In recent years, many people have begun to notice that the UK's population profile is shifting towards those of a more advanced age .Commentary by Andy Martin
The British public has swiftly re-focused on domestic affairs since the end of the war in Iraq, and Tony Blair has found a rise in his satisfaction ratings to be short lived.
Public satisfaction with Tony Blair's premiership has fallen as he passes the two-year mark in his second term, new MORI analysis for the BBC has shown, but he remains on course for re-election.
Ten years, ago, in April 1993, MORI began combining monthly measurements of general pessimism about the future state of the national economy, fear of redundancy among those in work and the level of unemployment, to calculate what we initially called the MORI Misery Index. After having a little fun discovering that (inevitably) the Scots were more miserable than the rest of us, it was eventually rechristened under its current name of the MORI Financial Services Mood of the Nation index. Still indexed on the findings of the first survey, April 1993=100 (with an index higher than 100 meaning that the public is less pessimistic than in 1993 and lower than 100 more pessimistic), it charts a fascinating monthly picture of the peaks and troughs of the public mood over the last decade.
The British participation in the American-led invasion of Iraq was, at the moment it began, possibly the least popular war with the British public of any in which British troops have joined since opinion polls first began. But no sooner had the first shots been fired than public opinion started to swing in favour of British involvement in the war and kept on going. Within a couple of days the polls were finding solid majorities in favour where previously they had found solid majorities against, a movement which even reports of civilian casualties, "friendly-fire" incidents and later widespread looting and lawlessness apparently did nothing to check. The scale of the change of opinions makes it one of the most dramatic turnarounds that MORI has measured.
