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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Religion and the Hidden Wealth of Nations

Posted on May 14, 2010 by Siobhan McAndrew

I got hold of David Halpern’s The Hidden Wealth of Nations back in December, and was surprised to see earlier today that there are still comparatively few reviews available for this important book. I suppose this is down to the lead time of academic journals (although there is coverage in the New York Times and by the Today programme).

Halpern used to work in government as Chief Analyst at the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, which produced notable reports on social capital and on the economics of well-being inter alia. This most recent book summarises the literature on life satisfaction, social capital, morality and values, and inequality, together with discussion of implications for public policy design. I don’t intend to post a full review here since this is not quite the arena for it, but of great interest was the attention devoted to religion.

Halpern’s discussion of religion is in a chapter called ‘The Politics of Virtue’, concerned with moral behaviour writ large. Despite Britons being generally averse to seeing politicians parade their personal religiosity,

‘an everyday sense of moral values and a shared sense of what is acceptable behaviour, is key to making a society work – it is part of the ‘hidden wealth’ of a successful nation’ (p. 91).

Such inclusion of religion as an aspect of social capital (broadly defined) is comparatively unusual in UK studies. In the broader social sciences, analysts still tend to omit religion or religiosity as an explanatory variable (something which explains other outcomes). This may be for theoretical reasons – for example, because researchers think that ethnicity or ‘authoritarian attitudes’ variables capture the effects they are looking for; or because researchers may see religion as to complex to capture by a single measure.

Halpern uses the religion variables devised for the World Values Survey, which ran in five waves (1981-1984, 1990-1993, 1995-1997, 1999-2004 and 2005-2006 – a sixth is planned for 2010-2012). For example, he presents national-level data on at least weekly religious attendance 1994-2004 plotted against that for 1981-1991: attendance has been falling from previous high levels in Malta, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Poland and most of Western Europe, and notably in India. Attendance has been increasing, however, in Nigeria, Mexico, and Italy (although we can’t tell whether these differences are significant, or whether they may be explained by factors such as an ageing population or demographic change). No change was apparent in Britain or Turkey, which sit on the 45-degree line.

Data is also presented in graph form on beliefs and practice in 1994-2004 in the UK, US, and a third group of ‘all countries’ combined. The categories are: at least weekly attendance at services; belief in the devil, belief in hell; belief in life after death; belief in heaven; reporting that religion is very or rather important in life; reporting that religion gives comfort and strength; and belief in God. UK rates appear to be well below that for the US for every category, and in most cases below that for all countries, except for belief in life after death and heaven (and again we can’t be sure if these differences are significant). A quibble here is my personal dislike for the use of trend lines to link categorical data, which can be visually misleading.

A further chart presents the proportion of respondents of all countries reporting that they follow the Ten Commandments, and the proportion feeling that ‘most people’ follow them. The correlation between individual belief in God is displayed next the proportion feeling that most people follow them. The results for individual following of each of the commandments for the US and UK are also added. The intention is to show that for the most doctrinally demanding commandments – not taking the Lord’s name in vain, not worshipping false idols, not following other gods – the correlation with personal belief in God is high. However, for the commandments to respect parents, keep the Sabbath and to refrain from adultery, the correlation with personal belief in God is weak. Halpern suggests that

‘it used to be that if you knew someone’s religious values within a country, you would have a pretty good sense of what their other moral and ethical values would be. This is much less true today’ (p. 95).

Regarding the secularisation thesis, Halpern suggests:

‘Researchers in the 1970s and 1980s generally expected religiosity to fall. They got the headline trend wrong for a couple of reasons. First, the countries on which early conclusions were based – essentially Western Europe – turn out to be relatively atypical. Second, they were misled by the strong age profile of religious beliefs. Younger people tend to have far less religious beliefs giving the impression that there is a big shift underway towards less religious beliefs. But it turns out that as people age they tend to get more religious, even if they don’t necessarily become as religious as their parents. Third, even within Western Europe, many countries have taken in many immigrants who are more religious than the original citizens. Finally, many researchers are secular, and presumed that a rational world would follow their lead’.

It would be helpful here to have some references, particularly that for the finding of age effects. A reference to Inglehart and Norris’ Sacred and Secular (2003) would have been useful here too. (I also raised an eyebrow at the last point – do we actually know they are secular, or that their world views influence their analysis?)

Belief in God correlates with various moral attitudes: ‘sex outside of marriage, abortion, divorce, homosexuality, suicide and so on’. But crucially he also finds that across European countries ‘there has been a clear and consistent drop in the association between people’s religious beliefs and their moral values’ (p. 95). In contrast, the correlation between beliefs and other values has strengthened in North America.

