Compare, contrast the wonders of polling questions which should give consistent answers: Has your opinion of Gordon Brown gone up or down in recent weeks, or has it stayed much the same? My opinion of him has gone up 21% My opinion of him has gone down 27% My opinion of him has stayed much the same 48% Change: -6% Are

El Rushbo speaks:  "The Drive-By Media do these polls, and for the longest time -- whether it's a presidential opinion poll or whether it's a poll of the American people's opinion on anything -- we all know now these polls are used to shape opinion, not reflect it. But now we're getting to the point where, you know, all these pollsters have their credibility to be concerne...

I was not planning to write an opinion piece on Afghanistan for a few days, because I think that the more detailed arguments about where we go from here are actually more interesting than the usual general banalities. But I would like to respond to a few of the points that David Osler makes

Public opinion is up the pole on this one. MPs know best on who will be the best new Speaker. An opinion poll shows that 44% of the 5,000 questioned had no opinion. Sensible of them to keep stum. A...

“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be in silencing mankind.” (John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859)“We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it ...

A NEW opinion poll makes more worrying reading for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, with Labour trailing 21 points behind the Tories.

When David Davis announced his resignation from the Commons over 42 days detention many saw him as making a courageous move because opinion polls suggested that public opinion was behind the government on this issue.Now an opinion poll has suggested a significant shift in public opinion, suggesting that because the issue has had much greater debate in public people have learnt more about it and de...

Comment Central - Times Online - WBLG: Should Israel talk to Hamas?.Danny Finkelstein concisely makes the key points. What he sadly (and inaccurately) calls "liberal opinion" is asking Israel to "make peace" with people who will not be satisfied (at...

From the point of view of a politician I tend to have a mixed view of opinion polls. It is always nice of course to see one that predicts the Liberal Democrats doing well and even reinforcing one's perceptions of public opinion. On the other hand they can record support going down as well as up and it is at these times that one tries to distance oneself from them. Given that we cannot have ou...

This is getting fucking ridiculous. Surely an opinion is not legally fucking actionable? Calling someone or something stupid is subjective and so not a fact. When Councillor John Dixon called the Scientologists stupid, that was his opinion. If you put Scientology up against, ooh, I don’t know, any religion I could come up with, then