I was surprised to see this on P3 of the Times yesterday. Isnt it the same one as this?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100094274/new-poll-shows-that-the-multicultural-utopia-is-finally-within-reach-or-not/

Interesting, but it throws up a lot of questions too.

This means that the Bangladeshi muslims of Tower Hamlets who worked together so well to get the independent mayor elected and who host Cageprisoners fundraisers at the East London Mosque are more patriotic than the local traditional white working class who hang England flags from the balcony windows of their flats?

And the muslims of Bury Park Luton are too? Even when their mosque is Salafi led and the community supports Pakistan at cricket?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/jan/17/muslim-resistance-struggle-within-video

Fair enough. Personally I couldn’t care less how patriotic people are. I’m not very myself.

Maybe Muslims are happy with the undemocratic and sexist constitution in the UK: http://andreasmoser.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/uk-royal-succession-reform-2011/ ?

What’s an average Briton, Does it mean a white one?

Echoing Ed – if this is the one that polled 47 people (and I think it is) it’s hardly the stuff of headline news. There’s little one can draw from such a, well – little sample. (I think it was Ben Goldacre who wrote that newspapers should link to their primary sources. Here’s a fine example of why.)

(It also strikes me that a lot of people – of whatever race or faith – wouldn’t have been proud to be a British citizen, but Welsh, Scottish and English citizens.)

@Ed West #1:

I was surprised to see this on P3 of the Times yesterday. Isnt it the same one as this?

Well, unless Demos routinely survey a sample of exactly 2086 people, it is.

Which means that the conclusions are drawn at a level which is not statistically significant, and the difference between Muslims and Britons generally are well within the margins of error.

@ 4 Dave

“What’s an average Briton, Does it mean a white one?”

Um, no. Believe it or not, white isn’t the “normal” setting for human beings.

@ 6 BenSix

“It also strikes me that a lot of people – of whatever race or faith – wouldn’t have been proud to be a British citizen, but Welsh, Scottish and English citizens”

Not to mention that the question didn’t say anything about patriotism. You could consider yourself patriotic but not be proud because you think Britain is doing badly at the moment.

This is apparently the same poll that tried to find out how people felt about gays by asking a question to which both gay rights supporters and homophobes could be expected to give them same answer. It’s junk.

@ChaiseGuevara: Or like me you could be quite happy to say you were proud to be British but refuse to describe yourself as patriotic, as you feel that pride in one’s nation is just an emotion undeserving of credence or the basis of a political philosophy.

@ 10

True dat. It’s not easy data to determine – but the company seems to have gone out of its way to get the most useless information available.

As far as I can see – this is a new report not an old one.

@8 – Yes but we are not referring to all human beings, just British ones. Why is those that claim to hate racism see it everywhere?

I understand what a British muslim is, but not what an average British is.

Are British Muslims different from the average briton? What seperates them? It must be something or whats the point of the survey?

@ 13

I don’t know if I feel more pity for you, or the people who live within earshot of you.

@ 14 Dave

“Yes but we are not referring to all human beings, just British ones. Why is those that claim to hate racism see it everywhere?”

What was meant by your comment, then? Why were you bringing race into it at all?

“I understand what a British muslim is, but not what an average British is.”

In this context, the “average” Brit believes the average response given by everyone in the survey (possibly adjusting for demographic). It doesn’t mean that there’s a group of “normal” Brits somewhere who fit the statistics perfectly.

“Are British Muslims different from the average briton? What seperates them?”

Religion springs to mind…

@ Dave

Sunny just deleted the post of a troll, but not (at time of writing), my reply to that troll. So it now looks like I’m talking to you when I say “I don’t know if I feel more pity for you, or the people who live within earshot of you.” This isn’t addressed to you, I wrote it in response to a total pillock who’s now been deleted.

@14

How rude. If your unable to answer the questions then don’t reply.

Can anyone tell me the difference betweena British Muslim and an average British person

@16 – No problem

@17 – Shut it and leave the man alone, it was a mistake

Just by the way ….. could you be quite patriotic about a country and not really know that much about it? If you hadn’t been in the country a long time, but were just so glad to be there rather than some other place?

Do you have to know who Steptoe and Son were to be considered properly British?
Or at least Morecambe and Wise?

“What was meant by your comment, then? Why were you bringing race into it at all?

I know white isn’t the normal setting, but something seperates these groups. Your sarcastic reply seemed to suggest I thought white was normal, and by definition other colurs abnormal.

