Thread by @chrishanretty

I have some reservations about the claim that Covid-19 divisions now run deeper than Brexit (1/n)

https://twitter.com/pollymackenzie/status/1304301641810706433

The basis for the claim is that the proportion of mask-wearers who hate, resent or think badly of non-mask wearers (58%) is greater than the proportion of Remainers who think badly of Leavers (33%) (p. 11 of report) (2/n)

First problem with this: in order for something to be divisive, it's got to divide society, and the more evenly it divides society, the more divisive it is. But the (short) report doesn't show what % of the population wear a mask. (3/n)

To take it to extremes: if I found that the non-murderous part of the population held very negative views about the murderous part, much more negative than Remainers' views about Leavers, no-one would say that murder was a divisive issue (4/n)

Second, if an issue is divisive, it's probably got to be reciprocally divisive. The report doesn't say what non-mask-wearers think of mask-wearers. I think they probably just don't care (5/n)

It may be that these issues are addressed in the full survey results, but I can't seem to find these on the Demos website (6/6)