Kamla being more than dishonest with Statistics

With regard the poll conducted by the Ansa Mcal Institute of Psychology published last Sunday, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bisessar was quoted in Express April 11 as stating that if one "Adds the excellent , good, fair ratings - its almost 80%, so the government is doing fine." Now it is either the Prime Minister thinks the citizens she presides over are complete idiots or she was being deliberately misleading and having no compunction about it whatsoever. A standard five pupil can discern that the Prime Minister's pronouncements makes absolutely no sense and it is a deliberate attempt at polluting the poll results. The following were the Ansa Mcal Poll results:-

Ratings

Overall, how do you rate the performance of the Government to date?

Excellent 4%

Good 30%

Fair 47%

Poor 15%

Extremely Poor 4%

Ratings

If a general election was held today, which political party would you vote for?

UNC 5%

COP 3%

NAR 1%

PP 34%

MSJ 1%

PNM 13%

NONE 25%

DON’T KNOW 19%

NEW PARTY 1%

Ratings

How do you rate the performance of the Prime Minister to date?

Excellent 11%

Good 31%

Fair 42%

Poor 13%

Extremely Poor 3%

If by the Prime Minister's logic we are to add the good and fair ratings of two of the three questions, it would show that the government got almost an 80% rating and thus is doing well, then it stands to reason that if one is adding the good and fair ratings one must deduct the poor and extremely poor ratings to get a more objective view. This would show that the ratings according to the Prime Minister's logic were in fact (30+47-15-4) = 58% and (31+42-13-3) = 57%. Clearly as one further analyses the stats using the Prime Minister's logic it is blatantly clear that the PP Government barely made a passing grade. Out of the 512 people questioned, it would mean that only 296.96 and 291.84 persons gave the PP Government a fair to good rating. 512/2 = 256, one must therefore ask the question what exactly is Mrs. Persad Bisessar boasting about.

It is also instructive to note that the Prime Minister totally ignored the excellent ratings of 4% and 11% respectively, is this an indication that the Prime Minister is quite contented with mediocrity and does not concern herself with exceeding expectations? Of 512 respondents 4% would be 20.48 and 11% would be 56.32 persons, if I remember correctly in primary school when one's report card said "Good" or "Fair" for the term one usually went home with a B, B- or a C. And the most glaring omission of the Prime Minister was the ratings related to the question "If a general election was held today, which political party would you vote for?" Out of 512 respondents a whopping 5% (25.6 persons) said they will vote for the UNC, the party to which the Prime Minister belongs, and 13% (66.56 persons) said they will vote for the opposition PNM. Granted the PP got 34% one must beg the question if the Prime Minister is contented with the fact that the only way the party to which she belongs can win an election is by currying favour with other political parties for the sole purpose of defeating the PNM, because as a stand alone political party the PNM is the only party that got the highest rating.

I would therefore caution the Prime Minister, that the next time she opts to play with statistics to fool the population she should do so with a bit more cunning, as you can fool some of the people some of the time, you can't fool all of the people all the time.