Article by Roula Khalaf: “Some headlines seem almost designed to elicit weary face-palm emojis on social media about the ignorance of the general public. So it was recently with the news that the UK public believes net migration rose last year (in fact, it fell by two-thirds).
It’s not the only recent instance of people venting about the public’s perceptions being out of touch with reality. Sir Mark Rowley, London’s police chief, told the FT it was “sad and quite frustrating” that more people didn’t know the city was “extraordinarily safe”.
“I think people have a whole load of different reasons for ignoring facts,” he said. “I think some people just want online clicks, some people are angry with the world generally.”
Even Donald Trump, the most successful populist politician in years, seems to have grown fed up with popular opinion. The so-called affordability crisis in the US is a “con job”, he said in December. “Just about everything is down.”
But have most people really become divorced from reality about policy issues they profess to care about, like crime, immigration and the cost of living? Or is something else going on?
Part of the problem is a disconnect between the metrics commonly used by economists, policymakers and journalists, and the ways in which people actually perceive change in their everyday lives. Inflation in the US may have fallen from a peak of more than 7 per cent in 2022 to less than 3 per cent, for example. But that still means prices are rising, just not as quickly as before.
Net migration, too, is in a way a measure of the rate of change. In the year to June 2025, net migration to the UK did indeed plummet by two-thirds. But that still meant a net increase of 204,000 people. And while the public might well notice when the pace of change suddenly speeds up around them, it’s probably harder to spot when it slows somewhat…(More)”.
