Public perceptions on immigration etc

Moby

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-public-wrong-about-nearly-everything-survey-shows-8697821.html

Something I often think when I see some of the threads on here.

Battleaxe44

Moby, I think it depends on your life experiences. My husband, raised in the North west, small town, so his perceptions are limited, I was raised overseas, travelled the world and have encouraged my family to do the same (hubby and I have been married three years and he is in 70's), he sees his world through a different lens to mine. it also depends on how your opinions are shaped by your parents outlook on life. I have challenged him a few times on things he surmises, slowly I am changing his views on a lot of things. he is not uneducated, just not exposed to the experiences some of us have had. i would have thought as he served in the Armed Services his outlook would be a lot less insular.

I am guess it the same for a lot of people, their perceptions are formed by their life experiences

Sampong

MP's have denounced official immigration statistics as "not fit for purpose".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk-news/2013/jul/28/official-migration-statistics-guess-report

Perhaps it is not so much that the public wildly form incorrect perceptions, but more a case of a lack of accurate and truthful data being available.

Unless of course you're suggesting that we believe everything we're told - which would be naive at best.

thescouselander

Poor analysis really. Maybe some people overestimated the proportion of immigrants because conditions locally indicated a higher proportion than the overall average.

Generali

Moby wrote: »

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-public-wrong-about-nearly-everything-survey-shows-8697821.html

Something I often think when I see some of the threads on here.

I think Hamish also posted this a while back. It's an interesting piece though.

I wonder how people's views on immigration colour their guess of how many immigrants there are, e.g. do anti-immigration people tend to overstate migration and pro/neutrals not do so?

grizzly1911

Battleaxe44 wrote: »

Moby, I think it depends on your life experiences.
I am guess it the same for a lot of people, their perceptions are formed by their life experiences

That is the key and whetehr you have been adversely impacted or not.

Where I was brought up had big areas of the town where quite heavy immigration was seen in the 60/70s.They were often looked at as the same despite coming from very different backgrounds.They tended to be much more insular themselves.

When I go back there these days there are still historic districts but the whole city is much more diced and sliced.

Many of those early immigrants were in some way associated to the UK through commonwealth/empire links and to some degree had to meet entry criteria however porous.

Were the employee shortages they were encouraged to meet more defined than now? Were housing issues as acute as today although it is a perennial problem?

Interesting when you here those early "mass" immigrants venting against the seemingly open borders we have now.

nickj_2

i think most rational people probably think that as we've got 3million people out of work at the moment , let's get them sorted out first, the school system , nhs , roads, transport are choked up, the air quality in my local market town regularly exceeds safe limits ,so god only knows what it's like in big cities . and of course the shortage of affordable housing
anyone wanting to settle here should not recieve any state assistance until they've contributed for at least 5 years, they should not be a drain on the state.
we know that the country only needs to go a few months without serious rain which results in water shortages . in he south, most water is provided via underground aquafiers, if you start concreting over the land you are reducing the lands ability to harvst the water whilst building more and more housing is increasing the demand ,
we have at the moment the same population as france in a country that is roughly 4 times smaller , do we really want to destroy everything that attracts people to this country in the first place ?

ess0two

Would love to see Sampongs take on that article.

vivatifosi

Sampong wrote: »

MP's have denounced official immigration statistics as "not fit for purpose".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk-news/2013/jul/28/official-migration-statistics-guess-report

Perhaps it is not so much that the public wildly form incorrect perceptions, but more a case of a lack of accurate and truthful data being available.

Unless of course you're suggesting that we believe everything we're told - which would be naive at best.

I was disappointed when I heard this, this morning. It doesn't matter where you stand on immigration, you need to know what the figures are in order to debate it coherently. Having a system that is not fit for purpose helps no-one. I hope that this gets prioritised and addressed.

BobQ

I think it is a consequence of the way information is communicated in the guise of news these days.

People often do not delve into the real story, they believe the Daily Mail headlines, soundbites on Twitter, the news headlines and are too busy to read the facts. With a few notable exceptions, journalism is not as good as it used to be and at times is very sloppy.

olly300

BobQ wrote: »

I think it is a consequence of the way information is communicated in the guise of news these days.

People often do not delve into the real story, they believe the Daily Mail headlines, soundbites on Twitter, the news headlines and are too busy to read the facts. With a few notable exceptions, journalism is not as good as it used to be and at times is very sloppy.

The proliferation of 24 hour news means that more news has to be available quickly, while at the same time the internet means people don't want to pay for it.

Oh and people have always believed the rubbish in the Daily Mail and the like. One reason why politicians and others who need to find out what the public want read a few newspapers.