More on More or Less

Find my post about that deplorable episode of More or Less and put it together with BBC Watch's recent piece; add them together and what have you got? Yes…. another piece!!

To recap: The programme’s attempt to debunk the findings of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust’s survey about Holocaust denial was utterly ridiculous. The professor of methodology didn’t even spot the gigantic agenda-driven flaw in the programme’s methodology. 

For a programme whose very title implies balance, (“Is it more? Or is it less? We weigh up the evidence before we judge”) made by an organisation whose very remit is impartiality, under obligations within its charter, it was a total fail. 

All it managed to achieve, if anything at all, was merely to question the reliability of surveys as a whole. All surveys and polls. Per se.

“Disregard the answers,” they concluded, “the participants were either dishonest or rather thick. Ignore the findings, they were probably all wrong”. 

Which is what you should do with this ridiculous programme. By the way, if you think 5% sounds a bit high, why not try taking 'people’s' survey about that topic in, say,  Bethnal Green?

Is Less More?

In which I accuse Craig’s appraisal of More or Less on the issue of Holocaust denial of being far too generous and gives the programme a pass it doesn’t deserve.

I should declare an interest - in the literal sense - meaning that the subject interests me, and not in the euphemistic sense, which suggests a financial or similar obligation that might tie one to a particular view.

I heard this programme because the subject matter caught my eye, (I suppose I should say “ear” ) which why I paid attention to a programme I haven’t properly listened to for ages. 

The treatment of the item about Holocaust denial seemed decidedly glib. To use one of More or Less’s favourite phrases, “let’s dig a little deeper” and ask who benefits from a thorough More or Less debunking of this survey’s findings. Cui bono?

Q. Why would the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust commission such a survey?

A. A survey might be useful to probe the extent of the perceived increase in antisemitic incidents, with relevance to the activities of Jeremy Corbyn and his merry men.

Q. Why would More or Less feel the need to analyse it?

A. The BBC might wish to put the survey under scrutiny for many reasons. 

        They don’t trust the findings; 

        they think they’re unreliable; 

        they don’t like the findings and wish it weren’t so.

The very idea of a massive groundswell of ignorance and racism is neither palatable nor credible to most people I’d imagine.

So here’s my take on the programme. 

The intro itself immediately brings in a kind of get-out clause, using non-committal language, which covers the whole issue: 

“As many as one in twenty adults in Britain don’t believe the Holocaust took place.”

("As many as" = "not categorically")

Then they define the word ‘Holocaust’, presumably to avoid any misunderstandings, but (problematically for me) emphasising the "even bigger" number of ‘non-Jewish’ targets, “Roma, disabled, political prisoners and many others.” This almost vindicates or diminishes Hitler’s underlying antisemitism - the specific scapegoating of Jews - that fuelled his extermination policy. It’s almost worthy of Ken Livingstone when you think about it.

Then the findings (of a 2,000 person survey) are extrapolated to a seemingly mind-boggling conclusion, which is that “as many as one in twenty”  people in the UK deny the Holocaust. 

Admittedly, the BBC is not alone in making this unlikely-sounding extrapolation from the figures. I think that’s the inherent flaw in all surveys. How do we (ever) know that any sample truly represents the entirety? I don’t know how they do that and it could explain why polls and surveys are often way off the mark.

Ruth Alexander has been trying to find out more. She proceeds to analyse the methodology and takes a look at the questions, bringing in Professor Peter Lynn, who raises an eyebrow.

'The number sounds too big.

 Other experts agreed there are some serious flaws in the study. 

The wording of the questions seems to have some serious shortcomings, which may have affected the findings.' 

Fair enough.

He explains that people may have appeared to have agreed that the Holocaust never happened when that wasn’t what they intended. Is he saying that people get easily confused by those pesky double negatives, which made them say they “think the Holocaust never happened” by accident?

The best example of this kind of confusion that comes to mind at the moment is the irritatingly frequent misunderstanding of the term “cannot be over-estimated”, which people so often mistakenly say when what they really mean is “cannot be underestimated.” 

But how confusing is it to be asked “Do you believe the Holocaust never happened? Well, do you? yes or no? And if you say 'yes, I do', do you mean it happened or it didn’t happen? 

“People taking part in a survey like this”, posits the good professor, “maybe they’re ticking boxes mindlessly, with one eye on the freebies?” 

Yes, good point. But that’s a criticism that could be applied to all surveys. In fact, it highlights the flaw in the entire notion of surveys, wouldn’t you say?

“And”, he continues, “some people may be ticking outrageous boxes just for the fun of it.”

Ruth Alexander takes that up and runs with it. “Yes,” she agrees, “look how many people follow the Jedi religion.” 

Well, in that case, we’re all finished. We’re all trolls, wind-up merchants or too bloody stupid to know what we’re doing. Survey, shmurvey, oy veh.

Another flaw in this survey they're claiming is that the term ‘Holocaust’ wasn’t explained. People may have thought they were answering questions about Hollywood, or holograms or holey socks.

This is looking more like a thorough debunking of surveys-as-a concept as opposed to this particular survey with its unpalatable findings. 

I must admit question No.1 was a bit tricky. It was about numbers. It resembled one of those multiple choice questions you get on The Chase or Who Wants 2 B a Millionaire. 

“How many people were murdered?
Was it: a) zero, b) 1000, c) one Zillion.  

The answer’s bound to be a guess, really.

The next question was in a similar vein, but it concerned the dates the Holocaust took place. The choices given were something like: 

Was it:  a) between100 BCE and 100 AD?
or b) between the Roman invasion and next week?
and c) it hasn’t happened yet. 

You could guess, but you could always answer “don’t know.” 

The next analysis concerned a consecutive list of questions containing confusing double negatives, in which the crucial question “The Holocaust never happened” was cunningly concealed. Further trickery involved the deliberate complexity of having to tick one box from a wide range of answers graded from ‘strongly agree’ to strongly disagree. 

Why am I calling it trickery? you ask. Well, the implication seems to be that the HMDT might have engineered the survey so that the findings would exaggerate the extent of Holocaust denial. Now, why would they do such a thing? To “smear” the whole of the UK, perhaps? 

