Ministry of Truth

As an avid collector and connoisseur of zombie statistics, I was amused to discover that a statistic I investigated over a decade ago has not only made its way into Jo Bartosch and Robert Jessel’s book ‘Pornocracy’, but appears right in the third paragraph of the book’s introduction. […]

[A PDF version of this article can be downloaded from this link. Links to papers referenced this article are included at the end of the online version of this article only] There is a short and easily overlooked passage in the Endocrine Society’s recent Scientific Statement on “Considering […]

I have long had a particular interest in the field of “zombie statistics”, statistics that are widely circulated as factual information but which have become entirely detached from their original source to the extent that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to establish their validity. Some zombie […]

I want to return to the High Court judgment in Bell v Tavistock and take a closer look at one of the more contentious issues that was put before the court, this being the question of the exact purpose for which puberty blockers are prescribed to adolescents presenting […]

A few days ago I tweeted a few somewhat sceptical comments on the proposed intervention by the “Good Law Project” in the Tavistock Clinic’s upcoming application to appeal the High Court decision in Bell v Tavistock. This is, of course, the recent case dealing with the issue of […]

It’s time to go whomping some dodgy statistics again, and our target for today is one that’s starting to crop up pretty regularly in commentaries on UK abortion law. You’ll find it in this fairly recent Guardian article by Caroline Criado-Perez: Polls show 62% of the British public […]

As I noted in my previous article, just about the least interesting thing about the leaked Sony/Marvel memo is the section detailing Sony’s “Character Integrity Obligations” which stipulated that the film version of Spider-Man must be straight – at least until Marvel gives the character a gay/bisexual/non-binary alter […]

Occasionally I get accused of doing proper journalism and I suspect this may turn out to be one such occasion. At the very least what I hope I’ll achieve with this article is a clear illustration of the difference between click-bait “journalism” – specifically last week’s “No Blacks, […]

Okay, so let’s get quickly back on to the subject of the Premier League’s TV rights deal and the manner in which the money is distributed to the League’s 20 clubs. As I pointed out in my last post pretty much the first that stood out from the […]

Although the big football of the week has undoubtedly been the PR resignation of FIFA President Sepp Blatter, who has announced that he’s standing down but not for at least six months and not without continuing to make noises about pushing through “reforms” of the organisation that will […]