@JamesAALongman: Conflicting reports over an attack at Nimes train station. Worth pointing out a Barcelona attacker is still on the loose - and it's not far
If my French is to be trusted, now being reported as False alarm by Prefet. (At least the gunfire bit).
Re Cricket, now Afghanistan and Ireland have been admitted, should we not be looking at 2 divisions? This kind of game is no good for the Windies, England (apart from the averages), or the ECB.
Incredible to see how similar the records of Botham and Broad are. More matches for Broad, but almost the same number of deliveries, same number of runs, same number of wickets, same economy, same strike right and same average.
But Botham was of course a much better batsman and fielder.
As free speech campaigners and counter-protesters gathered in Boston for the latest potential flashpoint on Saturday, officers said they were worried militants were armed with acid.
“We think it’s what they had in Charlottesville,” said one policeman, dressed all in black and equipped with a body camera, referring to violence last weekend in Virginia. “They are using hydrochloric acid or battery acid.
A law enforcement official told the Boston Globe that officers were investigating reports that radical counter-protesters were planning to throw acid.
Theresa May’s Brexit strategy has been thrown into new doubt as a former head of the government’s legal services ridicules the prime minister’s claim that the UK can break free of all European laws while continuing to reap the economic benefits of the EU’s single market.
Sir Paul Jenkins, who was the government’s most senior legal official for eight years until 2014, told the Observer that the prime minister’s policy on the legal implications of Brexit was “foolish”. He insisted that if the UK wants to retain close links with the single market and customs union it will have no option but to observe EU law “in all but name”.
The comments – backed by several other leading experts on EU law – cast serious doubt on the central plank of the government’s latest thinking on Brexit, with less than two weeks to go before Brexit secretary David Davis enters a crucial phase of talks on the exit plans in Brussels.
Or even more so prevent a Tory government stopping them inheriting their parents houses if they got dementia and needed personal care
It's bizarre to be so sure of the meaning of an election which virtually nobody got close to predicting right beforehand.
The polling evidence is there, the big fall in the Tory lead came after the Tory manifesto was published containing the dementia tax. By contrast Cameron got one of his biggest poll bounces after Osborne promised to raise the inheritance tax threshold to £1 million
The polling evidence can be interpreted however you want to rationalise it. It's reading entrails. People who spend 99% of their time talking about American wrestling on twitter predicted it closer than the polling companies. The manifesto impacted on the shifting moods but it's ludicrous to look at the results and say something like 'people wanted a Tory government but to prevent a hard Brexit Tory landslide'. All we know is that certain percentages stuck their crosses in certain boxes for reasons obscure probably even to themselves.
The Tory lead at least halved in virtually every poll after the dementia tax plans were published, that was what lost May her majority (along perhaps with ending free school lunches and scrapping the triple lock and means testing winter fuel allowance).
... and wasting breath on the distractions of foxhunting and grammar schools; and failing to turn up to the debates. Apart from that though...
Cameron backed a free vote on fox hunting, a plurality of voters backed more grammars and a majority of Tory voters did so. Neither issue hit the Tory voteshare like the dementia tax, staunch anti fox hunting or anti grammar voters were almost all Labour or LD voters anyway
Yes - fair point. Still looked a bit daft to the swing voters though, to give airtime to these, especially a special interest topic like fox-hunting, given how time-consuming people are being told Brexit will be for parliament.
I don't disagree but it was the dementia tax which did the most damage
It was certainly handled extemely poorly but ironically from my perspective it was one of the few things the Tories announced that I had some sympathy with - social care is a problem that needs addressing for sure.
And Labour and the LDs just scored cheap points in a shabby way over it. Net result: social care kicked into the long grass and even harder to tackle next time!
As free speech campaigners and counter-protesters gathered in Boston for the latest potential flashpoint on Saturday, officers said they were worried militants were armed with acid.
“We think it’s what they had in Charlottesville,” said one policeman, dressed all in black and equipped with a body camera, referring to violence last weekend in Virginia. “They are using hydrochloric acid or battery acid.