At the same time, the pattern of change in moral values is broadly similar across Western countries:

‘People have generally become considerably more tolerant of a clutch of personal-sexual behaviours, notably: homosexuality, prostitution, euthanasia, divorce and taking soft drugs… characteriz[ing] a key shift in society towards greater personal-sexual permissiveness’ (pp. 96-97).

There are some values, though, where people have become less tolerant: ‘cheating on taxes, claiming benefits that you are not entitled to or lying in your interest… [and] attitudes to adultery have hardened, despite being strongly correlated with other personal-sexual attitudes that have in general been characterized by increasing tolerance. Unlike most of the other personal-sexual behaviours (such as homosexuality), adultery doesn’t just affect consenting adults, but implies that someone is being cheated and probably hurt’ (p. 97).

In conclusion, ‘We have selectively clipped out the bits we don’t like, such as Hell and the Devil, and religion has become increasingly inconsequential to our other beliefs…. [b]ut there has not been a great moral collapse… patterns of value change are following their own, generally secular, moral logic of development’ (p. 97).

Reflecting on what religion provides to secular societies, he suggests that

‘big questions about ethics and identity in secular societies remain, including whether there is something else that people still look for that secular societies have yet to give them. We noted in Chapter 1 that being religious seems to boost happiness, and our models suggest that around two-thirds of this effect comes from the satisfactions and support received from being part of a community. For some reason, this function doesn’t seem to make it onto Freud’s list. Religious beliefs and practices perhaps offer something that secular societies still struggle to capture – such as around identity, a feeling of connection, and the marking of key transitions in life’ (pp. 97-98).

So, what are the implications, particularly for a policy-facing text concerned with how government should work better to improve citizens’ well-being? In the UK, the established churches exist by statute, while other religions fall largely under the ambit of the Charities Commission. Beyond that, religion falls under the auspices of the Department for Communities and Local Government, as a minorities (or security) issue.

Although personal and social religiosity matters for well-being, it’s not something that governments in secular societies influence directly. Disestablishment is unlikely to be a priority at present. Otherwise, religions are more or less equal and free to operate how they use within the law. To influence religion or religiosity through policy would be more than odd. Nevertheless, this does not stop us from looking at how religion matters, and considering what secular alternatives might need support where people have needs that religion, or religious organisations, can no longer satisfy. This book is an important contribution.

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Reflections on Surveying Religion Online: Perils and Promise?

Posted on May 11, 2010 by Gladys Ganiel

by Gladys Ganiel, Trinity College Dublin at Belfast.

I presented the results of my surveys of religion on the island of Ireland this weekend at the annual conference of the Sociological Association of Ireland (May 7-9, 2010 at Queen’s University in Belfast). All three of the papers presented were about religion, and all three utilized quantitative data of some sort.

Prof. Tom Inglis of University College Dublin, one of the leading sociologists of religion in Ireland, commented that he is increasingly frustrated with the perils of survey questions when it comes to asking people about their faith.

Survey questions about religion often ask people if they believe in God, heaven, hell, sin, etc.; or to quantify the frequency of their religious practice. These measures have been important for helping sociologists to chart the ‘decline’ of religion in the West. But as Inglis pointed out, such questions do little to give us in-depth understanding of how people think about ‘meaning of life’ questions.

Supplemental qualitative interviewing is often a good method for complementing religious survey results with more nuanced perspectives.

But is it possible to include a built-in qualitative component in quantitative surveys of religion? I have experimented with this in my current research on religion in Ireland. This involved developing online surveys for faith leaders and laypeople, which included a range of conventional multiple choice/tick box questions, coupled with open ended questions where people had the opportunity to ‘write in’ responses to amplify their responses or make entirely new points.

The online data-gathering method provided people with the time and space, if they were inclined, to type thoughtful and sometimes lengthy responses. Commenting on these surveys, Prof. John Brewer of the University of Aberdeen highlighted the importance of these ‘free text spaces’:

“…the resulting fervour to write comments in free text spaces gives us a wealth of qualitative data that surveys of any kind do not normally disclose. Let me suggest that the free text will end up as important as the statistics for this survey.” (Click here to read further.)

For example, the survey questions focused on religious approaches to diversity/immigration, reconciliation and ecumenism. These are topics about which there are few agreed definitions. So the open ended questions provided people with the opportunity to define reconciliation and ecumenism for themselves – or to tell us that they thought that these issues weren’t all that important!

The blending of the quantitative and the qualitative within the survey format may not be possible in all large-scale surveys of religion. But I think that it is a promising way forward, especially when used in small-scale, online surveys on religious topics. For example, my surveys of religion in Ireland received responses from more than 700 faith leaders and 900 laypeople – far more than I would have had time or opportunity to interview.

