Baroness Warsi’s Resignation and Other News

Baroness Warsi’s resignation

Last Tuesday (5 August 2014), Baroness Sayeeda Warsi resigned from Britain’s coalition government in protest at its response to the crisis in Gaza arising from the latest round of conflict between Israel and Hamas. She had been the first female Muslim member of a UK Cabinet and, in addition to being Senior Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, held the portfolio of Minister for Faith and Communities at the Department for Communities and Local Government.

In what appears to be the first test of public reaction on the subject, a plurality (44%) of 1,943 adult Britons questioned online by YouGov for The Sunday Times on 7-8 August 2014 felt that she had been right to resign, with a big difference between Conservatives (27%) on the one hand and Labour voters (58%) and Liberal Democrats (50%) on the other. One-quarter considered she had been wrong to resign (including 46% of Conservatives), with 31% undecided.

Somewhat fewer than endorsed Warsi’s resignation, 33%, wanted to see the British government doing more to condemn Israeli actions in Gaza, with Labourites (48%), Liberal Democrats (42%), and Scots (40%) especially of this view. Just 7% wished to see the government doing more to support Israel. In particular, Israel’s bombing of Gaza is widely and increasingly regarded as unjustified, as the following table shows:

Public sympathy with the Palestinians has also increased since the current flare-up in Gaza began early last month, now running at twice the level expressed for the Israelis. However, a steady two-fifths of the British public still feels sympathy for neither side. Trend data are as follows:

Full tables for the most recent YouGov poll are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/s41ippsqgi/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-140808.pdf

Sunday trading

Resistance to the Sunday opening of shops in England and Wales still persists twenty years after the Sunday Trading Act 1994 brought in greater liberalization of shop hours. This is revealed in a poll by ICM Research for Retail Week in which 1,838 English and Welsh adults were interviewed online on 25-27 July 2014. Asked directly, 26% of respondents thought that shops should not be open at all on Sundays, with 53% disagreeing. However, fewer (17%) expressed the view that shops should be closed on Sundays when the question was put in a more indirect way, regarding future priorities for Sunday trading. And fewer still (13%) claimed never to shop on a Sunday, against 41% who were frequent Sunday shoppers (every week or most weeks) and 42% more occasional ones. Among those who ever shopped on a Sunday, supermarkets (71%), garden centres (33%), and home or DIY stores (31%) were the most frequently visited venues. Support for a change in the law to enable large shops to open on Sundays for more than the present six hours was voiced by 48% (rising to 55% among under-45s), 31% being opposed, with 17% rejecting the call for longer opening hours on religious grounds. An account of the survey was published in Retail Week on 1 August 2014, which is available online for subscribers only. Topline results can be accessed without restriction in the form of a slide pack at:

http://www.icmresearch.com/data/media/pdf/Sunday%20Trading%20Poll%20July_August%202014_29.07.14.pdf

Religion and the European Union

Few in Europe or the UK view religion as a major component of the European Union (EU), according to the initial results of Standard Eurobarometer wave 81.4, conducted by TNS Opinion and Social among adults aged 15 and over in all 28 member states, including face-to-face interviews with 1,373 in the UK between 31 May and 14 June 2014. Asked which of twelve issues most created a feeling of community among EU citizens, only 9% in the UK and in the EU overall selected religion, culture scoring most highly (29% and 27% respectively), with sport in second place in the UK (25%). Religion was positioned bottom of the table in the EU and equal second bottom in the UK, somewhat ahead of solidarity with poorer regions (5%). Similarly, when it came to which of twelve values best represented the EU, religion came bottom of the list in the EU and second bottom in the UK, with 3% each (only self-fulfilment being regarded as less significant in the UK). Peace was considered by far the most important value in the EU (37%) but was pipped to the top spot by human rights in the UK (41%). A maximum of three answers was permitted to each question. Topline data only are available at present at:

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb/eb81/eb81_anx_en.pdf

Scottish Gods

Steve Bruce’s latest book, Scottish Gods: Religion in Modern Scotland, 1900-2012 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014, xi + 244p., £70, ISBN 978 0 7486 8289 8), is an elegantly-written and stimulating social history of, and sociological commentary on, religion in twentieth- and early twenty-first century Scotland, charting both progressive secularization and religious diversification. It does not aspire to provide a fully comprehensive account of the Scottish religious scene, being essentially a series of case studies along ‘confessional’ or thematic lines. These are successively devoted to: the islands of Lewis, Orkney, and Shetland; the Roman Catholic Church; Protestant sectarianism; the Church of Scotland; the Free Church and the Free Presbyterian Church; the New Churches; the Buddhists of Samye Ling; the Findhorn Community; Muslims; and sex and Scottish politics.

Although statistics are quoted throughout, this is not a heavily quantitative work (and doubtless all the more readable and less dull for that). The single most cited quantitative source is the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey for 2001, which included a module on religion and belief, which (sadly) has not been replicated since. The volume also draws quite heavily on the results of the religion question in the 2001 census of population; the (relative to England and Wales) belated and still incomplete publication of Scottish religion data from the 2011 census meant that Bruce could not accommodate them in the main text, but he does discuss them in a two-page addendum. There is also a statistical appendix containing eight tables, as well as seven further tables distributed across individual chapters, the original plan for a much longer appendix of statistics being dropped in view of the existence of BRIN (whose achievement is fulsomely acknowledged). The preface holds out the promise of companion volumes on English Gods and Welsh Gods.

Future of Jewish community research

The future of the Community Research Unit of the Board of Deputies of British Jews is under review, according to the latest issue of the Jewish Chronicle (8 August 2014, p. 14). This follows the departure for a new job of its senior researcher, Daniel Vulkan, after almost nine years in the role. The Board has apparently held talks with the Institute of Jewish Policy Research on continuation of the Unit’s work. The Unit has traditionally collected and analysed key data relating to British Jewry, including preparation of an annual survey of Jewish births, marriages, divorces, and burials, as well as publishing regular reports on synagogue membership and Jewish day schools, and conducting research on behalf of other Jewish communal organizations.