I’m afraid both Ruth Alexander and Professor Lynn can’t really continue to debunk this survey without recognising that the points they're making will inevitably debunk most other surveys as well. Not to mention referendums. ‘We weren’t given enough information. We didn’t know what we were doing. We were misled.’ 

I wonder how Ruth Alexander’s inability to handle a double negative without getting the meaning completely wrong could be extrapolated?

“Does it seem possible or does it seem impossible to you that the Nazi extermination of the Jews never happened” 

Is that too difficult for you? It was for Ruth Alexander. She couldn’t figure out what the right answer was. What if this problem with basic comprehension were to be extrapolated and applied to the number of people working on More or Less? Would it be 20 per cent? 50 per cent? Hmm. 

In case you too are as confused by the double negative as she was, she gives the answer, slowly and clearly for those of us who have difficulty grasping the principle. 

"Listen up! If you said “possible” You.. Are.. A.. Holocaust Denier.”  

Doh!

Where credit's due

Tim, of 'More of Less' fame, smiling and sporting a leather jacket

Over the years I've given mixed reviews to Radio 4's statistics show More or Less, especially as regards bias. 

For me though, the latest series is proving (pleasingly) to be much stronger on the pluses than the minuses.

And I'm particularly enjoying the programme's increasing focus on whistle-blowing rubbish BBC reporting.

Episode 1 used Radio 4's Today to illustrate silly "apocalyptic" media headlines and hyped-up 'nanny state' reporting about 'rising' child sugar consumption, suggesting that it was largely fake news.

It then moved on to media misreporting of the rising train fares story, ruling that, in the specific instance of BBC reporting cited, "the fault lies not with the rail industry but with the BBC, which misquoted the industry body The Rail Delivery Group".

Ouch!

Episode 2 then investigated the BBC website for a short documentary on 'intersex surgeries' for saying that that the UN believes as high at 1.7% of the world's population has 'intersex' traits, "roughly the same as people with red hair" [a comparison the programme judged deeply misguided and unhelpful].

The BBC reporter behind it was Megha Mohan, the BBC's BBC Gender & Identity Correspondent.

She cited a UN website, which guestimated that the figure could be as high as 1.7%,

But, as More or Less pointed out, "if you dig a little bit further", that website also says it could be as low as 0.05%.

That's a massive difference. It's the difference between 1 person in 60 [Mogha's version] and 1 person in 2000.

Megha Mohan, leader in global breaking news

And More or Less, on digging further, found that that 1.7% guestimate came from an ideological academic - namely the author of Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality.

More or Less also criticised Megha Mohan's piece for focusing on situations where surgeries are debated, which the programme judged "rare". And, on looking into the surgery figures, More or Less presenter Tim Harford said, "So not 1.7%, but 0.017%". So rare indeed.

Alas, Megha herself had been so proud of this documentary:

Oh dear!

Episode 3, in contrast, showed the BBC News Channel's Carrie Gracie actually doing the right thing and expressing shock at a wild statistic from the charity Refuge's Sandra Horley claiming that domestic violence costs the UK public £66 billion a year, a story the BBC had made a headline story on 21st January. The stats don't add up - as per the BBC's head of statistics - and it's pretty much nonsense..At best Refuge trebled the costs. Carrie - the BBC's most famous wage equality campaigner - clearly knows her stats, even if others in the BBC newsroom don't.

Episode 4 made BBC reporting of the '1/20 UK people are Holocaust deniers' story the starting point for its main story. More or Less cast serious doubt on this figure, for many, many, many reasons - all of which (perhaps hopefully thinking) sounded plausible to me - including a potentially deeply confusing question in the survey. It appears, the programme concluded, as if we're in the still grim but significantly less scary 1-2% territory when it comes to the actual number of Holocaust deniers.

And this week's edition, Episode 5, went a good deal further than I ever expected it too in debunking the BBC's Brexit coverage, specifically the BBC's headline claim (across many platforms) that one-third of the UK's businesses are considering moving operations abroad because of Brexit. Tim Harford described those claims as "bizarre", "not so much Project Fear as Project Wrong", and "not worth taking seriously", and duly outlined why. It's well worth listening to. 

Of Spitfires, Heroes, Heroines and Statistics

As part of the blog's '...and any other matters that take our fancy' remit, here's a discussion from this week's More or Less that caught my attention concerning survival rates among World War Two Spitfire pilots, and I thought I'd share (via a classic ITBB transcript):

Tim Harford: Loyal listener Andrew wrote to us to ask:

Andrew: It is often mentioned that the average lifespan of a Spitfire pilots was four weeks. Those pilots were heroes of course, but I've never quite understood how that figure for life expectancy was calculated. Can you explain? Is it correct?

The Battle of Britain took place around this time 78 years ago, in British airspace between the 10th July and the 31st October 1940. On the British side flew nearly 3,000 men, including nearly 600 from allies such as Poland, New Zealand, Canada and Czechoslovakia

Archive clip: In the first year of this war British pilots brought down 1,750 in raids on this country. These are the men that do it...

There were heavy losses on both sides, but was the life expectancy of pilots in the iconic Spitfire really just four weeks? Well, Lizzy McNeill is our tame historian and she's been looking into the stats. Hello Lizzy. Welcome to History Today.

Lizzy McNeill: Thanks. This stat comes up a lot. It seems that every major newspaper has included it in an article at one point or another. For example, the quote appeared in The Independent as: "The average life expectancy of a Spitfire pilot during the battle of Britain was an astonishing four weeks". Now this quote is talking specifically about Spitfire pilots who were in action during the 16 week period in 1940 known as the Battle of Britain.

Tim: But is it true?

Lizzy: Doesn't seem to be. I first went to the Ministry of Defence and spoke to a wing commander who just happened to be by the phone. He was a bit confused about the question, so I then went to the National Archives. I'd heard rumours that the RAF had completed a census during the War to get this figure, but Dr George Hay from the National Archives wasn't convinced by the rumour or the statistic and he told me that it wasn't one he could find properly verified or referenced by any official source. He also pointed out that it would be a bit of an odd exercise for the Air Ministry and certainly would not have helped morale if shared publicly.

