Guardian: Polls, Propaganda & Poppycock

Conservative demands that David Cameron tack right and return to traditional Tory values will be emboldened by a Guardian/ICM poll which finds the public overwhelmingly believes a hard line on Europe, immigration and traditional families would make the party more appealing...

In what the right may seize on as a rejection of gay marriage, voters judge by 69%-24% that the Tories' appeal could be boosted by keeping "themselves on the side of traditional families".

The Guardian.

This is absolute nonsense.
Note that people weren't asked anything about the Conservatives and gay marriage.
They were asked a leading and misleading question about whether the party should support "traditional families".
But this is so banal, it's practically meaningless.
Does anyone think the Tories should not keep "themselves on the side of traditional families"?

Anything that's totally vacuous and diverts, after all what does it mean to be in favor of... suppose somebody asks, do you support the people in Iowa, can you say I support them or no I don't support them? 
It's not even a question, it doesn't even mean anything. And that's the point of public relations slogans like 'support our troops' is that they don't mean anything, they mean as much as whether you support the people in Iowa.
Of course there was an issue - the issue was do you support our policy, but you don't want people to think about the issue, that's the whole point of good propaganda, you want to create a slogan that nobody is gonna be against and I suppose everybody will be for because nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything, but it's crucial value is it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something, do you support our policy, and that's the one you're not allowed to talk about.

Noam Chomsky, 1992.

Marriage: Meh

David Cameron is reeling from voter discontent about gay marriage.
In an exclusive poll for The Sun a whopping 77% said they weren't that fussed really, or it's okay by me.
How will he cope with this bombshell?
A source, who can't be named cause we made him up, said; "This is the beginning of the end. Bring back hanging."

Statistic Of The Day: It's Not, It's Not, It's Not, Not A Sin

Americans who believe being gay is a sin are now a minority — a shift that a Southern Baptist-affiliated research group links to President Barack Obama's changed opinion of gay marriage.
A November survey from Nashville-based LifeWay Research found 37 percent of Americans polled said "yes" when asked if homosexual behavior is a sin. Forty-five percent said it was not. Seventeen percent didn't know.
That's a major change from LifeWay's September 2011 survey, when 44 percent said homosexuality was a sin, 43 percent said it wasn't and 13 percent didn't know...

Anthea Butler, associate professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania, said that politics, culture and demographics have played a role in the growing acceptance of homosexuality. She pointed to Obama's support of gay marriage as well as gay rights victories in four state elections this past fall.
There's also the popularity of gay celebrities such as talk show host Ellen DeGeneres.
"Who wouldn't want to take their grandmother to see her show?" 

USA Today. 

Let us make a human sacrifice to Zeus and pray this is a sign that the Church Of Moron is in terminal decline.

Fagburn: Here Is The Gay Non-News

Dong! There's not much happening in Gayland to be honest. I won't keep you, so here's today's non-news in brief. 

Dong! Lots of people over 40 are getting overexcited about David Bowie releasing a surprise new single, Where Are We Now?, on his 66th birthday. It's not that good, really, but hurrah for nostalgia and that. Rumours of a surprise Gary Glitter comeback tomorrow unconfirmed.

Dong! Far more importantly it's Elvis's birthday today, which we always celebrate at Fagburn Mansions. Here's a Spotify playlist of some of my favourite Elvis songs I made a while ago. It's rimming ace.

Dong! Coalition 4 Marriage have released another ComRes poll on gay marriage. Telegraph dutifully salivates. Here's why, once again, it's really dodgy and goes against all the other research on this. And here's why ComRes/C4M polls can't be trusted. Not sure if this predictable anti-gay tripe even warrants comment anymore, but y'know...

Dong! Things are so desperate that another minor US celebrity no-one in the UK has heard of has come out is "newsworthy". Gay Idiot News dutifully salivates. More from Gay Star News: "Another Christian homophobe has said something stupid and homophobic today, almost certainly. GSN are so politically braindead, things like this are all that we get angry about. Plus more of the usual advertorial, press releases, days-old "news", general cringe-making naffness, and power-serving, Orientalist, hegemonic badly-written junk. Yay!"

Dong!: Even Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail couldn't raise my righteous ire today. "After getting their cassocks in a twist over female bishops, the Church of England has given the thumbs up to gay bishops — but only if they agree to remain celibate. I don’t want to sound difficult but, apart from God, how will anyone be able to check?" True, obviously. Note to the Church of England hierarchy, even Richard Littlejohn thinks all this is quite laughable.

Dong! A thick gay posh twat has been left - quite literally - stunned after finding out the BNP is full of bigots.  