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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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Jewish Community Research Initiative Launched

Posted on May 1, 2010 by Clive D. Field

On 27 April the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR), founded in New York as the Institute of Jewish Affairs in 1941 but located in London since 1965, announced the launch of its Community Research Initiative. The estimated annual cost will be £200,000 per annum for a period of six years, and donations are being actively sought.

The initiative aims to strengthen the JPR’s long-standing commitment to provide reliable data in support of the Jewish community and its organizations in the UK, in particular by running a major national Jewish identity survey in March 2011 in parallel with the civilian population census (which will again include a question on religion). The JPR survey will cover Jewish beliefs, attitudes, behaviours and concerns.

‘Used in tandem’, it is claimed, ‘data from the 2011 census and the parallel JPR survey will allow us to create the richest and most in-depth analysis of Jews in Britain that has ever existed’.

For more information about the Community Research Initiative, see:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/news/detail.php?id=155

For a brief history of Jewish statistics in Britain, see:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/commentary/drs/2-collected-by-communities/index.shtml#Judaism

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Church Commissioners Announce Results for 2009

Posted on May 1, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Have you ever wondered how faith bodies fund themselves? Although they all publish annual accounts, there has been little systematic academic research into the economics of faith in Britain, one of the rare exceptions being James Nathaniel Wolfe and Michael Pickford, The Church of Scotland: An Economic Survey, London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1980.

Within the Church of England the Church Commissioners are a key funding source. They were formed in 1948, from two earlier organizations, to support the Church’s ministry (including all clergy pensions earned before 1998). They contribute around 16% of the cost of the Church of England, most of the balance coming from the giving of parishioners. It is thus of interest that the Commissioners have just announced their results for 2009.

The Commissioners achieved a 15.6% return on their investments during 2009, despite having to write off £40 million from their property investment in Manhattan at the year-end.

They outperformed their comparator group (the WM All Funds Universe of 218 UK pension funds) by 0.5%. They have also outperformed the group during the previous five, ten and twenty years.

The asset value of the Commissioners’ fund stood at £4.8 billion on 31 December 2009, of which investments (including equities) represented 66% and property 27%.

The Commissioners’ total income in 2009 was £145.5 million, a reduction of 16% on the 2008 level, reflecting lower dividends on equity holdings and lower interest rates on cash.

Their total charitable expenditure in the year was £190.8 million, of which 58% was on clergy pensions, 22% for parish mission and ministry (primarily to less resourced dioceses), 14% for supporting bishops (mainly for staff costs), and 4% for cathedrals.

For further information, see the press release at:

http://www.cofe.anglican.org/news/pr4110.html

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Economic Inequality and Religion

Posted on April 28, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The outgoing Labour Government’s often controversial Equality Bill received royal assent on 8 April and became the Equality Act 2010.

In the economic sphere the legislation, and the Parliamentary debates on it, were informed by the work of the independent National Equality Panel, which sat between October 2008 and November 2009 under the chairpersonship of Professor John Hills of the London School of Economics.

The Panel’s report, running to almost 500 pages, was published by the Government Equalities Office in January under the title An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK. This is available to download at:

http://www.equalities.gov.uk/pdf/NEP%20Report%20bookmarked.pdf

Buried within the document are some fascinating glimpses into the relationship between religion (as defined by religious affiliation) and economic disadvantage. Space precludes a full evaluation of the evidence collected by the Panel in this area, but some feel for the findings can be gleaned from the following headlines.

In terms of highest educational qualification, according to the Labour Force Survey (LFS) for 2006-08, more than a third of Buddhist and Hindu men and of Jewish women have first or higher degrees, and 43% of Jewish men. Christian and Muslim men have the smallest proportion with degrees, at 18%. More than two-fifths of Muslim men and women have no qualification beyond level 1. Those without any religion are slightly better qualified overall than the rest of the population. See figure 3.10 on page 102 of the report.

Also according to the LFS for 2006-08, the highest full-time employment rates for both working age men and women are for Christians, Hindus and those without any religion. One quarter of Jewish men and 16% of Muslim men are self-employed. The lowest employment rates are for Muslim men (47%) and women (24%), with 42% of Muslim women classed as economically inactive and looking after family or home. Formal unemployment for all men is 5% but 9% for Muslim men. 13% of Muslim men and women are economically inactive because they are students (compared with 5% of all those of working age). See figure 4.3(a) on page 114 and figure 4.3(b) on page 115.

Median gross hourly wages in £ at 2008 prices, derived from the LFS, are presented in figure 5.4 on page 132 and table 5.4 on page 149, and are summarized below.

