Brilliant video by Nina Paley on the tragedy and absurdity of armed conflict…
Follow @telescoper
Archive for the Politics Category
This Land is Mine
Posted in Art, History, Politics with tags Nina Paley, Palestine, This Land is Mine on July 11, 2014 by telescoperUncertain Attitudes
Posted in Bad Statistics, Politics with tags binomial distribution, British Social Attitudes Survey, racism, sampling uncertainty, statistics on May 28, 2014 by telescoperIt’s been a while since I posted anything in the bad statistics file, but an article in today’s Grauniad has now given me an opportunity to rectify that omission.
The piece concerned, entitled Racism on the rise in Britain is based on some new data from the British Social Attitudes survey; the full report can be found here (PDF). The main result is shown in this graph:
The version of this plot shown in the Guardian piece has the smoothed long-term trend (the blue curve, based on a five-year moving average of the data and clearly generally downward since 1986) removed.
In any case the report, as is sadly almost always the case in surveys of this kind, neglects any mention of the statistical uncertainty in the survey. In fact the last point is based on a sample of 2149 respondents. Suppose the fraction of the population describing themselves as having some prejudice is 
However, a little bit of mathematics involving the binomial distribution yields an answer for the uncertainty in this estimate of p in terms of the sampling error:
For the sample size given, and a value 
I don’t know whether racial prejudice is on the rise in the UK or not, nor even how accurately such attitudes are measured by such surveys in the first place, but there’s no evidence in these data of any significant change over the past year. Given the behaviour of the smoothed data however, there is evidence that in the very long term the fraction of population identifying themselves as prejudiced is actually falling.
Newspapers however rarely let proper statistics get in the way of a good story, even to the extent of removing evidence that contradicts their own prejudice.
Follow @telescoperWhat Nigel Farage did not say on beards
Posted in Beards, Politics with tags beards, Elections, Politics, UKIP on May 26, 2014 by telescoperIn the aftermath of yesterday’s European election results, the great political question of the day is where precisely does UKIP stand on facial hair?
What Nigel Farage did not say on beards
UKIP leader Nigel Farage who is perpetually clean shaven is very probably a pogonophobe although as the equally perpetually hirsute Michael Rosen has pointed out to me, UKIP has some supporters with beards.
Accuracy on matters UKIP is not easy to achieve. The party itself is an unreliable guide and the BBC guided by the follicly challenged Nick Robinson isn’t much better.
However at the end of the week which saw a supposed quote from Farage about Muslims and beards to the effect that either the beard went or the wearer did and that beards should be no more than two inches in length achieve wide currency, a small attempt at accuracy can surely do no harm.
There is no absolute proof that Farage did not make these remarks. He has not denied them despite opportunities to do so
It is however…
View original post 198 more words
EUROPE’S NEW FAULTLINE
Posted in Politics with tags European Elections, polittics, UKIP on May 23, 2014 by telescoperPerceptive analysis of the rise of UKIP et al….
The Front National is expected to win next week’s European election in France; UKIP may well do so in Britain. Both parties combine a visceral hostility to immigration with an acerbic loathing of the EU, a virulent nationalism and deeply conservative views on social issues such as gay marriage and women’s rights. The problems that such parties pose for mainstream politics goes, however, far beyond the odiousness of their policies. What their success expresses is the redrawing of the political map in Europe, and in ways in which mainstream parties often do not understand. The new populists seem to thrive on different political rules to mainstream parties.
Take UKIP. The electoral threat it poses to both Tory and Labour has in recent weeks led to a fierce assault from mainstream politicians of all hues and from the media. UKIP leader Nigel Farage has been accused of misusing his expenses and…
View original post 1,527 more words
Your Chance to Influence UK Government Investment in Science
Posted in Education, Finance, Politics, Science Politics with tags BIS, Capital, consultation, Department of Business Innovation and Skills, HEFCE on May 4, 2014 by telescoperA recent piece of bloggery by esteemed Professor Jon Butterworth 0f the Grauniad reminded me that an important government consultation has just opened. In fact it opened on 25th April, but I neglected to post about it then as I was on my Easter break. I’m now passing it on to you via this blog, by way of a sort of community service.