Tim: Good point.

Lizzy: Yep. The RAF Archive also told me they had no record of this statistic, either from the War years or later.
Tim: So there is no official data to back up the claim. We can't leave it there though. You're a historian, Lizzy. Do some history on it. Do we know about the life expectancy of pilots?

Lizzy: Well, I actually think it's kind of a strange question. I mean, the battle only lasted 16 weeks, so it really feels more natural to talk about survival rates than life expectancy. Sp that's where I've started. 

Tim: And what did you find out?

Lizzy: Well, I found 781 Spitfire pilots who were awarded the Battle of Britain clasp, which was given to men who flew at least one sortie during the battle. Of those 781 pilots, 151 died during the Battle of Britain which, remember, only lasted 16 weeks.

Tim: So the majority actually survived the Battle of Britain. So the claim can't be true.

Lizzy: Yes. Even if you look only at the men who died, the average survival time was about 7 weeks. But, remember, these are only the 151 men who died.

Tim: So that tells us nothing, except to confirm that the figure of four weeks must be wrong. And, obviously, the people who died during a 16 week battle are on average only going to last few weeks. It would be mathematically impossible for them to live longer than 16 weeks.

Lizzy: Yes, but what we do know is that it was a very dangerous job. About nine pilots died each week out of a total force of 781 pilots. So the mortality risk was more than 1% every week - and perhaps more depending on how many of those 781 pilots were active at any time. Still, as a Spitfire pilot you were more likely to survive the Battle of Britain than die in it.

Tim: What about the entire war?

Lizzy: Well, fewer than half of these pilot survived the War. Almost 20% died during the Battle of Britain and a further 33% died later in the War.
Tim: So the life expectancy of four weeks is one of those statistics that isn't true but isn't challenged because everyone feels, well, it's the kind of thing that ought to be true. But I don't think the heroism of Spitfire pilots needs to be exaggerated with dodgy numbers. 

Lizzy: No.

Mary Ellis

Tim: I did have a question though, Lizzy. Just this week there was a memorial service for Mary Ellis, who flew Spitfires and many other planes during the War but managed to live to the remarkable age of 101. How many women flew in the Battle of Britain and what was their survival rate?

Lizzy: Ah, well, as we often say on More or Less, behind any statistic there is someone counting or measuring something, and in this case, remember, I was counting pilots who were awarded the Battle of Britain clasp and neither Mary nor any other women were given that clasp because Mary and her colleagues didn't fly in operational sorties. They were in the Air Transport Auxiliary

Archive clip: Bombers and fighters in the hands of the ATA, he Air Transport Auxiliary  - the men and women who take the planes from the factories and deliver them to operational stations. An essential service to the RAF, increasingly important as the volume of air production increases.

They had to learn to fly dozens of different kinds of planes and move them around to where they were needed.

Archive clip: ATA pilots must be able to handle every kind of plane, from fastest fighter to the slowest trainer, from the largest air sea rescue amphibian to the heaviest bomber, and every Halifax or Stirling or Lancaster that's delivered by the ATA is used ultimately to deliver bombs on the Axis. 

They were highly skilled but they did not fly in the Battle of Britain, and that's what the original question focused on.

Tim: And what were their survival rates?

Lizzy: None of the original eight ATA women died during the War. By the end of the War 164 women pilots had served with the ATA and 15 died. So a mortality rate of nearly 10%.

Another bouquet (containing a hidden brickbat)

Here's another bouquet for the BBC - something I missed at the time but found yesterday via a comment at Biased BBC.

Back in early Mark on The World This Weekend made a major thing of something that wasn't true. 

The bones of the English local election results have been picked clean by now but here's one under-reported result: Nearly 4,000 people who wanted to vote were stopped from doing so, according to the Electoral Reform Society.

(Obviously the bouquet isn't for Mark Mardell here!)

We expressed scepticism about it at the time, questioning how 'under-reported' it was and, more seriously, questioning why The World This Weekend took that dodgy-sounding ERS figure at face value. We wondered, 'Was it a case of "fake news"?'.

What I didn't realise was that Radio 4's More or Less debunked the ERS's figure a few weeks later and played a clip of Mark Mardell saying what I quoted above. It turns out that the ERS - and, thus, the ever-so-trusting Mr Mardell - were wide of the mark by a factor of ten. 

More or Less made it clear that it was another BBC reporter, namely Newsnight's David Grossman, who first smelt a rat at the BBC. His journalistic instincts told him that the figure sounded suspiciously large. He dug into it and did the calculations. A BBC News website article followed with the final findings that only around 340 people had been turned away. 

It's good that one part of Radio 4 is prepared to expose "fake news" at another part of Radio 4, with a little help from BBC Two. That said, although More or Less played that Mark Mardell clip at the beginning, it was the ERS who found themselves on the sharp end of the programme's criticism. The World This Weekend was never mentioned again, and no apology came from them. Therefore, especially in the light of those alarm bells that rung in David Grossman's mind, I'll repeat he question I put back in early May: 

Why did Mark Mardell take the ERS's figure at face value and not probe it?

Another question might be: Should Mark Mardell go for some urgent journalism training with David Grossman?

Overheard...

Here's a Twitter conversation this morning which I 'overheard'. Note how the 'complaints from both sides' trope gets taken up by the BBC defender:

Yvonne Johnston: Good to have @BBCMoreOrLess back on the radio. At least for those of us prepared to sort the data wheat from the chaff.

MsJones: True. But it doesn't become him when he defends the BBC against bias. It's his mates at the BBC.

Yvonne Johnston: It's on a BBC radio station but I understand the programme is made under the auspices of the OU.

MsJones: I trust the OU to be objective and neutral. But I don't understand why @TimHarford felt the need to defend the BBC against bias.

Yvonne Johnston: ‏But he does have a point that both the right and the left seem convinced that the BBC is biased against them. Are they both correct?

