Mindtracking PMQs – Crowdsourcing v Punditry
Yesterday’s Mindtracker for PMQs was very interesting datawise for political geeks, over a thousand people (1,150 people between 4 p.m. and 10 p.m.) twiddled their knobs online, so the poll is statistically valid. In comparison Frank Luntz typically has only 30 people polled in a room. Watch the video above to see how people responded in realtime. The chart below shows how viewers scored the PMQs exchange at key points:
Overall yesterday was a win for William Hague. Crucially voters who defined themselves as being in the centre scored the contest as a win for Hague, even those who defined themselves as being on the left tended to think that Hague won the argument. If you want to drill down the full analysis and get a look at a bigger chart it is all here.
Next week following PMQs the experiment will run across a number of blogs from across the spectrum. Will be very interesting to compare differing responses from different readerships…
What proportion of the people doing this were from here?
You’ve already got a rather specific group of people.
And frankly even though i have a reasonable interest in politics, I wouldnt listen to PMQ’s unless someone paid me, its so often just an irritating punch and judy show.
I never did like debating society types.
Guido, the citizen observers whose perceptions were polled, and good sense all declare that Hague won the debate. Then why did the habitually astute and Toryphilic Iain Dale award the triumph to Harman, albeit by a single point on a scale of 10, and give vacillating, over-rated Vince Cable equal acclaim?
Has Dirty Tricks Brown opened his box of other people’s scandalous secrets again?
Scary if true, as it would indicate that the likes of embee on this site are infesting other blogs in sufficient number (or with enough frequency and persistence) to skew their online polls.
The proper free-market response would be to outsource this kind of work to India.
Wouldn’t it be a scandal if these voters were found to be paid out of the public purse?
Conclusive proof that Harriet Harman is not Tessa Jowell’s love child They may be sisters though.
Policy wonk twaddle.
Seen it all before and it is commonly used to test phrases and soundbites.
PMQ’s has a tiny effect for the vast majority of voters.
Opinion Polls for all their faults are still better and more reliable than these highly volatile snapshots.
The reason is that Iain has a soft spot for females. It’s as simple and no more complicated than that.
Whether it’s Harman, or hissy fitting Flint, mad Naddy or even Blears, poor old Iain just loves them. Loves them to bits.
Simple as that.
do you think that means that he secretly want to go back into the closet and climb out of the top
Don’t assume that everyone here is a dyed-in-the-wool Tory. Some of us come here because we want a different view of the status quo from the MSM and to have a rant about lies, sleaze and disinformation.
Hear hear. I hate all politicians equally.
Why is it you presume that most of us aren’t?
The media and those on the left can’t actually get their head around the fact that come the election the majority will decide to vote against the government(notice I said “against the government” and not actually for the Conservatives!)because they are just fed up with Brown not actually being honest with them and treating them as adults.If Brown/Labour actually had been honest about the necessity for post election spending cuts and higher taxes;apologised;admitted they’d “fucked things up” and stopped trying to areue that Labour would not make cuts after an election whilst trying to score points off the opposition parties all the time then they might have actually been better placed electorally than they are now. As it is people have just had enough of them. The majority will probably vote against the government just to get rid of Brown but that doesn’t necessarily mean they think the Tories would be any better at putting the mess right than him
I would hope people vote for anyone but the current bastards. Give them a shock of their life. Make them have to find a proper job for once.
No more troughing/spin/deceit/lies/etc.
Vote UKIP, Independent, B&P, loony… anything but the current shower of shites.
Because we are not Tories ourselves, and only about 12% of the population voted Tory in the recent Euro elections – better than 5% that ZaNu got, but means you lot are unlikely to be in a majority anywhere outside the Conservative Club. It’s the usual smear that Jonty and co put round to undermine Guido – “you’re all just mindless Tories”. Well we’re not.
My (personal) view is that Hague won easily but no – it was not a statistically valid exercise. Statistical validity requires a sample of both sufficient size and one which is representative. The size of this sample is fine but it was self selecting from the readership of a blog with a skewed population. I appreciate you may not be a professional statistician but this only requires mathematical knowledge at the level of a 10 year old…..
