What's the population of the UK?
I read this week that journalists are not very good with figures. "The great majority come from an arts or social studies background" Guilty, I failed my maths O-Level. The writer went on "most of my colleagues will not have grappled with a differential equation since their early teens. Basic statistical concepts - confidence intervals, standard deviation, probability and so on - are alien to them." Fair enough, but should that stop us asking one of the big questions of day- how many people live here?
The number of people living in the UK seems to vary depending on the paper you read. So who does know? Or who is best placed to know? And who would you trust? All advice welcome and to be clear this not about whether the number is too high or too low or just right - it's about whether it is possible to find a number that we can all broadly agree on.
Some are convinced the UK population is already well over 70 million. iPM has been speaking to one of them, author and business journalist, Martin Baker
Convincing? Or cobblers? Here's something relevant to the above from our friends at Newsnight and BBC Radio Five Live.
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Comments
That's an interesting one Rupert.
In light of the current immigration it also begs the question 'should we have a census every 2 or 3 years.
I suppose to approxiamate the true population for any given month would require a statistician to number crunch births, deaths, emigration and immigration.
So in reality we will only ever know the true number when the census is conducted.
I would hazard a guess at 68.7 million.
How many people live in the UK, or on these islands?
Too many for the size of the place. As to exactly how many then that is somewhat academic as they come and go every day anyway. I would take a guess at somewhere between sixty and sixty five million, and growing. However, rampant immigration gone crazy is adding to the number per day at an alarming rate. We would know as to how many is enough when everybody has a home, a job, and the potential to bring forth their capacities or talents for good and effective use in this society.
Britain’s are mongrels, and a good thing too, immigrants, and even invaders, made Britain what it is. But what it is at any one point in time is not a measure of what it could be if it were done well and wisely. But there is no profit in people enjoying life and doing something useful with it, is there. A society is somewhat more than the sum of the parts needless to say, but where the sum of the parts are not happy with what they have got, then all interest and motivation flies over the cuckoos nest and nobody gives a damn. How many? Too many.
Dick.
The true number from the census will be wrong as a significant proportion probably won't fill it in. But as they don't fuill it in the we don't know how many.....
The census is probably the "best guess" and will always be out by however long ot takes to count the returns. (about 10 years I suspect seeing as we do them every ten years!).
The fact the opening up borders to eastern europe appears to be an issue in certain areas begs the question of "is there a better way to count"
I don't know the answer Rupert but I'd be VERY surprised if people with "Arts & Social Studies" backgrounds weren't responsible for a large % of the number...
My guess... 70+ million. AND, climbing
Well, I know I live in the UK, I'm sure about that. And I know from looking out of my window that a lot of other people do to. So it's more than one, less than a hundred million. Probably.
Perhaps we could ask for a show of hands?
Re: Stewart, icharlie & Rupert.
This begs the question 'What would be the best way of finding out'?
I suppose having identity cards would be one way. The cards would have to be shown to to drive a car (insurance, road tax - license etc.
To seek employment, non urgent medical treatment, and swiped in and out at customs as a passport.
Problem being it all smacks of Big Brother.
Perhaps one day we will be able to monitor the physical brainwaves as a unique signal within a certain proximity- much like we know when a mobile phone is signed on the network.
"Fair enough, but should that stop us asking one of the big questions of day- how many people live here?"
It shouldn't stop you asking the question, but if you are interested enough to ask the question it would be great to learn a little bit of basic stats to properly understand the answer. If journalists have no understanding of how to interpret the numbers they are given themselves I don't think they can properly convey the story of the numbers to their readers/listeners. I haven't been following the story, but the papers might well be reporting numbers which are all within the interval deemed possible. With such a difficult thing to measure the uncertainty will presumably be quite large.
I haven't heard much in the media about the move to independent statistics (happening soon I think?) but this will surely be a better starting point for obtaining some kind of figure that people can agree on that should be less likely to be influenced by politics... in some ways as big a move as giving control of interest rates to the MPC.
As an Arts and Humanities graduate myself can I start by employing a traditional tactic and query the premise of the question...?
Are the numbers actually that important? I think not. To have a debate about the scale of immigration is rather pointless as this can only lead to the repeated assertion of contrary positions and an argument about Home Office statistics and exit controls. The reason we can't actually estimate the number of people in the country is because we have no idea how many are leaving. If you read The Guardian then the suggestion is actually that there is no net increase in the numbers of people in the country due to the number of Britains emigrating and the number of migrant workers leaving.
