Skewing statistics: Booze, money and sex

Government works of fiction

If you want another example, try the Badman Review of Elective Home Education. The statistics in that are somewhat dodgy, were pulled apart by angry home educators and even the Commons Select Committee considered them unreliable. Then the government produced the legislation before the report on the consultation that was supposed to guide the process (report turned up just before second reading so no one had a chance to look at it properly), managed to confuse a figure of 95% of responses against the proposals with a majority in favour and only the impending election has saved us from it becoming law.

Definitely policy-based evidence-making.

Value Calculation

"The value in enjoyment of these things must, by definition, be more than people spend upon them."

Um, not that I disagree with the spirit of this piece, but you may wish to tune this bit of the analysis. By this argument, if booze taxes raised the price of a pint from £3 to £1000, and as a result only a handful of people ever drank beer again, the existence of that handful would mean that £1000 is in fact the correct value of a pint. In fact, you could only construct an _upper_ limit on the value, this being the price at which consumption goes to zero.

You need some kind of correction for aggregate consumption.

[Sop for Title-Freaks]

"policy-based evidence making" is one of the best lines in modern politics, and its justified use is to be commended.

Don't just blame politicians...

If one thing hasn't changed in millenia, it's that politicians will try whatever they think they can get away with. It's up to people to decide what to believe and what they're going to do about it.

I believe very little any politician tells me - and the more what they tell me is based on 'statistics' and 'reports' the less I believe them. I've worked in both govt and local govt and I'm well acquainted with statistics being generated from thin air. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who accepts such things at face value needs their head examining. That goes for online 'polls' too.

What's more to the fore in discussions like this is how much anyone CARES. If the average voter is cynical about politicians' honesty, then why do politicians bother with their lies? Essentially because we don't count. Big money runs this country and it's they who must be pacified - the recent MP-for-hire scandal (not to mention the continued influence of people like Mandy) shows that it hardly matters which party is in power - they do as they are told, sooner or later. Whether by the Brethren, the Old Boys' Club, Big Money - or all three. Too many MPs are bought and paid for, and whatever their political colouring, so probably will their successors. With so much of MPs' commitment taken up by lobbyists, vested interests and party whips, the ordinary voter is a hell of a long way back in the queue of people who influence them.

The problem isn't simply statistics, it's a system that's corrupt to the core. The huge changes necessary to make it honest and above board just aren't going to happen - won't be permitted to happen.

Integrity? Heard of it.

Nice writeup, and no quibble with the topic -- integrity is a good thing in leadership, in fact it's the only thing constant over the vastly varied forms and styles of leadership found among humans, and it's equally clear that ours are not good leaders.

I do have a minor quibble with the arguments at the beginning. Buying alcohol and tobacco are rarely rational decisions, yet while you acknowledge this, you also treat them as such. And there is the collateral damage, especially of smoking.

I for me don't smoke and while I do drink I very rarely do so alone, meaning that it takes me several years of occasional nightcaps to finish a bottle of liquour. But there are plenty of people who will not, or even can not leave the bottle well alone, and fewer people still manage to smoke occasionally and keep it down to less than one fag a day. That is, if people smoke the amount gets counted in packets a week or packets a day.

As I'm now experiencing first, well, second hand, smokers often don't notice just how bad they smell, and thus cannot make accurate assessments on that collateral damage. That's not even the risk of causing yourself cancer, or non-smokers in the same dwelling, which is pretty hard to calculate accurately, except perhaps from the NHS bill, which has a rather large overhead, IT and otherwise, factored in due to incompetent meddling elsewhere.

For a very long time it was /de rigeur/ that you could smoke whenever and wherever you wanted, leaving very little social room for others to object. Now, governments are trying to change that, and while I'd rather had government meddling wasn't necessairy, being able to go about and not instantly stink of smoke --as a non-smoker-- does have its upsides. But the point here is that my disenjoyment is part of the price you paid for a packet of fags, but often isn't calculated in the decision to buy anyway. The craving, however, is.

The craving thing isn't limited to drink and baccy, but also goes for such mundane things as coffee and tea (just spent two weeks without tea after a multi-litre-a-day habit, and yes, there was a weekend of headaches to endure), and less mundane things like pot (boy does that stuff stink). Probably more, though I won't advance a DHMO (www.dhmo.org) argument here.