MsJones: That is surely a sign the BBC fails to achieve balance. If both sides of the argument were put in the same programme then would be unbiased.

Introspective post

Does the BBC read blogs like this? And does it react to what we write?

The company I work for is assiduous in monitoring social media for adverse comment, so it's hardly difficult to imagine that the BBC keeps an eye on sites like this from time to time (even if just for amusement). And lower-lying BBC people especially are bound to Google themselves.

In the early days of this blog programmes like Broadcasting House and Sunday actually used to link to some of our pieces on their official BBC websites (which they must have found by searching for reaction) - at least until we became too critical of them. And an edition of BBC Correspondents Look Ahead alluded to one of our posts. Other than that though it's mainly been hints and suspicions - except for some complaints that have paid off (though that's obviously not a question of them reading us voluntarily). 

Commenters at sites like Biased BBC have often wondered whether BBC News website articles (in particular) have been surreptitiously edited in response to criticism there. Given how 'surreptitious' the BBC can be, it's very hard to know whether such 'stealth-edits' really have come about because of alert BBC eyes monitoring critical blogs, or whether such changes have  merely been coincidental and either (a) self-motivated or (b) prompted by direct complaints. (And they certainly wouldn't tell us if they had 'stealth-edited' such a piece). But, nonetheless, it's certainly a real possibility. And, as I say, why wouldn't they?

*******

Such thoughts also struck me after the BBC bumped up the distressing story of Hannah Bladon mid-morning this morning, a couple of hours after we posted (again) about their failings over the coverage of the story - the BBC having 'buried' the overnight news of Hannah being named and the growing tributes to her deep inside the less-read sections of the BBC website. Why would a story that the BBC had 'buried' overnight (even after Hannah's name was made public shortly after midnight) - and been so reluctant to fully report - suddenly get brought to prominence and the young woman at its heart finally given the proper humanity due to her unless someone - some website maybe? - had shamed someone at the BBC into doing the right thing?

Now, even if this isn't the case (and it very well may not be the case and the BBC could just have been catching up with most other media outlets), it still remains the right thing for blogs like this to do to keep on pointing such shameful BBC behaviour out, just in case someone at the BBC does pass by, reads the criticism, takes it on board and then acts on it.

We can only live in hope.

*******

I also had that strange (paranoid?) sense that we're being read on the sly by the BBC whilst listening to this week's More or Less, which also engaged in a spot of introspection. 

The feature focused on the question of whether fact-checking of the kind More or Less engages in is a pointless exercise because people who don't want to believe the programme's 'facts' not just don't believe their 'facts' but might actually go the other way and become even more resistant to the 'truths' More or Less is telling them about. Such 'fact-checking' might, therefore, 'backfire' on the likes of More or Less. 

What made me think they were talking about this blog was that Tim Harford framed the programme's angst in the context of complaints about BBC bias, implicitly including complaints against his programme - and, as regular readers will know, this site has been particularly intent on nailing More or Less over its biased Brexit coverage. So it's evidently 'people like us', if not explicitly us, that Tim had in mind - though he employed the classic 'Complaints From Both Sites' defence during the programme. 

Even then I wasn't really thinking that he actually meant us until a passing comment about people getting vexed about More or Less's coverage of EU cabbage regulations. That was something we did write about, to the detriment of More or Less. I can't find any evidence that anyone else on the internet wrote about that at More or Less's expense. 

The upshot of More or Less's introspection was that they should try and avoid the 'backfire' effect by refraining from treating those they are debunking as idiots ('Coco the Clowns' you might say) and try instead to ingratiate their 'facts' with us by intriguing us by them...oh, and by using a 'debunking handbook' by Stephan Lewandowsky which Tim recommended. (This turns out, on Googling, surprise, surprise, to be a handbook mainly to debunk 'climate sceptics'). 

All I can say to this is that if you are reading this at More or Less, well, hello and thanks for reading us. 

And please don't forget that your cautionary psychological tales apply to you too. You too aren't free from the failings and the cognitive biases you evidently think 'people like us' are prone to. You don't float above the rest of us. You're not disembodied Platonic souls, immune to the kind of things Daniel Kahneman writes about, anymore than we are.

You might think of yourselves as the impartial guardians of truth but don't you need watching too? What if your facts, however true, are skewed by 'groupthink'? What if your chosen 'facts' are highly selective, however unconsciously? What if, say doing the EU referendum, your coverage was overwhelmingly tilted, also however unconsciously, to 'help' one side (the Remain side) - as I think it indeed was? Was that really you just telling the truth, spreading the facts, in a neutral, dispassionate fashion, merely governed by 'a bias towards understanding' (as Nick Robinson put it), or was that you, perhaps despite yourselves, betraying an actual, heavy (pro-Remain) bias? And maybe we 'BBC bias-bashing' types aren't wrong after all?

Keeping tracks

Sorry for the lack of posts over the past couple of days (a case of 'events, dear boy' for both me and Sue)...

....but as a follow-up to Double Standards (from a couple of days ago), please take a close read of David Keighley's latest post at News-watch. 

It chronicles three other examples of the BBC (over the course of Wednesday evening and Thursday morning) pursuing the same line that "The fear is that this was a frenzied racist attack triggered by the Brexit referendum" (h/t the BBC's Daniel Sandford) across its flagship programmes (Newsnight, News at Six and Today). 

I've only seen the Newsnight example, but that was bad enough, even by itself.

I'm off on holiday for a couple of weeks very soon (and can't wait, despite all the manifold delights of Morecambe)...

...so please keep noting any further examples you see of BBC Brexitophobia either here, or anywhere else you find fit (including either BBC Complaints or BBC Complaints - or both). 

That same Newsnight, for example...

...(whose answer to its selected vox pop's charge that Nigel Farage literally had "blood on his hands" was simply to say that "Nigel Farage has always denied this allegation" {as if that was adequate balance})...

...featured an interview with mournful Remainer Ian McEwan. Evan Davis interviewed him, an allowed him to slag off Brexit and then, in conclusion, pronounced him to be a nice guy.

