[Mobius]

That principle can easily be applied to ALL surveys. Here 1,500 people are enough for a survey

That depends, though...you can get an almost-accurate representation if you choose various kinds of people(gender, job, age, level of culture, place where they live...there are many things to take in consideration).

[Flipside]

Let's face it, when a show gets slagged off by the Daily Mail, of all things, you know there's no point to believing a word they say....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=450895&in_page_id=1766&ito=1490

Edit: I'd also like to point out that a survey is judged by it's population, a Londoner, for example, does not in any way mean someone born and raised in the UK, GMTV deliberately don't elaborate on who they were asking

[peterc10]

People who like the A Team would take the survey seriously

[Mobius]

You don't get an accurate representation if you consider, let's say, 1,000 Londoners and 500 British people who live elsewhere.

Edit: I'd also like to point out that a survey is judged by it's population, a Londoner, for example, does not in any way mean someone born and raised in the UK, GMTV deliberately don't elaborate on who they were asking

Then may I know why foreigners don't make difference between Sicilians and the other Italians? The Sicilian accent became the "Italian accent". I live about 150 kms far from Sicily and have nothing to do with Sicilians, starting from the dialect. Think of Dysko who lives in Milan, many hundred kms in the North...

Everything depends...but a Londoner can tell a lot about many aspects of the UK...

People who like the A Team would take the survey seriously

 

[Flipside]

Because, regardless of the accent, they share the same history and are all taught Italian history at school, whereas a lot of the people who move to the UK at a post-school age have been taught very little indeed about our history, we aren't talking different accents here, there's accents all over the place in the UK, we're talking about entirely different cultures.

Try remembering that the phrase 'multi-cultural' actually has some meaning here. I could go out and ask 1500 natural born UK citizens whether they thought immigrants were getting a good deal and get a completely different answer from asking 1500 immigrants. You direct your questions at the demographic that is most likely to produce the response you need.

[Flipside]

Double post, but look at it this way:

Remember that Australian comedy show that went onto the streets of New York with a map where they'd changed the name of Australia to Iran, and asked people to point out on the map where they should invade next, there were about 10 Clips of people pointing at Australia. What is never made clear in that clip, is how many people they had to ask in order to get those 10 clips, same with these 'name the members of the Axis of Evil' clips, how many people did they ask in order to get a few humorous sounding answers?

Don't ever judge things by statistics, they are 99.5% presentation.

Edit: One final thing, you really don't want to go into shenanigans with religious leaders, all things considered...

[karajorma]

At least we never had a government-appointed official (the Archbishop of Canterbury in your case) say that we should split our legal system in two and let the Muslim population impose Sharia religious law on their communities.

Neither has ours.

First government appointed from a shortlist from the Anglican church barely counts as government appointment anyway but more importantly it's a truly stupid misrepresentation of what he actually was talking about.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has defended his comments on Sharia law, following widespread criticism.

A statement on his website said that he "certainly did not call for its introduction as some kind of parallel jurisdiction to the civil law".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7236174.stm

And while we're at it given the fact your country elected Dan Quayle do you really want to start a competition based on stupid things said by elected officials?

[Mobius]

EDIT: Even though I'm pro-brit. U.S.A. should have stayed british.
I also credit England (or great britain?) for winning WW2. Yes, you heard me right. They fought most of it alone, and although U.S.A. saved their asses pretty much and U.S.A. asses got pretty much saved by the heroes (I'm also pro-communist ), I still think the brits should get credit for it.

Hell no! I'm more than proud of being born in a country that gained Independence from the UK!!!

On a side note... the UK has been saved by the USA. In both World Wars. The USA entered WWI because the Germans threatened the waving of AMERICAN supplies to the UK. The USA gave the Brits 50 destroyers in 1941 and, forgive my ignorance(), most B-17s and P-51s were based in the UK(at least until the liberation of France). The British bomber command realized after the war that it lost 10,000 bombers without compromising the German war machine. Americans did most of the job. Americans made a victory in Africa possible, the British were taking a pounding there. France and Italy lost 1,400,000 and 750,000 soldiers respectively in WWI. GB lost 682,000 soldiers...and do you know why? Because water protected you for centuries. What does the "Invincible Armada" remember you?

