Scottish Independence and Other News

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Clive D. Field

 

Scottish independence

The referendum on Scottish independence is now behind us (it was held on 18 September 2014), and we know that a majority of residents of Scotland has voted to remain in the United Kingdom. The referendum campaign was accompanied by a spate of opinion polls in Scotland, mostly conducted online, which explored attitudes and voting intentions from a variety of perspectives. However, none of these appear to have asked about the faith of respondents, so we had no clear idea how religion may have influenced views on Scottish independence. The closest we came to that dimension was a series of articles and interviews in the print media by the historian Sir Tom Devine speculating on the shifting attitudes of Scottish Catholics on the prospects of independence for Scotland, and drawing on some less than current data from the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey.

It is therefore gratifying to note that Lord Ashcroft has surveyed the actual voting in the referendum of 2,047 Scottish residents. They were contacted by telephone or online on 18 and 19 September, after they had filled in their ballot paper, the voting of this sample almost exact mirroring the national results. The survey tabulations were published on 19 September at:

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Scotland-Post-Referendum-poll-Full-tables-1409191.pdf

As the following table, calculated from Ashcroft’s data, makes clear, there does appear to have been a simplistic correlation between religious affiliation and referendum voting patterns. Essentially, the majority of Catholics, non-Christians, and those professing no religion all favoured independence. It was only the votes of Protestants which saved the United Kingdom. The vast majority of these affiliate to the Church of Scotland and may have been influenced by the fact that the Queen has a strong relationship with it, albeit she is not its Supreme Governor (as she is in respect of the Church of England). The reality is likely to be far more complex than this, as a multivariate analysis of the dataset would doubtless reveal (if it ever becomes available), but these figures suggest that religion cannot be discounted from having some bearing on how people voted. 

% across

No vote

Yes vote
Total

54.6

45.4
Christians: Catholic

43.0

57.0
Christians: Non-Catholic

69.1

30.9
Non-Christians

36.4

63.6
No religion

44.3

55.7

Church and State

Talking of establishment, ComRes replicated for ITV News on 12-14 September 2014 a question about the official link between the Church of England and the State which it had first posed some three months earlier. Respondents, of whom there were 2,052 in the second online poll, were asked whether the maintenance of such a link was good or bad for Britain. The plurality was undecided on the issue, but, as the table below indicates, more now believe that establishment is bad than consider it good. It seems especially unpopular in Scotland (45%) and North-East England (40%). The full data can be found on pp. 42-3 of the tables at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/ITV_News_Index_15th_September_2014.pdf 

% down

27-29 June

12-14 Sept

Change
Good

33

28

-5
Bad

29

32

+3
Don’t know

38

40

+2

Islamic State

The referendum on Scottish independence dominated the news last week, being the most noticed story for 61% of Britons, according to an online poll of 2,260 adults by Populus on 17-18 September 2014. The various manifestations of the Islamic State (IS) crisis in Iraq and Syria, including the murder of British hostage David Haines, were thus pushed down the agenda somewhat, but remained the top story for 13%. However, there have been two new IS-related online surveys by YouGov, as follows:

15-16 September 2014

YouGov replicated a sub-set of questions last asked in its poll of 4-5 September 2014. They were put to a sample of 1,977 respondents. Notwithstanding the intervening murder by IS of David Haines, and the threat to kill another British captive, public attitudes to the IS crisis had only slightly hardened, notably in respect of support for RAF air strikes against IS targets, up from 52% to 54% in the case of Iraq and from 48% to 52% in Syria (where Haines was almost certainly killed). There was overwhelming (70%) opposition to the payment of ransoms to secure the release of British hostages, albeit 63% endorsement for a British military rescue operation to free them. Data tables are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/x2r1cq8rs3/YG-Archive-140917-IS.pdf

18-19 September 2014

The second poll, for The Sunday Times, interviewed 2,126 adults. Relative to the survey of three days before, there had been slight dips in the level of support for RAF air strikes against IS in Iraq (down 1%, to 53%) and Syria (down 1%, to 51%), and the commitment of British and American ground troops against IS in Iraq (down 2%, to 24%, with disapproval on 55%). Data tables are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/wpbxyfjd7p/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-140919.pdf