That of course leaves how the full ROI/TCO/LifeCycle calculations are done, which everyone, pro and con, will get inevitably wrong. How they should be done I have no idea either. Of course it's hard to be more wrong than a contemporary government, which isn't even trying, rather the reverse as you rightly point out, but that doesn't automatically excuse this sad state of affairs.

Still and all, as a voice advocating integrity in government, I endorse this product and/or service.

D minus

"No, this isn't now going to spin off into a rant about how appalling the EU is (despite the truth of such an assertion)."

Idiot. Assertions cannot be true. You assert the truth to a given proposition when you have nothing to back it up with. When it is finally backed up with something, it stops being an assertion. Still feeling cleverest? In a sneering essay on truth and methodology you have to be very precise in your language and arguments.

Now. I have a day job. But I'm willing to learn you some science. If only to stop you UKIP-tards spouting the most god-awful shite day in, day out. You make creationists look good sometimes. Let's start off with Marmot:

"Marmot and mates simply looked at health inequality and assumed all was caused by income inequality."

Citation needed.

Point me to the parts of the review where this assumption is made, either explicitly or implicitly. It's funny how report after report shows the same results when it comes to health and wealth inequalities. I guess we'd say that the basic proposition that wealth inequality causes health inequality to some extent is valid. Until such time as you can point to specific flaws in methodology (with actual references) ... you are, at best, attempting to misdirect us. I believe you like to break out the L word at this point.

Page 86 of the report states:

"[...] the fact that widening income and wealth inequalities, documented in Chapter 2, have not translated into commensurate widening inequalities in health and well-being."

The report's authors consider it a fact that there isn't a complete correlation between wealth and other social inequalities, let alone a complete causation. I really need a citation for that alleged assumption, because it looks to me like ... you're lying. Of course, that is only how it looks to me.

"One recent report said that the subsidy between housing association and market rents in Westminster, to take an obviously extreme example, was for a three-bed house over £20,000 a year. Such tenancies last for life, and indeed in some cases they are inheritable. While they can't be sold (at least not legally), the rights to occupy such housing is clearly and obviously part of wealth."

Name the report, refer to specific passages, don't prop up assertions with "clearly" and "obviously", try a little evidence and / or reasoning. This isn't Speaker's Corner.

"So the wealth gap, in this already admittedly extreme example, comes down to something like 2:1, which is a very long way indeed from our original claim of 100:1."

Yes. because you took an edge-case, and then promptly forgot which end of the spectrum it lay on. It is extremely in your argument's favour, not against it, and therefore proves considerably less than you claim. Most people on low incomes don't get an annual £20k rent subsidy. So .... the figures are much closer to the 100:1 than 2:1. No?

"There's no one at all in this country that has 'wealth' of £8,000 or less. We've all got vastly more than that, for we've all got a pot of wealth which will provide us with an income stream. It's called the welfare state"

So ... since we're all so fucking rich, we can scrap the welfare state. Uh ... wait a minute, then we wouldn't all be rich and we'd need a welfare state. But then we'd all be rich, and could afford to scrap the welfare state ... et fucking c. Classic right-wing accounting. Adding figures into more than one column in an attempt to cream some off the top for yourselves.

How's life in Portugal these days?

what's the IT angle?

Interesting read, but no IT angle and pretty much UK centered. Might be a better fit for another site.

Spoilt ballots instead of hang them all

"It's something of a pity that the upcoming ballot papers will not have a “hang them all” box to tick. ®"

You could spoil your ballot. There is a facebook campain for it. Unfortunately without a 'none of the above' option in our current system it is your only option to register your displeasure. No the vote may not be counted in the traditional sense but it is used in the turnout figures, so spoilt ballots put down the percentage of the vote the winners get.

Quick and dirty maths. If 50% of people vote and the winner gets 30% of the vote, then if the other 50% did voted with spoilt ballots then the winner only gets 15% of the vote. I know this is not likley to happen, but the maths is easy.

Some will say 'just stay at home'. But if you don't vote the parties just assume that all the people who did not vote would have voted in the same ratio as everyone who did vote, i.e they assume you would have voted for one of them.....

