LIES, DAMN LIES, AND...

For those of you who weren't able to see my Pensioners Platform column in the April-May 2015 edition of South Devon's Torbay Times newspaper, here it is in its entirety. By the way, I'm not in the habit of saying "I told you so" but read on:-

 

Benjamin Disraeli (Image courtesy of Pixabay.com)

VICTORIAN Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) is credited by many, including the celebrated American author Mark Twain (1835-1910), as having coined the phrase, “There are three kinds of lies: namely lies, damn lies and statistics”. Around 150 years after Disraeli first used the term, life today seems to be governed – some might say blighted – by statistics that invariably prove to be wrong. And that begs one question; can statistics ever be relied upon to be accurate?

Mark Twain (Image courtesy of Pixabay.com)

As I write this article, we’re being bombarded by statistics relating to the general election on May 7. Indeed, it will be interesting to see if any pre-election statistical prediction gets anywhere near the actual result. Will we be asking, on May 8, why the pollsters got it so wrong? If so, perhaps our next question should be, what’s the point of polls and statistical projections anyway?

Don’t worry, that’s all I’m going to say about the general election in this month’s column because I would like, instead, to share with you, a worrying example of how statistics can be used to mislead and misinform. Let me explain. On Thursday March 26, I was browsing through a copy of that day’s Daily Mail when, on page three, I came across an article titled, “Cheers to retirement!” Harmless enough you might think, but the sub-title made for rather disturbing reading, and I quote: “Typical OAPs take three holidays a year, splash-out £330 a month, go rambling, and put their feet-up with a glass of wine at 6.30pm every day.”

Excuse me? Typical OAPs? I then read deeper into the article to discover that a survey of retirees over the age of sixty had produced results that claimed 94 per cent of those polled “are enjoying their post-work life, while half said they were having more fun than ever before.”

The article then went-on to talk about, “an average disposable income of £330 per month, which allows them to go on three holidays a year, plus two weekends away, and seventeen day trips. The study also showed that most pensioners eat out three times a month, and one in ten do so more than twice a week.”

By the time I had reached that part of the Daily Mail article, I was wondering how “most” or “typical” pensioners could possibly afford that kind of lifestyle? My wife Jenny and I certainly can’t. In fact, I had to read the reference to three holidays a year several times before realising it wasn’t a misprint. Given the deeply discriminatory cost of travel insurance for the Over 60s today, we’ll be lucky to afford one holiday this year. In truth, Jenny and I have no such plans for 2015, because there are things that need sorting-out in our home, so it’s all about prioritising. In fact, the majority of our retired friends and acquaintances are in exactly the same situation. Surely, then, we are far more representative of average UK pensioners than those referred to as “typical” and “most” in the Daily Mail article?

As if I’d not already seen enough I then read a reference to, “one in twenty pensioners taking at least five weekend breaks in Britain every year”. That was when I lost patience and jumped to the end of the article to find-out who had organised the poll. It came as no surprise to discover the survey was commissioned by Senior Railcard, an organisation which runs a rail discount scheme for train companies. Senior Railcard will, of course, have an interest in how we UK pensioners travel throughout the year but, in the light of what I’d read in the article, I was sceptical. Just how reliable were the survey’s results?

My suspicions were soon justified because, on the very next line, I read that Senior Railcard had polled just 1,260 pensioners. Hang-on I thought: how on earth can a poll of a mere 1,260 out of more than ten million UK pensioners be expected to produce an accurate picture? Who were those 1,260 pensioners anyway? Were they a true cross-section of the UK pensioner community? Your guess is as good as mine.

Yet again, it seems, pollsters (statisticians) have taken the circumstances of a tiny sample of people and massaged the results to produce a distorted bigger picture. That’s what Benjamin Disraeli meant when he stated statistics are the biggest lie. And that’s why we should, perhaps, treat all polls with suspicion. In truth, some UK pensioners may be able to afford three holidays a year, but are “most” or “typical” UK pensioners in that fortunate position? I doubt it very much.

 Cheers to Retirement? (Image courtesy of Pixabay.com)

 

IT'S YOUR RIGHT ... USE IT

For those of you who weren't able to see my Pensioners Platform column in the March-April edition of South Devon's Torbay Times newspaper, here it is in its entirety:-

IN A FEW short weeks, we’ll be facing one of the most critical general elections to be held in Britain since the end of World War II. But why is it so critical? Because far too many of the most important people in any election have decided that their crucial role is meaningless. I refer, of course, to us, the voters: the decent, law-abiding majority who live at street level in the real world and not some privileged, cocooned existence many of our politicians have known all their lives. Yes, WE are the most important players in the coming general election, because the overwhelming majority of us have that inalienable, democratic right to cast our vote as we see fit, in a secret ballot.

However, in recent decades, vast numbers of us have not been bothering to vote, and that has resulted in very poor turn-outs which, in turn, have brought unpopular government after unpopular government. To make matters even worse, in the run-up to this May’s general election, the seemingly ubiquitous, self-appointed, public spokesperson Russell Brand has been trying to make a virtue out of not voting, by encouraging others to follow his lead. He claims by not voting he is making a protest. But he is wrong! So wrong, in fact, his ‘don’t vote’ strategy undermines the very fabric of the democratic process. Indeed, if that unravelling of democracy were to gain momentum, it would have the potential to propel us all into the nightmare of an unrepresentative totalitarian government.

So, in response to Brand’s assertions, I would like to put forward the other side of the argument. In short, not voting is not a virtue or a protest. On the contrary, it’s a cop-out and a rejection of a human right. By not voting, you throw away your rights to express your opinion through a secret ballot, and you also throw away your right to complain when a government makes decisions that are against your interests. Far too often, these days, we hear people claiming that they have rights, but how many of them actually vote? And how many of them know the true meaning of democracy?

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say on the subject:  “Democracy is a system of government in which all the people of a state are involved in making decisions about its affairs, typically by voting to elect representatives to a parliament or similar assembly. The term Democracy originates from the Greek word demokratia which translates as rule of the people.” But how can the people rule, and how can a Democracy exist if vast numbers of the people don’t bother to vote?

Here, then, is an alternative to not voting. If you’re on the electoral role and you want to make a protest on May 7, the only way of doing so effectively is by attending your polling station during voting hours and casting your vote. If you don’t trust any of the individual candidates listed on your voting slip and/or any of those leading their respective political parties in Westminster, say so! Simply spoil your voting slip by scrawling across it “I don’t trust any of you” or any other words of your choice, then fold it, and place it in the ballot box. By doing so, not only will you have exercised your right to vote, but you will also have made a powerful protest, and you’ll be helping to keep democracy alive.

And here’s how. Every vote in every ballot box is counted, and that includes spoilt voting slips. The more spoilt voting slips cast in an election, the louder the protest will be, because the returning officer in every parliamentary constituency is duty-bound by law to state how many spoilt voting slips have been counted. He or she does this when publicly announcing the details of the election’s results. So, if you really don’t have a preferred candidate or political party on May 7, get out and cast your vote anyway, by spoiling it. That voting slip will be counted along with all the others and, if enough voters decide to protest in this fashion, the political powers-that-be will be forced to take notice.

Please don’t listen to those who try to make a virtue out of not voting. They’re wrong! Not voting is not a protest. On the contrary, not voting removes your democratic human right to protest, despite what others might try to tell you.