And the cool thing is that Americans speak English while there is African, Spanish, French, German, Irish, Swiss, Italian, Cambodian(oh, and English), etc. etc. blood in their veins. Straight in the face of "the new British Empire".

Because, regardless of the accent, they share the same history and are all taught Italian history at school, whereas a lot of the people who move to the UK at a post-school age have been taught very little indeed about our history, we aren't talking different accents here, there's accents all over the place in the UK, we're talking about entirely different cultures.

Try remembering that the phrase 'multi-cultural' actually has some meaning here. I could go out and ask 1500 natural born UK citizens whether they thought immigrants were getting a good deal and get a completely different answer from asking 1500 immigrants. You direct your questions at the demographic that is most likely to produce the response you need.

They share the same history? Until 1861 Italy was divided. Until the unification Italians only shared the history of the Roman Empire, the "Italian history" after the downfall of the Romans is the history of Spain, Sweden, Austria, France, Arabia and Turkey(plus a few more countries I don't remember right now). People focus on the history of a country that once controlled their land(I don't care about the French and Austrian domination of North Italy, for example). There are plenties of differences, don't forget the various dominations that emphasized them(people who live in the South usually have a dark skin and their dialects are influenced by Spanish, Arabic and Turkish... for example). Dialects are completely different - there are Wikis in many Italian dialects. Go check them...I'll tell you that they're more separate languages than dialects. That implies the presence of separate cultures, too. There still are ideological, political and cultural borders. Italy is reletively small but there are more internal differences than in any other country of the world.

Things are clear, Italy is the country with the highest number of surnames. Each region is pretty much like a little nation and there are 21 of them. The differences between towns of a single region are considerable, too(people can be confused with true foreigners if they get 70kms+ from their home town, I'm not kidding). Only recently, thanks to the Internet and various TV programs, people started talking to "foreigners"(i.e. other Italians). The number of immigrants here is considerable but, as I said, the first "foreigners" to deal with are the ones who live in the same country. Countries like France and the UK had a different history, they have been unified for hundreds of years.

I know that there are going to be more boys called Muhammad than boys called George in London but we're not in the same situation. People who move to the USA keep their native language and their habits but their children won't do it. It's easy to adapt. In, let's say, 30 years all the immigrants would be "pure" British people. The children of immigrants are educated in the UK, which has only one history and one culture, not 20+. The problem of immigrants in the UK will disappear in the following decades.

[peterc10]

Britian did win the war 

USA did save us half way through but if they got involved in the first place, the second world war could of been avoided, but no USA, no real threat to Nazi Germany.

[TopAce]

Because, regardless of the accent, they share the same history and are all taught Italian history at school, whereas a lot of the people who move to the UK at a post-school age have been taught very little indeed about our history...

We are talking about one of the best known British men in world history, not someone who is relatively unimportant anywhere outside the British Isles (Thomas Beckett, for example). That Churchill was an existent British Prime Minister during World War II should be as much common knowledge as oxygen being in the air. I see no nation/culture-specific factor here.

[Mobius]

Oh yeah, they forced Italy to join the Allies because they wanted to spread the forces of the Central Powers in three frontlines instead of two(bastards!). They have always received supplies from the USA and somewhat caused the death of 70,000 Americans in WWI. Where's the credit?

We are talking about one of the best known British men in world history, not someone who is relatively unimportant anywhere outside the British Isles (Thomas Beckett, for example). That Churchill was an existent British Prime Minister during World War II should be as much common knowledge as oxygen being in the air. I see no nation/culture-specific factor here.

Well, poor people who move to the UK don't have a great knowledge of history. The fact that "pure" British people consider him a myth is a scandal, here we all know who Churchill was(while Brits like peterc10 have never heard the name "Dante Alighieri")!

