Prime Minister Gordon Brown Attacked by UK Statistics Agency

It appears that, due to some comments that were made recently by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the UK Statistics Agency has come forward to set some things straight. They have accused Gordon Brown of misleading voters with his selective use of statistics on emigration.

Just last month, the UK Statistics Agency warned politicians that it would be watching them during the course of the election campaign. They said that any politicians who misused official statistics could expect to feel the agency's actions.

This issue at hand, or one that is being addressed in the election, is whether emigration has been getting out of hand recently under the current administration. Also, if it is getting out of hand, by how much? Just recently Brown claimed that this government had presided over a significant fall in net emigration to the UK from 237,000 in 2007 to 163,000 in 2008, and even lower numbers in 2009. He went on to use these figures to claim that the new points system that was introduced in 2008, determining which skilled workers from outside the EU can enter the country, had actually radically changed the way that they are dealing with emigrants.

However, critics and the UK Statistics Agency were very quick to point out that that these claims are not entirely accurate. They point out that these 2009 figures were provisional and also excluded asylum seekers and those who had overstayed their visas.

The chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir Michael Scholar, wrote to Brown just recently and explained the error that he had made. He went on to tell Brown that the Statistics Authority hopes that, in the political debate over the coming weeks, all parties will be careful in their use of statistics to protect the integrity of these official statistics.