Parliament

UK General Elections #6 – Keir Starmer’s train to Downing Street

March 21, 2021 By Nigel

Keir Starmer has to match what Clement Attlee did in 1945 and beat what Tony Blair did in 1997 if he wants to form a Labour government at the next election. To arrive at Downing Street by the end of 2024, Starmer must get his party to board an InterCity 125 train and spend the next 3 years following the tracks I lay out in this article. As I will show, whichever track they take has to go through 125 English Conservative seats, most of which are in between cities. Hence InterCity 125 becomes the easy to remember name of Labour’s list of target seats.

Pay Gaps #18 – 10 quick and easy ways to close your gender pay gap!

November 15, 2020 By Nigel

You’ve just calculated your latest gender pay gap. With a sigh, you note that it is still large and at current rate of progress, it will take you 30 years to close it. Surely there must be a quicker and easier way to eliminate your pay gap? The good news is that if you use the 10 tools of Creative Pay Gapping, you can eliminate your pay gap tomorrow!

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

June 8, 2019 By Nigel

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.

EU Referendum #6 – Find your way out of the Brexit maze in 9 Days!

March 20, 2019 By Nigel

Theresa May has just asked the EU Council for a 3 month extension to Article 50, the Speaker won’t allow another meaningful vote without meaningful changes, Jeremy Corbyn is pondering backing another referendum and in 9 days time, the UK could be leaving the EU without a deal. Just another week in the Parliamentary Brexit Maze but I have updated my Brexit Voting Factions after last week’s votes and identified an 8th faction for you to play with in your voting permutations.
[Read more…] about EU Referendum #6 – Find your way out of the Brexit maze in 9 Days!

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

March 12, 2019 By Nigel

*** 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.
[Read more…] about EU Referendum #5 – Find your way out of the Brexit maze in 16 Days!

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

February 15, 2019 By Nigel

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.

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

January 31, 2019 By Nigel

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?