As of April 2025, the political party that 18 to 24 year-old's in Great Britain would be most likely to vote for was the Labour Party, at 39 percent, with Labour also the most popular party among those aged 25 to 49. Reform UK was the most popular party for the 50 to 64 age group, with 26 percent of voters saying they would vote for them. For the oldest age group, the Conservative Party was the most popular, with 35 percent of over 65s intending to vote for them. Reform surge in the polls Since winning the last UK general election in July 2024, the ruling Labour Party have steadily become more unpopular among voters. After winning 33.7 percent of the vote in that election, the party was polling at 24 percent in April 2025, only slightly ahead of Reform UK on 23 percent. A right-wing populist party, Reform benefited from the collapse in support for the center-right Conservative Party in the last election, winning several seats at their expense. While the next UK general election is not due to be held until 2029, the government will be keen to address their collapsing approval ratings, in the face of Reform's rising support. Economic headaches for Labour in 2025 Although Labour inherited a growing economy, with falling inflation, and low unemployment from the Conservatives, the overall economic outlook for the UK is still quite gloomy. The country's government debt is around 100 percent of GDP, and without large tax rises and spending cuts, the government hopes to create a stronger, more resilient economy to reduce the deficit. While this is still a possibility, the UK's economic prospects for 2025 were recently slashed, with growth of one percent forecast, down from an earlier prediction of two percent. Although mainly due to external factors such as the threat of increasing tariffs, and general geopolitical instability, the UK's faltering economy will add further problems to the embattled government.

The 1885 UK parliamentary constituencies for Ireland were re-created in 2017 as part of a conference paper delivered at the Southern Irish Loyalism in Context conference at Maynooth University. The intial map only included the territory of the Irish Free State and was created by Martin Charlton and Jack Kavanagh. The remaining six counties of Ulster were completed by Eoin McLaughlin in 2018-19, the combined result is a GIS map of all the parliamentary constituecies across the island of Ireland for the period 1885-1918. The map is available in both ESRI Shapefile format and as a GeoPackage (GPKG). The methodology for creating the constituencies is outlined in detail below.

Methodology

A map showing the outlines of the 1855 – 1918 Constituency boundaries can be found on page 401 of Parliamentary Elections in Ireland, 1801-1922 (Dublin, 1978) by Brian Walker. This forms the basis for the creation of a set of digital boundaries which can then be used in a GIS. The general workflow involves allocating an 1885 Constituency identifier to each of the 309 Electoral Divisions present in the boundaries made available for the 2011 Census of Population data release by CSO. The ED boundaries are available in ‘shapefile’ format (a de facto standard for spatial data transfer). Once a Constituency identifier has been given to each ED, the GIS operation known as ‘dissolve’ is used to remove the boundaries between EDs in the same Constituency. To begin with Walker’s map was scanned at 1200 dots per inch in JPEG form. A scanned map cannot be linked to other spatial data without undergoing a process known as georeferencing. The CSO boundaries are available with spatial coordinates in the Irish National Grid system. The goal of georeferencing is to produce a rectified version of the map together with a world file. Rectification refers to the process of recomputing the pixel positions in the scanned map so that they are oriented with the ING coordinate system; the world file contains the extent in both the east-west and north-south directions of each pixel (in metres) and the coordinates of the most north-westerly pixel in the rectified image.

Georeferencing involves the identification of Ground Control Points – these are locations on the scanned map for which the spatial coordinates in ING are known. The Georeferencing option in ArcGIS 10.4 makes this a reasonably pain free task. For this map 36 GCPs were required for a local spline transformation. The Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 provides the legal basis for the constituencies to be used for future elections in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Part III of the Seventh Schedule of the Act defines the Constituencies in terms of Baronies, Parishes (and part Parishes) and Townlands for Ireland. Part III of the Sixth Schedule provides definitions for the Boroughs of Belfast and Dublin.

The CSO boundary collection also includes a shapefile of Barony boundaries. This makes it possible code a barony in two ways: (i) allocated completely to a Division or (ii) split between two Divisions. For the first type, the code is just the division name, and for the second the code includes both (or more) division names. Allocation of these names to the data in the ED shapefile is accomplished by a spatial join operation. Recoding the areas in the split Baronies is done interactively using the GIS software’s editing option. EDs or groups of EDs can be selected on the screen, and the correct Division code updated in the attribute table. There are a handful of cases where an ED is split between divisions, so a simple ‘majority’ rule was used for the allocation. As the maps are to be used at mainly for displaying data at the national level, a misallocation is unlikely to be noticed. The final set of boundaries was created using the dissolve operation mentioned earlier. There were a dozen ED that had initially escaped being allocated a code, but these were quickly updated. Similarly, a few of the EDs in the split divisions had been overlooked; again updating was painless. This meant that the dissolve had to be run a few more times before all the errors have been corrected.