You do talk bollocks, having a “representative” sample is irrelevant for the purposes here. The data reveals how people respond to the rhetoric. Generally and from self identified political affiliations. It is not trying to discover anything more than that.
You obviously have no concept of statistical validity. It has a specific technical meaning. Consult a statistician.
The most important observation is that centre voters responded almost identically to ‘right-leaning’ respondents. These centre voters were previously known as shy Tories and are intrisically conservative.
anonospaz,
politics is an art not a science.
so you can shove your statistical validity up your arse.
DOH!
what a spastistical invalid!
Ah tat – back from the Toytown Nazis annual granny bash.
And even if it is unrepresentative, the detail provided by this technique is something new.
Once they work out what “representative” means in different contexts it will provide evidence for the spinners that, yes, we really do find it unbearably irritating when politicians speak from the cue cards and when they refuse to answer the damn question …
And have you noticed that Harman scores best when she stops speaking …
She could score even better if she stopped breathing.
I am afraid that gets the response I often used to market research companies – its bleedin obvious and I don’t need to spend money to know that!
It’d be interesting if you run a similar experiment except with Broon and Cameron
That’ll be next Wednesday then!
Should be obvious what the result will be though – is there anything left that Broon can say to increase his ratings when everyone agrees he’s a lying cnut…?
The obvious thing for Broon to say is “David. Did you or anyone else in your party ever receive info from the NOW derived from their illegal phone taps?”. Unless DC gives a cast iron unambiguous denial (which he cannot do unless he has already run a deep investigation) then DC will look like an evader, a sleazeball and all the other things we know Broon to be.
Anon, you’ve forgotton that midday on Wednesday is for questions TO the Prime Mentalist, not questions from him!
Not at all – since when did Golem stick to any rules?
You’ve got the Coulson thingy wrong Guido.
It’s becoming BIG news…Thousands of Politicians have been hacked according to the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8142047.stm
they need to be hacked to make sure they are not being naughty. as we have seen from expenses they are not capable of behaving themselves unwatched!!
Remember, the BBC pull their stories from whatever comes down the newswire. And what gets sent down the news wire? Spin and misinformation direct from the dodgy politicians
It’s looking very very bad for the Tories.
This is moving well beyond an adviser engaged in dirty doings in his previous job.
There are now concerns that the Tories may have all along been receiving criminally acquired material on their political opponents.
We could have the whole Tory leadership in the dock for this one.
All it needs is one email, one communication between a member of the Tory party or leadership and the Screws, and it’s curtains for a whole generation of Tories.
If I were a Tory I’d be holidaying close to home this recess.
It’s that bad.
That’s SCOTLAND Yard, by the way.
I’ve had my eye on you Tories for a while.
Not so funny now, eh.
Fuck off back to your ACPO meeting and discuss new cars, nannies and other back handers.
Hmmm. Don’t like the police, eh.
Have you something to hide, Tory boy?
Don’t call me a fucking Tory you pig, I am not Labour either.
Fuck off.
If you really are a copper, Yates, it’s time you were outed. Clearly gross professional misconduct to come on here and threaten people on the basis of their political allegiance.
Fuckin chav scum
Sounds great!
And where pray tell are these ‘concerns’ being expressed? Please post a link,or quote a source. Even the Guardian is not making that allegation.
Some cynical folk might conclude you are simply smearing,which I am sure is untrue. Isn’t it ?
You think it bizarre, do you?
There are many threads to unravel yet.
Just wait and see….
We only have hundreds of policitians, it’s just we seem to be paying for thousands!
They should all be spiked after they have been hacked. The naughty step is the last one up to the platform where the fuckers are to be hanged until dead followed by a quick trip (head only) to Westminster Bridge.
Very interesting and informative to an extent. However I have grave doubts about the long term exposure of this mecanism to us Joe Bloggses from Internetsville.
What is to stop a political party flooding these surveys with its activists and getting them to pretend to be from the centre or from their political opponents thus skewing the results.
