Iraq war poll: London isn't Britain

A poll for the BBC on the Iraq war finds that only one-third of Britons now think that the US-led Iraq war was right.  Interestingly, the poll finds stark regional variations in support for the war (see page two of this).  Only 18% of people in London think it was right but the share increases to 38% in South West England and to 42% in Scotland.  The fact that the South-West is so different from London and the South-East suggests that the regional variations cannot be dismissed as simply reflecting higher bedrock support for Labour in places like Scotland.  I think they are a reminder that London is neither England nor Britain but that it has much more metropolitan outlook.  Ken Livingstone's London records higher opposition to the war than any other part of the UK.  Discuss!

PS The poll does suggest that post-Iraq Britons have not closed their hearts and minds to international military action in the case of genocide or disaster relief: "Some 57% were in support of this kind of action even if the countries involved did not pose a direct threat to Britain's national security, while 24% opposed it."

Comments

[David Boothroyd]

I'm glad the Tories acknowledge that "London belongs to Ken".

[TomTom]

London has nothing to do with Britain - it is a place where foreigners congregate and pretend to be British - no doubt with nine British passports !

The main recruiting areas for the British Army are Scotland and the North of England, largely Yorkshire. For many people they see it as the place their sons are working in hazardous conditions rather than a dinner party topic before snorting coke in Notting Hill

[601]

42% of scots think the war was right? Aye, right!

[Peter Hatchet]

How on earth does Scotland have such a high-level of support for the Iraq War?

My experience is that Scots are on the whole much more pacifist than the English, detest trident and resentful of themselves being committed into "British" wars.

The fact that the sample size for this assertion is only 88 people doesn't inspire me with much confidence either.

Bizarre.

[Tim Montgomerie]

I think you make a good point about sample size, Peter.

[Struan Jamieson]

Quite right too- everytime I visit London, I feel I am visiting a foreign city- you don't see many Londoners- you don't hear a cockney voice, you don't hear a British accent. I might as well be in Lagos or Rawlpindi

[Matt Davis]

Don't forget that London also contains the greatest number of Muslim Britons and Muslims of all ethnic backgrounds have mostly been very firmly against the Iraq war from the very start. George Galloway got elected in London on that very point alone.

[malcolm]

Not many people even Labour voters are proud of Ken Livingstone David. Would you vote for a baboon if he wore a red rosette?
As regards the poll I simply don't believe it's accurate. Left wing Scotland and Lib Dem Southwest England are hardly more likely to support this war than other parts of the country.
Tomtoms point about recruitment for the Armed forces is pretty irrelevant to seeing as the numbers involved are relatively small.

[mamapajamas]

Agreed... the sample number is so small that it is more a "straw poll" than a scientific poll. I would call it as "valid" as an Internet poll, where users can log in and vote as many times as they wish via whatever acess they have to different computers and e-mail addresses ;).

For instance, I have access (right now) to 10 e-mail addresses and about 400 PCs. I can expand my e-mail addresses at will. Online polls that even bother to track users use either the e-mail address or the individual computers' IP address. If I wanted to "bend" the stats on an online poll, I could do it readily by myself. But why bother, since an online poll means nothing to anyone who matters?

Just as a poll with a sample of only 88 responders doesn't matter.

One can ALSO "bend" the stats on a regular "scientific" poll by asking confusing or misdirecting questions, or by stopping the polling when you reach the results you want ;).

A sample of 88 is preposterous.

[mamapajamas]

After writing the above comment, I spotted the following comment in the article posted:

"ICM interviewed a random sample of 1,019 adults across the country by telephone between 2 and 4 March this year."

1,019 is still a low number for polling (TOO low, IMHO) but it isn't 88.

Was the 88 figure for the number of Scots interviewed, maybe?

[mamapajamas]

After studying the stats, I agree that too much "weight" was given to London.

Giving polls more "weight" in large cities is another way to skew results. For instance, US polls have a tendency to give too much weight to New York City and Los Angeles, as if there were no land in between.

[Londoner]

Seems just to confirm the wisdom of Londoners to me. The "foreigners" whom some on here think are so prevalent in London would not be part of such a poll.

Bearing in mind that our Party is having a storming come-back in London just now, isn't it time that the party took even more notice of Londoners' sensible outlook on international matters?

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"Do you think the United States should keep its military forces in Iraq until civil order is restored there, even if that means continued U.S. military casualties; OR, do you think the United States should withdraw its military forces from Iraq in order to avoid further U.S. military casualties, even if that means civil order is not restored there?"

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Britain granted independence to Iraq in 1932, on the urging of King Faisal, though the British retained military bases and transit rights for their forces. King Ghazi ruled as a figurehead after King Faisal's death in 1933, while undermined by attempted military coups, until his death in 1939.

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