The census may be the biggest mass participation event in the country, but there is a strong possibility that the last such poll across the UK has already been held.
There's a reason why it was started, as the 'Guardian' tells us.
The first official census in Britain was conducted at a time of great national insecurity. Amid failing harvests and a war with France, MPs were concerned that the country could run out of bread to feed its population. The problem was, nobody knew how big that population actually was. And so, on 10 March 1801, the first census of England and Wales was held (it counted 8.9 million people, roughly equivalent to the current population of London).
So, is this now a case of the government not wanting an answer to a question they already know, and perhaps fear?
Proposals by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which conducts the survey in England and Wales, suggest the government intends to scrap the census in 2031, relying instead on a network of disparate public sector sources of data.
Ah, public sector data. There's a reliable alternative, eh?
