Brown and Cameron do battle over statistics

Many CoffeeHousers have asked why Cameron doesn’t lampoon Brown for using his trademark dodgy figures as per our Brownie series. Well today he did – not on economics but on vehicle excise duty. Brown said 24 of the 30 most  popular car models won’t be affected. Then Cameron pounced. “once again, dodgy statistics from the PM” he said.  “In any other walk of life” he said “the trading standards officer would have him clamped in irons”. Brown counts the Ford Focus as one model, disregarding the 40 variations such as saloon, estate etc.

This may sound strange coming from me, but I’m not sure the stat picking worked. When you start arguing about statistics, you lose audience rapidly. The internet is a natural environment for pulling apart little lies, but PMQs doesn’t lend itself very well for that. I’d like Cameron to wait for a simple whopper, ie Brown claiming inflation is not higher than when he enterd office, that he lifted a million children out of poverty when he is actually rounding up the figure of 600,000.