Carl Baker
Head of the Social and General Statistics team at the House of Commons Library in the UK Parliament. Personal account for posts on stats, maps, dataviz, games, travel, and misc.
- Reposted by Carl Baker2005 notional general election results now live: electionresults.parliament.uk/general-elec... Another brick in the psephological wall.
- Reposted by Carl BakerThe Commons Library is recruiting a housing policy researcher! As ever: highly recommended workplace, great people, interesting work, etc etc. Apply! housesofparliament.tal.net/vx/mobile-0/...
- Reposted by Carl BakerWhat is the Budget? commonslibrary.parliament.uk/what-is-the-budget/
- Reposted by Carl BakerConstituency data - Indices of deprivation commonslibrary.parliament.uk/constituency-data-i…
- Reposted by Carl BakerThe House of Commons Library Open Day returns in 2026! Come and learn about what we do to inform democracy and take advantage of a rare chance to tour the Commons Library space. Full details are on our website and applications close 24th November commonslibrary.parliament.uk/training-and...
- Reposted by Carl BakerIndefinite delay to the next release of detailed tables in the Valuation Office Agency's Council Tax Stock of Properties statistics – a valuable source of small area attributes for housing stock in England and Wales www.gov.uk/government/s... #UKhousing #govtech #proptech #opendata
- Reposted by Carl BakerIn which we bid farewell to Professor Michael Rush. A kind, generous and gentle man. More notes from @anyaso.bsky.social and I: ukparliament.github.io/ontologies/m...
- Reposted by Carl BakerAt next week's RSS conference I'll be presenting a poster (a first for me...it's about time!) "Tetraplot displays of UK General Election results" shows how to graph GE 2024 vote shares across 4 parties in a useful way. Full PDF poster at: github.com/DavidFirth/t...
- Reposted by Carl BakerOur psephological efforts now come complete with by-elections from Parliament 56. Or the one following the 2015 general election, as normal people might say electionresults.parliament.uk/parliament-p...
- Reposted by Carl BakerNew bot alert: if you’re the kind of person that likes @commonslibrary.bsky.social, you may also wish to spend a follow on @post-parliament.bsky.social. All the latest research from the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
- Reposted by Carl BakerWho is responsible for public services in my constituency? commonslibrary.parliament.uk/public-services-in-…
- Huh. Just discovered that a photo of mine (of the University of Michigan) is used on 6 English Wikipedia pages and a dozen in other languages. I forgot I ever uploaded it.
- Reposted by Carl BakerI first did the constituency analysis quite a few years ago, but it's been good to bring it up to date. Some interesting patterns.
- Reposted by Carl BakerI've published a new briefing bringing together the stats on leasehold housing in England (and a bit in Wales). Featuring: - MHCLG data on leasehold stock - Trends in transactions over time and for constituencies - Experiences of leaseholders commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...
- Reposted by Carl BakerI've now written a piece about why the internet hates my apostrophe, which you can read here: www.ft.com/content/48d4... Huge thanks to everyone who replied to me about it!
- Very off-topic - but worth noting that this kind of granular local authority data is not long for this world, with county/district areas set to merge up into larger unitaries. North Yorkshire/Cumbria LAs likely to be more typical of the future size. Has an impact on our local understanding.
- The Independent report includes some data, including how perceptions of local cohesion vary www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crim...
- Reposted by Carl BakerUsing time series graphs to make causal claims be like
- Others may (like me) have missed that there is now a consultation underway on new local authority boundaries in Surrey. www.gov.uk/government/c...
- County council have now sent round a leaflet about this - almost entirely promoting their preferred two-council option, with only a cursory mention of the rival three-council option which is also being consulted on (that most districts support)
- Reposted by Carl BakerI don’t get much engagement on my posts about stats but I’ll press on as I think its important. So it seems that we are about to have a lot of leadership churn with Robert Chote stepping down early as chair of the Stats Authority whilst they also appoint other key roles 😬 www.gov.uk/government/n...
- Reposted by Carl BakerLooking for information about your constituency? The Commons Library can help. Get the facts on key data for your local area, including population, house prices and broadband speeds. 🔎 Explore now: commonslibrary.parliament.uk/constituency...
- Reposted by Carl BakerMore than a quarter of people think MPs expenses are one of the top three costs for government. A higher % than think the same for pensions or education.
