Spin, lies and statistics

A good piece from Philip Johnston in the Telegraph about government abuse of official statistics and how a new dawn of transparency might not be as shiny as it seems. Johnson argues that "ministers have already flunked their first big test of this supposed new era by refusing to relinquish their privileged and extravagantly premature access to the statistics."

I think he probably has Freedom of Information in mind when he says:

This is typical of this Government. It has a good idea, which is to make the release of official statistics subject to independent monitoring and parliamentary accountability. But once it has garnered the plaudits for having made the pledge, it then begins to fudge it.