Nigel Marriott's Blog

An independent statistician using data to understand our world and to predict the future

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Pay Gaps #22 – My 7 + 5 recommendations for amending UK pay gap legislation

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When gender pay gap reporting was introduced by the government for the 2017 snapshot date for all employers with a headcount of 250 or more, it was made clear they would evaluate how the legislation had worked after 5 years.  We are now in the 5th year of pay gap reporting and I would like to submit to the government 7 recommendations to improve the way employers’ data is reported and 5 recommendations to improve the data used in the calculations and to reduce various distortions.

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UK General Election 2019 #2 – My forecast is the most accurate & beats the Exit Poll!

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At 2200 on Thursday 12th December 2019, the BBC/ITV/Sky Exit Poll was revealed to the nation and pointed to a large majority for the Conservatives.  Unlike 2017, I was able to turn to my wife and say “it looks like I will be right this time!”  By the end of the night, Gavin Freeguard from the Institute of Government was tweeting that not only was I the most accurate election forecaster of 2019, I was more accurate than the Exit Poll.

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Pay Gaps #8 – My Evidence to the Treasury Select Committee

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On June 5th 2019, I had the privilege of being able to talk to the Treasury Select Committee about the “Effectiveness of Gender Pay Gap Reporting“.  My name was put forward by the Royal Statistical Society and we spent an hour discussing a number of issues with a particular focus on the Finance sector.

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Forecasting#1 – How do you identify a good forecaster?

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“I think the people in this country have had enough of experts”

Michael Gove, Sky News, 3rd June 2016

This was one of the most memorable quotes during the EU referendum in 2016 and came in response to a question as to why the forecasts of a whole list of organisations such as the IMF should be ignored.  It prompted a flurry of rebuttals and articles supporting or damning him and the debate has not gone away.

Like so many quotes, it has already become distorted.  I strongly recommend you listen to the full question and answer because here is his quote in its entirety. 

“I think the people in this country have had enough of experts… from organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong.”

When I read this full quote I realised I am in complete agreement with Michael Gove. 

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Segmentation #1 – Who has more in common? Leave & Trump voters or Remain & Clinton voters? Analysis of Sentiments

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My wife is American and so it should be easy to guess what we were talking about on the morning of 9th November 2016.  Donald Trump’s victory in the US Presidential election was a surprise to many people and prompted much discussion on the similarities between Trump voters and the Leave voters in June.  However, my wife remarked that people may be looking at this the wrong way round and perhaps the correct question to ask is whether there is greater similarity between Clinton & Remain voters.

Identifying similarities and differences between groups of people is a cornerstone of the field of market research known as customer segmentation.  It is one of my favourite areas of statistics and can be used regardless of whether the data comes from a survey or from customer records.  When my wife posed her question I immediately thought of 2 ways I could answer this using segmentation methods.

  1. Look at how people feel (their sentiments) which is what this post is about.
  2. Look at how people voted (their behaviour) which I will cover in another post “Who has more in common? Leave & Trump voters or Remain & Clinton voters? Analysis of voting behaviour”

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EU Referendum 2016 #1 – How and why did Leave win and what does it mean for UK politics? (a 4-part special)

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I am delighted to announce my 4-part series describing my analysis of the EU referendum results is now complete and available on Youtube. The full list of the clips are:

Part 1 – Where and How did Leave win?

Part 2 – Why did Leave win?

Part 3 – What does the leave vote mean for the next general election?

Part 4 – How will Brexit play out in the Richmond & Sleaford by-elections

I have analysed the results of the EU referendum in some depth and I hope you find my insights informative. Some specific highlights are:

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