Dong! Liked this piece, Columnism, by Ulrike Meinhof on how newspapers' "radical" columnists "function as a pressure release valve..." Much more to be said on the vanity and cliqueyness of "star columnists", and how this is antithetical to claims of being of the left, which I hope to wibble on about some day. (Thanks to Pierce Penniless x).

Dong! Why don't you just switch off your computer and go and do something less boring instead?

The Guardian: Shit Gay Cartoon

The Guardian has in their employ the two best political cartoonists in the country; Steve Bell and Martin Rowson.
But like all of us, these talented chaps need to take the occasional break from their inspired and bilious drawing.
Sometimes Rowson and Bell are on leave at the same time - usually for a week over the summer and during the festive season.
The Guardian's solution is to have a different up-and-coming guest cartoonist each day.
These are almost always execrable, unfit to grace the pages of a school magazine.
Today is the turn of someone called Anna Trench. 
Brave Anna hasn't let the little fact that she can't draw for toffee daunt her, hell no!
Nor has her obvious lack of wit.
It took me a while to figure out quite what was going on in the kindergarten-esque finger painting above, but I think she's making a - perfectly valid, though over-simplified to the point of stupidity - point that Cameron's "compassionate" support for gay marriage may merely be a sideshow to distract from the Conservative's callous cuts and the dire state of the economy.
For reasons perhaps only knowable to herself, Trench has portrayed some leading Tories as Thunderbirds puppets - as if the recent death of Gerry Anderson somehow renders this "topical" - while waving a rainbow flag.
But - and here is the punchline - "equality" comes "with strings attached".
A lesser cartoonist might have let the cartoon speak for itself.
Not Ann - who has literally spelled out this "gag" at the bottom of the frame.
Genius!
Oh well, back to the drawing board...

PS Variations on gay marriage polls have been a very popular page filler over Christmas.
Here's one from The Independent; "A survey of more than 2,500 Conservative Party members for The Independent found that a huge majority reject his arguments for legalising same-sex marriage.
"The findings come amid renewed speculation among some Tory MPs that Mr Cameron could face a leadership challenge before the next general election. His critics fear that the UK Independence Party will exploit the opposition to gay marriage among natural Conservative supporters..."
A ridiculous claim, but sadly typical of the Independent's clueless coverage of gay issues.

Marriage: New Poll, New Graphic, New You!

The ICM poll conducted just before Christmas found 62% of voters now support the proposals, with half this number – 31% – opposed. Most previous polls have found opinion leaning the same way, although the two-to-one margin revealed on Wednesday is particularly emphatic. AnICM online survey for the Sunday Telegraph in March asked the identical question – which expressly reminds people that the option of civil partnerships already exists for gay couples – and established a 45%-36% lead for the reformers.

Although Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters remain more likely to support gay marriage, with respective majorities of 67% and 71%, there is now also a majority among Conservative supporters. Among those who voted Tory in 2010, gay marriage now enjoys 52%-42% backing, a big turnaround from ICM's survey in March, which recorded 50%-35% opposition from 2010 Conservative voters.

Both men and women support gay marriage, although the majority is bigger among female voters, 65% of whom support gay marriage, compared with 58% of men. Gay marriage is backed by 60%+ majorities across every nation and region, the 74% majority recorded in Wales being the most emphatic. There is a pro-gay-marriage majority, too, in every social class – although the majority is somewhat smaller in the DE class, which contains the lowest occupational grades. Fifty-one per cent of this group is in favour of the change, as opposed to 68% in the C1 clerical grade, which emerges as the most enthusiastic.

Sharper differences emerge when the results are analysed across the age ranges. The over-65s resist the proposal, by 58% to 37%, but support is progressively stronger in younger age groups. The pro-reform majority is 64% among 35-64s, 75% among 25-34s, and an overwhelming 77% among 18-24s...

The Guardian.

Sneakily inserting this below the post above as it deserves more prominence, obvs.
And we are a blog of record.
I'm taking this as read as I want to believe it.
File under: 'So stick that in your pipe and smoke it.'

Pink News: All Of We Loves All Of You?

A series of polls for PinkNews.co.uk has found that the popularity of the Conservative Party has grown since the general election, with David Cameron now a more popular choice to be prime minister than Ed Miliband. Most LGBT people said that by proposing same-sex marriage, David Cameron has positively altered their opinion towards the Conservative Party. Support for the Liberal Democrats has sunk, reflecting national opinion polls...

