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A much bigger Switzerland?

Friday, July 16, 2010
This, from Le Matin, taken in turn from Weltwoche:


The majority of the French, Germans, Austrians and Italians living in regions bordering [Switzerland] would like to be integrated into Switzerland.  Weltwoche questioned 1,791 people living in Savoy / Upper Savoy, Baden-Wurtemburg, Voralberg and Como/Varese....More than half (52%) of the Austrian and Italian neighbors are find the idea of secession appealing. In France and Germany, this proportion is only slightly lower (48%).
Rather annoyingly, I cannot lay hands on a map of European regions to which I could then add dotted lines to for this purpose.

Vorarlberg would add 1000 sq miles and 373,000 people, Baden-Wurttemburg 13,800 sq miles and 10.7 million  people, the two Savoys 4,021 square miles and 1.1 million people and Como Varese 960 square miles and 1.4 million people.

This would more than double the size of Switzerland from 15,940 square miles to 35,721 and its population would climb from 7.8 million to 21 million.

Having been to Geneva, I can vouch for CH being very clean etc, but fun it ain't.

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posted by Croydonian

The Labour MPs who did not nominate - a cut out 'n' keep guide

Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Were they too lazy, too stupid, too right wing, too left wing or too scared of causing offence?  Or something else...

  • Graham Allen
  • Nick Brown
  • Gordon Brown
  • Richard Burden
  • Liam Byrne
  • Martin Caton
  • Stella Creasy
  • Tony Cunningham
  • Jim Dowd *
  • Angela Eagle
  • Roger Godsiff
  • Dai Havard *
  • David Heyes *
  • Glenda Jackson
  • Gregg McClymont
  • Graeme Morrice
  • Ian Murray
  • Dawn Primarolo
  • Graham Stringer
  • Gisela Stuart
This has been derived by comparing the list of Labour MPs here with the list of nominators per candidate.  I would not stake everything on it, given Stephen Twigg shows as having nominated Abbott and Miliband sr in Labour List's, erm, lists. Any corrections gratefully received.

Those asterisked were Brown refuseniks in 2007, so either they have not got the hang of this voting business, or they really want to make sure that no fingers can be pointed at them.

Stella Creasy has e-mailed to ask for a correction, so there's a strike through her name now.   She shows as voting in LL's list now, but she did not at the time of posting.  As a sidebar, I thought it was depressing having a PM younger than I am, but having MPs born in years that I remember (1977) is enough to send one off to find a sharp instrument.

A further upmail suggests that LL has been doing some more updating, so I have performed a re-count.

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posted by Croydonian

What's Miliband Sr got that Miliband Jr, Balls et al have not?

Wednesday, May 26, 2010
A certain boundless confidence, judging by the noms list over at the Labour party's site:

Here's Balls:


And here's Burnham:

Miliband jr:


And here's the David Miliband-sized hole in his nomination list:


It could be the case that BananaMan did nominate himself, but "the People's Party" is no better at running a website than running the country. 

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posted by Croydonian

Whilst we are on the subject of 'fair' voting....

Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Despite my highest mathematical achievement being a 'C' at 'O' level (for which I needed coaching...), I derive much pleasure from fiddling around with electoral statistics, and armed with the turnout figures for the election I have derived an electorate of 45,533,309 and have then allocated the 650 seats to the regions based on actual population, rather than the near-gerrymandered ones we actually voted for.  This sees the following adjustments:

Wales -8
SW +2
SE +6
London +2
Eastern +3
East Midlands +2
West Midlands -1
North West - unchanged
Yorkshire & Humberside -1
North East -1
Scotland -4
NI -1

If each party had secured the same percentage of seats in each region under these theoretical boundaries as they did last week, the Tories would have an extra nine seats (316), Labour would have lost seven (251), the LDs would be flat and PC would have lost one (2).  The vegetation-coloured Far Left of Brighton Pavillion would be unchanged.  I have assumed that Thirsk will stay blue.  Northern Ireland presents something of a problem, in that rounding up and down confuses things horribly....

This still leaves us in hung Parliament territory, but Con + DUP comes to 324, and given that the Shinners are not keen on turning up to vote, Lab+LD+SNP+PC+SDLP+Alliance+Sylvia Hermon comes to 322.

Interesting, no?

Update - Idle Pen Pusher has been doing something similar, and it is well worth the read..

