#the tories ruined the security net

[fogmothshroom]

Man I got caught up writing a super long post about the state of disability benefits in the UK but I am so fucking exhausted and I don't have my sources checked so instead of being stupid and posting it for all to see just yet I'll just say this:

I put my claim in on February 2024, and my appeal was received after 2 denials in October 2024, and this is fucking normal.

[warninggraphiccontent]

22 November 2019

Electoral dysfunction

I'll keep it very short this week (the intro, not the list of links, naturally...):

Join a brilliant panel - Sir John Holmes form the Electoral Commission, Liz Carolan from Digital Action, Martin Moore from King's and Will Moy from Full Fact (and me) - as we ask: at a time when technology has transformed how elections unfold, can we trust our electoral system? Here at the Institute for Government, next Wednesday lunchtime. Tim has helpfully compiled a list of all our other GE2019 events.

Some more sonification from me last week for the IfG's Inside Briefing podcast - on demand for social care and A&E waiting times. And listen out for this week's, out later today...

Have a great weekend

Gavin

Today's links:

Graphic content

#GE2019

British general election (Reuters)

Manifestos still matter even though their promises aren't being delivered (Emma/Sarah for IfG)

Boris Johnson benefits from UK voters’ lack of trust in politicians* (FT)

The Brexit disruptors: beyond left and right* (FT)

Thread

Timetable of #GE2019 debates (Election Maps UK)

#ge2019data (Alasdair Rae)

How safe is my seat? (Voting Counts)

Animated bar chart klaxon (via Matt Singh)

THIRD COMBINED FORECAST FOR THE 2019 GENERAL ELECTION (elections etc)

Labour is losing the battle for Grimsby* (The Economist)

‘Too close to call’? Accounting for satisfaction with party leadership would have helped better predict the General Election (LSE British Politics and Policy)

General Election 2019: How safe is your MP's seat? (Sky News)

Political Patchwork Chart (Marios Richards, via Marcus)

Prime ministerial tenure (me for IfG)

Government and public services

#SpeedData: social care demand; A&E waiting times (me for IfG)

Creating and dismantling government departments (Institute for Government)

Government at a Glance 2019 (OECD)

Northern Ireland's health crisis (Pivotal via Sam McBride, via Marcus)

What do you know about our prisons? (Russell Webster using Flourish, via Benoit)

US politics

The Fifth Democratic Debate In 6 Charts (FiveThirtyEight)

Which Candidates Got the Most Speaking Time in the Democratic Debate* (New York Times)

Who talked the most during the November Democratic debate* (Washington Post)

It Took A Long Time For Republicans To Abandon Nixon (FiveThirtyEight)

The planet

The destruction of the Amazon, explained (Vox)

The world’s climate goals are not sufficient. They are also unlikely to be met* (The Economist)

Earthquakes between July 2017 and July 2018 (Raluca Nicola)

Companies pin hopes on meat-free cash cows* (FT)

Everything else

Bill Gates just surpassed Jeff Bezos as the richest person on Earth, with a net worth of $110 billion. I struggled to imagine this huge number, so... (@betty__cam, via Marcus)

Lebanese youth voice anger at lack of opportunities* (FT)

Information is Beautiful Awards 2019: The Winners

X-Ray Visualization: A Fine Tradition of Visualizing Medical Data (Nightingale)

Graph literacy, in a sense (Junk Charts)

Chart.Guide

Meta data

#GE2019

Election Live (Full Fact)

Brexit Party under investigation for 'failing to hand over personal data' (Sky News)

The Tories just used a disinformation trick that deserves to get them banned from Twitter* (New Statesman)

Google admits major underreporting of election ad spend (The Guardian)

Google crackdown on political ads 'will have minimal impact in UK' (The Guardian)

The most unpredictable election ever? Don’t believe it* (Prospect)

General Election 2019: The bar chart war in one battleground constituency (BBC Trending)

Polls... (Anthony Wells)

Election memes: are we being played? (BBC Beyond Today)

Broadband

Bread, Roses and Broadband too? (openDemocracy)

Labour’s free broadband plan puts our digital future back in public hands (Mathew Lawrence for The Guardian)

A super-fast way to ruin Britain’s broadband (CapX)

Government

Government data — catching the wave (David Durant)

Life hacks – a year at the National Cyber Security Centre (Civil Service World/Public Technology)

UK Statistics Authority statement on Scottish Government’s use of the Labour Force Survey (UK Statistics Authority)

AI, algorithms, automation

The Apple Card Didn't 'See' Gender—and That's the Problem* (Wired)

Sexist and biased? How credit firms make decisions (BBC News)

Much of what’s being sold as "AI" today is snake oil (Arvind Narayanan)

Decision-making in the Age of the Algorithm (Nesta)

AI in the NHS — panacea or dangerous delusion? (Politico)

New York City Automated Decision Systems Task Force report

A member of the task force writes...