Journal of Contemporary Religion

The latest issue (Vol. 29, No. 3, October 2014) of Journal of Contemporary Religion, published online on 9 September 2014, includes two articles and one book review by members of the BRIN team which may be of interest to readers of this website. The issue can be accessed at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cjcr20/29/3#.VBcogTZwbX4

Ben Clements, ‘Assessing the Determinants of the Contemporary Social Attitudes of Roman Catholics in Britain: Abortion and Homosexuality’ (pp. 491-501) is based on secondary analysis of a YouGov survey of 1,636 professing British Catholic adults on the eve of the papal visit to Scotland and England in September 2010. On the two social issues investigated significant numbers of Catholics held liberal views which diverged from the official teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, the most traditionalist (and socially conservative) among the faithful being found to be men, older people, and frequent Mass-goers.

Clive Field, ‘Is the Bible Becoming a Closed Book? British Opinion Poll Evidence’ (pp. 503-28) utilizes 123 national sample surveys of the adult general population and 35 national and local sample surveys of adult religious populations to study changes in the standing of the Bible in Britain since the Second World War. The analysis proceeds both at topline level and by breaks for gender, age, social class, religious denomination, and churchgoing. Twelve broad conclusions are drawn, with declining allegiance to the Bible visible on various fronts, even among regular churchgoers. In an everyday sense, one interpretation of the data could be that Christianity is becoming decoupled from the holy book on which it is founded. This process is attributed to the waning influence of three principal agencies of religious socialization (Church/Sunday school, state school, parents) which formerly underpinned the Bible’s role in faith and society.

The book review (pp. 555-6) is by David Voas and is of The World’s Religions in Figures: An Introduction to International Religious Demography, by Todd Johnson and Brian Grim (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013).

Charity Brand Index

The Methodist Recorder (12 September 2014, p. 2) reports that Methodist Homes (MHA) has been named the most trusted charity in the UK in 2014 according to the sixth Charity Brand Index published by Third Sector Research on the basis of an online survey of 4,000 adults by Harris Interactive. MHA’s trustworthiness rating stood at 85%, the highest of the 150 charities evaluated in the Index. This is just one facet by which these charities are ranked by the public, other measures including recognition, willingness to donate, effectiveness of media coverage and advertising, attitudes towards the charity’s cause, and understanding of the charity’s work. Unfortunately, the Index is a fully commercial product, the report and dataset costing £1,750, so BRIN is unable to provide further details of results for religion-related charities more generally. However, the top ten charities overall this year are not obviously religious in character; they are listed in the online edition of Third Sector at:

http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/cancer-research-uk-named-best-charity-brand-2014/communications/article/1309460

Christmas campaign

The Christmas Starts with Christ 2014 campaign, co-ordinated by ChurchAds.Net on behalf of a consortium of Churches and Christian agencies, was announced on 10 September 2014, with a range of downloadable resources, including posters, radio commercials, and web banners. The campaign officially kicks off on 30 November (Advent Sunday), with churches being invited to hold a Christmas Starts Sunday in December. The organizers hope that 10,000 places of worship will get involved this year.

During the summer (13 June 2014) Christmas Starts with Christ also released statistics of its 2013 campaign, in which an estimated 4,500 churches participated and advertising became genuinely multi-platform. The campaign’s three ‘chat show’ radio advertisements – featuring Mary, Herod, and the innkeeper – were heard by five million listeners. There were 3.55 million opportunities to see a #ChristmasStarts tweet on Twitter. Three ‘thunderclaps’ reached 1.31 million people via social media. The campaign website attracted 139,000 pageviews, 25% more than in 2012 and double the level in 2011. A post-campaign survey by ComRes in January 2014 revealed that 67% of Britons felt the Christmas message had been conveyed effectively by the campaign and 49% acknowledged the advertising had made them think more about the true meaning of Christmas. The ‘2013 – Our Year in Numbers’ summary is at:

http://christmasstartswithchrist.com/docs/2013/CSWC_2013_review.pdf

 

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Church and State

Posted on May 23, 2011 by Clive D. Field

The recent Royal Wedding, between Prince William and Catherine Middleton (now the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge), gave rise to extensive opinion polling on the subject of British attitudes to the monarchy, and a few of these surveys touched on issues of Church and State.

