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My guest this week is Ben Walker, Senior Data Journalist atthe New Statesman and co-founder of Britain Elects – a website that aggregates election results and polls of people’s voting intentions, and which dabbles, very successfully, in election forecasting. At the 2024 general election, Ben’s model was the one that came closest to predicting the end result, an incredible achievement considering that it proved more accurate than all the professional polling companies. Ben is also a reporter and commentator on data and politics and has made many appearances on the radio, on the BBC news, and on podcasts. In 2023, he crossed over from the sidelines into local politics, being elected as a borough councillor in Cheshire, representing Chester city centre. In this episode of Talk Data to Me, Ben explains the secrets behind his winning formula for predicting UK elections, and tells me all about the importance and frustrating uncertainty of polling people about their voting intentions. Host: Georgina Sturge URL: ⁠⁠https://georginasturge.substack.com/⁠⁠ Made using Riverside and Audacity Theme music: 'Binary Dreams' by Georgina Sturge, made using Suno.

My guest this week is Andy Kirk, an independent expert indata visualisation. Andy is a prolific producer of resources on the how-tos of data viz, including the incredibly useful and beautifully crafted book ‘Data visualisation: a handbook for data-driven design.’ Anyone who’s even dipped atoe into the world of data viz online will have come across Andy and his amazing website visualisingdata.com. Andy has lectured and taught on academic programmes, trained people all around the world, and consulted for a wholerange of organisations on how to get visual insight on their data. He also hosts the very successful podcast and videoseries Explore Explain. It’s no exaggeration to call him the King of Data Viz 👑. My personal favourite piece of information about Andy is that he once created an entire book which went into a deep analysis of the TV show Seinfeld through data visualisation. Some links to things we talked about in the episode: Andy’s website: www.visualisingdata.com Inspiring data viz examples: https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ https://www.theguardian.com/technology/data-visualisation https://www.dear-data.com/theproject (Mostly) free dataviz creation tools: https://flourish.studio/ https://www.rawgraphs.io/ https://www.datawrapper.de/ Andy’s recommendation of one to watch: https://www.not-ship.com/author/amanda/ The original Seinfeld dataviz project: https://visualisingdata.com/2020/09/new-project-the-seinfeld-chronicles/ Host: Georgina Sturge URL: ⁠https://georginasturge.substack.com/⁠ Made using Riverside and Audacity Theme music: 'Binary Dreams' by Georgina Sturge, made using Suno.

It's just me this week, with a story about digital ID, and the implications of relying on big American tech to deliver it. But this week the focus isn't on the UK, or at least it won't be at first - this week we're in the Netherlands. The full text of this episode also appeared as an article on the Substack page for Talk Data to Me, published on 7 January 2025. Host: Georgina Sturge URL: https://georginasturge.substack.com/ Made using Riverside and Audacity Theme music: 'Binary Dreams' by Georgina Sturge, made using Suno.

My guest this week is Madeleine Sumption, Director of the Migration Observatory – an independent research organisation based at the University of Oxford which many consider the UK’s most reliable and authoritative source of analysis on migration policy and statistics.  Madeleine is THE voice on migration statistics in the UK, appearing regularly on TV and radio to talk through the latest numbers. Her accolades and achievements are too many to mention here, though I should add that in 2017 she was given an MBE for services to social science. But is our data on migration all it's cracked up to be? There are some areas where we really should have reliable and accurate data - and that isn't always what we get. In this episode, Madeleine talks us through the highs and lows of migration data, and shares some tips for making sense of the numbers. Host: Georgina Sturge URL: https://georginasturge.substack.com/ Made using Riverside.FM and Audacity. Theme music 'Binary Dreams' by Georgina Sturge, made using Suno.

My guest this week is Ed Humpherson, head of the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR), the official watchdog for data and statistics in public policy. The OSR is an independent regulator tasked with upholding quality and transparency in UK statistics. Ed's background is in accounting and, before heading up the OSR, he worked at the National Audit Office, where he managed his work on economic and business affairs. Ed sits on various different boards, including that of the Regulatory Policy Institute and is a regular expert witness at the House of Commons. He knows a lot about the statistics landscape in the UK and in this episode I ask him about what has been going wrong and hear to his ideas about we can do to fix it. Host: Georgina Sturge URL: https://georginasturge.substack.com/ Made using Riverside.FM and Audacity. Theme music 'Binary Dreams' by Georgina Sturge, made using Suno.

My guest this week is Jonathan Portes, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at King’s College London. Prior to becoming an academic, Jonathan had already had a very substantial career in the civil service, which makes him a unique person to talk to about both the technical side of data and how it’s used in the real world by politicians. In his time at the civil service, he worked at the Treasury, was Chief Economist at the Department for Work and Pensions, and was Chief Economist at the Cabinet Office from 2008 to 2011. In this episode we discuss recent problems with economic statistics in the UK, the data challenges a Chancellor faces around the time of a budget, and what's happened to trust in statistics. Host: Georgina Sturge URL: https://georginasturge.substack.com/ Made using Riverside.FM and audacity. Theme music 'Binary Dreams' by Georgina Sturge, made using Suno.