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January 24, 2006
Mr Hain and evidence... the encore
Peter Black is (or rather was, for he posted it on Sunday) fantastic on Peter Hain's disdain for evidence gained through rigorous research.
As if to underline his cavalier attitude to evidence Mr. Hain then tried to rebut the findings of the Arbuthnott Commission in Scotland, which argued that a restriction on candidates fighting both in the constituency and on the list would be "undemocratic and unacceptably limit the choices available to voters." To do this he quoted a piece of 'research' carried out by the Bevan Foundation, which, he said, unequivocably proved that the Welsh public backed Labour's plans to introduce a pre-counter-revolutionary Ukrainian system into Wales.
The Bevan Foundation's researchers had apparently herded 46 unsuspecting voters into a room, spend an hour or so explaining how undemocratic the Assembly's voting system is and then asked then to give a view as to whether the Government of Wales Bill is taking the right approach to reforming it. If this is the sort of evidence-based policy making Peter Hain relies on then no wonder he is making such a mess of his dual jobs of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and Wales. This survey has all the statistical validity of predicting the climate change by putting ones finger in the air, as was proved by Dragon's Eye, who interviewed 47 people in a Caerphilly street and found only one who actually cared.
He also tells us something else quite interesting about our old pal Peter. Read to find out what.
Posted by pauldavies on January 24, 2006
