The results (and my comments):
Ethnicity
- 5% of British voters said they would not vote for a black leader, who was an otherwise qualified candidate.
Results are the same in the USA. Interesting to see whether it would only be 5% in an election.
Age- 43% of people said they would not vote for someone who was 72 years of age.
As Anthony Wells over at UK Polling Report points out, this could be so high relative to some of the other questions because people do not see the same social stigma in being prejudiced against age.
I was not surprised at this. We seem to be an increasingly ageist society where youth triumphs over age. Our political parties seem to have responded to this long-term trend by going for youthful leaders in their early 40s - the Tories and Lib Dems anyway. And i'd expect Labour to follow suit after the next general election.
Sexuality- 23% of people said they would not vote for who was gay or lesbian.
Seems we are still quite homophobic with almost a quarter not willing to support a gay or lesbian leader who was otherwise qualified for the job. It is striking that the battle against racism seems to be proving more succesful than the battle against homophobia. Much more work to be done here and i think it needs to start early with children in school to help eradicate homophobic playground jibes.
Religion- 23% of people said they would not vote for an otherwise qualified candidate for a leader who was Muslim.
- 7% of people said they would not vote for a Christian leader.
- 20% of voters said they would not vote for an otherwise well-qualified candidate who was an atheist.
Came as no surprise that a quarter said they wouldn't vote for a Muslim leader given the bad press Islam has received the last few years.
Interesting that 7% wouldn't vote for a Christian - would be good to see the breakdown of this figure. Who wouldn't vote - probably people from other religions (if so what is the breakdown?) and atheists perhaps?
The fifth of people who wouldn't vote for an atheist came as a genuine surprise. I expected this to be in single figures given that i've always viewed Britain as quite a secular society. Doesn't bode particularly well for Nick Clegg who has said he is an atheist whereas his two opponents have both said they believe in God (to varying degrees).
Morality
- 7% of British voters would not vote for a divorcee.
With our high divorce rates? The 7% is either the religious contingent or just plain hypocrites!
Gender- 7% of voters said they would not vote for a female leader - interestingly this was evenly split between men and women.
7% seems to be the percentage of the social conservatives within the UK. Surprised this is this high, especially as we have already had a female Prime Minister (though perhaps Maggie put 7% of the country's Lefties off ever voting for a woman).
Some interesting and depressing results i'm sure all would agree.
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