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=info&ref=share&gid=342409911427

More than the price...

As the Americas of the 1920's demonstrated, sometimes a vice can be worth more to a person than law itself--and if everyone ignores the law, the institution behind it doesn't have much to stand on anymore. It seems to be there are some things more valuable to people than loyalty to a country. In other words, people may actually be more willing to declare war on their own country than to declare war on their vice.

Obvious reason for the change

The reason for the change is obvious - it's abdicating responsibility.

When you state "we will do X when we win" and then do "Y", it's obvious you were lying. If you state, "Report X states such" then you have pointed at an external reason for your decisions. The Shaggy defence ("It wasn't me") is pervasive throughout current government from feasibility studies to reports. It's always someone else that provides the material that is alleged to drive decisions.

The problem is that such reports are not as neutral as they are alleged to be.

The most self evident example was, of course, the Iraq WMD report. Intelligence did not provide the hard answer that was wanted, so the facts were "creatively modified/ignored".

What if you commission a report and the first draft comes to the wrong conclusion? Easy, you send it back for rework with a quiet (unrecorded) word that suggests the desired outcome, possibly with a hint that payment and further work could be impaired otherwise. If the authors manage to arrive at the suggested conclusion you publish, and it will form the basis of many decisions to come over the years. If the authors prefer ethics over income you simply abort the project, boot them out, pay the bill in the most complex way possible and invite the competition.

How unbiased is a feasibility study going to be for a multi-million pound project if the same organisation that does the study also gets the job of developing and rolling out the very service they are to study? Do you really expect a verdict of "not feasible" at that point?

Ah, yes, the myth of the Chinese walls - conversations are never taped, and P&L of all such projects just happen to cross the same desks at the top. So yes, sure, keep on dreaming.

BTW, some planning ahead is required to ensure audit doesn't pose a threat.. Just ensure that ex members of such companies are in charge. They will use school leavers for the interviews, and progress slow enough that the staff on the project can be briefed well in time. No problem. If only you could subvert the ONS so easily, the independent sods.

In conclusion: not only are you being lied to, but the people who lie are not even man enough to own up to it when caught. That's who you voted for.

Twice.

Is it just me

or is this site getting far too politicised lately. I come here for tech news, not to read someone's half baked opinions on the government.

Then there is the sign...

"The productive drunk is the bane of all moralists"

Over the mantle in a wonderful location that I can't tell you about. It should be over those who want to legislate such things as:

Absolute speed limits (as safe as conditions permit sounds good to me).

Absolute DUI limits (I suspect that over 0.1% is a pretty good limit, but this 0.5% or less is a bit much for me).

Absolute wealth limits (Giving ALL of Bill Gates $$$ to every American wouldn't help much, and it wouldn't make ANY dent in how much our nation borrows).

Don't get me started (*SIGH*)

It's pretty easy ...

"It's something of a pity that the upcoming ballot papers will not have a “hang them all” box to tick."

Vote out the incumbents[1]. Or at least make a damn good effort to do so ... I know I do. If enough people do so, eventually the twats will get the message. Or, better, be voted out of office.

[1] Or was that incumbints ...

Saying "of course" doesn't make it true.

Seems reasonable to me that if an asset cannot be transferred, converted to cash or disposed of it should not appear in the balance sheet for an individual.

Triple wtf-ery

1. Voluntary transactions, in relation to tobacco. I doubt even BAT would try to push that particular line any more.

2. You're accusing Professor Michael Marmot, Chair of the global Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, of lying about the topic he's given over his professional life to, by -- so you say -- knowingly and wrongly asserting that all health inequality is caused by income inequality? And you're doing so without providing a direct link to the exact quotation where he does what you assert. That's, um, brave. I see from the Exec Summary of the report that the Review concluded as a key message that on the face of it flatly contradicts what you've said: "Health inequalities result from social inequalities. Action on health inequalities requires action across all the social deter- minants of health." Neither social inequalities nor social determinants of health are defined upfront as narrowly as income inequalities. I think that you've either misunderstood the report or are guilty of the same sin you are busy accusing others of -- deliberately misrepresenting the facts, ie lying. So, links please, with chapter and verse, or if you had any moral guts, you'd apologise.

