Barometer | 30 November 2017

Pit stopped

After complaints from the Durham Miners’ Association, a rugby club at Durham University cancelled a pub crawl in which members were to dress as coal miners or ministers from Mrs Thatcher’s government.

— Attitudes towards the 1984-85 miners’ strike were not always so censorious. In 2001, the conceptual artist Jeremy Deller staged a re-enactment of the Battle of Orgreave, involving 800 re-enactment enthusiasts as well as 200 miners who had been there on the day. Staged at Orgreave itself, it was filmed and shown on Channel 4 with few complaints.

Ups and downs

Which industries saw the biggest rises and falls in real-terms productivity (i.e., greater than inflation) since 2007? CPI inflation over the period was 25.9 per cent.

RISING REAL-TERMS PRODUCTIVITY
Textiles	+90%
Administration services	+72%
Chemicals	+62%
Food and drink	+37%
Hotels and catering	+36%
Transport and services	+30%
Wholesale and retail	+27%
Recreation and culture	+26%

FALLING REAL-TERMS PRODUCTIVITY
Energy	+23%
Agriculture	+15%
Construction	+14%
IT	+13%
Finance and insurance	+11%
Public services	+10%
Mining and quarrying	-13%

Source: ONS

Second tries

Prince Harry, a bachelor, is to marry Meghan Markle, a divorcee. How common are such marriages? In 2011, the 249,133 recorded UK unions broke down as follows:

Neither party married before	165,467
Single man, divorced woman	21,265
Divorced man, single woman	24,302
Both divorced	30,282
No data	7,817

Still lives

The Department of Health announced it would investigate every stillbirth. How does Britain compare internationally? Figures are for stillbirths in every 1,000 births.

LOWEST
Finland	+90%
Singapore	+72%
Denmark	+62%
Norway	+37%
Iceland	+36%
Germany	+30%
UK (35th)	+27%

HIGHEST
Pakistan	+23%
Nigeria	+15%
Bangladesh	+14%
Djibouti	+13%
Senegal	+11%
Somalia	+10%