IN MODERN life especially in political reports we are often given statistics to support arguments for everything from police efficiency to health - some statistics are very good if properly based.

You can only compare like with like and to substantiate statistics. The basis of the statistics should be shown to justify the resultant assumption.

For instance you could say that the time written on a piece of paper is more accurate than the town hall clock, as the time on the piece of paper is exactly right twice a day but the town hall clock is always off by a couple of seconds.

To calculate the town hall clock accuracy it would be more use to calculate the average error over a time to compare over the time how far out the time on the piece of paper is this would show a greater error for the piece of paper.

We can even prove that bed is more dangerous than a stunt aircraft if we simply note that more people die in bed over a year than die in stunt planes, again we need to know the number of stunt planes flown and the number of people who use a bed to compare these two.

I know I have stated some ridiculous comparisons but hope that we all take statistics for their true value and look how the numbers really add up.

I will now risk going to bed with a nice book.

Cllr Allan Glass

Holbury and North Blackfield. Conservative