Chris Prosser
@caprosser.com
Political scientist | Co-director British Election Study | Election number crunching for ITV | Trustee McDougall Trust
caprosser.com
caprosser.com
I mention the Hall, Ariss and Todorov study of basketball betting (more information -> worse performance) in the slides for one of my pol psych lectures, and now the powerpoint designer wants to illustrate the slide with some basketballs, which certainly creates an interesting juxtaposition... 😂
November 6, 2025 at 10:15 AM
I mention the Hall, Ariss and Todorov study of basketball betting (more information -> worse performance) in the slides for one of my pol psych lectures, and now the powerpoint designer wants to illustrate the slide with some basketballs, which certainly creates an interesting juxtaposition... 😂
I fell down a typographical rabbit hole last week and made my own R Markdown template. Quite pleased with how it looks, so take a look, and if you like it too, feel free to use it!
Package here: github.com/drcaprosser/...
Full explanation/example here: github.com/drcaprosser/...
Package here: github.com/drcaprosser/...
Full explanation/example here: github.com/drcaprosser/...
November 4, 2025 at 10:35 AM
I fell down a typographical rabbit hole last week and made my own R Markdown template. Quite pleased with how it looks, so take a look, and if you like it too, feel free to use it!
Package here: github.com/drcaprosser/...
Full explanation/example here: github.com/drcaprosser/...
Package here: github.com/drcaprosser/...
Full explanation/example here: github.com/drcaprosser/...
This is great - had always wondered if the telephone call thing was *actually* how they found out they'd won.
In the unlikely event that I won a Nobel prize I'd probably see an unknown international number, assume it was scam, and block it.
In the unlikely event that I won a Nobel prize I'd probably see an unknown international number, assume it was scam, and block it.
October 7, 2025 at 11:35 AM
This is great - had always wondered if the telephone call thing was *actually* how they found out they'd won.
In the unlikely event that I won a Nobel prize I'd probably see an unknown international number, assume it was scam, and block it.
In the unlikely event that I won a Nobel prize I'd probably see an unknown international number, assume it was scam, and block it.
A conclusion reached by a well justified causal research design no doubt, and not just seeing there's a correlation and asserting the causality runs in one direction... 🤔
October 7, 2025 at 6:30 AM
A conclusion reached by a well justified causal research design no doubt, and not just seeing there's a correlation and asserting the causality runs in one direction... 🤔
Just spotted this excellently ironic typo in the acknowledgements of a paper I was reading 😂
September 23, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Just spotted this excellently ironic typo in the acknowledgements of a paper I was reading 😂
With one line of code you can assign party colours and labels, and sort the legend.
library(gbpartyscales)
share_plot +
scale_colour_party()
library(gbpartyscales)
share_plot +
scale_colour_party()
September 16, 2025 at 11:37 AM
With one line of code you can assign party colours and labels, and sort the legend.
library(gbpartyscales)
share_plot +
scale_colour_party()
library(gbpartyscales)
share_plot +
scale_colour_party()
Imagine you had a dataset of British elections results and wanted to make a plot.
share_plot <- gb_shares %>%
ggplot(aes(x = Election, y = `GB vote %`, colour = Party)) +
geom_line() +
geom_point(size = 3) +
theme_bw() +
scale_x_continuous(breaks = c(2019, 2024))
share_plot
share_plot <- gb_shares %>%
ggplot(aes(x = Election, y = `GB vote %`, colour = Party)) +
geom_line() +
geom_point(size = 3) +
theme_bw() +
scale_x_continuous(breaks = c(2019, 2024))
share_plot
September 16, 2025 at 11:37 AM
Imagine you had a dataset of British elections results and wanted to make a plot.
share_plot <- gb_shares %>%
ggplot(aes(x = Election, y = `GB vote %`, colour = Party)) +
geom_line() +
geom_point(size = 3) +
theme_bw() +
scale_x_continuous(breaks = c(2019, 2024))
share_plot
share_plot <- gb_shares %>%
ggplot(aes(x = Election, y = `GB vote %`, colour = Party)) +
geom_line() +
geom_point(size = 3) +
theme_bw() +
scale_x_continuous(breaks = c(2019, 2024))
share_plot
Today in 'I'm sure this is a well identified causal effect and definitely not in any way a spurious correlation, can't think of any potential confounding variables at all' 🤔
September 11, 2025 at 10:11 AM
Today in 'I'm sure this is a well identified causal effect and definitely not in any way a spurious correlation, can't think of any potential confounding variables at all' 🤔
Cool that they’ve found another copy of the Magna Carta, but I would like some more detail about this aspect of it’s provenance 😂
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
May 15, 2025 at 6:58 AM
Cool that they’ve found another copy of the Magna Carta, but I would like some more detail about this aspect of it’s provenance 😂
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
I think it’s simpler than that - there’s an MSOA called ‘Central Bradford’ and the 2021 census has 49.9% of its population born overseas.
May 13, 2025 at 10:51 AM
I think it’s simpler than that - there’s an MSOA called ‘Central Bradford’ and the 2021 census has 49.9% of its population born overseas.