Judge sounds ‘serf’ warning on digital public services (UKAuthority)

Actually, it’s about Ethics, AI, and Journalism: Reporting on and with Computation and Data (CJR)

Big tech

Vestager takes aim at ��biopower’ of tech giants (EURACTIV)

Our personal data needs protecting from Big Tech* (Rana Foroohar for FT)

Facebook and Google’s pervasive surveillance poses an unprecedented danger to human rights (Amnesty International)

Google runs into data fears over $2.1bn Fitbit deal* (FT)

Data

The Fall of Nate Silver (The New Republic)

#data19

Valuing data is tricky but crucial for the public good* (Diane Coyle for the FT)

Can we have too much data? (VOX)

“The simple answers are wrong:” Toby Lowe on the need for a new kind of accountability in public services (Centre for Public Impact)

Everything else

The State of European Tech (Atomico)

We’re Used to Thinking of Digital Assistants as Female. The Good Place and Big Mouth Show Why That’s a Mistake. (Slate)

The Richard Dimbleby Lecture: Sir Tim Berners-Lee - The World Wide Web, a mid-course correction (BBC)

PDFs (NHS Digital Service Manual)

City Tools: shining a light on the technologies powering London’s boroughs (LOTI)

Opportunities

EVENT: Election 2019: Can we trust our electoral system? (Institute for Government)

AWARD: RSS launches new healthcare stats excellence award (Royal Statistical Society/Health Foundation)

TENDER: Technical research on the collection, processing and use of beneficial ownership data in the private sector (Open Ownership)

JOBS: Comms; Data Science Lead (DataKind UK, via Rachel)

JOB: Director, Media, Information and Journalism Program (Open Society Foundations)

JOB: Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Technology and Policy (Reuters Institute, University of Oxford)

And finally...

#GE2019

Lib Dem Bar Charts (William Kedjanyi)

How much money do you need to earn a year to be rich? And more here (YouGov)

Everything else

Why is it acceptable to kill someone? On the mysterious history of Britain’s road death toll (CityMetric)

WHICH FSB IS THIS PRESS RELEASE FROM? ~ a field guide, per topic ~ (Jack Schickler)

What if the Soviet Union never collapsed? Meet the Football Manager fans rewriting history (Wired)

Is this the largest prime number... (Robin Houston)

And also... (via Nick)

Introducing YouGov's food map of Britain... (YouGov braves polling about food, again...)

[creamyystreams]

The ABSOLUTE STATE of Theresa May: part 5

End result and what happens next

It appears as though the Conservatives will be able to form a minority Government fairly easily with the assistance of the DUP. It's unclear how this agreement will work mechanically; there's little indication of a formal coalition and there has been no disclosure of what concessions the tories have made or will make to secure it. It's worth pointing out while we're here that the DUP are well to the right of the Conservatives on virtually every social issue you can think of. They're opposed to abortion, opposed to gay marriage, opposed to immigration and have historically campaigned in favour of gun rights, though I'm unsure of their current firearms policy. Some of this is objectionable, even to people who still consider themselves strong social and moral conservatives. Views on homosexuality in NI are two decades behind those of mainland Britain. There are elements of Conservative policy and mainstream conservative opinion that will be difficult to reconcile with the views of the DUP. They're also fairly comfortably described as 'hard brexiters'. They're against free movement, against the ECHR, against the single market and against the CAP and CFP. They're likely to make a sticking point of maintaining the soft border between NI and the RoI but there's little reason to believe this would impact the borders of rUK with rEU.

Labour are unable to form a Government, minority or coalition, regardless of the intricacies of the CON/DUP deal and the success of whatever arrangement they reach. There simply aren't enough seats available for a 'progressive alliance' to force through a Queen's speech. Sorry lefties, it's just not feasible.

The Liberal Democrats will celebrate this election as something of a success, despite the loss of their only 'real' heavyweight, the close shave experienced by leader Tim Farron and the overall loss of % vote share. Against expectations (mine, at least) electoral geography has helped them rather than ruining them, and they find themselves with a net gain of 4 seats. However, it will be very difficult to maintain the line that a significant portion of the population are against brexit to the extent that they want another referendum. Every single party carrying such a policy saw a loss in vote share.

The Greens are in a similar boat. Having lost a significant chunk of their vote share - I expect to Labour - they're going to have difficulty pretending there's any mandate for their anti-brexit line. They'll still chalk it up as a win though, purely because the tories are down and they've kept their one seat.

Scottish independence may now be a busted flush. SNP losses include 21 seats, a third of their vote share, nationalist heavyweight Alex Salmond and their leader in Westminster Angus Robertson. Votes for openly Unionist parties easily broke the 60% mark. Were the party any less dependent on her for media performances, there would doubtless be calls for Nicola Sturgeon to resign.

Plaid capitalised on a retreating LibDem vote- seemingly unintentionally - to take another seat and successfully defended their existing three, but failed to make any inroads into their two target seats. They've also lost vote share. There's little else to say about Plaid. They're a complete meme party. (I'm Welsh I'm allowed to say that).

I have little to no knowledge of Northern Irish domestic politics so I'm not going to offer an opinion, but for the sake of record it appears the vote has polarised along Republican/Unionist lines more than it has in the past.