Would the parties at the grass roots really have the time and resources to bother with skewing a mind track survey when they could be out canvassing with real people who dont spend all day reading political blogs?
Would you fancy knocking on someones door and telling them that you’re from the Labour Party?
Are you tired of living?
They’d get a better reception if they were from the B&P party for sure.
tons of champagne socialists knock on doors every weekend so they must get a kick out of being told to fuck off.
Besides not even there stupid enough to think that rigging a few opinion polls will contribute in anyway to winning a seat.
#54. Not from me. The BNP thugs beat up a lone girl in my area just for being Polish. Typical cowardice.
Unfortunately so – especially in the summer – they can hire students for either unpaid internships or minimum wage to do just this sort of thing all day.
Good exercise though Guido, I’m not sure who’s behind it but they are to be commended.
The sample from yesterday was of course self-selecting and if they were only from this blog then most likely to be right-wing.
What the survey does show well is the relative thoughts based on what the politicians are saying. Harman’s vote goes up when she says that Labour have built schoools and hospitals (which they have, even if most of them are on the PFI never-never) and goes down when saying that cuts are investments. Hague’s ratings went up when he joked about spending 100% of her time on answering the question and admitting that the next government are in the shit no matter what colour it is…
The idea is that you find out who is best at debating in public and then let them decide how children should be taught to read, what measure of M0 money supply we should aim for or what kind of helicopter to buy for the army. We could instead stage contests at darts, freestyle wrestling or embroidery but the results would probably be no better.
“Because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken as necessarily true.” (St Augustine of Hippo)
Yes but the person saying it knows how to make something sound true, at least, implying a sense of what sounds false, and logically, between the two, or a some other location, what actually is true. That’s politics!
The most brilliant public speaker of the 20th century, by a country mile, was Josef Goebbels. He certainly knew what was true and was careful to avoid it. I rest my case.
What about topless elections?
Elections or Erections?
Depends on the opinion poles.
No elections before bleakfast.
DZ
How many female MPs would you want to see with their tops off?!
Caroline Flint and thats about it
Ann Widdicombe, but only from an anthropological perspective.
Perhaps manufacturers of slippers could pick up a few ideas at such an
event.
We could resolve international disputes along the lines of our MP’s going up against a foreign team at ‘It’s a Knockout’
There are lies, damned lies and statistics – and statsitics are at best only a snapshot of the past, not necessarily a predictive tool. The biggest problem with Whitehall Statistics is what they measure, it is a very selective sampling process which looks only at some very isolated data and excludes anything which would show up any flaw in the ideological policies driving their collection.
“Traffic calming” measures are a good case in point – the Department of Transport has put a ban on anyone collecting information on how many accidents are happening at any of the many “traffic calming” obstacles now littering our roads. The second problem with their numbers is that they are frequently collected from reports and documents that do not necessarily contain accurate information. Fire statistics are another case in point, being collected from Fire Damage Reports which contain a single question – “The supposed cause of fire?” Once it hits Whitehall the word “supposed” vanishes even though anyone connected with these forms will tell you that the answer put in that box is usually a best guess after a quick look around and a chat to the occupier – who may not want to tell you what really happened!
PMQ’s are the finest example of how democracy should NOT be operated. It’s nothing more than a silly point scoring exercise in saying “Yah-boo-sucks” across the floor. Even less edifying is the bankrupt Labour Party tactic of never answering any question on their own policy without giving a flawed and biased diatribe about what the Conservatives will or won’t do according to Gordon.
why is everybody so offensive on this blog?
if you cannot express yourself without bad language, keep your ideas to yourself!!!!
Piss off.
If I am offensive it’s because I am fucked off with all politicians and the media.
This is a good day. You should see it when they’re annoyed about something…
Just ignore the worst of the profanity. It’s no worse, in fairness, than the average factory shop-floor, and often more inventive.
you don’t mind the language when i am banging you like a barn door in a gale darling.
x
Lord, give me chastity and continence, but not yet!
