We all sympathise with the Iranian people here. We all think this war is a stupid excuse for Trump to distract from him being a nonce. We all think that Netanyahu as a genocidal nutcase. But it doesn’t mean you have to pledge you allegiance to a regime that has killed, …
So on Zia Yusuf's boast yesterday that in a recent Freshwater poll "I have the 3rd highest Favourables of any right wing politician prompted in the poll". Well, someone's sent me the actual data. Only five "right-wing" UK politicians were actually tested. Badenoch, Farage, Tice, Jenrick and Zia himself. Their approval ratings were:
Badenoch 35% Fav, 31% UnFav, +4 Net
Farage 31% Fav, 52% UnFav, -21 Net
Yusuf 14% Fav, 22% UnFav, -8 Net
Tice 12% Fav, 22% Unfav, -10 Net
Jenrick 11% Fav, 29% Unfav, -18 Net
In addition, that number doesn't take into account how many people have never actually heard of those people being tested. So under the heading "Never Heard Of" are the following figures:
Tice 35%
Yusuf 32%
Jenrick 24%
Badenoch 9%
Farage 1%
And then there are those who don't really generate an opinion at all. So under the heading "Neutral/Unsure" you get:
Jenrick 36%
Yusuf 32%
Tice 31%
Badenoch 25%
Farage 16%
So the reality is, Zia Yusuf only came 3rd out of 5 "right-wing" politicians tested. His net approval rating is negative. And most people have never actually heard of him or basically have no opinion of him at all.
I wish some people on the left would take responsibility about the way they defended Arday, which was to deny easily verifiable accusations
against him, which in turn helped make this an even more delicious anti-woke story for the right. It was obvious it would backfire, and it did. It was not kind and it was not moral.