Mr Brown Saving us 'Again'?

[cptwhite_uk]

That's fair enough enough, but the general understanding of the word average is obviously the sum of all the figures/the number of figures used (i.e. the mean).

While what you wrote is technically correct, it's highly unlikely they're talking about anything other than mean in this case.

[pauljenkinson]

I do get annoyed when the media and the goverment praise Gordon Brown for his excellent stewardship of the economy for past decade. The economy was in a reasonable state when they took over, the growth has been driven on the back of rising house prices and massive lending by the banks generating a massive feel-good factor.

A good chancellor would have build up reserves to prepare us for the bad time, Gordon has over taxed, over borrowed, and over spent with very little to show for the investment of our taxes. Gordon has no experience dealing with a downturn in the economy.

Paul

[TheAnimus]

couldn't agree more.

its to easy to prase someone when the worlds doing good. It takes real leadership to sacrifice a bit of that by saying "what would happen if things where not so fortunate".

[Betty_Swallocks]

He and his cronies have between them done a fairly good job....of ruining our country.
The only question in my mind is whether any of the other parties would be any better and I'm afraid they won't be.

I don't care what meaningless statistics they trot out to try to pull the wool over our eyes. As Mark Twain said, there are lies, damn lies and statistics. Some here have statistics degree but for the rest of us the figures they give us are meaningless.

It's a fact that the man on the Clapham omnibus is paying substancially more for the privilege of living in this country than he did 10 years ago.

Who's to blame? I don't know, I expect we'd be told that it was international economic pressures but I am sure that selling our gold reserves and increasing taxes on everything hasn't helped.

[javalord]

I do get annoyed when the media and the goverment praise Gordon Brown for his excellent stewardship of the economy for past decade. The economy was in a reasonable state when they took over, the growth has been driven on the back of rising house prices and massive lending by the banks generating a massive feel-good factor.

A good chancellor would have build up reserves to prepare us for the bad time, Gordon has over taxed, over borrowed, and over spent with very little to show for the investment of our taxes. Gordon has no experience dealing with a downturn in the economy.

Paul

Couldnt have put it any better myself. Saving us again? We didnt even elect him to begin with!

[Saracen]

That's fair enough enough, but the general understanding of the word average is obviously the sum of all the figures/the number of figures used (i.e. the mean).

While what you wrote is technically correct, it's highly unlikely they're talking about anything other than mean in this case.

Perhaps, but it's about more than just the type of average used. My point was, unless you provide very substantial detail about the nature of the statistics used, you can use them to prove pretty much anything.

And by 'eck, politicians do. So they are pretty much meaningless, unless you define exactly what you're using, and people understand how you derived them.

An example - depending on who you listen to, serious crime and violent crime are either well up, well down or pretty static. And, I have no doubt, each proponent of each claim could justify that with statistics. But which statistics.

Another example - inflation. The government use one statistic to measure it when they're trying to claim it's low, by excluding certain factors. But another (higher) measure (CPI versus RPI) when calculating interest rates on student loans, on the basis that students are still getting a good deal because the effective rate of interest is still matched to inflation, meaning that the loans are at a zero rate of interest in real terms.

The first and golden rule of the political con - choose your statistics carefully. And the first corollary to that rule - if you can possibly help it, don't refer to which ones you're basing your argument on.