The Economist has just published the results of a survey (by pollsters based in Britain and in the US) to establish whether and to what degree British and American people have different beliefs on political, social and economic matters.

Some findings are surprising:

The people of that ace capitalist country (and exporter), the US,don't like free trade. Some 55 per cent of Americans thought that free trade was 'often harmful' whereas under 30 per cent of Britons did.Over 50 per cent of Britons called it 'generally a good thing' whereas only 30 per cent of Americans did.

And over 50 per cent of Americans said that 'globalisation's impact on the domestic economy is bad (UK 30%) 25 per cent thought it 'good' (UK 30%) and 10 per cent 'makes little difference'(UK 20 %).

If the British could choose their leader from a host of recent Anglo-American greats they would pick Bill Clinton before Tony Blair. So would Americans.

Of the current candidates, British Tories [of the right] would vote for Barack Obama, Labour [of the left] prefer Hillary Clinton by a narrow margin.

American politics is far more polarised than British politics. There's a lot of common ground between the parties in Britain and the width of opinion, in percentage terms on the survey,in all areas [Religion, Values,Ideology,Military Action, National Interest and Climate Change] is nothing like the width in America, most notably on taking and use of military action, where the band is 35 per cent wide against about 8 per cent between Labour and Tory in Britain .On that, incidentally, both Labour and Tories are more hawkish than Democrats.

One area is not surprising.In both Religion and Values there are big differences:

Religion;

80 % of Americans answered 'Yes' to 'Do you believe in God' (UK: 40 % answered 'Yes')
Less than 10% of Americans answered 'No' (UK: 40% answered 'No')

Americans would not much like an atheist as President: about 30% would be 'sorry', 25% indifferent and 20% 'angry'. With Britons asked about an atheist as Prime Minister 'angry' barely registered at all, 10% 'delighted' and over 60% were 'indifferent'.

Twice as many Britons as Americans gave 'the theory of evolution' to what the magazine has as this question 'Which explains the origin of the Earth?'(sic). Over 60% of Britons said that. What is odd is that more Americans said ' 'the Bible' than said 'the theory of evolution' (40% to 30% ) And about 20% of Americans said 'intelligent design'. Darwin and his successors have done poorly over there: that's two to one against the theory of evolution, as now is!

Values:
Most respondents in both countries gave 'Abortion should be legal:usually, but exceptions' as the top answer but over 60% of Britons as against about 30% of Americans gave it.
Over 70% of Britons said sex between unmarried people is not a sin; 30% of Americans said it is
Over 40% of Britons said they regard homosexuality as no sin but 'perfectly acceptable' and just under that number said it isn't a sin but it's 'not desirable' . Of Americans 40% thought it a sin and just over 20% answered 'no, but..' to each of the others

Do these results surprise anyone?

[Note: I've assessed the percentages from illustrative graphs, hence the round figures]

The whole survey is at:

34 page survey

The article about it is at:

2 page article