Thanks to TV news, Britons are very confused about their countrymen’s colour, religion and marital arrangements

Take a look at the following IPSOS Mori research graph showing how wrong Britons are about themselves. The right-hand columns show reality, while the left-hand columns reveal their seemingly fetid imaginings:

So why do Britons have such a skewed view of their own country? If you’re a lefty, the racist, moralising right-wing press and right-wing politicians are to blame for stoking up unreasonable fears; if you’re a right-winger, the BBC, the Guardian and left-wing politicians are responsible for undermining traditional families and promoting multiculturalism.

Given that 53% of Britons cite the BBC as their main source of news and that the Sun, Telegraph and Mail can’t even begin to compete with that sort influence, I suspect the main reason so many of us appear to believe that we’re positively awash with blacks, old folk, atheists, Muslims and single mothers is that they feature so often in TV news reports. For instance, I’m not the only viewer to be puzzled at invariably having to play spot-the-white-kid whenever there’s a report about primary education in the UK: the BBC has had its liberal conscience in a twist about ethnic ‘representation’ for decades and seems determined to make up for the lack of diversity amongst its senior editorial and managerial staff by featuring as many non-whites as possible front of camera and in its news coverage, even where colour is irrelevant. (The only time the corporation doesn't rush to foreground non-whites is when the subject is crime and the perpetrators are black or Asian.)

As for single parenthood, I’d love to know how many dreary “victim” reports – usually run off the back of misleading headlines about government “cuts” – start with pictures of a woman surrounded by a large number of pre-school children in her council-funded kitchen or living room and a script along the lines of “Shawneeza Thargs is a single mother struggling to bring up seven children. She says she doesn’t know she’ll cope if the proposed cut goes ahead…” (the question of why she thought it sensible to have so many children in the first place is never raised).

When it comes to Muslims, well, they do tend to feature in a lot of news items in any case – the arrest of suspected terrorists, the inability of the British government to deport a suspected (or proven) terrorist, Muslims worried that they might become the victims of reprisals following a terrorist attack by Islamists, Muslims involved in paedophile sex rings, Muslims protesting against the fact that Briton has an army, Muslims demanding the right to make women wear veils, Muslims insisting that audiences at British universities should be segregated by gender, etc.

Old folk have also been in the news a lot recently, what with endless tales of hospital neglect, concerns about dementia, the unaffordability of old-age pensions and care-home provision given how long we're now living, delaying the retirement age etc.

As for the unemployed, well, there's quite a lot of them about, and it's yet another handy emotive stick which the BBC and the Labour Party (or the Wrecking Crew, as I prefer to think of it) can gleefully thrash heartless Tories - while, of course, blithely ignoring the fact that unemployment is actually falling.

As for Christians, well, our marginalisation by atheist liberals in general - and the BBC in particular - has been gathering pace of late, aided by the soppingly wet, wouldn't say-boo-to-an-atheist leaders of the Anglican Church: hell, these limp-wristed liberals won't even kick up a fuss about the slaughter of fellow-believers in Islamic countries. The ruling left-liberal politico-media elite has decided that Christianity is doomed in Britain (and the rest of Europe), so that's the story the public is being fed: the demonstrable fact that it's spreading spectacularly in most of the Third World is being kept under wraps - presumably in case it might start giving domestic God-botherers ideas about trying to reverse the current trend here.

Given the sheer weight of leftist propaganda, Is it any wonder that Britons have lost sight of the simple fact that a large majority of their fellow-countrymen are still of working age, white, married and Christian? Still, given the current demographic trends, it won't be that long before these wildly misguided beliefs reflect reality.