- Reposted by Carl BakerOne of the strangest death rattles of corporate local newspapers has been the teams of “local journalists” employed to churn stories about Martin Lewis. So I gave Martin a ring to discuss the state of British news, plus where to buy chicken wings in London. www.londoncentric.media/p/martin-lew...
- Reposted by Carl BakerFrom the England and Wales census, largest ethnic group by country of birth:
- Ofcom's Technology Tracker 2025 survey suggests that 78% of those aged 65+ said there was a smartphone in their home that they personally use. Those suggesting we are "near 100%" are exaggerating.
- Working: "yes and I use one" on p161 divided by weighted base on p158. Base on p161 is just those who had a mobile in the household. www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/r...
- Reposted by Carl BakerThe loud drumbeat that companies should "embrace AI now or be left behind" has more in common with high-pressure sales techniques than biz strategy. And that's fine - tech firms have something to sell. But the rest of us needn’t confuse it with anything more profound. www.ft.com/content/4688...
- Reposted by Carl BakerIt's far too hot to leave your sofa. Why not empty a sack of ice into your nan's Radol Footspa and treat yourself to ten minutes with more weeknotes from @anyaso.bsky.social and I ukparliament.github.io/ontologies/m...
- Reposted by Carl BakerWell, this is exciting - I've been grumbling for *years* about how figures at Budgets and Spending Reviews are only given to the nearest £100 million, which makes data analysis needlessly difficult. And the Treasury have just gone ahead and published the unrounded data! www.gov.uk/government/p...
- Reposted by Carl Baker[This post could not be retrieved]
- Reposted by Carl BakerFans of calculating scrutiny periods for instruments - statutory and treaty-like - will be delighted to learn that our beloved egg timer is reborn, this time with much improved information architecture api.parliament.uk/egg-timer
- I thought the suggestion might be "don't drive", but my bad. I'm sure it's the pedestrians.
- Walked past Michael Palin filming New Europe in the basement of Budapest's House of Terror museum. Too taken aback to say hello.
- Reposted by Carl BakerRSS feeds were good weren’t they
- "Additional funding has been provided primarily to allow UKSA to start preparatory work for Census 2031, subject to the government’s decision on the census, expected this summer." www.gov.uk/government/p...
- Reposted by Carl BakerI simply do not concede that any of your cookie vendors' interests are legitimate.
- Reposted by Carl Baker🧑💻 The Electoral Commission are hiring a new Head of Digital Communications. The job's perks include working with us! View the details here: ce1002li.webitrent.com/ce1002li_web...
- Feel well old saying this, but I was surprised how many emojis were involved in the process of registering for a new GP practice The email line telling me my new GP's name was followed by a star-eyes emoji...
- I do wonder if we'll look back on this stuff as equivalent to if an official channel in 2002 had sent a message saying "cant w8 2 c u" But given how LLMs seem to also use this as standard, it's probably only a matter of time before we have legislation with emojis in
- I like emojis, used well, in the right contexts; just not convinced comms from my GP practice is one of them
- Reposted by Carl BakerHow have statistics producers engaged users, & the wider public, in their work? I've had a go at finding out for @connectedbydata.org, from the UK Stats Assembly, to user forums, & more Let me know what we've missed! (We will have definitely missed things!) connectedbydata.org/resources/pu...
- Reposted by Carl BakerHey, 90s kids! Your bedroom is now in a museum! (Prague's National Museum, if you want to make a complaint.)
- Reposted by Carl BakerVictorian tiled railway maps restored at London’s Victoria Station www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/vic... Two nearly 130-year-old railway maps at Victoria station have been restored by Govia Thameslink Railway, with funding from Network Rail and a grant from the Railway Heritage Trust.
- Reposted by Carl BakerTake a look at this really important role in the Office for National Statistics, including leading on international migration estimates. Deadline Tuesday 3rd June. Locations Newport, Titchfield (Fareham), Manchester & Darlington. Please share! www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cg...
- I see some ice-cream van jingle discourse. I feel it would make the UK happy to know that in Taiwan, bin lorries play a jingle while doing their rounds, at the same time almost every day. youtu.be/vwCvmm0OZxs?...
- Reposted by Carl BakerBig news 👇 www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
- Reposted by Carl BakerThis reminds me, I haven’t done a “buy I Was A Teenage Exocolonist” post for a while. One of the best games ever I think, really fun and clever use of the artform, runs on everything, dirt cheap.
