The poll revealed that the public thinks 10 per cent of people are bisexual and 15 per cent are gay or lesbian. The true figures, official statistics say, are 1.3 per cent and 1.8 per cent respectively. Pictured: A couple walk with a rainbow flag towards Parliament as the LGBT+ community celebrates Pride in London in 2016
When 1,800 people were asked by pollster YouGov how many people were transgender, for instance, they thought it was about five per cent of the population.
In reality, between 0.3 per cent and 0.7 per cent identify as a different gender from their biological sex - the gap between the estimate and the reality appearing to show how the transgender rights debate has skewed perceptions.
While most Britons are white and heterosexual, the poll found many believe the UK is made up of far more racial, religious and sexual minorities than it actually is. When the survey asked what proportion of adults was white, the median answer was 65 per cent - yet the true figure is 87 per cent.
Tory MP Sir John Hayes (pictured) said some online and broadcast media create a 'distorted impression' of Britain and are 'skewing the facts' on how the UK looks
The public also hugely overestimates the number of vegans and vegetarians - suggesting about 20 per cent refuse to eat animal products, when it is just four per cent. Results of the survey, commissioned by the Common Sense Campaign, have been used to gauge the accuracy of minority representation in the media. Those surveyed were asked 16 questions to work out the overall perception of the make-up of the UK.
Tory MP Sir John Hayes said: 'This distorted impression created by much of the broadcast and online media is so out of tune with the facts as to befuddle people about the true character of Britain. There are, of course, all sorts of minority groups that deserve our respect and regard.
'The overwhelming majority of British people are drawn from a small number of groups. Media preoccupations with minorities are skewing the facts.'
The poll revealed that the public thinks 10 per cent of people are bisexual and 15 per cent are gay or lesbian. The true figures, official statistics say, are 1.3 per cent and 1.8 per cent respectively.
Survey participants were asked to estimate how many people earn more than £100,000. The median guess was 20 per cent. The real proportion is only three per cent.
The Common Sense Campaign said: 'Diversity, particularly in the media, is evidently a positive and laudable aim. What these results show, however, is that they are playing into a misconception about Britain that under-represents some groups and over-represents others.
The country, it added, needs to be more accurately portrayed. 'We risk going down the American route of seeing everything through the prism of identity,' it said.
Reader Comments
I just really wish people would wake up and understand that groups thrive more when they are allowed to concentrate. I love being able to visit China-town or Korea-town or any other ethnic concentration of stores and culture when I visit Chicago (my nearby example). I love when someone adopts something great from another culture, especially when that thing is superior or more appropriate for some reason. It's not cultural appropriation. I use chopsticks more often than forks, and have for more than a decade. If nothing else, it's increased my fine motor dexterity and slowed my eating speed. It's become natural. I can't recall the last time I ate spaghetti with a fork and spoon.
It feels like the goals of NGOs like Open Society are not acceptance of all peoples and cultures, but to erase them completely and create some socialist hellscape where everyone looks the same because they were strongly encouraged (and probably will later be forced) to interbreed with peoples they have nothing in common with. I think the end goal of this is so future slaves have no shared culture to bind them to one another and fight their future overlords.
For an example of finding commonality, I have met many women from other cultures I found beautiful, but when I thought about the logistics of dating someone from such a disparate culture, it made no sense. Of course you can overcome differences throughout a lifetime together, but you need some common ground to start from. Sexual attraction only gets you so far. I may not be religious, but I was raised Catholic, so my cultural perspective which is ingrained, the way I understand the world, is from that POV. Now, I've studied many religions myself, but if I look back at me at 18, I couldn't even date a Baptist, let alone a Hindu or someone from a tribal culture which practices a non middle-eastern religion.
Anyway, I'm rambling now. I'm all for melting pots and sharing culture and living in peace, but you can't erase cultures and not expect a backlash from the majority of people who find value in it. Boundaries are important, but it doesn't mean we can't get along and create new worlds. What we really need right now is less news media, and for all of it to reflect reality in its reporting.
What I've discovered in my personal religious and spiritual studies is that several major religions could be much stronger if people understood the connection between those organizations roots and "phenomena" that occur which people in the West think are UFOs and others think are angels, saints, demons, monsters, or ghosts. The answers are all there, in texts that have become forbidden because they actually empower people, but religion is much more useful in its watered-down form as a system of control.
I don't know if you're familiar with The Cassiopaean Experiment, but it really is all connected. The forces of good and evil are better defined as service to self or service to others, and we are simply subjective extensions of a universal consciousness. "I am he as you are he, as you are me and we are all together."
Rupert Spira and Eckhart Tolle and Ram Dass and many others exist now, have existed, will exist again. While some follow like cultists, some pretend to get it, some simply can't even begin to understand and reject it, some understand but can't apprehend the reality of it all, and those who do get it are just like they are and live a simple life of happiness whatever happens.
I fall into the category of understanding but struggling to apprehend - and that's my journey for now. I make excuses, though "the rat race" is really difficult to participate in (for me anyway) while trying to live the lessons I've learned... Work, at least my work, makes it really, really difficult to be in the headspace, the vibration, zone, whatever you want to call it.
It's funny, to be Christ-like has nothing to do with following rules and going to church. Many people spend their whole lives going to church and repeating commandments and scripture and have never had even a moment of Christ-like insight or true communion. And this I know because I've had true communion exactly once, and it was both terrifying and overwhelmingly loving.
I'll tell you this, I got some serious peppers going and sometimes when choosing path to pursue becomes difficult, best to stick with that close to home. The peppers I have are a hybrid ghost pepper along with some tobasco pepper coupled with some mystery and uncertainty and the best part is I have no idea what these plants have to offer up. I suspect of some hale comes to cause trouble, the plants will survive, but may be next season when they reveal the fruits they have to offer, so chin up is all I got to say. I miss my place just now and I plan on getting there soon....life is a mystery and I don't know about you, but I'd just assume have it no other way.
Peace is easy is obvious and high time peace is achieved. The Cassiopaean Experiment seems to me an experiment that needs to become more transparent even if it means some of the ideas get confused in translation.....better to share then to be in bed with a patent lawyer is what I think.....and any experiment worth its salt is transparent for all to sense and contribute and disagree and to improve through discourse. That is what I think.
Ken
LOL now that must be kept secret!
Happy to tell you about the queers though (who don't procreate and thus die out in a single generation).
Nor that those groups represent the most controversial perversions - except for the pedophiles (yet).
- destroy traditions and morality
- distract them from more important things (like poisoning their food and stealing their savings)
- prepare the ground for general acceptance of their own perversions - pedophilia and psychopathy
It'll be harder to do a clean sweep in the media industry, although publicly funded major players like the BBC should be easy enough to over haul. The education system, like wise being largely tax payer funded, should also be restored to being education focussed - and not pushing minority propaganda.
If they swap the word "gay" for "NAZI" people would NEVER doubt it.
Because even though England "allegedly" fought against the Nazi's in WW2 it is also true that the defeat (allegedly) of the Nazi's was instrumental in creating the foundation where HOMOSEXUALITY could be legalized.
1950s (who ever you believe runs England the truth in hindsight actually proves whoever they were, they didn't waste anytime getting the road paved with perversion after such a short time after the war, while rationing was stil even around).
Also around the time of the new and improved Monarchy.
Priorities eh.
the jewJack Straw (zionist) "the English are not worth saving"