This morning I read that the Scottish Episcopal church voted to remove the clause in its law that prevents same-sex marriages due to the “huge change in public attitudes in Scotland”. “Hurrah! I am so proud of my adopted motherland!” I exclaimed as I started painting a rainbow Saltire on my face. I then read another article that told me that in Scotland in 2015-16 there was a 20% increase in reported hate crimes relating to sexual orientation compared to the previous year. As I reached for the face wipes I started wondering about the results of polls that tell us how attitudes are changing and how well they reflect the reality of our experiences.
Having survived both the Scottish Independence and Brexit referendums in less than two years, I’m sure that most of us are acutely aware of, and totally fed up with, the result of attitude surveys and polls. Some are clearly nonsense, or at least, conducted in such a way that renders their results effectively useless. For example, before we knew the result of the EU referen dum, the Daily Express reported that 92% of people wanted to leave the EU. It turned out that what they meant was that 92% of Daily Express readers, readers of a pro-Brexit newspaper, wanted to leave the EU. In fact, we now know the figure was just over half at 51%. How and where you recruit people to answer your questions affects the type of people who take part and the responses they give.