12% of people actually believe a fake Tory candidate of leader exists

I'm not surprised that people are disengaged with politicians, westminster and the whole shambles.
 
I'm surprised people aren't more engaged due to the real damage being done. Have we surrendered?
Not surrendered, been ground down with all of the lies, sleaze, bullsh*t, cronyism, one rule for one etc.
Lot of people have simply had enough and are completely apathetic towards Westminster and the circus that is British politics.
 
Not surrendered, been ground down with all of the lies, sleaze, bullsh*t, cronyism, one rule for one etc.
Lot of people have simply had enough and are completely apathetic towards Westminster and the circus that is British politics.
Sounds like surrender to me.
 
Unfortunately, many people simply do not believe politics is something they should care about or even take a passing interest in despite it being so important to everything they do.

However it is also in the interest of politics that the above remains correct.
 
....and these people are allowed to vote for our next PM for fks sake.
Quote from the pollsters “I shouldn’t tell them because we do this every time we have a leadership election, it’s the same person: the MP Stewart Lewis. We found that 12 per cent of the British public believe they know him fairly or very well."
It's possible that these people are particularly well-informed and aware of the fictional nature of Stewart Lewis. They could therefore claim to know 'a great deal' or 'fair amount' about him without being liars or idiots.

Much more likely they're both, however
 
Quote from the pollsters “I shouldn’t tell them because we do this every time we have a leadership election, it’s the same person: the MP Stewart Lewis. We found that 12 per cent of the British public believe they know him fairly or very well."
It's possible that these people are particularly well-informed and aware of the fictional nature of Stewart Lewis. They could therefore claim to know 'a great deal' or 'fair amount' about him without being liars or idiots.

Much more likely they're both, however
I think this is fairly disingenuous polling to be honest.

Firstly, they really shouldn’t use the same fictional name every time. There will have been a news story published every time that ‘Stuart Lewis’ was shown to have greater name recognition than some of the genuine leadership candidates. Likely or not, you can’t rule out that some respondents will have subliminally linked this name with leadership contests, which creates the possibility of bias in the responses.

Secondly, and more pertinent in this contest, Stuart Lewis has the same surname as a Cabinet minister (Brandon Lewis), who only resigned from government last week. He was one of the most prominent politicians in terms of appearing on TV to defend the government’s record. Therefore, when faced with a list of names, it’s not that surprising that some respondents might think, oh yes that Lewis bloke, I know him, he’s always on the telly.
 
The 12% figure is underplaying it. That's how many know the fake candidate well, but 35% had at least claimed to have heard of him.

Bold of the pollsters to openly admit that more than one in three people they poll are talking out their backsides!
 
I don't know about Stuart Lewis, but I find it hard believe quite a lot of Tory MPs actually exist in reality. Including several of the leadership candidates.

Truss, Rees-Mogg, Dorries, Braverman, Fabricant, Francois.........

And that's by no means an exhaustive list.

They're characters from a not very funny sitcom surely? Not elected representatives of the people.
 
Jimmy Kimmel sends reporters into the streets in LA and asks people about fictitious news stories and people and it is staggering the amount who reply with such confidence in what they are talking about. Seems like it's not just dumb Americans 😔

Example: Americans commenting on the as yet to be run Winter Olympics
 
Back
Top