Anyway, the consultation, which is being adminstered through the Department of Business Innovation and Skills, can be found here; there’s a large (110 page) document as well as information on how to respond. Basically about £5.8 billion in capital expenditure has been set aside for science research, and the government is asking how it should be divvied up. Such funds could be used to build big ticket items such as new telescopes, particle accelerators, lasers or other infrastructure including new laboratory buildings. It has to be capital, though, which means it can’t be used on staffing for such facilities that are funded. You might argue that this is a weakness (because ultimately science is done by people not by facilities) but, on the other hand if the government stumps up additional money for capital that might free up funds for more people to be employed.
Anyway, do read the consultation document and submit your responses. You could do a lot worse than reading Jon Butterworth’s commentary on it too. The deadline is some way off, July 4th to be exact, but this is very important so you should all get your thinking caps on right away.
One thing I’ll be including in my response concerns funding for university laboratories. The funding body responsible for English universities, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), is currently underfunding STEM subjects across the country. I’ve blogged about this before so I won’t repeat the argument in detail, but severe reductions in the unit of resource applied to laboratory-based subjects have meant that the new tuition fee regime does not provide anything like sufficient income to cover the costs of, say, physics undergraduate teaching. All students pay a flat-rate fee of £9K across all disciplines (including arts, humanities and science subjects) but science subjects only get £1.4K per student on top of this. The withdrawal of capital allowances has also made it very difficult for universities to invest in teaching laboratory space.
The cost of educating a physics student is actually about twice that of educating a student of, say, English, so this differential acts as a deterrent for universities to expand STEM disciplines. Shortage of teaching laboratory space is a major factor limiting the intake of students in these areas, whereas other disciplines are able to grow without restriction.
So my vote will go for a sizeable chunk of the £5.8 billion capital to be allocated to improving, refurbishing, expanding and building new teaching laboratories across all STEM disciplines to train the next generation of scientists and engineers that will be vital to sustain the UK’s economic recovery.
I’d be interested in people’s views about other aspects of the consultation (e.g. what big new facilities should be prioritized). Please therefore feel free to use the comment box, but not as a substitute for participating in the actual consultation.
Over to you!
Follow @telescoper
On the Birth of his Son
Posted in Poetry, Politics with tags Su Dong-po, Su Shi, Sung Dynasty on May 2, 2014 by telescoperFamilies, when a child is born
Want it to be intelligent.
I, through intelligence,
Having wrecked my whole life,
Only hope the baby will prove
Ignorant and stupid.
Then he will crown a tranquil life
By becoming a Cabinet Minister.
by Su Shi (1037-1101); he is generally viewed as the greatest poet of the Sung dynasty in China and was also known as Su Dong-po or Si Tung-p’0.
Follow @telescoper
On the Buses in Brighton and Cardiff
Posted in Biographical, Politics with tags Brighton & Hove Bus Company, Cardiff Bus, Caroline Lucas, University of Sussex Student's Union on May 2, 2014 by telescoperRecently there was an Emergency General Meeting of the University of Sussex Student Union to discuss rises in bus fares in Brighton & Hove. I was a bit surprised at this because, although the prices charged by the Brighton & Hove Bus Company did go up on 13th April, they seemed to me to be quite cheap, at least given the general cost of living in Brighton. I should add that I use the bus every day to travel to and from work.
Caroline Lucas (MP for Brighton Pavilion) chipped in to say that the fare rise justified Green Party policy of taking buses back under the control of local councils. Given the disastrous management of Brighton & Hove’s Recycling and Refuse operation by Mrs Lucas’ colleagues in Brighton & Hove Council, I think the least said about that idea the better.
Anyway, out of interest, I decided to check the relative prices of bus tickets in Brighton & Hove relative to the city in which I used to live, Cardiff. That’s of interest for two reasons: (a) the general cost of living in Cardiff is very much lower than it is in Brighton (as someone who’s just moved here I can vouch for this); and (b) Cardiff Bus (or, if you prefer Bws Caerdydd) is one of the very few bus services in the United Kingdom was never privatised. While most local bus operations were taken over by private operators during the Thatcher era, but Cardiff Bus remains entirely owned and managed by Cardiff City Council.
