Crap statistics, crap argument

Don’t you just love it when people come up with a statistic that they think makes a point? Don’t you then love it when newspapers run with the story, because they can’t find anything else to write about?

I remember when proponents of a single currency used to say that if you started off with a certain amount of British currency and passed through each EU country exchanging your money and paying commission, by the time you got back to Britain you would have lost half your money, without spending any money - so we should have a single currency.

No one said that if you went through each country using cash, failing to use travellers cheques, credit cards etc perhaps you deserved to lose half your money for being so bloody stupid.

Today it appears as though The London Paper has fallen for a similarly stupid story. Figures from Brian Paddick have shown that one stop on the tube between Embankment and Charing Cross not costs £4 for just 0.1 miles and a single fare between Leicester square and Covent Garden is the equivalent of £13.33 a mile, more per mile that a first class BA flight  from Heathrow to New York.

OK here’s the pont. Who on earth - go on please tell me who on earth is stupid enough to catch the tube from Embankment to Charing Cross? Anyone? Well if you do, then quite frankly you deserve to lose your £4. No maybe there is an argument for perhaps not having some tube stations located so closely together.

Is Mr Paddick suggesting some should be shut? I mean - using his statistics one could argue that couldn’t they. Of course that too may be a case of crap statistics, and a crap argument!

 Jonathan Sheppard