Old blame young. Young blame Government.

In light of the new lockdown restrictions starting from 5 November. We asked a nationally representative sample of 2,000 UK adults “How much have you been sticking to the government restrictions?” and “Who/what is to blame for England going into lockdown again for 4 weeks from Thursday?”.

The survey results reveal that only about 51% of respondents are compliant all the time with the government restrictions, with more than 4% claiming they are only compliant “some of the time”, “rarely” and “not at all”.

Younger citizens are much less likely to be fully compliant than older citizens. Only about 32% of respondents from the 18-24 age group have been compliant all the time, compared to almost 62% of respondents from the 65+ age group – a stark contrast.

“Partying” and “The general public” tops the list as the main culprits for the new lockdown restrictions, both of which were selected by 47% of our respondents. There is also an age related pattern when it comes to apportioning blame.

Our results show that the older you are the more likely you are to blame:

	% of 18-25 selected	% of 65+ selected
China	12%	19%
Demonstrators	12%	38%
International travel	25%	30%
Partying	38%	58%
The general public	36%	51%

Whereas the younger you are the more likely you are to blame:

	% of 18-25 selected	% of 65+ selected
Boris Johnson	42%	22%
Eat out to help out	35%	16%
NHS under-funding	20%	9%
Old people	5%	0%
Schools	28%	16%
The Government	49%	22%

In addition, “Boris Johnson” and “The Government” blamers are less compliant on average. Respondents who gave either or both of these answers were statistically significantly different from the entire sample.

Overall, our survey results show there are associations between young citizens, government blamers and lockdown restrictions non-compliance. Further research is needed to prove any causal relationships.

About the survey

The survey of more than 6,000 members of Pick My Postcode was conducted on Sunday 1st of November. Find Out Now selected a nationally representative sub-sample of 2,000 within +/-1% of ONS quotas for Age, Gender, Region, and Social-Economic Grade, and past voting using machine learning. No weighting was applied. Full nationally representative results available for both polls: How much have you been sticking to the government restrictions? Who/what is to blame for England going into lockdown again for 4 weeks from Thursday?

For further information, or to request a poll or survey, contact us on ask@findoutnow.co.uk.