Lies, Damned Lies

'Lies, damned lies and statistics' - is an old saying which came to mind as I read an interesting article by Alf Young in The Scotsman the other day - about exaggerated spending claims being made by the Scottish (SNP) Government. Here's an extract of what Alf had to say in his piece:

"So, these officials simply assembled all the decisions made by the coalition in its four Budgets and three autumn statements since coming to power and assessed their overall impact on Scotland through to the end of this parliament. They did so by calculating what they call “the cumulative impact”. Over the five-year period from 2010-11 to 2014-15, they added up the impact on public expenditure of all the coalition measures.

That’s where the claim of an overall reduction in the Scottish welfare bill of over £4.5bn comes from. But they only reached a number that big by indulging in a bit of statistical sophistry. Cuts that came into effect in the first of the coalition’s planned five-year parliament are counted not once but five times. Cuts in year two four times and so on. Only cuts planned to come into effect in the fifth year (2014-15) are counted just once.

It’s an old ploy, famously used by Gordon Brown to make the most of his first big spending splurge, after the initial hair-shirt years of New Labour between 1997 and 1999, when the Blair government stuck to previous Tory spending plans. Brown, as chancellor, claimed to be spending an additional £40bn on the NHS and education over three years. But he and the Treasury only arrived at such an impressive total by triple and double counting the increases planned for years one and two of that three-year plan."

I remember very well this double and triple counting business because it was used by the Labour Government at the time I was still Head of Local Government for Unison in Scotland - and in response I issued press releases and circulars to all and sundry - denouncing this cynical way of manipulating and massaging the news.

In effect, this was the start of a ruthless Labour 'spin' machine cranking into top gear - which as time went by became more and more about propaganda - and less and less about simply portraying the Labour party or the government in a positive light.

Now I wasn't at all impressed at this way of working because it was all about style over substance - often involving grubby deals behind the scenes - with small groups of politically connected people stitching things up to suit their own interests.       

Which put me increasingly at odds with others in the union hierarchy - who were all card-carrying Labour members, of course, and who didn't agree with this public criticism of the party to which they belonged - in fact they were hopping mad.

A case of 'my party right or wrong', if you like - which was ultimately why I decided to leave Unison after twenty years working in the trade union movement - because, in my view, most union leaders were inclined to pull their punches and stifle their criticism when the chips were down.  

And it was thius realisation that led me to the conclusion that the trade unions were being run in the interests of the Labour Party rather than those of ordinary union members - who supported all kinds of political parties in Scotland, of course, and often no party at all.

So my advice for the SNP Government is to avoid this kind of sleight of hand with statistics - be straight - don't embellish the figures and make things out to be much worse (or much better) than is actually the case.

Because that kind of behaviour will catch up with you one day - and just look what it did for Gordon Brown and his vainglorious claim to have abolished the old economic cycle of 'boom' followed by 'bust'.