Top of the Christmas ‘Pops’

Posted on December 22, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Silent Night is the nation’s favourite Christmas carol, according to a YouGov poll released today. Online interviews took place with 1,162 adult Britons aged 18 and over on 21 and 22 December. The data table is available at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-YouGov-Life-Christmas-Carols-221210.pdf

Silent Night took 20% of the overall vote, being especially popular among the over-60s (26%) and Scots (24%). Next came O, Come All Ye Faithful (10%), Away in a Manger (6%), Once in Royal David’s City (5%), and O, Little Town of Bethlehem (5%). Twenty other named carols also made it to the list, and there was a category of other (4%).

Only 10% of respondents said that they did not like any Christmas carols, including 20% of 18-24s and 14% of men and Northerners. This is a sharp fall from the 28% recorded by Gallup in a survey undertaken in December 1996.

Silent Night likewise topped the chart in that Gallup poll (21%), O, Come All Ye Faithful and Away in a Manger then tying in second place (9% each). A survey by NOP two years later, in November 1998, gave Silent Night an even more commanding position (33%).

The original lyrics of Silent Night (Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht) were written in Austria by Father Joseph Mohr in 1816. The carol was first performed in the Nikolaus-Kirche, Oberndorf on 24 December 1818, to a melody composed by Franz Xaver Gruber.

The English translation usually sung today appeared in 1859, and there have also been translations into more than forty other languages. British, French and German troops all sung it in the trenches during the Christmas truce of 1914.

The carol has been recorded by over three hundred artists, but it is probably the version recorded by Bing Crosby in the 1940s, which introduced it to a mass market, that still resonates most with the older generation today.

Whether carols are to your taste or not, all of us here at BRIN send our seasonal greetings and thanks for your encouragement and support during 2010. We shall be back with you again soon.

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Not Ashamed – Christianity in Britain

Posted on December 21, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Some sections of British evangelical Christianity feel increasingly beleaguered in the face of what they perceive as the progressive marginalization of their faith, at the hands of the law, the media, government and employers.

Christian Concern is one organization seeking to redress the balance, underpinned by its e-mail subscription base of 27,000 supporters. On 1 December it formally launched its ‘Not Ashamed’ campaign, encouraging Christians to live out their faith in public.

Through its sister agency, the Christian Legal Centre, it has dealt with several high-profile cases on religious freedom, abortion and marriage and the family, defending Christians ‘who have stood for their beliefs and suffered the consequences’.

To coincide with the inauguration of ‘Not Ashamed’, Christian Concern commissioned ComRes to undertake a telephone survey into the public’s attitudes to the rights of Christians. Interviews were conducted with 1,006 adult Britons aged 18 and over on 26-29 November 2010.

Headline findings from the survey are contained in two press releases issued by Christian Concern on 5 and 20 December, which also provide useful background notes on the six legal cases which have informed the questions asked in the poll.

These press releases can be found at:

http://www.christianconcern.com/press-release/72-of-public-say-christians-should-be-able-to-refuse-to-act-against-their-conscience-w

http://www.christianconcern.com/our-concerns/employment/public-backs-protection-of-christian-conscience-at-work

The full data tables are at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/christianconcernpolldec10.aspx

The sample was evenly divided on the extent to which Britain can still be described as a Christian country, 50% thinking it can and 47% that it cannot. This represents a big shift since the NOP/New Society poll in March 1965, when the figures were 80% and 19% respectively.

The over-65s (66%) and Scots (57%) were among those most likely to consider Britain to be a Christian country. Dissentients were especially concentrated among the 18-24s (68%) and the C1 social group (54%).

In an implicit reference to the Shirley Chaplin vs Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust case, 73% of the whole sample (and 82% of the over-65s) agreed that people should have the legal right to wear Christian symbols such as a cross in their workplace. 24% disagreed, including 38% of 18-24s.

87% disagreed that health care workers should be threatened with the sack for offering to pray with patients, a question apparently prompted by the analogous cases of Olive Jones and Duke Amachree. Only 11% agreed with the proposition.

Opinion again split on the issue of whether would-be foster carers who hold that homosexual activity is morally wrong should be banned from fostering (an allusion to the case of Owen and Eunice Johns vs Derby City Council). 40% of respondents thought such foster carers should be banned, while 54% disagreed.

