- Police interceptor - 25th August 2026
- Lies, damn lies and statistics… - 24th August 2026
- Trump tower - 21st August 2026
During a 43 year journalistic career (when he was trained to use clear and simple language, avoiding jargon), for our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, analysing statistics has always loomed large, and now this is put centre stage by major questions being raised today about figures allegedly showing that migrant gangs are raping huge numbers of little girls.
It has always been tricky for me.
When I am confronted by a column of figures, and have to add them up, I invariably come to different totals each time I put them together; so I have to use a calculator to ensure I am right.
At least this means (I think!) that the statistic total is correct, and it is, perhaps, a pity that others are seemingly less assiduous.
We have seen this recently in spades when statements are made about gangs of Muslim (or migrant – take your pick!) men, raping or even murdering little girls.
These statements are given as fact, and emphasised by statistics which give the comment seeming authenticity.
The allegation is that people are too woke to know the truth, and those on the right are particularly outraged that authorities’ fears of appearing racist or upsetting relations between groups in the affected communities, are a central cause of the state’s failure to protect vulnerable children.
On July 22 Jordan Peterson, a popular conservative commenter, described it as a “sexual atrocity now seemingly integral to multicultural Britain”.
Another hugely-influential right-of-centre individual observed that the media “hid the fact that a quarter million little girls were (still are) being systematically raped by migrant gangs in Britain”.
Into this maelstrom Rupert Lowe, leader of the far-right Restore Britain party, has thrown a shocking figure about the numbers of children allegedly involved, and he has gained enormous support.
A post sharing his crowdfunded “Rape Gang Inquiry Report”, received more than 51 million views on X.
Its figure that at least 250,000 UK girls have been abused by “predominantly Muslim Pakistani gangs” quickly went viral and has since been repeated by influencers such as Tommy Robinson, a far-right agitator, and Ben Shapiro, a conservative commenter.
Dig into the report, however, and it becomes apparent that its central claim is baseless.
The 250,000 figure was taken directly from an ESTIMATE by Malcolm Pearson, a former Tory and now independent peer who in 2018 told the House of Lords (HoL) that “upwards of 250,000 young white girls” had been raped in Britain since the TURN OF THE CENTURY, “very largely by Muslim men”. Indeed the whole assertion is HIGHLY questionable.
However this absurd business has not been the only one, murder rates too are supposedly higher in Europe than in the United States of America (USA) – knife crime as well is at record levels, according to those on the right.
We are painted a picture of hordes of immigrants making European cities unsafe.
How true though is this?
Last year London had about 1.1 homicides per 100,000 residents, while Chicago had roughly 11.7 homicides per 100,000 residents, so if you delve into the statistics it is clear that European cities, are miraculously safe compared to their American counterparts.
What, then, about knife crime? Surely the figures here bolster the argument that it is dangerous to go out in a European city like London? Donald Trump certainly seems to think so
A few years ago the US president, addressing the National Rifle Association (NRA), claimed a London hospital had become overwhelmed with victims of knife attacks.
“They don’t have guns”, he declared. “They have knives and instead there’s blood all over the floors of this hospital, They say it’s as bad as a military war zone hospital. Knives, knives, knives, knives”.
But unfortunately for him the figures simply don’t stack up.
It seems a shame that Mr Trump is apparently less than diligent in checking his figures in other areas too.
In 2024 he won 312 votes in the Electoral College (EC). It’s a solid win, but in the lower half of results for US presidential elections. and when he lost in 2020, he got a little more than 74 million votes. So while it’s true that much of the country moved to the right in the last election, it’s also true that there was some voter apathy.
Of course, ridiculously, he never conceded defeat in the 2020 election, and rang up the Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, asking him to “find 11,780 votes”, which was crucial evidence after Mr Trump (and others) was accused of a “criminal racketeering enterprise” for prosecution in The State of Georgia v. Donald J. Trump, et al.
Again, numbers are at the heart of all this.
However, at least I am aware of my weakness in this area, so I know everything must be triple-checked, whereas Mr Trump says things that even I know are just plain WRONG.
After his (real) victory in 2016, for example, Mr Trump said it was a “landslide” (and books have been written about it), which it WASN’T – he actually LOST the popular vote by 2.87 million votes.
It hasn’t just been in American elections either where the numbers are central.
I have covered innumerable ones in the UK as a journalist, and even been an agent for a candidate.
In the 2021 elections to the Welsh Parliament/Senedd Cymru (WP/SC) the Labour Party’s share of the constituency vote increased by over five percent, and the regional vote by more than four per cent, with 30 Labour MSs elected, accounting for exactly half of the 60 seats.
The Conservatives became the WP/SC’s second-largest party, as well as the official opposition to the Welsh Government (WG) with 16 MSs elected, five more than their 2016 result.
The Welsh Nationalist party Plaid Cymru (Plaid) had 13 MSs elected, one more than in 2016.
Obviously they won in May with Rhun ap Iorweth as First Minister of Wales (FMW), and I had to get my calculator out here, too, to check my maths!
The elections followed an increase in the size of the WP/SC from 60 members to 96, with the adoption of party-list Proportional Representation (PR), and a reduction in the number of constituencies to 16, along with the shortening of the term from five years to four.
Welsh Labour (WL) lost government and its status as the largest party for the first time since devolution began in 1999, ending a winning streak that had lasted since the 1922 United Kingdom General Election (GE)
WL was reduced to third place with a historic low of just nine seats. The Welsh Conservatives (WC) and the Wales Green Party (WGP) won seven and two seats respectively. The Welsh Liberal Democrats (WLD) lost their single constituency seat from 2016, but gained a regional list seat, keeping their total of one seat.
At the General Election (GE) it was much the same for any journalist covering what happened – a good grasp of figures was essential.
Labour’s vote share was 33.7 per cent, the lowest of any majority party on record, but they won 211 more seats than the previous GE in 2019.
The Conservatives were reduced to 121 seats on a vote share of 23.7 per cent, the worst result in its history. The party lost 251 seats in total, including all of those in Wales.
The combined Labour and Conservative vote share was just 57.4 per cent, the lowest since the 1918 general election. Smaller parties took a record 42.6 per cent of the vote in the GE: the Liberal Democrats, made the most significant gains, winning 72 seats with a total of 3.5 million votes.
These sort of figures might befuddle a person, so they must be checked as they are important.
At least I know that, because I am so bad with numbers.
Now then – WHERE’S MY CALCULATOR?!
The memories of Phil’s astonishing, decades long award-winning career in journalism (when numbers were often crucial so always had to be checked) as he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A Good Story’. Order it now.
Tomorrow – the parallels to be drawn with the terrible crash near Middlesbrough, and disturbing events in South Wales.
Coming soon – the story about Russian hacking increasing, and the country’s polls suggesting that anxiety is growing, highlighting once again how The Eye have also been targeted.