3. Your income calculation is just bizarre. The fact that a few people are able to benefit from subsidy on a 3-bed council house in Westminster that is worth, according to your unsourced "report" £20k per annum doesn't mean that this is true of everyone in the first decile. The first decile includes people living in shitty one-bed flats in the Gorbals, East Manchester, Tower Hamlets etc that is decidedly *not* worth a £20k per annum subsidy -- I'm not even sure if the few council tenants in 3-bed houses in Westminster would even *be* in the first decile. But also, way to missing the point, there's lots of people who want council housing who can't get any at all. They sleep in B&Bs and on mates floors and sometimes on the street. So they have none of this very exciting £20k pa subsidy that you think everyone gets. Equally, for pensions, lots of people aren't even entitled to a State pension, and if you're poor, you'll die before you've had much of the benefit. In fact, if you're in the Calton in East Glasgow, your life expectancy as a man is 54. And you'll have been killed by tabs and booze, most likely. Oh, and that statistic comes from Marmot's global work for WHO, so there you go, you can discount it now for coming from a nasty mean liar who pretends that -- God save us -- poor people exist in Britain and have a shit time with their health as a result.

http://www.who.int/social_determinants/thecommission/finalreport/key_concepts/en/

An important point

Nice one Tim. Yes, we all need to be a great deal more suspicious of politicians than we currently are. Take your eyes off those crooks and their desperate quest to "get into power" for a second and bad things like we've been seeing over the last 10 years will happen. We're so heavily brainwashed today, anyone who asks questions is labelled a "conspiracy theorist" and labelled insane. No doubt this is what ran through the "minds" of many people reading your article. A dangerous level of stupidity indeed, and one that our grandchildren are going to mock us for.

A SMALL CORRECTION

While I'm not forced to drink alcohol, and can enjoy it any time I like, I disagree with your statement that we are not forced to consume tobacco products... You see when I drink, I'm pretty careful to pour the liquid down my own throat, and not spray it round the room liberally, thereby giving everyone in range a bit.

However smoking just isn't the same. is it. But you're a smoker, so I wouldn't have expected you to see that. For some reason smokers seem to believe against all the evidence that there's some invisible barrier around the smoker that stops non-smokers like myself having to breath in the foul emanations of your particular perversion. But the truth is, there isn't. Just like smoking around children doesn't somehow have a ring of magic keeping their lungs clear.

So yes, I agree. Hang them all. But hang the smokers with them, those foul breeds that stand outside the doorways of offices, forcing me to breath their second hand emanations of death just to get into the office.

H

Here, here...

...and well said that man! Evidence must be fabricated to support knee-jerk policies and if you don't come up with the right evidence then you're probably a respected scientist on the drugs advisory panel.

I've been led to believe, obviously erroneously, that you form theories to fit your data not the other way round (is it worth mentioning climate change 'research' here?)

Anyway, re: the 'Hang 'em all' option on the ballot, there is at least one candidate standing on a platform of getting a 'None of the above' (http://www.steveofstevenage.org.uk/) option onto the ballots. There are also numerous people on facebook campaigning for people to foul their ballots in protest (e.g. http://www.facebook.com/?sk=2361831622#!/group.php?gid=342409911427).

NOTA politics is interesting in so far as a party stood (in some seats) at the last election on a None of the Above ticket, the govt. enacted legislation to ban their party name shortly thereafter, just in case any poor fools felt that they actually had that option. Some info here: http://www.nocandidate.org.uk/

Personally I think that professional politicians are the least suitable people to run the country: just look at any one of a number of recent & past examples of sleaze. Worse still, look what happens when they all get together, you end up with the EU!

Sorry for the politics but this is an op-ed article!

Wasted box

The "hang 'em all" box would be a waste of space as the sheeple will, of course, vote for the same people who've been buggering them (financially, at least) for generations.

i bet Richard Branson doesn't use the NHS much

so... is it fair that he should pay the proportion of his taxes that goes towards it?

if he sends his kids to private school, why should he pay the proportion of his taxes that goes towards state education.

he gets (i am sure) negligible use/return from either and i'll bet he pays a (domicile adjusted) relative fortune towards both compared to the people who use them both.

fair?