Tag Archives: united kingdom

A History of Election Results in Britain

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The Road to No 10 is a rough one, full of potholes this year. And as everyone’s waiting for the results of the General Election 2010, there are still a few hours left to have a look at election results in retrospect. The following maps step back in history. On the first map we show a representation of the winning party in a constituency projected on a gridded population cartogram – click the map for a large version of the map:
Winners of the British General Election 2005 shown on a gridded population cartogramThe left of the following two maps shows the total number of (then winning) Labour votes in the 2010 election, projected onto the UK’s population cartogram and thus giving a clue of the relation of Labour support to the population distribution back in those days. The right map is an animation of all election results since 1832, with each circle representing one constituency (this map is a previous work of the Sasi Research Group).

Total numbers of Labour votes in the UK 2005 General Election
(click for larger view)
Results of the General Elections in Great Britain from 1832 to 2005
(click for larger view)

For those few undecided or those who are bored waiting for the results: Watch this talk on Tackling Social Inequality – Will your vote make a difference?

The content on this page has been created by Benjamin Hennig. Please contact me for further details on the terms of use.

Brits abroad

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Gordon Brown warned against ‘scaremongering’ over immigration today, but few has been said about those who leave the United Kingdom. For the BBC, the Sasi Research Group had a look at migration into Britain, and there has also been a feature on Brits abroad. These two dimensions assembled together give a quite good view on the patterns of the United Kingdom as a crossroad of migration flows, and questions, what we should be more worried about: Those that are coming, or perhaps those, that are leaving the country. In fact, in equal number to those arriving, Britains move abroad, and the countries linked to these flows are widespread. The following map shows an extract of these flows, that we recently mapped by using new flow mapping techniques (different to the choropleth maps at the BBC features):

Immigration and Emigration flows of the United Kingdom on a globe(view large map)

The following map draft shows the whole picture of these flows which are shown above:
Immigration and Emigration flows of the United Kingdom(view large map)

Please note that the maps are still a work-in-progress. Details on data and techniques, as well as better designed versions will be available when the work on it has been completed. These maps were also featured in a talk given at the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution: “Preparing for “Peak Population”: The United Kingdom within the world’s demographic change” (the full slides for this talk are available on Slideshare).
And also good to know: Ten reasons why migrants are not the problem.
The content on this page has been created by Benjamin Hennig. Please contact me for further details on the terms of use.

Angles, Saxons, Inequality, and Educational Mobility in England and Germany

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Good politics has always seen well-funded, public provision of education as a vital pathway to delivering the Good Society. This article draws on recent evidence from Germany and the UK to show that even in more equal societies, such as Germany, attention still needs to be paid by progressive politicians to education – in particular, the importance of non-elitist, comprehensive education systems for all, regardless of means.

Educational systems in England and Germany affect social inequalities in different ways. Social inequalities are narrower in Germany, but not thanks to German education systems. The English education system is highly discriminatory too, but it would be a mistake to believe that the German model is much better.
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  • Dorling, D. and Hennig, B. D. (2010). Angles, Saxons, Inequality, and Educational Mobility in England and Germany. Social Europe Journal.
    pdf icon Article as PDF ; Article online

    • Inequalities and Educational/Social Mobility

    The content on this page has been created by Benjamin Hennig. Please contact me for further details on the terms of use.