An interesting initiative from green party MP Antonio Hodgers. He analyzed the initiative on foreigners launched during summer 2010 by the SVP. He shows how SVP/UDC is manipulating statistics, lies and omits to state a few important things.

- German link
- French link

politicians manipulating statistics for there own ends, I'm shocked to my core

Speaking of statistics, just heard on the radio about the questionnaire regarding the current foreigner-unfriendly policies of the SVP - sent out by - surprise, surprise - the SVP itself.

http://www.svp.ch/g3.cms/s_page/8073...ctor_year/2010

Apparently, 90% of the people asked were in favour of a much stricter approach , as preached by the SVP.
Some of the other parties accuse the SVP of fixing the figures.

(I actually overheard some Swiss people discussing this questionnaire and saying that they couldn't believe how "harsh" some of the questions were.)

Isn't there a saying that there are "lies, big lies and statistics"?

42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

I have it with Winston Churchill and only believe the statistics I manipulated myself

I actually looked at the website and it started out OK but it quickly degenerated into a leftist/green propaganda site which was little better than the SVP statements that he analyzed.

I am all for calling out a political party for screwing around with statistics, but it should not be a free pass for the other parties to pull similar tricks.

For example, Nationalrat Hodgers claims that the SVP is "lying" because one of their 2004 prognosis did not come true. Applying that standard all "Meinungsforschungsinstituts" are liars, as opposed to being piss-poor at their jobs.

Another point that caught my eye is that Nationalrat Hodgers claims that SVP is "suppressing information". In particular he took issue with the statement of the SVP that the percentage of foreigners is increasing but that SVP failing to provide statistics as to the percentage of the productivity increase that is related to foreigners.

In this context, it its Hodgers who is comparing apples with oranges. The mere fact that percentage of foreigners has increased and will increase (which Hodgers himself confirms), has in my opinion, little to do with the opinion whether you consider such increase to be beneficial (e.g. higher productivity) or negative (e.g. SVP catalogue of grievances).

Hodgers certainly did make some interesting points, but overall I got put off by the one-sided approach (just as I get put off by SVP's one sided approach) that I didn't finish reading the examples.

Why can't we have something like "www.factcheck.org" in Switzerland. Neutral and non-partisan information, and not afraid to call out politicians from either party spectrum for playing fast and loose with the facts.

I'm sorry, but no. The "method" used by the SVP for this prediction was soooo far away from what even the dumbest pollster would do.

It is one thing to get an election that went 51-49 wrong by predicting a 46-54 with a margin of error of 2%. at .95. (Pretty wrong innit).

It is a completely different thing to cherry-pick* a period of time, take the growth rate of the muslim population during that period and then just project that growth rate into the future in a linear way, with the absurd result that pretty soon either millions of Muslims would have to immigrate or swiss citizens would have to convert to Islam by the millions, just to fulfill the prediction, that is.

*Cherry-picking in fact it was, as there are easily identifiable events that boosted the growth rate during that period (one of them being the war in Yugoslavia and the resulting influx of tens of thousands of refugees).

IMHO, there is a difference between "not quite right" and "completely absurd".

@SamWeiseVielleicht

Another of my favourite SVP "statistics" is about Germans at Swiss universities, a nice exercise in selective interpretation.

Anyway, I was actually referring to the following prognosis " Die Ausweitung der bilateralen Verträge auf Bulgarien und Rumänien wird eine starke Zuwanderung aus diesen Ländern auslösen. [SVP 2004]", which is sufficiently vague to be useless but at the same time cannot be considered a "lie" only because 2007 statistics may have shown differently.

As to the "identifiable periods of boosted growth rate", I'm with you on the muslim statistic. On the other hand, and this is my main concern, the left is not holding back in this respect either.

For example, Nationalrat Hodgers complains in some cases that the SVP statistic only go back to the 1950s instead of the 1860s! I mean really, I guess we can agree that the post-war period might be more relevant to current events than the 1860s.

Also Nationalrat Hodgers complains that the SVP statistics do not show the effects of recession, i.e. 2009 figures. While I find it constitutes questionable to not use the latest figures available, one can also ask if "identifiable periods of reduced growth rate" may be excluded.

This again supports my point, that by all means the SVP statistics can and should be called out, where they are wrong. But merely to criticize them for the sake of criticism is just as self-serving on the left as it is on the right.

Migrants in CH can participate in this initiative and cast their vote, although it does not count.

http://www.baloti.ch/vote/?lang=en

Swissinfo

Interesting to see that SVP distributed 3.9 millions of the leaflets and they got 70123 answers back (1.8%). It's based on these answers that they conclude the total match between the party's proposals and population's wishes. Compared to other parties, the SVP has a disproportionate amount of money available for their campaigns.

The only people I know who have returned the leaflet did so to tell them exactly how they feel about this terrible publication. Our postbox has a clear sticker saying we do not want any publicity - but their leaflet said that as it was a legitimate political document, they were entitled to put it through!