In a more summative question, 72% agreed that Christians should be able to refuse to act against their conscience without being penalized by their employer, with 22% in disagreement (including 31% of 18-24s).

Rather playing the Islamophobic card, 56% backed the statement that Muslims often enjoy greater freedom of speech and action than Christians in Britain today, the proportion reaching three-fifths among the over-55s, manual workers, Northerners and Scots. 36% disagreed, increasing to 48% of the 18-24s.

Christian Concern has glossed the survey as showing that ‘draconian and politically correct rules which discriminate against Christians living out their faith in the public square have been slammed by the public …’ And it reminded the Coalition Government of their reliance upon churches and Christian organizations to help deliver the Big Society.

In reality, this possibly over-interprets the poll findings, some of which could be read as delivering more mixed messages from the public about the importance of maintaining a Christian presence in the nation.

In particular, the youngest age cohorts seem to be more sceptical on this matter than others, reflecting the fact that, in separate investigations, they were least likely to profess Christianity or any religion (the Christian Concern survey did not enquire into religious affiliation).

Moreover, such support for the Christian viewpoint as was registered in this poll might have been qualified had the questions been put in a somewhat broader context, for example pitching the freedom of some Christians against equal opportunities for society as a whole.

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Thumbs Up to Religious Education?

Posted on December 19, 2010 by Clive D. Field

We reported on 29 August (http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=512) about the importance which the British public attached in a YouGov poll to religious education (RE) relative to other school subjects.

On 13 December the RE Council (REC) of England and Wales, an umbrella body of fifty national organizations which was established in 1973, issued a press release highlighting some new research which it had commissioned in this area, under the banner ‘Young People Give Thumbs Up to RE’. See:

http://www.religiouseducationcouncil.org/content/view/183/46/

The study was undertaken online by Dubit Research on 18-22 October 2010 among a representative sample of 1,000 16-24 year-olds. 

It is being published as the Government sets out its Schools White Paper, calling for a return to traditional humanities-based disciplines (although, as things currently stand, the Department for Education has ruled that RE will not be counted as a humanity for the purposes of the English Bac, the proposed new measure of school effectiveness).

The key finding, according to REC’s press release, is that RE ‘is a valued subject that leaves a lasting impression on those who study it’. 

73% of the sample had taken either the full or short course GCSE in RE, comprising 69% of males and 77% of females. The proportion was fairly consistent across faith groups, even standing at 71% for those with no religion. Ethnically, blacks (81%) had the highest level of course take-up.  

When asked what they remembered about their RE lessons at school, the most popular memory was learning about several different religions (56%), the second was about debates on right and wrong (50%). Recall of these debates was notably higher by the 16-18s (57%) than the 22-24s (42%), so perhaps the effect wears off with time.

80% of respondents thought RE could promote better understanding of different religions and beliefs, with 13% disagreeing. Even 77% of those professing no religion agreed with this statement. The figure rose to 83% among women, the 19-21s, Muslims, and those who had studied RE at GCSE; to 85% for Christians and 97% for blacks.

52% agreed and 32% disagreed with the proposition that there should be more effective teaching about Christianity at school so that pupils can better understand English history, culture and society. Agreement was higher (55%) among those who had taken RE as a GCSE than those who had not (43%). Peak agreement was recorded for Christians (69%) and blacks (63%).

56% of young people felt that studying RE at school had been a positive influence. Those most likely to agree included blacks (77%), Muslims (71%), Asians (68%), Christians (66%) and Hindus (63%). 29% disagreed with the suggestion and 15% expressed no opinion. 

More details of the survey are contained in a 10-page report which is available on request from the contact telephone/email given in the press release. Some of the above statistics are derived from this report. The poll has also received coverage in The TES for 17 December.

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Back to Church Sunday 2010

Posted on December 19, 2010 by Clive D. Field

‘Onward Christian Soldiers: Churches Resurgent’ proclaims the headline in Jonathan Wynne-Jones’s article in today’s Sunday Telegraph, referring to the case advanced by Christian Research over the past three months that the relentless decline in churchgoing may be coming to an end, at least for now.