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posted by Croydonian

A little light manifesto number crunching

Tuesday, April 20, 2010
For my sins work reasons, I am reading through the party manifestos, and since I do not feel I should suffer alone, some findings:

The Conservative manifesto mentions 'Labour' some 75 times.

The Labour Manifesto mentions 'Conservative' once and 'Tory' five times.

(To be updated with LD figures, as and when)

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posted by Croydonian

Even more fun with statistics - social media and politics

Thursday, March 11, 2010
Those nice people at Lewis PR have been polling the populace on Twitter, Facebook and the like, and their having sent me a press release on the findings I was sufficiently intrigued to harass them for further and better particulars and then to knock up some charts:

I'm surprised she did that well, frankly.  It should be 'Irish pop singer', by the way.

Curiouser and curiouser:

Words fail me.

And there's more:

Even I draw the line at having MPs as Facebook friends.

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posted by Croydonian

Fun with statistics, TUC dept

Here are the unemployment figures by gender, region by region - as found at the TUC's site, so presumably derived from the usual Fantasy Island official figures:





Readers might cast an eye over the figures and conclude that it is we chaps who are hardest hit by job losses, and therefore consider that the TUC  - having seen these figures - would be worrying about male unemployment.  This is not what it has been doing, rather it is concerned that any early attempts to balance the books would result in female employment being disproportionately hit.

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posted by Croydonian

Exciting factlets o' the day

Monday, January 25, 2010
I saw this on Wikipedia the other day:

"During the Cold War, the United States developed a geopolitical interest in Greenland, and in 1946 the United States offered to buy Greenland from Denmark for $100,000,000, but Denmark refused to sell".
Via the miracle of the Measuringworth calculator, that equates to anything from  $874,862,903.23 (GDP deflator) to $6,499,279,927.99 (relative gdp).

By contrast, Alaska went for $7.2m back in 1867, or a price ranging from $95,627,209.94 to  $12,462,059,710.40.  Going further back, the bargain that was the Louisiana Purchase was $15m in 1803, or anything from  $274,488,136.46 to $448,977,772,987.67.

Comparing areas we have 828,000 sq miles for Louisiana, 663,268 sq miles for Alaska and 836,109 sq miles for Greenland, so based on the low-balled current value, Louisiana went for $331.5 per square mile, Alaska for $144.2 per square mile and Greenland would have gone for a rather impressive $1046.35.  Running with the high-end values, Louisiana comes out on top at $542,243.70 per sq mile, followed by Alaska at $18,788.88 and Greenland at the bottom of the heap at $7,773.24.

Should Uncle Sam fancy putting in another bid, the Danish national debt is in the regiuon of $24 billion at the moment.

I would have a look at the Gadsen Purchase too, but life is too short.    


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posted by Croydonian

Kim Jong Il's 2009 adventures

Friday, January 08, 2010
Last year I tallied up all the Dear Leader's doings for the year, with the following result:



So, I thought I might as well do the same for 2009:


So, whereas 2008 was a year of military inspections, in 2009 the emphasis was squarely on field guidance.  I suppose one can imagine that the joy of the military in being left alone, comparatively speaking, is matched by the misery of the workers and peasants of the Pyongyang Cornstarch Factory, Oguk Co-op farm, Suphung Power Station etc etc.

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posted by Croydonian

Fun with mushroom cloud statisitics

Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Over at Gizmodo, they have a rather interesting map of nuclear explosions from Alamogordo to date.  It is quite a size, and does not lend itself  to being 'borrowed'.

Anyway, I've made use of their stats to knock up a chart showing tests by country. 


Note quite how trigger happy our French friends are, realitive to the size of their nuclear arsenal, and the Miracle on the Med does not appear to have done any testing at all, although the richter scale event in the southern Indian Ocean in '79 was believed - at the time - to be a joint South African / Israeli enterprise.

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posted by Croydonian

Fun with statistics

Wednesday, November 18, 2009
I present the rather diverting worldometers.info site:


It has running tallies for various other indicators including the number of cigarettes smoked today, suicides this year and computers sold.  I do not believe the last three are connected.

Anyway, enjoy.

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posted by Croydonian

Interesting map o' the day

Thursday, September 24, 2009
Courtesy of Eurostat.



The map needs clicking for any degree of legibility, but I think it is worth it.