One such was the Harris Interactive Royal Wedding poll for the Daily Mail, undertaken among an online sample of 1,029 adults aged 16 and over in the UK on 20 and 21 April 2011.

This included two relevant questions, both omitted from the newspaper’s publication of results on 23 April but subsequently released by Harris as tables 14 and 15 of the complete data at:

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/vault/HI_UK_Corp_News-Daily-Mail-Poll-Apr11.pdf

Middleton’s confirmation into the Church of England on 10 March, in a private service conducted by the Bishop of London at St James’s Palace, was the topic of the first question.

Her decision to seek confirmation may have been prompted in part by her recognition that her husband-to-be would be a future Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

52% of respondents in this Harris study ‘mostly supported’ Middleton’s confirmation, 11% ‘mostly opposed’ it, and 37% were unsure what to think. The high proportion of ‘don’t knows’ is characteristic of surveys on Church and State.

Approval of her confirmation peaked at 66% among the over-55s and also exceeded three-fifths in the Midlands and Wales. Opposition was highest (18%) among those aged 16-24, with 42% of this same cohort supportive and 40% undecided. Women (56%) were somewhat more in favour than men (49%).

The second question explored views on the establishment of the Church of England. 41% agreed with it, almost three times the number who disagreed (15%), with 44% neutral. Northern Ireland excepted (where only 10 people were interviewed), hostility to establishment never rose above 23% in any demographic sub-group.

At the same time, the over-55s (56%) were the only sub-group which registered an absolute majority in favour. The status quo of an established church in England is thus underpinned by a combination of positive public endorsement on the one hand and acquiescence/indifference on the other.

For other recent poll data, on the continuation of the monarch’s Supreme Governorship of the Church of England and of the bar (under the Act of Settlement 1701) on Roman Catholics or persons married to a Catholic acceding to the throne, see our previous posts at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=1131

and

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=1223

and

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=1228

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Roman Catholics and the Latin Mass

Posted on September 6, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Yet another opinion poll has been published in the run-up to the state and pastoral visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Scotland and England between 16 and 19 September. But this one is different, since it is about the liturgical predilections of British Catholics and not about papal popularity!

It is one in a series of surveys commissioned by Paix Liturgique, a movement of Roman Catholic laity based in France and dedicated to the extraordinary form of the Latin Rite. Other national surveys have been conducted in France in 2001, 2006 and 2008, Italy in 2009, and Germany and Portugal in 2010.

The current Pope stated in a motu proprio of 2007 that the Mass can be celebrated both in its modern or ordinary form (i.e. in the vernacular, with the priest facing the congregation and Holy Communion received standing) and in its traditional or extraordinary form (i.e. in Latin and Gregorian chant, with the priest facing the altar and Holy Communion received kneeling).

The purpose of Paix Liturgique’s polling is to ascertain how far the Catholic laity is aware that the two forms of the Mass are permitted, and how much demand potentially there is for the extraordinary form, or Latin Mass.

Fieldwork in Britain was undertaken online by Harris Interactive France between 21 and 28 June 2010, among a sample of 6,153 adults aged 18 and over. From these were filtered 800 professing Roman Catholics.

Details of the poll are contained in a 10-page report from Harris, which can be downloaded from:

http://www.paixliturgique.fr/securefilesystem/FICHIERLISTE/FICHIERLISTE_20100903151657_harris_-_paix_liturgique_-_gb_juin2010.pdf

Paix Liturgique’s commentary on the survey can be found in its Lettre, 246 of 3 September, which has been translated into English and posted on the Protect the Pope website at:

http://protectthepope.com/?p=940

A short article about the poll also appears on the front page of the Catholic Herald of 3 September, which can be read at:

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2010/09/03/poll-almost-half-of-mass-goers-would-attend-older-form/

The following summary is derived from a combination of all the above, together with a two-page five-nation comparison of Paix Liturgique’s polling kindly supplied to BRIN by the organization’s press officer.

