Voodoo polls ...

One of my pet hates are what Sir Bob Worcester calls "Voodoo polls". These are classically on-line polls beloved by political web sites.

A beautiful example is the one today on ConservativeHome here. "Two-thirds of Conservative members say Andrew MacKay should cease to be Tory MP"

Er no it doesn't mean that at all. It means that 2/3rd of the people who clicked the buttons said that "Andrew MacKay should cease to be Tory MP". The people who took the poll were self-selecting - they got off their arses and clicked the buttons. How do we know that they were Conservative members? Were their membership numbers checked? Er no. All that happened was that the people said they were Conservative members ... a very very different thing altogether. Next , were the people who were actually Tory party members representative of the party at large? Again we don't know the demographics of the people involved. All we are certain of is that they had access to the Internet. They could have drifted to the website or they all could come from LabourList or LabourHome .

There is nothing to control the poll, nothing to check whether it is being fixed, no attempt to make it a demographic sample. The poll is completely meaningless but it made the Spectator here.

More on Voodoo Polls



Update

It has made Ben Brogan in the Telegraph ...

How do we select MPs

I have always liked and admired Kate Hoey for her constantly being independently bloody minded and not being lobby fodder. Individuals like her are becoming fewer and fewer which is greatly to the detriment of Parliament. I DON'T want MP's who - like the Ruler of the Queen's Navy "I always voted at my Party's call And I never thought of thinking for myself at all".

I am deeply concerned that the route to becoming an MP is more and more via the parties - Special Advisers for example - is now the norm and that the experience of life outside politics is deminishing. There are exceptions of course - Liam Fox & Nadine Dorries are both medically trained - but they are now becoming fewer and fewer much to Parliament's detriment.

When are the pair we are all waiting for coming out?

Balls & Cooper ....

I checked with Guido this morning (yes he DOES answer emails!) and he had heard nothing of the rumoured injunction so I suspect that the Telegraph will be publishing their expenses soon....

This becoming like the Augean Stables - a complete clean out is required.

I must say that Cameron is handling this with far greater skill than Brown, even Mackay's loss was dealt with far more effectively than Labour did with Morley - especially now it has emerged that the Labour chief whip knew about the problem with Morley at least a week ago ....

Just when you thought the worst of the expenses claims were over

This man appeared. Has he no shame? Claiming Remembrance Sunday wreathes on expenses is really the lowest of the low.

The Telegraph must be careful

It is becoming obvious that the tactic being used by MP's in order to defend themselves against the indefensible (apart from the dreadful "its all within the rules") is to pounce on the slightest inaccuracy in their reporting. A good example is Phil Woolas's tampons and women's clothing. I strongly suspect - as does Dizzy - that this was a clerical error and that the Telegraph go this minor point wrong - it doesn't detract from the general thrust of their reporting - but this defence will be used again and again: a minor error by the Telegraph will be used as a smokescreen by the MPs.

I am impressed by Margaret Moran though.... She hasn't actually said in what respect the Telegraph is wrong. Just that it is ...

She is an MP and an honorable member so I must believe her.

Expenses claim

I love Harperson's comment : "I don't think there's any reason for resignations, but there is reason to tighten up the system "

When did she have this Pauline convertion?

Trident

One of the very big decisions that Cameron will have to take when he becomes Prime Minister is whether to build a replacement for Trident in about 10 years time. I am not certain whether he should, even though this might mean the end of the British "independent" nuclear deterrent.

Firstly the sheer cost of £21billion (at present - it will rise it always does) is just too much for the services to carry. I know that Trident is considered to be a national asset and comes out of the MoD budget rather than the Navy's but it still a huge amount, especially given the cost of the two new aircraft carriers.

Secondly, and this refers to the carriers. It is my view that expeditionary warfare will be the norm for the foreseeable future - given the changing patterns of warfare to what Rupert Smith in his book "Utility of Force" called "wars amongst people" and hence the ability to power project is much more important than having the ultimate deterrent. We will not be able to guarantee having use of friendly airfields close by the theatre of operations and having a carrier or two would be of far far more use to operations than a Trident sub. (BTW the same argument also applies to the "heavy army" - the armoured regiments of Charley 2 tanks - resources should be swung to the infantry) . I don't believe that we can afford both the carriers and the subs so given the current nature of warfare the carriers MUST come first.

As for for Trident being the ultimate deterrent, there would be only a few states now that would even contemplate using nukes and these would be rogue states such as Iran or N. Korea. The issue I have - and its a selfish one I agree - is whether they would attack us with nuclear weapons - and frankly I don't believe they would. Trident would be of no use whatsoever against terrorists armed with nuclear weapons (the basic designs of which are openly available) since they wouldn't care about retailaton. Would we take out, say, Teheran, if an Iranian based terrorist group attacked the UK?

On balance I am coming to the conclusion that Trident must go ....