To some extent you have to admire the ONS's steadfast refusal to allow you to easily work out the demographic characteristics of the adult (i.e. over 18) population from most of their tables, but mostly it's really annoying...
April 23, 2025 at 8:22 AM
To some extent you have to admire the ONS's steadfast refusal to allow you to easily work out the demographic characteristics of the adult (i.e. over 18) population from most of their tables, but mostly it's really annoying...
Reading The Unaccountability Machine by @dsquareddigest.bsky.social at the moment, which I really recommend - one of those books that genuinely changes how you see the world.
The last line of this section made me laugh out loud - not sure I’ve ever read a better description 😂
The last line of this section made me laugh out loud - not sure I’ve ever read a better description 😂
April 3, 2025 at 6:41 AM
Reading The Unaccountability Machine by @dsquareddigest.bsky.social at the moment, which I really recommend - one of those books that genuinely changes how you see the world.
The last line of this section made me laugh out loud - not sure I’ve ever read a better description 😂
The last line of this section made me laugh out loud - not sure I’ve ever read a better description 😂
Mucking about making some animated plots of constituency vote shares over time and accidently made some lava lamps.
April 1, 2025 at 9:46 AM
Mucking about making some animated plots of constituency vote shares over time and accidently made some lava lamps.
Teaching my students about gganimate in their final R lab tomorrow - pretty pleased with this demo of GB vote shares from 1832 to 2024, and never fail to be impressed by this package - from line chart to this in one line of code!
March 31, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Teaching my students about gganimate in their final R lab tomorrow - pretty pleased with this demo of GB vote shares from 1832 to 2024, and never fail to be impressed by this package - from line chart to this in one line of code!
They don’t actually mention the scaling /h in the book
March 25, 2025 at 7:15 AM
They don’t actually mention the scaling /h in the book
I've forgotten who I stole this example from, but thanks to whoever it was. It nicely illustrates the difficulty in accounting for confounding with observed variables and brings me joy whenever I come back to this lecture.
March 13, 2025 at 11:28 AM
I've forgotten who I stole this example from, but thanks to whoever it was. It nicely illustrates the difficulty in accounting for confounding with observed variables and brings me joy whenever I come back to this lecture.
Nothing like coming back to your quarto lecture slides, which worked perfectly well last year, and discovering there's been a package update...
This sort of thing doesn't happen in powerpoint 😒
This sort of thing doesn't happen in powerpoint 😒
March 13, 2025 at 10:38 AM
Nothing like coming back to your quarto lecture slides, which worked perfectly well last year, and discovering there's been a package update...
This sort of thing doesn't happen in powerpoint 😒
This sort of thing doesn't happen in powerpoint 😒
My four-year-old, who is learning to read and write, has discovered that she can get to my iPad search screen without unlocking it, and if she types ‘cat’ will get lots of cat pictures to look at.
For some reason they all have toothbrushes 😂
For some reason they all have toothbrushes 😂
March 7, 2025 at 7:20 AM
My four-year-old, who is learning to read and write, has discovered that she can get to my iPad search screen without unlocking it, and if she types ‘cat’ will get lots of cat pictures to look at.
For some reason they all have toothbrushes 😂
For some reason they all have toothbrushes 😂
Feels like the predatory publishing spambots aren’t even trying anymore.
March 6, 2025 at 5:14 PM
Feels like the predatory publishing spambots aren’t even trying anymore.
A British election factoid I hadn't noticed until I was updating my lecture slides - in 2024 only 15% of constituencies were won by a majority of votes. That is less than half the previous low of 34% recorded in 2010.
March 5, 2025 at 5:11 PM
A British election factoid I hadn't noticed until I was updating my lecture slides - in 2024 only 15% of constituencies were won by a majority of votes. That is less than half the previous low of 34% recorded in 2010.
Putting some Taagepera and Shugart style predictive models into my lecture on the UK's electoral systems - never fail to be impressed by these things - here's predicted and actual party system size for European Parliament elections in the UK across the switch from first-past-the-post to PR.
March 5, 2025 at 12:16 PM
Putting some Taagepera and Shugart style predictive models into my lecture on the UK's electoral systems - never fail to be impressed by these things - here's predicted and actual party system size for European Parliament elections in the UK across the switch from first-past-the-post to PR.
More academic disputes should have names like ‘the great porridge controversy’.
(I confess to not having heard of the Norwegian sociologist Eilert Sundt before I read this, but he sounds great).
(I confess to not having heard of the Norwegian sociologist Eilert Sundt before I read this, but he sounds great).
March 1, 2025 at 12:19 PM
More academic disputes should have names like ‘the great porridge controversy’.
(I confess to not having heard of the Norwegian sociologist Eilert Sundt before I read this, but he sounds great).
(I confess to not having heard of the Norwegian sociologist Eilert Sundt before I read this, but he sounds great).
It’s an old idea, but given the apparent paucity of idea in government at the moment, could be worth giving it a go…
February 26, 2025 at 8:44 PM
It’s an old idea, but given the apparent paucity of idea in government at the moment, could be worth giving it a go…