British public wrong about nearly everything, survey shows

[The Don]

http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article8698019.ece/alternates/w620/jobcentre-benefits.jpg
Research shows public opinion often deviates from facts on key social issues including crime, benefit fraud and immigration



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:

- Benefit fraud: the public think that £24 of every £100 of benefits is fraudulently claimed. Official estimates are that just 70 pence in every £100 is fraudulent - so the public conception is out by a factor of 34.

- 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.

- Crime: some 58 per cent of people do not believe crime is falling, when the Crime Survey for England and Wales shows that incidents of crime were 19 per cent lower in 2012 than in 2006/07 and 53 per cent lower than in 1995. Some 51 per cent think violent crime is rising, when it has fallen from almost 2.5 million incidents in 2006/07 to under 2 million in 2012.

- 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.

Among the other surprising figures are that 26 per cent of people think foreign aid is in the top three items the Government spends money on (it actually makes up just 1.1 per cent of expenditure), and that 29 per cent of people think more is spent on Jobseekers' Allowance than pensions.

In fact we spend 15 times more on pensions - £4.9 billion on JSA vs £74.2 billion on pensions.

Hetan Shah, executive director of the Royal Statistical Society, said: "Our data poses real challenges for policymakers. How can you develop good policy when public perceptions can be so out of kilter with the evidence?

"We need to see three things happen. First, politicians need to be better at talking about the real state of affairs of the country, rather than spinning the numbers. Secondly, the media has to try and genuinely illuminate issues, rather than use statistics to sensationalise.

"And finally we need better teaching of statistical literacy in schools, so that people get more comfortable in understanding evidence."

Bobby Duffy, the managing director of Ipsos Mori Social Research Institute, said: "A lack of trust in government information is also very evident in other questions in the survey - so 'myth-busting' is likely to prove a challenge on many of these issues. But it is still useful to understand where people get their facts most wrong."


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

It's not surprising such a large majority of people have misinformed opinions when the media frequently posts scaremongering, sensationalist pieces *cough* Daily Mail *cough*. No wonder politicians are reluctant to give referendums on issues which would have huge repercussions. This is why we vote for educated officials to represent our views, the notion that we should have a referendum so willy-nilly is ridiculous.

[-:Undertaker:-]

Total rubbish as most of the statistics the government puts out are false, ie inflation figures.

[The Don]

Total rubbish as most of the statistics the government puts out are false, ie inflation figures.

Hardly. I see you resort to the "THE GOVERNMENT LIES!!" when the actual facts are put there right in front of you, without any evidence to believe so. Delusion at its finest. It's also amusing that you fail to believe the governments figures that are researched thoroughly by multiple parties, yet you believe 100% what an EX-POLICE OFFICER said (Simply because it supports your agenda, confirmation bias much?) without any shred of evidence. You believe what you want to, rather than what you should.

[-:Undertaker:-]

Hardly. I see you resort to the "THE GOVERNMENT LIES!!" when the actual facts are put there right in front of you, without any evidence to believe so. Delusion at its finest. It's also amusing that you fail to believe the governments figures that are researched thoroughly by multiple parties, yet you believe 100% what an EX-POLICE OFFICER said (Simply because it supports your agenda, confirmation bias much?) without any shred of evidence. You believe what you want to, rather than what you should.

Inflation figures are fiddled as they don't include food, petrol and other things (like heating bills).
http://www.maxkeiser.com/2013/12/wake-up-we-must-take-a-stand-against-lies-damned-lies-and-fiddled-statistical-data/

Immigration figures have been underestimated due to 'errors' by the morons, as the ONS admits.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/10/ons-net-immigration-underestimated

Crime figures are fiddled as they don't include things like Cannabis warnings.
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2013/01/should-we-trust-official-crime-figures.html


I know your latest act is to pretend that we plebs are all idiots and the politicians lie to our faces time and time again for our own good, but as showcased by the Euro: they're the idiots and the people know better.

Faith in politicians is at an all time low and with very good reason too.