A law enforcement official told the Boston Globe that officers were investigating reports that radical counter-protesters were planning to throw acid.
"Small data set", "fooled by randomness", "faces in the clouds" yeah yeah. I get the point. But I think you're all being far too dismissive too quickly.
We all tend to fight the last war. If so, this kind of alternating pattern may indeed be meaningful and expected. We shouldn't benchmark our expectations by our most recent experience. But we do.
Labour's successful ground campaign in 2017 is likely to mean that punters in 2022 (or whenever) will guess that Labour will again be particularly effective in turning out its vote where it counts. The blogposts and the op-eds will write themselves. I'll probably be writing some of them, to be honest. Please quote this post back to me if and when I do.
Yes, plus if you failed to vote for Corbyn in 2017 why should you do so in 2019 or 2020 or 2022? He has already maxed out the student, public sector and city vote
Who knows what the government might do to push more people Labour's way by the next election. If Brexit is the mess some peopke are saying especially... The 2017 vote was neither a ceiling nor a floor, we don't know what it was.
If you voted Tory in 2017 you were not only very likely to have voted Leave but also to be ideologically committed to seeing Brexit through. Corbyn needs to win 2017 Tory voters to get an overall majority
Not necessarily. Corbyn could do that, but there are many other routes to power. Labour could further squeeze the LDs and Greens in target seats. They could recruit more former kippers who want a protectionist workers Brexit. They could motivate more non voters to vote or demotivate existing Tory voters to not turn out. They could sweep up the Scottish seats as the SNP fade further. PB Tories seem very complacent about being resurgent, just months after a Tory election debacle.
My interpretation of Mike's SPIN barchart is that political bettors are not very good at predicting election results accurately. Better or worse than the polls? I haven't done those sums, but there doesn't seem to be much in it, perhaps because punters bet on polls...
Agreed re Corbyn's possible routes to power. You could also add: Labour may get some benefit from the current 14-17 year olds replacing a similar cohort of older voters. The influence of the right-wing press will continue to decline as circulation falls. Labour do not need to demotivate Tories from voting; the Conservative party will do that themselves if the next 5 years go badly.
Isn't it funny that old people have been dying continually for ever so long and yet most still vote Tory. it's a puzzle!
Or even more so prevent a Tory government stopping them inheriting their parents houses if they got dementia and needed personal care
It's bizarre to be so sure of the meaning of an election which virtually nobody got close to predicting right beforehand.
The polling evidence is there, the big fall in the Tory lead came after the Tory manifesto was published containing the dementia tax. By contrast Cameron got one of his biggest poll bounces after Osborne promised to raise the inheritance tax threshold to £1 million
.
The Tory lead at least halved in virtually every poll after the dementia tax plans were published, that was what lost May her majority (along perhaps with ending free school lunches and scrapping the triple lock and means testing winter fuel allowance).
... and wasting breath on the distractions of foxhunting and grammar schools; and failing to turn up to the debates. Apart from that though...
Cameron backed a free vote on fox hunting, a plurality of voters backed more grammars and a majority of Tory voters did so. Neither issue hit the Tory voteshare like the dementia tax, staunch anti fox hunting or anti grammar voters were almost all Labour or LD voters anyway
Yes - fair point. Still looked a bit daft to the swing voters though, to give airtime to these, especially a special interest topic like fox-hunting, given how time-consuming people are being told Brexit will be for parliament.
I don't disagree but it was the dementia tax which did the most damage
It was certainly handled extemely poorly but ironically from my perspective it was one of the few things the Tories announced that I had some sympathy with - social care is a problem that needs addressing for sure.
And Labour and the LDs just scored cheap points in a shabby way over it. Net result: social care kicked into the long grass and even harder to tackle next time!
That and the quasi-religious attitude to the NHS generally in the UK is why the shambles will continue. Ironic because it's a pretty good service on a par just about with most of the rest of Europe. however, it is far from perfect and also need reform as well as resources.
