"Britain's teens dropping babies EVERYWHERE"

After the thorough dismantling of the Tories' "broken Britain" claims by the Economist (and I can do no better than quote ChieferMadness here: "Trotskyist rag The Economist perverts fact of BROKEN BRITAIN with 'analysis' and 'statistics'"), you'd think that the Tories would be a bit more careful with the figures they publish. But no they go and plonk both feet in it with a stratospheric claim about teenage pregnancy. From the Guardian: "It claimed – three times – that women under 18 are "three times more likely to fall pregnant in the most deprived areas compared to the least deprived areas. In the most deprived areas 54% are likely to fall pregnant before the age of 18, compared to just 19% in the least deprived areas.""

Derision has focussed rightly on the idiocy of the Tories' 54% claim. OK, it was a typographical mistake but nobody anywhere in CCHQ had the nous to think "Hang on a minute, that looks a bit high, even for the kind of sink estate I'd never let little Jolyon have a friend from"....

But there must be another dodgy stat in there as well. Overall, the figure was supposed to be 5.4%, more like one in twenty than one in two. But they quote the figure for the least deprived area as being 19%. Now you might, possibly, if you were feeling very charitable indeed, forgive them for not knowing what's going on in the parts of Britain that they never visit, but if they don't know what's going on in Notting Hill, they are truly clueless. Either that, or the people who live where Dave does are breeding like rabbits. I think we deserve to be told.