The Church of England was also in upbeat mood when it issued a press release last Wednesday (15 December) about the outcomes of this year’s Back to Church Sunday (BTCS), which was held on 26 September. See:

http://www.cofe.anglican.org/news/pr11610.html

BTCS is an initiative for churchgoers to invite people they know who are no longer attenders to return to church. It was started in the Diocese of Manchester in 2004, spread to the Diocese of Wakefield in 2005, and has grown steadily ever since. Nine Anglican dioceses participated in 2006, 20 in 2007, 38 in 2008, and all 44 in 2009 and 2010.

Other denominations have latterly become involved, including (in 2010) congregations from the Baptist, Methodist, United Reformed and Elim Pentecostal churches; Congregational Federation, Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion and Salvation Army; the Church in Wales, Baptist Union of Wales, Presbyterian Church of Wales and Union of Welsh Independents; Churches Together in Scotland; and the Church of Ireland and Methodist Church in Ireland.

All told, around 3,500 places of worship took part in BTCS 2010, one-third of them for the first time. Collectively, they welcomed back 51,000 people, bringing the total of church returners since 2004 to more than 150,000, ‘enough to fill Wembley Stadium and the Emirates Stadium put together’, as the Anglican media folk put it.

However, what we are not told by them is that, despite a fair amount of publicity (including local radio advertisements), BTCS 2010 was evidently less successful than BTCS 2009, for which the equivalent press release last year announced 82,000 returners, including 53,000 in the Church of England alone.

A good many of these ‘prodigals’ inevitably fall away. Research by the Diocese of Lichfield after BTCS 2007 showed that, six months after the event, between 12% and 15% of returners had become regular worshippers. The Church of England considers this to be a high retention rate; others may feel that it represents quite a leakage.

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Today’s News – (1) ‘Islamic Extremism’, (2) Religion at Christmas

Posted on December 19, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The regular weekly YouGov poll for The Sunday Times, published today, includes questions on a couple of topics which will interest BRIN readers. Interviewing was online on 16 and 17 December, among a representative sample of 1,966 adult Britons aged 18 and over. The data tables are available at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Pol-ST-results-171210.pdf

‘ISLAMIC EXTREMISM’

On 11 December an Iraqi-born British resident, Taimur Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, blew himself up during a suicide bombing on a busy shopping street in Stockholm. He had been a student at what is now the University of Bedfordshire in 2001-04 and had been told to leave the Luton Islamic Centre in 2007 on account of his radical views, although the mosque authorities did not report him to the police. He and his family lived in the town.

Against this background, YouGov posed a number of questions about so-called ‘Islamic extremism’. 51% of respondents considered that the government was doing insufficient to tackle the problem, including 63% of the over-60s, 60% of Conservative voters, 58% of men, and 57% of Northerners. Those least likely to take this line were young people aged 18-24 (31%) and Liberal Democrats (37%).

A further 22% thought that government was doing all it reasonably could to combat extremism, 10% that it was devoting too much effort to the issue, while 17% expressed no clear opinion.

A similar proportion, 52%, argued that universities should be doing more to combat ‘Islamic extremism’, rising to 68% among Conservative supporters and 65% of the over-60s. 13% believed that universities were doing all they reasonably could, 4% that they were already doing too much in this area, with 30% uncertain (including 38% of 18-24s).

Asked whether the Muslim community in Britain co-operated with the police in combating extremism, 7% believed that most or all British Muslims did so, 40% that many did so with a minority not co-operating, 24% that only a minority co-operated and the majority not, 13% that few or none co-operated, with 16% expressing no opinion.

Thus, 37% alleged that a majority of British Muslims failed to work with the police against extremism. The highest figures were for Conservative voters in the 2010 general election (44%), men (42%), the over-60s (42%), Northerners (42%), and the C2DE social group (40%).

Three-quarters of adults were critical of the directors of the Luton mosque for failing to inform the police of al-Abdaly’s views, the over-60s (82%), Conservatives (79%), and Northerners (78%) most inclining to this position. 12% thought the mosque should not have contacted the police, and 14% were uncertain.

78% of the sample agreed that all extremist preachers (whether Muslim, Christian or from another religion) should be banned from Britain, including 86% of Conservatives and the over-60s. The remaining 22% divided equally between don’t knows and those who did not want extremist preachers excluded.

The general nature of the question was presumably intended to subsume the case of Terry Jones, the American pastor with extremist views against Islam, which has been in the news recently.

