Fitaloon at MicroShaft

letter from Sir Michael Scholar, head of the UK Statistics Authority

Oh dear, dear, Gordon Brown has yet again lied to us the public in on one of his little podcasts, perhaps it was only a practice run to see if he could get away with it today when he presented his views on Immigration which I commented upon earlier.

However it appears that quite a number of people noticed and complained as the FactCheck blog explains:

As FactCheck noted on Friday, Gordon Brown quoted figures from two different sets of statistics to back up his claim that net migration – the number of people coming into the country, minus the number of people leaving – is falling. He did not spell out that the figures came from different series – rather like comparing apples and oranges.

The UK Statistics Authority, which monitors the use of official statistics, told us they would look into the podcast on Friday. On Monday, shadow home secretary Chris Grayling also asked the watchdog to request that Brown “clarifies his remarks and undertakes not to mislead the public during the approaching general election campaign”.

Today Sir Michael Scholar, head of the UK Statistics Authority, wrote to the PM to say he had received representations “from several sources” about the podcast.

“I attach a note, prepared by the ONS, on these statistics,” he wrote. “You will see that the note points out that the podcast did not use comparable data series for 2007 to 2009, and that it did not take account of the revised estimate of long-term net immigration for 2007.”

“The Statistics Authority hopes that in the political debate over the coming weeks all parties will be careful in their use of statistics, to protect the integrity of official statistics,” he concluded.

Never mind Gordon the truth of being defeated at the coming General Election will surely show you that the British Public don’t like being taken for fools. How many more times are you going to lie to us over the coming weeks in the vain hope you will be re-elected.

The FactCheck Blog – Stats watchdog ticks off PM over immigration figures.

A new “crime” has been invented by Miss Harperson.

This is the crime of being a gender pay discrimination denier.

Whatever next can Zanu Labour imply about people?

In an answer to an otherwise innocuous question  as follows:

Mark Harper (Shadow Minister (Disabled People), Work and Pensions; Forest of Dean, Conservative)

May we have a debate about how to measure accurately the difference in pay between men and women? In one of her other guises, the Leader of the House is always very fond of quoting just one figure, but the Office for National Statistics made it clear yesterday that pay rates are an important but complex matter, and that a range of measurements should be used. According to one of those measures, men who work part time are shown to be paid less than women.

Miss Harperson had the following to say:

Harriet Harman (Lord Privy Seal, House of Commons; Camberwell & Peckham, Labour)

I have had discussions with ONS about this and it has decided on three measurements. The top-line measurement is the average hourly pay difference between all employed men and all employed women. That is the top-line measurement. Below that, another measurement is the average hourly pay difference between men and women working full time, while the third measurement is the average hourly pay difference between men and women working part time. I would not want the hon. Gentleman to be under the misapprehension that somehow men are paid less well than women. That is not the case. If one looks at men and women going out to work, we find that women are paid a fifth less than men across the average. I do not believe that per hour of their work, women are 22 per cent. less intelligent than men, 22 per cent. less hard working than men or 22 per cent. less valuable to their employers than men. That is gender discrimination in pay, but, given the hon. Gentleman’s question, it very much sounds to me as though he is a gender pay discrimination denier. It is certainly not the case that men as a whole are paid less than women, even though the hon. Gentleman might dredge up a few examples.

I have had discussions with ONS…: 5 Nov 2009: House of Commons debates (TheyWorkForYou.com).