For the Northern Ireland districts, a slightly different methodology was deployed which involved linking parishes and townlands along side baronies, using open data sources from the OSM Townlands.ie project and OpenData NI.

To understand the relationship between place and politics, we must measure both political attitudes and the ways in which place is represented in the minds of individuals. In this paper, we assess a new measure of mental-representation of geography, in which survey respondents draw their own local communities on maps and describe them. This mapping measure has been used in Canada, the UK, Denmark, and the U.S. so far. We use a panel study in Canada to present evidence that these maps are both valid and reliable measures of a personally relevant geographic area, laying the measurement groundwork for the growing number of studies using this technology. We hope to set efforts to measure ‘place’ for the study of context and politics on firmer footing. Our validity assessments show that individuals are thinking about people and places with which they have regular contact when asked to draw their communities. Our reliability assessments show that people can draw more or less the same map twice, even when the exercise is repeated months later. Finally, we provide evidence that the concept of community is a tangible consideration in the minds of ordinary citizens and is not simply a normative aspiration or motivation.

A PDF map that shows the counties and unitary authorities in the United Kingdom as at 1 April 2023. (File Size - 583 KB)

Historical Map of South / Central America from the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection

In the century between Napoleon's defeat and the outbreak of the First World War (known as the "Pax Britannica"), the British Empire grew to become the largest and most powerful empire in the world. At its peak in the 1910s and 1920s, it encompassed almost one quarter of both the world's population and its land surface, and was known as "the empire on which the sun never sets". The empire's influence could be felt across the globe, as Britain could use its position to affect trade and economies in all areas of the world, including many regions that were not part of the formal empire (for example, Britain was able to affect trading policy in China for over a century, due to its control of Hong Kong and the neighboring colonies of India and Burma). Some historians argue that because of its economic, military, political and cultural influence, nineteenth century Britain was the closest thing to a hegemonic superpower that the world ever had, and possibly ever will have. "Rule Britannia" Due to the technological and logistical restrictions of the past, we will never know the exact borders of the British Empire each year, nor the full extent of its power. However, by using historical sources in conjunction with modern political borders, we can gain new perspectives and insights on just how large and influential the British Empire actually was. If we transpose a map of all former British colonies, dominions, mandates, protectorates and territories, as well as secure territories of the East India Trading Company (EIC) (who acted as the precursor to the British Empire) onto a current map of the world, we can see that Britain had a significant presence in at least 94 present-day countries (approximately 48 percent). This included large territories such as Australia, the Indian subcontinent, most of North America and roughly one third of the African continent, as well as a strategic network of small enclaves (such as Gibraltar and Hong Kong) and islands around the globe that helped Britain to maintain and protect its trade routes. The sun sets... Although the data in this graph does not show the annual population or size of the British Empire, it does give some context to how Britain has impacted and controlled the development of the world over the past four centuries. From 1600 until 1920, Britain's Empire expanded from a small colony in Newfoundland, a failing conquest in Ireland, and early ventures by the EIC in India, to Britain having some level of formal control in almost half of all present-day countries. The English language is an official language in all inhabited continents, its political and bureaucratic systems are used all over the globe, and empirical expansion helped Christianity to become the most practiced major religion worldwide. In the second half of the twentieth century, imperial and colonial empires were eventually replaced by global enterprises. The United States and Soviet Union emerged from the Second World War as the new global superpowers, and the independence movements in longstanding colonies, particularly Britain, France and Portugal, gradually succeeded. The British Empire finally ended in 1997 when it seceded control of Hong Kong to China, after more than 150 years in charge. Today, the United Kingdom consists of four constituent countries, and it is responsible for three crown dependencies and fourteen overseas territories, although the legacy of the British Empire can still be seen, and it's impact will be felt for centuries to come.

The average for 2023 based on 193 countries was -0.07 points. The highest value was in Liechtenstein: 1.61 points and the lowest value was in Syria: -2.75 points. The indicator is available from 1996 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

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The principal objective of the research was to survey and map elite political attitudes to globalisation, European integration and the relationship between the two. Explicitly designed as a pilot study for a broader multi-country and multi-language European comparative analysis, the focus of the project was restricted to the United Kingdom (UK) and Ireland, two countries that are particularly well suited to a comparative analysis of this kind due to their common language, their common institutional origins and the structural similarities in their political economies.

