This week, Neil Calloway looks at a poll that combines politics and film characters…
Tom Hiddleston recently said that the only two topics of conversation in Britain were how will the EU referendum vote go and who will be the next James Bond?
One of these is obviously the important issue of who the next actor to take over the mantle of being 007 will be, and the other is the rather more trivial issue of where Britain’s future lies. As well as politicians weighing in on the issue, various actors have too; Emma Thompson is for Remain, and Michael Caine is for Leave. Most recently Matt Damon – previously not known to hold strong views on the Common Agricultural Policy – came out in favour of Britain staying in the EU. I make that three Oscars for Remain and only two for Leave.
If you don’t want advice from real people in the entertainment world, then help is on hand for at; polling company YouGov recently surveyed voters as to which way they thought fictional characters would vote in the upcoming referendum.
Of the film characters used, Mary Poppins was seen as the most likely to vote to remain in the EU, with 31% of voters agreeing that she believes Britain is better off in Europe. This might be because Thompson played Poppins creator PL Travers in Saving Mr Banks and people have linked the two in their heads. Cruella De Vil leads those seen as more likely to vote for Brexit, with 26% believing that she’d agree that Britain was better off out.
To be fair to respondents, most of them said they do not know which way various characters were going to vote, hopefully by saying something like “No, I don’t know which way they’d vote because this is a serious issue and they’re fictional characters.”
Bridget Jones closely followed Poppins in the remain camp, with 27% of people thinking she would vote to stay in the EU. Just behind Cruella De Vil on people believing they would want to leave the EU is Groundskeeper Willie from The Simpsons, with 23% saying he wants out of Europe. Given that he’s lived in Springfield since at least 1989, it’s unlikely he would have a vote, but it’s interesting that people think he’d be on the leave side; perhaps they reckon he believes an independent Scotland would be closer if Britain leaves the EU.
Sherlock Holmes is another Brexiteer, with 5% more people thinking he’d vote to leave rather than to stay. It’s unclear as to what incarnation of Holmes this would be, but maybe people think his experience at Reichenbach Falls puts him off Europe, even if Switzerland isn’t part of the EU.
Conversely, people think – again by a 5% margin – that James Bond would vote to remain in the EU. Again it’s not known which incarnation of Bond people were thinking of, but perhaps they were swayed by the fact that Roger Moore is a long term resident of Monaco – which uses the Euro even if it’s not part of the EU. Maybe they think being in the EU will help Bond’s globe trotting; he won’t need a visa for many countries if we remain.
The survey is obviously a bit of fun in what can be a rather dry debate, and may help engage people who won’t otherwise get involved in the process, but I doubt anyone will go to the polling station thinking “What would Bridget Jones do?”.
Neil Calloway is a pub quiz extraordinaire and Top Gun obsessive. Check back here every Sunday for future instalments.
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https://youtu.be/b7Ozs5mj5ao?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
