WE are all familiar with the expression ‘Lies, damned Lies and Statistics’.

Is it too much to ask our politicians, local and national, to be careful that figures they quote in the press are accurate and fully explained?

A possible example is in last week’s County Gazette.

Our MP states that the debt ‘run up by the last government’ is costing the country £50 thousand million a year in interest.

You don’t have to be a statistician or historian to know that the national debt has been around for about 300 years, and increasing over much of that time, including significantly over the last five years.

So, tempting as it must be to blame ‘the last administration’, it is just possible that the interest repayment quoted relates to the debt run up maybe since the last war, or since the financial crisis, or maybe even includes interest on the significant increase in total debt run up over the last few years under the current administration.

Maybe the next column could give us some clarification.

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED