3 Aug 2013

The truth

Came across this interesting article on the Vice UK website.

Talking about widespread perceptions, Martin Robbins observes:

"Apparently we all believe that the average Briton is an old, violent, criminal, Muslim immigrant, that the government spunks all our money on foreign aid and benefit fraud and that teenagers are squirting out babies faster than one of Bassett’s jelly assembly lines."

According to the results of a Ipsos-MORI survey,released by the Royal Statistical Society and King’s College London, the British public has widespread misconceptions for a number of issues.

For example, "Incredibly, people believe on average that foreign-born immigrants account for 31 percent of our population, and a quarter of those surveyed believe that number is over 38 percent – nearly 4 in 10. The actual figure is barely a third of that, at 13 percent.

However, will people care even when they have the actual data in front of them?

As Martin points out, 31 or 13% does not matter to people who are opposed to immigration.