24% of Britain’s self-identifying Catholics claim to attend Mass weekly and 8% monthly, the combined figure of 32% being in excess of France and Portugal (19%) and Germany (10%), albeit lower than Italy (51%). The remaining British Catholics attend on holy days (10%) or occasionally (46%), with 12% never going to Mass.

39% of all Britain’s Catholics are aware that Mass can be celebrated in both the ordinary and extraordinary forms, which is less than in France, Germany and Italy. The other 61% do not realize this. However, among weekly and monthly Mass-goers awareness stands at 63%.

45% would consider it normal for both forms to be celebrated regularly in their own parishes (rising to 55% for weekly and monthly Mass-goers), with 21% regarding it as abnormal and 34% having no opinion.

Given the chance to attend Mass in the extraordinary form in Latin, but without it replacing the ordinary form in English, 16% of all Catholics say they would attend the traditional Mass weekly and 11% monthly.

When the same question was put to the regular (weekly or monthly) Mass-goers alone, 43% say they would attend the extraordinary form every week and 23% once a month. The combined figure of 66% is higher even than Italy, as well as far more than in France, Germany and Portugal.

Unsurprisingly, Paix Liturgique concludes that the poll is a ringing endorsement of its cause and emphatic proof of the ‘astounding deficiency’ of the British Roman Catholic hierarchies in promulgating knowledge of the motu proprio.

Paix Liturgique’s letter ends on an interesting methodological note. Because of the relatively small proportion of Catholics in Britain (13%), Harris had to poll a much larger number of adults than in Catholic countries. Consequently, at €10,000, this has been Paix Liturgique’s most expensive survey to date.

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Dalai Lama

Posted on May 31, 2010 by Clive D. Field

There were only 152,000 professing Buddhists in the UK at the 2001 census, equivalent to 0.3% of the population, the overwhelming majority of them in England. So, at first sight, it might seem somewhat surprising that one foreign Buddhist, the Dalai Lama, head of state and spiritual leader of Tibet, should have acquired such a relatively high profile with the British public.

His standing as an international figure is revealed in the Harris Interactive world leader barometer, of which there have been six waves since November 2008. The latest was conducted on behalf of France 24 and RFI among representative samples of adults aged 16-64 in France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Spain and the United States. Fieldwork took place between 31 March and 12 April, with 1,030 online interviews in Britain. A report on the poll is available at:

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/tabid/447/ctl/ReadCustom%20Default/mid/1508/ArticleId/58/Default.aspx

57% of Britons said that they had a very or somewhat good opinion of the Dalai Lama, the highest rating of any of the 21 world leaders apart from the American president, Barack Obama, who scored 69%.

The only other spiritual leader in the list, Pope Benedict XVI, scored 28% and Gordon Brown (the then British prime minister) 20%. Views of the Dalai Lama were especially positive among men, those aged 45-64 and upper income earners.

However, Britain’s assessment of the Dalai Lama was nowhere near as good as in the five other nations surveyed, the range being from 77% in Germany to 86% in Italy. It had also dropped 7 points from the high in April 2009. On the other hand, just 9% of Britons had a very or somewhat poor opinion of the Dalai Lama, with 34% unsure.

Whatever their views of the Dalai Lama as an individual, far fewer Britons thought that he was influential on the international stage. 32% considered that he had a great deal or some influence, the lowest of all six countries, and eleventh in the list of world figures, which was again headed in Britain by Barack Obama (on 74%).

Notwithstanding, this represented a 5% rise on the November 2009 figure. 36% thought he had no or limited influence, including 49% of men and 47% in the upper income bracket, with 32% undecided.

