Trust and Other News

Trust (1)

Public trust in the Church of England is lower than in other non-political national institutions, according to the results of an Ipsos MORI survey for the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, which were published on 13 September 2014. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 2,008 adults aged 15 and over in Britain on 18-24 July 2014. Respondents were asked to assess their trust in 14 institutions on a scale from 0 to 10, the mean score for the Established Church being 5.36, only rising above 6 in the case of readers of mid-market daily newspapers and those broadly satisfied with the present system of government. The scores for all institutions follow:

The study also covered support for the protection by law of 10 rights and freedoms. Freedom of religion was ranked eighth in order of importance, although it was only seven points behind the most highly prized freedom (the right to a fair trial). Variation by demographic sub-groups ranged from 83% to 94%. Support for each of the rights and freedoms is tabulated below:

The data tables (pp. 1-3 and 114-16 being particularly relevant) will be found at:

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/jrrt-state-of-the-nation-tables-2014.pdf

Trust (2)

Clergy/priests are the profession most trusted to tell the truth by MPs, in a survey released by Ipsos MORI on 9 September 2014, for which 143 MPs were interviewed face-to-face between 9 June and 6 August 2014. Indeed, the proportion of MPs trusting clergy/priests completely or a fair amount was, at 86%, 20 points greater than among the general public in November 2013. Judges (83%), scientists (82%), and doctors (76%) also performed well on the MPs’ veracity index, as they did with the public, with bankers (18%), estate agents (12%), and journalists (11%) being deemed the least trustworthy by MPs.  For more information, see the slideshow at:

http://www.slideshare.net/fullscreen/IpsosMORI/the-view-from-westminster-ipsos-mori-m-ps-survey-1978-2014/4

Religion of dependent children

Release Sup. 3 of the 2011 census results for England and Wales, dated 9 September 2014, included Table LC2123EW: religion of dependent child by sex. Fully interactive, and searchable to the lowest level of census geography, it revealed that, across the country as a whole, 51% of dependent children were recorded as Christian, 8% as Muslim, 3% as of another religion, 30% as of no religion, and 8% as not stated. However, there were many areas where Christians were in a minority, including Birmingham (the centre of this summer’s alleged Trojan Horse plot in schools), where there were more Muslim dependent children (97,100) than Christian (93,800). The table can be accessed at:

http://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/lc2123ew

Islamic State

The polling scene has recently been dominated by the forthcoming referendum on Scottish independence, but there have continued to be some surveys on the rise of Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria since our last post on 4 September 2014. Polls are arranged in chronological order of fieldwork, and were conducted online among samples of adults aged 18 and over.

21-29 August 2014

This Eurotrack survey by YouGov appears to be the first to study British attitudes to the IS crisis in a comparative context, in this case measured against those in Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, and Sweden. There were 2,021 respondents in Britain. Six questions were posed about Iraq, with some notable differences in national opinion, including when it came to the willingness of countries to take part in air strikes against IS targets. Britain and Denmark were most likely to contemplate such action (at 42% in each case), while Finland and Germany were least enthusiastic (26%). But perhaps the most significant variations emerged when participants were questioned about giving asylum in their country to Iraqi Christians and non-Christians. As can be seen from the table below, Britons were, after the French, the least well-disposed to this scenario, with non-Christians being less welcome than Christians in all countries. Data tables are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/rkvalht3o6/August_Eurotrack.pdf

3-5 September 2014

Support for some form of British military intervention against IS reached 60% in this Opinium Research poll for the Sunday Telegraph, for which 2,002 UK individuals were interviewed; only 20% were opposed to British action from the air or on the ground. Approximately four-fifths endorsed tough new powers against British jihadists fighting with IS, in the shape of seizure of their passports, stripping them of their citizenship, and banning them from re-entering the UK. Data tables are at:

http://news.opinium.co.uk/sites/news.opinium.co.uk/files/op4829_telegraph_iraq_tables.pdf

4-5 September 2014

Support for RAF air strikes against IS built to 52% in this YouGov poll among 1,961 Britons for the Sunday Times, even reaching 48% for air strikes against IS in Syria (11 points up on the week before). Opposition was voiced by 68% to the payment of ransoms for the release of British citizens held hostage by IS, with 62% in favour of a military rescue operation. Half the sample felt that British Muslim leaders should be doing a lot more to dissuade British Muslims from going to Iraq to join IS, just 22% thinking the Muslim leadership was doing all it reasonably could. Data tables are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/e6yfutr1ad/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-140905.pdf

Household income

In an online poll by Populus on 29-31 August 2014, the 2,010 respondents were asked to provide information about their religion and total household income prior to tax. Correlating the answers to the two questions, it can be shown that non-Christians were disproportionately likely to come from the poorest households (with an income of under £14,000), while those professing no religion were to be found in above-average numbers in the richest households (with an income over £28,000). Christians were more clustered in households with a middling income. Results are summarized below, and the source data are on p. 35 of the tables at:

http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/OmFood_Fraud-income-break.pdf

Premier Christian Radio audience

Premier Christian Radio, the evangelical (and sometimes controversial) station broadcasting primarily in London and South-East England (but also receivable on Freeview and the national DAB multiplex) has announced that it reached its biggest ever audience in its twenty-year history during the second quarter of 2014. According to official RAJAR figures, its average weekly listening by adults aged 15 and over in London and the South-East was 240,700 in this period, equivalent to 2% of the population served. The rise follows a rebranding exercise and the launch of a new website (incorporating listen again features) earlier in the year. However, historic data back to 2010, tabulated below, indicate that there has been some volatility in Premier’s audience, so it is too soon to say whether this increase will be sustained. These statistics can be examined in more detail, including for the pre-2010 era, at:

http://www.rajar.co.uk/listening/quarterly_listening.php

Education of Anglican bishops

The Church Times has surveyed the secondary and tertiary educational backgrounds of the Church of England’s 112 serving bishops. One half were found to have been educated at an independent school, with 36% attending a grammar school and 13% a comprehensive school. Two-fifths (42%) had taken their first degree at Oxford or Cambridge, with Durham University accounting for a further 17%. The newspaper collected the data following the recent publication of a report on Elitist Britain? by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, which documented a bias towards independent and Oxbridge backgrounds among other national leaders. Details are available for each individual bishop at:

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2014/5-september/news/uk/half-the-bishops-in-the-c-of-e-were-educated-privately