Fit for work or at deaths door?
More or Less
BBC
4.6 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 4 September 2015
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Deaths of people 'fit for work' Thousands of people are dying after being declared 'fit for work' by the government according to the Guardian. The figures are from a long awaited freedom of information release from the Department for Work and Pensions. But do the figures actually tell us anything? More or Less investigates.
Sugar Sugar has had a pretty bad press over the last few months and seems to have replaced fat as the current 'evil' in our diets. We look at some of the claims that have been made about rotting teeth and the justifications for a sugar tax.
Zero-hours contracts The latest figures show a 20% rise - but does this really mean that more people are on zero hours contracts thab=n last year?
Queuing Backwards Britons love to queue, but have we been getting it wrong? Lars Peter Osterdal from the University of Southern Denmark discusses his theory of how to make queuing more efficient.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to more or less, your friendly guide to the numbers in the news and in life. |
| 0:06.3 | This week we'll look at the statistics behind Syrian refugees, sugar, the government's |
| 0:11.4 | fit for work tests and zero hours contracts. |
| 0:15.2 | We'll also be asking unsuspecting BBC reporters to form an orderly queue for chocolate |
| 0:20.8 | fudge cake. |
| 0:21.8 | Well, I'm glad I've got cake, but I think your queuing system is despicable. |
| 0:26.3 | But first, this week we were told that the UK has accepted so few Syrian refugees that |
| 0:32.0 | they'd fit on a tube train, 216. |
| 0:36.2 | Actually, a tube train takes about 7 or 800, so they'd fit with plenty of room to spare. |
| 0:42.4 | But is the number true? |
| 0:44.2 | The independent newspaper says so. |
| 0:46.4 | So does George Eaton, the political editor of the New Statesman, who tweeted that, |
| 0:51.0 | the UK has accepted 216 Syrian refugees. |
| 0:54.8 | Germany has accepted 800,000. |
| 0:57.8 | As so often, the number is correct, but it doesn't necessarily mean what you think it means. |
| 1:02.9 | Britain has taken 216 Syrians from a particular programme called the vulnerable person's relocation scheme. |
| 1:10.8 | These are people who are relocated to the UK directly from camps on the Syrian border. |
| 1:16.2 | But there are other ways for Syrian refugees to get asylum in the UK, |
| 1:20.2 | for example, by making their own way here and then claiming asylum. |
| 1:24.1 | According to the House of Commons Library, 5,000 of them have been granted asylum. |
| 1:29.6 | It's still not a lot compared to Germany's 800,000 though. |
| 1:33.6 | But again, that number doesn't mean what George Eaton seems to think. |
... |
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