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In charts: Scottish attitudes and independence
The 2013 British Social Attitude survey, released today, mainly focuses on questions of national identity and alongside asking everyone about questions on immigration and Britishness, asks Scots...
View ArticleScottish independence poll tracker
In September, the Scottish people will vote in a referendum that could see the country break away from the rest of the UK. Using polling data collated by the UK Polling Report and What Scotland...
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One lump or two: charting obesity and sugar
Britons need to reduce dramatically the amount of sugar they eat, according to a new report from the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN). The government recommends that 10 per cent of...
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Wages over the long run
Yesterday the ONS released data on real wages going back until 1975 and as you might expect they show that median wages have grown pretty dramatically over the last 40 years or so. Coincidentally 1975...
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Argentina v Germany – The economist’s verdict
On Sunday Germany and Argentina will face off in the World Cup final for the third time. The match result may well hinge on the skills of either Lionel Messi or Thomas Müller. But what would happen if...
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The data trust deficit
Trust in institutions to use data is much lower than trust in them in general, according to a new survey for the Royal Statistical Society. The poll of just over two thousand British adults carried out...
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Doctor’s orders
In news that will delight statisticians everywhere the distinction between the mean and the median finally has the political profile it deserves. Yesterday Sir Andrew Dilnot, chair of the UK...
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Big data: when N doesn’t equal all
OK Cupid, an online dating site, has caused a bit of a stir recently about performing experiments on their users. But even without the ethical questions there’s reason to be skeptical about what their...
View ArticleScottish polls: Full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing?
It’s impossible to know just how seriously to take the polling for the Scottish independence referendum. Pollsters haven’t had the same opportunity to calibrate their forecasts through trial and error...
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Scottish polls: margin call
Polls for the Scottish independence referendum come with a margin of error. Usually this is about three percentage points, which means that for all of this week’s polls, both ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ fit into...
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Who is living where? Count most countries confused over migration
No one knows how many Chinese people live in Europe. The United Nations estimated Europe’s China-born population at 886,882 in 2010, its most recent count, while Chinese-based social scientists put it...
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Datawatch: the most dangerous border in the world
More migrants die crossing the Mediterranean than any other border in the world. In total the Mediterranean accounts for 75 per cent of the world’s migrant deaths. So far this year the Italian...
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Datawatch: women’s suffrage
A hundred years ago just four countries allowed women to vote: New Zealand, Australia, Finland and Norway. Two world wars accelerated the process, leading to big jumps in the number of countries that...
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Datawatch: the average age women in Britian give birth
More than half of children born in Britain in 2013 had a mother above the age of 30. For the first time since the government began keeping track. The mean age has been rising since a record low in the...
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Datawatch: budget deficits and oil prices
The recent fall in oil prices is bad news for Opec nations. For many the fall is large enough to put their governments into deficit. Only for the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait is the oil price above the level...
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Dominance on the field: Lionel Messi vs Cristiano Ronaldo
Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are the world’s top goalscorers. And next weekend will see them pitted against each other in what might be the biggest rivalry in sport: El Clásico, the match...
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Datawatch: the growth of city living
More people lived in urban than rural areas for the first time ever in 2007. This year it is estimated that 54 per cent of the world’s population live in cities and by 2050 it is predicted to hit 66...
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Ukrainians move to Poland for better life
Even before the dispute with Russia began battering their economy, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians fled their country looking for a better life elsewhere. Ukrainians are now the largest group of...
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Datawatch: the meat market
The amount of meat produced worldwide quadrupled in the 50 years before 2011. In per capita terms this means it almost doubled in the same period, in 2011 enough meat was produced for each person to...
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Datawatch: the cost of the Afghan war
After a 13-year long war, UK forces and the US marines ended operations in Afghanistan on Sunday: in total 453 UK citizens lost their lives in the conflict and over 21,000 Afghanis are estimated to...
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