Truth is the first casualty of war, goes the old cliche. Similarly, facts are the first ones up against the wall in an electoral battle. Facts, stats and trivia are hurled out from each party headquarters like bullets from machine-guns, sometimes colliding with one another, occasionally taking out a candidate who’s been caught telling a particularly preposterous porker. Rarely do any of them shed any real light on anything, because as soon as one party makes a claim, out rushes another with a counter-claim, until it’s impossible to know who, if anyone, has got it right.
Step forward the BBC, which among its many public services produces the outstanding More or Less programme. Its raison d’etre is to fire the Bazooka of Accuracy at fudged, dodgy or downright wrong statistics, so you’d expect it to relish an election campaign.
In a recent edition, More or Less pointed out that the problem with statistics in elections is clearly illustrated by campaign leaflets. Many of these include a graph showing the results of the last election. You’d think it would be hard to get these wrong: the last election was in 2005 and for every seat there is a definite, legally binding result. But you’d be wrong – as More or Less’ Electionwatch feature recently highlighted, the candidates just use the results from whichever election their party has recently done well in.
It’s a phenomenon I’ve noticed myself. For example, I have before me a leaflet from my local SNP candidate. It includes a cheerfully colourful chart showing that in Glasgow South in 2007, the SNP came less than 1,800 votes behind Labour. If I were not a political anorak, I would not have noticed that the last general election was in 2005, and therefore this is the result from the Scottish Parliament election. And if I weren’t a political anorak, I might not be aware that people vote very differently in different elections: rendering the SNP candidate’s chart pretty much meaningless.
But wait, that’s not all. Here’s a leaflet from my Lib Dem candidate, with a chart demonstrating that the Lib Dems have 12 MPs in Scotland, Labour 39, the SNP 7 and the Tories 1. They use this to support their claim that “In Scotland there is only one party in a position to challenge Labour’s domination of our politics at Westminster” and surprise surprise it’s the Lib Dems.
These statistics are both current and accurate, so they are better than the SNP’s. Sadly, they are equally meaningless. If I live in a safe Labour seat – which I do – it doesn’t matter a toot whether all the surrounding seats are Lib Dem. The only question that matters is: if I don’t want Labour to win, which is the candidate that is most likely to beat them? In other words: who came second in 2005? What’s particularly bizarre is that second place was actually taken by the Lib Dems, albeit by a margin of over 10,000 votes: which perhaps explains why they don’t mention it.
Confusing matters still further is the Labour leaflet, which doesn’t even mention Glasgow South and omits the traditional bar chart in favour of two horses. These illustrate the leaflet’s central claim that “The General Election is a two horse race. It’s a straight fight between Labour and the Tories”. Which, given the statistics above, could not be more inaccurate if it tried.
Does any of this matter? Yes. Yes, it bloody well does. We have a tiny stirring of political interest in this country, after years in which apathy was the accepted approach and admitting to an interest in politics was only slightly more acceptable than announcing your habit of hanging around school gates taking pictures of kiddies. If the parties continue with this merry disregard for truth and fact, then the people who are currently sticking a shivering toe in the chilly waters of political debate will quickly get scunnered and run back to their beach towels, if that isn’t stretching a metaphor too far.
Facts matter. Truth matters. We deserve accurate information from those who seek to represent us, and it shouldn’t take nerds like me to dig around the internet to find it. Do you think the next generation of MPs might realise that? Or will the Tanks of Misinformation continue to roll over us all?
May 4th, 2010 at 8:37 pm
Or if you want to be really depressed by statistics, some statisticians have actually done the sums. Properly.
http://www.voterpower.org.uk/
Apparently, as long as they are wearing a red tie, even a drunk gun toting maniac chewing a Panda burger would be a shoe-in in my constituency. :’(