At the last general election in 2010, 39% of the PinkNews panel who voted in the most recent poll said that they voted for the Liberal Democrats, 27% for the Labour Party and 11% for the Conservatives. The Greens had 6%, SNP 1.6% and 0.5% Plaid Cymru. If there was a general election tomorrow, 38% said they would vote for Labour, 30% for the Conservatives, 13% for the Liberal Democrats, 9% for the Green Party, 2.4% for the SNP, 0.6% for Plaid Cymru and 0.69% for UKIP. In the self selecting poll, 42% said they would vote for Labour, 30% Conservative, 10% Liberal Democrat and 10% Green...

Pink News.

Pink News do make it clear that this is taken from a "self selected" panel online - so I'm not really sure it reflects the voting intentions of "the LGBT community", anymore than a poll of Mail Online readers could be said to represent the general population's.
And if the readers' comments are anything to go by Pink News does seem to attract rather a lot of scarily right-wing fruitloops.

PS As I've been so critical of them in the past, I'd like to say again how much Pink News has improved since the departure of J****** G***. Fans of frighteningly piss-poor and - quite frankly - embarrassing gay "journalism" should now read Gay Star News.

Update: This was picked up - unchallenged - by among others The Guardian.
The only piece I've seen which didn't just take this survey at face-value, and questioned its methodology and what conclusions can be drawn, was by Tom Chivers in a Daily Telegraph blog; Has Dave won the gay vote? Maybe, maybe not?
I think this was a pretty objective piece incidentally, and was not related to the Telegraph's otherwise anti-gay marriage agenda.,

Television: Making Gay The New Normal?

Shows with gay characters, like Glee, Modern Family, and The New Normal, are helping drive voters to historically unprecedented support of gay marriage, an Oct. 29 THR poll conducted in conjunction with partner Penn Schoen Berland has found. Though gay TV also makes some voters more intensely opposed to gay marriage, they are outnumbered by voters who become more supportive of gay marriage, influenced by what they see on TV...
In the past 10 years, the THR poll of likely voters across the nation found, about three times as many voters have become more pro-gay marriage as have become more anti-gay marriage -- 31 percent pro, 10 percent anti.
Asked about how the shows influenced them, 27 percent said gay TV made them more pro-gay marriage, and six percent more anti. Obama voters watched and 30 percent got more supportive, 2 percent less supportive. Surprisingly, the shows made almost as many Romney voters more in favor of gay marriage: 13 percent got more pro-gay-marriage, 12 percent got more anti. (This trend toward gay acceptance squares with other polls: the 2011 Gallup poll was the first ever to show a majority, 53 percent, in favor of legalizing gay marriage...)
Obama voters are twice as likely to watch Modern Family as Romney voters are, twice as likely to watch Glee, and three times more likely to watch The New Normal...  *

Hollywood Reporter.

Interesting, but reductive as it implies television is the main driver behind changes in social attitudes.
Turn tellybox on, watch tellybox, mind changed, problem solved...
Of course popular culture matters - I don't think I'd bother writing about it if I didn't think it did. 
But what happens in the cultural, political and social spheres all interact and overlap, and it's surely the latter - our interactions with real people - that has really transformed our world.
Mind you, what kind of a freak wants to be "normal"?

• So maybe Catholic Online et al are onto something with their 'Fightback against gay TV in your home'?

* This contradicts the oft-quoted line that Republicans are more likely to watch Modern Family. Thus scientifically proving that at least 50% of surveys about The Gays must be bollocks. 

Poll: Who's Really Prejudiced?

More middle-class voters regard themselves as leftwing than do working-class voters, and working-class people show less support for overseas aid and immigration than middle-class voters, according to a new YouGov poll, commissioned by Progress, the Labour pressure group.
The findings arguably underline the complex challenge faces in reconnecting with people who were once described as Labour's core supporters...

 

There is little class difference in overall support shown for gay marriage, nationalising the rail companies or putting workers on company boards...

Reported in The Guardian.

Good to see some more evidence of how the claim that working-class people are somehow uniquely homophobic - and that the issue of gay marriage turns off working-class voters - is nonsensical and without foundation.

For more on the demonisation of the working class, read Owen Jones' Chavs.

Another Poll: How Many LGBT People Are There?

A new poll by Gallup - claiming to be "the largest population-based survey of LGBT Americans ever conducted" - has 3.4% of American adults - and 3.2% of men - identifying as LGBT.
And yes, they recognise that the findings in such a poll are probably deeply flawed, so don't write in.
Some other interesting findings to note...
"Don't knows/Won't says" still outnumber LGBTs in every category - if they were discounted the figure comes out at about 6%.
Age showed the most marked differentials: 6.4% of 18-29s, to 1.9& of 65+.
Women were slightly more likely to identify as LGBT than men.
"Nonwhite individuals" were more likely to identify as LGBT.
College graduates are less likely to identify as LGBT than those with a high school education only.
Similarly, the more you earn, the less likely you are to identify as LGBT.
Fascinating stuff.
Most reliable recent surveys have claimed the same - only gay marketeers and others with a vested commercial interest still claim higher figures.
But the last four points - which are more reliable markers of group difference and self-identification - turn conventional wisdom upside down.
Looks like, contrary to myth, we are not all bourgeois now. 

