UK Election charts are a nightmare

[@esuelle]

"Let's see the R value" 0.5715 "Let's not see the R value"

[@ares395]

The most hilarious moment of the video

[@peterryrfeldt8568]

so real

[@JayLikesLasers]

This comment ruined the punchline for me

[@Dihydrousoxide]

@@JayLikesLasers Reading the comments before watching the video? Rookie move.

[@estebanrodriguez5409]

lol

[@distinctdipole]

Don't throw away your election leaflets. Send them to the University of Bristol who have an archive of materials from elections. Post them after the election with a note of the postcode where the items were delivered to: Special Collections, Arts & Social Sciences Library, University of Bristol, Tyndall Avenue, Bristol BS8 1TJ. They check and redact any personal information before adding to the archive.

[@dariusftw3378]

Do you know if they only send leaflets to people in London? Or maybe to a few select seats where they're not sure who will win?

[@distinctdipole]

Sorry @@dariusftw3378, I don't understand what you're asking. I've received leaflets from five parties here in Bristol, but who is/are the "they" you are referring to?

[@grassytramtracks]

​@@dariusftw3378 why would they only send leaflets to people in London in a national election?

[@BananaWasTaken]

@@dariusftw3378I’m in West Yorkshire and got a Reform, a Conservative and a Green leaflet

[@Jack-tk3ub]

​@@dariusftw3378They are sending way more leaflets to Matt than to many others. This will be because (a) his MP is the chancellor and (b) the results will likely be close. If you are optimising campaign spend then you won't spend money trying to influence a seat that is already a foregone conclusion. You'll do it in important/closely fought seats like Matt's

[@iaingeo]

I think it's worth noting that in the 2019 election, Binface stood against Lord Buckethead who was representing the Monster Raving Looney party, thereby splitting the "nobles wearing receptacles" vote and allowing a third joke candidate to win.

[@crhu319]

Well bowled, sir. Well bowled.

[@michaelcartmell7428]

"Is it malicious or is it incompetence?" -- The eternal question of politics

[@jpdemer5]

I thought Hanlon's Razor had settled that one, but that was before Trump.

[@edd48576]

And the answer is always: Yes.

[@laurencefraser]

Sufficiently advanced incompitence is indistinguishable from malice, for whatever that's worth.

[@voland6846]

Porque No Los Dos?

[@hughcaldwell1034]

@@jpdemer5 I go back and forth on Hanlon. If we define malice as a mindset similar to sadism, i.e. actively wishing others to suffer, there is a surprising amount of that when you really drill down on what people think of certain groups. On the other hand, is that really malicious or are they too stupid to recognise the humanity of those they wish ill?

[@blazinghotpeppermaniac]

Count Binface won 308 votes, it's time for a new graph!

[@NeilRashbrook]

Or 0.6%, as that was what the charts were actually graphing.

[@Normal_Boii]

An infinite growth he had!

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@Normal_Boii and he doubled the estimated result, which means he got double of the infinite growth that was predicted. Only Count Binface can double an infinite improvement.

[@SiqueScarface]

And on a side note, in Richmond, he beat Brian Richmond by 86 votes!

[@kennethferland5579]

Quickly Compute the new R-values!!!

[@wearwolf2500]

Mat Parker at the end of the vote counting session "This isn't anywhere near pi, we are way off".

[@the_multus]

Parker Pi. PP for short.

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

Force of habit.

[@lyrimetacurl0]

I predict (pi/10)% for Binface.

[@jamesaitken5653]

308 - you would have thought he could argue for at least another 6 votes to reach 314!

[@AHumanBeingNamedAlex]

@@jamesaitken5653it’s a Parker approximation for pi: 3.08 which should be close enough right

[@AHotLlama]

"Let's see the R value... Let's not see the R value" Spoken like a true statistician

[@anonymoususerinterface]

i HOWLED when i saw that, I HATE STATS as an alevel student

[@thewarmedic2330]

I cackled when he said that; AP stats trauma/Stockholm syndrome 😭

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

Bury the evidence.

[@NithinJune]

😂😂😂😂

[@PsychoMuffinSDM]

I imagine these graphic designers back in their political headquarters all talking together, "so, did prof. Parker grade you pamphlet yet? What did you get?" "He docked me points for the arrow" "I got extra points for the dog!"

[@cefcephatus]

He should make grade certificate of measurement and send them to each corresponding designers.

[@TheCookiePup]

"I got a rock."

[@feedthedrummer]

Well as Labour's candidate in Richmond and Northallerton, and a long time Stand-up Maths fan, this is a crossover of my interests beyond anything I could have ever dreamed.

[@edd48576]

Good luck tomorrow! The whole country's rooting for you.

[@brunoparga]

Do you think you should withdraw to let the people's true representative, Count Binface, have the best possible shot? (You shouldn't. Go get'em. Good luck tomorrow!)

[@ilexdiapason]

good luck! from a richmond park constituent so i'm _close_ to being able to affect your chances but not quite on the right side of the country

[@edd48576]

@@brunoparga Binface is no longer a trash of the people. He sold his principles for a filthy peerage. Now he's just more royal garbage.

[@HuntingCatIsBack]

First order of business for you, have Northallerton actually included on the constituency map. I mean, I've been there and its easily missed, but even as an expat Geordie who dislikes anything further south than the river Wier, ( and frankly, I'm pretty ambivalent about much of South Tyneside) this seem a pretty egregious omission.

