There is a great deal of ‘misinformation’ out there. We all know that. These days it is called ‘false news’. It is not hard to spot. Suppose someone said, ‘I didn’t say that and I can prove it,’ but then offers no proof as did Mr Chump the other day. Well from what I remember from science lessons in school, if there is no proof, then it’s not true. And if the person saying it is sitting with there hands folded across their chest in a defensive posture, and they are known for insensitive remarks…we draw the only conclusion we can.

Perhaps the area of politics we can trust is statistics. Hard facts from scientific study must be a good source of information, surely? Then we remember the adage that there are ‘lies, damn lies and statistics’.

The problem with statistics is in the interpretation. Few can really understand statistics unless they are presented by a statitician with a gift for presentation. The late Hans Roslin from Sweden was a statitician admire greatly by his peers for this gift. Watch him on You Tube on population growth statistics to see why. But usually there is no respected leader to explain the statistics to us accurately. They often look at the bottom line and fit the numbers to their own views.

Sorry to give Mr T as an example again, but he does tend to draw attention to himself. He recently said that the rise in British Crime figures by 13% has happened amid the ‘spread’ of Islamic Terrorism. According to the BBC News webpage, British Police recorded 5,200,000 offences in 2016. 35 of these were homicides as the result of suspected terrorist incidents. So at worst Mr T is pretending he knows how to interpret statistics, and at best, he didn’t listen in school.

The scientific method which brought about the revolution in evidence based creativity in the West in the last five hundred years, should have stopped respected leaders from choosing statistics designed to fit a feeling. In this case the feeling that is being engendered is fear, fear of terror. Mrs T, Mrs Thatcher once prime minister of Britain, during the peak of terrorist incidents by the IRA on the British mainland, ordered the media to stop reporting terrorist incidents. A clever move and moral, as engendering fear in the public is the aim of terrorists, not those elected to protect and reassure the public.

Perhaps Mr T watches all the statistics coming out of the United Kingdom, not just those the suit his agenda. If he does, he would have seen that in 2015 there were 50,000 deaths related to air born pollution. Not caused by, but contributory. That is 961 pollution related deaths a week or 137 a day. Imagine that number of people waiting for a bus. It’s a long line and everyday, they are gone. So why has so much money being spent on the ‘war on terror’ and so little on the ‘war on pollution’.

We are told that diesel engined vehicles in cities are one of the main causes of this pollution, exuding invisible particulates. But we have known this for decades. When I was a student in London I believed in all things ‘green’ (and still do). I wrote four words on a piece of card and hung it below the saddle on my bicycle. I cycled everywhere in London with the message, ‘no noise, no fumes’. Now the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is introducing high tolls to the most polluting vehicles. A brave move but he like all of us, is the victim of the failure of governments and manufacturers to have started producing non-polluting forms of transport in cities decades ago. The first electric carriage was invented by Robert Anderson in 1832 – 1839 and Humphy Davy demonstrated the principle of what were to become fuel cells, in 1801!

America’s automotive industry is in a bad place at the moment. Detroit is a landscape of empty factories. They have failed to keep up with new technologies and giving customers what they want, and what the planet can sustain. In contrast Tesla cannot make it’s electric cars fast enough. These are changes driven by technology and steered by government though subsidies and tax breaks. Now there is somewhere for Mr T to honour his ‘putting American’s back to work’ intentions even if he has to appear to believe in climate change caused by carbon emmisions, in order to achieve it.

Promoting clean air in American cities is a far more benign concern, and far more evidence based than telling the world to be frightened of a few bad people. Let the people decide what to fear.