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More or Less: Behind the Stats

Hottest Easter, Insects, Scottish villages

More or Less: Behind the Stats

BBC

Business, Mathematics, Science, News Commentary, News

4.63.5K Ratings

🗓️ 26 April 2019

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Was it a surprise that Easter Monday was so hot? A heatwave struck the UK over Easter – and in fact Easter Monday was declared the hottest on record in the UK. But listeners asked - is it that surprising that it was the warmest when the date fell so late in April? We crunch the numbers supplied by the Met Office. Insectageddon Insects live all around us and if a recent scientific review is anything to go by, then they are on the path to extinction. The analysis found that more than 40% of insect species are decreasing and that a decline rate of 2.5% a year suggests they could disappear in 100 years. And as some headlines in February warned of the catastrophic collapse of nature, some More or Less listeners questioned the findings. Is insect life really in trouble? Collecting income tax from the 1% Recently Lord Sugar said in a Tweet “The fact is if you taxed everyone earning over £150k at a rate of 70% it would not raise enough to pay for 5% of the NHS.” Is that true? Helen Miller, Deputy Director and head of tax at the Institute for Fiscal Studies looks at how much such a policy might raise from the 1% of tax payers who earn over £150,000. Where is Scotland’s highest village? A battle is brewing in the Southern Scottish uplands between two rival villages. How can statistics help determine which village should take the crown? Wanlockhead and Leadhills both lay claim to the title of Scotland’s highest village but there can only be one winner. More or Less attempts to settle the age old dispute once and for all. Image: A man and woman sitting on deckchairs on the beach Credit: Getty Images

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello and welcome to more or less the program which cracks open the Easter Egg of Statistical

0:10.6

Truth and scoffs the numerical chocolate drops therein.

0:15.1

This week is Insecta Geton Imminent.

0:18.8

Did Alan Sugar tweet something accurate about taxing the rich?

0:22.7

And we try to resolve a little local difficulty between two altitudinous Scottish villages.

0:29.8

At first last Sunday across the country, vickers were busy celebrating Easter with their

0:34.8

flocks and so on Tuesday they could take some deserved rest and start tweeting in our

0:40.2

direction.

0:41.2

First, the Reverend Jeremy Fletcher, Vicar of Hampstead Parish Church, tweeted,

0:59.8

Then the Reverend Dr Helen Doors, Team Rector of Shafesbury, replied,

1:04.8

Indeed it may well also have been the warmest 21st of April on record, but the reports I've

1:09.3

heard so far haven't said.

1:11.1

A shame if lack of precision hides an important climate stat.

1:14.9

Well how could we refuse two reverence, especially as loyal listeners know when we have our

1:20.8

own Easter correspondent Lizzie McNeal?

1:24.2

Yeah, unfortunately due to a lack of foresight when we appointed her we allowed Lizzie to take

1:30.1

a two week Easter holiday during the busiest time of year for an Easter correspondent.

1:35.9

So for the next couple of weeks, I am your Easter bunny.

1:40.5

Reverend Fletcher is correct, this year was a very late Easter.

1:44.6

It'll be 2038 before we have an Easter later than this.

1:48.9

Easter moves around from the 22nd of March to the 25th of April.

1:53.2

So you would expect the hottest Easter to be late Easter.

...

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