Are British Muslims different from the average briton? What seperates them?”
-Religion springs to mind…”

Thats my point. Were the responses of sikhs, buddhists and pastafarians discounted because they are not average britons?

What about extremely tall people?

Were some/all muslims included in the “normal briton” group?

@Sunny #12:

As far as I can see – this is a new report not an old one.

This is from the Appendix to the report:

“This is a summary of statistics on patriotism based on a Demos commissioned
survey of a weighted sample of 2,086 British citizens, which took place in May 2011.”

So no, this isn’t a new survey – it’s the same one we discussed earlier, but now incorporated into a report.

@ 20 Dave

“I know white isn’t the normal setting, but something seperates these groups. Your sarcastic reply seemed to suggest I thought white was normal, and by definition other colurs abnormal.”

OK, I see that you didn’t mean that. Apologies.

Nothing separates the group “average Brits” from any other group – all other groups are encapsulated in it.

“Thats my point. Were the responses of sikhs, buddhists and pastafarians discounted because they are not average britons?

What about extremely tall people?

Were some/all muslims included in the “normal briton” group?”

Sikhs, tall people and Muslims would all be counted. You couldn’t get the average otherwise. Again: reporting the view of an average Brit does not mean finding someone “average” (i.e. white, middle class, vaguely Christian, 5’10” if male and 5’6” if female, on £26,000 a year) and asking them their views. It means adding up all the views recorded in the survey, then dividing by the number of people surveyed.

So, according to this survey, 79% of Britons are patriotic. That means 79 out of every 100 people surveyed claimed to be proud to be British. There may be some fine-tuning around that, but that’s basically how it works.

@ 19 damon

“Just by the way ….. could you be quite patriotic about a country and not really know that much about it? If you hadn’t been in the country a long time, but were just so glad to be there rather than some other place?”

Sure. For example, there’s plenty of patriotic “Irish” people whose family have lived in New York or Boston for several generations. I imagine people who live in one place but still associate their “roots” with another tend to be strongly patriotic, even if they’ve never visited the country they consider their homeland.

“Do you have to know who Steptoe and Son were to be considered properly British?
Or at least Morecambe and Wise?”

I’m not authorised to make that call, and neither is anyone else. Above and beyond the legal definition of a British citizen, of course.

@23 Cheers mate.

The truth hurts and cowardly Sunny and his filthy Lefty stooges run away from that truth!

See the new report just out in today’s papers about mass grooming of girls?

In the town mentioned (name slips) social workers said 80% of the girls were seduced by Asian, mostly Pakistani (almost certainly all Muslim) men!
Worse though…makes you so proud…Asians only make up 7% of the population and Pakistanis only 3% of that!
But they have 80% of this vile sex crime amongst mainly white girls.

You like hard facts and statistics…well enjoy those.

Not that the rape and whoring out if our children would ever come before your live of all things multicultural and Islamic!

Proud to be British indeed!!

Liberals my arse!!!

Go on cowards…delete it, don’t face it!

The error margin on this poll is +/- 14%:

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/4318

One problem: the error rate for this figure was +/- 14%. As such we can’t draw any conclusions from this figure.

Source:

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/4318

@ 25 Teller of etc.

“You like hard facts and statistics…well enjoy those.”

You’ve compared nationwide population figures to crime figures for a single town… and those crime figures are based purely on “wot some social worker sez”. You have neither hard facts nor statistics; in fact, you’d do well to look both concepts up!

But yeah, go on selectively reporting crimes by Muslims. It’s totally pulling the wool over our eyes, honest.

No, TOWN population figures idiot!

3% of the town population commit 80% of the grooming crimes.

Easy enough to google the reports. Otut today, saw one in the Telegraph I think.

And what a surprise! You people won’t stand in shock and Shane and say something must be done, oh no, you attack the messenger!

Do sad to see our children sacrificed to pc lefty blindness.

@29 – Still, what you say about a paper reporting what an unnamed social worker said, in a town you can’t remember the name of isn’t really facts or statistics.

I do think something should be done though, paedos should be jailed for a long long time.

You also forgetting something else, in theses reports 100% of the crimes were permitted by men.

What do you make of that and what would your course of action be?

@ Chaise

You’ve compared nationwide population figures to crime figures for a single town… and those crime figures are based purely on “wot some social worker sez”. You have neither hard facts nor statistics

According to the CEOP report in June this year, about 50% of men grooming under age girls for sex were thought to be of Asian ethnicity.