The highlights noted by Eurostat are these:

Regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per inhabitant (in purchasing power standards) in 2006 differed widely across the 275 regions of the EU, Croatia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. In Inner London (United Kingdom) it was 336% of the EU-27 average, while in Nord-Est (Romania) it was only 25% of the EU-27 average.

Elsewhere, the author notes 'We find the largest regional differences in the United Kingdom, where there is a factor of 4.3 between the highest and lowest values

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posted by Croydonian

The top ten governmental lobbyists in Washington DC

Monday, August 24, 2009
From Propublica.org:

Now, the Sunlight Foundation and ProPublica have taken more than a year’s worth of data filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, and put it in a digital format that can be easily searched and analyzed to discover all the players in the foreign lobbying game.

Under FARA, all lobbyists who represent foreign governments, political parties and government-controlled entities in a “political or quasi-political capacity” must file disclosures. The forms list activities, fees received, political contacts and any campaign contributions

Before looking at the figures, pause and let your inate prejudices go to work (1).

Ready? Here goes:

United Arab Emirates - $10,914,002
United Kingdom - $6,105,200
Japan - $4,231,656
Turkey - $4,185,248
Iraq - $3,708,368
Morocco - $3,337,392
Saudi Arabia - $3,308,285
South Korea - $2,941,004
Netherlands - $2,694,604
Equatorial Guinea - $2,408,168

Further details on which UK entities have been lobbying their Uncle Sam is available here.

These include some $266,000 from the British Council, $104,141.04 from the City of Sunderland and the big one, $4,116,161.26 from the DTI in connection with Invest Northern Ireland. There's also $1,442,315.34 from Scottish Enterprise.

And one speech by an attention seeking Scottish politician later, that's $1,442,315.34 in the hole.


(1) Thinking of a certain country at the eastern end of the Med with a blue and white flag? They spent just under $422,000 in 2008.

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posted by Croydonian

Gross national income - could you define that standing on your head?

Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Quite possibly not.

Anyway, here's a definition from the UN:

"Gross national income (GNI) is GDP less net taxes on production and imports, less compensation of employees and property income payable to the rest of the world plus the corresponding items receivable from the rest of the world (in other words, GDP less primary incomes payable to non-resident units plus primary incomes receivable from non-resident units). An alternative approach to measuring GNI at market prices is as the aggregate value of the balances of gross primary incomes for all sectors".

I offer up that definition and raise the question of awareness, as Eurobarometer has been polling we British types as to our opinions of the EU, and one of the questions was this:

"How much percent of the UK's gross national income do you think goes towards the EU budget?" (Horrible use of language there, not that that concerns us right now).

Some 48% of those polled were honest enough to admit that they did not know, while the remaining 52% had a stab at answering a question. What we should have been stumbling towards is the following - 'In 2007, the UK’s contribution to the EU budget was slightly over 0.5% of the UK’s Gross National Income (GNI)'.

What Eurobaromer got was this: "Only 6% of respondents estimated the UK’s contribution at below 3%, and only 25 of the 1,000 interviewees put this figure in the 0-1% range. The anticipated average proportion of the UK’s national income transferred to the EU was a stunning 23%; this shows that the average citizen does not seem to understand such figures".

Well just fancy that.

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posted by Croydonian

Obama's stat pr0n

Wednesday, July 29, 2009
From CNS News, via Zogby:

"The traffic at President Obama's official White House Web site--whitehouse.gov--has fallen from a post-Inauguration peak to nearly the same level it was during the waning days of the Bush administration.

The dramatic drop in traffic has happened despite the Obama Administration's complete redesign of the site. According to the web-traffic tracking site Alexa.com, whitehouse.gov was almost the 500th most popular Web site in the world in February. Since then, it has fallen to the 3,732 ranked Web site in the world. Traffic to the site has fallen 51.6 percent in the last three months".


Anyway, Alexa allows statpr0n fans to download the daily top 1m sites (No, I'm not in it, alas. And neither are you, unless you are Dale, Fawkes, Dizzy or DK. Couldn't be bothered to check anyone else), and whitehouse.gov currently lurks at 4419, sandwiched between 1111.com.tw - having looked at it, I have no idea what it is about, although it appears to be work safe - and geenstijl.nl, of which I have heard. It is a sort of blog / news / waggishness site for sound Dutch types.

To add insult to injury, poor old 'bama does not even have the top US govt site - that goes to NIH.gov (a health site) at 478, followed by NASA at 545 and CA.gov at 748. He is outdone by Google Angola, but betters Google T&T.