Surely a more productive debate would be about the impact of immigration. I live in West Yorkshire, a highly urbanised area with all sectors of the population represented. In the immediate area in which I live (1-2m around my house) there is a majority white population, a significant minority of British Muslims and a fair scattering of young Eastern Europeans and some asylum seekers (Iraq, Afghanistan and DRC). The populations are not in conflict, co-exist well (and in the case of the white population and the British Muslim population there is a good relationship) and have no visible impact upon the delivery of local health or education services. Further to this they have been a boost to the local economy (new polish shops have sprung up in several locations) and a fair few church congregations have been swelled by Eastern Europeans.
This country is not bursting at the seams and in no danger of collapse because foreigners (also known as "them", "they" and "other") have landed here. To say that the country is "full" is pure fallacy and in my opinion an overly emotional reaction that frequently comes from people who live in suburbia or rural area. It is the urban areas that absorb most of the immigration and they absorb it well. Since the Romans came and gave us gracious living and decent trade routes this country has constantly accepted foreign cultures, it’s possibly the only thing we’re any good at. If they had an Olympic medal in it we’d win without question. Actually…perhaps someone should suggest it to Lord Coe. I think it’s our only chance.
I think (if my memory serves me right) that it was Fig Lover who linked Tescos and an high population estimate several months back.
To say that the figures are not important is to miss the point of the statistics. Perhaps the Poles are selling a lot of polish to the good-natured folk of West Yorkshire, but: an underestimate of the population by 10 or 20 per cent means that the GDP per head is being overestimated by the same amount, housing, education and welfare requirements are being underestimated, and presumably there is a massive working population who are not paying the taxes that they should.
All told, if the population is much higher than the government's estimates, we are getting a pretty poor economic deal from our government.
Regarding the Olympic Stadium.
Let’s face it. Architecture is not a British strong suit. Our product designers produce iconic and stylish designs to engage and excite the user from the iPod to the MINI and so on. You only need to look at the vile red brick housing estates that are being dumped on the outside of every major town in this country to realise that we don’t give a care about the functionality or look of a building just so long as there’s a X5 on the drive and a well fitted kitchen. Sort of buying a Victorian property there isn’t any other option – house design has got WORSE in the last 100 years.
Rather than worrying that the Olympic stadium, a building we’ll all be looking at for two weeks or so, let’s make sure that the next million homes we have to build are not as ghastly as the last million.
...there you have it, in your own words Jonnie:
"Problem being it all smacks of Big Brother"
There's no other way I can think of to reach a realistic figure...
It's certainly somewhat more than enough!
http://www.optimumpopulation.org/opt.toomany.uk.html
Salaam/Shalom/Shanthi/Dorood/Peace
Namaste -ed
Anger kills as surely as the other vices.
James K ( 10 ) James think you're better off posting in our rough notes - but let me say just two words "Norman Foster".
Jessica ( 8 ) I take your point about trying to rationally assess the impact of immigration, of course it's key to how our various towns ansd cities adapt etc. But from a government and policy making view alone I would have thought it essential to have a UK population total that people believe in. As Martin Baker makes clear, there is a body of opinion ( like the supermarkets ) who reckon we could be out by tens of millions. Just suppossing that is the case, in puts revelations that the government has got the latest figures out by a few hundred thousand into a quite different context.
BTW I have been told that one of the best measure of population is food and poo. Which I guess does make sense. More soon.
Can I ask what constitutes "iPM extras"?
thanks,
Nicola.
Nicola @ 14
"iPM extras" is the place in the programme for Any Other Business. It might be where we recommend a great website to visit, or a blog which makes really interesting reading. And *you* can help shape what goes in that slot - as well as the rest of the programme! We're always on the look-out for your suggestions of great content out there in cyberspace, be it in blogs or on websites. Share what you know, to help shape what we do.
Identity fraud, ID cards, and population register
When a competent new MD joins a company, one of the tools he will ask for is an inventory of assets. The assets of UK plc are its people, but there is no inventory other than the Family Records Office, recently closed and en route to Kew, which in any case tells nothing of immigrants or emigrants, and which does not (as far as I know) reconcile deaths with births.
In the early 1500s Thomas Cromwell made every church maintain a record of births, marriages and deaths. In the late 1500s Lord Burghley arranged for these records to be collated by the bishops in each diocese. He saw this as a step towards a register that would greatly assist the administration of the country. But the idea seems to have lapsed after the first Elizabethan era.
