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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The New Anti-Semitism

Posted on May 29, 2010 by Clive D. Field

In his massive new book, Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England (Oxford University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-19-929705-4, £25.00), Anthony Julius devotes two long and controversial chapters to the ‘new anti-Semitism’, which emerged (according to him) in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in consequence of the Six Day War, and has become hegemonic in the 1990s and 2000s.

He sees this as the fourth in a line of English anti-Semitisms which he traces back to the early Middle Ages. The new anti-Semitism is characterized by an anti-Zionism which has secular and confessional (Muslim, Jewish and Christian) manifestations and is directed against the very existence, as well as the actions, of the state of Israel. For Julius, it would appear, to be anti-Israel is to be anti-Jew.

Julius himself makes little use of quantitative data in his book. However, against this background, it is interesting to note the latest in a series of international polls conducted, across 28 countries between November 2009 and February 2010, for the BBC World Service by the polling firm GlobeScan, together with the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland. In the UK a nationally representative sample of 1,020 adults aged 18 and over was interviewed by telephone between 8 December 2009 and 15 January 2010. The GlobeScan/PIPA report will be found at:

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pipa/pdf/apr10/BBCViews_Apr10_rpt.pdf

Respondents were asked whether they thought a selection of countries had a mainly positive or mainly negative influence in the world. Attitudes to Israel were found to be widely negative, with 24 countries giving an unfavourable evaluation and just two a positive one (the remaining two being divided). The range in those indicating they had a mainly negative view of Israel was from 29% in India to 92% in Egypt.

The UK occupied a middle position, with 50% of its citizens having a mainly negative perception of Israel. This was identical to the average for all 28 nations, but significantly more than in the United States and Commonwealth countries, and rather less than among some of our nearest European neighbours (with 57% in France, 60% in Spain and 68% in Germany) and the five majority-Muslim populations surveyed.

Just 17% of adults in the UK had mainly positive views of Israel, the third lowest figure in UK citizens’ assessment of 17 different countries. Only Iran (10% mainly positive, 59% mainly negative, -49% net) and North Korea (13% mainly positive, 53% mainly negative, -40% net) fared worse, although Pakistan (-25%) was also poorly regarded.

The net -33% rating for Israel in the UK compared, at the other end of the scale, with +55% in the case of Germany and +47% for Japan, both former Second World War enemies. Other high figures were +54% for Canada, +43% for the UK itself (well, at least we have some self-esteem left), +37% for India and +32% for the European Union.

For a longer-term perspective on this issue, reference may be made to the essay by Clive Field on ‘John Bull’s Judeophobia: Images of the Jews in British Public Opinion Polls since the late 1930s’, Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung, Vol. 15, 2006, pp. 259-300, and especially to the table on page 281 which shows British sympathies in the Middle East conflict between 1955 and 2006.   

Field’s summation of the opinion poll findings on attitudes to Israel was as follows:

  • Post-independence Israel has attracted its highest levels of sympathy from the British public when it has appeared in danger and in an ‘underdog’ position, especially in 1956 (Suez Crisis), 1967 (Six Day War), 1973 (Yom Kippur War) and 1990-91 (Gulf War)
  • Public support for Israel’s position in the Middle East conflict has steadily collapsed after 1967, from an average 52 per cent at that time to 18 per cent in 2002-06
  • Increasingly it has been felt that Israel should withdraw to its original frontiers, abandon the lands taken by military action since 1967, and dismantle the Jewish settlements on the West Bank
  • While strong opposition to PLO terrorism against Israel has been manifest, the British public has increasingly protested against Israel’s perceived disproportionate use of military might against its opponents, especially in Lebanon after 1982 and in the occupied territories; the Palestinians have also been steadily winning the moral and political arguments
  • Of very recent years Israel has started to be seen in Britain as a significant threat to world peace, and its actions against the Palestinians as adversely affecting Muslim attitudes towards the West
  • Even discounting the impact of the Middle East conflict, Israel’s standing on social, political and general measures has become exceedingly low in relation to many other countries
  • Anti-Israeli sentiment has probably marginally raised the general level of anti-Semitism, although most Britons are at pains to decouple the two phenomena and to stress that enmity towards Israel does not equate with hostility towards Jews

This last point, encapsulating a clear distinction between anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiments, is one which Julius appears to struggle to comprehend, still less to accept.