CHRISTMAS

19% of Britons said that they would be attending a church service this Christmas, 5% less than in another recent YouGov poll for The Sun (http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=780). This sub-divided between 8% who regularly attended church throughout the year and 11% who did not normally worship but expected to do so over Christmas. 76% said they would not attend church over the festive period, 2% of whom were otherwise regular churchgoers, and 6% were undecided what they would be doing.

The apparent marginality of religion to the public’s Christmas was underlined by another question in which 75% described it as a predominantly commercial event and only 4% as a religious festival. A further 16% said that it was both and 3% neither. The youngest age cohort (18-24) was most likely to say that Christmas was wholly or partly about religion, followed by Liberal Democrats (24%), and the 18-39s, ABC1s, and Scots (23% each).

Finally, respondents were offered a choice of five guests for their Christmas Day meal. 15% elected for the Queen, 11% for Ann Widdecombe (the former Conservative politician, whose profile has been raised by her appearance on Strictly Come Dancing), 10% Matt Cardle (winner of the X Factor), 5% Liz Hurley and Shane Warne (media celebrities who had left their respective partners to start an affair, although some papers today suggest that it is already over), and just 3% the Archbishop of Canterbury. 55% wanted none of these guests at their dining table.

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Plymouth Faith Action Audit

Posted on December 18, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Some politicians and voters are pretty sceptical about David Cameron’s concept of the ‘Big Society’, but faith-based organizations certainly seem to be keen to demonstrate that they are already doing ‘it’.

Various surveys of religion as social capital have been undertaken recently. Nationally, they include research by the Cinnamon Network (http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=735) and by the Evangelical Alliance (to be published in full on 11 January).

Locally, we have already covered on these pages a study of faith in action in Oxfordshire (http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=369). Now the Plymouth Faith Action Audit has been completed and is available to download at:

http://www.ctip.org.uk/images/stories/ctip/faafullreport_secured.pdf

The Plymouth survey was carried out by the University of Plymouth’s Social and Public Policy Research Group on behalf of Churches Together in Plymouth and Cornerstone Vision. Its methodology replicates a similar enquiry in Stoke-on-Trent in 2007 by Saltbox and Faithworks.

The principal survey instrument was a postal questionnaire sent to 155 faith organizations, 80 (52%) of which responded, the overwhelming majority of them Christian. Eight semi-structured telephone interviews were also conducted, to add qualitative depth.

Allowing for some double-counting, the report calculates that the responding faith organizations contribute over 450,000 hours of voluntary community service each year. These are worth (using the minimum wage as the benchmark) £2,780,000.

These figures would need to be grossed up to include the 48% of faith groups which did not respond. The data are also said to exclude ‘the goods, services and capital contributions’ made by faith organizations, although this is not further explained in the document.

The top ten public services provided were in the areas of:

  • explanation of religious texts (51%)
  • children’s groups (49%)
  • marriage preparation (47%)
  • school liaison (46%)
  • vulnerable children (44%)
  • youth groups (43%)
  • older people (43%)
  • toddler/play groups (41%)
  • life skills (40%)
  • food/shelter for vulnerable people (40%)
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Understanding Society

Posted on December 17, 2010 by Clive D. Field

On 13 December the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) made an interim release of data for the general population component from Wave 1, Year 1 (running from 8 January 2009 to 7 March 2010) of Understanding Society, the new multi-topic United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS). The dataset is catalogued as SN 6614. The full release of Wave 1 will be made in 2011.

UKHLS is, in part, the successor to the British Household Panel Survey, waves 1-7, 9, 11 and 13-18 of which (spanning the years 1991-2009) included sundry religious variables. Entries for each of these waves appear in the BRIN source database, and the relevant data are available from ESDS (as SN 5151). The three other components of UKHLS are: the general population sample, the innovation panel, and an ethnic minority booster.

UKHLS is based at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex. Fieldwork is conducted by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) and, in Northern Ireland, by the Central Survey Unit of the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. Funding is provided by the Economic and Social Research Council and various Government departments and agencies.

UKHLS is an annual longitudinal (or panel) survey of the members of a nationally representative sample of approximately 40,000 households in the UK, the same individuals being re-interviewed in each wave. Each wave is collected over 24 months, the main first wave of data collection commencing in January 2009.