"Small data set", "fooled by randomness", "faces in the clouds" yeah yeah. I get the point. But I think you're all being far too dismissive too quickly.
We all tend to fight the last war. If so, this kind of alternating pattern may indeed be meaningful and expected. We shouldn't benchmark our expectations by our most recent experience. But we do.
l probably be writing some of them, to be honest. Please quote this post back to me if and when I do.
Yes, plus if you failed to vote for Corbyn in 2017 why should you do so in 2019 or 2020 or 2022? He has already maxed out the student, public sector and city vote
Who knows what the government might do to push more people Labour's way by the next election. If Brexit is the mess some peopke are saying especially... The 2017 vote was neither a ceiling nor a floor, we don't know what it was.
If you voted Tory in 2017 you were not only very likely to have voted Leave but also to be ideologically committed to seeing Brexit through. Corbyn needs to win 2017 Tory voters to get an overall majority
Not necessarily. Corbyn could do that, but there are many other routes to power. Labour could further squeeze the LDs and Greens in target seats. They could recruit more former kippers who want a protectionist workers Brexit. They could motivate more non voters to vote or demotivate existing Tory voters to not turn out. They could sweep up the Scottish seats as the SNP fade further. PB Tories seem very complacent about being resurgent, just months after a Tory election debacle.
My interpretation of Mike's SPIN barchart is that political bettors are not very good at predicting election results accurately. Better or worse than the polls? I haven't done those sums, but there doesn't seem to be much in it, perhaps because punters bet on polls...
Agreed re Corbyn's possible routes to power. You could also add: Labour may get some benefit from the current 14-17 year olds replacing a similar cohort of older voters. The influence of the right-wing press will continue to decline as circulation falls. Labour do not need to demotivate Tories from voting; the Conservative party will do that themselves if the next 5 years go badly.
Isn't it funny that old people have been dying continually for ever so long and yet most still vote Tory. it's a puzzle!
It is indeed a strange theory, ususally presented as axiomatic but without evidence, that the public must become both more left wing and more pro-EU simply as the result of the passage of time.
l probably be writing some of them, to be honest. Please quote this post back to me if and when I do.
Yes, plus if you failed to vote for Corbyn in 2017 why should you do so in 2019 or 2020 or 2022? He has already maxed out the student, public sector and city vote
Who knows what the government might do to push more people Labour's way by the next election. If Brexit is the mess some peopke are saying especially... The 2017 vote was neither a ceiling nor a floor, we don't know what it was.
If you voted Tory in 2017 you were not only very likely to have voted Leave but also to be ideologically committed to seeing Brexit through. Corbyn needs to win 2017 Tory voters to get an overall majority
Not necessarily. Corbyn could do that, but there are many other routes to power. Labour could further squeeze the LDs and Greens in target seats. They could recruit more former kippers who want a protectionist workers Brexit. They could motivate more non voters to vote or demotivate existing Tory voters to not turn out. They could sweep up the Scottish seats as the SNP fade further. PB Tories seem very complacent about being resurgent, just months after a Tory election debacle.
My interpretation of Mike's SPIN barchart is that political bettors are not very good at predicting election results accurately. Better or worse than the polls? I haven't done those sums, but there doesn't seem to be much in it, perhaps because punters bet on polls...
Agreed re Corbyn's possible routes to power. You could also add: Labour may get some benefit from the current 14-17 year olds replacing a similar cohort of older voters. The influence of the right-wing press will continue to decline as circulation falls. Labour do not need to demotivate Tories from voting; the Conservative party will do that themselves if the next 5 years go badly.
Isn't it funny that old people have been dying continually for ever so long and yet most still vote Tory. it's a puzzle!
It is indeed a strange theory, ususally presented as axiomatic but without evidence, that the public must become both more left wing and more pro-EU simply as the result of the passage of time.
Well, in fairness, I only said "Labour may get some benefit...".
I guess your and Felix's point is that the Tories will get benefit of people becoming more conservative (and Conservative) as they older, which I agree is a counter-factor.
l probably be writing some of them, to be honest. Please quote this post back to me if and when I do.
