More misconceived numbers from the Conservatives
Getting a decimal point in the wrong place “makes no difference”, according to a Conservative Party spokesman, after a document issued by the party multiplied the number of teenage pregnancies in poor areas by a factor of ten.
Published on Sunday, Labour's Two Nations (now corrected) included the claim that 54 per cent of girls in deprived areas are pregnant by the age of 18. The correct figure is 54 per thousand, or 5.4 per cent.
Anyone can make a mistake, but this one follows exaggerated claims about violent crime made by the Conservatives. It’s time they got someone with some concept of numbers into party HQ, because after this every claim they make in the run-up to the election is going to be closely scrutinised.
Tim Jones (not verified) wrote,
Thu, 04/03/2010 - 16:01
Hmmm Let's see, 324 seats in the commons is an outright majority and, allowing for the decimal point in the wrong place, so is 32.4 (whatever 0.4 seats is). I can see why a political party might want to take the view that decimal points don't matter...
Anonymous (not verified) wrote,
Fri, 19/03/2010 - 01:28
it does come over as arrogant to try to get away with saying that a factor of ten makes no difference iwhen quoting and using numbers to make an argumnet, as well as innumeracy - at the very least it alters the strength of a case, usually; especially when the same bunch force an apology out of gordon brown for not being quite right in use of figures on defence spending.
accurate use of statistics now at the heart of election campaigning...but a long way to go before the politicians stop selectivity and cherry picking figures, and agree what the numbers are and instead focus on justifying their proposed solutions based on evidence....at least a couple of generations away, probably
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