More than just 'dreamers' and 'students': where did Labour's support come from in 2017?

To explain the result of the 2017 general election for Labour, Peter Dorey examines the scale of the party’s support not only among younger voters, but also among professions in different socioeconomic categories. The analysis yields some surprising findings

Towards Exit from the EU: The Conservative Party's Increasing Euroscepticism since the 1980s

Since the 1980s, Britain's Conservative Party has become increasingly critical of the European Union, and of the country's membership of it. So contentious and controversial has this issue become that it was a significant factor in the downfall of three consecutive Conservative Prime Ministers, all of whom found it increasingly difficult to manage their Party in Parliament, and thereby maintain any semblance of Party unity. Initially, during the 1980s and 1990s, the intra-Party divisions were between Europhiles (pro-Europeans) and Eurosceptics, but this demarcation was subsequently superseded by a division between soft Eurosceptics and hard Eurosceptics. The development and deepening of these intra-Party divisions are attributable to a plethora of endogenous and exogenous factors, the combined and cumulative effect of which ultimately led to the 'Brexit' vote in the June 2016 referendum

All Hermitian Hamiltonians Have Parity

It is shown that if a Hamiltonian $H$ is Hermitian, then there always exists an operator P having the following properties: (i) P is linear and Hermitian; (ii) P commutes with H; (iii) P^2=1; (iv) the nth eigenstate of H is also an eigenstate of P with eigenvalue (-1)^n. Given these properties, it is appropriate to refer to P as the parity operator and to say that H has parity symmetry, even though P may not refer to spatial reflection. Thus, if the Hamiltonian has the form H=p^2+V(x), where V(x) is real (so that H possesses time-reversal symmetry), then it immediately follows that H has PT symmetry. This shows that PT symmetry is a generalization of Hermiticity: All Hermitian Hamiltonians of the form H=p^2+V(x) have PT symmetry, but not all PT-symmetric Hamiltonians of this form are Hermitian

Entirely as expected? What the voting data tells us about Corbyn’s re-election

When Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader in 2015, the result astonished many; his re-election surprised no-one. Analysing the 2016 voting data, Peter Dorey and Andrew Denham find a few surprises amidst the details

The contribution of age structure to the number of deaths from Covid-19 in the UK by geographical units

This research was supported by Economic and Social Research Council grant ES/K007394/1 and carried out in the ESRC Centre for Population Change (CPC).This study investigates the contribution of population age structure to mortality from Covid-19 in the UK by geographical units. We project death rates at various spatial scales by applying data on age-specific fatality rates to the area's population by age and sex. Our analysis shows a significant variation in the projected death rates between the constituent countries of the UK, between its regions and within regions. First, Scotland and Wales have higher projected fatality levels from Covid-19 than England, whereas Northern Ireland has lower rate. Second, the infection fatality rates are projected to be substantially higher in small towns and rural areas than those in large urban areas. Third, our analysis shows that within urban regions there are also 'pockets' of high projected death rates. Overall, the areas with high and low fatality rates tend to cluster because of the high residential separation of different population age-groups in the UK. Our analysis also reveals that the Welsh-, Gaelic- and Cornish-speaking communities with relatively old populations are likely to experience heavy population losses if the virus spreads widely across the UK.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.Funding StatementThis research was supported by Economic and Social Research Council grant ES/K007394/1 and carried out in the ESRC Centre for Population Change (CPC).Author DeclarationsAll relevant ethical guidelines have been followed; any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained and details of the IRB/oversight body are included in the manuscript.YesAll necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived.YesI understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable.YesAll data-sets are available at the ONS and NRS websites.PreprintPeer reviewe

Infection rates from Covid-19 in Great Britain by geographical units : a model-based estimation from mortality data

This study estimates cumulative infection rates from Covid-19 in Great Britain by geographical units and investigates spatial patterns in infection rates. We propose a model-based approach to calculate cumulative infection rates from data on observed and expected deaths from Covid-19. Our analysis of mortality data shows that between 5 and 6% of people in Great Britain were infected by Covid-19 by the last third of April 2020. It is unlikely that the infection rate was lower than 3% or higher than 12%. Secondly, England had higher infection rates than Scotland and Wales, although the differences between countries were not large. Thirdly, we observed a substantial variation in virus infection rates in Great Britain by geographical units. Estimated infection rates were highest in the capital city of London where more than 10% of the population might have been infected and also in other major urban regions, while the lowest were in small towns and rural areas. Finally, spatial regression analysis showed that the virus infection rates increased with the increasing population density of the area and the level of deprivation. The results suggest that people from lower socioeconomic groups in urban areas (including those with minority backgrounds) were most affected by the spread of coronavirus in March and April.Publisher PDFNon peer reviewe

Infection rates from Covid-19 in Great Britain by geographical units : A model-based estimation from mortality data

This research was supported by Economic and Social Research Council grant ES/K007394/1 and carried out in the ESRC Centre for Population Change (CPC).This study estimates cumulative infection rates from Covid-19 in Great Britain by local authority districts (LADs) and council areas (CAs) and investigates spatial patterns in infection rates. We propose a model-based approach to calculate cumulative infection rates from data on observed and expected deaths from Covid-19. Our analysis of mortality data shows that 7% of people in Great Britain were infected by Covid-19 by the last third of June 2020. It is unlikely that the infection rate was lower than 4% or higher than 15%. Secondly, England had higher infection rates than Scotland and especially Wales, although the differences between countries were not large. Thirdly, we observed a substantial variation in virus infection rates in Great Britain by geographical units. Estimated infection rates were highest in the capital city of London where between 11 and 12% of the population might have been infected and also in other major urban regions, while the lowest were in small towns and rural areas. Finally, spatial regression analysis showed that the virus infection rates increased with the increasing population density of the area and the level of deprivation. The results suggest that people from lower socioeconomic groups in urban areas (including those with minority backgrounds) were most affected by the spread of coronavirus from March to June.PostprintPeer reviewe

New instantons in the double-well potential

A new instanton solution is found in the quantum-mechanical double-well potential with a four-fermion term. The solution has finite action and depends on four fermionic collective coordinates. We explain why in general the instanton action can depend on collective coordinates.Comment: 10 pages, clarifications and references adde

Explaining Brexit: The 5 A's - Anomie, Alienation, Austerity, Authoritarianism and Atavism

Although support for Britain’s withdrawal in the 2016 Referendum emanated from all sections of society, it was much stronger and prevalent among specific socio-economic and demographic cohorts, namely older citizens, people who had received a minimal formal education in their youth, and those on low incomes. These were the citizens who had benefited the least, and whose communities had suffered the most, from four decades of deindustrialisation, globalisation, neoliberalism, and apparent neglect or abandonment by politicians in Westminster and the London-centric national media. Leave voters (Brexiters) were also notable for the extent to which they shared five social, cultural and political attitudes, characteristics or experiences, all beginning with the letter ‘a’: anomie, alienation, austerity, authoritarianism and atavism. Only by examining these five aspects can we fully comprehend the fears, frustrations, grievances and resentments which underpinned support for Leave in Britain’s 2016 EU Referendum, and why these characteristics were very strongly concentrated in specific sections of British society