Nigel Marriott – Page 26

EU Referendum #5 – Find your way out of the Brexit maze in 16 Days!

March 12, 2019 By Nigel Marriott

*** This post is not yet complete. However you will find a link to the data near the bottom and a link to a twitter thread for some of the images ***

Within the next 10 days, the House of Commons will get a second Meaningful Vote on the Withdrawal Agreement which could be followed by 2 more significant votes on No-Deal and Article 50 Extension. I have been tracking how MPs have voted on the first Meaningful Vote and subsequent Amendments which I summarised in two posts “Find your way out of the Brexit Maze in 57 days and 43 days.” Following further amendments at the end of February and with no more amendments planned before the next meaningful vote, I have redone my cluster analysis to predict what the outcome of these votes might be. As far as possible, I am trying to base my predictions on what MPs have done rather than what they say but I will compare my analysis with that of Election Maps who have been tracking MP’s statements.
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UK Weather Trends #8 – Winter 2019

March 8, 2019 By Nigel Marriott

The winter of 2019 was consistent with the step change in the winter climate that took place in the 1990s.

UK Weather Tracker #25 – February 2019

March 4, 2019 By Nigel Marriott

February 2019 ended with the warmest days on record in the month. As a result, the month as a whole was the second warmest and second sunniest February on record.

UK Opinion Poll Tracker #14 – February 2019

March 4, 2019 By Nigel Marriott

After 12 months of essentially static polls despite the news being dominated by Brexit, Labour has experienced a significant worsening of their position and the Conservatives have opened up a lead over Labour that would give them a majority in parliament. Words of caution are being uttered about the extent of the Tory lead since one pollster is notably out of step with all other pollsters.

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UK Economy Tracker #3 – 2018 Q4

February 21, 2019 By Nigel Marriott

It’s taken 10 years but the UK is finally experiencing true wage growth that outpaces inflation. With employment and economic activity at record levels, the UK economy should be in good shape but the basic problem of low growth is still there. Our economy still needs to place itself on a stronger footing ahead of a rising probability of another recession in the near future.

EU Referendum #4 – Find your way out of the Brexit maze in 43 Days!

February 15, 2019 By Nigel Marriott

Rather than celebrating love on Valentine’s day, Parliament chose to use the occasion to emphasise their discord over the EU withdrawal process, 43 days before the UK is due to leave the EU. Three amendments were voted on and this allows me to update my Brexit voting blocks which I first described in “Find your way out of the Brexit maze in 57 days!”.

This post was updated on 22nd February 2019 to take into account the resignations of 9 MPs from the Labour party. and 3 MPs from the Conservative party.

UK Weather Tracker #24 – January 2019

February 5, 2019 By Nigel Marriott

2019 in the UK began with a dry month but normal weather otherwise.

Stats Training Materials – Basic Statistical Concepts

February 1, 2019 By Nigel Marriott

A sound grasp of basic statistical concepts is essential to have any hope of acquiring the mindset of a statistical thinker and to be able to use statistical methods. My introductory course “The 6 Concepts of Statistical Thinking” lays the foundations in the following.

Probability – the difference between conditional & absolute probability.
Risk – why it is an extension of probability and the importance of alpha (false positive) and beta (false negative) risk.
Expectation – how to summarise a dataset into one number which measures its location.
Variance – how to measure the spread of a dataset.
Distribution – how to describe the shape of a dataset.
Correlation – how to measure the relationship between two variables and understand the two golden rules of correlation.

EU Referendum #3 – Find your way out of the Brexit maze in 57 days!

January 31, 2019 By Nigel Marriott

January 2019 has been a month of considerable parliamentary drama in the UK as MPs wrestle over whether to approve the Withdrawal Agreement between the UK and the EU. There is no shortage of political punditry and quotes from politicians and the whole episode is proving to be a classic example of uncertainty. For statisticians like myself, uncertainty occurs when you cannot properly price the odds of an event happening unlike risk which occurs when you can price the odds. Since the current state of affairs will ultimately be determined by parliamentary votes one way or the other, is it possible to use parliamentary vote data so far to estimate the odds of certain scenarios?

UK General Elections #4 – Jeremy Corbyn’s road to Downing Street

January 14, 2019 By Nigel Marriott

The fevered political climate in the UK at the moment is all about Brexit and possible second referendums and general elections. Jeremy Corbyn made it clear recently that he wanted a General Election now so that he could take over the Brexit negotiations. With that in mind, I decided to take a look at what Labour’s target seat strategy could look like based on the results of the 2017 general election. What I see at the moment is that Labour has many ways of becoming the largest party in Parliament but the road to a working majority is much harder than people realise due to the Brexit realignment in 2016 and the Nationalist realignment in Scotland in 2015.