State of play
Iowa became the first US state to pick its election candidates in 1972. How many times since then has the small Midwestern state predicted the eventual winner?
– On nine out of 13 occasions, Iowa has chosen the Democratic candidate who went on to win the nomination. However, in three of those years, the winner was the sitting president, with an obvious advantage.
– In the first two contests ‘uncommitted’ received more votes. The year when the nationwide primaries least followed the example set by Iowa was 1992 when Tom Harkin won 76% of the vote and the eventual winner, Bill Clinton, just 3%.
– As for Republicans, the Iowan result has predicted the outcome in four out of nine contested elections. Iowa rejected John McCain, Mitt Romney and Donald Trump in 2016, as well as Ronald Reagan the first time he stood in 1976.
New ages
What is the median age of the inhabitants of each continent?
Europe 42
North America 35
Australasia 33
Asia 31
South America 31
Africa 18
Source: World Economic Forum
We work
How has productivity in the public services changed over the past decade? Figure as a percentage of the 2012 level:
2013 101.1
2014 101.3
2015 101.3
2016 102.5
2017 103.3
2018 103.1
2019 104.6
2020 88.7
2021 96.8
2022 99.6
Pushing the envelope
Following the Post Office scandal, it is a wonder that anyone still wants to run a post office. How many are there?
The number of post offices halved between 1980 and 2009, but since then has been stable. In March 2022 there were:
– 117 Crown Post Offices (main branches).
– 9,617 agency branches (run by sub-postmasters of the type who fell foul of the Horizon computer system).
– 1,901 ‘outreach branches’ (part-time mobile branches run from vans or village halls). There has been a slight fall in agency branches since 2009, but the overall number has been made up by outreach branches.
Source: House of Commons Library
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