Tuesday 9 July 2019

Fun With Numbers

The two articles are unremarkable, given their source. What amused me is that they are one day apart:

Polly Toynbee in The Guardian 25 June 2019:

Out in the real world, only a quarter of voters want a no-deal Brexit. For more than 18 months YouGov founder Peter Kellner has recorded a majority who now think the referendum result was wrong. For a year there has been an eight-point lead for remain, among all polls.

This has become a remain-majority country. This seminal fact – mostly due to Labour voters changing their minds, plus the older, more pro-Brexit voters dying, and the young, more remain, entering the register – is missing from most public discussion.


The Sun, 26 June 2019:

MORE voters want Britain to quit the EU now than at the time of Brexit referendum, a fresh poll has revealed. 57 per cent said they thought we should still leave the EU in some way, three years after Brits originally voted for Brexit in 2016.

43 per cent want Britain to Remain, and 16 per cent wanted a softer Brexit, the YouGov research for The Times showed. Just 13 per cent wanted us to quit the bloc with Theresa May's dead deal, compared to 28 per cent who stressed Britain should leave with no deal at all.


The common ground appears to be that about a quarter support No Deal, so that's probably true. The rest of either article is probably made up.

5 comments:

Sobers said...

Yet when Tony Blair won an election in 2005 with about 21% of the electorate she never complained................

Mark Wadsworth said...

S, exactly.

Bayard said...

She also can't do maths. Remain polled 48% on a 72% turnout. That's 35% of the electorate. "Labour voters changing their minds, plus the older, more pro-Brexit voters dying, and the young, more remain, entering the register" might make up and overtake the difference between 48% and 51%, but is very unlikely to do it for the difference between 35% and 51%.

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, you shouldn't compare 35% absolute with 51% relative.

Votes on referendum were 35% remain, 37% leave and 28% undecided.

What will make a difference is how many undecideds have since decided. Remain propaganda since 2016 has been much better, but still prone to rubbing up people the wrong way.

Bayard said...

"B, you shouldn't compare 35% absolute with 51% relative."

I wasn't, 51% was an absolute figure that represented "a majority", which is what PT was claiming. I could have used 50.000001%. Should have made it clearer.