Maybe it’s because nearly everyone commenting here is so FUCKED OFF with the way the bunch of C.U.N.T.S that we call a government are FUCKING the country up beyond belief – and we have no FUCKING say in the matter because they won’t let us have a bloody election
Even with a sodding election it will be just more of the same. I’m getting to the point where I really can’t stand it. Anything is preferable to the same self-serving types who think it is their fucking right to get elected every so often.
Cúnts the lot of them. String them up as an example to others.
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Taking it up the wrong ‘un are we Miss Scribble?
Jesus, what a waste of space. Politicos and other similar types gazing at their navels again.
ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz
Go back to the celebrity nude angling on Sky 69!
Go back to your constituency and prepare for the bum fuck of your life tosser.
May I join in?
I did this thing yesterday, going from Guido’s site. I have to say it seems absolutely pointless and virtually incomprehensible. I’m a left-wing anarchist who happens to find Hague vastly more entertaining than Harman, but what does that prove.
That your at perhaps honest ?
How can you be an anarchist if you are left wing?
how can you be English if you are a viking?
cretin.
Easy.
This is going to keep Team Prescott jnr/McBride and the Labour astroturfers very busy …
Hope your monitoring IP addresses etc to help spot them.
Name recognition is everything.
Gi’mae tha’ money, – an’ ‘arl wast’ i’ fa’ ye.
An’ Premier Mandulshit sae’s nuthin’s ma’ fult ye udnerstan’
“so the poll is statistically valid”
No it isn’t if the the sample was biased in the first place! Somehow doubt that the sample was random.
As a trial run it was informative – and as Guido says next week it’s going to be run over a number of blogs with varying political affiliations, which should make the results even more interesting.
Everything has to start somewhere. This was a good start.
Obviously harriett’s hectoring style is not as popular as she’d like to think. Perhaps when she realises how poorly she rated it will shut her up for a while.
Interesting that she had least influence on swing voters – the very one’s labour needs to win over if they have any chance in the next GE (NOT!).
I actually thought william was far too gentlemanly yesterday – this mindtracking thing shows a different picture (point of the exercise) and his approach did work for the voters.
Be good to see what it makes of cameron and gordon next week.
I did the poll thing but the sound wouldn’t work and I couldn’t turn the clip off to spend time fixing it so I had to base my response on lip-reading and body language. Without sound, the overwhelming impression was of Harriet Harman haranguing the commons like a self-righteous headmistress faced with 6 pregnant 5th formers . I moved my response further and further to the right the longer she laid down the law . I had watched PMQs earlier and was struck by how much worse she came over when there wasn’t any sound even though the viewer was deprived of such stunning porkies as Labour paying down debt.
BTW it must have been a relief to the PM that he didn’t have to soil his hands by indulging in personal attacks but could leave it to Hattie.
Well, that gives us a clue as to how pointless the whole thing is. Blunkett should have a go by the sound of it.
It’s udder nonsense about me being investigated by the Yard – they wouldn’t dare.
And all this nonsense about my ‘mansion’ in Chhatak is just a joke. It’s hardly more than a shack, although admittedly an eight-bedroomed shack covered in gilded marble.
“over a thousand people…. so the poll is statistically valid”
– Oh come on Guido! You’re not an idiot, and you do know better than that. It is the quality of the sample (lack of bias) that makes it representative, and all representative samples are statistically valid, it is just that the errors are big from small samples. Your self-selected sample from among a narrow audience with a particular set of interests has no chance of representing the population as a whole. Professional pollsters get their errors down to 3% with 90+% confidence only by using demographic matching of an otherwise as-random-as-possible sample, and then correcting for known biasses in their sampling techniques.
Not in New Labour focus groups they don’t. In the early days of the Blair administration, an acquaintance of mine accompanied a minister to a series of focus groups. She was astounded to see participants showing up more than once, chatting on first name terms with the organizers and arranging lifts home with them. Those were, of course, the early days – she wouldn’t have been at all surprised after a year or so.
Harriet Harperson – Labour, ex-public school,
William Hague – Tory, ex-Comprehensive school.
It’s a funny old world isn’t it?
