Numbers Game

Most governments suffer an embarrassment of statistics; and the embarrassment is even greater when a government contains the likes of Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Gove, who either don't understand their own statistics or simply make them up. Accordingly, the Office of National Statistics is being incentivised to wind down the processing of any information which might prove inconvenient to the Bullingdon Club. Naturally, this includes figures on public health: smoking, drinking, teenage pregnancies, infant mortality and other good old-fashioned Conservative hobbies may all soon be freed from the oppressive gaze of the State. There are also proposals to stop analysing the labour market, pensions and the productivity of the hated public sector; and to impose a strict work-to-rule régime when analysing data about causes of death. Even Daveybloke's well-being thingy could suffer a significant reduction in scale. Britain's Head Boy and his fellow ascetics will just have to find another way of informing Food-Bank Britain that money isn't everything.