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posted by Croydonian

Russian roulette with a 64-chamber revolver

Tuesday, July 28, 2009
From EUPravda:

"The number of bags delayed at the airport amounted to 4.6 million between January 2008 and October 2008 in the European Union... Effectively, one piece of luggage has been reported missing for every 64 passengers".

I've only had my luggage mislaid the once - Toulouse-Paris-London - and was rather pleased as it meant I did not have to schlep it across town but rather had it delivered by courier the next day.

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posted by Croydonian

The EU's most and least uxorious / maritorious nations

Monday, July 27, 2009
And the ones most and least concerned about their progeny.

It is Eurobarometer time, and Euroman and woman has been asked whether he/she is concerned about losing his/her own job, and concern levels about both 'spousal' and offspring job loss.

And the data has facilitated what I think is a rather telling chart:


In every one of the EU 27, plus three accession candidates, concern for both one's other half and one's children outweighs concern for oneself except for one country:

Step up to the podium, please, Luxembourg. While 23% of Luxembourgeois/e are lying awake at night worrying about their own prospects, only 22% of them are worried either about the person lying next to them or son and heir in the next room, next town or wherever. Before I am accused of kicking off bash a Luxemburger week, the figure is indeed well within statistical margin of error, but no other country sees figures so closely matched.

Of the 27, Latvians, Slovenes and the French are the most anxious for their children, with 26, 25 and 22 percentage point levels of greater concern than for themselves. We manage a nineteen point gap.

The Italians would appear not to be as uxorious / maritorious (I had to dig that up..) as perhaps they should, as 40% are worrying for themselves, but only 38% for their significant others. Latvians, Cypriots and Maltese put their 'spouses' first, with point gaps of 14 for the former two, and 16 for the latter. There is a ten point gap in these parts.

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posted by Croydonian

The Hansard Trawl, featuring misbehaving sheep and leftie hoisted by his own petard

Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Could this be the euphemism of the decade?

"Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment he has made of the effects of intensive livestock farming on climate change; and if he will make a statement.

Jim Fitzpatrick: DEFRA has commissioned a number of studies, some of which are ongoing, to assess the environmental impacts of greenhouse gas emissions from several agricultural commodities throughout their lifecycle.

Who let that duck in....

Sticking with furry creatures and similar, this headline - Sheep: Tagging - made me wonder if ovines are defacing barn doors with 'Ban mint sauce', 'sheep rule' or whatever. Alas not.

And now this from Jeremy Corbyn:

To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport what percentage of (a) white and (b) non-white staff of his Department of each (i) grade and (ii) pay band have received the highest performance marking in each reporting year since the inception of Department for Transport (central).

Someone who has spent as long on the wilder shores of the left as Corbyn should be well aware that it is deeply racist etc etc to define ethnicity in terms of normative whiteness. More here...

Odd question o' the day:

Joan Ryan: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport how many road fatalities there have been in each parliamentary constituency in Greater London in each of the last five years for which figures are available.

And the figures are in, and it is Mark Field of the Cities of London and Westminster who would have been sending the most (18) condolences last year, followed by Andrew Dismore of Hendon (11). No other constituency saw double figures. Paul Burstow of Sutton and Cheam can be happy that no-one has died on the roads in his seat in the last five years. Good for the road users there. Down here in sunny Croydon, Central has the worst record over five years (19), and South the best (9). Nice typo here - 'Hoi born and St. Pancras'. I may as well make the traditional reference to Dobson as the member for the two tube stations.

If ever a question deserved the 'disproportionate response' answer it is this one:

Mr. Paice: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what estimate he has made of water consumption on his Department’s office estate in (a) 2005-06 and (b) 2006-07, (i) in total and (ii) per full-time equivalent member of staff.

Mr. Kevan Jones: It will take more time to collate and verify the information required to answer the question. I will write to the hon. Member with the information requested.

James Paice, our man in SE Cambs does not appear to be in the pay of the water barons, by the way. Jones was true to his word, and followed up with figures of 86 m3 in 2005-6 and 84 m3 in 2006-7.

Is the feline out of the satchel?:

Mr. Hayes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what activities have been undertaken by his Department’s Euro Minister in that capacity. [277178]

Mr. Woolas: A Home Office Minister has not attended any meetings on the Euro since 2007 and there are no plans to do so.

