Polling can rot politics

Decision-Making

As a consequence, government too often moves from active to reactive - from thinking of new ideas to pandering to the latest popular trend. Public opinion, says Nadhim Zahawi, a Tory MP and founder of the polling firm YouGov, ‘used to be like a fine Scotch whisky: sipped and savoured occasionally’. Outside election season, Margaret Thatcher only received monthly updates on what voters thought, if that. Now, governments swig from that bottle every day.

You could argue that this helps them respond instantly to voters’ concerns. Yet all too often it leads to a focus on presentation over policy, and a willingness to back down in the face of noisy opposition (which itself is easier to put together in a more connected and less hierarchical age). As Zahawi says, ‘polls can only tell you how you should communicate what you want to do. They can’t tell you what you should do. Every policy creates a minority of losers, yet always the losers who are best organised and most vocal, particularly in an online arena.’

Monthly polling once left long gaps between readings. Daily polling can produce several readings before a policy has changed at all.

10:30. One noisy group dislikes the statement. The wording changes.

13:00. The change annoys a different group that had said nothing before. Another poll is commissioned.

16:45. The original movement sits inside the margin of error. Everybody has had a full day.

Polling can reveal harm, misunderstanding and a genuine shift in priorities. It can also turn every fluctuation into an instruction. The people most able to organise criticism then occupy more attention than quieter citizens who bear the consequences while producing no hashtag.

Product teams recognise the rhythm. A loud request arrives, acquires screenshots and becomes the next priority. The many users who benefit from the existing choice send no message at all. Visible pressure gets mistaken for representative demand.

A slower review has its own danger. Leaders can call stubbornness principle and use long-term thinking to ignore current harm. The issue is matching each kind of evidence to an appropriate change. Frequency alone is a poor rule.

Repeated questions alter the situation too. Ask about a minor issue each week and respondents learn that serious people apparently have positions on it. An improvised answer becomes a public commitment, then a constituency.

Long-term policy cannot ignore opinion. Nor can a daily percentage decide rights, distribution and future cost. Those judgements existed before the latest result and remain after it.

Four poll movements. Three revised messages. No new evidence about the policy.