Archive for December, 2013

Greenpeace’s Christmas campaign and my utter irrelevance

Posted in Climate Sock on December 17th, 2013 by Leo – Comments Off on Greenpeace’s Christmas campaign and my utter irrelevance

For a few years, I’ve been arguing that the best way to win more support for action on climate change is to:

  • Stop fretting about climate denial. Only tiny numbers doubt the climate is changing – most people think it’s because of human activity. Campaigners shouldn’t get stuck talking about belief: they should get conversations going about what we can do about climate change.
  • Explain how climate change will directly affect the people you’re talking to. That might mean talking about floods and heatwaves in the UK – not animals and people in far-off places.

I might also have said it can be best to avoid jokes where climate change ads come in.

And then there’s the thing that your audience have almost certainly paid way less attention to the issue than you have, so best to be really clear about what you’re talking about and why it matters.

Anyway. Just goes to show how irrelevant I am.

You can join Greenpeace’s campaign here.

#freethearctic30

The chart that spells election trouble for the Tories

Posted in Politics on December 2nd, 2013 by Leo – Comments Off on The chart that spells election trouble for the Tories

The last election was about the economy: the macro, hard-to-understand stuff like the debt and the deficit, the credit rating and quantitative easing. The Tories did a brilliant job of framing the debate so it became about Labour’s recession and how they would get the car out of the ditch.

That framing still shapes how people think about the economy. Even this far since the election, more people blame Labour for the spending cuts than blame the government. More than twice as many people say the cuts are necessary as say they’re unnecessary. If the next election is fought on those terms, the Tories will have a real advantage.

But the Tories’ lead on the economy is less important if people stop worrying about it. And that’s what seems to be happening.

MORI’s issues index (most important issues facing the country) shows the proportion who say the economy is one of the top issues has fallen by over a third since 2011. Only 2 in 5 now say it’s one of the main issues, while worries about unemployment have remained steady.

At the same time, poverty/inequality and inflation/prices have been rising as issues for the last couple of years:

The Tories still lead Labour on being best at handling the economy in general (currently 30% to 25%).

But among people who aren’t currently planning on voting Tory, nearly two thirds say they only represent the interests of the rich.

If the election is about living standards, rising prices and inequality – and not the debt and the deficit – it’ll be Labour who have the advantage.