The SKWAWKBOX

Thanks to Mike Sivier of the outstanding Vox Political blog for drawing my attention to this. I've been snowed under all week and had missed it – and it's too good to miss.

At the beginning of April, I wrote about the Tories' despicable and clearly intentional abuse of statistics to support their 'reforms' and demonise disabled people (yet again) by suggesting that almost 900,000 Employment Support Allowance (ESA) claimants had dropped their claims rather than face medical examination.

On 11 May, I wrote to Andrew Dilnot, the head of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) after his 'spanking' of Iain (Duncan) Smith for abusing employment statistics, to ask him to look at the far worse ESA distortion, and invited readers of this blog to do the same, which many did.

It turns out a Labour MP, Sheila Gilmore, was ahead of the game. On 9 April, perhaps as a result…