Britons are less inclined than the French to regard the workless as indulged, readier than the Germans to pay taxes to help them, and decidedly less relaxed about top salaries than the Americans, according to a major transnational study by the academic thinktank YouGov-Cambridge, which put identical questions to voters across four democracies at the same time.
The findings – shared exclusively with the Guardian – also demonstrate that Britons retain a European-style sense that the state has sweeping societal responsibilities, in defiance of Margaret Thatcher’s 1980s efforts to shift the onus on to the individual. [cont.]
Tom Clark, The Guardian