• And here's Fagburn's formula for working out how many gay men there are in the UK, which came up with a similar figure to the above.

Gay Marriage: The Conservative Case (For Votes)

If, as some argue, the Prime Minister were to drop his plans to introduce gay marriage he would be unlikely to win many back on the strength of it. People who oppose gay marriage would remember that he was in favour of it before the going got tough. Those who support it would see that he abandoned the idea in the face of a determined minority. Those who don’t much care either way would notice another flip-flop. In political terms, ditching gay marriage would probably be more likely to put off Joiners and Considerers – whom we need if we are to win a majority – than it would to win back Defectors.
It is notoriously difficult in polling to work out the electoral impact of a given policy with any certainty. People vote for a host of different reasons; their choice must take into account everything they know or feel, good and bad, about a party or candidate. They are therefore very unreliable when it comes to assessing to what extent one issue, taken in isolation, will affect their decision. Some Conservatives will no doubt find themselves unable to vote Tory this time if the plans gothrough – but it is also clear that the traffic would not all be one way...

From a fascinating, detailed article on Conservativehome by Lord Ashcroft, the Conservative Party's chief electoral strategist.
Note its implication that dropping gay marriage has been seriously considered.
And how principle doesn't come into it.

Marriage Polls: Christian Miracles

David Cameron’s plans to introduce same-sex marriage could have cost the Tories the support of millions of churchgoers, polling suggests. 

Almost six out of 10 people who attend services regularly say they are less likely to vote Conservative at the next election because of the plans to redefine marriage.

More than a third of those polled said it had no effect on whether they would support the Conservatives but most of them would never vote for the party anyway...

Daily Telegraph. 

But of course this is in the serial gay marriage bashing Telegraph. 
Can you guess who's behind this poll? 
Yup, it's the evangelical Christian fruitloops at Coalition4Marriage.
And it was conducted by ComRes, who've also conducted marriage polls for the Christian Institute and Catholic Voices. 
Here's why they were both discredited by using dubious methods/questions - and, as if by magic, produced results that showed support for gay marriage at about half that of other polls.
How do they do it?

Scottish Sun: I Was Away When We Did Numbers

THE majority of Scots are AGAINST plans to legalise gay weddings, according to new figures.
'Around 70,000 people responded to the issue in one of the biggest Scottish Government surveys since devolution.
'And about Two-thirds — 50,000 — are opposed to the proposals...'

The Scottish Sun.

Ah, no, sorry - not true.
This is just how the amount of responses to the Scottish government's consultation divvy up.
You can't spin it into being a representative "survey" of how the nation feels.
That would be silly.
My hunch is you've been spoonfed this distortion by some wee bigot from Scotland For Marriage, who you quote.
But that's balls, too - when the consultation closed in December only 50,000 responses had been received in total. 
But you are good enough to add a bit of small print somewhere near the bottom of this story that in an actual survey the opposite is true.
'A recent poll supported by gay rights groups found that two-thirds of Scots were in FAVOUR of marriage rights for gays.'
Yup, in a MORI poll released quite literally yesterday 64% of Scottish people said they support gay marriage.

PS The Home Office received more than 100,000 responses to the consultation on introducing gay marriage into England and Wales - this is believed to be the biggest ever response to a Home Office proposal. 

Gay Marriage: Look At Me! Look At Me!

PoliticsHome has got some nice graphics for the latest YouGov/Sunday Times poll on gay marriage.
They conclude it's unconvincing for the Tory right to say the issue is a "distraction", when a majority of people now support it.
Here it is broken down by age...

• Conducted May 10th-11th. Original online versions appear to have disappeared into the ether...

Marriage Equality: U-turns & Avalanches

"A survey by pollsters ComRes suggested Mr Cameron’s strong support for same-sex marriage could cost his party up to 30 seats in a general election. The UK Independence Party (Ukip) stands to benefit most from the drop in Tory support on this issue, the survey indicates, in what will be seen as further evidence that the Prime Minister is concentrating on policies that fail to appeal in his party’s heartlands."

