Please help us understand attitudes towards immigration in the UK by completing this short and anonymous poll. We will be distributing it widely to gain as varied a response as possible to represent the resident UK population as closely as possible. By adding various categorizations we hope to be able to produce a report which is more useful than the simple percentages which reach the national headlines. Whether you are supportive of immigration or not, your opinion counts.
Please click on the link to open the short questionnaire.
How about having another poll that gauges attitudes toward people who set up polls that preclude ‘White English’ as a category, lump Atheists and Agnostics in one camp and invent ‘genders’ other than male and female?
Frank, how about you set up your own activities instead of picking holes in whatever I try and do?
White British is the standard definition, and a serious poll needs to use standard categories to be comparable and compatible. The same with gender.
You don’t like it then don’t bother answering the questions.
h/t Standpoint btw.
… and Agnositcs and Atheists in the same slot? That disposes of f those ‘heathens’ with a flourish, I suppose? If you are a religious bigot that is. Why do you care what they think if you don’t accept the difference between one an the other. It is easy to deflect, by saying “It’s my poll, so if you don’t like it piss off and do your own”, but my criticisms are valid and if you can’t see it, remove the moat from your eye. And there are only two genders in the human race; by pandering to the delusions of perverts you become part of the problem. Just sayin’.
Yes, Frank. Whatever. Mote is spelled mote. Your criticisms are noted. If you are going to support things then thank you. If you are not then why try to undermine it? It’s difficult to know what you want. You don’t support the EDL, or UKIP, and even my efforts always seem to attract your angry condemnation.
As with my other choice of options. The recommended question for religious affiliation (necessary for results to be comparable) only allows the answer: No religion.
Frank P – 18:57 ‘Agnostics and Atheists’
What about categories for Catholic Atheists and Protestant Atheists?
The old ones are the best.
If you don’t know what the population of this patch thinks about ‘immigration’, you haven’t been reading the commentary. Why do you need to conduct yet another a poll, FFS? Particularly one that herds people into categories, whether inside the ramparts of your particular bailiwick (with or without either mote or moat), that do not necessarily describe them as they would wish to be described – and, in the process, inventing ‘other’ genders that don’t exist. If you wish to run a blog where there is little or no dissent, then don’t seek opinions. Seems you don’t really want opinions but rather comfortable concurrence with your own. Preaching to the choir is a doddle. But descant ain’t necessarily the choir. Not when I don’t like the tune, anyway
You are right about EDL, btw, I have very good reasons not to support them. As for UKIP, you are wrong. I do support their effort to break the mould of UK politics (in both connotations, lest the pedant in you rears again). Don’t hold out too much hope for it, though; particularly, as I said in another post, its impetus seems to have waned. I still don’t know where they stand on Islam and the Brotherhood, either. So far, they have been very quiet. Noa indicated That they are ‘keeping their powder dry’ for fear of being labelled ‘Islamophobic’ and being attacked. Why not just tell the truth about the vile and murderous cult? I wonder if we need yet another party that buries its principles in the effort to gain votes? We’re lumbered with one already – no THREE, as a matter of fact.
Farage’s refreshing full frontal on the EU communists, conmen and ‘technocrats’ has been inspirational and garnered support. I’d like to know what he thinks about the Muslim Brotherhood, though. I know about his hats, his fags and his love of a pint. And that he insults, as a sport, his fellow members of the EU Parliament. Why do you assert that I ‘don’t support UKIP? On the contrary I urged people to vote for them in the local elections and voted for them myself. Even joined, for the first time in my life, a political party and paid my dues. Didn’t see any sign of the local UKIP candidate in my village, though and, consequently, she didn’t win. So I wasted my vote. No change there then.
Anyway, if political allegiances are what you are about, together with your somewhat dogmatic proselytising, you are right – I’m in the wrong place and I’ll bid you adieu and wish you good luck with the blog. Trolling isn’t my game, but being critical, cussed, argumentative and smart-arsed is what the ‘sphere is about imho, so I’ll return to the rough trade, where no doubt you think I belong.
As I depart I would like to reiterate my thanks to the many hours of entertainment, comfort, support and friendship I have derived from the posts of friends on this and other blogs back to le fin de siècle. It’s past my blog-time anyway. I see no ships, only hardships, and wouldn’t want to continue to pollute the minds of those who still keep the glimmer of optimism burning. It’s just not fair. So farewell folks, it’s been great knowing you (or not – as the case may be). 🙂
The opinions of many more people than post here are being canvassed Frank. And categorising people is what a poll requires. I’m sure you are aware of that. You don’t have to participate in this poll or any other.
Frank P, you are not only one of the stalwarts (and certainly one of the most entertaining of stalwarts) but your writing has the same zip as your staunch. Please say that this is just another “retirement” as in, say Barbra Streisand and similar retiring stalwarts who were topping another bill within six months.
What about us Jedi Knights?
