Keeping count.

When America and Britain invaded Iraq in 2003, the armies made two decisions which allowed them to manipulate the news.

First they didn’t allow independent journalists in unless they were approved and ‘embedded’.

Secondly, civilian deaths always look bad so they decided that they wouldn’t keep count.

Controlling the journalists and controlling the statistics allowed them to control the news.

On the 11^th July, the Guardian newspaper got hold of an internal letter from the Director General of the Office of National Statistics, with a ‘restricted’ annex setting out proposed cuts to 23 areas of statistics, currently collected by the ONS.

Here is a selection;

Alcohol.

Smoking

Teenage Pregnancies

Infant Mortality

Cancer Survival statistics

‘Healthy’ Life Expectancy figures

Reducing the coding and analysis of cause of death data to the legally required minimum.

 

I’m not the first to point out that these are all areas where this country comes out very badly compared with similar European countries.

These are all figures people need to make sensible decisions about their lives.

They are building block figures for health authorities and professionals looking for clues to causes of death or illnesses.

They are all politically sensitive.

Good statistics save lives and fuel developments in medicine.

Or by removing the source of embarrassing news, you control it.

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

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