The research was informed by the following key questions:

• how policy-makers perceive globalisation and European integration (including the relationship between them)
• whether distinctive discourses of globalisation, European integration and the relationship between the two can be identified, how pervasive the concepts are, and to what extent they are conserved between cases and, within cases, between political parties, civil servants and politicians, and front- and back-benchers
• whether such discourses are national in character or are party-political factors the principal determinants of attitudes towards globalisation and European integration
• whether there are disparities between policy-makers' attitudes towards globalisation and European integration, as revealed in survey-based research and the official/public appeal to such discourses

The research was conducted via a postal questionnaire, which was sent to all Members of Parliament (MPs) in the UK, all Members of the Dail (parliament) in Ireland, and 1,000 UK and Irish civil servants. This consisted of closed questions with identical scalar answer formats that reflected a range of perspectives regarding globalisation and European integration. The postal survey was backed by detailed discourse analysis of policy documents and a small number of semi-structured interviews with senior policy-makers from both countries (only the postal survey responses are included in the dataset).

this dataset shows the results of the 2014 referendum on Scottish Independence which took place on the 18th September 2014. The data is broken down into the geographical areas such as Edinburgh, Midlothian, Fife and the Highlands. The data shows the number of Yes/No votes, the percentage and the difference between the two (positive depicts a No win). It is interesting to note that anyone over the age of 16 was eligible to vote, a change to the normal over 18 policy in general elections. Turnout was high with 84.6% of those eligible voting. The data was sourced from: http://www.cityam.com/1411046935/who-won-where-how-scottish-councils-voted-independence-referendum-results-map and then combined with Boundary Data from the OS Opendata that provided the geographical boundaries. Another good source of info and maps is http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-29255449. GIS vector data. This dataset was first accessioned in the EDINA ShareGeo Open repository on 2014-09-24 and migrated to Edinburgh DataShare on 2017-02-22.

This report includes a great deal of detail on every aspect of the 2014 London Borough council general elections. No other single volume presents the full results and election statistics from the 32 London boroughs enabling the reader to analyse and compare the results across London in one place. The report presents data for every candidate in every ward (excluding the City of London which operates on a different electoral model). The report also contains analysis of the European election results for London that took place on the same day.

Printed Copies We are able to accept orders for hard copies £30. Click here for further details.

Details of all previous elections reports in the series can be found here.

Summary results of the 2014 local elections in London, showing number and percentage of seats won, turnout and political control.

Final 2014 ward results

These results show the number of votes for each candidate in each ward in London. Turnout, number of ballots, postal votes, and breakdown of rejected votes, Mayoral and European voting figures are also included where available.

Map showing political control in each ward.

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Also, using these ward results, Oliver O'Brien from CASA has created some eye catching interactive ward maps.

The borough map shows the summary results in both the 2010 and 2014 elections.

The ward interactive map shows the detailed results for each candidate at ward level for the last three elections between 2006 and 2014.

This motion chart shows the relationship, between share of votes and seats won by the major parties in elections since 1964 at borough level (requires Adobe Flash Player). )

This project collected survey and interview data to study Eurochildren, their families and their experience and responses to Brexit. The project aims to portray the emergence of a new politics of belonging, which reconfigures discursively and legally who belongs to a post-EU Britain. It also aims to establish a baseline for future research on migration and settlement decision making in families with EU27 nationals following the formal exit of the European Union.

