Britain is accepting of trans people – but sceptical of the ideology

Two things all journalists and all politicians should always remember. Britain is not Twitter. Britain is not America. The nasty division of social media is not reflective of the wider public. And the issues that are sometimes debated online are often on the agenda because of American, rather than British, concerns.

There is good evidence that Britain is a more cohesive and less divided society than many accounts suggest. Adding to that evidence is a nice report out this week from Global Future, a think-tank interested in social issues.

Based on a big YouGov poll, it finds that people are – surprise, surprise – more sophisticated and complicated than they appear online. Take British history, for example: 77 per cent of people say Britain has been a force for good in the world. And 67 per cent say it has also done harm. Simple ‘for or against’ debates don’t capture the reality of an electorate capable of accepting that things like history are complicated and that countries, like people, can do both good and bad things.