A decade ago, the Tories, then only recently in government with the LibDems vowed to axe the census as it had not only become too intrusive, but the base information could be gathered by other means.
It seems that this is another disappointment from the Tories in name only.
The Government’s census will now ask Britons to give details on their sexual orientation and gender identity in a bid to compile reliable data on the country’s LGBT population.
The questions will be voluntary and for people aged 16 and over, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
I don’t care whether they are voluntary or not, they have no business asking. The point of a census is to get a broad bush picture of the population for the benefit of planning essential services, not to poke about in every aspect of our private lives.
Last time, I resisted. The late Mrs L wasn’t happy about a complete refusal, so we compromised and apart from name and address, filled the whole thing with a tissue of lies.
This time… We’ll see. I might just not do it and not be in when they knock on the door. Much as I did when they wanted me to do one of their ghastly surveys that also involved asking about sexual orientation and gender identity. That one was voluntary, though, so there were no consequences for ignoring them.
There was a guy who did a rough calculation of the number of people on benefits added to the number of government wonks in non jobs and put the figure down in the box for number of dependants.
That figure would be out of date before the ink dried.
Err no. It’s compulsory – hence the repeated door knockers when not returned – but not enforced
I can see nine house front doors/drives when sitting at desk in study – three others and here were repeatedly visited and ignored
Next one will be ignored too
Conservatives?
https://youtu.be/ujw29JC6S0A?t=156
Only the census is compulsory. The others, such as the labour force survey, which is the one they wanted me to do, are not.
At the time of the last census, I lived at a mobile home park.The whole park was missed with not one resident having a form delivered and not one resident drawing attention to this.
For one reason or another my full address does not exist, for ID purposes I use the name of the whole building, for delivery I use that of an understanding neighbour. I will not be receiving a Census form.
I completely evaded the 2011 Census by being resident in Germany most of the time with the house empty and unoccupied. Any doorsteppers looking through the windows just saw an empty house without curtains or furniture.
This time around I am in a building with electronic access, will simply not return the forms nor respond to those requesting entry.
The Census folks have alternate means for populating the census where respondents refuse (using government databases etc) and all that really needs to happen is that these need to be collated into a meaningful set of census results. What this won’t tell them though is how many Catholic Bull Dykes there are per capita or other meaningless diversity they wish to collect.
I will not enable these bastards.
Will they list the gender options, and how many boxes can we tick?
I used to take small pleasure in answering the “race” section. Based on the anti-racist mantra – “We all come out of Africa” with various continental invasions thrown in. And that was before we knew about our Neanderthal dna. I made sure that I stuck to the truth as I know it.
In these dull drab days we grab what small pleasures we can, and if it buggers up the unsocial unscientists’ Windows 3 spreadsheets that is a bonus.
Not only Neanderthal dna, Denisovan too
“we grab what small pleasures we can” – yep, a few years ago On one boring day I wound up a Double glazing cold caller for ~30 minutes
Call ended when he offered appointment to visit and show me window style samples and asked ‘how many windows do you have?”
None says I. I live in an underground bunker
“we compromised and apart from name and address, filled the whole thing with a tissue of lies”
Thats what I did. I think my religion went down as Jedi Knight.
When asked in 2021 about your “How you sexually identify” the only acceptable libertarian answer is “I sexually identify as an attack helicopter”.
Well, I have decided that my sexual orientation is a transsexual lesbian from the planet Zarg where there are eight different sexes, any five of which need to get together and get down and dirty to produce another little Zargian.
If they can have 32 (or however many made up sexes there are – I can’t keep up) sexual orientations then prove that I am NOT as I describe my sexual orientation or my planet of origin.
@Phil – Even that assessment ain’t as dumb as the 71 genders that the SJW snowflakes have come up with.
@John – 71 genders? The numbers are increasing faster than the national debt!
I didn’t even take the last census seriously. They demanded to know my occupation under threat of a fine if I didn’t, so I answered “wage slave”
In 1991, there was a South African census which, despite Nelson Mandela having been released the year before and the end of Apartheid being inevitable, still asked what racial group you belonged to.
Knowing that simply not filling in the question was not an option as the census form collectors in our ultra conservative town would simply fill the question in on your behalf, I cut the question out of the form. A couple of nights later, a young Afrikaans high school student brought me a new form to fill out. I told her not to worry, I didn’t want to make her life difficult, and that I’d send the form in by post, which I duly did.
I never heard anything from the census people. The South African authorities in those times were extremely reluctant to prosecute people resisting race based laws because they feared losing in court. They still were trying to conscript only whites despite having repealed the Population Registration Act. Naturally, many whites decided that they didn’t fancy a month’s holiday in the SADF and many employers decide that, if you chose to go, it was voluntary and they would not give you leave. The whole system collapsed due to ordinary people refusing to partake.
On the other hand, finding your ancestors’ details from old censuses is quite interesting.
I agree. Which is why the Gov’ts demand for reams of personal information is destroying the census as people refuse or lie.
One, maybe two, pages maximum – keep it simple
O/T
Consultation About HMG’s Coronavirus Dashboard
Good responses, I’ve submitted similar- we need to dial-back this fear mongering and misuse of words. Will you?
https://coronavirus-staging.data.gov.uk/