No wonder Count Binface is so into graphs, after all, the German word for count is Graf!

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

And of course making a graph involves a lot of counting.

And the word for graph as well!

[@NineteenHand]

"Let's not see the R value." This about sums up my memory of college statistics homework.

[@bokkenka]

Is Matt Parker Count Binface? Have you ever seen them in the same place at the same time?

[@RonParker]

A Problem Squared listeners have heard them in the same place at the same time. Does that count? (Episode 018)

[@GoranNewsum]

They have, Matt took the photo of him at AEOUD at The Cambridge Theatre.

[@stephenlee5929]

Well maybe we will during the declaration in Richmond+ Nor...

[@-YELDAH]

@@GoranNewsum How do we know that was Matt taking the photo?

[@catsnorkel]

No, matt parker is clearly a human

[@ThePedrobl]

A few of those bar charts start right at the edge of the paper, so the inaccuracies in those are also from cutting/trimming them (print bleed)

[@thompkins6796]

That, and the designer didn't have enough room on the reds and greens to label them large enough for the format.

[@xenontesla122]

This year I had the bright idea to print out business cards with a built in ruler (for NSBE, an engineering convention). Dealing with the dimensions and print bleed was so unintuitive I had to correct a mistake in the parking lot of the print shop!

[@volbla]

I mean, you could always make bar charts that, you know, don't start at the edge of the paper.

[@andrewjolly319]

When i worked for the Lib Dems (more than 20 years ago) you'll be glad to hear that all my bar charts were exactly to scale...

[@eclectichoosier5474]

Many in the US quite DEARLY wish that election season were so short.

[@NikolaHoward]

You guys do seem to be trapped in perpetual elections...

[@jordananderson2728]

I find that election season here tends to last closer to 44 _months_

[@johnladuke6475]

At this point it's starting to feel like the current candidates are the only ones who have ever run, and have been running since long before any of us were born. I almost hope that whichever one wins promptly loses their marbles and pushes the big red button because _at least then this groundhog day repetition will end._

[@ShawFujikawa]

Aren't elections already shorter in the US? 4 years vs typically 5 in the UK?

[@seneca983]

The short timetable may be easier for the voters but not so much for the candidates who are in quite the hurry. That said, never ending election season can probably also be taxing on the candidates (in addition to the voters).

[@Loki-]

27:22 Missed opportunity to say "Count Binface is just there to make you think twice about putting your vote in the BIN."

[@agbook2007]

THIS 🤣👍

[@HunterJE]

18:37 A little misleading here, since there were not parliamentary elections in 1066 the denominator should be 0, which means BF's share of 0/0 should be undefined rather than 0%

[@DavidBeddard]

Well, it's Nullity. It's only undefined if you don't define it within your mathematical paradigm.

[@Nxck2440]

There wasn't even a parliament in 1066, but there was a king who is the sole decision maker, so you could say its 0 out of 1 which is 0. Fixed!

[@gleggett3817]

@@Nxck2440 Though the was no parliament, the Anglo=Saxon kings needed the witan, basically meetings of the powerful lords of the country (which could include religious leaders), to agree with his decisions. The witan ratified the succession of king which was not decided on a "first born" basis. Edward the Confessor did not specify a successor and on his death bed gave an ambiguous declaration that Harold Godwinson (the Earl of Wessex) should protect the kingdom; the witan decided that Harold should be king. Parliament itself comes out of the witan and subsequent councils of the nobility called by post-1066 kings

[@mattlm64]

There was an election, but William of Normandy was the only one who stood and he selected himself.

[@michaelgreen1515]

This is a Moot point. There were regular parliaments as people were called forth at various levels to chinwag stuff over. It is often thought that William turned up because it wasn't exactly clear who was supposed to become the new King and those who were selected by the then electoral franchise to send representatives had different ideas and some may (or may not) have selected William sadly making a tapestry graph of how many people have approved you to be King takes too long so about 4 people arrived in Kingdom to take on the job. Count William made his army Count and became boss of Normandy and King of England... a lesson to be learned. Your propaganda is best not done by tapestry...

[@abigailcooling6604]

Gotta be honest, Count Binface sounds a million times better than my current Tory MP...

[@mb-3faze]

I noticed his 'bin' has received a significant upgrade since the last election.

[@gregoryfenn1462]

He didn't come last in the London mayor election!

[@jpdemer5]

Low bar, that.

[@57thorns]

@@jpdemer5 The MP or not coming last in London? I assume both.

[@burnerzeroone-o8p]

i realy like his policy to bring back ceefax

[@michelleinnocent867]

I just checked the results and the Count received a 0.06% vote increase, so a double infinity increase to report on your next leaflet campaign 😝

[@TheIgle]

Some infinities are bigger than others.

[@ntzm_]

We're staying in a holiday cottage in Richmond and we got your leaflet, I really enjoyed the bar chart

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

gonna start timing my vacations based on when i'll get the most interesting mail

[@joshuahillerup4290]

Figuring out if a sitting Prime Minister has ever lost their seat in UK history requires answering the surprisingly controversial question of when the UK first got a Prime Minister

[@petertaylor4980]

Who's the potential precedent?

[@tulliusexmisc2191]

The catchphrase of the Extra History channel: It Was Walpole!

[@edd48576]

It was when the lettuce won.

