What Brits Know

There's an annual "health check" on British democracy and the latest results suggest things are not so good for our friends across the pond.  A few highlights:

• Those "very" or "fairly" interested dropped 16 percentage points in a year.

• The number of those above is 41 percent, the first time the series of checkups has found it below half.  This the eighth annual checkup.

• Those who have talked about politics with others is also at its lowest point since they started doing the surveys.

• As one measure of participation, the number of folks who say they've signed a petition also hit a record low.

• Knowledge overall continued to drop as well.

• But ... and this is interesting ... the percentage of people who feel they can make a difference, what we often call internal efficacy, that's increased slightly.

• Similar to above, perceived knowledge (what people think they know) has improved some.

What's our takeaway?  Some sense that while people think they know what's going on or their ability to participate, their actual knowledge and interest continues to decline.  Not a healthy development.