Lies, damned lies and statistics used by politicians

I've just dropped in on a debate on Twitter between Kilian Bourke and a Labour activist, in which the Labour activist claims that the Coalition have privatised 70% of NHS services since 2010. Welcome to the dark world of political statistics...

My father, who built his career on a very astute nose for bullshit and a firm grasp of numbers, once told me that 69.3% of all statistics are made up. At the time, the joke evaded me to an extent, although years as a fully paid-up sceptic have led me to appreciate just how right he really was. Bar charts on leaflets are just the start.

So, for example, has the deficit been halved since the Coalition came to power? In actual terms, no, but in real terms, yes. Naturally, more cynical politicians use the statistic which best suits the spin they wish to impart, preferably by blurring or simply omitting the context.

So, let's say that £3 billion worth of NHS contracts have gone to non-NHS providers (that's a figure plucked out of the air, by the way, simply for illustrative purposes). To the public, that's a bad number, big and scary. On the other hand, it represents about less than 3% of NHS spending. That's a small number, and not really scary at all. And, of course, they're both true. So, which figure would you use to win an argument?

Let's take the argument further. You believe that NHS contracts should stay within the public sector (let's conveniently ignore the fact that you were quite happy to allow it to happen when you were in power). You might focus on the value of contracts that have gone to non-NHS providers. Your opponent might respond by noting the savings achieved or the extra activities that can be delivered with the money thus released. It all depends on context, but your thirty second soundbite doesn't allow you to provide any. It is, in intellectual terms, the equivalent of two men in suits of armour hitting each other with maces whilst the world watches on the internet.

I hold the view that, if you treat the electorate like idiots, they'll behave that way. And, you end up with infantilised, short-term politics which ducks the long-term reforms that this country needs. Dodgy statistics, in the hands of discredited politicians - hardly a prospect to lift the spirits, is it?

The countryside - a mysterious place full of strange creatures...

It's a sheep, not a goat or a llama...

I'll return to my woolly friend later...

Apparently, a new survey has revealed that there are some amazingly ill-informed people out there. According to the Travelodge hotel chain, of 3,000 people surveyed, 22% could not identify a picture of a hare. One in 10 adults thought it was a deer. Alright, it does depend on the picture they're shown as to whether you'd think it was a rabbit or a hare, although if it's a still life, the legs and ears are a pretty good clue. But a deer?...

Talking of deer, 12% per cent of the survey group identified a stag as a reindeer, and thought that reindeer were native to Britain. Now, there is a herd of reindeer in Phoenix Park, Dublin, but I've never seen any in the wild here. Perhaps they thought they live in Scotland.

32% had difficulty picking out a pheasant, which surprises me less. I would have had a pretty good idea before I moved to a village surrounded by them, and I used to look for them on rural train journies, but given the number of people who don't venture into the countryside, it isn't unexpected.

42% didn't know what an otter looked like and that does surprise me. Everybody likes otters, don't they? They're cute, they're on every countryside programme there is, and you can find them surrounded by small children in zoos.

And in a sign that I'm getting old, 83% were stumped by a picture of a common bluebell. Bluebells were iconic English woodland flowers, I thought. Perhaps if there were more pictures of them in 'Midsomer Murders', they'd be more familiar...

However, what worried me most was that one in ten adults failed to correctly identify a sheep. A sheep, for pity's sake. Anyway, if there are any readers of this blog who are confused on this question, have a look at the picture at the beginning. It's a sheep...

'Liberal Bureaucracy' numbers for January 2010

Yes, it's February already, and as this seems to be something that allows people to judge if this blog a success, and is entirely objective, here are the figures for January...

• 2210 visits, up from 1462 last month (a 53.9% improvement on last month) but down from 2262 in January 2009 (a 2.3% fall)
• £0.73 of advertising revenue, up from £0.40 last month (a 82.5% improvement!) but down from £1.58 in January 2009 (a 53.8% improvement).

I'm now expecting to qualify for my first cheque from Google Adsense in February 2012...