Evidence-based policy-making? Don’t bet on it
If you’re going to have a bet this party conference season, take on an MP – that’s the obvious conclusion from an Ipsos Mori poll for the Royal Statistical Society, which suggests that our elected representatives are simply asking to be fleeced.
As part of its Parliamentary lobbying work, the RSS set a basic probability question for nearly 100 MPs. ‘If you spin a coin twice, what is the probability of getting two heads?’*
More than half of them got the answer wrong.
Average incomes from pensions are highest in the Conservative heartlands of the South of Britain, so this is where the pain would be felt if winter fuel allowances, free bus passes and free TV licences for pensioners were means-tested.
In this interactive map, parliamentary constituencies are grouped according to the taxpayers’ mean income from pensions. The constituencies are pooled into five equally-sized groups with those with the richest pensioners shaded darkest, and the poorest pensioners lightest. These can be compared with the party of the current MP for each area.
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Kate Allen works in the editorial statistics team in London. She previously specialised in housing data reporting for a national trade magazine.
Chris Cook works in the FT's comment team. After joining the FT in 2008 as a Peter Martin Fellow, he worked for two years as a leader writer and then as education correspondent.
Emily Cadman joined the FT in 2010 and is head of the interactive desk.
Martin Stabe works on the FT's interactive team, specialising in databases for interactive graphics.
Keith Fray heads the editorial statistics team, providing data for articles and graphics. His background is in economics, studying at Birkbeck College, London.
Norma Cohen is the FT's Demography Correspondent.
Valentina Romei is a statistical researcher at the FT. She joined the FT in 2008 after working both as an academic and market researcher.