It could be useful to look at what is done in Finland. It seems to work very well, without anyone having to carry an ID card. Since 1969 they have established and maintained a population register, a central register of births, deaths, immigration and emigration. No census is ever needed, if you want the figures you just 'press the button'.
You can look at their website -
http://www.vaestorekisterikeskus.fi/vrk/home.nsf/pages/index_eng
and see the current population of Finland, 5,298,309 when I last looked.
You can search the website to discover, for example, that there are 5437 people sharing my son's first name, 91 of whom were born this year, but only two sharing my daughter's first name, the other of whom was born between 1920 and 1939. My grandson, born two months ago, will be the second-ever recorded Finn to carry his name.
This process is administered by local areas. In the area where I stay the local paper publishes at the new year and in early July the totals of births, deaths, those entering the area to reside, and those who left to reside elsewhere. Very rarely there will be a 'vanished without trace'.
We now come to the point which will upset the British readers and listeners: the key to the value of the register is the "henkilötunnus", the ID number. This is a six-figure date-of-birth, followed by a hyphen [replaced by letter A since year 2000], a three-digit number (even for females, males are odd) and a check character. Because most people remember their date of birth, all you need to remember is the tail end. My wife is 464T, my son 1894 and my daughter 138M. If, for example, you are shopping with a credit card in a supermarket where you are not known, you might be asked for this 'tail end' which will be recorded against the transaction. If you were embarking on serious business, like opening a bank account taking out insurance, or claiming state welfare benefit, you would not be able to proceed without providing the full ID number. It would then be checked against the register, as various bodies have access to the register at various levels - rather like the access to the full electoral register in the UK.
As far as I know, identity fraud is not an issue in Finland. You can check your own entry on the register, and even verify, for example, what property is registered in your name. It was frightening to hear the phone-in on 'You and Yours' on Tuesday interrupted by a report of people having had their houses 'stolen' (wrongly re-registered at the Land Registry), and only discovering this several months afterwards when Court action for repossession was being taken by a Bank which had given a mortgage on the property to the 'thief'.
I propose that a population register be created for the UK. The important point is to ensure that not only is everyone eventually registered, but that no-one is able to register more than once, and no one entry corresponds to more than one person. What the mathematicians would call a 'one-to-one mapping'. I heard once that there were 25,000 immigrants in a central European country from a certain Asian country, and that 40 years the figure was unchanged. But, of course, they were not the same 25,000.
It would take several years. It would start with all new-born and all new entrants (suitable codes would be reserved for those whose date of birth cannot be verified), together with new passport applicants. Once it gets going people would be free to volunteer to register, but there would be a duty to register within two months of passing the ages of 10, 15, 20, 25 ... so that the process should be completed after five years. The Finnish system could be adapted by using a five-digit number for the date of birth (the Modified Julian Date [MJD] - November 10th is 54414), which repeats only every 273 years, together with a four-digit number (as there are more births and entries per day in the UK) and a check character. The system could be partly financed by selling popular four-digit numbers, perhaps even by auction, like vehicle registration marks. Anyone who wanted a physical ID card could buy one. Using the MJD for date of birth gives proof-of-age without overtly showing the date of birth, moreover it does not favour any particular religious calendar. In Finland you can buy a chip card which can be used to give your secure 'electronic signature'.
The UK is unique in allowing anyone to use any name. or any number of different names, provided that this is not done for fraudulent purposes. So we must either expect eveyone to be willing to disclose their 'official' name when required (corresponding to their birth certificate), or we must provide for all 'aliases' which are used
for any contractual purpose to be recorded on the register.
If HMG does not want to get involved, perhaps one of the credit reference agencies could provide such a service for volunteer registrants, provided they could get sufficient evidence from the applicants to ensure the integrity of the process. Or they could issue 'provisional' numbers pending verification. There are other services which these credit reference agancies could offer to assist in detecting identity fraud. For example, they could tell people how many other people on their records share their exact name and date of birth (without releasing details), and alert them if and when new claimants to the name and date of birth appear.
In short, population register - yes.
ID cards - voluntary.
I think it does matter how high the population is. Having large numbers of immigrants may be good for the economy in the short term, but in the longer term I’m not so sure.
