New polling just dropped from TV’s channel 5, conducted by More in Common, about a range of topics that fall under the umbrella, “every little thing”. Would people use a weight-loss jab if it were free on the NHS? (Yes, if they wanted to lose weight.) Do people, nevertheless, think weight-loss jabs are cheating? (Over a third of people said yes, which is to say, nearly two-thirds don’t think that.) Should grandparents be paid for doing childcare? (A third think so, which again leaves quite a hefty majority who think, “No, don’t be silly”.) Two-thirds think that adult children living with parents should pay rent; I’d like to have seen the wording of that question. Because if there isn’t an option, “it really depends on the income distribution within the family, plus the personalities, relationships and history of all concerned, and even if I knew all these things, it still wouldn’t be any of my business”, then surely some respondents will have been misrepresented.
Quite a sizeable majority (nearly two-thirds) think wills should always be split equally between children, which I guess is moderately interesting, as a snapshot of how people feel about wealth transfer and its impact on family dynamics, but it’s hardly what you’d call the pressing issue of the day.
Around a third think there’s an age at which it’s unacceptable to have a baby (45 for women, 53 for men), and nearly two-thirds think you should have to retake your driving test when you’re old. These could all have been consolidated into one question: “When you see or hear about someone doing their own thing, do you want to stick your oar in?” But I guess that would throw the results a bit, and give us the quintessentially unhelpful, Brexit-referendum-style result of two irreconcilable halves.
The beauty of all these questions, even though they are sometimes curtain-twitchy and sometimes random, is that they’re a snapshot of interior lives richer and weirder than that revealed by the normal run of polling. It usually tends to be all vindictive kite-flying about refugees (should we seize their mobile phones?), or magical thinking about climate change (is net zero too expensive?). We could definitely push this further: poll each other on matters that are both random and cheerful. Does it raise your spirits to see people wear yellow? Should there be a new Nobel prize category for kindness to animals? What is your favourite Italian word?
• Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