[Steel Prophet]

Britian did win the war

Nobody "wins" a war. You survive it, more or less succesfully.

[Mobius]

This is a bit stereotyped comment, we know that the situation is different...

[Flipside]

@Mobius,

Yes Italy was divided, but that was part of Italy's history, same as the US was divided during the Civil War (as was the UK), it was still a shared history.

Remember we were invaded by the Romans, and split into several provinces, Scotland was never over-run and became an almost entirely different country, but they still share that history of Roman occupation, simply from different perspectives, it was still the British Isles, regardless of relative sovereignty.

We are talking about one of the best known British men in world history, not someone who is relatively unimportant anywhere outside the British Isles (Thomas Beckett, for example). That Churchill was an existent British Prime Minister during World War II should be as much common knowledge as oxygen being in the air. I see no nation/culture-specific factor here.

We only know about him because we have him rammed down our throats whenever we learn about 'World War 2', a lot of immigrants that move here have been a little more concerned with 'Local War Now' and 'Can I feed my family?' to be the least bit concerned with ancient history.

It is precisely an ethnicity, culture and comparative history issue. Remember, we all here represent a portion of the population that has enough luxury in our lives to own a PC, an internet connection and have time to screw around with a 7-8 year old video game, we are, statistically, a minority.

[Mobius]

I don't think it's the case to compare the American Civil War to Italy's conditions.

Italy got unified in 1861 only under a political point of view, the true unification of the population started 60 years ago(shortly after the war) and is still finding many obstacles. There's no such thing in the UK or in America.

That depends on the immigrants. I know a couple of Italians who live in London who are cultured enough to engage someone in a conversation about WWII and Winston Churchill. And we should have some kind of social life experience, shouldn't we? You should get in touch with various kinds of people. I know Italians who don't have an internet connection and can barely speak Italian(they speak Calabrian) and I can figure their point of view.

And don't forget corruption: I don't think the Brits know of that theory about Winston Churchill or that Italy took part in the Battle of Britain but its achievements have been covered by the British propaganda. There are ways and ways to know aspects of history and they depend on the homeland. I guess what it's going to happen in the EU...

[Flipside]

Italy got unified in 1861 only under a political point of view, the true unification of the population started 60 years ago(shortly after the war) and is still finding many obstacles. There's no such thing in the UK or in America.

Actually, it's extremely similar to the unification of the UK, we've been politically unified for years, but we've never really been unified, we've always been four very distinct cultures, English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh, no legal document has ever changed that.

I agree that most of the better educated people, from most countries would probably be aware of who Churchill is, but I don't think it is those who were asked to be honest.

Let me give you an example of how these statistics work:

I could go out into the streets of Rome and ask people whether they thought the UK should lift it's trade embargo on food being exported to Ethiopia so that some of the starving population could be fed, and I assure you that I would get a fair number of 'Yes' answers, despite the fact that no such embargo exists, there is, in fact, only an arms embargo.

Now, if I were of a sensationalist turn of mind, I could read that as 'X% of Rome's citizens are ignorant to world events', if I were in a benevolent mood, I could describe it as 'X% of Rome's citizens are in favour of helping Ethiopia', if I were in a Vindictive mood I could say 'X% of Rome's citizens assume the worst of the UK'. It's all down to interpretation.

Edit: Edited, wasn't happy with possible misinterpretation of part of the post.

[TopAce]

....a lot of immigrants that move here have been a little more concerned with 'Local War Now' and 'Can I feed my family?' to be the least bit concerned with ancient history....

That's a good way of seeing it, I guess. I did not take that into consideration, given that there is no local war to speak of in my country, and even though poverty is a big issue here, it is certainly not as serious as in any African "all-desert" or "all-rainforest"  country. What I was thinking of is that we had to learn all the important kings/queens/monarchs/tzars/Presidents/Prime Ministers of all important foreign countries (England, the US, Spain, France, Italy, Russia) when we were learning history. Names like Napoleon, Wilson, Stalin, Hitler, Churchill, and FD Roosevelt stuck.