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UK Politics: Trumpy Cat Trumpy Cat Where Have You Been?


mormont

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The petition against the state visit has reached 1.7m, but there's also one in favour of it with over 100,000 signatures. So MPs get to debate both.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38814346

There's no doubt the state visit will go ahead. But people who have absolutely not been gently nudged by figures connected with the Palace are popping up to mention what a terrible bind Mrs May has placed Her Maj in with all this fuss. (Don't believe this idea that the Queen isn't political. She's a canny and very experienced politician: it's just that her agenda is normally restricted to protecting the position of the monarchy.)

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41 minutes ago, Stannis Eats No Peaches said:

I didn't realise American presidents are typically only invited to state visits a few years into their term. Seems pretty questionable then to invite Trump straight away, even if there wasn't all this public outcry.

Yeah, there's a difference between an official visit and a state visit. Many US Presidents never had a state visit at all, including Bush Senior.

Trump really wanted one, and so May appears to have rushed into giving him one to curry favour, a negotiating tactic that Trump himself would call 'sad'.

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30 minutes ago, mormont said:

Yeah, there's a difference between an official visit and a state visit. Many US Presidents never had a state visit at all, including Bush Senior.

Trump really wanted one, and so May appears to have rushed into giving him one to curry favour, a negotiating tactic that Trump himself would call 'sad'.

Hey, if Trump did it, he'd brag that he was so smart, smarter than any PM in history, because he knows how to negotiate.

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1 hour ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Yougov poll has 49% in favour of a state visit for President Trump, 36% opposed.

I'm not sure that most people realise a State visit is more than just a normal official presidential visit.   - A state visit is supposed to be the highest honour we can give a foreign leader, and normally has to be earned somehow first.

 

If that poll was made without this being made clear in advance, then that poll is worthless.

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1 hour ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Yougov poll has 49% in favour of a state visit for President Trump, 36% opposed.

That poll comprises of nearly 7k adults, that's a highly representative 0.00015% of the 50 million adult population of the UK.  Yougov's headline is: 'Almost half of Brits think the Trump state visit should go ahead.'  Accurate if the population of UK adults was 6926.

 

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2 hours ago, Traveller between Worlds said:

That poll comprises of nearly 7k adults, that's a highly representative 0.00015% of the 50 million adult population of the UK.  Yougov's headline is: 'Almost half of Brits think the Trump state visit should go ahead.'  Accurate if the population of UK adults was 6926.

 

 

Look, we understand, especially in these times, that you can't take polls at pure face value, but there's a little more science to it than what you're implying.

If we had to ask every person before we decided a vote was representative, then that would be a referendum.

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9 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

 

Look, we understand, especially in these times, that you can't take polls at pure face value, but there's a little more science to it than what you're implying.

Well, yes, still one off polls with a limited sample size really aren't particularly good at measuring absolute rates of support/opposition etc. They're much more useful when you get multiple polls to see trends.

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3 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

Well, yes, still one off polls with a limited sample size really aren't particularly good at measuring absolute rates of support/opposition etc. They're much more useful when you get multiple polls to see trends.

Seven thousand people is pretty large as far as sample sizes go actually. Around one thousands respondents tends to be the standard when it comes to political polls. 

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7 thousand people can absolutely be a satisfactory sample size, but yeah, so can one thousand. What matters is how that sample was selected and weighted, because that's what tells you if the results are likely to reflect the rest of the population.

A link to the poll would help...

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10 minutes ago, mormont said:

7 thousand people can absolutely be a satisfactory sample size, but yeah, so can one thousand. What matters is how that sample was selected and weighted, because that's what tells you if the results are likely to reflect the rest of the population.

A link to the poll would help...

Ask and it shall be given.

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/02/01/almost-half-brits-think-trump-state-visit-should-g/

Links to tables at bottom of page.

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Thanks. Sad as it may be, the first bit of data I look for in a YouGov poll is 'who commissioned it?', because I find that does often seem to have an effect...

However, the sample seems pretty representative. The question is muddled: asking about an 'official state visit' confuses the distinction between an official visit and a state visit, which as noted many people might already have a poor grasp of. It also does not ask if the invite should have been extended in the first place, which might produce a different response for many. Taking away an invite already issued, after all, is rude, and we Brits do try to be polite. ;)

The age and gender splits are pretty wide. But I'm guessing that's going to be a feature of any poll about Trump.

The results on approval/disapproval of Trump's actual travel ban policy make interesting reading. 60% against overall is very strong: but UKIP voters, predictably, absolutely love it.

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so the Question was  

Quote

  Donald Trump has been invited to make an official State Visit to Britain later this year, do you think this should go ahead or should it be cancelled?

 

Which doesn't make clear a State Visit is different that an official visit.  and what the difference is between them.

 

If people voting let the visit go ahead, are doing so because they think as President of the US Trump should be able to make official visits without know the difference.  then I expect the poll to be biased for approval.

 

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So the Rubicon has been crossed...parliament decided to allow May to trigger Article 50. 

To be clear: it is the good right of the Brits to leave the EU but it is nonetheless a sad day. An EU without the U.K. is like French fries without ketchup...

I still had the irrational hope that some gamechanging moment might happen. This hope is dead now :(  

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4 hours ago, ljkeane said:

Well, yes, still one off polls with a limited sample size really aren't particularly good at measuring absolute rates of support/opposition etc. They're much more useful when you get multiple polls to see trends.

Results have to be replicated to have scientific credibility. it's scientifically meaningless to base substantial meaning on 1 very limited poll. That's just a scientific fact.

 

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