Yes, plus if you failed to vote for Corbyn in 2017 why should you do so in 2019 or 2020 or 2022? He has already maxed out the student, public sector and city vote
Who knows what the government might do to push more people Labour's way by the next election. If Brexit is the mess some peopke are saying especially... The 2017 vote was neither a ceiling nor a floor, we don't know what it was.
If you voted Tory in 2017 you were not only very likely to have voted Leave but also to be ideologically committed to seeing Brexit through. Corbyn needs to win 2017 Tory voters to get an overall majority
My interpretation of Mike's SPIN barchart is that political bettors are not very good at predicting election results accurately. Better or worse than the polls? I haven't done those sums, but there doesn't seem to be much in it, perhaps because punters bet on polls...
Agreed re Corbyn's possible routes to power. You could also add: Labour may get some benefit from the current 14-17 year olds replacing a similar cohort of older voters. The influence of the right-wing press will continue to decline as circulation falls. Labour do not need to demotivate Tories from voting; the Conservative party will do that themselves if the next 5 years go badly.
Isn't it funny that old people have been dying continually for ever so long and yet most still vote Tory. it's a puzzle!
It is indeed a strange theory, ususally presented as axiomatic but without evidence, that the public must become both more left wing and more pro-EU simply as the result of the passage of time.
Well, in fairness, I only said "Labour may get some benefit...".
I guess your and Felix's point is that the Tories will get benefit of people becoming more conservative (and Conservative) as they older, which I agree is a counter-factor.
Its interesting that the 1980s success and now decline in the West Indies cricket team has been mirrored by the 1980s success and now decline in the number of British cricketers of West Indian background.
There was once a theory the decline in West Indies cricket began with its removal from terrestrial television and its replacement by basketball.
Or even more so prevent a Tory government stopping them inheriting their parents houses if they got dementia and needed personal care
It's bizarre to be so sure of the meaning of an election which virtually nobody got close to predicting right beforehand.
.
... and wasting breath on the distractions of foxhunting and grammar schools; and failing to turn up to the debates. Apart from that though...
Cameron backed a free vote on fox hunting, a plurality of voters backed more grammars and a majority of Tory voters did so. Neither issue hit the Tory voteshare like the dementia tax, staunch anti fox hunting or anti grammar voters were almost all Labour or LD voters anyway
Yes - fair point. Still looked a bit daft to the swing voters though, to give airtime to these, especially a special interest topic like fox-hunting, given how time-consuming people are being told Brexit will be for parliament.
I don't disagree but it was the dementia tax which did the most damage
It was certainly handled extemely poorly but ironically from my perspective it was one of the few things the Tories announced that I had some sympathy with - social care is a problem that needs addressing for sure.
And Labour and the LDs just scored cheap points in a shabby way over it. Net result: social care kicked into the long grass and even harder to tackle next time!
That and the quasi-religious attitude to the NHS generally in the UK is why the shambles will continue. Ironic because it's a pretty good service on a par just about with most of the rest of Europe. however, it is far from perfect and also need reform as well as resources.
Agreed, the NHS is a good service and actually very good value for money for the country.
It's far from perfect of course but there has been too much political interference in the guise of 'reform' from both Labour and Conservative governments in recent years.
We should try to find a way to keep politicians at arms length from its running imo - the way the BoE is has a degree of independence but some very clear goals to meet and parameters to work within, set by the government.
l probably be writing some of them, to be honest. Please quote this post back to me if and when I do.
Yes, plus if you failed to vote for Corbyn in 2017 why should you do so in 2019 or 2020 or 2022? He has already maxed out the student, public sector and city vote
Who knows what the government might do to push more people Labour's way by the next election. If Brexit is the mess some peopke are saying especially... The 2017 vote was neither a ceiling nor a floor, we don't know what it was.