[@WaterShowsProd]

Walpole is generally considered to be the first Prime Minister, but it is true that British history is marked with soft transitions rather than hard borders, as things like Prime Minister evolved, rather than suddenly being decreed.

[@TymberJ]

Technically if there's an election on, doesn't that mean there is no Parliament at the moment? If so, by definition a sitting PM couldn't lose or win an election, because they aren't an MP when the election happens.

[@gregs2284]

The constituency office at 4:15 literally says "It's not 2019" across it. It's clearly a direct rebuttal of the chart on the right.

[@ptorq]

I noticed that and thought it was brilliant. "Our opponents' sign is misleading, and here's why."

[@neilbiggs1353]

@@ptorq Unfortunately though, they are using polling which is even less verifiable!

[@ptorq]

@@neilbiggs1353 At least in theory asking people how they're going to vote ought to be a better indicator of how they're going to vote. than how people in the area voted 5 (or 50, or 500) years ago is. "Er, Yes, our voter data shows a strong preference for the Plantagenet party."

[@neilbiggs1353]

@@ptorq It's a theory that doesn't survive contact with stats lessons unfortunately! Biased sampling is a classic trick of political parties, and that's just the beginning. Running 4 samples and picking the best one is not unheard of either! Unless the survey has been carried out totally independently (like say the local newspaper doing one), they should be treated with minimal trust

[@me-myself-i787]

​@@neilbiggs1353It was carried out by YouGov.

[@CravingBeer]

I'd vote Binface, but his unfunded promises on Ceefax makes me worried.

[@stevebollinger3463]

Ceefax will pay for itself many times over from economic improvement.

[@Shoomer1988]

Maybe we could just sell the Isle of Wight to pay for it.

[@jimmoriarty5107]

@@Shoomer1988 I dont think that's gonna cover it.

[@infwhale9183]

There is always a magic money tree for war. So where is it in this case?

[@Shoomer1988]

@@jimmoriarty5107 Haha.

[@quillaja]

Clearly Binface's trend is exponential, not linear.

[@digitig]

Presumably the logistic curve. Even Count Binface can't go over 100%. But possibly in the region where exponential is a good approximation.

[@51monw]

@@digitig if temperatures can go negative (not in those stupid units but real units like Kelvin, negative temperatures are really hot btw), and -1 can have a square root, I see no problem with Count Binface getting over 100%, Russia got over 100% in the vote in Sevastopol for Crimea to become Russian, and I am sure anything Putin can do, Count Binface can do too.

[@51monw]

I so wanted a curve fitted for the three points, but that might be misleading.

[@aquilazyy1125]

Someone in UK should print stickers of “Citation needed” and put them on every chart they see.

[@thomicrisler9855]

Honestly not just the UK but every democracy probably.

[@Trisador9]

The main takeaway from these bar charts for me is that voting under a first-past-the-post system seems just terrible... Do they just serve to remind you to vote strategically? Edit: Should not have commented before finishing the video! Matt of course touches on this.

[@JdeBP]

It is terrible, and tactical voting is a lot of what this is all about, as M. Parker said.

[@edd48576]

@@JdeBP What a wonderful country. So many choices to throw your vote away. So many ways to have your voice completely ignored. How do other countries cope with the pressure of having their votes actually matter?? So stressful!

[@OsirusHandle]

If you consider your vote a public showing of opinion then voting in a way that doesn't effect the vote is fine, no?

[@TymberJ]

Well, it's only terrible in causing this kind of strategic voting when there are multiple competitive parties like in the UK. If you look at the US, where there are functionally only two parties, you'll find first past the post is terrible in completely different ways!

[@ribbonsofnight]

@@TymberJ The other way around. In the UK many vote unstrategically where as vast numbers of Americans vote strategically every year. They just never need to be told which two candidates have a hope. "I might vote for a third party candidate. go ahead throw your vote away Don't blame me I voted for Kodos."

[@Huntracony]

4:00 both posters clearly show their source at the bottom, so good on them. Also, love the passive aggressive "It's not 2019" bubble on the Labour poster.

[@quintuscrinis]

They both show their source, but one shows a complete lack of messaging competence. Why make the chart show it as you vs the Lib Dems if the idea is to get Lib Dems to vote for you to get the Tories out? If the Tories are on to come 3rd anyway, then I might as well vote for the Liberals I was going to anyway!!

[@tomwantshelp]

Labour used one dodgy MRP, ignoring all the others that (correctly) showed the Lib Dems in the lead.

[@christopherwyatt2771]

I thought you were going to go for a Reform UK style line graph showing Binface's results as a similar curve. Still lost it at "Let's see the R value.... Let's not see the R value."

[@paulsieben9718]

As someone who does not live in a first-past-the-post system the style of ads is crazy, I've never seen anything like it. The fact that they all want to give you an extremely biased math lesson instead of actual party ads would be amusing if it wasn't so sad that that people don't really have much of a choice.

[@cameronbigley7483]

Out of curiousity, what type of voting system is used where you live?

[@deek0146]

Look at me, Mr swing constituency with his 50 pamphlets through his door.

[@quintuscrinis]

Bar in mind that 15 of those were Lib Dem ones - where they win, they work hard for their constituents. I loved in St Albans most of last decade and the difference between having a Tory vs Lib Dem MP after they won last time is extraordinary.

[@askermatthew]

Here to point out the typo on the leaflet: 2024 Richmonmd & Northallerton Prediction. Graph accuracy: 100% Spelling of Richmond on the leaflet accuracy: 83.3% (if we exclude the Richmond sign in the photo)

[@mb-3faze]

Somewhat embarrassing. (The typo is under the first bar chart.)

