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Summary briefing on the Spending Review is out! commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

Time for some initial Spending Review analysis! As expected, this is a very health-centric Spending Review - most of the day-to-day spending increase goes there. Depending how you count it, 20 or so departments will have to share about £5 billion of the remaining increases.

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

It's out! Everything* you ever wanted to know about next week's Spending Review. *probably not everything commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

A little pope data for you all this fine morning. I like any dataset that goes back 2,000 years (although the chart only goes back to 1404). (Source: www.theguardian.com/news/datablo...)

submitted 43 days ago • 0 comments

Today in Baffling Web Design Decisions: what on earth is going on with Glasgow City Council's year selection for their council meetings calendar?

submitted 71 days ago • 1 comment

We've published a new short article on the aid cut (and defence spending increase) announced by the PM yesterday. commonslibrary.parliament.uk/uk-to-reduce...

submitted 115 days ago • 0 comments

Behold, a 91% rural local authority! (Why? Because the ONS defines "urban" as "within a built-up area which has a population of 10,000 or more", and "rural" as everything else. And in the 2021 Census, the City of London built-up area had a population of about 7,500.)

submitted 151 days ago • 0 comments

The big news from 2024 that I missed at the time: HM Treasury have finally changed the font in their "official forecasts for the UK economy" document so that capital letters no longer have little "horns". (First image from March this year, second one from December.)

submitted 180 days ago • 0 comments

Here are some National Park Facts (TM), occasioned by my having to look at the boundaries for something for work: FACT 1: The only non-contiguous National Park in Great Britain is Pembrokeshire Coast, which is divided into four main chunks and a few islands.

submitted 186 days ago • 1 comment

Quick chart showing just how extraordinary last week's Test was. There have only been six occasions - ever - where a Test side scored as many runs in their first innings as Pakistan did and then went on to lose the match.

submitted 250 days ago • 0 comments

Shall we explore together why Google's "AI Overviews" are, um, somewhat less than helpful when you're looking for something specific? 🧵 (1/n)

submitted 253 days ago • 1 comment

Really pleased to announce the launch of a thoroughly updated version of Locating London's Past: locatinglondon.org - new functionality, better mapping, cleaner data. @ihr.bsky.social @long18thsem.bsky.social @ihrhistorylab.bsky.social

submitted 262 days ago • 3 comments

Going through old Commons Journals for something, and this keeps popping up: before the Royal Assent Act 1967, the Commons had to go and physically attend in the Lords for any bill to be passed. As this entry from November 1921 shows, this was often right in the middle of other business.

submitted 263 days ago • 1 comment

RIP to the National Rail app, which has gone from a functional (if slightly clunky) experience to...literally just running the website inside an app container. Why, precisely, would anyone bother?

submitted 263 days ago • 0 comments

Two things to note from the FCDO's latest aid stats: 1) In cash terms, the UK's aid budget in 2023 was the largest it's ever been; 2) If spending on refugees within the UK didn't count under OECD rules, aid spending would be below 2013 levels. (Source: FCDO, www.gov.uk/government/c...)

submitted 267 days ago • 1 comment

In an interesting but otherwise fairly unremarkable article about the North Korean women's football team, this sentence just comes out of nowhere. (article for the curious: www.theguardian.com/football/202...)

submitted 268 days ago • 0 comments

If you had somehow invested in stamps in 1989, that investment would now be worth more than if you had invested in housing across the UK. (Sources: ONS series D7BT, HM Land Registry, priceofastamp.co.uk)

submitted 282 days ago • 0 comments

Just found this gloriously 90s cover on an old NAO report. I miss when the internet was this fresh and exciting thing. (Report comes from here, for reference: www.nao.org.uk/reports/gove...)

submitted 288 days ago • 0 comments

Almost every paragraph of this gets more and more bonkers. Excellent article.

submitted 298 days ago • 0 comments

Great example of the counterintuitive nature of inflation stats in this morning's release. The main rate is largely up because of gas prices, but not because they've gone up - they haven't! It's because they haven't gone down as fast as they did a year ago.

submitted 311 days ago • 0 comments

To give a little context to these pictures of Yusuf Dikec looking effortlessly cool: I used to shoot air pistol competitively, and there are really good reasons to kit yourself out like this. Short thread to follow...

submitted 323 days ago • 1 comment

In the latest round of "I can't believe there's data for that", it turns out that Redbridge is the animal carcass fly-tipping capital of England. (Source: Defra, Fly-tipping statistics for England, www.gov.uk/government/s...)

submitted 324 days ago • 0 comments

Couple of things in the UK public spending world to note from here in the Library - first is our new briefing on the Main Estimates, containing over a trillion pounds of spending and going through the Commons tomorrow... commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...

submitted 333 days ago • 1 comment

Important news from the State Opening of Parliament: the royal hat-on-a-stick is still present.

submitted 339 days ago • 0 comments

A minor point, but one you'd expect the BBC to get right: solemn affirmations were originally brought in for religious people who objected to swearing an oath (specifically Quakers), not non-believers.

submitted 347 days ago • 0 comments

Even after last week's election, you can still get from the Cotswolds to the Yorkshire Dales without ever leaving Conservative-held territory. (OK, to be fair you will have to swim across the Humber, because half the Humber Bridge is in the Labour-held Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice.)