If you voted Tory in 2017 you were not only very likely to have voted Leave but also to be ideologically committed to seeing Brexit through. Corbyn needs to win 2017 Tory voters to get an overall majority
My interpretation of Mike's SPIN barchart is that political bettors are not very good at predicting election results accurately. Better or worse than the polls? I haven't done those sums, but there doesn't seem to be much in it, perhaps because punters bet on polls...
Agreed re Corbyn's possible routes to power. You could also add: Labour may get some benefit from the current 14-17 year olds replacing a similar cohort of older voters. The influence of the right-wing press will continue to decline as circulation falls. Labour do not need to demotivate Tories from voting; the Conservative party will do that themselves if the next 5 years go badly.
Isn't it funny that old people have been dying continually for ever so long and yet most still vote Tory. it's a puzzle!
It is indeed a strange theory, ususally presented as axiomatic but without evidence, that the public must become both more left wing and more pro-EU simply as the result of the passage of time.
Well, in fairness, I only said "Labour may get some benefit...".
I guess your and Felix's point is that the Tories will get benefit of people becoming more conservative (and Conservative) as they older, which I agree is a counter-factor.
Demanding? Demanding? How was this demand expressed? "Give us what we want otherwise we'l leave!" "But you're already leaving!" "Well, we'll leave faster!!"
Demanding? Demanding? How was this demand expressed? "Give us what we want otherwise we'l leave!" "But you're already leaving!" "Well, we'll leave faster!!"
Look, we show johnny foreigner a bit of British steel and theyll do what we say.
This is one of the aims of terrorism of course, to make all sorts of aspects of ordinary life, like hiring a care, much more difficult and onerous. They know the new rules will have to be enforced equally against everyone because if they're just targeted at certain types of people there'll be accusations of bias and discrimination. So, for example, a 60 year old woman trying to hire a care in future will have to wait twice as long while all sorts of security checks are processed.
Demanding? Demanding? How was this demand expressed? "Give us what we want otherwise we'l leave!" "But you're already leaving!" "Well, we'll leave faster!!"
Look, we show johnny foreigner a bit of British steel and theyll do what we say.
No Brexit news on the front page of the Telegraph. The story can't be targeted at the Tory right.
Not quite true. They're fixing Big Ben so it can go BONG at the hour of Brexit. So that's it all sorted. We don't need a trade deal or anything like that.
This is one of the aims of terrorism of course, to make all sorts of aspects of ordinary life, like hiring a care, much more difficult and onerous. They know the new rules will have to be enforced equally against everyone because if they're just targeted at certain types of people there'll be accusations of bias and discrimination. So, for example, a 60 year old woman trying to hire a care in future will have to wait twice as long while all sorts of security checks are processed.
FFS. Any MP whinging about Big Ben hopefully loses their seat next election. What a waste of time
No Brexit news on the front page of the Telegraph. The story can't be targeted at the Tory right.
Not quite true. They're fixing Big Ben so it can go BONG at the hour of Brexit. So that's it all sorted. We don't need a trade deal or anything like that.
Have you seen the real embargoed story? The announcement that we're going to hit the EU with a wave of two position papers that had already been announced previously.
As OGH says, "the pattern seems clear". And since previous results are clearly likely to affect gamblers' expectations of future results, it seems likely there'd be some autocorrelation. In fact the "fighting the last war" effect, particularly the way it applies to polling methodologies, means many of us would hypothesise negative autocorrelation even before seeing the data.
"The data supporting the hypothesis rather than the hypothesis being constructed from the data" would obviously be a more convincing argument if we'd all taken guesses as to what the chart would look like first, but I'm not convinced this is mere pareidolia.
On the other hand, it's a very small data set and the problem with that is the lack of statistical power to discern between competing, plausible hypotheses - the data might well be consistent with a large "making the opposite mistake" effect, yet also consistent with completely random variation. Even if OGH is correct and the effect is both genuine and sizable, it may be statistically undetectable.