       Men Women
Christians

    11.24           

8.82
Jews     17.50

 13.37
Muslims

     8.05

8.32
Hindus     12.02

9.56
Buddhists     11.44

9.67
Sikhs     10.11

8.59
Other religions        11.14

9.43
No religion     11.25

9.04

Median total wealth in £ by religion was also calculated on page 208 of the report, as follows:

Christian households        223,000
Jewish households        422,000
Muslim households         42,000
Hindu households        206,000
Sikh households        229,000
Other religions        161,000
No religion        138,000

The data thus appear to confirm some kind of religious pecking order of economic advantage, to the extent that the Jewish community tends to be most affluent and the Muslim one most deprived, at the aggregate level. Differences between other religious groups are less marked and less consistent across measures.

In view of recent clashes between secularists and Christians, some Christians will doubtless smile at the fact that the median total wealth of those who reject all religion is 38% less than for Christians, despite the median hourly wages of the two groups being not dissimilar. Is this the prosperity gospel at work?!

Of course, the reality is far more complex than suggested here. Other factors need to be brought into play when considering the relationship between religion and economics, not least the interaction with ethnicity and age.

Equally, our ability to draw conclusions continues to be hindered by Government’s unwillingness to differentiate between the various Christian denominations when recording people’s religious profession, either in the population census or the Labour Force Survey.

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Voting Intentions and Attitudes to Religious Minorities

Posted on April 27, 2010 by Clive D. Field

With just over a week to go before the general election, we are literally awash with opinion polls at present. Unfortunately, few of those conducted during the present campaign have featured faith-specific issues, while the relatively small sample sizes mean that we get few clues about the attitudes of people who support political parties other than the ‘big three’.

It thus seems appropriate to recall one very large scale survey which YouGov ran for Channel 4 in the lead-in to last year’s European parliamentary elections, when the ‘minor parties’ were expected to make a strong showing in Britain.

No fewer than 32,268 electors were interviewed online between 29 May and 4 June 2009, including 2,749 persons intending to vote for the Green Party, 4,306 for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and 985 for the British National Party (BNP).

The findings, which have long been in the public domain at

http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/Megapoll_EuroElections.pdf

have attracted scant attention. For us, they are especially useful in highlighting opinions about religious minorities, specifically Jews and Muslims, by voting intentions.

10% of all voters considered that Jews suffered unfair discrimination in Britain. Green supporters were the most sympathetic (15%), with Labourites and Liberal Democrats on 12%, Conservatives and UKIP voters on 9% and the BNP on 6%.

6% overall thought the Jews benefited from unfair advantage in Britain. Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green supporters all stood at 5%, UKIP at 6% and the BNP at 12%.

Asked whether there was a major international conspiracy led by Jews and Communists to undermine traditional Christian values in Britain and other western countries, 17% said this was completely or partially true.

The proportion rose to 21% for UKIP and 33% for BNP voters, the other parties ranging from 9% (Greens) to 19% (Conservatives). Those who said the statement was completely untrue numbered 62% in the aggregate but only 48% in the case of BNP followers.  

Just 1% of the sample registered as holocaust deniers (and no more than 2% even for BNP voters). However, 8% of UKIP and 18% of BNP supporters thought the scale of the holocaust had been exaggerated.

Turning to Muslims, 21% of all voters held that they suffered unfair discrimination in Britain. The highest percentages were for the Greens (40%) and Liberal Democrats (33%), with Labour on 29% and the Conservatives on 15%. UKIP (8%) and BNP voters (3%) were least sympathetic to Muslims.

39% felt that Muslims in Britain enjoyed unfair advantages, and this figure rose to 61% in the case of UKIP and 70% for BNP voters. They were followed by the Conservatives on 44%, Labour on 27%, the Liberal Democrats on 26% and the Greens on 22%.

Still larger numbers agreed that, even in its ‘milder forms’, Islam constituted a serious danger to western civilization. 44% overall held this view, with 64% among UKIP and 79% BNP voters. Conservatives stood at 49%, Labour at 37%, Liberal Democrats at 32% and the Greens at 27%. Those in disagreement were 32%, with only the Greens achieving a majority (55%); among UKIP supporters the figure was 17% and for the BNP’s 7%.

Three conclusions emerge from these results. First, there is significantly more prejudice against Muslims than Jews. Second, the actual level of prejudice varies considerably according to the measure used and the wording of the question. Third, Green and Liberal Democrat voters are most tolerant (but by no means totally unprejudiced), and UKIP and (in particular) BNP supporters apparently most prejudiced against Jews and Muslims.

It should be noted that all the above data relate to the views of those intending to vote for one of the six political parties in May-June 2009. These views may not necessarily be current. Nor should they be confused with the official positions of each of the parties as set out in their general election manifestos or by their leadership.

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