Apply multi-dimensional scaling to House of Lords voting history distance matrix, and plot

gistfile1.r

# -------------------------------- MDS plot ------------------------------
 
fit <- cmdscale(d,eig=TRUE, k=2) # k is the number of dim
x <- fit$points[,1]
y <- fit$points[,2]

# ]plot with colors corresponding to party
parties = factor(row.names(recentvotes))
plot(x, y, xlab="Coordinate 1", ylab="Coordinate 2", main="House of Lords voting", pch=19, col=parties)
legend('topright', legend = levels(parties), col=palette(), cex = 0.8, pch = 1)