‘Britons back Lord McAlpine over Sally Bercow action’
As you might have guessed, it’s from the Maily Telegraph this morning. And it isn’t true. Less than half of the mainstream, younger Twitter users think McAlpine is in the right. 82% of respondents over 65 – most of whom think Twitter is a bird sanctuary in Devon – back McAlpine.
There are two things that make this sort of research rather pointless:
1. About 6 people out of 7 have no knowledge of the law whatsoever. You might just as well ask the cleaning lady whether she’s for or against the Hadron Collider.
2. So far, McAlpine’s ‘case’ has not been tested in Court. Now it will be. Afterwards, we may well see a change of opinion as to the rights and wrongs of this matter.
Speaking for myself, as a former market researcher I long ago lost any interest in what any ‘person in the street’ thinks about TV commercials, banking, science, brain surgery, Nick Clegg, or cynical books about Machiavelli. They don’t know anything worth recording, because 90% of them are ignorant, and two thirds are stupid.
This is merely another ruse to persuade the Torygraph voter that defending the indefensible is OK if the People approve. Read Lord McAlpine and Prince Machiavelli on the subject of the People. Complimentary they aren’t.
Hypocrisy, cant, distraction, distortion and deception. Like the poor and the paedophiles*, they will always be with us. And far too often, in the same bed.
*Morphing briefly into Eoin Clark mode for a few seconds here, The Slog would like to make it absolutely clear that he does not now nor ever did think Lord Alistair McAlpine was anything more than a crafty old humbug. He is quite obviously not a paedophile, and was only accused of same because the BBC’s employees these days couldn’t find an arse in the dark, even when it was their own. This is more than one could say for Alistair’s second cousin Jimmie McAlpine, who clearly had no trouble at all finding arses in the dark, no matter how small. I am still waiting for his Lordship to contest this assertion.
Related: Civil War in Caligula Britannica
The Slog 