Lies, damned lies and Labour government statistics

There has been a lot of coverage this morning on BBC radio (4 and 5Live) of the Firefighters being attacked story. The BBC keep parotting the "fact" that the number of attacks has gone down in the last year, subtext - so why the fuss. Their own website may have the answer "Assaults rose from 1,300 in 2006 to 1,500 in 2007 the union said. Official figures fell from 1,300 to 400...A study commissioned by the union suggests the number of attacks in England and Wales increased by 15% last year, while official data showed a drop of 68%." And the probable reason "In some parts of the country attacks were so frequent that they were no longer being reported, said the union..."


This Labour government's relationship with the truth and with non-politically targetted statistics is shown once agian to be ever looser.