Intelligence men (From The Northern Echo)

Intelligence men

3:07pm Friday 10th February 2012 in Letters

SO, the truth is out. Gordon Hodson, a research psychologist at Brock University, Ontario, in Canada, has established that conservative political and social attitudes in people are closely associated with low intelligence.

This peer reviewed paper is based on very large samples in the UK.

The findings place a very heavy responsibility on the likes of David Cameron not to pander to the prejudices of the ill-informed.

Mr Cameron, of course, is not an idiot, but a natural Tory, determined to maintain his privileged status arising from birth. So too is George Osborne and the rest of the multi-millionaire front bench.

Mr Hodson’s research shows how so many of our educationally-challenged brethren are duped into voting for these toffs.

The trick is to demonise groups in society. So we have millions of teenage single mothers sponging thousands in benefits, countless households where nobody has worked for a generation and massive housing benefits cascading out to the work-shy. Weave in a strong racist message disguised as immigration control and you have pretty well netted the votes of the less intelligent.

However, less than two per cent of single mothers are teenagers (the average age is actually 37) less than one per cent of households in the UK have never known work, and 65 per cent of families claiming housing benefits are in work.

Their poverty is due to low wages.

But you need educated curiosity to tease all this out. No wonder the Tories are slashing school and university spending.

Rob Meggs, Hartlepool.