It is very difficult to do a like-for-like comparison of fares, because Brighton & Hove Bus covers a much larger area (including Eastbourne, which is 22 miles from Brighton) and many discounted tickets offer unlimited travel within that. Also, the fare to Falmer from Brighton is most relevant for students and it’s not obvious what to compare that with in Cardiff. Since the distance from Brighton to Falmer is about 5 miles, but Cardiff University is right in the city centre, I’ve included a fare from Cardiff to Barry (also about 5 miles) for comparison as that’s the nearest fare I could find; the time for each journey is about 20 minutes.
| Fare Type | Brighton | Cardiff |
| Short Hop | £1.80 | £1.80 |
| ~5 miles from City | £2.00 | £2.50 |
| Day Rider (bought on bus) | £4.70 | £4.90 |
| Day Rider (phone or card) | £4.10 | £4.70 |
| 7 Day Saver | £18 | £19 |
| 1 Month Saver | £66 | £66 |
| Annual Saver | £510 | £485 |
I’ve only included the full adult fare here; discounted tickets for students are available in both cities. In fact the annual saver ticket for students in Brighton is £365. I use a 3-month saver which costs me £168, which I regard as very good value for money; the cost of this ticket for a student is only £90, which is a bargain!
Clearly, then, despite the recent price rises, Brighton & Hove Bus Fares are actually if anything cheaper than Cardiff, at least when you take into account the much bigger area covered by the saver tickets.
I should also mention that Brighton’s bus drivers give change for tickets bought on the bus whereas Cardiff’s demand the exact fare only…
I think I’ve made my point. I also checked Nottingham’s bus fares (as I’ve also lived there). A comparison is more difficult in this case because of the different fare structure, but as far as I can tell it’s broadly in line with Brighton.
Follow @telescoper
The Trouble With Brighton’s Roads..
Posted in Biographical, Brighton, Politics with tags A259, Brighton, EDL, March for England, Road Collapse on April 26, 2014 by telescoperI travelled back to Brighton yesterday after taking a short break in Wales over Easter. To occupy myself on the train journey back I was, as usual, messing about on Twitter as a result of which I discovered that the main road along Brighton’s seafront had been closed. The reason for this – and the ensuing traffic chaos in the City Centre – was that the main A259 had partially collapsed. My heart sank at the thought of the problems I might have getting home from the station, but in fact by the time I got there – just after seven in the evening – the worst of the congestion seemed to have cleared and I got a bus home without any difficulty or delay.
When I walked past the spot earlier today I found that it wasn’t as dramatic as I’d been led to believe:
There isn’t actually a hole as such, just a couple of very wonky pavements either side of a section of road that’s in a very poor state of repair. In that respect it’s no different from most of Brighton’s streets.
If you don’t know the area concerned, just at the bottom of West Street, you won’t know that this section of the A259 (King’s Road) runs above the a series of arched underground structures occupied by various shops and pubs. In fact the collapse happened inside a pub called the Fortune of War, when some workmen discovered several tons of rubble had fallen down from the roof above. Fortunately, no-one was hurt.
This is the view at beach level; the King’s Road runs above the pub, behind the iron railings at the top of the picture.
The Fortune of War Pub (Credit: BBC)
One lane of the A259 is currently closed and a contraflow is in operation. Given that it is at the best of times a very busy road this, and the diversions that have been placed elsewhere to ease traffic on it, is set to cause congestion for some time to come, probably several weeks.
The problem is obviously that the structures underneath the road were never designed to carry the weight of traffic that they are now expected to support. Brighton and Hove Council have been spending money on extensive roadworks elsewhere in the City but seem to have been reluctant to perform reinforcing work on this crucial route. There’s already a political row brewing about this.
Here’s another picture of the seafront:
The barricades you see are nothing to do with with subsidence, but are there for tomorrow’s “March for England”, the annual attempt by the gang of Neo-Nazi thugs called the EDL to stir up trouble in Brighton. Presumably the fences are intended to separate the EDL from human beings. The collapsed road was to have been part of the route, but presumably alternative arrangements have been made. I would have preferred the road closure to have been used as an excuse to cancel the march altogether actually. I’d rather have no road at all than one filled with such creatures.
I’m very worried about tomorrow. I despise the EDL, but I strongly believe that the best way to deal with people like that is to make sure you don’t give them what they want. They’re clearly coming to Brighton for a fight, so the best approach is to exercise restraint. Unfortunately, there are extremists on the other side of the political spectrum who want a fight just as much as the EDL do. It’s all rather pathetic, if you ask me. Anyway, I’ll be avoiding any aggro by heading up to campus in the morning and catching up on some of the things I’ve missed while I’ve been away over the last week or so…
Follow @telescoper
The Stifling Effect of REF Impact
Posted in Education, Politics with tags impact, REF, Research Excellence Framework, SEPNET on April 22, 2014 by telescoperWell, I’m back to civilization (more or less) and with my plan to watch a day of cricket at Sophia Gardens thwarted by the rain I decided to pop into an internet café and do a quick post about one of the rants that has been simmering on the back burner while I’ve been taking a break.
