The Week What Went – Fire, Fury and Coffee Cups

Welcome to The Week What Went, a look back over the stories that drove TDE last week. Our New Year’s resolution is to send this out regularly giving a little more context to you, our loyal (and/or ‘treasonous and unpatriotic’) subscribers. So here’s what went last week…

Monday 1st January – Will 2018 be better than 2017? (78% Yes / 22% No)

At TDE we pride ourselves on our cynicism and ability to learn from the past. 2015 – crap year. 2016 – crap year (and everybody died) 2017 – crap year. Why 78% of you think that 2018 will be any better beats us. Interestingly it was primarily Labour voters who thought that things are going to get worse, and mainly men. So Happy New Year to Jeremy Corbyn, then.

Tuesday 2nd January – Should recreational cannabis be legalised? (62% Yes / 38% No)

We can’t believe we’ve never asked this, but as California literally bonged in the new year, we thought we’d poll it. And this surprised us: the ‘no’ voters are twice as likely to be young (under 30) than those fighting for legalisation, and as a rule, they’re also better educated. Tories are more likely to vote for legalisation than Labour voters, which was counter-intuitive, while it turns out that LibDems aren’t so liberal – they’re split on the issue.

Wednesday 3rd January – Should government invest less money in the railways by reducing ticket prices? (47% Yes / 53% No)

A confusing question, but based on the fact that the easiest part of the ticket price to cut is the 25% that’s invested back into the system. And it seems that there are no clear answers here, but as ever we see in the comments that there is a clear cross-party consensus for nationalised railways (75% pro, according to our 2015 poll).

Thursday 4th January – Bannon’s gone rogue: is this the end for Trump? (24% Yes / 76% No)

First Trump question of the year and it’s the story that’s dominated the last week, Michael Wolff’s revelations in his book Fire and Fury. And it seems that the majority think this’ll fail to knock out Trump. Fair enough, we agree.

Friday 5th January – Should coffee shops charge a 25p fine for using a disposable cup? (73% Yes / 27% No)

Turns out that those Starbucks cups are killing pretty much all of the dolphins all of the time. And it seems you little Swampys on TDE are massively in favour of the proposed 25p charge. Curiously it’s Tories who love this policy more than anyone else, while younger voters, including (bizarrely) some Green voters, hate it most. If we had the funding or inclination there’s a wider piece of research around Conservative and Labour attitudes toward ‘the green crap’ using our data over the last couple years, but that’s another story…

Saturday 6th January – Do you think Donald Trump is actually nuts? (45% Yes / 55% No)

Let’s get this clear, 45% of you seem to agree that Donald Trump is a ‘stable genius’. There’s a touch more Tories as compared to Labourites backing Mr Trump here, but it seems that there’s cross party agreement that it’s plausible that perhaps, just perhaps, Donald Trump is of sound mind. Of course the uKippers backed their man to the hilt.

Sunday 7th January – How are those New Year’s resolutions going? (36% Resolute / 7% Destitute / 57% Didn’t bother)

We like your style, TDE. Nearly 2/3 just went ‘bollocks to that’ when it came to resolutions this year. Of those that went for it, most are sticking to it a week in. Maybe we should ask again in summer? As might have been expected it’s a battle of the sexes, men are overwhelmingly unmotivated to make a resolution in the first place and it’s women who are far better at keeping theirs than their male counterparts.

And that was the week what went.

Best,

The TDE Team

Things to watch out for this coming week: Cabinet reshuffle (underway), the collapsing NHS and, if we’re lucky, more Fire and Fury fallout.

Comment of the week: @Cheapshot: ‘Bannon knows everything on the inside. Like just how big that button is…’

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