Friday, 21 January 2011

Census Joke

The Nationwide Census takes place on 27 March 2011, brought to you courtesy of:
USA arms giant Lockhead Martin

and CACI International, a US-based defence contractor implicated in abuses at Abu Ghraib.

Will people give them all their personal data?

Remember last time the Jedi census phenomenon ?
In England and Wales 390,127 people (almost 0.8%) stated their religion as Jedi on their 2001 Census forms, surpassing Sikhism, Judaism, and Buddhism, and making it the fourth largest reported religion in the countries.[10] In the 2001 Census 2.6% of the population of Brighton claimed to be Jedi. The percentages of religious affiliations were:
Christian: 70.0%
No religion: 14.7%
Chose not to respond: 7.8%
Muslim: 3.1%
Hindu: 2.1%
Jedi: 1.79%

John Pullinger, Director of Reporting and Analysis for the Census, noted that many people who would otherwise not have completed a Census form did so solely to record themselves as Jedi, so this joke 'helped to improve the quality of the Census'. It did not appear to occur to him that people that would put a joke answer against one question on their form, may not have been fully candid in the rest of the form either. The Office of National Statistics revealed the total figure in a press release entitled "390,000 Jedis there are". Allegedly.

1 comment:

GIDEON MACK said...

I think the Jedi declaration was brilliant - British sense of humour at its best.