Use the Other option
To join the pedantry, I always maintain there is no such thing as an agnostic (if that is taken, in the broadest terms, to mean you’re not sure). If you accept the premise that there might be a deity, then you are a believer, simply by the fact of accepting the possibility.
My personal choice is to acknowledge, but not accept faith. What another chooses to believe is their choice. My objections only kick in when they expect me to behave in accordance with their faith.
And, on that basis, Mark Thompsons faith as a Jedi Knight must be respected. The miracle of Obi Wan no doubt has parallels among more established religions.
On the other hand, he could be stirring the pot or he could be a comic book nerd.
“I didn’t expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition.”
Advertised as an anonymous survey. Even without recent revelations I am doubtful
of such claims.
Why? You are not asked to submit any identifying information at all, therefore it is anonymous.
I have completed the Poll; however without wishing to criticise the layout of the Pole or the questions in any way, I would very much like to make two comments if I may.
My hackles rise whenever I am asked for my ethnicity and there isn’t a box for ‘White English’ or for that matter white Welsh/Scott/Irish thus forcing me to and leaving me no other alternative than to tick ‘White British’.
I have gradually over the past fifty to sixty years thought of myself as purely and only English rather than British, being British has been devalued to such a degree that any Johnny-come-lately or Hottentots can now be classified as British, I think the final straw that broke this particular camels-back was when the sad, mad, bad Gordon Brown began his demented rant on our being British, this from an English hating Scot.
My second is quite simple, one is either a man (male) or a woman (female) anything else is playing the game as the deviants would have us do and I am not so persuaded.
Hi David
Thanks for taking the poll. It is necessary to conducts polls using standard categories otherwise it is impossible to compare and contrast results. Many of us may consider ourselves English before British, but this is not what is being measured in this poll. In other polls it may well be that all those providing different ethnicities in the standard list will also be asked which nation or people group they most identify themselves with. But that is a different poll.
Likewise adding various categories to other options that we may not agree with is required when conducting a poll. There are people who categorise themselves in such a way, and the fact that they do is also significant in terms of polling. A poll is not a statement of fact or a political manifesto, nor does it have much value if only questions which will be acceptable to one group of people are asked. This is why the views of left wing people, immigrants, and anyone else are valuable.
A poll is not a game, it is an attempt to report the views of the population. And those views may not be ones we all agree with. If I was conducting a poll on abortion I might have to add categories I deeply disagreed with, but there would be no point conducting a poll if I did not allow those asked questions to choose for themselves otherwise it would be my opinion only and not that of the population.
So please don’t be concerned that there are categories you do not agree with. Categories are not realities but they do represent the possible views of the wider population. That is what a poll is trying to determine or it is not worth conducting.
“without wishing to criticise the layout of the Pole…”
Don’t they have the same layout as the rest of us?
Peter, sorry to barge in that late (out of wi-fi connection for days), but Frank (and lately David) have a point on both counts. By adopting the language of your opponent you weaken yourself before the fight even begins. What other gender is there other than male and female, and why shouldn’t you have a separate category of White English. Baron’s an immigrant, he has no objection whatever. It has always been a puzzle to him why those in charge of the polls cut it off, excluding such category did BA for the few non-White English, but it must have antagonised millions of White English. Silly reallyy.
Frank, you should, you must reconsider. No question you were the star of the blog blog. Not that the poorly educated Slav always saw things the way you did, but the power of your argument, the language, the whole package, oh boy, what would many a scribbling journalist out there in the world of the sharks give for that. Come on, be a man, come back, entertain, educate and cheer us up again, please.
Hi Baron, the trouble is that there are people who consider themselves white-Cornish and others white-Manx and even white-Orkney. Some people will not consider themselves Black but Kenyan. This illustrates that the question is not about nationality but ethnicity.
As for people considering themselves a third gender, well the whole point of a survey is to record opinion not make it. It isn’t anything other than reporting and analysing. I don’t believe in gay marriage at all but if a survey considers relationships then it needs to report real opinions not how we might want it to be.
Fine with Baron, Peter, it’s your show you run it the way you see fit.
I do think it would be interesting to poll ethnicity with sense of nationality. In such a poll I would list all the nations that make up the UK etc. It would be useful to see how many people consider themselves to belong to a British nation, or to Britain, or to other nations elsewhere in the world.
“Anyway, if political allegiances are what you are about, together with your somewhat dogmatic proselytising, you are right – I’m in the wrong place and I’ll bid you adieu . . . ”
TFFT
Talk about spitting the dummy out . . .
Frank P
You have a lot of good to say and I suspect you do not like hearing that from me and mine.
The views of yourself and like minds on the EDL are important and influential and should be trumpeted if we are retain harmony in our increasingly difficult society.
I would welcome you back both here and on Speccie (If your name has been barred they remove the IP address bar after one month and a slight tweak of your name will let you back in)