More or less?

There was a good letter in the Times today from a very smart woman -- Clarissa Farr,  the High Mistress of St Pauls Girls School -- urging us to get Dads properly back into the family sphere, and to make work-place culture more family friendly for the blokes as well as the women. She is part of a campaign ("Dads for Daughters") which aims to address exactly that problem, and I am all behind it. But her letter started:"It's disappointing though not surprising that only 1 per cent of fathers have so far taken advantage of the new arrangements for shared parental leave."

I instantly knew that the estimable Ms Farr hadn't been listening to Radio 4's More or Less, presented by Tim Harford. Because a couple of week ago Harford had exploded this particular statistic, widely mis-reported, including now by Ms Farr. The 1% is correct, but it is 1% of men in the work force, not 1% of new fathers. Big difference. The take up rate for shared parental leave may still be lower than we might hope, but not as low as Ms Farr laments.

If you haven't caught up with this programme, then do. It's one of the most eye-opening things we have in the media right now. Its main aim is to analyse the statistical, and other "factual", claims you hear in politics, and test them/put them right. It has some sharp words for both sides of the Brexit debate (but certainly undermines the silly claims about children under eight not being allowed to blow up balloons in the new Europe). But its best bit of investigation is about cabbages.

There is an urban myth going around that the EU regulations on the sale of cabbages amount to 26,911 words (as against 66 words in the Lords Prayer). How bureaucratic is that Well very.. except it aint true. You can find the demolition of this here, or listen to the programme. But the gist is that there is no EU regulation on the sales of cabbages (specifically) whatsoever, and the mythical number 26,911 goes back to the 1950s in the USA and has nothing to do with the EU at all.

I cant resist asking: who would undermine such claims even-handedly if we didnt have the BBC?