The UK has been a member of the European Union for 40 years. Throughout that time there has been intermingling of people and institutions which can be most clearly seen in the growing number of bi- and mixed-nationality EU families in the UK and their children, many of whom born in the UK and holding a British passport. This is a growing, and yet understudied and underreported, segment of the British society. In a post-EU referendum context, where the rhetoric about curbing EU immigration has permeated political, media, and popular discourses, producing a stark 'us and them' narrative, the question left unasked and unanswered is what are the human and emotional costs of this abrupt geopolitical shift if 'us and them' are the same? Through the study of Eurochildren and their families and their experience and responses to Brexit, the project aims to portrait the emergence of a new politics of belonging which reconfigures discursively and legally who belong to a post-EU Britain and establish a baseline for future research on migration and settlement decision making in families with EU27 nationals following the formal exit of the European Union. In order to do so, it will: 1) Profile and map the population of UK- and EU-born children of EU nationals in the UK and examine, at the aggregate level, different types of EU families and measure their socio-economic inclusion into British society. 2) Investigate how families with at least one EU27 member experience and respond to the process of exiting from the European Union and identify factors that shape such responses. 3) Examine the impact of the EU referendum and its aftermath on different age cohorts of UK-born Eurochildren, examining in particular how they articulate their sense of belonging and attitudes vis-a-vis the UK and the EU. With a team comprising academic experts in the fields of migration and integration, third sector collaborators and legal experts, and using a mixed methods approach, this project provide an empirically-rich and in-depth account of how EU families, often including both UK and EU passport holders and members with dual citizenship, experience and plan to respond to Brexit, a baseline from which to further analyse the process family migration decision making following the formal exit from the EU. The project involves three interconnected work packages (WP). WP1, which is of a quantitative nature, will analyse historical Census and Live Birth data in order to profile and geographically map EU families and their children. Different configurations of EU families, based on their demographic, geographical, and inclusion circumstances, will be established via this data and will inform the qualitative work in WP2 and 3 and our analysis of legal and policy implications of Brexit on this population. In WP2 focus groups and in-depth interviews will be conducted with EU families, as well as reflexive research, in order to explore questions of belonging within the context of the exit from the EU. In WP3, interview with UK-born adult Eurochildren and EU-born parents of Eurochildren will be conducted in order to bring to the fore the ways in which children experience migration decision-making and belonging. This mixed methods study will generate ground-breaking new data on EU families and their EU and UK-born children in the UK, contributing to the strategic, political and policy responses of UK and EU policy makers and to a more informed public debate on the consequences of Brexit on UK and EU citizens alike. The project includes a strategy set to maximise dissemination and impact. This will be done via: producing robust, composite and promptly accessible evidence (journal articles, blogs, briefings, media and online materials); engaging from the outset with a wide network of researchers, policy makers and practitioners; and using tailored dissemination channels to reach out to relevant audiences.

The introduction of the National Childcare Strategy in 1998 marked a radical shift in government policy and for the first time put childcare provision firmly on the political map. Since then a wide range of childcare initiatives and funding streams have been introduced, and hence there is a need for regular data to aid the evaluation of recent policy interventions in these areas. The Childcare and Early Years Provision survey series is divided into two survey strands: the Parents’ Survey and the Providers’ Survey.

The Parents’ Survey provides data on parents’ take-up, views and experiences of childcare. Families in England are randomly selected from the Child Benefit Records and all parents had children aged 0-14 years. They are asked about their use and experiences of childcare for all children in the family and to give more detailed information about childcare for a particular child (selected at random where there is more than one child in the family). The current Parents' Survey series replaces two previous surveys: the Survey of Parents of Three and Four-Year-Old Children and Their Use of Early Years Services (conducted between 1997 and 2002) and Parents' Demand for Childcare, conducted in 1999 and 2001 (see SNs 4380 and 4970 respectively).

The Providers' Survey monitors the characteristics and development of childcare and early years providers and the workforce in England. Information was collected on the number and characteristics of providers, the characteristics of the children enrolled, workforce composition, qualifications and training, recruitment and retention, and business operation. The 2016 survey underwent an extensive redesign, which means findings are not comparable with previous surveys.

The 2020 survey was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic

Further information is available on the GOV.UK Childcare and Early Years Statistics webpage.

The Childcare and Early Years Provision: Providers’ Survey, 2013 collected information on the number and characteristics of providers, the characteristics of the children enrolled, workforce composition, qualifications and profitability. The 2013 survey covered both childcare (full day care, sessional care, out-of-school care, childminders and children's centres), and early years settings in maintained schools (nursery schools, primary schools with nursery and reception classes and primary schools with reception but no nursery classes).

Further information about the 2013 survey may be found on the gov.uk Childcare and Early Years Providers Survey, 2013 webpage.

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The introduction of the National Childcare Strategy in 1998 marked a radical shift in government policy and for the first time put childcare provision firmly on the political map. Since then a wide range of childcare initiatives and funding streams have been introduced, and hence there is a need for regular data to aid the evaluation of recent policy interventions in these areas. The Childcare and Early Years Provision survey series is divided into two survey strands: the Parents’ Survey and the Providers’ Survey.

