Opinion polls are sometimes poor at distinguishing between virtue-signalling and what people really think – respondents tell the pollsters what they think they are supposed to say, especially on issues that have become moralised, like anti-Covid measures.
But actions speak louder than words. So the news that 19% of people have deleted the NHS Covid app (which pings you to tell you to self-isolate if you are identified as someone who’s come into contact with a person who’s tested positive) and so joined the 32% of people who never had it, according to a new ComRes poll, perhaps gives a better indication of how many people are not so keen on Covid restrictions. Among 18-34 year olds, over a third – 34% – have deleted the app, which is as many as still have it, while 21% never downloaded it in the first place – despite 98% owning a smartphone.
To my mind, statistics like these are a much more realistic indicator of who actually supports restrictions, since if you’re not willing to self-isolate when potentially infected, how can you be in favour of less targeted measures? This would mean just 42% of people are genuinely in favour of restrictions continuing.
True, you have to allow for the 16% of adults who don’t have a smartphone. If we assume this group splits in their views in the same proportions as those who do have a smartphone then we get 44.5% against restrictions in practice versus 50.5% in favour. This is probably an upper bound for those in favour, as some may just be saying they have the app even though they don’t, and some may have downloaded it just for appearance’s sake. Furthermore, some may not be supportive of measures beyond isolation of contacts (though I assume that anyone who favours more restrictive measures must favour self-isolation of contacts as it seems the bare minimum of restrictions beyond isolation of the infected).
Among 18-34 year-olds, those opposed to restrictions (by this measure) outnumber those in favour by 55% to 34%.
Such figures sound much more likely to me than the alarming support for draconian restrictions that often appears in opinion polls. They suggest that if politicians think the public are solidly behind the continuation of restrictions then they are in for a nasty shock come polling day. Politicians should pay closer attention to what people do than what they say.
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The Great European Economic Powerhouse (Germany) totally ruined by GREEN Ideology and Mass Immigration. —-The UK are ignoring this lesson and will collapse in a heap as well.
“They were going to vomit forth a great wealth of industrial subsidies intended to ease German industry into her glorious post-carbon phase.”
An impossibility as perpetual motion does not exist. Perhaps Germany should not have closed down it’s nuclear power?
Associating the Green Party with a traffic signal, or a railway signal displaying a green aspect is ironic, is it not? After all, it’s almost the opposite for most industrialists! More like a yellow, followed by another one, and another one……..Then grinding to a halt at the next one.
Daily Skeptic: best English language commentary on Germany. Danke.
As far as I can see, the whole Western European, “progressive”, woke, net zero, pro-migration idea is one massive, unmitigated failure.
It simply doesn’t work.
It doesn’t matter that all the mainstream parties are behind it.
It doesn’t matter that the mass media supports it.
It doesn’t matter that all of its critics are censored, silenced, bullied, imprisoned.
It doesn’t matter that massive amounts of money and manpower are sacrificed to support it.
It still doesn’t work.
So, there are two possible routes ahead:
1.) Continue regardless and commit social and economic suicide. Adolph in the bunker with the cyanide capsule in the mouth and bullet in the head.
2.) Try something else.
That’s about it, in my opinion.
You are right and will be interesting to see how the Irish GE plays out at the end of the month.
I fear if you cancel and close down the opposite views it will lead to a more violent approach.
Too many people still asleep. We’re doomed.
The Greens have been given a kicking in the recent state elections and could fail to make the 5% needed to get any seats at all. And it took 71 days to form a government last time.
Habeck, Merz and Scholz are really DINO — different in name only. That’s also the reason why this pseudo-collapse of a governing coalition doesn’t matter at all. I don’t know to which degree German policy is decided by the UN and to which degree by the so-called American left (whose agendas seem to be – by-and-large – identical) but German (establishment) politicians are certainly just remote-controlled executing agents.