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Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Reform’s slide from top of the polls

Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Me: “relative changes, schmelative schmanges : doubling a small number is still a small nu…..” Also me: “whhhhooooaaa! CHECK OUT THIS CHART!!! We rule”

Bar chart showing that the subject of statistics saw the biggest growth) in relative terms) in GCSE’s this year.

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Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Latest growth figs overstate latest growth

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Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

At the BBC we pulled out interesting leads in the Mandelson doc drop using Google's AI-powered journalism assistant. Watch the clip for deets. Behind me is @barbarametzler.bsky.social, one of BBC News's data scientists - always on the lookout for better ways to do computer-assisted journalism.

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Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

UK pop ~growth~ slowth More detail at www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

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Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

A lot of the increase in young men living with parents looks like a post uni return home that gradually fades.

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Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

good growth figure this morning is more likely a swallow than a summer...

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Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Analogy chosen for the Arsenal fan in the house.

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Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

meh inflation in feb is the best we'll see for a while.

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Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

Solar's not the biggest renewable in Britain but it drove last year's rise to record renewable generation. From @beckydale.bsky.social @markpoynting.bsky.social & Jess Carr's www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

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Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

40k small boat crossings so far this year is - second highest on record - less than half of asylum claims* - about 5% of immigration* *July '24 - June '25, latest figs More on BBC's migration tracker: bit.ly/4rVv595

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Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

Record* life expectancy for women in the UK. *by 0.01 years.

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Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

Record low murder rate in England and Wales

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Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Both UK and Singapore are alleged to be imposing 10% tariffs on US (left had col). Unusually, the rate US will charge is not half that but is 10%.

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Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Says US tariffs are set at half the tariffs (including non-tariff trade barriers) that those countries impose on US.

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Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

Pretty poor stats from UK Home Office yesterday. Firstly, misleading to say 19k people were removed. Most "returns" (this stat) are people who left voluntarily, most often those who left of their own accord and whose departure the Home Office only discovered later when (e.g.) checking visa data.

Home Office Tweet. Text says "Through our Plan for Change, we have removed almost 19,000 people including failed asylum seekers, foreign criminals and immigration offenders from the UK since July 2024."

Screengrab of Home Office stats showing that the single largest category of returns are "other verified returns": people who left the country of their own accord and whose departure was discovered later by the Home Office.

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Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

school absence fines (mainly for unauthorised holidays) up by a quarter to record levels. explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statist...

The number of penalty notices issued to parents for taking their children on family holidays has hit a record high, according to figures released today by the Department for Education.
There were just over 443,000 penalty notices issued for unauthorised family holidays in the 2023/24 academic year, up by a quarter on the previous year and the highest number since records began in 2009/10.
This has pushed the total number of penalty notices issued for unauthorised absence in the same academic year to 487,344, an increase of 22% from the previous year and also the highest number since records began in 2009/10.
Penalty notices are issued to parents for failing to ensure that their child attends school. In 2023/24 they were for £60 if paid within 21 days of receipt rising to £120 if paid after 21 days. If the penalty is not paid within 28 days, the local authority must either prosecute for the original offence or withdraw the notice.

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Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Another record low in planning applications submitted and decided in England. www.gov.uk/government/s...

Line chart showing the number of planning applications received, granted and decided in England. All three have been trending down fairly steadily in recent years.

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Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Harder to see a 'crash' in the sense of an immediate recession or a spike in unemployment.

Bar chart showing quarterly growth in UK GDP

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Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Easy enough to see a sharp, temporary spike in mortgage rates in the months just after. That would have affected hundreds of thousands of people looking for mortgages (out of millions with mortgages).

Line chart showing the interest on two- and five- year fixed rate mortgages rose through out 2022, spiked after the mini-budget before returning to trend by about April 2023.

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Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Here's what happened to the price of government borrowing in the week of the mini-Budget. The BoE announcement had an effect. So did the mini-Budget. So did Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng saying there was "more to come" that weekend.

Line chart showing the cost of UK government bonds in the week around the Truss/Kwarteng mini-Budget. After months of steady, gentle rises, rates picked up sharply on Thursday after the Bank of England announced interest rates. They then picked up sharply again on Friday after the mini-Budget and again by more on the Monday morning when markets opened.

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Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Some local councils in England will need to *quintuple* new housing delivery to meet government targets. Analysis - plus postcode lookup for your council at www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Bar chart showing average number of homes delivered in English councils and the new targets they are expected to meet. For example, Kensington and Chelsea delivered around 240 new homes a year over the last three financial years. Their new target is more than five thousand homes a year.

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Robert Cuffe @robertcuffe.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

2.3m victims of domestic abuse, 39k convictions. Most of the fall-off is between incident and reporting and between reporting and referral to CPS (and of that, more than half of the fall-off involves victims not supporting action). www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Chart showing domestic abuse from incident to conviction.
2.3m victims: The Crime Survey for England and Wales estimates that 2.3m people were victims of domestic abuse in the year to March 2024. Just over two-thirds of these were women (1.6m). Despite gradual falls over the last decade in the estimated prevalence of domestic abuse, this figure hasn't changed significantly from the year ending March 2023.

0.85m crimes recorded: The police recorded about 1.4m domestic abuse-related incidents and crimes in the year ending March 2024 - 0.5m were categorised as incidents and 0.85m as crimes. Domestic abuse accounts for nearly one-in-six of all offences recorded by police. More than three-quarters of these recorded crimes run aground on what are called "evidential difficulties", most often the victim not supporting action.

73k referrals to CPS: The police referred nearly 73,000 cases to the CPS in the last financial year of whom just over 49,000 were charged. The number of referrals was slightly up on the year before (69k).

39k convictions: There was a slight fall in the conviction rate. Just under 39,000 of the cases completed last year resulted in conviction, very slightly down from just above 39k the year before - reaching the lowest level for at least ten years. (38,776 down from 39,198)

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