Well that is intriguing. (I've always found it funny that you tell R to do a Ljung-Box test and it'll tell you it's done a Box-Ljung test, but I'm talking about the chi-squared statistic and its p-value.) Depending on one's philosophy in these matters, that result might be described as "marginally" statistically significant (i.e. "maybe OGH is right"). Or more bluntly, not significant at the 5% level - fail to reject the null hypothesis of zero autocorrelation (i.e. "no convincing evidence here that OGH isn't being fooled by randomness").
Of course, OGH may be indulging in a spot of p-hacking if he artificially selected 2001 as the starting point because 1997 didn't fit the theory...
Demanding? Demanding? How was this demand expressed? "Give us what we want otherwise we'l leave!" "But you're already leaving!" "Well, we'll leave faster!!"
No. The UK simply has to say it will not negotiate further on any other issues unless the trade negotiations are started. It is a perfectly reasonable position to take given that many of the non trade issues cannot be resolved in isolation from the trade agreement.
Demanding? Demanding? How was this demand expressed? "Give us what we want otherwise we'l leave!" "But you're already leaving!" "Well, we'll leave faster!!"
No. The UK simply has to say it will not negotiate further on any other issues unless the trade negotiations are started. It is a perfectly reasonable position to take given that many of the non trade issues cannot be resolved in isolation from the trade agreement.
Fair point. But the *wording* of the article was stupid. Consider:
"In a warning shot to Brussels, senior Whitehall sources have told this newspaper that the Continent will be to blame for trade disruption unless they agree to widen talks."
"Warning shot?". Did they follow it up by "Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough"? These are pudgy civil servants, not hard bastards.
I've coined the term "failing and blaming" for those who think that lack of success is acceptable provided the EU cam be blamed for it. The strong formulation of this stance refers to those (not you, btw) who would actively prefer to fail in order to further blame the EU. The stance of the article made me think of the latter, hence my post.
Seeing as you're both up, I have some questions. From Sep 22nd I'll be getting R work from the company's new Advanced Analytics department. Which is a problem cos I don't know R (tho I did do S-plus in the mid-Noughties). I'm buying a laptop for the larning of R so I can be sophisticated like you city-folk, but I'm cheap so I'm shopping around. I've got my eye on a second hand lenovo thinkpad l450 with 8gb ram and 128ssd at £200. Will this be a good buy or will all the schoolkids laugh at me for having five channels?
Demanding? Demanding? How was this demand expressed? "Give us what we want otherwise we'l leave!" "But you're already leaving!" "Well, we'll leave faster!!"
No. The UK simply has to say it will not negotiate further on any other issues unless the trade negotiations are started. It is a perfectly reasonable position to take given that many of the non trade issues cannot be resolved in isolation from the trade agreement.
Fair point. But the *wording* of the article was stupid. Consider:
"In a warning shot to Brussels, senior Whitehall sources have told this newspaper that the Continent will be to blame for trade disruption unless they agree to widen talks."
"Warning shot?". Did they follow it up by "Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough"? These are pudgy civil servants, not hard bastards.
I've coined the term "failing and blaming" for those who think that lack of success is acceptable provided the EU cam be blamed for it. The strong formulation of this stance refers to those (not you, btw) who would actively prefer to fail in order to further blame the EU. The stance of the article made me think of the latter, hence my post.
I think as always it is important to distinguish between the actual intentions of the negotiators and the idiotic reporting of the journalists who seem to think the slant is more important than the facts..
Comments
* For the guests, looks around to check where Mrs Urquhart is...
Edit - appears indy, mail etc might have twattered fake news.
Re Cricket, now Afghanistan and Ireland have been admitted, should we not be looking at 2 divisions? This kind of game is no good for the Windies, England (apart from the averages), or the ECB.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/page2/content/story/420217.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4803642/Dashed-hopes-Rio-2016-s-lasting-legacy.html
“We think it’s what they had in Charlottesville,” said one policeman, dressed all in black and equipped with a body camera, referring to violence last weekend in Virginia. “They are using hydrochloric acid or battery acid.
