The Spectator

Barometer | 22 March 2018

Spin doctors

The BBC has denied it photoshopped a Newsnight backdrop to make Jeremy Corbyn’s hat look more Russian. The art of doctoring photos is, appropriately enough, often credited to the Bolsheviks. One photo of Lenin in 1920 had Trotsky and Kamenev edited out after they fell from favour.
— Yet manipulating photos for political purposes really began 50 years earlier. One photo, an attempt to flatter Abraham Lincoln, had his head fixed on the body of a more shapely politician, John Colhoun.
— A photo of Ulysses S. Grant inspecting his troops on horseback has been exposed as being made of three different images.

Course work

Graduate salary data for degree courses is to be released. Which places are the best and worst at getting you a job? The percentage of 2008-09 graduates in further study or sustained work or both, five years on:

HIGHEST </
University of Chester 83.0

 

University of Hull 82.6

Royal Veterinary College 82.4

Edge Hill University 82.1

University of Keele 82.1

LOWEST (ALL LONDON-BASED)

School of Oriental and African Studies 61.3

 

Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Drama 57.2

 

Royal College of Music 55.2

Guildhall School of Music and Drama 54.4

 

Conservatoire for Dance and Drama 52.8

Source: Department for Education

High flyers

The Zoological Society of London warned that uncleaned bird feeders spread deadly avian diseases. Which bird populations have changed most since 1970?

LOSERS % CHANGE

Turtle dove -98

 

Willow tit -93

Grey partridge 92
Corn bunting -90

Tree sparrow -90
WINNERS % CHANGE

Greylag goose +3,647

 

Gadwall +1,295

 

Collared dove +799

Black-tailed godwit +739

 

Avocet +703

Source: Defra

Old money

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