About 95% of the victims were white.

http://ceop.police.uk/Documents/ceopdocs/ceop_thematic_assessment_executive_summary.pdf

Anyone patriotic about Britain hasn’t got the hang of being British.

@ 29

“No, TOWN population figures idiot!

3% of the town population commit 80% of the grooming crimes.”

OK. That’s statistics covered. Now, hard facts: have you got a source for both the 3% figure and the 80% one? A real source, not word of mouth from one or two individuals. And don’t tell me to Google it, it’s your claim, not main.

Secondly, why are you talking about a crime that is allegedly mainly committed by Muslims? What made you pick that crime to talk about, hmm?

@ 31 pagar

“According to the CEOP report in June this year, about 50% of men grooming under age girls for sex were thought to be of Asian ethnicity.

About 95% of the victims were white.”

Hooray, someone understands about data! Yeah, that IS a concern. The ratio of victims isn’t suggestive of much, but the ratio of offenders is. I’m not sure what course of action it suggests, though.

And just to clarify.

Is that ALL Muslims? No of course not.

In some areas is it a majority? YES.
or a large minority? YES.

Moderate Muslims? Sure. Yes.
As long as they ignore big parts of Islamic teaching!!

Just like moderate Catholics or Jews do.
BUT, they can hardly be representative of their religion though can they!!

I’m sure there were Nazi party members who were against the concentrations camps, the persecutions and the land grabbing.
BUT they would hardly be called (BY YOU LOT) representative of their belief system!

How dare The Left call themselves liberal. How dare you deny the facts just to appease. And thus nothing gets done…And so British children, our children, our future, gets raped and pimped by an 1500 year old outside religion.

Well done! Proud of you all.

@ 35

First off, I’m not gonna take out a Times Online subscription for your benefit. I’m mainly interested in the source for that 80%.

Secondly, you appear to be wrong about saying 3% of the town commit 80% of grooming. IIRC, you said that 3% was the Pakistani population of the town. So unless you’re claiming that every Pakistani man, woman and child in Leeds was involved, then in fact 80% of groomings are being carried out by considerably LESS than 3% of the population, right?

Pendantry? No, it’s important, because you (as ever) are trying to tar all Muslims with the actions of a few. Case in point: you seem to think that the 80% claim somehow contradicts the claims made in this article. As if 80% of the groomings in Leeds being carried out by Muslims would somehow make it impossible for Muslims in general to be very patriotic.

A figure like the 80% thing could be accounted for by a single fairly small gang of people (I assume so at least, unless underage grooming is as common as shoplifting). Which makes Leeds, in itself, not statistically significant.

I try to be honest, so I’ll admit that Pagar’s evidence is a good bit stronger. If true, it does seem to point to a cultural problem that needs dealing with. But Pagar isn’t using it as an excuse to scream moronic invective at Muslims in general, because Pagar is a) considerably smarter than you and b) not a bigot.

If you want a sensible discussion, you’d be better off not entering the debate by writing a list of reasons that you hate Muslims while you froth at the mouth. You might find that people pay attention instead of dismissing you as a nutter.

SUNNY THE COWARD!!
SUNNY THE ABUSE APPEASER!!
You deleted my post, my proof, the facts you cover up!!
Sunny you spit on liberalism!

Fucking coward.

The town was Leeds!
The story was front news on The Times. A Times investigation!

Cowards!

You would rather see all these girls raped and abused than tackle the MAIN cause.

You shame liberalism.

I hope you all have nightmares for every second of all your worthless lives!

But you would have to have morals for that

@ 35

Oh, and it’s telling why you dismiss the claims in this article as bogus. A number of other people on the thread have criticised the claims because the survey was poorly designed and has an inadequate sample group. You, on the other hand, attack the claims because MUZLIMS R TEH DEVILL!!!111

So there was a totally justified reason to dismiss the claims, right there in front of you… but you had to go straight for the hysterical rant and the irrelevant smear. Why is that, exactly?

I’m not sure what course of action it suggests, though.

It suggests, as you say, that issues should be confronted according to evidence which should not be denied because the truth is inconvenient to someone’s world view.

Clearly, a higher than expected proportion of Asian young men are involved in sexually targeting vulnerable young white girls and, given the more conservative attitudes to sexual mores in the Muslim community, this is perhaps to be expected.

I agree it is not obvious how to address such a difficult issue, but it goes without saying that it cannot be resolved by pretending it does not exist.