Of the six world leaders whose attributes were evaluated in greater detail, the Dalai Lama scored highest in Britain in terms of honesty (85%) and reassurance (81%), and second highest for closeness to people (81%), seriousness (80%) and charisma (66%). He fared less well for his dynamism (45%), although he still outshone the Pope in this regard (19%). In general, on all these measures, adults aged 16-34 were far less positive than the over-35s.

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Ongoing Public Relations Problems for the Vatican

Posted on May 30, 2010 by Clive D. Field

There are fewer than four months to go to the papal visit to Britain, yet there appears to be no let-up in the public relations problems faced by the Vatican and Pope Benedict XVI, which we have already flagged up in our posts of 26 February (‘What do we think of the Pope?’), 15 March (‘Cyber warfare breaks out over the papal visit to Britain’) and 20 April (‘Pope Benedict on the back foot’).

That at least is the implication of two recent Harris Interactive online polls undertaken among representative samples of adults aged 16-64 in France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Spain and the United States. Fieldwork for the first survey was carried out between 31 March and 12 April for France 24 and RFI, with 1,030 Britons interviewed. Fieldwork for the second study (n = 1,124 in Britain) took place between 27 April and 4 May on behalf of the Financial Times (although the relevant questions do not seem to have been reported in that newspaper, as yet). Full data tabulations for both polls will be found at:

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/FinancialTimes/DataTables.aspx

In the first survey the proportion of Britons having a very or somewhat good opinion of Benedict XVI stood at just 28%, the lowest figure in all six countries investigated save France (22%) and barely half the level recorded in Italy (52%). This was also the lowest statistic in Britain across the six waves of the world leader rankings carried out by Harris since November 2008, 13 points below the peak rating of 41% and a drop of 8% in under six months. 41% of Britons had a very or somewhat poor opinion of the Pope, with men (48%) and upper-income earners (53%) among his harshest critics.

Somewhat more Britons (42%) considered the Pope to have a great deal or some influence on the international stage than viewed him positively, but this was 9% less than in November 2009. It was also the lowest figure for the six countries apart from France (34%) and fell well short of Italy’s 70%. 31% thought the Pope had no or limited influence (37% for men and 41% for those in the upper-income bracket).

Asked to select from a list of six attributes potentially applicable to the Pope, only a minority of Britons described him as dynamic (19%) or charismatic (26%). Pluralities found him reassuring (44%), close to the people (45%) or honest (47%). But 80% regarded him as serious (second only to the US on 87%); this was presumably often viewed as a negative characteristic. Those who doubted the Pope’s honesty were especially located among the young and northerners.

Doubtless, the fall in papal ratings between November 2009 and the present owes much to renewed revelations about child sex abuse at the hands of Roman Catholic priests, including the apparent failings of the Vatican and national hierarchies to address paedophilia at the heart of the Church. This is the clear inference of the second Harris poll, which focused on allegations about child sex abuse by priests.

In Britain 81% of respondents were aware of these allegations (the same as in Germany but less than in the other four countries). Of these, 45% of Britons agreed that the Pope should resign immediately over the Vatican’s failings in these cases (the highest figure in the six nations apart from Spain), with 25% disagreeing and 29% unsure. Moreover, three-quarters of Britons who were aware of the allegations considered that the Catholic Church had lost its moral credibility over the child-abuse crisis, more than in any other country apart from Germany (81%).

A final question asked how often interviewees attended a place of worship. In Britain, the number of self-reporting non-attenders was 65% (including 72% of northerners and 71% of low-income earners), followed by Germany on 61%, France on 54%, Spain on 50%, the United States on 37% and Italy on 33%. Of Britons who still attended worship, 22% said they did so less frequently than five years previously and 21% more often.

So, the Britain which Pope Benedict XVI will be visiting in September is a country where religious practice is no longer the norm and one where the moral authority of both the Catholic Church and Papacy is being seriously questioned. Perhaps these considerations will impact upon the size of the crowds attending the papal events in England and Scotland. These are already under pressure on account of health and safety and security constraints which will limit the maximum potential numbers well below those that were possible during Pope John Paul II’s visit in 1982. It also remains to be seen whether the recent disclosures about the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s planning for the visit will result in some kind of sympathy vote among the public in favour of the Pope.