One of the ways of reducing our carbon footprint is to cut down on the number of ‘air miles’ travelled by our food. At the moment we are digging up more and more productive agricultural land to provide the building materials so that we can cover the rest of it with houses and roads. This makes no kind of sense. At the moment the world has about three week’s supply of wheat (that must be true I heard it on Radio 4 the other day ). The government has very quietly set aside the farmer’s “set aside” scheme in order to bring more land into production.
We already depend on other countries for our energy needs ; we should be taking steps now to become more self-sufficient in food.
Rupert @ 13
Not too sure about the "optimism" shown in your final paragraph
Some people - such as myself - are more full of it than others...
Jean Eckersley @ 17
I agree. Population levels most certainly do matter
Without this data, there is no meaningful planning on any issue that a Government or Local Authority can undertake
If Government doesn't know "how many", how can it forecast, plan for and set appropriate and adequate targets for:
hospital availability and staff requirements, schools availability and staff requirements... care facilities for the elderly, the likely need for immigrant workers and with what skills, and so it goes on; power supply, housing, roads, public transport, food production you name it, data's needed IF society's to "surthrive"
Society destroys itself if "it" witholds this information and, is allowed to withold this information
Which may explain a fair bit about life for many today...
The population of the UK is:-
66,273,981
when I counted them all yesterday :)
Sigmar
http://battlereporter.blogspot.com
Immigration is only a benefit when the skill level being imported is above the average population skill level; else it is either neutral or a drain. However genuine refugees should be allowed in whatever their skill level. Their stay should be temporary, but indefinite until the persecution has subsided. Relief from repatriation should be based upon acquired skill level.
Immigration is only excessive; when more often than not, when using public services you cannot understand for example, a doctor's diagnosis, and the various utilities' callcentres are unintelligible [assuming the calls are not redirected abroad] I wonder if anyone has died because they could not understand what they were being told?
If the population has barely grown in the last 25 years then why does it seem that most towns/cities near me have doubled in size with large housing estates built where fields used to be? If they are mainly split couples does this account for the massive increase in traffic? Husbands and wives have for years had their own transport...
“As anee ful no”…. Governments of both persuasions have deliberately chosen not to ascertain the exact figures on immigration over the past 50 years, (at least officially) because if they had they would have to publish them. And the politicians know only too well that if these figures came out there would be riots in the streets which would make the little local difficulties of the 50s seem like tea parties .
In this they have been aided and abetted by certain sections of the media - particularly the broadcast media - and very particularly, the BBC.
We are now told that we will have to bring in more even immigrants to work on the house building programme - a programme we wouldn’t need if there weren’t so many immigrants ! This while we have over a million semi-illiterate NETs who could easily push a barrow or lift a hod.
At the same time we are told that young people need to stay on at school to increase their skills when clearly most of the vacancies are for unskilled labour which we import !
I have tried not to be a conspiracy theorist, but it is impossible not to think there are evil forces about determined to destroy the Country I once loved.
Rupert
Have you thought of talking to the "Boffins" at Qinetiq...
I've got a feeling they'll have a "reasonable" idea of what the true population figures of the UK are, given the various "sensitive" complex modeling exercises they undertake...
And, if not to hand, I reckon they'll have a very good idea how a figure can be determined
Mind you, they may already have computed the data for a client, such as HM Govt. and be unable to comment
Don't ask, don't get...
i-Piper ( 23 ) it is a good thought - thanks will see if they can help us.
Rupert
The "Freedom of Information" legislation also comes to mind
And, if the UK Govt have a number, they also have to disclose how that figure's been deduced...
My guess is they do. Have a number, that is
Rupert
The thought also occurs that "The Economist" or rather one or more of the academics that write for them, may also have a handle on the likely true figure...
Rupert @ 13
Rupert, I do hope you've dropped the idea of pursuing "poo"
I can't help feeling, if you formulated a population number based even partially on that, someone would claim the figure was incorrect because you'd incorporated into your calculations, "sham-poo"...
Sorry Rupert. Couldn't help myself. Been waiting a couple of days to post that
I lead a sad life...
"Some are convinced the UK population is already well over 70 million. iPM has been speaking to one of them, author and business journalist, Martin Baker
Convincing? Or cobblers?"
In a round-about way Rupert, the last word you used may lead to a Ball-Park figure...
Cobblers, Rupert..?
Well, sort-of...
