There's nothing wrong with being normal...

If your surname is Smith, you live in a three-bedroom home called The Cottage on the High Street and like to vacation in Spain then, congratulations, you are pretty much as average as it gets - if the results of insurance data compilation are to be believed, that is.

Norwich Union has sifted through over ten years of insurance records and has discovered some startling insights about the choices and mindsets of the UK masses. Did you know that most of us drive Ford Fiestas, for example? Or that the majority of us live in houses that were built circa 1946? Probably not. But what, if anything, does it mean for our politics?

The survey was carried out by YouGov who questioned 2,080 people during May. They discovered that the majority of people insure the contents of their homes to a value of £27,000 and that, in order of importance, they hold their family photographs, games consoles, stereos and dvd players to be their most important possessions. So does this imply that the English are just a bunch of recluses that sit around drooling over computer games and mourning the past via family photos? Yes it does. But as Simon Warsop, of Norwich Union, more eloquently put it:

"Our study provides a fascinating glimpse into the average British home in 2008. Contrary to popular belief, it reveals that we are a lot more traditional than we think we are."

Which begs the question of why we don't consider ourselves to be traditional? Perhaps it's all that TV we've been watching, perhaps it's the glamour with which Tony Blair ruled the nation. Maybe it's the illusions of technology. Whatever it is, it could be argued that the installation of Gordon Brown as PM has reminded us of where we came from and that's why there is a shift towards traditional values. It could also explain why the Conservatives are winning in most opinion polls.

The survey also reported that people are most likely to have the following hi-tech items damaged or stolen: Hitachi televisions , SanDisk camera memory cards, Toshiba laptops, and Sony PlayStations and Microsoft Xbox 360s.

Now you know why the taught you maths at school...

Written by Oli Anderson on 4 Jun 2008 3:37 PM. Permalink