Another day, another glossy leaflet delivered with fast food flyers, another dodgy bar chart.
Actually, this is a repeat of Bar chart 2, but we're sticking to the letter of our election pledge and pointing it out for readers.
The latest offering – once again from the Conservatives – does not feature their local candidate Iain McGill, but does have 4 pictures of Ruth Davidson, 2 of Theresa May and 2 of Nicola Sturgeon.
The leaflet appears to be national – a colleague from Dunblane has received the same one.
Spurtle was intrigued that the more recent YouGov poll published on 28 April was not featured among the claims.
Especially with the correctly scaled bars, the picture is of a somwhat less overwhelming Conservative lead over Labour - 10% rather than 20% – and a somewhat larger SNP lead over the Conservatives (13% instead of 10%).
According to the Scotland-wide findings listed at Electoral Calculus, these two polls are at the extremes of the 3 surveys carried out in April. Electoral Calculus also has detailed predictions for each constituency, based on previous election results and profiles based on census information that go down to the level of streets. (Who’d have guessed that the place in the UK estimated to have the highest fraction of residents in a good job is the eastern half of Royal Crescent?)
Perhaps surprisingly, given the history of the constituency, Electoral Calculus predicts the SNP will win Edinburgh North and Leith by a whisker (0.3%) over the Conservatives; the chances of SNP or Conservative winning are roughly equal. That said, the methods of Electoral Calculus are not clear to Spurtle, and their track record is not faultless.
For more bar chart amusement/despair/bemusement, visit here.
We’re interested in General Election-related mangled mathematics circulated in Broughton in support of any political party. If you come across a good example, please …
Get in touch at spurtle@hotmail.co.uk or @theSpurtle or Facebook
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