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Should the Burka Be Banned in Britain? Take 2

Posted on March 3, 2010 by Clive D. Field

A month after the publication of a ComRes poll for The Independent on whether the burka should be banned in Britain (see our earlier news post at http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=45), another survey on the subject has just appeared.

This one is by Harris Interactive on behalf of the Financial Times. It was conducted online among a representative sample of 1,097 Britons aged 16-64 between 3 and 10 February 2010, and also in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United States and China.

Asked whether they wished to follow the French government’s lead in seeking a ban on the wearing of the burka, 57% of Britons said yes and 26% no, with 18% unsure.

This suggests that opinion against the burka has hardened somewhat since the ComRes poll (which used a more subtle battery of four questions).

The proportion in favour of banning the burka in Britain was less than in France (70%), Spain (65%) and Italy (63%), but more than in Germany (50%), the United States (33%) and China (27%).

Interviewees were further asked whether they would support a burka ban if it were accompanied by a clamp-down on the wearing of all religious icons, such as the Christian crucifix or the Jewish cappel.

Only 9% of Britons indicated that they would back this more generic ban on religious dress, and even in France the proportion favouring this move was reduced to 22%.

The Harris press release about the poll (which also covered attitudes to body scanners in airports) will be found at:

http://news.harrisinteractive.com/profiles/investor/ResLibraryView.asp?BzID=1963&ResLibraryID=36557&Category=1777

An article by James Blitz (‘Majority supports outlawing the burka’) appeared on page 4 of the Financial Times for 2 March 2010. This can be accessed online (but without the graphic) at:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d11ac1e0-2598-11df-9bd3-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check=1

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What do we think of the Pope?

Posted on February 26, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Pope Benedict XVI is to visit Great Britain later this year. But how do British people rate him? Some clues to this are given in the latest (the fifth) wave of the world leaders opinion barometer, undertaken by Harris Interactive on behalf of the news channel France 24 and the International Herald Tribune newspaper.

In Great Britain 1,076 adults aged 16-64 were interviewed online between 28 October and 4 November 2009. Interviews were also conducted in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United States of America. Opinions were sought about 21 world leaders, including the Pope and the Dalai Lama. Topline results are available at:

http://www.harrisinteractive.fr/news/2009/baro_worldleaders_V5_UK_final.pdf

In terms of popularity ranking, the Pope features in fourth position in Great Britain, with 36% holding a very or somewhat good opinion of him, a rise of 3% over the fourth wave in April 2009 but seven points below the six-country average. The Dalai Lama comes second (58%), the same as in the United States, which he has visited recently, although the four continental European countries record much higher percentages.

Barack Obama, the American president, stands in first place (72%) for popularity with Britons. The current British prime minister, Gordon Brown, comes eighth and his predecessor, Tony Blair, seventh.

At the other end of the scale, 33% of Britons have a poor opinion of the Pope, suggesting that his pastoral visit to Britain could well spark controversy, compared with 8% having a poor opinion of the Dalai Lama.

This negativity towards the Pope is manifest in the four other European countries, reaching a high of 56% in Spain. Americans are better disposed towards the Pope, with an overall mean favourability score of 2.9, against the six-country average and the British figure (both 2.3).  

When it comes to a great deal or some influence in the world, the Pope drops to eighth position in Great Britain, 33% (2% down on the fourth wave) and the lowest figure in all six nations apart from France (Italians, 65%, rate him most highly for influence).

The Dalai Lama ranks thirteenth (27%) on this measure in Britain, with Brown in seventh position and Blair in tenth. 35% of Britons judge the Pope to have little or no influence, compared with 37% who say the same of the Dalai Lama.

This produces an average British index of popularity and influence of 35% for the Pope and 43% for the Dalai Lama. Obama is out in front on this combined scale, on 71%, with Angela Merkel of Germany also scoring well, at 41%. Brown and Blair, the two British politicians, fare less well than the two world spiritual leaders, scoring 31% and 29% respectively.

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