andrewducker: (Default)
andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2021-11-17 12:00 pm

Interesting Links for 17-11-2021

danieldwilliam: (Default)

Re: Joanna Cherry

[personal profile] danieldwilliam 2021-11-17 03:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Jings and indeed Crivens.

"If it turns out that some people want to split the party by going against party policy then I guess they might do so at that point."

Exactly this but also, the party is much more than the activists who go to conference. It rests on its support amongst ordinary voters. A "party" can remain 100% unified on its policy platform by pro-actively expelling anyone who even thinks disagreeing with the policy platform ought to be allowed but voters can take their suppport elsewhere.
danieldwilliam: (Default)

Re: Joanna Cherry

[personal profile] danieldwilliam 2021-11-17 04:49 pm (UTC)(link)
I think you are drawing the wrong conclusion from the voting intention polling.

It doesn't indicate that voters support SNP policy on this issue. It doesn't particularly indicate that they are content to go along with the generality of the SNP offer despite disagreeing with them on this issue.

Most voters do not pay attention to politics. Almost no voters pay attention to policy outside of elections. Mid-term voters generally look at the tone and values of a political party, whether it appears competent and occassionally a policy issue will break through - such as a botched budget or the recent Tory corruption scandal.

Remembering that we life in a polity where almost every voter ranks "the economy" as one of the most important issues but almost no voters could draw you a set of supply and demand curves.

High information voters are tracking policy at a headline level on perhaps 3 or 4 major issues. Activists and political hobbiests (like thee and me) are ultra high information voters with a particular niche interest in 1 or 2 policy issues.

So voters are not leaving the SNP over a policy they disagree with not because they are prepared to put up with the SNP position on a policy they don't agree with but because they currently are not paying attention to the policy debate.

But if the BBC headlines are "Joanna Cherry expelled from SNP by Youth Wing Activists" then voters (not activits and not even high information voters, but ordinary punters) might start paying more attention to the issues involved. The James Kelly polling suggests that if they do start paying attention to this issue specifically that might be bad news for your team.

As for hoping that people don't go around acting disunified, I'm not sure a strategy that relies on your enemies continuing to do what you want them to do is a well founded strategy.
danieldwilliam: (Default)

Re: Joanna Cherry

[personal profile] danieldwilliam 2021-11-17 05:03 pm (UTC)(link)
That is absolutely the correct take from this.