(Are the police going to start investigating cases of Brexitophobia any time soon? Is Evan going to be in prison soon?). 

The only other thing I've managed to hear tonight is Radio 4's More or Less on that apparent post-Brexit rush of would-be Irish passport holders, with Tim Harford talking of the "turmoil", politically and economically, post-Brexit. (The stats were fascinating though.)

This kind of thing is fairly subtle but only adds to my impression that the BBC is being utterly relentless.

I think I'd need to retire very early to properly monitor all of this kind of thing (which isn't going to happen).

Impartiality? Or bias?

Those of you who closely follow UK politics closely may recall that 'Clause 4 moment' for the Conservative Party in 2007 when the then-shadow education spokesman David Willetts dropped the party's support for the return of grammar schools. 

(This was in the early, hug-a-husky days of David Cameron, when he and his 'modernisers' were trying to 'detoxify' the 'nasty party'). 

Mr Willetts's speech (to the CBI) arguing against grammar schools caused considerable controversy with the right-wing press and parts of the Tory Right. 

And who helped co-write that controversial speech about grammar schools? 

Well, as per an article the Mail (from 2011), it appears to have been Mr Willett's then-policy advisor Chris Cook. 

Chris Cook then moved on to the FT, where he wrote several articles (at least three that I can see) explaining why 'the return of grammar schools' isn't a good idea. 

And then he then moved on to the BBC's Newsnight.

Despite 'BBC impartiality', he's not exactly been inactive at the BBC either in reporting about why grammar schools might not be the potential boost for standards and social mobility that their supporters claim they are - eg, this from July: Why not bring back grammar schools?

This week's More or Less (Radio 4) also gave a firm 'statistical' thumbs-down to the idea that grammar schools raise standards and increase social mobility - topical in light of Theresa May's apparent policy shift on the issue. And who did those downward-pointing thumbs belong to? Newsnight's policy editor Chris Cook.

Disinterested statistical advice or agenda pushing? 

*******

And talking of Chris Cook...

When he was recruited to Newsnight (and, at the time, a rare exception to the programme's heavy recruitment from the Guardian) , I wrote (in March 2014):

Though I didn't find it at the time, I've now stumbled across another piece about Chris Cook. It's an old Guido Fawkes piece (also from 2011), backed by a piece from Nick Cohen, quoting the former Tory advisor:

Though I suspect his take on Boris will be much less favourable now, that clearly positions him as having been a Ken Clarke-style, left-of-the-party, strongly Europhile Tory (at the time).

And that's exactly my impression of him now from his reporting on Newsnight. 

Anyone who's been watching his reports for Newsnight both before and after the EU referendum will have little doubt that he's not changed his views.

I really should have gone to town on those reports at the time. I knew they were biased but just didn't have the time or energy to spell it out and concentrated much more on Evan Davis's biased presentation instead. (Mea culpa!)

*******

In that light, I wasn't exactly surprised - though in context it was surprising - to hear Chris Cook slip in yet another dig at Brexit during his (short) report on "the funding crisis in Britain's accident and emergency units" on Wednesday night's Newsnight, when, seemingly out of the blue, he said this:

You can see why NHS managers have been so worried that a Brexit vote might make it harder for them to recruit abroad. Remember the fall in sterling will be felt most keenly by people who plan their lives in other currencies.These are times historians will pour over, not least historians of the NHS.

And that was how he concluded his report.

*******

His Twitter feed is as you'd expect regarding the EU referendum, and re-reading it, you soon find him pushing the panic button, eg. over the future of the UK in the wake of the Leave vote:

Less than impartial

As loyal readers will know, our close monitoring of the EU referendum coverage of  BBC Radio 4's statistical flagship More or Less has so far resulted in fairly strong proof of a pronounced pro-Remain/anti-Leave bias. 

(Please read it for yourselves if you doubt it.)

(And please 'listen again' if you still continue to doubt it).

This week's edition marked the final episode of the present series. It pledged to look at the numbers on trade and at the UK's relationship with the EU.

Would it redress the balance and give us a pro-Brexit debunking? Or would it go 'straight down the middle' and (despite its previous anti-Brexit bias) end on an 'impartially equivocal' note?

Jaw-droppingly, it did neither. It simply invited on an 'expert', Chad P. Bown, Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, to give an unequivocably pro-Remain/anti-Brexit to every question Tim Harford put to him. The UK would be in a bad position if it left the EU Chad consistently argued.

And Tim (of the FT/BBC) didn't challenge him much either. Chad's word was gospel.

Chad is, of course, fully entitled to his view. BBC Radio 4's More or Less, however, isn't supposed to have a view. 

And yet, with its previous 'debunkings' leaning heavily against the Leave side, this was a BBC programme ending its current run by giving us an unchallenged, anti-Brexit point of view from a 'disinterested academic' on a programme that presents itself as impartial.

If that's genuine impartiality then I'm Jemima Khan. 

Health warning

This week's More or Less on Radio 4 returned to the EU referendum issue and talked about the (mass) immigration figures missing from George Osborne and the Treasury's heavyweight/dodgy dossier about the dangers of leaving the EU.

Curiously, it didn't do so in a noticeably debunking spirit - even though it was obvious from what we heard that the Treasury report had been economical with the actualité (as they say in Brussels).

As he has been doing for some time, Jonathan Portes of the NIESR pointed out the mysterious discrepancies between the official figures for EU migration to the UK and the vastly larger NI numbers appearing in the records. Has EU immigration to the UK been vastly underestimated?

'It's hard to know' was the conclusion, but there's probably been something of an underestimate.

The latter part of the segment then turned to the possible consequences of that 'underestimate' - specifically the economic benefits and costs of immigration. Here Jonathan Portes of the NIESR pointed out the benefits and, at considerably less length, Matthew Pollard of Migration Watch pointed out some possible negatives.

So the immigration issue was covered, albeit - costs and benefits-wise - tilted strongly towards the pro-immigration side of the debate.

The thing that particularly struck me here though was the way More or Less introduced Matthew Pollard of Migration Watch. 