Good job too.

And over in the Lords, who feels a proper charlie now:

Lord Tyler: To ask Her Majesty's Government when they expect to reply to the Question for Written Answer tabled by Lord Tyler on 6 May (HL3404) and due for answer by 20 May. [HL4571]

Baroness Crawley: The Question was answered on 1 July 2009.

Lord Pearson may be a little paranoid:

To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the Written Answer by Lord West of Spithead on 10 June (WA 151), whether the Security Service has been or is active inside or towards the United Kingdom Independence Party or any of its members.

To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the Written Answer by Lord West of Spithead on 10 June (WA 151), whether the security services or the police have collaborated or are collaborating with the European Anti-Fraud Office or any other organ of the European Union in relation to the United Kingdom Independence Party or any of its members. [HL4591]

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Security Service has investigated or is engaged with the United Kingdom Independence Party.

The answer is about as boilerplate as they come:
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord West of Spithead): The established policy of successive Governments is not to comment on questions about Security Service investigations.
Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?

And as for this - 'The Security Service Act 1989 sets out its functions and prohibits it doing anything in furtherance of the interests of a political party. It does not investigate anyone for being a member of a campaigning organisation' - I do not believe it.

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posted by Croydonian

Questionable Facebook use o' the day

Monday, June 15, 2009
Straight from EUPravda:

"52,000: number of fans of the European Parliament's Facebook page".

Fans? There cannot be that many people on the payroll, surely?

In among the other numbers, there is this brag:

"1,955,627: Visitors to the Parliament's website and special elections site between 1-8 June".

Which, given the EU's population of some 500 m, equates to less than 0.04% of the population bothering to look. Not so impressive.

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posted by Croydonian

Even more Euro election data crunching

Wednesday, June 10, 2009
First, the B*P. They secured 15%+ in Barking & Dagenham, Stoke, Thurrock, Rotherham and Barnsley, and bottomed out at 1.31% in Gib. Once again our fellow citizens in those parts show thir robust good sense. Stirling was the weakest point on the mainland at 1.52%

Moving swiftly on, the Christian Party spoke to the wee frees and so forth in the Western Isles, winning a 9% share in those parts. Selby best stand by for some missionaries, as they polled 0.73% there.

The English Democrats made some headway in Doncaster (9.4%) and Dartford (9.4%), but are going nowhere fast in Kensington & Chelsea (0.5%). I had a look at their website the other day, and their published policies would fit on a fag packet, using normal handwriting. 183 words. I just tallied them. Go on, try to make me a liar.

Jury Team failed dismally in Gib (I'm warming ever more to the place) at 0.08%, with its 'breakthrough in South Tyneside - 1.61%. Gib didn't rate Libertas either - 0.04%. Hambleton in Y&H was more impressed ar 1.34%. While Ganley and co mean well, I for one am glad that they have stopped spamming me.

Gib also gave the ragbag coalition of far lefties trading under No2EU a bronx cheer at 0.17%. Coventry and Liverpool were keenest on collective farms and the like at 4.25% and 2.96% respectively.

Scargill's Socialist Labour Party will have realised that the revolution is a good deal further than a T-shirt away in East Dorset - 0.22%, with Knowsley a happier hunting ground at 4.48%.

United Kingdom First (no, I've never heard of them either) mustered 0.27% in West Berks, but 4.67% in South Cambridgeshire.

Elsewhere, the SPGB, for which I have a sneaking regard, having read 'The Monument', managed 0.45% in Haringey, 0.43% in Lewisham and 0.12% in Kingston and Kensington & Chelsea. They only stood in London. This is the party that sets such a premium on ideological purity that they have been known to tell voters only to vote for them if they agree with their entire manifesto. I am NOT making this up. Said book can be found for circa £20, and that is the best 20 quid you will ever spend on a book detailing the history of a far left groupuscule.

The Khmer Vert bottomed out at 3.13% in Gibraltar, with the people of the Rhonnda almost equally unimpressed at 3.38%. At the other end of the scale, they narrowly topped 20% in Islington, took 22.8% in Hackney, 24.9% in Norwich, 26.1% in Oxford and a bone-chilling 31.4% in Brighton. Hope all those Guardian readers / students etc enjoy year zero if it comes.

I *might* run some figures to discover the most left wing place in the UK later on.

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posted by Croydonian