Pubs, restaurants and sports events? - all areas which are hit hard by lockdown restriction so not surprising they're more likely to be opposed.
You talk to people who don't frequent pubs/restaurants, don't like sports etc?
Opinions of my work colleagues, friends and family range from those who want stricter restriction than are in place now to those who would scrap some restrictions but keep others in place. I personally only know one person who wants to completely scrap ALL restrictions, a view regularly expressed here.
Do you actually go into work or work from home? What sort of job do you do? You may not want to answer these questions of course but if you are telling me most people at your work want restrictions, I'd certainly like to know more about those people.
In terms of the wider public, I'm a member or regular lurker of numerous forums and Facebook groups, both left and right leaning, none of them have such a strong anti-mask/anti-restriction majority as this one. Other posters have made this same point in previous threads.
People here aren't mugs and are many capable of doing good quality research. When you say "anti mask" you presumably mean against mask
mandates; you will find many people here will be able to give a very informed and accurate opinion on the efficacy of effective FFP2/3 masks vs the standard masks that are generally worn for box ticking purposes to comply with mask mandates.
Of course it makes sense for those who favour authoritarian measures to refer to such well informed people as "anti maskers" because they do not want the focus to be on the true effectiveness of different types of masks, as that will undermine their argument.
Unreliable to a point, but as mentioned earlier they're consistently not merely a majority, but a huge majority in favour, and pollsters do take into account the demographics of the respondents and weight the results accordingly.
YouGov polls do not in any way take into account the demographics of society; the idea that the average working person has the time, inclination or desire to waste their time on YouGov polls is fanciful.
What do you suggest is a better barometer of public opinion on the subject?
There is no truly representative barometer but those of us who talk to a wide range of people and do not work from home (or if we do work from home we will get out and about a lot) will have a much better understanding than those who don't get out that much.
I've been out today and judging by the crowds, people definitely seem to be voting with their feet on what they think of restrictions.
Exactly but the pro-restriction lobbyists will NOT accept such evidence and will insist the stay at home types who waste their time on YouGov are in (or representative of) the majority; they will never accept they are wrong no matter how many of us post clear evidence
As ever with these things I'll invoke the old home spun philosophy that no doubt your grandmother always used to say - "actions speak louder than words"
Indeed and the pro-restriction lobbyists are very keen for
other people to be restricted but their own movements are often not so constricted. People like Ferguson, one of the main architects of lockdowns, are good examples of that. Mask mandates are the same; the vast majority do not want them and will not wear one unless they feel forced to, however those who demand mask mandates always try to falsely claim the majority do want such mandates, even though they admit that most people do not want to wear them. The reality is the mandates is all about box ticking, and making other people do something that ticks a box.
None of this makes any logical sense whatsoever.
And of course those who are keen for lockdowns or other restrictions will deny that vaccines are the path to normality; they give excuses like "but the vaccines are not 100% effective" or "vaccines don't stop you getting it"; they cannot see how absurd their argument is, because they far too deep down the rabbit hole and part of a toxic cult.
