Interesting Links for 14-05-2015

• Some gossip about Ed Miliband
  (tags: Labour history gossip )
• Could Indie Filmmakers Use Robots As Camerapeople? Maybe, Yes.
  (tags: movies robots )
• Earth’s Mightiest Monsters: The Character Arcs Of Avengers: Age of Ultron
  (tags: avengers movies writing Character )
• Tories and civil liberties: the fascinating appointment of Dominic Raab
  (tags: conservatives rights )
• New insights into the male bias of autism
  (tags: autism gender men brain )
• Lottery Ticket Approach Leads to Drastic Reduction in HIV Prevalence
  (tags: hiv gambling )
• Next time you think you're the worst person ever, read this
  (tags: perspective Hitler behaviour comic funny )
• I am so glad that (a)I never have to date again and (b) especially not as a woman.
  (tags: relationships dating abuse )
• Seal befriends woman sitting on the beach (I want one. Badly.)
  (tags: cute animals )
• Investigating the origins of individuality
  (tags: genetics behaviour )
• Labour votes vs turnout at the last election - a graph that should worry the next leader
  (tags: Labour politics UK visualisation )
• An autonomous North England takes a huge step forward
  (tags: devolution UK )
• What happened when India experimented with Basic Income
  (tags: GuaranteedIncome India )
• First Supergirl Trailer Really Does Feel Like An SNL Parody
  (tags: viaJennieRigg comics women )
• I'd love to have one of these kinetic wood sculptures.
  (tags: art sculpture wood )
• An unreleased, terrible, movie starring Adam West and Corey Feldman has just been uploaded to YouTube...
  (tags: movies viaDrJon )
• Police: Don't drunkenly chase bears with a dull hatchet
  (tags: police bears advice )
• Confessions of a location scout: why the New York beloved of the movies doesn't exist any more
  (tags: movies newyork history )
• A fascinating map of the world’s most and least racially tolerant countries
  (tags: racism maps )
• George Osborne promises 'radical devolution' for English cities
  (tags: devolution uk )
• Anatomy of error - A brain surgeon remembers his mistakes.
  (tags: surgery brain errors )

Why do people think Labour did worse in this election than the last one?

I'm seeing a fair bit of discussion of the election which assumes that Labour lost seats to the Conservatives, and did worse than in 2010, and that's why they lost.

So far as I can see, that's not what happened at all. Let's ignore Scotland/Wales/NI and look at what happened in England (using the BBC results here.

The Lib-Dems lost 37 seats. Labour are up 15, Conservatives are up 21. And as they'd only been 20 seats off of a majority in 2010, that was enough to win them the election.

Labour's vote share in England actually increased by 3.6%, larger than the Conservative increase (1.4%) - but that didn't matter, because the Conservatives (a) grabbed more of the Lib-Dem/Tory swing seats and (b) were an awful lot closer to winning in the first place.

(Labour's defeat to the SNP is an entirely different matter, of course.)

Conservative MP or Supervillain? (There ought to be a quiz)

Yes, David Cameron really said that.

Yes, there should be a quiz.

No, it shouldn't just be Conservatives on it. Pretty much every Labour Home Secretary should also be on it.

I think this is the source.