UK "Population Truthers"

Apparently some people in the U.K. don't believe the official census figures (currently about 64 million) and believe that the true figure is about 20 million higher than that. Because the country is overrun with foreigners that the government is simply pretending don't exist. Evidence for this theory looks pretty thin though, and is easy to debunk.

I ran across this story here (Buzzfeed):

How One Old News Story Convinced Conspiracy Theorists Tesco Is Hiding 20 Million People

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Rather than trusting the official stats which place the UK population at 64 million, this band of UKIP-ers, conspiracy theorists, and other assorted migration obsessives are adamant that you can really tell the UK population from the amount of food bought – and the amount of sewage which goes out the other end. The source of this belief appears to be just one article written in the Independent on Sunday almost 10 years ago, which has, recently, been given a new lease of life on anti-immigration Facebook groups. The article, written by Martin Baker in 2007, cites an anonymous source within an unnamed supermarket who, on the basis of food consumption, estimated that there were at least 80 million people living in the UK.

Yeah, that seems to be it. The one factor they forgot to consider: food waste. One statistic I found (for the US, but should be similar) says that as much as 40% of food is wasted. Even if it's less, you can easily see why 60 million people would buy enough food for 80 million. Besides, not all food goes through Tesco, does it?

The article in question here doesn't even name the source for this estimate. The excuse given:

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My sources for the above statement are good, but scared of admitting the truth for fear of incurring the wrath of Whitehall.

The article is very cocksure about this dubious estimate, despite the fact that the methodology for arriving at it is not clear and the source is anonymous. I recommend reading it for a few yucks:

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It is the statistic that dare not speak its name, though eventually it must. It has huge ramifications for the civil and political life of this country, the health of the equity markets and, most immediately, the residential property market. So don't forget you read it here first: the population of the UK is presently somewhere between 77 and 80 million. The 2001 census, already hopelessly out of date and easy to avoid for those who find filling in forms a trifle inelegant, numbered us at a little under 59 million. But as statistics go, that one's most definitely a damned lie. My sources for the above statement are good, but scared of admitting the truth for fear of incurring the wrath of Whitehall. It's like the best way of monitoring illegal drug consumption: forget the pious statements from ministers – the foolproof method is to sample our water and the effluent in it. That's easily the best way of monitoring what the nation has been consuming. Consumption – that's the thing. Based on what we eat, one big supermarket chain reckons there are 80 million people living in the UK. The demand for food is a reliable indicator; as Sir Richard Branson says, you can have all the money in the world but you can only eat one lunch and one dinner. The supermarket in question was privately lobbying the Competition Commission to let it grow its market share. The argu-ment, reasonably enough, was that the market was far bigger than the regulator realised, so expanding the network was fair.

Another ridiculous quote:

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All of which is reflected in strong economic demand and markets see-sawing between optimism over what we all see on the streets (that 77 million figure feels right to me) and the possibility of something nasty if the Bank of England credit-crunch prognosis is correct (to echo last week, I think next spring will be unpleasant).

It "feels right"???? :rolleyes:

Going back to the Buzzfeed article we find the following put forth by a UKIP politician:

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“We’ve read it in the newspapers,” said UKIP delegate Peter Stanley. “On the basis of how much we eat, Tesco think the population is 80 or 90 million and I’m more inclined to believe them than the government.” “The government play around with the figures,” added fellow delegate Mike Byron. “They’ll do anything they can to manipulate them. We treat the government estimate as the minimum and add about 20 million on top of that on the basis of food sales, how much tap water we use, and how much sewage is treated here – things like that.” Even elected UKIP politicians believe in the theory. David Coburn MEP said you just had to look at UK food sales and the “turd count” to prove the official figure was wildly inaccurate. “Of course the government fiddle the population figures,” said Coburn. “From living in Britain and using my eyeballs, what the government say about immigration is absolute twaddle. Tesco is in the business of making money and in the business of finding out who’s here. I believe them.”

All of these people are citing Tesco. Problem is, Tesco never made that claim. The original source was anonymous and said to be working for a supermarket. Clues in the article point to Tesco, but that's still an assumption. And officially, Tesco has never said any such thing:

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The problem is that Tesco has never claimed any such thing, and in fact is increasingly frustrated at being wrongly cited as the source for the conspiracy theory. When contacted for a comment by BuzzFeed News, the supermarket firmly but politely declined on the basis that they weren’t named in the original news story. The Office for National Statistics (ONS), the government body which is responsible for producing the official number of the UK population, was scathing of Baker’s article for not providing any kind of source or methodology, and said it is confident its calculation of 64 million is much more accurate than Baker’s anonymous informant.

Now, as to the gentleman's claim that "living in Britain and using one's eyeballs" can somehow be a way to estimate the population, well that's about as good as Baker's line that "77 million feels right". :rolleyes:

via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/1NFVvWu