[The Don]

Inflation figures are fiddled as they don't include food, petrol and other things (like heating bills).
http://www.maxkeiser.com/2013/12/wake-up-we-must-take-a-stand-against-lies-damned-lies-and-fiddled-statistical-data/

[Citation Needed] on that article. Not a single source or shred of evidence to back up his claims. The Police whisteblower part does appear elsewhere, but the inflation figures part appears to all be hypothetical. Why should I trust this Daily Mail Reporters word over the governments?


Immigration figures have been underestimated due to 'errors' by the morons, as the ONS admits.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/10/ons-net-immigration-underestimated

Even with the unmonitored arrivals, the British Publics estimation is still a long way off from the actual figure.


Crime figures are fiddled as they don't include things like Cannabis warnings.
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2013/01/should-we-trust-official-crime-figures.html

This is taken directly from the article "One way in which these figures are influenced is in the police response to reports of (for instance) stolen mobile phones. There have been cases of youngsters (with no conceivable dishonest motive as they were not insured) threatened with prosecution for making false claims that their phones had been stolen. Could this be to help keep the figures down?" Without any proof whatsoever. Ridiculous. That blog post seems to be dressed up conjecture and heresy. Most of the article is about how we're not giving out harsh enough punishments which is not relevant to the government fiddling with the crime statistics.


I know your latest act is to pretend that we plebs are all idiots and the politicians lie to our faces time and time again for our own good, but as showcased by the Euro: they're the idiots and the people know better.

I would say it's idiotic to blindly believe words as opposed to evidence, which is what you're doing here.

[-:Undertaker:-]

[Citation Needed] on that article. Not a single source or shred of evidence to back up his claims. The Police whisteblower part does appear elsewhere, but the inflation figures part appears to all be hypothetical. Why should I trust this Daily Mail Reporters word over the governments?

Food and gas/heating bills are not included in inflation figures to make the figures seem lower than they actually are, this is a well established fact: http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/is-inflation-higher-than-you-think-1.aspx

If you don't believe me or articles on the internet, go and ask an Economics teacher.


Even with the unmonitored arrivals, the British Publics estimation is still a long way off from the actual figure.

But the government are wrong too, when you argue they are right.


This is taken directly from the article "One way in which these figures are influenced is in the police response to reports of (for instance) stolen mobile phones. There have been cases of youngsters (with no conceivable dishonest motive as they were not insured) threatened with prosecution for making false claims that their phones had been stolen. Could this be to help keep the figures down?" Without any proof whatsoever. Ridiculous. That blog post seems to be dressed up conjecture and heresy. Most of the article is about how we're not giving out harsh enough punishments which is not relevant to the government fiddling with the crime statistics.

The article explains very clearly how the Police and the Government conceal the crime figures or at least manipulate them to make them sound better. I gave you one myself, which Hitchens has commented on before, about the Cannabis Warning which is not included in the crime statistics.


But I digress. My main argument is that the crime figures are fiddled for political reasons, and cannot be trusted. And , thanks to the dedicated work of Dr Rodger Patrick, a former Chief Inspector in the West Midlands Police turned academic, I can tell you how it is done. Dr Patrick got in touch with me after I wrote about the astonishing increase of ‘Out of Court Disposals’ (OCDs) of crimes – including the use of ‘cautions’ to dispose of rape cases, in return for an admission of guilt.

There are good people out there, like Hitchens and Dr Rodger Patrick, who expose the truth.


would say it's idiotic to blindly believe words as opposed to evidence, which is what you're doing here.

What you accuse me of is exactly what you are doing. I've presented you with evidence on how the offical figures are manipulated and fiddled, yet you still choose to believe in them - which you are entitled to do of course. Personally, I find that a government that was willing to declare war on Iraq based on lies which have led to thousands dead and billions wasted.... it's going to be telling lies on a whole other bunch of things aswell.

