LibDems being creative!

markadams99 wrote:

Neil wrote:

I really dont think Simon Hughes' sexuality is in any way relevant to the barchart on this leaflet.

Who said it was?

Well if noone thinks it was then we can get back to discussing more interesting things such as logarithms.

Neil wrote:

beetroot wrote:

If the figures are represented correctly, even if you stretch or shrink what we see, or chop off the bottom so we don't see, surely the proportional relationship (is that even English? You know what I mean) stays the same.

They almost certainly didnt square the results to produce this effect but they must have done something else non-linear (taking the log of the results probably).

Tell me more! What would the log of the results do. Hope this isn't too tedious but I'm rather interested. I did 'O' level statistics and it didn't cover different ways of, for want of a better word, deceiving.

beetroot wrote:

Tell me more! What would the log of the results do.

Well logs are kinda the inverse of raising numbers to a power so have the opposite effect.

Before you could square the results to change the graph ratios from 10cm : 9cm to 10cm : 8.1cm (ie the difference in the votes was exagerrated).

If you take the log (to base 10) of the same results. Labour's 10,000 becomes 4 (because log(10,000) = 4) and the Lib Dems become 3.954. We can multiply both by 2.5 to give Labour 10cm again but this time the Lib Dems are on 9.89cm.

ie they appear to be much closer than they really are

Obviously I dont know what was really done but I imagine that it was some combination of this and cutting off the grpah before the origin / zero point.

But it's bonkers! They might as well just make it up.

beetroot wrote:

But it's bonkers! They might as well just make it up.

Presumably it helps them sleep better at night ;)

for Balance

Florence Nightingale used the power of statistics to win her case for reform

she proved conditions were so bad that a wounded soldier had less chance of dying if they were just left on the battlefield rather than hospitalised

apparently she was very adept with pie charts

On the subject of the Focus 'only Lib Dem can beat labour here/Conservatives have no chance' message, for most types of election I suspect that is largely true and if I was campaigning I would be tempted to point this out too. However, I did find it a little irritating when the same argument appeared in the LD campaign leaflets for the recent Euro Elections, because on that instance London votes were counted as a whole region and the LD implication that a vote for the Conservatives cast in Bermonsdey would be wasted was not correct and seemed to me a little devious.

in opposition!
and no job for simon, ahh ...