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Muslims in Leicester

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Last December the Open Society Institute (OSI) published Muslims in Europe: A Report on 11 EU Cities, deriving from its At Home in Europe Project. Now in a second edition (ISBN 978-1-936133-01-7), this is available for download at:

http://www.soros.org/initiatives/home/articles_publications/publications/muslims-europe-20091215

This document is a summation of research into the level and nature of integration of Muslims undertaken in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Berlin, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Leicester, London, Marseille, Paris, Rotterdam, and Stockholm.

The media headlines at the time were exemplified by the Sunday Times of 13 December: ‘UK Muslims are Europe’s Most Patriotic’. This referred to the fact that Leicester and London (Waltham Forest) had topped the list of Muslims identifying with their country of residence, 82% and 72% respectively, compared (at the other end of the scale) with 25% in Berlin and 22% in Hamburg.

OSI has now started to release the full reports on each individual city. Leicester and Berlin are the first to be made available in this way. Leicester is one of the most ethnically-diverse populations in the UK outside London, and it is predicted to become the country’s first ‘plural city’, with no overall ethnic majority. Muslims in Leicester (ISBN 978-1-936133-13-0) runs to 153 pages and is available to download at:

http://www.soros.org/initiatives/home/articles_publications/publications/leicester-report-20100422

The Leicester report embodies a mixture of qualitative and quantitative research data, collected in the city (largely by the Policy Research Centre) between January and July 2008. The principal focus is three of Leicester’s 22 wards (Evington, Spinney Hills and Stoneygate), where 102 Muslims and 98 non-Muslims were interviewed. Six focus groups were also conducted there, and 31 experts/key stakeholders were interviewed across the city.

The core of the report explores the experiences of Muslim communities in Leicester from eight perspectives: identity, belonging and interaction; education; employment; housing; health; policing and security; participation and citizenship; and the role of the media. There is also a series of recommendations in these, and other, areas.

A key finding is that ‘the majority of Muslims in Leicester possess a strong British identity and sense of belonging to the city as well as the country, holding many values in common with non-Muslims’. While Muslims have a keen sense of religious allegiance, 82% see themselves as British and 70% want to be seen as British. However, 60% of Muslims do not feel that others view them as British.

75% of Muslims have a strong sense of belonging to Leicester (five points more than for non-Muslims). 56% also have confidence in the city council, in stark contrast to the 27% who say the same about the national government (twelve points less than among non-Muslims). 63% of Muslims have no or limited confidence in the government, compared with 54% of non-Muslims. Similarly, while 37% of non-Muslims have trust in Parliament, this is true of just 25% of Muslims, 62% having no or limited confidence.

Approximately half of both Muslims and non-Muslims believe that there is significant racial discrimination in the UK and over 70% that there is a fair amount of religious prejudice, which is said to have increased over the past five years.

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Spiritual Care in Nursing

Posted on May 20, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Patients are missing out on important spiritual care, despite it being a nursing ‘fundamental’, according to 4,045 members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) who replied to a survey undertaken by the RCN in March 2010, and newly published. 90% of them consider that providing spiritual care improves the overall quality of nursing care, and 83% feel that spirituality is an essential aspect of nursing.

However, the interpretation of what constitutes spiritual care is apparently a broad one, seemingly anything which complements the physical treatment of patients. 94% of nurses do not consider that spirituality involves attendance at a place of worship, while four-fifths hold that the need for spiritual care also applies to atheists and agnostics.

91% of respondents feel that they can provide spiritual care themselves by listening, and allowing patients time to discuss their fears, anxieties and troubles. But only 5% of nurses say that they can always meet the spiritual needs of patients. 80% therefore argue that spirituality should be covered in nurse education as a core aspect of nursing.

