Public sector pay - lies, damned lies & statistics‏

The election must now be under away as flurry of anti public sector workers and their excessive pay and pensions has been prominent across all right wing media for the last week. Today both the Times
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/public_sector/article6974029.ece

and the Sunday Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/6925897/Public-pay-races-ahead-in-recession.html ran with the story using the same headline.

An interesting exchange is now taking place on the useful TUC Touchstone blog http://www.touchstoneblog.org.uk/2010/01/public-sector-pay-some-unstraight-statistics-from-the-sunday-times/

Straight Statistics who are used in the Times article says it “is a pressure group whose aim is to detect and expose the distortion and misuse of statistical information, and identify those responsible”. Nothing wrong with that in a world where the public has little faith in the statistics they are told
http://straightstatistics.org/blog/2009/12/30/nobody-believes-uk-statistics but as Nigel Stanley says “I used to think that Straight Statistics was against the kind of misrepresentation of facts in today’s Sunday Times. Now I am not so sure”. It is probably better as this media war develops to never forget the old adage .....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics