Mark Pack

Here’s one opinion poll finding that has had almost no coverage and I suspect will continue to do so because its finding is so at odds with what nearly everyone is saying.

It’s from Anthony Wells’s excellent polling blog:

YouGov re-asked a question from back in 2009 about whether people though Britain was a broken society, in regard of the area people themselves lived in, and in relation to the country as a whole. 37% think it is true in relation to the area they live (which is significantly down from 2009 when YouGov originally asked the question)

“Down”, not “up”.

People do think the country as a whole has seen society get worse, but such views can be heavily shaped by what the media reports. Going instead by people’s own personal experience of their area, the picture is that people think society has got better, not worse.

Almost whatever your view on the riots – whether you want to blame the riots on the Coalition Government, decades of decay and decline or the failures of New Labour – it’s a finding that doesn’t suit.

But that isn’t a reason to cast it into obscurity.