The most important spiritual needs identified by nurses were: having respect for privacy, dignity and religious and cultural beliefs (94%); spending time with patients giving support and reassurance (90%); and showing kindness, concern and cheerfulness when giving care (83%).

The RCN’s press release on the survey is available at:

http://www.rcn.org.uk/newsevents/press_releases/uk/patients_missing_out_on_spiritual_care,_say_nurses

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Religion and Politics Among British Asians

Posted on May 15, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The British general election may have come and gone, but detailed results of the opinion polls conducted during the campaign are still becoming available. One such with religious interest is the ICM poll for the BBC Asian Network, conducted by telephone between 26 March and 4 April 2010 among a representative sample of Asian people aged 18 and over in Great Britain. The data tabulations are available at:

http://www.icmresearch.co.uk/pdfs/2010_april_BBC_asian_poll.pdf

The questions all related to political matters, with the results disaggregated by religious affiliation. The sample included 263 Muslims, 138 Hindus, 39 Sikhs and 51 of other religions. Although these sub-groups are still quite small, the numbers are appreciably greater than are to be found in comparable polls among the entire British electorate which were fielded during the general election campaign.

Some of the more interesting findings from a religious perspective include the following:

  • 70% of all Asians said that their religion would not influence their decision about which party to vote for. The proportion was highest among Hindus (84%) and Sikhs (81%). It was lowest for Muslims (60%), 11% of whom said that their faith would play a major part in determining their voting and 24% a little.
  • 41% of Muslims said the Labour Party best comprehends Asian issues, compared with 6% selecting the Conservatives and 13% the Liberal Democrats. Hindus were far more positive about the Conservatives (23%), although 37% of them still thought that Labour has the best understanding of Asian issues.
  • Party honours were more even when the question turned to which of the party leaders respondents would most like to invite over for a curry. Although Gordon Brown was out in front (nominated by 33% of Muslims and 36% of Hindus), David Cameron was not far behind (27% and 32% respectively).
  • Muslims were primarily exercised about the economy, health, education and foreign policy (including the war in Afghanistan). Each of these four issues was identified as important by 17% or 18% of Muslims. For Hindus and Sikhs the economy was twice as significant and foreign policy of virtually no interest.
  • Asylum and immigration were a preoccupation for just 4% of all Asians, although 56% supported a tougher government line in future, the figure ranging from 47% for Muslims to 66% for Hindus and 75% for Sikhs.
  • Muslims (47%) were less optimistic than Hindus (31%) or Sikhs (38%) about the prospect of Britain ever having an Asian prime minister. However, one-fifth of them (about the same proportion of all Asians) thought there might be one within 20 years.

Overall, the survey provides no strong evidence for a distinctively Asian religious vote. Only among Muslims does religion impinge to a limited extent on politics, and this seems disproportionately to be a function of their concerns about British foreign policy in Afghanistan, the military involvement there (as in Iraq beforehand) being seen to be in some senses a war on Islam.

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Future Role of Bishops in the Church of England

Posted on May 14, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The Church of England Evangelical Council, founded by John Stott in 1960 to provide a collective evangelical voice in the Church of England, has recently published a report on The Future Role of Bishops in the Church of England, which it commissioned from Brierley Consultancy.

The report is based upon a 23% response to a Likert-style questionnaire which was emailed early in 2010 to over 1,000 members of the Council. Respondents were disproportionately male (86%), clergy (69%) and aged 50 and over (74%), which may or may not reflect a skew in the actual membership of the Council as a whole.

The questions were arranged around five topics, comprising a couple of dozen statements in all: the role of the diocesan bishop; the appointment of bishops; the work of suffragan bishops; the bishop and his national role; and the bishop and national issues. There were also two ranking questions. The full results will be found at:

http://www.ceec.info/library/positional/CEECReport%20on%20Bishops%200510.pdf

Asked to rank five dominant issues facing a bishop today, 84% of respondents placed mission in first position, followed by declining church attendance (19%). Still further behind were financing ministry (5%), church unity (4%) and homosexuality (4%). Even when second, third, fourth and fifth preferences were factored in, mission remained the clear front-runner.