[@Simo-x3m]

Also the second graph has the name as BInface (capital I).

[@askermatthew]

​@@Simo-x3mGood spot! I suppose we can forgive the intergalactic space warrior for this minor slip...

[@jpdemer5]

It's a Parker pamphlet . . . what did you expect?

[@tomasemitchell]

Was expecting some sick stuff about charts and then a wild Blur member appears... AND THEN A WILD COUNT BINFACE APPEARS. wtf

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

"Oh, so it's just a low-production rant video. I'm going to see twenty minutes of charts and... whoa."

[@andrew_ray]

And they both ran for the same seat!

[@privacyvalued4134]

"They're pulling it from somewhere..." If the "somewhere" is "thin air" then you are 100% correct some of the time.

[@dielaughing73]

Maybe he meant somewhere more... fundamental?

[@snowdrop9810]

Some people call that their arse

[@toddlez123]

Congrats to count binface for 308 votes! A very definitive infinite improvement!

[@Xnoob545]

1.79e308 reference

[@prosfilaes]

"Tens of thousands of people." On screen: *48,600. It's so nice to be dealing with someone who cares about the numbers; I recently argued with someone who claimed that k:1 (for some value of k, 2 < k < 9) is "multiple orders of magnitude".

[@davidioanhedges]

All the parties sent me leaflets ... Notably the Reform Party told me about their leader, and biggest shareholder, and biggest supporter, neither of whom are standing here .. and incidentally mentioned in passing who was actually standing for them ... but said absolutely nothing about the candidate at all ... All the others told me about the candidate first, and what they are standing for, and then something about the party ... I will be voting for one of the parties who are actually promoting their candidate for being my MP

[@jeremypnet]

I shall be voting for a party, not a limited company.

[@ribbonsofnight]

Notably as a new party given 6 weeks to organise that elections were 6 months early they probably have a good reason to not be able to tell you too much about all their candidates.

[@davidioanhedges]

@@ribbonsofnight everyone else managed, they are currently being investigated as several have now said they were paper candidates, who had no expectations of being elected

[@ribbonsofnight]

@@davidioanhedges the majority of candidates have no expectation of being elected. Count Binface got more votes than 7 candidates in the electorate he contested. That's 8 candidates that knew they have no chance of being elected. Reform was 2nd in 90 electorates. It is much easier to have 600 candidates who have a history in politics if you've been a major party for decades or centuries. Many of the other parties only contest a fraction of the seats which makes it easier for Sinn Fein etc. to be ready for an election.

[@IamGrimalkin]

Reform is the Nigel Farage party and everyone knows it. . This isn't the first time Nigel Farage has ran a party, and he generally is the only thing holding it together. When he stops, the party collapses.

[@EmPoulter]

5:13 Extremely pedantic correction, since the dissolution of parliement on 30 May, there are no serving MPs, so technically Jeremy Hunt was the previous MP, and may or may not be the next MP, but is not the current MP

[@Outwhere]

The people of Godalming and Ash will probably vote for Jeremy Hunt to ensure that people keep on mispronouncing his name and end up on Have I Got News For You. But look at the possibilities with Green Party candidate Ruby Tucker (who I hope loves a curry)!

[@ianstopher9111]

Vote for Michael Hunt

[@clickrick]

@@Outwhere Much as having that giggle at Sophie Ridge's expense was fun, expelling JH from the HoC is rather higher on our priorities here!

[@NeilRashbrook]

@@Outwhere This did indeed turn out to be the case. But at least the LD's charts came close to showing the resulting margin of victory.

[@beardedchimp]

I find it really weird with the yanks where their presidential election occurs several months before they change president. Historically that is the point where nothing matters any more, they don't have any electorate to woo and will just do whatever corrupt thing they feel like. So they'll appoint a load of extreme judges, pardon lots of people and poison the chalice for their replacement. The US President actually has insane powers, they are just by gentlemen's agreement not abused. That period between being voted out but still leading the country makes traditional respect for the office become null and void, they can make massive international actions that can't be easily undone by the new President.

[@plebius]

I am convinced, that the reason the graphs get messed up most of the time is people trying to fit them onto pages without the printers needed margin taken into account. Printers will regulary send back with edits done, due to space restrictions for margins. Which clients are usually oblivious too. When they receive the altered flyer to confirm they are happy. They never check it. I know its not a glamorous take, but having done some work with printers, I have seen this happen a lot.

[@lessefrost]

I really love your guy's laws on election ads. It's really nice that they do their best to make them not absolutely obnoxious

[@_maxgray]

The thing that confuses me the most as an American watching parliamentary elections is the idea that the party in power gets to decide when it would be most opportune to have an election (given that governments generally don't run all the way to the maximum length of time allowed). The part I am most jealous about is how short parliamentary elections are.

[@henrikoldcorn]

Well strictly Parliament decides, but when a single party has a majority that’s what happens. The reason for this is that Parliament (…again, mostly run by one party) changed the law a while ago - it might have changed again since then, I forget. In general elections have to be every 5 years, but they can happen sooner.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

You should take a look at new zealandian or german elections.

[@ChrisParr]

Looking on the other direction the thing that astounds me most about US elections is queues at polling stations. This is the first year I've seen anyone comment about queues in the UK and they've generally only been a couple of people long and due to the new photo ID requirements.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@ChrisParr don't forget that they also have to register to vote. it's almost as if the us doesn't actually want it's population to participate...

