THE OPINION POLLS

OPINION polls are great aren't they? The latest poll in Spain shows that 91 percent of the population are against the war in Iraq. Nothing new there but then read on. It also says that 60 percent of those surveyed say that Saddam Hussein is a threat to world peace and a further 54 percent believe that he is involved in world terrorism. So taking that into account a large majority is against the war and a smaller majority think that Saddam is a really bad guy. Now the question which should have been asked was “how do you deal with Saddam.” Judging by the answers to the last two I suspect that a considerable number of people would have said that his non-compliance would have meant that they supported some form of action, which makes a mockery of the earlier statement that 91 percent are against the war. Opinion polls can't really be trusted can they? The same thing has happened in Britain. Two months ago 25 percent of the people said thay trusted Tony Blair, now it is up to 65 percent. I think the problem with polls of this type is they aren't clear cut and should really consist of a single question rather than five or six. As in the case in Spain the answer to the first question is clear but when you get down to question four you start doubting the answer which was given to the first question. It's like asking, “Do you want world peace” “Do you think that military action is the only way to achieve it when you are dealing with people who don't take notice of diplomacy” and finally “do you believe that our military is the best in the world.” I suspect the majority answer to all three would be yes. So where does that leave us, we want world peace, we believe in military action and our boys can do the job. So peace is achieved through the barrel of a gun by our very capable armed forces. Good opinion polls aren't they?