its purpose and is best forgotten, and that too much remembering is a bad thing, fuelling grudges and sectarian conflicts. Personally, I’m not convinced, but I do think our current Remembrance is missing something.

With a strong grounding in a shared past and a common hope, we would talk frankly about the times our country has fallen short without a sense of betraying our history or identity.

Reflecting on the importance and difficulty of memory, the writer and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel emphasised the importance of hope. Despite the horrific experiences of the twentieth century, for Wiesel it is hope that “summons the future”. Memory without hope would lead us to a dead-end, where we grip onto the past while feeling it slip like sand through our fingers. Many of the anxieties around Remembrance point to a hope deficit.

How can we remember with hope?

We need to broaden our perspective and engage better with our shared national story. We need to be grounded in our history, stories and myths but we also need to be drawn forward by the good things we have and will have. If this story is big enough then it will be a large tapestry of interwoven strands, and we will be able to generously incorporate new strands, other cultures with their own relationship to the past into it. We will also be better prepared for our remembering to deal with difficult questions about our nation’s history. With a strong grounding in a shared past and a common hope, we would talk frankly about the times our country has fallen short without a sense of betraying our history or identity. Hope would connect us better to our neighbours overseas and to the men and women who risk their lives to serve their country.

Last Remembrance Sunday, I helped our church’s under-7s make big paper poppies out of red paint and paper plates. The older children made origami peace cranes, and both the big red poppies and the peace cranes were placed by the altar. Here the focus is on remembering, but not just on our own memory. For me and countless other Christians, God’s memory is the real focus. God remembers us in our broken and war-torn world, and as Jesus, chose to join us in it, experiencing the worst of suffering while dying a painful death. All our personal and collective stories of pain, loss and sadness are met in this sacrifice. More than this, in the promises of restoration Jesus gave when He rose from the dead, they find a concrete hope.

What does Remembrance look like when it’s really grounded in hope? I think there would be a few noticeable signs. It would be less precious about itself. It would be more open to different emphases of remembrance such as the Peace Pledge Union and the white poppy, and excited about new creative expressions of remembrance like the ‘poppy walks’ organised by the Royal British Legion. More patient to the concerns of those who find the religious elements of Remembrance difficult. More integrated into our attitudes to current and ongoing conflict around the world. Most of all I hope it would make us really hungry for both peace and for righteousness.