If "Mintel" know the value (of "Declared" sales) then they know the number of pairs... If they also have figures for mens and childrens shoe sales and, the relative ownership stats, a Ball-Park calculation should be possible
Maybe Mintel already already have a figure..?
http://www.999today.com/stylefashionandbeauty/news/story/4622.html
"British shoe sales soar
Shoe sales have surged in the UK
© Paolo Ferla
10th January 2007
Sales of shoes have grown faster in Britain than anywhere else in Europe over the last five years, a report has found.
Annual sales hit £6.5bn in 2006, up by a whopping 38 per cent since 2001, research firm Mintel said.
And Mintel predicts that sales of shoes will rise by around 17 per cent to just under £7.6bn by 2010.
Meanwhile, in France and Italy, the countries many of us associate with sophisticated fashion and style, growth in shoe sales has faltered over the same five-year period.
Although the Italians spend the most on shoes in Europe, growth has been only around 1 per cent over the past five years.
Richard Perks, Mintel: "Shoes are no longer seen as a clothing essential to be bought on a replacement basis only, they are now an integral part of the fashion of the day."
France has seen sales jump by just 4 per cent since 2001, the figures show.
One in 10 British women own more than 30 pairs of shoes, while a further fifth own between 16 and 30 pairs...
...According to Mintel, just one in four women in the UK say that they only buy shoes when they need a replacement pair"
PS Rupert, give me a hand here, how does one meet the one in four women mentioned in the final para..?
I'd forgotten about this lot. KPMG eh..? Mmmm, they may well have some good data
(Incidentally Rupert, if you talk to KPMG, I'd like some FREE info on Discretionary Off-Shore Trusts...)
http://www.brc.org.uk/details04.asp?id=953
"NEW EU SHOE IMPORT TAX CONDEMNED AS BAD FOR CONSUMERS AND RETAILERS
July 3, 2006
In 2004/2005 £1,009,610,000 (just over a billion pounds) was spent on children's footwear in the UK. An average family will buy 10 – 15 pairs of children's shoes over a five year period. An average child aged between 0 and 11 is bought 5.42 pairs of new footwear a year costing a total of £99.28
Media Contacts
Richard Dodd
020 7854 8924
07921 605 544"
Then, there's this...
ABOUT THE RETAIL SALES MONITOR
Since its inception over a decade ago, the Retail Sales Monitor (RSM) has become the premier indicator of weekly and monthly sales performance available to the industry.
It is viewed as the most authoritative, respected and trusted monitor of like-for-like and total retail sales in the UK.
The RSM currently represents approximately 60% of UK retail sales value. This is then re-weighted according to the Office of National Statistics to cover the entire industry.
The RSM scheme is sponsored and administered by KPMG. With an in-depth understanding of the issues affecting the retail industry and their ongoing work with the UK's most innovative retailers, KPMG are ideally suited to administer the RSM
Cobblers..well yes probably. i-p ( 30 ) nice thought - though can you really extrapolate the population of the country from the sale of shoes? I wouldn't want to take it to court! Could it be that us Brits are more shop-and shoe-aholic than other parts of the EU? It also vaguely reminds of me something from ( I think ) Hitch Hikers guide to the Galaxy where the country was taken over by shoe shops. Think Douglas Adams was making thje point that there does appear to be rather more shoe shops in your average UK high street than there are - you'd think - people who need to buy new shoes. Your theory could prove us all wrong.
Rupert @ 31
Court, No. But as good or better an estimate than HM Govt? Maybe. Well, why not..?
Let's think about this...
If the BRC, Mintel etc have a figure for "declared" total income from shoe sales, they should be able to provide data on the actual numbers of pairs sold
IF they have that data, they should be able to provide a break-down of Women's, Men's, Children's shoes sold
Now, in i-P @ 29, Mintel give us a % ownership of shoes by % of women
If they can give us % ownership figures for % of Men and Children a "Shoe-Owning Population" calculation based upon statistical probability of ownership will be straightforward...
R-U-P-E-R-T... Come back! P-L-E-A-S-E. Hear me-out...
True, we still can't go to Court. YET
However, the Supermarkets seem to indicate they believe the population's higher than official Govt figures. If the Supermarkets disclose their population estimate we might find the shoe-owning and fodder-eating numbers not too far apart. Then what..?
Maybe then we can go to Court (Jury only of course) because, if I recall correctly we'll ONLY have to convince the man on the "Clapham Omnibus"
Rupert, the job's as good as done...