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New Statesman asks readers: what investigation should we pursue?

A couple of weeks ago the New Statesman asked its readers to vote on the subject for the magazine's next investigation. It was probably right to call this "a unique experiment in British journalism" for two reasons. The obvious one is in allowing readers to participate. The other was in tipping off the subject of the inquiry.

The magazine not only suggested five possible topics for investigation but, in providing headlines, betrayed the angle it planned to pursue. So a probe into Conservative party funding was tagged "The darker side of Dave".

The other four were the domination of political lobbying by giant multinational PR companies ("The nuclear charm offensive"); the (alleged) influence and meddling of Prince Charles ("God save the queen. Beware the heir"); the state of British childhood ("A new deal for British children"); and the asylum crisis due to the government's crackdown on asylum seekers ("Work and amnesty are answer to asylum disarray").

As I write, asylum is far and away the favoured topic, having won 85% support, compared to 9% for lobbying and 2% each for the other three.

Some of the readers' own suggestions are hilarious. Some are surreal ("The real purpose of the DNA data base and the master race/programmed death/birth"). One was rather sinister, urging an investigation into "the power of the Jewish lobby in British politics and media". Disturbingly, this attracted a measure of support from a couple of commenters, one of whom wrote that Jews "do seem to have disproportionate power in economic and social affairs".

This prompted the New Statesman's political editor, Martin Bright, to reply: "The influence of the Jewish lobby is pure anti-Semitism." The thread then disintegrated into a puerile bout of point-scoring between people who may well not be readers of the New Statesman anyway.

But, as an experiment, it may still have some merit. What it reveals is that asylum is as hot a topic among liberals as among conservatives. Well, possibly. One of the problems with such online polls is that no-one really knows who is taking part. Rogue Spectator readers may be voting in droves, for example.

Anyway, we can presumably look forward now to the forthcoming NS "investigation" into asylum seekers, though we know the outcome already: work and amnesty will cure the problem. Over to you then, Mr Bright. Probe away.

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