The primacy of mission was reinforced by the answers to another ranking question on the priorities of a bishop. To teach and defend the historic faith (55%) and to lead the Church in mission and ministry (51%) were the two issues of first rank, easily surpassing to be the voice of the Church in the public square (9%), to offer pastoral care for the whole Church (6%), and to manage Church resources most effectively (3%).    

The Likert-style questions asked about specific issues in isolation. 88% of Anglican evangelicals surveyed considered that a bishop should resign if he supported clergy in active homosexual relationships, and 75% were clear that the consecration of women bishops would divide the Church.

In respect of Church and state, 80% wanted bishops to continue to sit in the House of Lords, but only 27% supported their appointment by the Prime Minister and Queen (the remaining 73% disagreeing). Three-fifths favoured bishops being elected by their diocesan clergy and their appointment for a fixed term of 10 years.

One-third of respondents felt that bishops were out of touch with ordinary Church life, and one-fifth wanted them to be judged on their performance and to be paid accordingly. 62% did not consider it appropriate that they live in palaces or especially large houses.

These latter findings were among the aspects of the survey to be featured in the summary published on the front page of the Church of England Newspaper for 7 May 2010. This also quoted the Bishop of Willesden (a member of the Council) apparently casting some doubt on the representativeness of the survey.

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The Catholic Vote

Posted on May 4, 2010 by Clive D. Field

‘Labour would be returned for an historic fourth consecutive term with a very large majority if it were just Catholics voting at the general election on Thursday, as Labour holds a huge lead of 19 points over the Tories among Catholics.’

So writes Sir Robert Worcester, founder of MORI, in his article ‘Does your Cross Count?’ in The Tablet, the Roman Catholic weekly, for 1 May (only available online to subscribers).

His findings are based on an aggregation of Ipsos MORI’s four monthly political polls in January-April 2010. Data relate to 2,673 British adults aged 18 and over (including 322 self-identifying Roman Catholics) who said they were certain to vote.

The Labour share of the vote in these polls stood at 43% for Catholics, compared with 30% for the electorate as a whole. Conservative figures were 24% and 36% respectively, and for the Liberal Democrats 24% and 23%.

Catholic voting behaviour is also revealed as different from other (non-Catholic) professing Christians. The latter are 20% more likely to support the Conservatives than Roman Catholics and 18% less likely to vote Labour. The Liberal Democrats have a 4% lead among Catholics relative to other Christians.

As Worcester comments: ‘it is clear that a “Christian bloc vote” is non-existent – Catholics do not hold the same voting intention as other Christians’.

The Catholic bias towards Labour is of long standing, largely related to the Roman Catholic Church’s historical success in retaining the allegiance (at least nominally) of those elements of the working classes who were cradle Catholics. 

Some of the evidence for this can be found on the Ipsos MORI website where there are comparative data on voting by religion in the run-up to the general elections of 1992, 1997, 2001 and 2005. See:

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemID=2370&view=wide

These tables show that, at 43%, the Catholic Labour vote in 2010 has fallen from 53% in 2005 (the same proportion as at the 1997 general election) and 60% in 2001. In 2005 Roman Catholic support for Labour was 30% higher than among non-Catholic Christians, whereas in 2010 the gap is reduced to 18%.

Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have gained to a limited extent from the Catholic swing against Labour since 2005; indeed, the Catholic swing to the Tories is marginally above that in the overall electorate. However, the main change since 2005 is an increase in the number of Catholics intending to vote for other parties (2% in 2005 and 9% today).

Of course, the fieldwork for the 2010 polls has been spread over rather a long period. In particular, it may not fully reflect the electoral impact, especially for the Liberal Democrats, of the televised debates between the leaders of the main political parties.