[@_maxgray]

@@ChrisParr There's a lot of variation among the states - I've never had to wait in line for more than a few minutes despite living in multiple states. It's a choice by certain officials (spoiler, mostly Republicans) to suppress the vote, especially in areas where they think the votes won't go their way. But many states have early voting, easy absentee voting, lots of polling stations, etc.

[@Ellie-wt7pw]

“election season is upon us” bro polling day is tomorrow

[@neilbiggs1353]

It's also US election season, so expect to see lots of illiterate bozos still trying to argue his three videos from the 2020 election...

[@recurvestickerdragon]

he probably recorded this a bit ago

[@tehlaser]

Well, see, the UK has election seasons of a sensible length, so the day before the election is a non-negligible portion of the season. Unlike certain other countries whose media start speculating who’s going to win the next primary the day after the winner is known.

[@OsirusHandle]

france too is now

[@trueriver1950]

Today, now as I write; 4th July. Oddly the date means that millions of Americans will be inadvertently celebrating our election...

[@zoefschildpad]

My plot has succeeded. You are the only person to receive that exact combination of mail and now I know where you live!

[@sirkiz1181]

I can already see the TED Ed video on this riddle about being an intergalactic trash can man and needing to find where a certain mathematician lives in order to get his help with your leaflet

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

The final leaflet was actually sent to him at exactly the right time so he would pick it up during the video, confirming that it was the correct house.

[@quintuscrinis]

If you were sending all those leaflets specifically to him then you would have to know where he loved first. Self-replicating paradox

[@Deus_Almighty]

@@quintuscrinis “exact combination” means he would have sent a different combination to each household, allowing an unambiguous identification of the correct address.

[@ChristieNel]

You forgot the party that believes all coffee should be drunk from tall top-hat shaped mugs while laughing hysterically.

[@michaelwisniewski6047]

while foaming at the mouth and falling over backwards…

[@owentill]

Oh so Rees-Mogg

[@hughcaldwell1034]

Is that the same party espousing trickle-down percolation?

[@tomholroyd7519]

I always thought the Monty Python sketch about the "silly" party was a joke

[@RFC3514]

@@tomholroyd7519 - It was a joke, because that was actually the most serious party.

[@manudude02]

Matt announcing the count: Binface: 50000 +/- 50000

[@JonnyJKF]

The other day I explained the UK FPTP voting system to my nephew but I used a "pizza party" analogy. Say you are hosting a pizza party for yourself and 6 others. You take a vote on what kind of pizza you are going to order. Two people want plain cheese pizza, two people want pepperoni pizza. Then there's your weird friend Kyle and his two gym bros who don't want pizza at all and just want raw eggs and protein powder. Four people want pizza, three people don't want pizza and unless the pepperoni and the cheese people come together nobody gets pizza. The lesson? IDK don't buy one pizza and call it a party or smth.

[@edd48576]

The lesson is never trust a Kyle.

[@luke0346]

It sounds like what you're after is a dictatorship. So I assume you're voting Labour lol.

[@thelazy0ne]

😂but it's a democracy, so that's all that matters

[@lztx]

I'm surprised you don't use the same system we use in Australia: instant runoff, or preferential voting. So you could vote for party B, with party C as your preference, which is counted if no party gets a clear majority

[@51monw]

Brexit weaponised this in reverse by never defining Brexit, so we ended up with cold pizza, with pineapple on, that had fallen off the back of the delivery bike and been run over a few time by the cars behind. But the 52% who voted for "pizza" got exactly what they voted for.

[@DylanSargesson]

Some people argue that Binface running could hurt Labour's chances of taking the seat. At least with including this accurate chart, people will be able to see that Labour is the clear tactical voting option.

[@TarenNauxen]

As an American it took away too long to get the "Bindependence Day" joke. Side note: I would have roasted the 1066 chart for the position of the 1997 label. Seems too far left!

[@philw6056]

They also missed the irish immigration of roughly 1mio people during and directly after the irish famine. Or all those people who immigrated from europe literally all them time(Jews, Flemish, Hueguenots, Eastern Europeans, ...). Or all those who immigrated from british colonies or the commonwealth.

[@mb-3faze]

@@philw6056 Exactly. And it matters the proportion of the population that each wave of migration contributed. (I'm of Huguenot descent.)

[@philw6056]

@@mb-3faze Unfortunately many politicians(and normal people) can't or don't want to deal with complex stuff.

[@janTasita]

The only time "it's too far left" is an accurate thing to say relating to the reform party.

[@voland6846]

@@philw6056 Ireland was part of the UK during the famine, that's erm kinda _why_ the famine occurred in the way that it did.

[@RKH1502]

5:52 "7 out of 8, so 47%"

[@doku7335]

When Matt said "half", I kept thinking "wait, how can he say half, it's 15, it's not divisible by 2 and you can't get half a graph" until he clarified

[@royliu1409]

​@@doku7335 He did get another graph at the end and made it half.

[@Tome_Wyrm]

I think he meant to say 7 versus 8. There were 15, as stated earlier.

