Results of that survey

Thank you to over 1500 people who responded to my recent readers’ survey. Here are the summary results.

First a few words about how the data were collected.  People were asked to participate in four ways: through this blog, through my newsblast, through tweets on Twitter and through Facebook. In all those cases, anyone coming across the survey could have passed it on to others. And through social media I made the existence of the survey potentially known to the followers of Twitter accounts as diverse as UKIP, the NFU, the RSPB and the League Against Cruel Sports. However, since we start with people connected to this blog, and to me in some way, then the respondents are in no way intended to be a representative sample of the UK population. And you aren’t – you’re very much like me!

Now a few words about how the responses were analysed. For many questions you were asked to give your opinion on a scale from 0-10. In most cases the two most ‘firm’ options, 0 and 9, received most of the responses and in some cases they received well over 80% of them. So in analysing the results I have called those ticking options 0, 1 and 2 as being of one view, those ticking 9, 8 or 7 as being of the opposing view, and regarded those in the middle, ticking 3, 4, 5 or 6, as being undecided, uninterested, unsighted or middle of the road (there weren’t many, as you’ll see, in this category).

And so when I say that the respondents were very like me that means that they were: 71% male (!), 56% aged 50-69 (4% younger than 30;  31% 30-49 years; and 9% >69 years), 79% going to vote Remain, 81% Labour (and 19% Conservative if those were the only choices), 95% convinced climate change is real, 88% convinced it has an anthropogenic cause, 92% convinced it will cause problems for people, 73% convinced that we can do something about it, 81% against grouse shooting, 46% think the RSPB was wrong to welcome the Defra Hen Harrier plan (16% think RSPB was right and 37% in the middle), 89% would expect to believe the RSPB over the Countryside Alliance, 93% don’t think there are too many birds of prey and that they are causing problems for wildlife, 80% in favour of rewilding, and 86% against a badger cull.

So, yes, you are like me. And we aren’t typical.  It’s a pity really!

That is all quite interesting, and the details are interesting to me (and I will come back to some of them in future), but what I was most interested in doing was investigating whether people who disagree with me strongly on one issue often disagree with me strongly on lots of others too?

And since we are all just about to vote on whether we stay in the EU or not I was interested to see whether the Brexit supporters are also pro-grouse shooting, anti-rewilding, Countryside Alliance-believing, climate sceptics. And the results below do suggest that those keenest on Brexit are a bit more inclined to those views than are Remain enthusiasts.

What I did, partly because this was easiest thing to do and the sample sizes are big anyway, was to take the responses to the question about whether you would vote to remain or to leave and only took the very strongest responses of 0 (Brexit, n=175) and 9 (Remain, n=1082) and then I compared how those two groups answered all the other questions. Interestingly there are no differences in age or gender between Brexit and Remain groups here (I’ll spare you the details).

So, in the interests of clarity, I took the most clearly Brexit and Remain respondents and assessed whether they were In Favour, Don’t Know or Against other propositions using the (7-9, 3-6 and 0-2 categorisation described above).

 

Brexit are Conservative (51% where the choice is either Con or Lab)

Remain are Labour (89% where the choice is either Lab or Con)

 

Is climate change happening?

Brexit 73% Yes,  8% No

Remain 99% Yes, 0% No

Is climate change caused by our activities?

Brexit 64% Yes, 11% No

Remain 94% Yes, 1% No

Will impacts of climate change on humankind be harmful?

Brexit 73% Yes, 6% No

Remain 96% Yes, 0% No

Can we reduce impacts of climate change through our actions?

Brexit 58% Yes, 15% No

Remain 76% Yes, 3% No

Are you in favour of grouse shooting?

Brexit 15% Yes, 77% No

Remain 5% Yes, 83% No

Was RSPB right to welcome Defra Hen Harrier plan?

Brexit 20% Yes, 46% No

Remain 16% Yes, 47% No

Would you expect to agree with RSPB or Countryside Alliance?

Brexit 9% CA, 73% RSPB

Remain 0% CA, 93% RSPB

Are there too many birds of prey in the UK?

Brexit 9% Yes, 82% No

Remain 3% Yes, 95% No

Are you keen on rewilding?

Brexit 80% Yes, 13% No

Remain 83% Yes, 2% No

Do you object to or support badger cull?

Brexit 80% Object, 13% Support

Remain 83% Object, 2% Support

 

Summary: people responding to a survey on this blog on a range of controversial issues tend to agree with the views expressed in this blog – no surprises there.

People expressing a strong intention to vote Brexit tomorrow have quite similar views, overall, to those who express a strong intention to vote remain tomorrow.

However, those respondents who expressed a strong intention to vote Brexit also tended to have other views that differ from the views of this blog. Pro-Brexit respondents are more likely to be climate change sceptics, in favour of a badger cull, against rewilding, concerned about numbers of birds of prey, in favour of grouse shooting, and prone to believe the Countryside Alliance more than the RSPB.

 

 

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