Lies, damned lies and statistics

This can't be true. Politicians are being accused of fiddling the numbers:

More than 4,000 new patients were not added to the official list for waiting times over a three-month period - a 53 per cent increase on the same period the previous year.

Patients are not counted in figures for waiting times if they cannot have an operation for personal or medical reasons or if their treatment is considered a low clinical priority, such as a tattoo removal.

The Patients’ Association, is concerned about what's going on:

"The NHS is used as a political football and bounced around by politicians for their own ends. This damages the confidence that patients have in the NHS as well as staff morale and I think that the public is often suspicious when the NHS comes out with performance figures."

I'm afraid that the "fiddling" isn't confined to the NHS. I can exclusively reveal that several thousand Conservative votes were not counted at the last election because their inclusion would have breached the quota for representation of retired colonels. Similarly, many, many LibDem votes went unrecorded - remember New Labour (TM) is trying to free the country from the menace of facial hair and excessive sandal wearing. And the comparative lack of council estates in rural northeast Scotland sadly meant that lots of SNP votes also had to be discounted. I mean, some of those so-called "Nationalists" are really Tartan Tories, aren't they? Yes it's much better if we just allow Tony's cronies to decide who wins elections.

It's for our own good.