One person per household completes the household questionnaire. Additionally, each adult aged 16 and over is interviewed face-to-face and fills in a self-completion questionnaire. Young people aged 10 to 15 years are only asked to respond to a paper self-completion questionnaire. Wave 1, Year 1 of the general population sample had participation from 14,103 households (59% response) and 22,265 adults (86% response).

The principal religious interest of Wave 1 for adults is as follows: current religious affiliation; religion of upbringing; attendance at religious services; difference made by religious beliefs to a respondent’s life; religion as a perceived reason for discrimination in employment; and religion as a perceived reason for various forms of harassment. The young people’s questionnaire just covers religious affiliation.

Extensive documentation for Wave 1, Year 1 of UKHLS, including a codebook with basic frequencies, can be accessed at:

http://www.esds.ac.uk/findingData/snDescription.asp?sn=6614&key=6614

More background information about UKHLS in general will be found on the Understanding Society website:

http://www.understandingsociety.org.uk/

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Putting Christ into Christmas

Posted on December 16, 2010 by Clive D. Field

In addition to ongoing daily Christmas polling for its own advent calendar (as covered in our previous post – http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=739), YouGov has conducted a more extensive survey (running to 19 questions) into attitudes to and the observance of Christmas on behalf of The Sun. Fieldwork was conducted online on 12-13 December among a representative sample of 2,092 adult Britons aged 18 and over.

12% of respondents regarded the celebration of the birth of Jesus as the most important part of Christmas. Variations by demographic sub-groups were relatively small, except for age, the proportion being only 4% for the 18-24s and rising steadily throughout each cohort to reach 19% among the over-60s.

61% cited being around family as the most significant aspect of the festival, 12% having a break from work, and 5% exchanging presents. The overall distribution of replies was not dissimilar to that obtained in a recent GfK NOP study for The Children’s Society (http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=744).

Notwithstanding this rather lowly 12% putting the birth of Jesus at the heart of Christmas, 51% of adults believed the traditional story of His birth to be largely true, albeit more than two in three of them did not think it had actually happened on Christmas Day itself.

This figure of 51% equates with those saying the birth of Jesus was relevant to their Christmas in ComRes/Theos polls in 2008 and 2010 (as mentioned at http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=748).

However, more nuanced questioning in the 2008 survey produced a spread of statistics for belief in the historicity of key elements of the Biblical account: 56% that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, 37% that King Herod ordered the death of male infants, 34% that Jesus was born of a virgin called Mary, and 28% that angels visited shepherds to announce Christ’s birth. 

Belief in the traditional story of the birth of Jesus in the current YouGov poll was particularly affected by age. Whereas only 37% of those between 18 and 24 were believers, 64% of the over-60s were. One-quarter of the entire sample disbelieved the story in whole or large part, while 23% rejected all the options or did not know. 

24% of interviewees said they planned to attend a church service over the Christmas season. This was only two-thirds of the level reported in the 2010 ComRes/Theos poll. Even so, it is still likely to be aspirational rather than to reflect the actual level of churchgoing, which will be much lower.

The 24% sub-divided into 5% aiming to worship on Christmas Day itself, 11% on Christmas Eve, and 8% on some other occasion around Christmas. 67% had no intentions of going to church, and 9% were uncertain what they would be doing.

The highest levels of anticipated attendance were among over-60s (32%), Scots (32%), and Conservative voters (30%). The lowest were for Labour supporters (22%), men (21%), 18 to 39-year-olds (20%), residents of Northern England (20%), and the C2DE social group (18%).

To put this 5% into some kind of context, BRIN readers should note that 53% of YouGov respondents expected to log on to the Internet on Christmas Day, 31% to watch the Queen’s Speech, 17% to have sex, 15% to have an argument, and 10% to take exercise.

Some of these statistics will doubtless turn out to be exaggerations, also, but we will leave you to guess which one(s)!

The full data tables for this YouGov survey are available at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Pol-Sun-Christmas-161210.pdf

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University Students

Posted on December 16, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Three-fifths of UK university students claim to belong to some religion, but most do not regard themselves as particularly religious. And although three-quarters accept that there are clear ethical principles differentiating right from wrong, only one-third think they should always be applied regardless of circumstances.

These are the headline findings from a multinational survey of university students published by Spain’s BBVA Foundation on 2 December. Face-to-face interviews were conducted by Ipsos MORI between March and June 2010.