In contrast to Mr. Portes (introduced as "Jonathan Portes from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research") or, say, Madeleine Sumption from the (clealy pro-migration) Migration Observatory (who More or Less recently introduced as "Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory"), this is how Mr. Pollard was introduced:

I spoke to Migration Watch - a think tank that studies migration into the UK and has a clear position: that current levels of migration are completely unsustainable.

Would you ever get such a clear 'health warning' about a pro-migration think tank from a BBC programme? 

A rant v the man from the FT

On the same theme, More or Less on Radio 4 covered the Treasury's Brexit figures this week. 

It introduced Fraser Nelson of the Spectator's denunciation of George's Osborne's "misleading" £4,300 figure as "a rant", before bringing Chris Giles of the (pro-EU) FT on to give a full-length analysis of the Treasury report. (Unlike Fraser's brief bit, the FT man's contribution wasn't introduced as "a rant".)

Chris Giles called the report "serious" and biased" yet "overall, a serious and cogent piece of economic analysis". He said that any such Treasury model like that would show that "the EU is good for Britain" because the EU is good for trade and prosperity - and, thus, it will always help the Remain campaign. He then sketched out a possible model that might help the Leave campaign but did so in such a way as to make it pretty clear that such a Leave model was build on wisps of wishful thinking and mounds of grim guesswork about the future of the EU. 

And that was that -  till next week.

Another Remain-helpful edition of More or Less then. 

The number of Brits abroad

Regular readers will know that ITBB is monitoring More or Less's EU referendum coverage.

The first episode of this series debunked the most debunkable of pro-Leave claims (think cabbages) - a claim made by a pro-Leave chap on Twitter and a pro-Leave columnist in a newspaper.

The second episode began as if it was debunking a pro-Remain claim but ended up making its own pro-Remain case.

This third episode  also began by debunking a pro-Remain claim about the number of British expats living in the EU but was difficult to place in terms of pro-Remain or pro-Leave bias as it didn't discuss the matter in those terms. In other words, it didn't make anything of the numbers one way or the other. The pro-Remain argument behind the debunked claim wasn't made or even really suggested so that wasn't debunked. 

As it was interesting in its own right though, here's another transcript:

Tim Harford: This week there were figures in the news about the numbers of migrants who've been coming to the UK from other parts of Europe. But we've also had a number of listeners getting in touch with us about migration - not just about people coming to the UK but also how many Brits are migrating to live abroad. Immigration is a contentious issue where numbers are often bandied about when they're well passed their sell-by date. One website in favour of staying in the EU, Business for New Europe, suggests there are 2.2 million Brits living in the EU and newspapers and Twitter memes have suggested in the past that this is about the same as the number of EU citizens living over here. We're not so sure. So we asked Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory, about the numbers that are available.

Madeleine Sumption: Well, the data that's probably best to look at this question with are from the United Nations and they produce estimates of the number of foreign-born people living in different countries. So in the case of Brits abroad this would actually be British-born people abroad, even if they have subsequently taken the nationality of that country. And those data...the most recent ones are the estimates for 2015 and they suggest that there were around 1.2 million British-born people in other EU countries, or a little closer to 1.3 million if you look at EEA countries (including, for example, Norway and Switzerland).

Tim Harford: 1.2 million. That seems like quite a lot. How does that compare to the number of EU nationals living here? 

Madeleine Sumption: Well, you probably want to compare it to the number of EU-born people living here, so that you have the same definition, and if you do that then the most recent data for last year suggests there are just over 3 million EU-born people living in the UK. 

Tim Harford: Just thinking about these 3 million people who were born elsewhere in the European Union and who now live in the UK, do we have a sense of who these people are? 

Madeleine Sumption: We do have a fair amount of data on the characteristics of these people. If you look just at people born in EU countries then that will include everyone, whether it's a student just coming for a couple of years or someone who has been here since the age of 2 and maybe was born to British parents living abroad. 

Tim Harford: The UN's best estimate is that there are 1.2 million British-born people living around the rest of the EU and just over 3 million EU-born people living here in the UK. Within the EU the top destinations British people head to are: At No.5, Italy; at No.4, Germany; at No.3, France; at No.2, Ireland; and at No. 1, it's Spain. Interestingly, the vast majority of people who emigrate from the UK do not go and live in other EU countries. The same UN data from last year show that of the nearly 5 million British-born people living outside the UK 3.7 million people live in countries outside the EU. There seems to be a preference for places where English is widely spoken: Australia, the USA, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and, of course, the Costa del Sol. 

Tim Harford's yawn

The next post (tomorrow, as it's late) will update you about More or Less's EU coverage, but first...

Here's More or Less's Tim Harford, on this week's episode, doing that elite, pro-EU thing which so gets up the nostrils of Brexiteers: the belittling yawn about the EU referendum:

Ah, yes. Perhaps you'd thought we'd forgotten the EU referendum this week.Well, don't worry, [putting on in a bored voice] we haven't - even if I sometimes wish we could.

Oh yes, Tim of the FT? Rather we all move on, would you?

What British Muslims Really Think, more or less

Islam in England

The most striking aspect of this week's More or Less on Radio 4, however, was its treatment of ICM/Channel 4's 'What British Muslims Really Think' survey.

The programme approached it in its usual debunking spirit, and that tone was maintained throughout. 

Oddly though, the tone was at odds with its findings. And it felt to me as if that was because the programme was engaging in doublethink. They laid out the facts, yet sounded so sceptical about them as to sound snide and dismissive. They sounded as if they didn't want to believe it.

The three types of poll were laid out and ranked: internet polls, telephone polls and person-to-person interviews. Though all were judged imperfect, the face-to-face ones were judged the best. And this ICM/Channel 4 poll was a face-to-face poll.

Then a polling expert laid out why the ICM/Channel 4 poll might be "skewed" (a word the programme kept using). 

He said that, because of costs, ICM/Channel 4 had to go to areas with heavy Muslim populations. To do otherwise would have been ridiculously costly. That, therefore, excluded Muslims who live in areas where they are few other Muslims. And, it was inferred, such Muslims would be more likely to be liberal (as they have to associate far more often with non-Muslim Brits) than the conservative Muslims huddled together in Britain's big towns and cities. 

