The figures showed that 50% of people agreed with the statement ‘The Government should ban public sector strikes unless there has been a turnout of at least 50% in the strike ballot.’ That’s half of the respondents. I’d perhaps use the phrase ‘only half’. 50% doesn’t necessarily seem a strong basis for declaring public support for change (32% disagreed with the statement and 18% didn’t know).

Meanwhile, in another question 49% said that public-sector workers had a legitimate reason to go on strike. Just like the strike ballots themselves discussed in the article above we’d need to know which way the ‘don’t knows’ (and presumably also some non-respondents to the survey) would be more inclined towards in this survey before we can draw too many conclusions about what the public does or doesn’t support.

I’d also be interested to know the thoughts of the 22% who disagreed or didn’t know in response to the very leading survey statement: “it is unfair for low-paid public sector workers to pay for mistakes make by bankers before the financial crisis’.