It is also the case that the Catholic sub-sample in these surveys is relatively small. Likewise, no account is taken of the significant lapsation from Catholicism. Many of these professing Catholics will be quite nominal in their adherence to the faith. Ideally, such surveys should control for frequency of mass attendance.

Worcester’s article further reports the outcome of recent Ipsos MORI polling for Reuters in Labour-held marginal constituencies. Here the Conservatives trail Labour by a massive 28% among Catholics, whereas they have a lead of 6% among non-Catholic Christians.

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Political Leanings of Britain’s Jews

Posted on May 1, 2010 by Clive D. Field

‘There is no Christian vote’ ran the headline for Nick Spencer’s article on The Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ pages on 26 April, trying to assess how significant faith voting would be in next Thursday’s general election.

But is the same true of the Jewish vote? Thanks to the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR), we now have some answers to this question for the first time since 1995 when the JPR collected data for a report on The Social and Political Attitudes of British Jews.

The latest data are extracted from an online survey of self-identifying British Jews aged 18 and over in January and February 2010, undertaken primarily to measure the attitudes and attachments of Jews to Israel. This study was commissioned by the Pears Foundation, conducted by JPR, with fieldwork overseen by Ipsos MORI.  

Although the full results of this survey have yet to be published, JPR has randomly selected 1,000 responses and analysed the answers to the question on party political preferences (as opposed to the more explicit current voting intention).

This subset of data was published on 29 April in David Graham’s paper The Political Leanings of Britain’s Jews, which can be downloaded from:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/downloads/Political%20Leanings%202010%20Final.pdf

There is also a much shorter news report in the Jewish Chronicle for 30 April: Simon Rocker, ‘Who Votes for Whom?’.

Overall, the Jewish population is evenly split between Labour (31%) and the Conservatives (30%), with 11% favouring the Liberal Democrats, 8% other parties and 15% undecided at the time of fieldwork.

Younger Jews are more likely to be undecided, and less likely to support the Conservatives, than older respondents. Conservative preferences rise from 24% for those aged 18-39 to 29% for 40-59 to 33% for 60+. Support for Labour does not vary with age.

Jewish men are considerably more likely (36%) than Jewish women (22%) to prefer the Conservatives. Women are more likely than men to be Labour (33% against 28% for men), Liberal Democrats (12% against 10%) and undecided (16% against 14%).

Jews who are married are more likely to prefer the Conservatives (34%) than never married Jews (22%) or cohabitees (12%). Single (never married) Jews are more likely to prefer Labour (34%) than married respondents (28%). Liberal Democrats draw disproportionate support (24%) from cohabitees.

Self-employed Jews are more likely to be Conservatives (39% compared with 29% for Labour), whereas full-time employees prefer Labour (38% versus 25% Conservative). Retired Jews also prefer the Conservatives over Labour (37% and 29% respectively).

Jews demonstrate different political leanings depending upon where they live. Respondents in Hertfordshire (54%) and West London (46%) are overwhelmingly Conservative. In North and East London 40% prefer Labour, as do 35% in Northern England.

Jews with a self-assigned secular outlook prefer Labour, those with a religious outlook the Conservatives. The Conservative leaning grows from 21% among the secular to 29% of the somewhat secular, 38% of the somewhat religious and 45% of the religious. The Labour leaning moves in the opposite direction (42% for the secular to 24% for the religious).

Conservative support is disproportionately to be found among Central Orthodox synagogues than Reform synagogues (48% against 28%). For Labour the reverse is true (22% versus 34%). Respondents who do not belong to any synagogue are most likely to support Labour (40%).

Since Jews only constitute approximately 0.5% of the electorate, these trends are unlikely to have a seismic effect nationally. However, the community is highly concentrated spatially (for example, in Greater London and the South-East and in Greater Manchester), so in particular constituencies, especially the marginals in the 2005 general election, the Jewish vote could be influential on 6 May. However, the beneficiaries are likely to be Conservatives and Labour in equal measure. So there is no distinctive Jewish vote, after all!

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