- Georgina has made such an impact as a statistician in the Commons Library and we are very sorry to lose her! Best of luck for the future.
- Reposted by Carl BakerSorry for venting but another example today of how What3Words have engineered an over reliance on their platform in UK emergency services. Came across a car which was up on the verge at a strange angle, obviously not parked - 3 cars ahead of us drove past it but experience makes me always check.
- Reposted by Carl BakerONS, NRS, and NISRA plan to create a set of data tables at UK and country level, to show how a range of UK statistics may have looked if the national censuses had all been in March 2021 www.ons.gov.uk/news/news/co... (Scotland's last census was in March 2022 due to Covid.) #Census2021 #opendata
- Reposted by Carl BakerThe House of Commons Modernisation Committee’s current inquiry is all about accessibility, including “access to Parliamentary information for MPs and the public.” A subject close to my heart and maybe to yours. Submit your reckons by 9th May committees.parliament.uk/work/9006/ac...
- Reposted by Carl BakerOffice for National Statistics says it will pause or downgrade a whole slew of its data output and services so it can focus on its core economic and population data. Details below:
- Reposted by Carl BakerBy-elections for Parliament 57 now online: electionresults.parliament.uk/parliament-p... and queryable: psephology-datasette-f3e7b1b7eb77.herokuapp.com/psephology?s...
- Reposted by Carl Baker🚨 Dream job alert! 🚨 Senior Researcher in statistics (my team) at the House of Commons Library. The team is looking for someone with numeracy skills & research experience. Good communication skills also required. Deadline 31 March 2025. housesofparliament.tal.net/vx/mobile-0/...
- Reposted by Carl BakerThe exciting potential of AI are the two hour tasks it turns into ten minute ones. The horror is the challenge of how you get people to actually *take the ten minute task seriously*.
- Reposted by Carl BakerI saw this oldie-but-goodie in my LinkedIn feed & was blown away. Read more here: nightingaledvs.com/exploring-hu... #dataviz 📊
- Found my undergraduate transcript today. I loved my philosophy degree but being reminded of course titles like "The Structure of Reality" and "Being" definitely raised a smile.
- We in the House of Commons Library are recruiting a senior researcher in our Social and General Statistics team! Come work with us to develop new and improved ways to inform MPs and their staff about data. housesofparliament.tal.net/vx/mobile-0/...
- Reposted by Carl BakerAre you an API person? Are there some APIs that you ❤️ and others that drive you 😠? If yes to any of the above, please take a minute to respond to (and share!) this quick anonymous survey. You're also welcome to share your thoughts and ideas on this thread...
- Reposted by Carl BakerAn excellent part of this, which is often missing from big data releases, is a small set of sample data in the same format. Let's you see and test the data without needing to manage huge files.
- Premises in BDUK plans (England and Wales) www.gov.uk/government/p... big release of address-level data from Building Digital UK Data includes UPRNs and postcodes but not addresses. You can geocode the data using ONS's UPRN products geoportal.statistics.gov.uk #gigabit #telecoms #opendata
- Reposted by Carl BakerPremises in BDUK plans (England and Wales) www.gov.uk/government/p... big release of address-level data from Building Digital UK Data includes UPRNs and postcodes but not addresses. You can geocode the data using ONS's UPRN products geoportal.statistics.gov.uk #gigabit #telecoms #opendata
- Reposted by Carl BakerAhem: the balmy weather this weekend was not “fake spring”. It is March, it was real spring. We are just now entering a spring cold snap. Spring is often cold!!
- Reposted by Carl BakerRural Urban Classification (2021) for areas in England and Wales geoportal.statistics.gov.uk/search?q=RUC21 new from ONS Datasets for Output Areas, LSOAs, MSOAs, and local authority districts, plus web maps and user guide. More info www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/... #geospatial #opendata
- Reposted by Carl BakerA piece I've wanted to read ever since I heard of her fascination with the subject. Sally Rooney in superb form, on Ronnie O'Sullivan and the darkly mysterious, mathematical glamour of snooker at its best. www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
- The 2024 Local Elections Handbook is now available on the Commons Library website, complete with a downloadable dataset: commonslibrary.parliament.uk/2024-local-e...
- Nice note in the acknowledgements highlighting my predecessor's notable contribution to this field over many years:
- Reposted by Carl BakerHere's an overview of women's employment, pay and participation in business in the UK, for all your International Women's Day needs: commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...
