Do The British People Fear Fascism Is Spreading Across The World In Wake Of Donald Trump Victory?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/fascism-spreading-across-world-bmg-poll-trump-brexit-le-pen-wilders-petry-a7492981.html

This 'exclusive' study shows half of Britons believe fascist views are on the rise in the US, UK and Europe.

How can they possibly claim that?

Surely they mean that 50% of the people who bothered to vote in the BMG poll, thought so?

[THECORBYLOON]

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/News/Question1411637.html

[New Judge]

"NJ, you cannot possibly extrapolate that a 'disproportionate' number of elderly people in a 1507 sample have been excluded from the data supplied. Your just guessing. "

Yes I am just guessing, Zacs. I was simply trying to illustrate the point that making a poll "representative" is not easy. Better if I had said "...a disproportionate' number of elderly people may possibly have been excluded..." Or young people, or people with slow broadband, or poor people with no computer, or people who cannot read, or blind people. (I'm sure you get the gist).

[Zacs-Master]

Much better, ta.

[Zacs-Master]

I never tire of being right. :-)

[THECORBYLOON]

NJ as the info from the BPC says, allowances are made for certain situations and are taken into account when weighting results.

[Kromovaracun]

I think Trump's victory hails a wave of authoritarian politics that is spreading across the developed world, yes.

I don't know if the British people on average agree with this sentiment or not. Probably not if you use the word "fascism".

[jim360]

Perhaps not, but then again they are better than literally just guessing. Part of the problem too is that people are as usual only interested in the headline figure and ignore the uncertainty associated with that; it doesn't help too that very tiny inaccuracies in close elections can have huge consequences. The absolute numerical difference between, say, 49-51 and 52-48 isn't all that big compared to, say, 68-30 and 52-48, but the political difference was huge.

[anotheoldgit]

Thanks for the thread, yes it appears that both the Daily Mail and the Independent made the same mistake to use the words "Half of Britons" so I will gladly repeat

"How can they possibly claim that"?

"Surely they mean that 50% of the people who bothered to vote in their polls, thought so"?

But I would rather agree that 52 per cent thought Mr Farage was right to raise the issue, over giving anti-retroviral drugs to non-British sufferers of HIV, than 50% fear that fascism is spreading across the world in wake of Donald Trump's victory.

[Zacs-Master]

'Bothered to vote'. I'm pretty sure they were invited to vote as it was on-line and presumably they registered their interest. One could possibly conclude that people who do such a thing are the more politically minded of the populace and therefore not a representative selection.

[jim360]

I actually have a hypothesis that polls are struggling lately because they're trying *too hard* to be representative, but I haven't tested this idea all that much. Or, equivalently, that national elections aren't properly representative...

Anyway, a sample of 1500 people is perfectly capable of capturing the general opinion of the population, to within a certain degree of error, as long as it's been conducted properly. I would probably report the 53% figure as "about half", as opposed to a definite majority.

[THECORBYLOON]

ANOTHEOLDGIT, will you be posting questions prompted by articles based on unrepresentative polls in future?

[ichkeria]

Unless we know what the actual poll was it's pointless trying to comment meaningfully on it. If there was a question that said 'In the light of the election of Donald Trump etc do you think fascism is on the rise ?' then it's meaningless as it's a leading question. If the question was 'what do you think will happen after the election of Donald Trump?' and people, unprompted, expressed a fear of fascism then there might be something in it. To be honest I'm sick to death of a lot of these 'polls' as they shoehorn people's views into one or more of a set of options that they might not necessarily have thought of had they not seen those options in the first place. So if this one was like that then it's of no interest whatever.

[anotheoldgit]

THECORBYLOON

/// ANOTHEOLDGIT, will you be posting questions prompted by articles based on unrepresentative polls in future? ///

I will be posting on questions that I deem necessary, so I won't be asking the likes of you on what questions or subjects that I post on.

[Zacs-Master]

'The likes of you'. Oh dear.

[THECORBYLOON]

If you rely on unrepresentative polls (as you believe them to be) then you will be open to criticism for being hypocritical.

[Khandro]

Yes, fascism is on the rise and counter-intuitively it isn't being fuelled by the likes of Donald Trump, but by the liberal left.
Example: Take so-called "multiculturalism"; force it onto the indigenous people, without their consent (say the residents of Luton or Dewsbury), thousands upon thousands of foreign peoples of different ethnicities, colours and religions and watch them totally change the character of your town and when you make the slightest complaint, brand them as racists and xenophobes.
This my friends, is real fascism at work!

[ichkeria]

It certainly is

[sp1814]

AOG

You wrote:

But I would rather agree that 52 per cent thought Mr Farage was right to raise the issue, over giving anti-retroviral drugs to non-British sufferers of HIV, than 50% fear that fascism is spreading across the world in wake of Donald Trump's victory.

Uh huh.