Hearts & Minds: As reform’s £234 billion claim crumbles, is it game over for big numbers?

You used to hear it a lot in comms: ‘I do words, not numbers’. The phrase would be trotted out by those convinced that description mattered more than data, that the only way to get a message across was via a well-turned expression. Then, with new tech tools, the figures took over. Put them up on the screen, in lights, and they would grab the attention and the rest would fall into place. Today, though the statistics are under attack. In politics especially, it’s become a game: the government announces an eyewatering sum to be spent on a public amenity, only for it to be immediately dissected and fall apart. Turns out half the money is already committed, with the other half to be paid in instalments over many years and anyway, much of that will come from an as yet unidentified source. Yesterday, Nigel Farage's headline-grabbing £234bn plan to slash the welfare budget was instantly hailed as not being what it seems. Unless what it seems like is a boast plucked from the air and plastered on the side of a bus.

The scepticism is not confined to the political arena. Even trusted, impartial data collectors are struggling. In June, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics admitted it had incorrectly applied the weights for its Current Population Survey, affecting the employment, unemployment and labour market figures for April. Then, the UK’s Office for National Statistics said it too had suffered its own weighting error, leading to the overstatement of the inflation statistics. No one is above suspicion – official bodies, central banks, polling firms, they are all under scrutiny. Once reliable data has been replaced in the public mind by ‘dodgy data’. The numbers never lie. They do now.

That leaves comms professionals in a quandary. Do they keep leaning on numbers when increasingly they are not believed? The answer is yes, but test and test, and test again. You’ve commissioned a survey from a leading research agency; the findings support your argument. Brilliant. But wait, before you get carried away, put yourself in the position of the critic, who is not going to be impressed by the science, who is going to do their level best to pick it apart. Can they? If they are able, then think again. We’ve got lazy and a reset is required. Numbers can support the words. But first, make sure they are true.

Chris Blackhurst is one of the UK’s foremost business journalists. He was previously Editor of The Independent and City Editor of the Evening Standard.