I think this is a silly poll. There is a difference between being proud to be British and being patriotic. Patriotism is about love of one’s country. This does not necessarily equate to pride, and it certainly doesn’t equate to pride in an arbitrarily drawn-up list of British things. Besides, it’s an anachromism, surely, to call Shakespeare British, is it not?

Personally, I’m English. The day Tony Blair goes on trial for war crimes, I might start calling myself British again.

Whether it’s a new poll or an old one isn’t that important I think, rather than it seems to be one of those things that can be spun mercilessly. The way it’s been proposed here makes it almost difficult to discuss properly.

Where does this Newsnight story from last year year fit in?

”Oldham schools attempt to bridge race divide.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/9468617.stm

If the Muslims who are living somewhat segregated lives in Oldham – does it mean that they could still be in this greater majority who were very patriotic about Britain?
The answer could well be ”Yes” – but it’s certainly something to take into consideration.

As too with the Mulsims of Bradford – who marry first cousins (many from the Subcontinent) at a rate up ”up to 75%” ……. so I have read.
But if that is just another modern British custom amongst many new ones which have come with the modern multi-culturalism, then we should at least say that we were talking about something new.

Maybe people are saying they just like this freedom in the UK to live their lives however they like. And that means the freedom to live in seperate cultural comfort zones, but without the drawbacks.
Much more than they could in Pakistan for example, or even France or the USA.

I don’t know, it’s just a thought.

@ pagar

“It suggests, as you say, that issues should be confronted according to evidence which should not be denied because the truth is inconvenient to someone’s world view.”

I hope we don’t need any factoid to suggest THAT – but yes, absolutely.

“Clearly, a higher than expected proportion of Asian young men are involved in sexually targeting vulnerable young white girls and, given the more conservative attitudes to sexual mores in the Muslim community, this is perhaps to be expected.

I agree it is not obvious how to address such a difficult issue, but it goes without saying that it cannot be resolved by pretending it does not exist.”

Problem is that all solutions I can think of off the top of my head are either discriminatory or a bit vague. The (agreed for sake of argument) fact that Asian men make up a disproportionate number of people grooming young girls is not automatically, for example, a reason to target young Asian men. It is possible to update your information without necessitating a change in behaviour.

@ 41 Trooper Thompson

“Besides, it’s an anachromism, surely, to call Shakespeare British, is it not?”

Hah! Interesting point.

Pagar

Sadly, Sunny by kicking off this thread, twisting the statistics to make a 6 mnth old report put a spin on Muslims, demonstrates just how unwilling he is stop pretending about Islam:

> I agree it is not obvious how to address such a difficult issue, but it goes without saying that it cannot be resolved by pretending it does not exist.

@ 45 JV

Sunny doesn’t really get the difference between “this is true” and “I want this to be true”. I don’t think it’s even specific to Islam, although I agree LC is biased in this respect.

43. Chaise Guevara

Problem is that all solutions I can think of off the top of my head are either discriminatory or a bit vague. The (agreed for sake of argument) fact that Asian men make up a disproportionate number of people grooming young girls is not automatically, for example, a reason to target young Asian men. It is possible to update your information without necessitating a change in behaviour.

So what if they are discrimination? Why should you allow that to handicap your ability to do anything? In virtually every other circumstance we accept that a little discrimination is necessary – Affirmative Action for instance. We discriminate against men and against Whites to achieve an outcome most people think is just. We do not suggest breast cancer tests for everyone in the population but target the female and the old portions of the population. Virtually every policy is in some way discriminatory. As it should be.

What you mean is that you can’t bear the thought someone might think you are racist and so that cripples your ability to be effective. That is a different issue.

Problem is that all solutions I can think of off the top of my head are either discriminatory or a bit vague.

Have to say, I can’t even think of a discriminatory solution.

There is a fundamental dichotomy caused by a restrictive culture subsisting in a permissive society and young Asian men are choosing to have sex. As I said above, hardly surprising.

And if a 14 year old girl wants to have sex with an older man (or men) it is going to be very difficult either to stop her from doing so or to successfully prosecute the man involved.

Apparently, CEOP have evidence of more than 2000 “grooming crimes” a year but are only able to prosecute in a tiny handful of cases. In fact, looking at the overall efficacy of the “Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre” it is hard not to conclude that it is a complete waste of time and money.

@ 47 SMFS

“So what if they are discrimination? Why should you allow that to handicap your ability to do anything? In virtually every other circumstance we accept that a little discrimination is necessary – Affirmative Action for instance. We discriminate against men and against Whites to achieve an outcome most people think is just.”

