Ten Per Cent Like Mr Harold Wilson, I've been caught
by the Ten Per Cent Census. Happily, all the form- filling has at least been made relatively easy thanks to Somerset House's ingenious crib: a facsimile census form, all properly completed, enclosed with the real thing. Admittedly the story it tells is somewhat unlikely—Mr Cox of Ken- sington and his wife from equally genteel Hove now live happily in Newcastle-on-Tyne having arrived there via Easington, County Durham. But I assume it's all some sort of subliminal propaganda designed to counter the drift to the south. And at all events it seems to explain pretty well everything except the question that asks me whether I keep my car in a carport, whatever that may be.
But why on earth should I be threatened with a £10 fine for refusing to fill in the form—the same penalty, incidentally, as for giving false information? For some people i10 is no laugh- ing matter. It's true that none of the questions is particularly impertinent, but that's not the point. There's no reason whatever why a man should reveal, say, where he was living five years ago if he doesn't want to; and if the Gallup Poll can operate successfully on a purely voluntary basis there's no reason why the state shouldn't, either.
NIGEL LAWSON
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