A law enforcement official told the Boston Globe that officers were investigating reports that radical counter-protesters were planning to throw acid.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/19/us-police-fear-radical-counter-protesters-will-use-acid-attacks/
Sir Paul Jenkins, who was the government’s most senior legal official for eight years until 2014, told the Observer that the prime minister’s policy on the legal implications of Brexit was “foolish”. He insisted that if the UK wants to retain close links with the single market and customs union it will have no option but to observe EU law “in all but name”.
The comments – backed by several other leading experts on EU law – cast serious doubt on the central plank of the government’s latest thinking on Brexit, with less than two weeks to go before Brexit secretary David Davis enters a crucial phase of talks on the exit plans in Brussels.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/aug/19/brexit-european-court-of-justice-theresa-may-foolish-attack
And Labour and the LDs just scored cheap points in a shabby way over it. Net result: social care kicked into the long grass and even harder to tackle next time!
I guess your and Felix's point is that the Tories will get benefit of people becoming more conservative (and Conservative) as they older, which I agree is a counter-factor.
It's not affected me personally yet though!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/19/venezuela-crisis-deepens-maduro-strips-opposition-held-parliament-power
It's far from perfect of course but there has been too much political interference in the guise of 'reform' from both Labour and Conservative governments in recent years.
We should try to find a way to keep politicians at arms length from its running imo - the way the BoE is has a degree of independence but some very clear goals to meet and parameters to work within, set by the government.
Did anyone work out what this is yet? Is it safe to go to bed without knowing?
https://twitter.com/HadiNili/status/898782808583282689
https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/899044066452799488
As in Spain and previously Germany
"The policy of austerity was a blunt mistake."
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/comment/article-4805656/Brexit-t-cure-self-ills-says-SIMON-WATKINS.html
Corbyn has won the argument.
"The data supporting the hypothesis rather than the hypothesis being constructed from the data" would obviously be a more convincing argument if we'd all taken guesses as to what the chart would look like first, but I'm not convinced this is mere pareidolia.
On the other hand, it's a very small data set and the problem with that is the lack of statistical power to discern between competing, plausible hypotheses - the data might well be consistent with a large "making the opposite mistake" effect, yet also consistent with completely random variation. Even if OGH is correct and the effect is both genuine and sizable, it may be statistically undetectable.
Okay. R time.
> seats <- c(-20, 8, -16, 32, -44)
> Box.test(seats, lag=1, type="Ljung-Box")
Box-Ljung test
data: seats
X-squared = 3.3532, df = 1, p-value = 0.06708
Well that is intriguing. (I've always found it funny that you tell R to do a Ljung-Box test and it'll tell you it's done a Box-Ljung test, but I'm talking about the chi-squared statistic and its p-value.) Depending on one's philosophy in these matters, that result might be described as "marginally" statistically significant (i.e. "maybe OGH is right"). Or more bluntly, not significant at the 5% level - fail to reject the null hypothesis of zero autocorrelation (i.e. "no convincing evidence here that OGH isn't being fooled by randomness").
Of course, OGH may be indulging in a spot of p-hacking if he artificially selected 2001 as the starting point because 1997 didn't fit the theory...
"In a warning shot to Brussels, senior Whitehall sources have told this newspaper that the Continent will be to blame for trade disruption unless they agree to widen talks."
"Warning shot?". Did they follow it up by "Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough"? These are pudgy civil servants, not hard bastards.
I've coined the term "failing and blaming" for those who think that lack of success is acceptable provided the EU cam be blamed for it. The strong formulation of this stance refers to those (not you, btw) who would actively prefer to fail in order to further blame the EU. The stance of the article made me think of the latter, hence my post.
Seeing as you're both up, I have some questions. From Sep 22nd I'll be getting R work from the company's new Advanced Analytics department. Which is a problem cos I don't know R (tho I did do S-plus in the mid-Noughties). I'm buying a laptop for the larning of R so I can be sophisticated like you city-folk, but I'm cheap so I'm shopping around. I've got my eye on a second hand lenovo thinkpad l450 with 8gb ram and 128ssd at £200. Will this be a good buy or will all the schoolkids laugh at me for having five channels?