By Tim Montgomerie
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Earlier today I noted that 41% of Britons couldn't spontaneously identify one single political event from recent weeks.
The finding came from a Lord Ashcroft poll that asked another slice
of voters to look through a list of political events and say whether
they'd heard a great deal, a bit or nothing of certain events*. Click on the table below to more clearly see the results…
Voters might not be being honest but it is encouraging – on the face
of it – that they do regard economic growth, new measures against
burglars and capping rail fares as much more important than whether, for
example, Cameron accidentally left one of his children behind in a pub.
The findings I most love though is the fact that 14% of voters
remembered imaginary Labour MP Audrey Cockburn using union campaign
funds to redecorate her home and 11% recalled hearing about married Tory
MP David Williams having a gay affair. Perhaps the story fits what many
voters expect of MPs?
> Read Lord Ashcroft's commentary on his poll.
* The exact question was: "Below is a list of political stories that you
may have heard about in the last few weeks or months. Some of these are true,
and some are invented. We would like to know whether you have heard about each
one. For each story
please indicate whether you have heard a great deal, a bit, or nothing at all
about this. If you have not heard about a story please be honest and say so –
this is not a general knowledge test. // Please say how important you
think each story is on a 0-10 scale, where 0 means “not important at all” and
10 means “extremely important”."