[@elvishfiend]

#ParkerMaths

[@AusSkiller]

Man I am so glad I live in Australia, while our voting system has its problems at least it lets us vote for whoever we want without our vote going to waste or actively working against our interests. We simply number the list of candidates in order of preference, and if our first preference can't win then our vote goes to our second preference, if the second preference can't win it goes to the third, and so on. This lets us vote for parties that best align with our preferences without risking a party we don't like getting an advantage. Everyone's vote always counts and it always works in your best interest (assuming you voted based on your best interests). The only down side is that it makes voting a little more tricky since you need to be somewhat aware of all the parties, but usually your party will hand out flyers at the voting locations with their recommendations for preferences and you can just copy or tweak that if you are feeling lazy.

[@ribbonsofnight]

I usually research the Count Binface style candidates 20 minutes before I leave the house to vote. I don't usually think that time was valuably used. It is good to know that "Science party" is anti-science I guess.

[@PressA2Die]

Well if you are feeling lazy you could abstain and not vote. Oh wait, you are in Australia, you can't.

[@rayafoxr3]

I like that system

[@xylusirl1527]

Important context for the first stat of 1066 vs now. 1 in 6 people legally living in England and Wales today were not born in the UK. 2.5 million people immigrated to the UK in the last 2 years. So I think that could possibly still be far higher than 1066 even as a percentage.

[@xylusirl1527]

0.56% migration in the norman invasion. By the population estimate of 1.25m vs 7000 Norman invaders. In 2023 there were 1.2m immigrants to the UK. Which is 1.8% of the population in a single year. There is no England specific data but we can assume England's population grew more than 0.56% that year. On a side note. Currently there are 10 million first generation migrants living in England and Wales. This is 16.8% of the total population of England and Wales. I doubt even in 1066 even close to 1 in 10 people living in England were first generation migrants. Let alone more than 1 in 10.

[@TimL_]

​@@xylusirl1527 You are wasting your time in this comment section populated by conceited idiots who think it reasonable to compare 21st century immigration to Romans and Normans. And even those who will admit the sheer magnitude of the numbers are so persistent in their delusion that will go on pretending every kind of immigrant (or invader) is the same. Europe has apparently decided to stop existing as a distinct cultural and demographic region.

[@IamGrimalkin]

This is quite interesting, but it's worth noting in that case reforms' graph is still wrong. Having double the relative immigration is a lot less than the 20× or whatever is on the reform graph.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@xylusirl1527 what are the statistics for second generation migrants? Here we have 28.7% of the population has at least one parent born abroad and 18.4% of the population who were born abroad themselves, according to data from 2022. But then, we need immigration to keep the population stable.

[@daniel117100]

@@HappyBeezerStudios If we need Somalian Uber eats riders to stabilise our population we are doomed already

[@b3z3jm3nny]

7:55 the bars are narrower though so maybe they’re still accurate w.r.t. area not height? Strange decision though!

[@Adderkleet]

A historgram posing as a bar chart?! (that was my thought too!)

[@philw6056]

Easy decision, don't waste leaflet surface with useless information. And if someone complains and you know that they measured just the height and not the surface, you can first point out, that it wasn't done to delegitimize the greens and labour and then you can tell them to look at the area and win useless nerd points.

[@rmsgrey]

They're less than a factor of 2 off in height, but maybe a third the width, so the area is also definitely wrong (plus the two narrow bars are approximately the same width, but have significantly different vertical errors).

[@outwithrealitytoo]

Yup and it's like that so they peep out above the text, and to buy some horizontal space for the layout. I'll forgive them the arrow as "indicative of trend", but then the CON column would have to be depicted as burning down.

[@ge2719]

i think they just have them bigger because otherwise they would look like they're were picking on those parties by using the accurate measure. their bars would be so tiny

[@MidnightAmethyst]

Stand up maths at the start: "Quick video" Also stand up maths: 28 minute long video

[@JoeRobertshaw]

LoNg MaN BaD

[@n0tthemessiah]

2nd longest video posted in a year, to be exact. It deserves a hilariously disproportionate bar graph, if you ask me.

[@PopeGoliath]

Quick for him to make, not a short run time. Very different things!

[@x7954]

@@n0tthemessiahneeds to compare video lengths from 2024 and 1066

[@TheEvilCheesecake]

If I had more time, I would have made a shorter video.

[@Lambda3141]

Count Binface! What a delightful crossover.

[@couldntmixapotnoodle]

the support for Count Binface is great A truly british way to spend your vote. im stuck between Elmo and Binface

[@holyyakker]

I just love this. As someone who has designed leaflets for local elections I basically "start" with a close representation, but then you tweak it to make the design layout feel better, sometimes it is with the intention of directly manipulating perceptions and other times it is really just an aesthetics choice. The reason Green and Labour are over sized on some probably has more to do with layout and font spacing and visual appeal than any attempt to manipulate perceptions.

[@skellious]

This was a party political broadcast on behalf of the count binface party.

[@JECastle4]

Arthur Balfour lost his seat in Manchester East in 1906, but was re-elected in a by-election in City of London shortly afterwards. It's a very small club though.

[@sec147]

But he had ceased being PM a month before that election.

[@MRAMAZRBALLZZ]

It's also worth pointing out that you can register and do the count as a normal person. I do it at all elections and it's great

[@ReedCBowman]

Too late, but I dearly wish you could show up to be a counting agent cosplaying as the Count from Sesame Street.

[@WhiskersInc]

Count Binface got 308 votes! 🫡

[@mattegan3439]

Quick video... 28 minutes long :D Love it!

