According to the Daily Mail, a 30,000 strong "census police force" will be used to chase up those who have failed to respond to the census questionnaire.
"The enforcement army will be deployed early next month as the first wave of an operation costing hundreds of millions of pounds to try to ensure no home in the country fails to comply with the census".
I wonder . . . . . . . ?
Will they be like social workers, who in the main are happy to go to homes in well kept middle-class housing estates and harass normally law-abiding parents over some triviality? Will they go to the sink estates where even the police won't venture alone or without body armour? Will they go to the immigrant ghettos where we most need accurate information as to numbers? What threat will a £1000 fine be to someone on benefits who decides not to comply?
And more to the point, what are they going to do to ensure that people tell the truth anyway?
With an interest in family history, my wife and I have traced our ancestors in all the censuses (shouldn't it be censii ?) from 1841 to 1911, and rarely do two consecutive censuses agree, in spite of the small amount of information requested. Some "errors" were probably lack of knowledge such as their not knowing their birthplace or even their true age (or perhaps they couldn't subtract). With others, it is clear that they were downright lies, particularly regarding family relationships, and the describing of "boarders" who presumably pay rent as "visitors" who don't!
All in all, a total waste of money, although I have no doubt that there will be a few high profile court cases to "prove" how efficient they are.
Perhaps we need to amend the old saying to "There are lies, dammed lies, statistics and censuses"!
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good point about the follow up enforcement actions, you cna bet your house they wont venture intot eh sink estates but be focused on the law abiding middle class and honest poor....
ReplyDeleteits all about the money always has been, its utter BS the propoganda guff about improving services ad such....its about how many cattel ahve we got and and how fat are they and how many can we take to market and profit (tax) from....
makes me sick what this country has become...I was always proud to be British proud that I'd served in the army had built a business but everywhere I look I see self serving council leaders and chief executives and mainstream politicians bending over to take it up the ass from the EU and at the same time sucking on the teat of the genuine productive wealth generators
we've had enough....
I'm encouraging my children to emigrate when they finish their educations....
just wish I was young enough to do so....well maybe one day...
a day of reckoning will come.....
Maybe because it is an offence not to fill in your census while expressing your opinion, however objectional, is not.
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