No Nicola, the SNP did not get the support of almost 50% of the population of Scotland.

In the aftermath of the recent Scottish Parliamentary election, a comment made by re-elected incumbent First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, reminds one of a recent post I made here emphasising the difference between INPUTS and OUTCOMES.

The comment comes from this story, where Ms Sturgeon is reported as confirming her intention to relaunch her party's campaign in favour of Scottish secession from the UK.  Fair enough; I don't think either Ms Sturgeon's or the SNP's position on Scottish independence comes as a surprise to anyone, and if she/they want to try and convince more people it's a good idea they should be perfectly free to do so.

But don't go about it by spreading blatant lies.

The lie to which I refer is this howler:

"When asked if Scotland can put an independence referendum to bed for the next five years, Ms Sturgeon said: 'No, the position I put forward in the SNP manifesto got the support of almost 50% of the population.'"

This is demonstrably false and so far off the mark as to be laughable.

The position put forward in the SNP manifesto did not get the support of almost 50% of the population.

The population of Scotland, according to the 2011 census, is 5,313,600.

The SNP received 1,059,897 constituency votes in the 2016 Scottish Parliamentary election.

1,059,897 divided by 5,313,600 is not even 20% of the population of Scotland.

Of course, not all of those 5,313,600 people are eligible to vote.  Many of them are children, for example.  The BBC reports the electorate of Scotland, for this election, as 4,099,407.

1,059,897 divided by 4,099,407 is 25.9% of the electorate.

I think what Ms Sturgeon meant to say, was that the position put forward in the SNP manifesto got the support of almost 50% of those who voted.

This is, at least, a more reasonable interpretation of events.  Turnout for this election was around 56% of the electorate.  There were a total of 2,279,153 valid constituency votes and 2,285,752 valid regional votes cast.

Of these, the SNP won 1,059,897 constituency votes and 953,987 regional votes, or 46.5% and 41.7% respectively.

However, there is an issue even with this statement.  That is that people vote for a particular candidate or political party for a wide variety of different reasons and considering a broad range of issues.  It's not possible to know for certain how many of those 1,059,897 people support Ms Sturgeons position on a second referendum.  Maybe some of them voted for SNP candidates due to their position on healthcare, or education or taxes, or defence, or any number of other issues or combinations of issues, or because they have a particularly good local MSP.

Pick any random person off the street and any random political party's manifesto and you are likely to be able to find some things in it which they agree with and some things in it which they disagree with.  Just because a person has voted for a particular party doesn't mean they support everything in that party's manifesto.  All it means is that, on balance, they support more of that party's stated aims, objectives and values, than that of the other parties/candidates.  Often times it's a case of picking the lesser of several evils.

In this particular case, I think it's pretty likely that most people backing the SNP are in favour of Scottish independence, but it is simply not possible to know that from the number of votes alone.

To determine that you have to have a referendum.  Which we did, in 2014.  And in which we found that 1,617,989 people, or less than one third of the population of Scotland, were in favour of independence at that time (to use Ms Sturgeon's favoured way of expressing these statistics).

If she hasn't already, I think Ms Sturgeon should be obliged to make a full retraction of this statement and go on record to correct any misunderstanding that may have resulted.

Good post on the costs of the US healthcare system by Wintercow over at The Unbroken Window.

Some quotes:

"Follow the goods, not the money."

"How would you measure how costly the U.S. medical system is? Would you look at how many dollar bills are spent? Or would you examine what real resources are used up in order to deliver said outcomes? Good economics suggests the latter."

Or, more generally speaking:

How would you measure how costly X is? Would you look at how many dollar bills are spent? Or would you examine what real resources are used up in order to deliver said outcomes? Good economics suggests the latter.

Dentopia

The following image has recently been circulating on my social media (I don't think it's new, but it's the first I've come across it):

I have a few problems with the message conveyed here, basically everything stated above is incorrect or misleading in some way:

1. There is no such thing as "free" healthcare or "free" college.  In order for someone to receive healthcare or college education, someone else must provide said healthcare or college education.  And someone: either the recipient, the provider, or some other 3rd party (e.g. the taxpayer) must pay for said healthcare or education.
2. There is no legally stipulated minimum wage in Denmark.
3. The average Danish worker works 27.6 hours per week.  This compares to 26.4 in Germany, 28.3 in France, 32.3 in the UK, 34.4 in the US, and an OECD average of 34.0 hours per week.*
4. Whilst Denmark does tend to score very highly on most attempts at measuring 'happiness' between various countries.  'Happiness' is a vague, poorly-defined and ambiguous concept that by it's nature is subjective and not easily measurable.  Attempts to quantify 'happiness' rely on self-reported assessments and are prone to all of the usual potential pitfalls and problems of, say political surveys, and are uncertain at best or potentially completely misleading at worst.

Here's my attempt at a more accurate "be like Denmark" message:

"This is Denmark.
Denmark has one of the World's most free labour markets.
Denmark has no legally stipulated minimum wage.
Denmark is amongst the most free countries in the World, both economically and in terms of civil liberties.
Be like Denmark."

* All figures from the OECD for 2014 from here.  Figures reported by the OECD are average annual hours worked.  Approximate weekly figures presented here calculated by dividing the OECD annual figures by 52 (i.e. figures presented here will take into account part-time work, annual leave, etc.).