The Parents’ Survey provides data on parents’ take-up, views and experiences of childcare. Families in England are randomly selected from the Child Benefit Records and all parents had children aged 0-14 years. They are asked about their use and experiences of childcare for all children in the family and to give more detailed information about childcare for a particular child (selected at random where there is more than one child in the family). The current Parents' Survey series replaces two previous surveys: the Survey of Parents of Three and Four-Year-Old Children and Their Use of Early Years Services (conducted between 1997 and 2002) and Parents' Demand for Childcare, conducted in 1999 and 2001 (see SNs 4380 and 4970 respectively).

The Providers' Survey monitors the characteristics and development of childcare and early years providers and the workforce in England. Information was collected on the number and characteristics of providers, the characteristics of the children enrolled, workforce composition, qualifications and training, recruitment and retention, and business operation. The 2016 survey underwent an extensive redesign, which means findings are not comparable with previous surveys.

The 2020 survey was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic

Further information is available on the GOV.UK Childcare and Early Years Statistics webpage.

The Childcare and Early Years Provision: Parents' Survey 2014-15 provides up-to-date and accurate information on parents' childcare arrangements, their views of particular childcare providers, and their views of childcare provision in general. Children aged 0-14 in England were randomly selected from Child Benefit Records and their parents were approached for interview. Parents were asked about their use and experiences of childcare for all children in the household as well as more detailed information about the childcare used for one child within the household (selected randomly where there was more than one child in the household). The current Parents' Survey series replaces two previous surveys: the Survey of Parents of Three and Four Year Old Children and Their Use of Early Years Services (conducted between 1997 and 2002) and the Parents' Demand for Childcare (conducted in 1999 and 2001). The Childcare and Early Years Provision: Parents' Survey, 2014-2015 has two key objectives. The first is to provide salient, up-to date information on parents' use of childcare and early years provision, and their views and experiences of particular childcare providers and childcare provision in general. The second is to continue the time series – which has now been running for over ten years – on issues covered throughout the survey series. With respect to both these objectives, the study aims to provide information to help monitor the progress of policies in the area of childcare and early years education.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The introduction of the National Childcare Strategy in 1998 marked a radical shift in government policy and for the first time put childcare provision firmly on the political map. Since then a wide range of childcare initiatives and funding streams have been introduced, and hence there is a need for regular data to aid the evaluation of recent policy interventions in these areas. The Childcare and Early Years Provision survey series is divided into two survey strands: the Parents’ Survey and the Providers’ Survey.

The Parents’ Survey provides data on parents’ take-up, views and experiences of childcare. Families in England are randomly selected from the Child Benefit Records and all parents had children aged 0-14 years. They are asked about their use and experiences of childcare for all children in the family and to give more detailed information about childcare for a particular child (selected at random where there is more than one child in the family). The current Parents' Survey series replaces two previous surveys: the Survey of Parents of Three and Four-Year-Old Children and Their Use of Early Years Services (conducted between 1997 and 2002) and Parents' Demand for Childcare, conducted in 1999 and 2001 (see SNs 4380 and 4970 respectively).

The Providers' Survey monitors the characteristics and development of childcare and early years providers and the workforce in England. Information was collected on the number and characteristics of providers, the characteristics of the children enrolled, workforce composition, qualifications and training, recruitment and retention, and business operation. The 2016 survey underwent an extensive redesign, which means findings are not comparable with previous surveys.

The 2020 survey was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic

Further information is available on the GOV.UK Childcare and Early Years Statistics webpage.

Special licence dataAdditional, more detailed variables from the Providers' Survey in 2018, 2019 and 2021 are available under Special Licence (SL). The SL data have more restrictive access conditions than those made available under the standard End User Licence (EUL) agreement. Prospective users of the SL version will need to complete an extra application form and demonstrate to the data owners exactly why they need access to the additional variables in order to get permission to use that version. Users are advised to consult the EUL version first and the list of variables available under each study before applying.

Childcare Provider Finances Survey, 2012
During 2012, a sample of childcare and childminding professionals, who had previously taken part in the Childcare And Early Years Provision: Providers' Survey, 2010 (see SN 6882), took part in the Childcare Provider Finances Survey. The survey was designed to provide detailed information on the financial profile of providers offering childcare in England. The survey investigated topics such as the overheads that providers must take account of in their business models, the areas of their provision that are most in need of investment, and their profitability levels and financial concerns.


Main Topics:

Topics covered include the costs of childcare provision, fees, profitability, areas requiring investment and childcare providers' financial concerns.