Didn’t know you were a fan of Affirmative Action. I, however, am not. On account of it being unreasonable discrimination, y’see.

“We do not suggest breast cancer tests for everyone in the population but target the female and the old portions of the population. Virtually every policy is in some way discriminatory. As it should be.”

FFS, there’s a difference between medical triage and a policy that involves harrassing people of certain demographics, which is the obvious action that could be taken based on pagar’s data. Refusing someone a job or making them a police target purely on grounds of ethnicity is a move towards a society with first- and second-class citizens.

You could reduce crime by finding everyone whose demographic closely fit an average offender, and locking them up. But that wouldn’t be reasonable.

“What you mean is that you can’t bear the thought someone might think you are racist and so that cripples your ability to be effective. That is a different issue.”

Difficult for a non-existent problem to be an issue, really. I’m quite comfortable with the line between honesty and bigotry, and confident about where I sit in relation to it.

49. Chaise Guevara

FFS, there’s a difference between medical triage and a policy that involves harrassing people of certain demographics, which is the obvious action that could be taken based on pagar’s data. Refusing someone a job or making them a police target purely on grounds of ethnicity is a move towards a society with first- and second-class citizens.

Sure. One is distasteful to you and the other is not. It is only a move towards first and second class citizens if it is done all the time and consistently. It is not making Greek Cypriots second class citizens to focus on them when dealing with various diseases because they are found more commonly in people from the Mediterranean and they will not be discriminated against in other ways. No one is suggesting that Asian Britons be denied jobs or singled out for breast cancer awareness meetings. But it seems reasonable that information on why this is wrong should be printed in Urdu and Punjabi.

You could reduce crime by finding everyone whose demographic closely fit an average offender, and locking them up. But that wouldn’t be reasonable.

It depends on the fit doesn’t it?

@ 50 SMFS

“Sure. One is distasteful to you and the other is not.”

If by that you mean I consider one to be immoral, sure. But I did provide other reasons, so don’t act as if the above is the be-all and end-all.

“It is only a move towards first and second class citizens if it is done all the time and consistently.”

If the police go around the country tomorrow and raid the home of every Asian and only Asians, I’m pretty sure they’d feel like second-class citizens, even if it was a one-off.

“No one is suggesting that Asian Britons be denied jobs or singled out for breast cancer awareness meetings. But it seems reasonable that information on why this is wrong should be printed in Urdu and Punjabi.”

No problem with that, as long as it’s in English too,

“It depends on the fit doesn’t it?”

Nah, I support presumed innocence myself.

@ 48 pagar

“Have to say, I can’t even think of a discriminatory solution.”

A crackdown targeted solely at Asians, involving plain clothes police following them around and cops raiding their homes?

A crackdown targeted solely at Asians, involving plain clothes police following them around and cops raiding their homes?

Waste of time and money. As I said above CEOP can’t even get them when they have hard evidence.

Nor am I in favour of police stopping and searching black youths on the grounds that they are statistically more likely to be carrying a knife or a gun, though that is because of concerns about civil liberties not out of sensitivity about racism.

Chaise

> Sunny doesn’t really get the difference between “this is true” and “I want this to be true”. I don’t think it’s even specific to Islam, although I agree LC is biased in this respect.

Thanks for that – I’ve felt like a lonely voice on that issue for quite a while.

@35 – Your lot just suggested, over in America, that children work. Of course that’s a “better” solution, just stop calling em kids. They’re already tried as adults in your utopia anyway…

@ 54 JV

“Thanks for that ”

No worries – I can appreciate what Sunny is trying to do with this piece (encourage tolerance and so forth), but desire should never dictate facts.

@57 – Once more, you’re quite unable to differentiate between Islam and Islamists.

Would you like the UK’s health service to be judged by…say… Shipman? Wait, silly question…

@59 – Well, he’s gotta ban-evade somehow!

“Do the same group that’s the only credible terrorist threat to Britain, that’s the largest terrorist threat since the height of the IRA, that’s made numerous attempts to attack Britain and is the group solely responsible for the first suicide bombing in Britsin’s history….is the most patriotic group towards Britain, in Britain!?”

An unworthy part of me wishes that people who don’t understand basic statistics were banned from posting. It just wastes the time of those of us who aren’t fucking morons.

@ 60 Leon

“Well, he’s gotta ban-evade somehow!”

Happily, I suspect his clever ploy won’t work. For some reason, mods frown upon those whose posts are 90% paranoid and bigoted rants…