How to find a fact

"5% of British businesses export to the EU." "5% of British VAT-registered businesses export to the EU." "5% of British VAT-registered businesses export to other VAT-registered companies in the EU." All of these claims are partly right, and none of them tell you the whole story about British trade with the EU. During the EU…

How to find a fact: vanishing asylum seekers

"REVEALED: Britain’s immigration crisis laid bare as 12,000 asylum seekers VANISH" We spotted this headline last month. What was going on here? Had 12,000 asylum seekers actually disappeared into thin air? The implication of this article was that 12,000 asylum seekers who have arrived in the UK have been “lost” by Home Office officials: we don’t know…

How the BBC can improve dodgy uses of statistics

How much does the UK contribute to the EU each week? How tired did you get of hearing that question, and of the inaccurate answer that it’s £350 million? Even if you didn’t watch the debates or read the op-eds, it was hard to miss the pictures of Boris Johnson and other high profile Vote…