Why is data on grooming gangs so bad?
More or Less: Behind the Stats
BBC
4.6 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 25 June 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tim Harford looks at some of the numbers in the news and in life. In this episode:
Why is the data on the ethnicity of grooming gangs of such poor quality?
Iran has apparently enriched uranium to 60%, but what does that number mean?
Adam Curtis’s latest series, Shifty, includes claims about Margaret Thatcher’s rise to power. We ask Sir John Curtice, polling king of election night, if they’re accurate.
And we ask an economist to explain why being pillaged by a Viking might be more lucrative than you’d imagine.
If you’ve seen a number in the news you think needs a stern look, email the team: [email protected]
More or Less is produced in partnership with the Open University.
Presenter: Tim Harford Reporter: Josephine Casserly Producers: Nicholas Barrett, Lizzy McNeill and David Verry Series producer: Tom Colls Production coordinator: Brenda Brown Sound Mix: Gareth Jones Editor: Richard Vadon
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What is love? |
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| 0:07.0 | Sometimes you mistake other things for love. |
| 0:10.0 | Join me, Ryland, on my new podcast as I ask experts and a few familiar faces what love really means. |
| 0:16.3 | Because it turns out it's a bit more complicated than happily ever after. |
| 0:20.7 | You should think of it as the daily commitment you make to someone that you care about. |
| 0:25.2 | Ryland, how to be in love. Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:31.2 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:35.1 | Hello and welcome to more or less. We're your weekly guide to the numbers all around us in the |
| 0:40.0 | news and in life. And I'm Tim Harford. This week, in a Curtis versus Curtis cage fight, we try to |
| 0:47.9 | understand to what extent the 1979 election set the tone for today's political arguments about immigration. |
| 0:56.0 | We explore the numbers behind nuclear enrichment, |
| 0:59.4 | and we ask an economist to explain why being pillaged by a Viking |
| 1:03.7 | might be more lucrative than you would imagine. |
| 1:07.6 | But first, last week, Baroness Louise Casey published an audit on group-based child sexual exploitation. |
| 1:16.6 | These are cases of child sexual exploitation with two or more perpetrators, what has been termed grooming gangs in much of the press coverage. |
| 1:26.1 | The report said that the ethnicity of perpetrators had been shied away from by authorities. |
| 1:32.4 | When official data on ethnicity has previously been published, |
| 1:36.8 | it's been reported that 83% of perpetrators are white, |
| 1:41.4 | roughly in line with the population as a whole, |
| 1:45.9 | and that only a small proportion, |
| 1:48.6 | around 7% are Asian. |
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