[The Don]

Food and gas/heating bills are not included in inflation figures to make the figures seem lower than they actually are, this is a well established fact: http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/is-inflation-higher-than-you-think-1.aspx

If you don't believe me or articles on the internet, go and ask an Economics teacher.

I don't understand why you're talking about inflation when it's not been mentioned in the original post?


The article explains very clearly how the Police and the Government conceal the crime figures or at least manipulate them to make them sound better. I gave you one myself, which Hitchens has commented on before, about the Cannabis Warning which is not included in the crime statistics.

Explaining and proving to be true are two completely separate things.


There are good people out there, like Hitchens and Dr Rodger Patrick, who expose the truth.
Hitchens has been quoted as saying "If you feel for some odd reason that voting is a duty, vote for UKIP", Hardly an unbiased beacon of truth.


What you accuse me of is exactly what you are doing. I've presented you with evidence on how the offical figures are manipulated and fiddled, yet you still choose to believe in them - which you are entitled to do of course. Personally, I find that a government that was willing to declare war on Iraq based on lies which have led to thousands dead and billions wasted.... it's going to be telling lies on a whole other bunch of things as well.

You haven't disproven anything. The only thing that's fact in all those articles is the police whistleblower part and the missed migrants coming here. Everything else is opinion and hypothesising, nothing more. None of this also changes the original articles point about the British public being misinformed.

[Yawn]

yh was gna say the dailymail. the comments on there are so tragic every time i look the comments which i agree with are worst rated :(

[Kyle]

Not at all surprised. some data is withheld from statistics but that doesn't make the views listed in this article on unrelated and well-recorded data any less true. :P

[-:Undertaker:-]

I don't understand why you're talking about inflation when it's not been mentioned in the original post?

Because it's a government statistic that is given credibility when it's not credible.

It's just one example of many as to how the government twists reality into something else.


Explaining and proving to be true are two completely separate things.

So you dispute that Cannabis Warnings aren't included in the crime statistics?

By all means, contact Hitchens via Twitter (https://twitter.com/ClarkeMicah) or his blog. He'll often reply.


Hitchens has been quoted as saying "If you feel for some odd reason that voting is a duty, vote for UKIP", Hardly an unbiased beacon of truth.

Hitchens has also said that he considers Ukip a Dad's Army party.

So what's your point?


You haven't disproven anything. The only thing that's fact in all those articles is the police whistleblower part and the missed migrants coming here. Everything else is opinion and hypothesising, nothing more. None of this also changes the original articles point about the British public being misinformed.

Yes I did, I have proven how government statistics are fraud and how if you rely purely on them for data then you are just as misinformed as you claim public opinion is misinformed.

I think the real reason you posted this thread is because you are terrified of an EU referendum.

[MKR&*42]

Didn't you post something like this a short while ago or has like so much time flown by for me?

Anyway I knew that crime was falling and that a ginormous amount was spent on pensions as opposed to JSA. Knew immigrants didn't make up 30 percent christ, knew about the foreign aid - surprised about the teenage pregnancy figure though, expecting it to be a lot higher.

[GommeInc]

Isn't it pretty obvious more money goes towards pensions, seeing as we have a large, ageing population that probably worked in the large public sector we once had as well as those that gave up work or made redundant when the public sector shrunk and/or industries were discouraged? Also, the fact that people thought 15% of teenage girls were getting pregnant each year is always funny :P

[FlyingJesus]

Why would warnings where you're just moved along and not charged with anything at all be included in crime stats

[Inseriousity.]

vote for educated officials? Most of these false public perceptions are fuelled by political discourse.
People don't vote based on facts (and let's face it you can manipulate stats any which way to tell a story), they go with what they feel (and let's face it you can manipulate feelings any which way to tell a story). Ultimately, deciding the electorate are too misinformed to vote because of their lack of knowledge about statistics seems to me to be a bizarre argument. Perhaps we should just move away from democracy altogether and have an elite rule over us, we vote them all in anyway, might as well just get rid of the whole voting sham!

[FlyingJesus]

Works for me, only allow people with high rep vote