Thus, the survey was "skewed" in that it gave more emphasis to inward-looking, 'conservative', urban-dwelling Muslims. (I wondered just how many isolated, liberal, rural or suburban Muslims there actually are out there.)

It may just be me but I felt More or Less sounded a bit deflated, however, when the expert then went on to say that - despite that - this ICM/Channel 4 poll was the best survey we've ever had on Muslim opinion in the UK (thus - though this wasn't said - putting the BBC's much-touted past polling into question), and that we need to take it seriously.

None of that then stopped More or Less from continuing with a snide, haughty tone about the ICM/Channel 4 poll and implying it overestimated the 'conservative' (i.e. extreme) element in the British Muslim population. and that this should have been made clearer by ICM/Channel 4. 

I remain doubtful about that. And for anyone who wondered, quite sensibly I'd have thought, whether the polling was actually "skewed" in the opposite direction - by some British Muslims downplaying their real views because they were talking to an outsider (a pollster) or by some British Muslim engaging in Taqiyya - well, you probably won't be surprised to hear that such thoughts never seemed to have crossed the minds of those nice, liberal-minded, 'impartial' folk at More or Less.

It was all a bit odd really - as much of this kind of hand-wringing BBC Radio 4 treatment of Islam in the UK can so often be. The reality seemed to have been glimpsed but everyone on the programme appeared to want to run away from it.

Why our celebs are dropping like flies

This week's More or Less on Radio 4 had me interested from the start because it discussed a question that's been bothering my colleagues at work, on and off, for weeks.

In fact it's been an out-and-out 'hot topic' there: Why is it that so many celebrities are dying this year? 

Of course, More or Less wanted to know if there was any statistical basis for this popular intuition that our beloved celebs are dropping like flies at the moment...and counting the number of full-length obituaries posted on the BBC News website, the programme revealed that there does seem to be something going on here. 

The number of obituaries (covering the same January-to-now period for each year) rose from roughly a handful around 2011, leapt dramatically in 2014 to around the mid teens (and rose a little bit more in 2015), and then leapt again into the high 20s in 2016. 

So, yes, it does seem to be true that our favourite celebrities are starting to drop like flies at the moment.

And the reason, according to More or Less? 

Well, it's all because the pop charts and popular TV grew up in the 1950s. Before then 'the famous' largely amounted to famous movie actors and actresses, and they were small in number. From the 1950s though, a huge number of the pop stars and TV personalties began to appear...

...and, alas, given their dates of birth and life expectancy, a lot of those people (and those who achieved fame in the 1960s) are now reaching the point of no return (even some of the ones in their late 60s). 

From this I drew the conclusion that our celebs are going to keep on dropping like flies from now on and we'd better get used to it. 

I won't name names for the next candidates though as that would be in very bad taste (not that I didn't join in the predictions at work. One name kept cropping up. And, no, it wasn't Elton John or David Furnish.)

Inglorious or glorious?

Just an update on a couple of hares I set running last week...

These concern a pair of EU-related BBC Radio 4 programmes and the possibility they might have been biased (in favour of Remain). 

The first was Inglorious Isolation: A European's History of Britain. 

The programme's title and website blurb led me to expect outrageous pro-EU bias. It didn't happen.

If there was bias it was 'subtle' bias. Only one of the speakers was open in stating her wish for us to remain in the EU - and her programme (the Scandinavian episode) also featured the sharpest anti-EU statements (from Norway). 

In fact (with the exception of the relatively weak 'Spain' edition) the whole series was fascinating and illuminating and made me feel that Britain's 'isolation' was rather splendid after all (as several of the continental contributors appeared to think too). 

So the problem with this Radio 4 series in the end merely amounted to its misleading title and its build-up blurb.

Britain's "Inglorious isolation" wasn't what its speakers talked about and was, I suspect, just some biased BBC Radio 4 editor's 'bright idea' for a title.

The second hare I set running concerned Radio 4's statistics programme More or Less.

Last week's episode debunked a very-low-hanging pro-Brexit fruit, suggesting pro-Remain bias, so, therefore, I began a tally...

This week? 

Well, this week's EU referendum feature debunked the claims of an anti-Brexit/pro-Remain blogger - which is what you'd have hoped after last week's debunking of pro-Brexit/anti-Remain tweeters and columnists. 

That blogger had claimed that what we pay into the EU is massively outweighed by what we get back from it. More or Less rubbished his claims, and stated that what we pay to the EU isn't insignificant. It's quite a substantial amount - even after we count in Mrs T's rebate and the rest. 

So far so anti-Remain.

But the programme also said the amount is substantial but not huge compared to the amount we spend on , say. the NHS. 

More of Less said it amounts to about "£2.50 a week" for all of us (which, by my reckoning, is around £130 a year). 

Then it began, rather oddly, to compare such an amount to the possible consequences of a Brexit, economically and further build its case that the British contribution isn't that huge.

Using a thought experiment, considering a 0.1% fall in GDP and a 0.1% rise in GDP as a result of different outcomes from a Brexit, the programme stated that either way the amount we presently pay into the EU is relatively insignificant. We could lose or gain a huge amount more either way as a result of the economic impact of a Brexit...

...which sounds all very 'BBC impartial'...

...except for the fact that...

...(a) as was noted on an earlier thread, they seemed to assume the EU contribution would remain the same if GDP went up rather than rise steeply if our growth rate exceeded that of other EU member states,...

...(b) such reporting is likely to produce feelings of doubt in listeners' minds about what the economic consequences of a Brexit could be. 'Could we lose huge amounts of money from the British economy as a result of a Brexit?', they might well wonder,...

...and, above all, (c) the overall point of the piece was that the amount we pay into the EU isn't that significant in the grand scheme of things (e.g. when you compare it to NHS spending or the possible economic impact of a Brexit), which is a point that 'undermines' a popular argument from the Leave side of the EU debate.

In the end, then, the piece made a helpful point for the Remain side.

