British Public Wrong On Nearly Everything

[scepticus]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-public-wrong-about-nearly-everything-survey-shows-8697821.html

A new survey for the Royal Statistical Society and King's College London shows public opinion is repeatedly off the mark on issues including crime, benefit fraud and immigration.

The research, carried out by Ipsos Mori from a phone survey of 1,015 people aged 16 to 75, lists ten misconceptions held by the British public. Among the biggest misconceptions are:

[Lewis Gordon Pugh]

Pointless article, because there is doubt that the 'actual' facts stated are indeed facts or lies and spin from authorities.

[Bland Unsight]

Pointless article, because there is doubt that the 'actual' facts stated are indeed facts or lies and spin from authorities.

Thanks for posting, but I'm pretty sure that I am a brain in a vat and you are an invention of the Lizard People who run the lab, created only to deceive me, so I say, "Pointless post" as you have failed to deceive me.

Reminds me of this book, which I read a while back but found very compelling, (got rid of the telly shortly afterwards as I recall), Culture of Fear.

[winkie]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-public-wrong-about-nearly-everything-survey-shows-8697821.html

A new survey for the Royal Statistical Society and King's College London shows public opinion is repeatedly off the mark on issues including crime, benefit fraud and immigration.

The research, carried out by Ipsos Mori from a phone survey of 1,015 people aged 16 to 75, lists ten misconceptions held by the British public. Among the biggest misconceptions are:

....you can ask different people from different areas the same questions, they will answer according to what they see, believe and have been affected by in their own area, their own small world that is only a small part of the big picture the whole of Great Britain.

[Timak]

Ask me what % of the population are asian when I lived in rural Kent and I'd have said about 0.0001% (1 boy out of my school of 700 and the guy who ran the cornershop)

Ask me when I lived in Leicester and it would have been roughly 60-70%

[rantnrave]

Reminds me of a quote from Michael Moore's Fast Food Nation on a survey he did: 89% of Americans who were alive at the time say they can remember exactly what they were doing when JFK the movie was shot...

[Bloo Loo]

Newspapers these days seem to have the Moral depth way below Bunty for Girls Comic.

[SHERWICK]

Reminds me of a quote from Michael Moore's Fast Food Nation on a survey he did: 89% of Americans who were alive at the time say they can remember exactly what they were doing when JFK the movie was shot...

great Kevin Costner film that!

[iamnumerate]

Pointless article, because there is doubt that the 'actual' facts stated are indeed facts or lies and spin from authorities.

True look at this alternate calculation of benefit fraud

http://www.benefitfraud.org.uk/total-benefit-fraud/index.html

In a jobseekers' allowance pilot in 2011, 29% signed off jobseeker’s allowance rather than turn up for unpaid work. A further 17% failed to start their placement and lost their benefits in consequence. Now we clearly can't extrapolate a 46% fraud level across all jobseekers' allowance claimants, but let us cautiously add say another 4% - which seems very conservative.

And

Fraud Central - a partnership of the DWP and four scottish councils - remarkably says that "Benefit Fraud costs upwards of £2 billion per year". But the truer figure paid out now looks closer to £6bn a year.

This takes no account of the huge costs of social housing fraud.

And as Fraud Central point out:

"Benefit Fraudsters not only affect Social Security benefits, they can have free prescriptions, free eye tests and free dental treatment costing the NHS millions of pounds per year.

[billybong]

British public wrong about nearly everything, survey shows

Research shows public opinion often deviates from facts on key social issues including crime, benefit fraud and immigration

The article then goes on to say that things are far better (according to the statistics that they quote) than people seem to experience in their daily lives every day of their life - some of the things are at least 30 times better. So people are 30 times better off than they thought they were.

You lucky people.

Of course people can totally rely on these latest statistics - for sure

It couldn't be anything to do with trying to develop some phony feel good factor as the general election approaches. That and the recovery now being continually reported as being underway along with house prices continually being reported as increasing.

You lucky lucky people.

Edited July 11, 2013 by billybong

[wherebee]

Classic spin piece. Take the immigration section:

Immigration: some 31 per cent of the population is thought to consist of recent immigrants, when the figure is actually 13 per cent. Even including illegal immigrants, the figure is only about 15 per cent. On the issue of ethnicity, black and Asian people are thought to make up 30 per cent of the population, when the figure is closer to 11 per cent.

"RECENT immigrants". Weasel words alert! DO they include:

- children of immigrants (probably not, as they will be british citizens)

- asylum seekers (probably not, as they do not get counted as 'immigrants' in many gvt dept figures for budget purposes)

- individuals granted british citizenship by means of one parent being a british citizen (probably not, as when they enter the country they are a british passport holder)

- illegal immigrant numbers as 2%. Or about 1M. LOL as if. More like 3-5M.

- temporary visa stayers (EU here for a year or so, for example - probably not, as no intention to remain so in official figures sometimes get counted as temprary visas only)

yet all of the above are humans that would probably not be here without the ******ed up border controls of the past 40 years.

I wonder if someone has a link to the actual report? I'd love us to dissect it here and have a media bod pick it up and run the counter argument.

