There is an old and well-known Yorkshire saying: "There's nowt so queer as folk". And my goodness, folk really do get some queer notions in their heads.

Just how misguided and often ill informed those ideas can be has been revealed in the latest annual report from the National Centre for Social Research called the British Social Attitudes survey - an accurate indicator of popular opinions.

For instance, it is widely perceived that more than 30 per cent of the population is either black or Asian. The true figure is around seven per cent.

I was much aware of this misconception after referring to the seven per cent figure in something I wrote earlier in the year. I was promptly criticised in a reader's letter, accusing me of failing to research my facts properly!

However, given the distortions and exaggerations regularly presented as news and comment in newspapers and television, it is understandable people tend to become muddled.

There is a widespread belief that 52 per cent of crimes involve violence whereas the real figure is 22 per cent.

It is thought that 28 per cent of working people earn more than £40,000 a year whereas the figure is just eight per cent, and that 23 per cent of secondary pupils are in private schools (the figure is nine per cent), and 27 per cent pay privately for operations (13 per cent).

But the survey's exposure of changing public attitudes is the most compelling. It reveals a widening gulf between liberal, tolerant and especially university-educated young people and older generations who tend to have more fixed, conservative views.

Nothing unusual about that but those differences are likely to be wider than at any time in our history in the years ahead - until of course the older folk have all moved on to that great debating chamber in the sky. It is especially in the areas of drugs, sexuality and race that the new liberalism is markedly different.

Back at the start of these surveys in 1983, only 12 per cent wanted cannabis to be legalised. That figure is now 41 per cent with another 15 per cent undecided.

As many as 86 per cent want the law changed to allow doctors to prescribe it as medication. However, most remain opposed to heroin with 97 per cent believing dealers should always be prosecuted.

Less than half of us believe homosexuality is wrong or mostly wrong, down from three quarters back in the Eighties.

Interestingly, the young/old divide is particularly dramatic here with only a quarter of twentysomethings believing it to be wrong, compared with two thirds of pensioners.

As for attitudes towards different races, a much reduced figure of 25 per cent admitted racial prejudice in the survey.

That increasing tolerance may be tested to destruction when Poland, Hungary, Lithuania and other east European countries join the EU shortly.

While France, Germany and other major economies are imposing restrictions on movements of labour from the east for up to seven years, the British government has made the madcap decision to open wide the gates immediately!

Don't we have enough immigration horror stories already?