The Sunday Telegraph.
This factoid was dropped into an interview with Boris Johnson.
Apropos of nothing, as the Telegraph had pointed out earlier in the article; "Mr Johnson, who takes on Labour’s Ken Livingstone in this week’s mayoral election in London, does not mention issues such as gay marriage and the environment – policies that Mr Cameron has promoted recently, earning him criticism from his party."
The uncitated 30-seats claim is presumably extrapolated from a highly dubious ComRes/Catholic Voices poll.
EDIT: Nope, it was taken from this ComRes/Christian Institute poll, which wasn't published til May, so the "exclusive" result was fed to the journalist. 
That put support for gay marriage at half of that of two other recent polls.
ie The claim is highly dubious and I imagine it's just been fed to the journalist by those well-known liars at Coalition 4 Marriage. 
Needless to say the Mail On Sunday is also hammering away today on the now familiar "vote loser" riff - and are also making hysterical claims they don't back up and that don't stand up that I bet they got from you-know-who.
'U-turn Tory MPs tell constituents: 'We were wrong on gay marriage' in bid to win back voters''
"David Cameron is under intense pressure to ditch his gay marriage initiative amid claims that Tory MPs fear they are 'haemorrhaging' votes over the issue...
"The pressure on Mr Cameron has been increased by warnings that a Tory rebellion in the Commons would eclipse last year's EU referendum revolt, when 81 Conservatives defied the Prime Minister. "Backbenchers are reporting an 'avalanche' of protests from Conservative supporters over the gay marriage initiative championed by Mr Cameron...
"MPs have been so stunned by the scale of the protests that a secret group has been set up by Tory MPs at Westminster to force Mr Cameron to back down. Many of the MPs admit that the 'avalanche' of letters from the Tory grass roots was forcing them to change their views."
There may have been an "avalanche" of letters about this - gay marriage must be a green light to the green ink brigade.
MPs of all parties are quite used to receiving these cranks' hatemail and probably ignore them - just as they ignore most e-petitions.
But how many MPs have actually changed their views?
Interestingly the Mail On Sunday could only find one who claimed this, Philip Lee, the newly-elected nobody for Bracknell. 
That number again - one.
The Mail make another assertion; "The Mail on Sunday has been told that Chief Whip Patrick McLoughlin has privately assured anxious Tory backbenchers that the Prime Minister's same-sex marriage plan will 'not come to a vote'.
"The MPs say Mr McLoughlin told them the controversial proposal will be 'kicked into the long grass'."
As the crisis for David Cameron continues, both within his own party and amongst an electorate with far more pressing problems, I wouldn't be surprised if the Mail On Sunday have actually got this bit right.

Stupid Poll Watch: Many Gay Tories Voting Tory

'Clegg Tops Gay Poll — But For Looks Rather Than Policies' reports The Sunday Times.
Message: Nick Clegg is a joke. Being gay is a joke.
Wait there's more...
"The poll, conducted among 1,100 mainly city-dwelling gay men, also reveals that 36% would vote Tory if there were a general election tomorrow.
"Labour comes second with 34% while, regardless of Clegg’s personal appeal, the Liberal Democrats trail with 22%."
Really? So who's behind this poll?
"The survey was carried out by Jake, a gay networking organisation, run by Ivan Massow, a businessman and Tory supporter."
Ah Jake - the site for "the UK's gay professional community".
So, it's not for gay men that are "city-dwelling", but gay men who work in the city - gay businessmen, guppies.
And 36% of these rich queens say they'll vote Tory - you amaze me!*
The tragedy is that these completely unscientific online "polls" are often quoted back at us as evidence of gay mens' actual voting habits - even when they're distinctly partisan and/or they've clearly been targeted by political parties so the results go up and down like a rent boy's knickers.
And don't get me started on that foxhunting fuckwit Ivan Massow...

* This is also marginally less than the proportion of the general population who say they'd vote Tory in the latest YouGov/SundayTimes poll.

European Social Attitudes: Poles Lose Poll

"People in the EU's leading member states remain loyal to the organisation's founding values of openness and liberalism, the Guardian's five-country poll shows. Despite the economic crisis and the rise of extreme political parties, an overwhelming majority of Europeans describe themselves as liberal – even on issues such as gay rights..."

Even?!
It's hard to extrapolate much from this poll in The Guardian about how respondents feel about les gais, as people were not asked a specific question about how they thought about gay rights, but if they agreed with the statement; "My attitude to social issues - marriage, women's rights or gay rights - is liberal".
The results were
All 62, UK 60, Germany 68, France 59, Spain 72, Poland 49.
So we're lagging behind Spain and Germany and le average.
Well done Team UK!

You can read the full findings here.