http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18264385
The link above shows the ranking of political parties, in the United Kingdom, through opinion polls for about the past two years. It shows that there has been a steady preference towards the labor party. The Group that comes in second is the conservative party. These two groups would be comparable to our republican and democrat parties, in the way that these are the two main parties that compete. There were a few different surveys taken, over the phone and internet, and each one included 1,000-1,500 interviewees. There is a margin of error of +/- 3%, that we must take into consideration.
Seeing as we read chapter 2 about how the parties evolved and the impacts they made on the UK, i felt this article was relevant. It shows how the citizens of the UK still feel about these political parties and if there were any changes in the past two years.
This is pretty interesting. I really wonder what it would be like if America had more than two parties. I wanted to know a little more about how they actually calculated this. I read over the methodology, but most of that stuff went over my head. In any event, the BBC poll of polls is perhaps their most effective way of measuring such a thing.
ReplyDeleteThe methodology for that (according to the article) is "Looking at the five most recent polls it takes the middle value for each party, in other words, the value that means there are two figures higher and two figures lower."
I guess that can effective, but surveys are so random. It would be really nice to see a 3-4 party system in the USA. Or at least cut both parties in half. Too many Democrats and Republicans lean towards the middle, and I think there should be a balance.