'Only 2% support hunting ban'

Do me a favour. What you mean is only 2% of people think that banning hunting is the most important thing. And that's not the same thing at all.

If you're going to twist statistics to make a point, at least learn how to do it properly instead of just clumsy obvious attempts to make yourself look stupid.

 http://www.league.uk.com/politics/general_political/public_opinion.htm

Public Opinion

Despite the assertions of the Countryside Alliance, support for a ban on hunting is still running strong.

Recent Polls.
More details of MORI polls on hunting are available on the MORI website:
 http://www.mori.com/polls/2002/cpha3.shtml

November 2003
76% of those surveyed in a MORI poll of 1,000 adults said that hunting with dogs should not be legal. The poll revealed that 82% of the public believe deer hunting should not be legal; 69% think foxhunting should not be legal; and 77% think hare hunting and coursing should not be legal. (76% is the average of these three figures.)

December 2002
80% of the public believe that hunting with dogs is cruel according to a MORI survey of 1,000 adults.

19th September 2002
Hunting is not humane and hunters should go drag hunting instead.
A MORI Social Research Institute Poll was commissioned to see if public opinion had changed due to the high profile arguments for and against hunting.

Of 1,002 people surveyed by MORI, 74% disagree that hunting with dogs is humane and a similar number (72%) believe that if people want to hunt they should go drag hunting instead of hunting a live quarry.

9th September 2002
Another MORI poll of 1,944 people showed that almost three-quarters of the public think that the government has taken too long to resolve the hunting issue. When asked to choose from a range of responses, 73% said that "The Government has taken too long to resolve the hunting issue, one way or the other."

18th March 2002
Hunting should be illegal.
A MORI poll released immediately after the Commons vote on hunting showed that 72% of people think that fox hunting should be illegal. 80% think deer hunting should be illegal and 81% think hare coursing should be illegal.

The poll also asked if people would support or oppose the government moving ahead to bring in a ban on hunting. 62% supported, 26% opposed and 9% neither supported or opposed.

Dodgy polls

The Countryside Alliance claim falling support based on polls with biased questioning and with three options (ban, licence or self-regulation) instead of two (ban or not).
The most recent example of this is criticised here:
 http://www.league.uk.com/news/media_briefings/2003/september03/5_sep_03_prohunting_poll_should_be_discounted.htm

Similarly, in April, they quoted approvingly an NOP poll with the biased wording: "A bill now before Parliament could result in hunting being controlled by a new independent regulatory authority rather than it being made a criminal offence. The authority would be appointed by the Home Secretary and its members and Chairman approved by Parliament. Given the choice, which one of these options would you be most likely to support?

* All hunting to be controlled by a regulatory authority.
* All hunting to be made a criminal offence.
* All hunting to be remain as it is, subject to self-regulation.
Professor Clive Nancarrow, Professor in Marketing Research at Bristol Business School, said, "As an academic specialising in marketing research, I have some concerns about the wording of the poll question and the conclusions being drawn from it.

"1) The phrasing of the introduction to the question may have swayed response. The introduction to the question relatively heavily features the option of hunt regulation by a regulatory authority and who would be involved. In my opinion, there is no need for this introduction to the question if one wishes the question and options presented to be perceived as totally neutral. One could argue that to be seen to be fair all three response options need expanding or none at all.

"2) The response option "All hunting to be made a criminal offence" I believe, breaks the trend in questioning over the years and so makes valid historical comparisons impossible. Previous polls have simply referred to a ban.

"3) There may be some confusion given the three options presented to respondents repeatedly refer to "all hunting" rather than "hunting with dogs". Some respondents might think this includes certain types of shooting. This might invalidate the question to some extent.
"Because of the significant differences in wording of this poll to past ones, no real conclusion in my view can be drawn about public opinion trends on support for or opposition to a ban."
Even Ivor Stocker, Chairman of NOP, said that NOP had not approved the Countryside Alliance comparison. He said that the different polls asked different questions and that no comparison was possible between them.

Increased desperation

On June 22, the Countryside Alliance issued a press release boasting that a Sky TV internet poll showed a 52%:48% lead against a hunting ban. But this was after they rigged the poll by emailing thousands of their supporters, in the UK and abroad, to urge them to log onto the internet site to vote.

In the absence of genuine evidence, they are forced to rely on polls where internet users opt in to have their say.

Hello Dave!

Work for a tabloid do you?

Or the "government"?

Or simply a clever-clogs twat?

Bye Dave.