[thecrashingisles]

British Public Wrong On Nearly Everything

You are Melanie Philips and I claim my £5.

[R K]

Not surprising when you consider the 'british public' are given their 'opinions on everything' by the right wing Tory media.

[DeepLurker]

Classic spin piece. Take the immigration section:

Immigration: some 31 per cent of the population is thought to consist of recent immigrants, when the figure is actually 13 per cent. Even including illegal immigrants, the figure is only about 15 per cent. On the issue of ethnicity, black and Asian people are thought to make up 30 per cent of the population, when the figure is closer to 11 per cent.

"RECENT immigrants". Weasel words alert! DO they include:

- children of immigrants (probably not, as they will be british citizens)

- asylum seekers (probably not, as they do not get counted as 'immigrants' in many gvt dept figures for budget purposes)

- individuals granted british citizenship by means of one parent being a british citizen (probably not, as when they enter the country they are a british passport holder)

- illegal immigrant numbers as 2%. Or about 1M. LOL as if. More like 3-5M.

- temporary visa stayers (EU here for a year or so, for example - probably not, as no intention to remain so in official figures sometimes get counted as temprary visas only)

yet all of the above are humans that would probably not be here without the ******ed up border controls of the past 40 years.

I wonder if someone has a link to the actual report? I'd love us to dissect it here and have a media bod pick it up and run the counter argument.

Indeed. Without access to the actual report, this thread is pretty pointless.

[Executive Sadman]

Pointless article, because there is doubt that the 'actual' facts stated are indeed facts or lies and spin from authorities.

Yep , im surprised they didnt mention inflation is 'only' 1%, people think its over 5%.

Or housing is affordable on some obscure metric

Independent is getting worse than the guardian for this crap.

I mean...

- Teen pregnancy is thought to be 25 times higher than the official estimates: 15 per cent of of girls under 16 are thought to become pregnant every year, when official figures say the amount is closer to 0.6 per cent.

(cos people stop being teenagers at 16, right?)

And immigration...well one, its well known to be undercounted, the US govt says there are 11 mn illegals there, real figure is nearer 35mn.

Edited July 11, 2013 by Executive Sadman

[@contradevian]

Indeed. Without access to the actual report, this thread is pretty pointless.

The Perils of Perception

http://www.rssenews....-of-statistics/

Edited July 11, 2013 by Secure Tenant

[@contradevian]

The Perils of Perception

http://www.rssenews....-of-statistics/

Job-seekers allowance: 29% of people think we spend more on JSA than pensions, when in fact we spend 15 times more on pensions (£4.9bn vs £74.2bn).

Which is slightly worrying because not only is the public wrong about almost everything, but the government is deciding its policies on the misconceptions.

[Mr Jib Fingers]

How wrong were the public in the former Soviet Union when they didn't believe the official figures?

[winkie]

[the gardener]

How wrong were the public in the former Soviet Union when they didn't believe the official figures?

Tractor production is up 40% this year so I'm told.

[Biggus]

... the figure is actually 13 per cent. Even including illegal immigrants, the figure is only about 15 per cent..

My god, that's a lot. I had no idea there were so many. I know Mandelson recently admitted the Labour Party imported masses of immigrants to impoverish the working class, just so they could 'rub our noses in it', but the sheer scale of this is mind blowing.

[winkie]

Not just that but it plays them up.

It is rule by research. Same with 'marketing'...try and 'add value' using the lowest cost components by finding what it is that people value.

Helps them play with the smallest of issues and never tackle the real underlying and deep seated problems in our society leaving it very much in the status quo.

Quite....to sort it would be best by treating the cause not blaming the symptoms......but the causes are covered up for a variety of reasons of protection, so that we focus on the blameless symptoms and blame that.

[Riedquat]

Classic spin piece. Take the immigration section:

Immigration: some 31 per cent of the population is thought to consist of recent immigrants, when the figure is actually 13 per cent. Even including illegal immigrants, the figure is only about 15 per cent. On the issue of ethnicity, black and Asian people are thought to make up 30 per cent of the population, when the figure is closer to 11 per cent.

"RECENT immigrants". Weasel words alert! DO they include:

Even if they don't then 13 per cent still sounds like a hell of a lot, although does it say what they mean by "recent"? 13 per cent fewer people would certainly go a long way to making it a better country to live in and we've just let that number stroll in? Madness, and the spin it seems to be going for is that immigration isn't an issue? Bloody lunatics. If it was balanced by throwing out one useless native Brit for everyone who came in that would be different, but they probably don't want to run out of pretend journalists.

[The Eagle]

public opinion is repeatedly off the mark on issues including crime, benefit fraud and immigration.

Duh, public opinion on these issues is formed by the garbage press such as the Daily Fail which is full of exaggerated and made up 'news'...

[Mr Jib Fingers]

Duh, public opinion on these issues is formed by the garbage press such as the Daily Fail which is full of exaggerated and made up 'news'...

Not sure I buy this argument. By far the most powerful news organisation is the BBC, which peddles the official figures almost exclusively. You can tell how powerful it is as it has made any deviation from the official line from the public as "just believing the rantings of the Daily Mail".