[@kilianortmann9979]

Almost quick, Parker quick, one might say.

[@jetkirby]

My interpretation of his statement here is its a quick video from his perspective, time spent recording and editing the video is probably much shorter than his usual projects

[@RollTonight]

If they had more time they'd make it shorter.

[@Petch85]

It feels like mathematicians would have chosen a different voting system to avoid this mess in the first place. 😂

[@rmsgrey]

It depends what the aim of the voting system is. If the goal is to most directly reflect the aggregate opinions of the electorate about the various candidates, then, yeah, there are much better systems than first past the post. If the goal is to have a simple system that's going to tend to give one party a clear majority even when the country is more divided, then first past the post does a pretty solid job. The big weakness of more democratic systems is that they're more likely to produce coalition governments.

[@Petch85]

@@rmsgrey Why is a coalition government a weakness?

[@meirl5700]

@@Petch85increases bureaucracy (as in time and money) if parties in government disagree on an issue and reduces the amount of government action taken, see Lib Dem’s + conservative coalition as example. (This is me playing devils advocate)

[@ge2719]

@@Petch85 they can never get anything done for one thing. having to constantly beg the other party for votes.

[@joppedegroen6918]

I (Dutch) feel that our coalition government has gotten an awful lot done in the past 14 years. They haven't fully dismantled our welfare state yet, but we're quickly catching up with you guys.

[@Jack-tk3ub]

Richmonmd It seems mathematical accuracy comes at the expense of spelling

[@JdeBP]

And so we witness the birth of the Parker Leaflet. (-:

[@antonjensen9996]

absolutely love how matt stays in his lane and just loves math

[@the_whetherman]

“Bin-Dependance Day” sounds a little more ominous than I was expecting.

[@Minihood31770]

Matt calling it North Hallerton is very funny to me.

[@MechanicaMenace]

You think that's bad you should hear how southerners say Harrogate...

[@SebBrosig]

i think you should have plotted the Rickmond/Northallerton charts with log scale!

[@Cossieuk]

The 2nd bar chart only adds up to 99.3%, where is the other 0.07%

[@rmsgrey]

The effect of rounding the projected figures from the polling data. If you have more than two options, it's pretty common for the total percentage to be something other than 100.

[@shocktrooper2152]

It also does not include any candidates from other minor parties, or the independent candidates.

[@ninjasuperman9538]

I’m happy for you being able to witness the official count. I honestly wouldn’t trust many people more than you

[@stephenmclaren5692]

I saw this flyer at work as someone bought it in to show. I had a good giggle at the graph. Now I know why it was so good! Have fun at the count!

[@SimonFrack]

Please add closed captions. I want to watch this video but will have to come back later because I can’t hear sound. 😭

[@edd48576]

You're really not missing anything. Closed caption: Elections suck.

[@artyb27]

Sorry that this doesn't help everyone but if you're watching on Android, you can turn on Live Captions at the OS level and they're pretty decent (depends on diction quality but Matt talks very clearly). You can access it from the volume controls and I _think_ Google added similar functionality to their Chrome browser on desktop.

[@OwlRTA]

The second half of this video was amazing

[@marasmusine]

In the spirit of Stand Up Maths, are you sure that it is amazing from exactly the half-way mark?

[@CyberMartian890]

So unexpected but so glorious

[@battatia]

This was so good - congratulations on your counting agent appointment!

[@lukask5285]

The suspense!!! I was so rooting for you to make this joke after seeing you correctly rounded down 0,01% down to one digit as 0,0%

[@Vim-Wolf]

I'd actually seen the mailout (on the Count Binface twitter) before I saw this video. Nice work.

[@lasagnahog7695]

I think the bad charts are absolutely malicious. It's clearly done specifically to mess with Matt Parker.

[@TStetheOG]

Imagine being a Lib Dem canvassing and being handed back your party literature with corrections on the graphs

[@grubzer1369]

Mandatory reminder of CGPGrey series on voting systems

[@ChaosSwissroIl]

Mandatory reminder that first pass the post is the most resistant to 'fortification'.

[@edd48576]

@@ChaosSwissroIl You misspelled "most susceptible to anti-democractic fuckery".

[@OsirusHandle]

​@@ChaosSwissroIl what do you mean by fortification

[@OsirusHandle]

​@@edd48576how can a vote be anti democratic. fptp still needs a plurality if not a majority no?

[@camo5553]

@@OsirusHandleif you had 5 very similar parties that get a combined 80% of the vote and split it evenly, and one very different party getting 20 of the vote, the one very different party would sin with first past the post

[@HumbleBeeUK]

The first frame of this vid is so delightfully candid, unironically

[@HarryB777]

That count binface cameo absolutely floored me, what a legend

[@yavoth5850]

The biggest takeaway from all this should be how messed up the British electoral system is, and how absurd it is there is not a greater push for proportional representation of some kind.

[@brunoparga]

You are absolutely right about proportional representation. In fact, it might have happened when the Lib Dems were actually in the nearly-only coalition government the UK has had, in 2010-2015. Instead they wasted their entire political capital into a referendum on instant-runoff voting, which *would not have helped them* if it had passed. That was one of the most stupid political moves of all time.

[@OsirusHandle]

​@@brunopargawhat would you say is the best system

[@HQbaracuda]

While I do think your voting system is one of the worst on this planet (alongside the US-American), let me guarantee you, that the voting system does not protect you from duchefaces who ruin your lives by making stupid decisions and sitting out problems, that should get addressed immediately (just look at Europe as a whole)

[@digitig]

There's certainly a push for PR, but no party (or it's supporters) want to change the system by which they just won.