Just before the Easter vacation I had lunch with some colleagues from the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Sussex. One of the things that came up was the changing fortunes of the department. After years of under-investment from the University administration, it was at one time at such a low ebb that it was in real danger of being closed down (despite its undoubted strengths in research and teaching). Fortunately help came in the form of SEPnet, which provided funds to support new initiatives in Physics not only in Sussex but across the South East. Moreover, the University administration had belatedly realized that a huge part of the institutional standing in tables of international research rankings was being generated by the Department of Physics & Astronomy. In the nick of time, the necessary resources were invested and the tide was turned and there has been steady growth in staff and student numbers since.
As Head of the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences I have had to deal with the budget for the Department of Physics & Astronomy. Just a decade ago very few physics departments in the UK were financially solvent and most had to rely on generous subsidies from University funds to stay open. Those that did not receive such support were closed down, a fate which Sussex narrowly avoided but which befell, for example, the physics departments at Reading and Newcastle.
As I blogged about previously, the renaissance of Sussex physics seems not to be unique. Admissions to physics departments across the country are growing at a healthy rate, to the extent that new departments are being formed at, e.g. Lincoln and Portsmouth. None of this could have been imagined just ten years ago.
So will this new-found optimism be reflected in the founding of even more new physics departments? One would hope so, as I think it’s a scandal that there are only around 40 UK universities with physics departments. Call me old-fashioned but I think a university without a physics department is not a university at all. Thinking about this over the weekend however I realized that any new physics department is going to have grave problems under the system of allocating research funding known as the Research Excellence Framework.
A large slice (20%) of the funding allocated by the 2014 REF will be based on “Impact” which, roughly speaking, means the effect the research can be demonstrated to have had outside the world of academic research. This isn’t the largest component – 65% is allocated on the basic of the quality of “Outputs” (research papers etc) – but is a big chunk and will probably be very important in determining league table positions. It is probably going to be even larger in future versions of the REF.
Now here’s the rub. When an academic changes institution (as I have recently done, for example) he/she can take his/her outputs to the new institution. Thus, papers I wrote while at Cardiff could be submitted to the REF from Sussex. This is not the case with “impact”. The official guidance on submissions states:
Impact: The sub-panels will assess the ‘reach and significance’ of impacts on the economy, society and/or culture that were underpinned by excellent research conducted in the submitted unit, as well as the submitted unit’s approach to enabling impact from its research. This element will carry a weighting of 20 per cent.
The emphasis is mine.
The period during which the underpinning research must have been published is quite generous in length: 1 January 1993 to 31 December 2013. This is clearly intended to recognize the fact that some research take a long time to generate measurable impact. The problem is that the underpinning research must have been done within the submitting unit; it can’t be brought in from elsewhere. If the unit is new and did not exist for most of this period,then it is much harder to generate impact no matter how brilliant the staff it recruits. Any new departments in physics, or any other subject for that matter, will have to focus on research that can generate impact very rapidly indeed if it is to compete in the next REF, expected in 2018 or thereabouts. That is a powerful disincentive for universities to invest in research that may take many years to come to fruition. Five years is a particularly short time in experimental physics.
Follow @telescoper
Bearded Bishop Brentwood welcomed but too late for Beard of Spring poll
Posted in Beards, Biographical, Football, Politics on April 15, 2014 by telescoperI’m still way behind John Brayford (who he?), but there’s definitely signs of a bounce! The Deadline is 19th April. Vote for me!
Beard Liberation Front
PRESS RELEASE 14th April
Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266
Bearded Bishop Brentwood welcomed but too late for Spring Beard poll
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers that campaigns against beardism, has welcomed the news that the Pope on Monday appointed Fr Alan Williams FM as the Bishop of Brentwood but say that his appointment is too late for inclusion on the Beard of Spring 2014 poll which concludes on Friday.
The campaigners say that they are certain that the distinguished Bishop will feature in future
The big issue in the days left for voting is whether current leader Sheffield United footballer John Brayford did enough in his team’s defeat to Hull in Sunday’s FA Cup semi-final to take the title or whether challengers such as cosmologist Peter Coles and Editor of the I Paper Olly Duff can catch him
The Beard of Spring…
View original post 136 more words
In the Dark 