Heartless Britain - will attitudes ever change?

Chardy

Total sample size was 2,226 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 11th - 12th November 2020. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been
weighted and are representative of GB adults (aged 18+) with respect to vote in the 2019 general election and EU referendum, age, gender, education level, attention paid to politics and region.
I think if a professor, 3 PhDs and a research assistant carried it out, then it has serious validity.

Let's read again what Chardy posted, and then suggest that it was just coincidence that nearly half of the people they asked think this way. Rather than think there are people like this in the world we should think the survey was so badly designed they didn't allow for that?
That would be completely unrealistic. We can't rubbish the survey just because the results make us uncomfortable.

Adult population of the UK around 50 million.
Survey sample size 2226.
Of course, silly me, it must be representative.

LauraNorder

Adult population of the UK around 50 million.
Survey sample size 2226.
Of course, silly me, it must be representative.

Yes, it is. You clearly don't understand. I guess saying that makes me pompous.

Here is a link to the Kings College report on that survey. Why do media mentions of surveys etc never include a direct link - do they think we are too thick to understand the story straight from the horse's mouth? This is an interesting and readable summary of the responses they received from the "nationally representative survey of over 2,000 people" who took part.

www.kcl.ac.uk/news/unequal-britain-attitudes-to-inequality-in-light-of-covid

Methodology of the survey - www.kcl.ac.uk/policy-institute/assets/unequal-britain.pdf

"This survey has been conducted using an online interview administered members of the YouGov Plc GB panel of 185,000+ individuals who have agreed to take part in surveys. An email was sent to panellists selected at random from the base sample according to the sample definition, inviting them to take part in the survey and providing a link to the survey."

The responding sample is weighted to the profile of the sample definition to provide a representative reporting sample. The profile is normally derived from census data or, if not available from the census, from industry accepted data.

I suppose you could argue, if you were cynical, that those who had joined the YouGov panel and agreed to take part in surveys were self-selecting, and when further invited to join this particular survey were again selfselecting, but any survey relies on people agreeing to answer - they can't force anyone to give their opinion!

I can't get to the methodology, the link just takes me to one headed page.

Has anybody managed to get to it?

Thank you Elegran but the report had previously been posted on page one of the thread.
I have previously read and understood the report including the technical detail, methodology and references.
I’m off to bed now. Thank you for the debate and goodnight.

Methodology on page 77, I think, from the link of whole report by Growstuff on page one

Page 77ff of Elegran's second link.

Cross post, Laura.

Thank you, Elegran's second link didn't work for me, I'll find the page from the full report.

Cheers ?

LauraNorder

Thank you Elegran but the report had previously been posted on page one of the thread.
I have previously read and understood the report including the technical detail, methodology and references.
I’m off to bed now. Thank you for the debate and goodnight.

Oops. I over-reacted. Sorry Laura

Alegrias1

Cross post, Laura.

Cross or crossed? ?

Goodnight Alegrias

Definitely too cross. Mea culpa .

Goodnight.

growstuff

Did you actually read the full document which I posted LauraNorder? Which questions in the survey would you consider to be loaded?

I think that lauraNorder just said "who needs experts?" in a rather convoluted fashion.

By far the most disturbing inequality at the moment concerns unemployment. Nearly 50% think people have lost their jobs because of under achievement. Only 31% think job loss is attributable to bad luck. Apparently, by 57% to 39% Conservative voters are more likely to accept poor performance as the reason for job losses.

But doesn't it stand to reason that struggling businesses are going to sack their least successful employees in a crisis. It might not be that they were bad at their jobs but simply relatively poorer workers

Consevative voters would look at the whole contribution of workers to the success in a company and act accordingly, Labour voters might have a different criteria for success. In other words the answers might simply reflecte their experience, rather than it being seen as moral issue.

That is a very ,very small survey though. At one stage of my life I used to conduct surveys on various topics and they were a lot larger than that for just one city with a far smaller population. I’m also thinking of the opinion polls before elections. Nearly always wrong. I hate to say it but people lie on surveys for many different reasons and I came to believe many of them are totally worthless.

Years ago, when professional surveys were quite young, those surveys used 1056 people (cross-referenced by gender, socio-economic groups etc) on which to base their conclusions. 2226 is a pretty good sample size.

I’m surprised anyone is surprised by the findings of the survey. If you think the great British public are a population of kind hearted souls take a trip out with your severely disabled adult child. Of course there are lovely people but you still get plenty of ‘he shouldn’t be cluttering up my space’ comments.

And Tory voters do think that way. One of my Tory voting friends (so Tory voting stood as an MP) has maintained all along that lockdowns are wrong because you shouldn’t prioritise the old & weak over the young & healthy. We agreed to disagree. ‘You are responsible for making your own success’ (& by extension, failure) is surely a central Tory value? I just find it amusing how many don’t notice that their success has been built on family money. They seem to struggle to recognise their own privilege.

I wouldn’t give Labour Party voters a monopoly on kindheartedness. I don’t think you can typecast voters this way, it is just rude.

GrannyRose15

^By far the most disturbing inequality at the moment concerns unemployment. Nearly 50% think people have lost their jobs because of under achievement. Only 31% think job loss is attributable to bad luck. Apparently, by 57% to 39% Conservative voters are more likely to accept poor performance as the reason for job losses.^

But doesn't it stand to reason that struggling businesses are going to sack their least successful employees in a crisis. It might not be that they were bad at their jobs but simply relatively poorer workers

Consevative voters would look at the whole contribution of workers to the success in a company and act accordingly, Labour voters might have a different criteria for success. In other words the answers might simply reflecte their experience, rather than it being seen as moral issue.

So you accept that the opinions of the people who were surveyed are correct.

There are now two viewpoints.

1 That the survey is somehow flawed.

2 That the opinions expressed are justified after all, which presumably accepts that the survey isn't flawed.

Pantglas2

There are more good people in the UK than there are good surveys.

That is rubbish and certainly not provable. It is a common Conservative trait to think a lot of themselves and also of what they have achieved. When that is dealt with we may have a reasoned and reasonable country-wide view on unemployment.

GrannyRose15

^By far the most disturbing inequality at the moment concerns unemployment. Nearly 50% think people have lost their jobs because of under achievement. Only 31% think job loss is attributable to bad luck. Apparently, by 57% to 39% Conservative voters are more likely to accept poor performance as the reason for job losses.^

But doesn't it stand to reason that struggling businesses are going to sack their least successful employees in a crisis. It might not be that they were bad at their jobs but simply relatively poorer workers

Consevative voters would look at the whole contribution of workers to the success in a company and act accordingly, Labour voters might have a different criteria for success. In other words the answers might simply reflecte their experience, rather than it being seen as moral issue.

No, it doesn't stand to reason GrannyRose15. Businesses will reorganise and shed cost. Neither of these means you are less successful at what you have been doing.