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Far more than half of UK adults may be unable to identify the leader of the Conservative Party by name or face.
That seems to be the message after This Writer was shocked to discover a personal friend did not know who it was while I was talking to him over the weekend.
“I don’t know who it is or what they look like,” he told me. “What’s his name? Kelly? Kenny? Kenny who?”
I told him the name he wanted was Kemi Badenoch.
“Is that a man or a woman?”
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I mentioned this to my brother (Beastrabban of Beastrabban\’s Weblog) in a phone conversation yesterday. He knows who Badenoch is, of course, but he has now reported his own shock at discovering that our mother did not. She is now planning to ask her circle of friends.
I took to the World Wide Web, and this is what I found:
There appears to be no definitive, recent poll that asks “Do you know who the current leader of the Conservative Party is (or can you identify them)?” in a broad UK-representative sample.
But there are polls that strongly suggest the kind of low recognition I have experienced is fairly common:
A survey by the thinktank More in Common found that among “ordinary” voters (not politically engaged), only 37 per cent recognized Kemi Badenoch when shown her name/email or profile.
The same work observed that among six Conservative leadership contenders, only Priti Patel was recognized by more than half of the focus-group participants; others were much less well-known.
An Ipsos poll observed that the general public was “largely indifferent” to last year’s Tory leadership contest, and that the candidates were “relatively unknown.”
Given the above, it seems likely that many more than half of UK adults might not confidently identify Kemi Badenoch by name or face – especially among those who are less engaged politically.
The 37 per cent recognition figure is from a semi-controlled survey context; in more “real world” conditions like unprompted interviews, recognition might well be lower.
With this in mind, there is an obvious question to be asked:
How can Badenoch possibly expect to regain power for her party, if hardly anybody even knows who she is?
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Who is the Conservatives’ leader? And does anybody care?
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That seems to be the message after This Writer was shocked to discover a personal friend did not know who it was while I was talking to him over the weekend.
“I don’t know who it is or what they look like,” he told me. “What’s his name? Kelly? Kenny? Kenny who?”
I told him the name he wanted was Kemi Badenoch.
“Is that a man or a woman?”
I mentioned this to my brother (Beastrabban of Beastrabban\’s Weblog) in a phone conversation yesterday. He knows who Badenoch is, of course, but he has now reported his own shock at discovering that our mother did not. She is now planning to ask her circle of friends.
I took to the World Wide Web, and this is what I found:
There appears to be no definitive, recent poll that asks “Do you know who the current leader of the Conservative Party is (or can you identify them)?” in a broad UK-representative sample.
But there are polls that strongly suggest the kind of low recognition I have experienced is fairly common:
A survey by the thinktank More in Common found that among “ordinary” voters (not politically engaged), only 37 per cent recognized Kemi Badenoch when shown her name/email or profile.
The same work observed that among six Conservative leadership contenders, only Priti Patel was recognized by more than half of the focus-group participants; others were much less well-known.
An Ipsos poll observed that the general public was “largely indifferent” to last year’s Tory leadership contest, and that the candidates were “relatively unknown.”
Given the above, it seems likely that many more than half of UK adults might not confidently identify Kemi Badenoch by name or face – especially among those who are less engaged politically.
The 37 per cent recognition figure is from a semi-controlled survey context; in more “real world” conditions like unprompted interviews, recognition might well be lower.
With this in mind, there is an obvious question to be asked:
How can Badenoch possibly expect to regain power for her party, if hardly anybody even knows who she is?
Support Vox Political!
With social media algorithms acting as gatekeepers – allowing users to read only what their owners want them to, sites like Vox Political need the support of our readers like never before.
You can help by making a donation:
https://Ko-fi.com/voxpolitical
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