Create the quotable headline then add the caveats later - and much drawing of 1984 parallels

The BBC were leading their news bulletins yesterday with the news that GDP in the last quarter of 2009 increased by 0.3% which was much more than the previous estimate of 0.1%. Good news, rejoice, rejoice was the message from the Labour/BBC alliance. Later on the BBC did manage to put up this analysis which did admit that

"However, the size of the overall contraction in gross domestic product (GDP) during the recession increased, from a 6% fall to a 6.25% drop.

Prior to the October to December period, the economy had contracted for six consecutive quarters - the longest period since quarterly figures were first recorded in 1955. "

However what the BBC have managed not to report is that the increased size in the total drop in GDP in 2009 was due to the GDP figure for the 3rd quarter of 2009 being reduced further than was originally reported. So the 2009 contraction was 5% and the peak to trough drop was now 6.2%.

So an unbiased headline for this story would be that the UK GDP increased slightly quicker in Q4 2009 from a worse position than had previously been reported and that GDP in Q4 2009 was less than had previously been reported. However as this is the BBC an unbiased headline was never going to be that likely.


Once again the BBC reporting of a Labour 'good news' story is more than slighly reminiscent of a passage from George Orwell's "1984":

"times 19.12.83 forecasts 3 yp 4th quarter 83 misprints verify current issue

...

The Times of the nineteenth of December had published the official forecasts of the output of various classes of consumption goods in the fourth quarter of 1983, which was also the sixth quarter of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. Today's issue contained a statement of the actual output, from which it appeared that the forecasts were in every instance grossly wrong. Winston's job was to rectify the original figures by making them agree with the later ones."

Actually make that two passages as the more famous chocolate ration is in the same chapter:

"times 14.2.84 miniplenty malquoted chocolate rectify

...

As short a time ago as February, the Ministry of Plenty had issued a promise (a 'categorical pledge' were the official words) that there would be no reduction of the chocolate ration during 1984. Actually, as Winston was aware, the chocolate ration was to be reduced from thirty grammes to twenty at the end of the present week. All that was needed was to substitute for the original promise a warning that it would probably be necessary to reduce the ration at some time in April.

... much later ...

It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it."

1984 one of the greatest books I have read and one that time after time sums up the activities of this Labour government. I know it has become trite to quote 1984 when discussing the Blair, Brown, Straw, Campbell, Mandleson cabal but it is just so perfect. Here's another quotation:

"But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty's figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connexion with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connexion that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head.

For example, the Ministry of Plenty's forecast had estimated the output of boots for the quarter at one-hundred-and-forty-five million pairs. The actual output was given as sixty-two millions. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked the figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow for the usual claim that the quota had been overfulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was no nearer the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than one-hundred-and-forty-five millions. Very likely no boots had been produced at all."