Back in 2017, I made an election model in Python which took manifesto statements from BBC’s website and anonymised them in order for you to state your agreement level for each statement independently. I’ve done the same for the upcoming 2019 UK general election, adding two new parties that have formed since the last election. The script takes a database of statements that I got from the BBC’s 2019 party comparison website, which provides a small set of key bullet […]
Back in 2010, I made an election model in Excel which took manifesto statements from BBC’s website and anonymised them in order for you to state your agreement level for each statement independently. I wanted to do the same for the upcoming general election. Given that I have (slightly) better computing skills these days, I created a very simple Python script this time. The script takes a database of statements that I got from the BBC’s 2017 party comparison website, […]
Elections and voting have been on people’s minds this year. Most of us are familiar with the ‘first-past-the-post’ system that is employed in many countries for general elections – the person with the most votes wins in a given constituency, no matter how large or small the margin. Of course, there is no one best voting mechanism. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. The question is often ‘which bad scenarios are we willing to tolerate in a society?’ Let’s […]
Earlier today, my mail slot was rather firmly penetrated by this wonder of wonders. “Stop!”, it commanded. Apparently the Prime Minister is destroying Britain’s families! As you can imagine, I was quite alarmed by this. After all, we all come from some sort of family, no matter how broken. I wouldn’t like to think that there would be more breakage. I read on, wanting to know exactly how this destruction would be caused. Supposedly, it’s down to same sex marriage […]
I’m sure you know that next Thursday, the UK is going to have a general election. And I’m also pretty sure that you’re sick of hearing about it all over the media. Random interviews with MPs spewing out generic garbage litter the news channels. It’s worse than a playground squabble. Something that is as important as you helping to decide the future of the UK has, as usual, been trivialised into some X Factor-esque popularity contest. I know what my […]