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Federal Politics

Harry Smith's Advice to the Left: Only One Poll Matters

After campaigning in Britain, the author returns to Canada with a message for progressives.

Harry Leslie Smith 15 Jun 2015TheTyee.ca

Harry Leslie Smith is a survivor of the Great Depression, a Second World War RAF veteran and an activist for the poor and for the preservation of social democracy. He has written several books about Britain during the Depression, the war and postwar austerity. Join him on Twitter @Harryslaststand.

Next month, it will be 70 years ago since I first voted in a British general election. I was 22 and the Second World War had ended two months previous, so Europe at that time was a wasteland of smashed cities which teemed with millions of hungry and homeless people. Back then, I was a member of the Royal Air Force and attached to the allied occupation force in Germany, so my vote was cast in bomb-ravaged Hamburg. I was far from home, but I was overjoyed that I had survived the war and was able to help decide my country's destiny through the ballot box.

Unlike today, elections weren't as tightly controlled or scripted by political bagmen, spin doctors and policy wonks who now read polling data like it is a map to victory or defeat. Instinctively most of the electorate felt in 1945 that they were voting for a change in government and a shift in social policy, but we didn't know for sure who would win until all the votes were counted.

Had there been widespread polling during the 1945 election it wouldn't have dampened the ardour of me or my compatriots to vote, because we were a generation that believed doing one's part also entailed making one's mark at the polling station on election day. After all, we had just fought a war against Nazi Germany that was waged in part to preserve our liberty and individual freedoms.

Seven decades later, however, that fervour for democracy from ordinary citizens is diminishing. The people's commitment to elections has abated -- in Britain's recent vote, only 66 per cent of eligible voters cast their ballot. Unfortunately, advance and continuous polling from modern survey companies may have created a perfect storm where voter apathy from key demographics assisted the Conservative Party's miraculous election victory.

The simple fact is older people are more inclined to participate in elections and vote conservative. Moreover, older voters are more influenced by mainstream media rather than social media, which have a diversity of opinion when it comes to society and politics.

So when pollsters in Britain predicted a hung parliament, as they have in Canada's upcoming October election, the spin doctors from the Conservative Party along with their allies in the right-wing media blanketed the country with fearful sound bites on how a Labour government would destroy the fragile economy or ally itself with separatist forces in Scotland.

Only one poll matters

In Britain, like Canada, many voter's passions are dictated more by fear than hope. So, the notion promulgated by the right-wing media of potential political instability and economic chaos forced enough middle age citizens along with pensioners to vote Tory, which allowed them to win the election because the youth vote failed to materialize to counter Conservative loyalists in marginal seats.  

After the election, analysts developed a theory that the polls were profoundly inaccurate because of something called the shy Tory, which is someone who supports conservative politics but doesn't like to boast about it.

I am 92, and over my lifetime I have met many conservatives. One thing I am certain about is they are not bashful when it comes to their beliefs regarding issues of government taxation, crime and social policy. Yet I do believe that modern polling can affect an election's outcome, and this is why the left in Canada must be wary of data that shows the NDP in arm's reach of a minority government.

This is not the moment for Canada's left to become complacent and think that its message of social progress and economic pragmatism that balances both corporate and individual interests will overcome Stephen Harper's election machine. The left can never forget that Harper is a masterful political tactician who uses fear the way FDR used hope and common sense to lift America out of the Great Depression.

Besides fear, Harper's Tories will sow doubt into the minds of ordinary Canadians about the economic competence of any left-of-centre governments despite their own horrendous mishandling of our country's fiscal independence.

If the left in Canada wants to win this election and return Canada to its citizens, it must address both the head and heart of ordinary voters. Most importantly, the left must engage the young of this country and ask them to stand up and accept that they have a role to play in its governance which comes by exercising one's right to vote. 

The polls have a function in today's modern election cycle, but politicians and citizens must rely upon their own common sense and passion for Canada and not take voter snap shots at face value. The left can win this election, but to do that they must impassion Canadian voters through reason and hope and ignore the siren song of the pollsters. Because in the end, the only poll that counts is the final tally by Elections Canada.

Join Harry Smith and The Tyee tomorrow night (June 16) in Vancouver for a provocative evening of discussion about where Canada is headed, and the dark history we may be unknowingly repeating. Tickets still available, but going fast! Buy them here.  [Tyee]

Read more: Federal Politics

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