Contents of Volume 159, 1996 PART 1 Editorial: Issues for statisticians involved with court cases S. Evans Political polling: 95% expertise and 5% luck R. Worcester How might opinion polls be improved?: the case for probability sampling P. Lynn and R. Jowell Discussion on Opinion polls and general elections Reay and Hope versus British Nuclear Fuels plc: issues faced when a research project formed the basis of litigation H. M. Inskip Trial design based on surrogate end points— application to comparison of dif- ferent breast screening frequencies N. E. Day and S. W. Duffy A multilevel modelling approach to examining the effects of area of residence on health and functioning R. Ecob Illness behaviour and the measurement of class differentials in morbidity D. Blane, C. Power and M. Bartley Multiplicity considerations in the design and analysis of clinical trials R. J. Cook and V. T. Farewell What’s in a mean?—an examination of the inconsistency between men and women in reporting sexual partnerships J. Wadsworth, A. M. Johnson, K. Wellings and J. Field Fitting bivariate intensity functions, with an application to modelling delays in reporting acquired immune deficiency syndrome J. K. Lindsey Diagnostic testing and sensitivity analysis in the construction of social accounting matrices R. P. Byron Using examination results as indicators of school and college performance H. Goldstein and S. Thomas Obituaries: James Harold Wilson; William Joseph Jennett Reviews PART 2 Editorial I. Plewis and F. Smith Adjusting for measurement error in multilevel analysis G. Woodhouse, M. Yang, H. Goldstein and J. Rasbash New developments in latent structure analysis applied to social attitudes L. M. de Menezes and D. J. Bartholomew Reconciling recalled dates of developmental milestones, events and transitions: a mixed generalized linear model with random mean and variance functions A. Pickles, K. Pickering and C. Taylor Updating small area population estimates in England and Wales S. Simpson, I. Diamond, P. Tonkin and R. Tye Logistic regression models for binary panel data with attrition G. M. Fitzmaurice, A. F. Heath and P. Clifford Regression analysis for complex survey data with missing values of a covariate C. J. Skinner and O. Coker The restart effect and the return to full-time stable employment P. Dolton and D. O'Neill CONTENTS OF VOL. 159, 1996 Immunization uptake in rural Bangladesh: a multilevel analysis F. Steele, I. Diamond and S. Amin Visualization of event histories B. Francis and M. Fuller Monte Carlo exact tests for square contingency tables P. W. F. Smith, J. J. Forster and J. W. McDonald Bayesian analysis of realistically complex models N. G. Best, D. J. Spiegelhalter, A. Thomas and C. E. G. Brayne Reviews PART 3 Editorials Statistics and statisticians in the regulation of medicines J. A. Lewis Bovine spongiform encephalopathy and ‘The term safe is not the same as zero risk’ S. M. Gore Mad cows and ecstasy: chance and choice in an evidence-based society (the Address of the President) A. F. M. Smith League tables and their limitations: statistical issues in comparisons of insti- tutional performance (with discussion) H. Goldstein and D. J. Spiegelhalter Statistics and the theory of measurement (with discussion) D. J. Hand Religious mobility in the UK R. Breen and B. C. Hayes Improved approximations for multilevel models with binary responses H. Goldstein and J. Rasbash The epidemiology of suicide in London P. Congdon Public opinion polls: the UK general election, 1992 T. M. F. Smith A statistical algorithm for the early detection of outbreaks of infectious disease C. P. Farrington, N. J. Andrews, A. D. Beale and M. A. Catchpole Report of the Council for the session 1995-96 Letter to the Editors Obituaries: Jan Tinbergen; Stefan Vajda; Pius Peter Kallaa Reviews Author index