Thanks to everybody who took part in last week's Fun Online Poll. The responses to the question "Fact: the UK has twice* as many public sector workers per capita as Ireland. Opinion: how good are public services in Ireland, compared to the UK?" were as follows:
About the same - 40%
Better - 40%
Worse - 21%
So I think it's fair to say that the UK could reduce the number of taxpayer funded jobs by three million (down to Irish levels, per capita) and people wouldn't notice much of a difference in public services.
* Matthew pointed out in the comments that Rep of Ireland has 370,000 public sector employees, not 300,000, so per capita, the UK 'only' has sixty per cent more public sector employees than Rep of Ireland. Rep of Ireland: public sector employees 370,400 divided by population 4,460,000= 8.3% of the population work for the state. United Kingdom: taxpayer-funded employees 8,145,000 divided by population 61,113,205 = 13.3% of the population work for the state.
So if we reduced public sector to Irish levels, we'd have 5,075,000 taxpayer funded jobs, i.e. three million fewer than now.
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And so to this week's Fun Online Poll. Minarets, if we had the choice, would we do like the Swiss and ban the construction of new ones or not?
Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.
Tuesday 1 December 2009
Fun Online Poll Results & Minarets
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3 comments:
I'm against bans on principle, unless they can be demonstrated to be beneficial, like the ban on drink-driving.
Not that mosques need minarets in this day and age, when almost everyone has a watch if not a mobile 'phone.
No problem with minarets, just as long as I'm not disturbed by people being called to prayer.
And yes, I'd have the same problem if someone wanted to build a church near me with bells.
Oops. Clicked the wrong one while temporarily confused. I meant to say 'yes'. It's not the minarets as objects, even noisy ones, it is the arms-race of religious symbolism.
We sorted this out years ago. This is a protestant Christian country which has buildings which are - or should be - in a local style. Anybody else can practice their religion but quietly please.
If it was up to me I'd make supermarkets - particularly Tesco - take down the giant illuminated letters they have on their roof as that is the same egotistical "Look At Meeee!" twaddle. They have a reasonable amount of suitable signage (what a horrible word) to help people find them - aliens do not need guiding in by twelve-foot high neon letters visible from their space ships.
P.S. The Angel of the North is no such thing - it's a badly modelled over-grown whimsy (but his Bathers are good).
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