So what might have been a 'balancing' piece that last week's Remain-friendly debunking on EU cabbage regulation turned out to be no such thing in the end. 

Of cabbages and things

One of my favourite Radio 4 programmes, More or Less, began its latest run this week.

As it's a statistics-based programmes, I wonder what the chances were (statistically-speaking) that its opening item would be something about the EU referendum? 

And, as an additional question, what do you reckon the chances were that its first Brexit-related item of the series would debunk a pro-Brexit statistical claim (made this week by a right-wing thinktanker on Twitter and a right-wing journalist)? 

Here's the offending tweet:

And here's how the More or Less website introduced the feature:

Now. I think it's beyond reasonable dispute that More or Less absolutely rubbished this claim about EU cabbage regulations. (They rubbished it, flushed it down the toilet and then dropped one of Kim Jong-Un's nuclear bombs on it). And the story they told of the evolution of the myth was absolutely fascinating (and well worth listening to).

But....

A quick search of the internet shows that this is a myth which Uncle Tom Cobley and all (including his sister Charlotte) have been debunking since the dawn of time, and before. 

In other words, it's a piece of 'low hanging fruit' that More or Less seized on here (albeit very tasty 'low hanging fruit'). 

Claims of EU bureaucratic absurdity have long been a staple of the EU debate here in the UK - from EU-prescribed straight bananas to straight cucumbers. Pro-Brexiteers cite them and anti-Brexiteers deride them....and thus has it been for forty years or so now. 

bananas

So, speaking oh-so-objectively, More or Less was obviously 'helping' the anti-Brexit side here, in that they debunked a claim made by (some) Leave supporters.

However, as you know, this was just one episode and the BBC tells us it is about due impartiality.

In other words, it's no use moaning about just one episode. You have to judge a BBC series over time to see BBC 'balance' in action.

Therefore, as it's easy and not very time consuming, let's do that very thing...

Let's listen to this whole series of More or Less and count the number of features debunking a pro-Remain claim and the number debunking a pro-Leave claim, and then see what happens. Will it demonstrate impartiality or bias?

I'm hoping the result will be a dead heat (or something close to it) - like 5 debunkings for each side perhaps?  How 'impartial' would that be!

Time will tell.

So let the tally begin...

Debunkings of pro-Leave claims: 1

Debunkings of pro-Remain claims: 0

Wake-up call (2/3)

This morning, another unsettling listening experience.  More or Less: behind the Stats.  Sympathy for Jihadis.

More or Less is about statistics, so the Sun poll should have been right up its street. 

Early as it was, I thought it would be worth a listen. I think this is an abridged version of a lengthier broadcast on the BBC World service.

We heard that the poll had prompted angry responses online, like one that was read out (I presume we heard the voice of the author)  apparently a college lecturer called Rial Khan (phonetic) from Leicester in the UK. This is a transcript:

“Are you nuts? So you’re telling me I’ve got six members in my family, my bruvver has six members in his family, and my uvver bruvver has six members in his family, you’re telling me each one of us has an extremist in our family? So you’re telling me that there’s three extremists in my extended family? Where d’you get your facts from mate? You’re completely wrong. You know what you’ve just done? You’ve opened the floodgates”

Blimey Mary. I hope I never get into an argument with anyone who’s been lectured by such a genius of advanced logic

Next came a string of ‘hashtag one-in-five‘ Tweets of wit and humour, such as  “One in five Muslims sleeps with his beard on”, clearly demonstrating that one in five Muslims have a Jolly Good SOH. 

Survation has already publicly criticised the Sun’s interpretation of their survey, arguing that the findings did not justify the Sun’s sensationalist headline: “One in five Brit Muslims’ sympathy for Jihadis” 

The Survation representative on the programme was upset at the Sun’s interpretation because he felt the figures represented, if anything, a fall in support for jihadis.

In response The Sun stated: 

“It is not for a polling company to endorse or otherwise the editorial interpretation of a survey. The Sun published the poll’s findings clearly and accurately, including the questions in full.”

The question that caused the most trouble was  “How do you feel about young Muslims who leave the UK to join fighters in Syria? The boxes were marked (in terms of sympathy) from: 1:A lot; 2: Some; 3: None; 4: Don’t know. 

The answers: 5%, 14%, 71% and 10%. respectively.

So although the vast majority said they had no sympathy, as many as 19%  had some or ‘a lot’. 

One objection was the  ambiguity of the question and in particular the interpretation of the word ‘Sympathy”. Dr Maria Sobolewska, an expert on polling who specialises in ethnicity, religion and race relations, said that some of the interviewees may have misinterpreted the question.

“Did they simply feel that the situation for Muslims was hard, with all the wars around the world and conflict, and perhaps prejudice in Western Europe, and therefore this particular person feels some sympathy with how desperation may lead some young people to terrorism? Is it just a kind of emotional understanding, or is it actually weak or tacit support of terrorism? I really think making that leap into the second conclusion is a bit taking it too far.”

By that token, what’s the point in doing any survey at all? if you’re going to analyse, apologise for and re-adjust uncomfortable findings, why bother with a survey in the first place?

“Desperation may lead  some young people to terrorism?” Now who’s making leaps?  

Dr Sobolewska would have preferred the word ‘Support’ to ‘sympathy’, which I daresay would have produced an equally questionable outcome, simply because ‘support’ implies active, rather than passive involvement in Jihadism, therefore would have been just as ambiguous and just as likely to produce a misleading outcome.  I think Dr S simply didn’t like the Sun, didn’t like the questions, didn’t like the findings, the conclusion, or the negative impression it gave of “the Muslims”. 

The Survation spokesman explained that the question had been phrased specifically so as to compare it with a similarly worded survey that had been carried out earlier in the year. They should have let him  explain that in the first place. It might have saved time.

There are all sorts of leading and loaded questions surveys could devise. “Do you support, say, beheadings and devil worship? “The outcome would, of course, be predictable, and the survey would be pointless. 

Do you think this programme fell short of the standards to which licence payers are entitled to expect?

1: Agree; 2: Don’t know; 3: Don’t care: 4: Elvis