Smells like election spirit

Well that was fast.

Following up my last post about Research.bm Focus Groups I received the below quoted comments from a reader about one of the sessions.

This sounds an awful lot like taxpayer funded pre-election political work, testing out support levels etc., most helpful in gauging the optimal time to call an election and what to run on.

Key phrase is: 'said she was hired by the Department of Communication'.

Note that at least some of the questions focused on individuals and party not Government policy. That smells fishy to me. We should not be funding either party's polling and message testing etc.. That should come out of party funds.

Due to start at 5.00 for 2 hours, it started at 5.45 due to lateness. I only mention that, because it was 'important' to the leader that the groups of 10 were fully constituted.

Groups were split up into Male and Female - no mixing.

The Group Leader was Black/American...introduced herself as "living in New York".

She told the group, that she had been hired by the Department of Communication, to draw out from the group, their thoughts on various topics - central to which was whether the group felt that the Government communicated with the public.

They were asked a series of questions, and invited to offer a verbal response. The responses were recorded into a tape recorder and they were filmed by way of an unseen camera.

Ethnic composition of the group was 60/40 (B/W) and appeared to be from mixed economic backgrounds.

The types of questions asked were:

* Was Alex Scott a good leader.
* Was the PLP doing a good job etc

Each response to this type of question, opened up further debate on issues raised by the group members, e.g. "They have done a good job on housing". "Oh really"....said another member...."why do you say that"? Etc

Group members were asked to take notes and record their opinions/feelings, even if they did not want to divulge their opinion in public. All notes were kept - and the group was told that they would be summarised as part of the presentation to the Government.

Overall impression, was that the process was professionally handled and managed.