The sample comprised 3,000 students who had completed at least two years of higher education study in each of six countries: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and the UK. The aggregate sample of 18,000 was drawn from 35 to 50 universities per country.

The proportion of UK university students belonging to a religion (60%) was much the same as in Spain, more than in France (50%) but lower than in Germany, Italy and Sweden (70%).

On a religiosity scale ranging from 0 (not religious at all) to 10 (very religious), UK students averaged 3.5, some way behind their counterparts in Italy (5.1) but ahead of France and Germany (3.4), Spain (3.2), and Sweden (2.7).

UK students were most inclined to discern ethical guidelines about what is right and wrong, 76% compared with 71% in Spain, 66% in Sweden, 64% in Italy, 55% in Germany and 49% in France.

Italy (47%) headed the list of students thinking that ethical principles should always be applied, regardless of circumstances, followed by Germany (40%), Spain (39%), UK (33%), France (31%), and Sweden (15%).

Swedish students (76%) were most likely to argue that those principles should be applied flexibly, in accordance with the circumstances of the time. 61% of UK students took the same line, with Spain on 57%, France on 53%, Germany on 48%, and Italy on 43%.

Attitudes to seven moral situations were also assessed, with students from the UK and all other countries finding them generally acceptable. Living as a couple without getting married was regarded most tolerantly by UK students, but even abortion, which scored lowest, achieved 6.5 on an acceptability scale of 0 (totally unacceptable) to 10 (totally acceptable).

However, religious affiliation did have an impact on moral attitudes. Thus, whereas the acceptability of abortion among UK students was 7.7 for those who did not belong to a religion, it fell to 5.6 for religious affiliates. The corresponding scores for the acceptability of a homosexual couple adopting a child were 7.5 and 5.9 respectively.

A report on the survey is available on the BBVA website at:

http://www.fbbva.es/TLFU/tlfu/ing/areas/econosoc/investigacion/fichainves/index.jsp?codigo=374

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Pastor Jones Unwelcome in the UK

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Clive D. Field

According to media reports, and its own Facebook page, the English Defence League (EDL), a right-wing group opposed to so-called Muslim extremism, has apparently withdrawn its acceptance of an offer by the American Terry Jones to speak at an EDL rally in Luton (a place of growing conflict between Islamists and right-wingers) on 5 February 2011.

Jones, pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville (Florida), originally came to global prominence in late summer through his advocacy of an ‘International Burn a Koran Day’, to coincide with the ninth anniversary of 9/11.

We reported at that time (http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=560) on the British public’s views about whether the US government should let Jones proceed with his plans or not (although, in practice, the US authorities were powerless to stop him). 

On learning of Jones’s intention to address an EDL rally, and potentially inciting animosity to British Muslims, Home Secretary Theresa May had been actively looking into the possibility of denying him entry to this country.

Her action prompted The Sun newspaper to commission YouGov to ask a representative online sample of 1,810 adult Britons aged 18 and over on 13 and 14 December 2010 whether Jones should or should not be allowed to enter the UK.

55% of the whole sample thought that Jones should not be permitted entry. Women (59%) were more opposed than men (50%), while hostility to Jones increased steadily with age, from 38% of 18-24s to 64% of the over-60s.

Regionally, the variation was from 50% in London and Northern England to 63% in Scotland. Those who voted Labour or Liberal Democrat in this year’s general election were slightly more inclined to want Jones banned from the country than Conservatives.

32% overall considered that Jones should be admitted to the UK, with men (42%) markedly more in favour than women (22%). Other demographic differences were much smaller, even age (the over-60s, for example, being just 8% less in favour of Jones being allowed into the UK than the 18-24s).

However, the latter age cohort was evidently not very knowledgeable about the matter since 26% were ‘don’t knows’, twice the national average for this question.

These replies do not necessarily give us clues as to the motivation of respondents. Thus, it is impossible to know whether those who supported Jones’s entry to the UK were simply upholding a generic principle of freedom of expression or actually agreed with his views.

Similarly, those who wanted him kept out of the UK may have objected to his opinions about Islam or just been concerned about the threat of civil disorder, including retaliatory protests by Muslims, in the event of Jones being granted entry.

The full data table for the survey is available at: 

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Pol-Sun-TerryJones-141210.pdf

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