UK population is at least 77 million!

Masomnia

1984ReturnsForReal wrote: »

Its true.

The Midwives stats on foreign nationals having babies is astounding.

Yes, but that doesn't say anything about the benefits.

Phirefly

Has there been a Free Daily Mail voucher on MSE this week or something?

1984ReturnsForReal_2

Sapphire wrote: »

Words fail me. We need a general election now.

This is old news.

& by the way, as you dont even have to be British to vote where do you think Labour gets a lot of its votes from?

1984ReturnsForReal_2

Masomnia wrote: »

Yes, but that doesn't say anything about the benefits.

Didnt say it did.

But as child benefit is given with no questions asked & they are entitled to it it is pretty much a given.

misskool

1984ReturnsForReal wrote: »

This is old news.

& by the way, as you dont even have to be British to vote where do you think Labour gets a lot of its votes from?

To vote in the general elections, you are either British or a citizen of the Commonwealth states (you must be ordinarily resident in the UK, ie live here 9 out of 12 months). Members of the EU ordinarily resident in the UK do not vote.

The number of those who are NOT british who are eligible to vote in the general elections are very small.

"Data on International Migration and the UK provided to the OECD indicates that there were 3,353,000 foreign citizens living in the UK in 2006. Of these 1,057,000 are from named Commonwealth countries and we estimate that a further 105,000 are from other Commonwealth countries making a total of 1,162,000 Commonwealth citizens in the UK."

http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/core/page.do?pageId=438711
The number of people registered to vote has risen to a record 46m between December 2006 and December 2007.

julieq

Oh for heaven's sake. Why on earth would anyone fiddle the population statistics? Even if the government could influence a fiercely independant body (which you may remember came out a few months ago to point out that they had been selectively quoted), there's no reason why they would. More people = more support for policies favoured by the government, such as an increase in building projects, action on emissions and reduction in the use of private cars.

The ONS methodology for estimating population is published, and it doesn't rely on assumptions on the rate of consumption of fish fingers, or whatever is being done in this survey (the methodology isn't published, unsurprisingly, because it's (fish) finger in the air hokum).

Governments USE ONS data to determine demographic policy. They don't create it. The only vested interest in quoting big population increases is that of the far right who want to talk up the "problem" of immigration.

misskool

From the news article
"Based on what we eat, one big supermarket chain reckons there are 80 million people living in the UK"

Did the supermarket forget that 1 in 4 adults are now classed as obese in the UK?

that would reduce the numbers by 20 million automatically.

julieq

1984ReturnsForReal wrote: »

BUT to be brief, as you well know (if you know anything that is), Tesco (& all the other supermarkets) spend millions each year working out their market share.

Listen, I spend a large part of my working week trying to figure out market size and market share. And I can't do it with any degree of accuracy, even knowing quite a lot about the markets I'm working on. Unless you know the number of people in the country, how do you work out what the average milk consumption per capita is? Does that go down or up if prices change? You really have no idea, and neither do Tescos.

If you "can't be bothered" to understand the methodology, and then decide to be dismissive about people who do, the statisticians, when they explain otherwise, then really you should stay out of the discussion because you can't add anything to it.

1984ReturnsForReal_2

misskool wrote: »

To vote in the general elections, you are either British or a citizen of the Commonwealth states (you must be ordinarily resident in the UK, ie live here 9 out of 12 months). Members of the EU ordinarily resident in the UK do not vote.

To vote in the UK you just need to fill a form in online & send it in.

This form just needs your address & name. Date of Birth is also not required.

In short anyone can register to vote.

I can register to vote in any name I chose & do it multiple times. The only check they can make is off the Council Tax list & that includes anyone & everyone who registers themselves regardless of Nationality.

http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/

julieq

Whoops, accidentally thanked that nonsense. Thanks count = thanks count -1 please.