[@brunoparga]

@@digitig true, change needs to come from the majority that has their vote wasted by FPTP.

[@xenialafleur]

Using data from different elections with the same boundaries can also be a problem. In 2016 and 2020, North Carolina voted Republican for President and Democratic for Governor. That's likely to repeat this election as well.

[@dariusftw3378]

Yeah in the UK UKIP never won any seats in general elections but dominated in the European elections

[@katrinabryce]

@@dariusftw3378 They won a seat in Clacton once, which is why Nigel Farage is standing there, but yes, you are mostly correct.

[@edd48576]

There's 0% chance that any Carolina will ever elect a democrat to statewide office ever again.

[@rafaelmarkos4489]

​@@edd48576 Could you elaborate on why that is the case? I am not familiar with local US politics, so I find this interesting given what we know of the national picture.

[@stevevernon1978]

@@rafaelmarkos4489 (not from either Carolina, and not going to have edd's perspective on his local elections,) but a reminder: In the USA we vote for candidates, not for party. so if you hate the guy running for president for one party, and also hate the guy running for governor from the other party, you hold your nose, and split your vote.

[@martinleduc]

19:16 You meant to say 0.2872% not 28.72%

[@edd48576]

Heretic! How dare you diminish Count Whats-his-face's losing tally! You'll be the first to toil in the garbage mines when his retribution never arrives!

[@doggollamaman]

SO glad I've seen something about this every time a graph comes through my postbox I die a little inside

[@WhammeWhamme]

8.09 : I like the arrow. It's an _aspirational_ arrow: "we're so close, we just need a little more, vote for us!".

[@ManNoName-c9u]

Nevermind the maths - you didn't get 900 mates to throw out Jeremy Hunt!!!!

[@DeGuerre]

7:00 Wait, those two "bars" are also narrower. Maybe they're using area?

[@jonathanrichards593]

Which would be the proper way to do a histogram. The area of each of the bars should represent the COUNT of the data points in that BIN. Aha! Count Bin-face is clearly an intergalactic data visualizer! IIRC it's quite hard to make Excel™ draw a proper histogram, i.e. to shrink the inter-bar spacing to zero.

[@michaelimbesi2314]

Godspeed, Count Binface

[@MachdaleLemish]

Ive noticed similar things. Our local Labour council tried to sell off our local parks but failed because of the local outrage. Then in the next election they (Labour) claimed to have saved the parks because they never managed to sell them off. Worst thing is most people dont even know. Lots of short memories around here.

[@keithpugh6761]

Just listened to this while driving home through Northallerton after work.

[@anglonrx2754]

likening immigration to an invasion is exactly reforms point

[@benholroyd5221]

0.6% of the vote this time, so at this rate, hell be an mp next time.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

With that growth, he'll be two MPs next time!

[@benholroyd5221]

@@HappyBeezerStudios Don't be silly, that isn't how it works. the party might get 2 seats, and then the next time an outright majority.

[@mytube001]

"Make your vote COUNT" is just great! :D

[@edd48576]

Shoulda said "BIN your vote"

[@cyrilio]

I was a count entry member of recent EU elections in NL. It's amazing to see and be part of the election process. I can highly recommend being part of it one day where you live.

[@patjohbra]

Matt Parker being a counting agent for Count Binface is both surprising and extremely on brand

[@philw6056]

No one knows when the election will happen, unless you check the betting market. Then you might see a sudden spike for a specific date a few days before the announcement, because some tories like to use their inside knowledge to make a quick buck.

[@wearwolf2500]

What about The Glorious Revolution of 1688. Presumably that would also have brought a large increase in immigration with the Dutch army coming over. I don't know how many of them stayed behind but still.

[@abigailcooling6604]

Wasn't that the time when the current government literally invited the Dutch to invade cos they were fed up of the current king?

[@wearwolf2500]

@abigailcooling6604 yes, as I understand it, it was a relatively bloodless invasion

[@marktrotter8971]

@@wearwolf2500 Yes and no - King James II / VII ran away. But that triggered the Jacobite Rebellions and the never-ending troubles in Northern Ireland, so not exactly bloodless!

[@trequor]

Tbf in absolute numbers anything prior to 1900 is gonna be a blip. Populations were just much smaller back then

[@cerumen]

@@trequor as the populations were smaller, those smaller immigration numbers may have been similarly proportional to contemporary immigration

[@AndrewKay]

For the "errors" on the order of millimeters, is it possible that the bar heights are *more* accurate than the displayed numbers, as those are rounded to the nearest integer?

[@florahibernica]

You should come and observe at an Irish counting. My recent local one went to 14 redistributions of excess votes and eliminated candidates. It's a nerd delight, and we will be having a general election sometime late this year or early next. Nobody puts charts on their leaflets, as far as I know.

[@ribbonsofnight]

I think Matt Parker may be familiar with preferential voting. He comes from Australia.

[@WolfricLupus]

This video is, in the words of the great Bill and Ted, "Most excellent, dude!" I absolutely love it, I paused it when you showed Count Binface's flyer back-page at timestamp 25:40 so I could read the blurb, and I must say that if I lived in Richmond I would vote for them!! My Elderly hippie uncle lives there so maybe I can persuade him! Brilliant stuff.