I did the survey thingy and need to admit I was confused to begin with; by thinking the slider to the left was negative, thus accidentally giving credit to Harman when innappropriate. I soon got the hang of it though. The other question I pondered was whether whom was winning the argument or whether one believed the tripe. So for being argumentative Harman did quite well although she was talking bullshit in my oppinion. I would like to see the rules for sliding the slider defined as to not who is winning the argument but to whom is convincing. “Nurse, nurse”..
How old is Murdoch?
Too old.
As old as time some say
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch says he’s 78. Not the most reliable source in the world I know, but they usually get basic facts right.
Guido, you should do a similar thing with First Ministers Questions in Scotland (every Thursday when sitting) the gulf between the SNP Government and the twats that sit in the Labour benches is a chasm with the Labour group struggling to make any headway what so ever and a bit of a laughing stock.
The entertainment value can sometimes be priceless!
Strictly in the public interest, the Financial Times has broken the code to Andy Coulson’s voice mail. There is little doubt that the ends justify the means. Just see for yourselves.
“Hi Andy it’s Sue. The Guardian have called again. I told him you had no comment. But he says he’s going to stand outside CCHQ and call every hour until you say something. Just thought you should know.”
“Andy it’s me. DON’T forget the milk on your way home. And remember it’s no Blackberry night tonight. Luv ya Peachy.”
“Rupert here. You’d better call.”
“Hello Andy it’s Paul Livers calling from C-Rap PR. Hope you’re sitting down ’cause we’ve got a Grrreat story for your Bizarre column….”
“Andy, look, I’ve seen the photos of Dave and, alright, they’re not the most flattering. But I don’t see what you think I could have done. I’m not bloody watching over the shoulder of every picture editor in this place. And the idea that I’m going to order them to use only pictures of his left hand side…look, give just give us a call. I’m around this evening.”
“Andy, it’s Peter here. The Telegraph are damn well at it again. They’re obsessed with this one blasted claim I made four years ago, really very boring, the wife insisted on getting the damn thing. I can’t believe it will make a story, it’s dashed dull and the fees office didn’t even give me the money for it. But, just in case, it might be worth me talking you through it.”
Get a life you annoying little C.U.N.T.
Questions I have often asked on political blog sites that are never answered.
So here goes
How many QUANGO members are relatves of MPs or senior civil sevants?.
Why are these jobs not advertised?
Who appoints these people?
Why are they allways appointed without the knowledge of the electorate?
Is it yet another example of the old boy/girl network?
Some time ago it was alledged that David Mellor (ex MPs) wife was on quite a few Quangoes. If this was in fact true how did she get these appointments and why did she get on more than one quango?
Are any of the cabinet or shaddow cabinets relations on quangoes and if so why?
Come on Guido get digging
Interesting is Harman’s “they have proposals to cut spending now” line early. Right-leaners went towards Harman at that point – being concerned about cuts? Yet, the CENTRE went more towards Hague. The only point where any of left/right/centre significantly “crossed over.”
Does this suggest that the floating voter is concerned about over-spending and would LIKE to see cuts now?! Or am I wrong conflating “floating voter” and “centre”?
I think you might be. I’ve never forgotten – and you’ll have to forgive me for going back so far – the American who told me her aunt voted for the liberal McCarthy in the Democratic primary in her state in 1968 and for the less-than-liberal Wallace in the presidential election. I think you’ll find floaters here are just as…. let’s say whimsical.
So how is this left right thing meant to work? Does it mean economic left/right, social left/right or something else? How come commies are left and fascists are right, the are both authoritarian.
It would be much better, though still not ideal, to use one of those other spectrum with another. Or perhaps drop the left right thing, it only serves to confuse.
[...] Mindtracker to gauge audience response to the exchanges at PMQ’s. The following day, Guido published the analysis of the Mindtracker [...]
The Onion goes one better with real-time feedback:
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/new_live_poll_allows_pundits_to
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Silvio Myndtrakker Says SARAH PALIN TORQUES WELL IN PYQKTISH ALSKAHAN
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PYQKTISH ALASSKAHAN TOSH