Voters back George Osborne’s welfare crackdown, finds poll

Last Updated: June 30, 2013By

Amazing. How the Tory-led Coalition manages to dupe the general public into believing its nonsense is utterly beyond me. Who are these people that ICM surveyed, and what makes them think this way?

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12 Comments

  1. Smiling Carcass June 30, 2013 at 1:03 am - Reply

    You should only trust statistics you doctored yourself.

  2. Alex Casale June 30, 2013 at 1:07 am - Reply

    Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

  3. Steven Durrant June 30, 2013 at 1:25 am - Reply

    Why do think that way? A glimpse at the stupidity of mainstream coverage of economics should answer that question.

    People say they don’t believe what they hear and read, but what else is there to believe? Minutes later they are quoting what they read and heard.

    Cognitive dissonance. Diggers of their own graves.

    • Mike Sivier June 30, 2013 at 9:19 am - Reply

      That’s a depressing analysis but it rings true, I think. Does anybody else have an observation on this?

      • Smiling Carcass July 1, 2013 at 2:22 am - Reply

        I’m always correcting people I know who say ‘this’ about the economy and ‘that’ about immigrants or ‘the other’ about benefit cuts; they listen, don’t have an answer but their expression and dumb looks and booming silence tell me they’re thinking ‘I read it in the Sun. What do you know?’

        I think they want it to be true- for everybody else.

  4. paurina June 30, 2013 at 8:36 am - Reply

    Too depressing. But don’t forget ‘they’ have virtually all the media to pedal their lies and demonisation of the disadvantaged. Most people don’t follow bloggers like you or tweeters like me :-(

    • Mike Sivier June 30, 2013 at 9:23 am - Reply

      That’s true – and is now a more-or-less constant thorn in my side as it seems clear the ‘mainstream’ media are happy to regurgitate what they are spoon-fed by the government, without checking it, whereas here in the social media we have the intelligence (or is it simply the time) and the inclination to examine what we are told and see if it stands up to scrutiny.

      • Alex Casale July 1, 2013 at 9:08 am - Reply

        “Whoever controls the media controls the mind.”

  5. catwoman36 June 30, 2013 at 10:10 am - Reply

    2006 people do not represent how the majority of people feel or think in this country so you cant really say it is a fair representation. The polls serve one purpose to make the government look good in the media

    • Mike Sivier June 30, 2013 at 9:18 pm - Reply

      I’m glad you – and others, I believe, are saying that. As long as people are willing to question such polls, there’s a chance for facts to prevail.

  6. Samwise Gamgee June 30, 2013 at 10:47 am - Reply

    Times are hard, and even a lot of people in work are suffering. It is a sad fact that, when people see the world around them getting worse, and the security and prosperity they took for granted ebbing away, they tend to look for scapegoats – and the government and their conniving friends in the media are more than willing to give them one, i.e. the “workshy scrounger” of popular folklore.

    What bothers me is why do people so readily believe this? Well I don’t doubt there is some fraud out there, but it’s a fact it amounts to a tiny fraction of the total.

    From the TUC website:

    “Polling carried out by the TUC in January, showed that on average people think that 27 per cent of the welfare budget is claimed fraudulently. The government’s own figure is 0.7 per cent.”

    http://www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-22200-f0.cfm

    But how often is the real figure, 0.7%, mentioned explicitly in the media or by the government? Well hardly ever, and the government is more than willing to give a “nudge-nudge wink-wink” impression to the media that it is more than it really is, and the media will run with it. So if people only ever hear one line – that fraud is rampant and is a national crisis – they will believe it. People like to talk about how they never believe what they read in the press but they are happy to do just that when it confirms their own prejudices and gives them some comfort when the government says it is doing all it can to tackle the problem.

    People are angry and want someone to blame. The government are giving the them what they want, when they should be giving them what they need, in the form of better job security, a stronger economy, and the truth about how little fraud there really is.

  7. guy fawkes June 30, 2013 at 2:55 pm - Reply

    It is not just what is written in the media that is circumspect, but also what comes from governments own figures and statistics. If none of these can get it right, how can we scrutinize without having the correct facts or figures?

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