Mark “Reckons” Thompson’s statistical analysis appears to show a correlation between seat safety and the likelihood that expenses will have been abused. Everyone’s quite rightly impressed by this, including Polly Toynbee and now Guido. First comment post-Guido link? “Ow my head hurts now.”Priceless.
I wish to sound a note of caution, however. We’re not quite at the point where we can say that this is now a fact to be deployed by people like Guido and Polly to support their arguments.
The sample size is taken from the hundred or so MPs that the Telegraph have covered so far. Expenses abuses don’t immediately leap off the page and announce themselves, so the the Telegraph has tackled the data in a very specific order: Biggest Names First.
They’ve apparently had a team of over 20 journalists working on the story full time (in full ‘research mode’). They’re not going to tackle the data in alphabetical order. They’re going to start with Cabinet members, then Shadow Cabinet members, big beasts, big names.
The thing about big names and cabinet members is that they’re more likely to be in safe seats than not. Could this be the real source of the bias towards ‘safe seats’ observed in the statistical analysis of the currently limited data sample?
The Telegraph have announced their intention to investigate every single MP and that’s important – it means that just because we haven’t heard about an MP doesn’t mean that they’re clean. There’s still something like 530 more MPs to go, the vast majority of which no-one’s ever heard of.
What will be interesting is to redo the statistical analysis once we know about all the MPs and the ‘Telegraph looking for big names first’ factor will have been neutralised. I still think what Mark’s done is amazing – it’s just not fact yet. To his credit he’s not yet claimed it is – but others are beginning to, and that worries me.
Constantly Furious said...
20 May 09 at 9:27 am
Nicely put, and you’re right. Guido’s link will ensure that within a couple of days, everyone will know that it’s a scientifically established fact that …
That’s teh Interwebs for you.
Stu said...
20 May 09 at 9:54 am
An interesting point – the link between these two factors is all the more compelling for being extremely intuitive. I had assumed the worst claimers would be the safest seat holders, as, I imagine, had many (part of the reason I was being harsh about the Lib Dems, in fact).
The problem is that we’re getting this information on The Telegraph’s schedule, and only the information that The Telegraph deigns to give us. As I was saying yesterday, if our friendly leak in the Fees Office had posted all these receipts on Wikileaks instead of selling them to The Telegraph, this kind of analysis would be far easier, more informed and quite possibly more accurate…
Letters From A Tory said...
20 May 09 at 10:09 am
Indeed. The Telegraph clearly has weeks worth of ammunition but has been fairly selective up till this point. No-one should assume for a second that we have or will ever have the full data set to work with.
Alix said...
20 May 09 at 11:08 am
I think what worries me even more is the rush to talk PR. There isn’t an existing mainstream public discourse on electoral reform yet, so I think people are kinda wiki-ing it before they write their pieces and PR comes out as the main event. If it happens that (a) someone critical writes some “shock expose” undermining the stat analysis – which as you say is completely possible – and (b) someone else critical writes some shock expose of how PR isn’t actually that hot after all, then the whole thing risks collapsing in on itself.
But that’s the trouble with narratives. Once you’ve kicked them off, you can’t slow them down.
Mark Reckons said...
20 May 09 at 11:42 am
I think CF and Alix are right that this has taken on a life of its own. That is the nature of the internet and I do not regret that it has done. I have caveated it all the way through and made several references to how more data would be useful.
Alix – I have been involved in the electoral reform movement for several years now (long before I joined the Lib Dems) and I am convinced that there is unlikely to be a better opportunity than the current political crisis in this political generation to get the argument for reform on the table. My findings here are just a small part of that but it has at least got some wider coverage and got people talking about it.
I could be wrong but I am sceptical that anyone will produce a “shock expose” that undermines what I have done because it is going to be very difficult to get an agreed methodology and way of cutting the data. I don’t think there will be a definitive rebuttal to that that proves what I did was objectively wrong. Everything is open to interpretation. The important thing from my perspective is as I said to get people talking about this and my initial findings have provoked that.
People have been writing pieces critical of PR for years. That won’t come as a shock when it continues to happen. A lot of people automatically seem to think that list systems will be used which is where a lot of the arguments against it come from. I personally advocate STV which has its problems but seems to me the least worst system as it maintains the constituency link (albeit multiple MPs in a larger constituency but that can be better in some ways) and gives proper power to the electorate to vote for who they really want, not the donkey in the redor blue rosette. That is why the Lib Dems, ERS, MVC etc. all support it. Supporters of STV need to be ready to make the case and I really feel that now is the time. If I have made a smidgen of progress towards this now being properly debated rather than stifled as always seems to happen then I will feel it has been a good few days work.
Charlotte Gore said...
20 May 09 at 12:09 pm
Mark, I’m more than happy that your analysis of the data we have is excellent.