Fearless child or irresponsible parenting You be the jury! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuMsMlGt9NQ&feature=channel_video_title

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuMsMlGt9NQ&feature=channel_video_title

How to cook perfect tarte tatin | Life and style | The Guardian

How to cook perfect tarte tatin | Life and style | The Guardian

The Real Venice photography exhibition - Telegraph

The Real Venice photography exhibition - Telegraph

OK. So the head of PR for Facebook UK is called Sophy Tobias. If her middle name is Katie I may explode

Try later

503 Over Quota

MAPCO : London and Environs Maps and Views

MAPCO : London and Environs Maps and Views

The television clip of the year

Bar none

Facebook Is Tracking Your Every Move on the Web; Here's How to Stop It

Facebook Is Tracking Your Every Move on the Web; Here's How to Stop It

Say what? Somebody is wrong here

... and it could be me.

But look: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/georgeosborne/8802914/Osborne-to-hel...

I'm not picking on the Telegraph, but everyone has this story, and they all contain this bit: "The Chancellor will use an £805 million “dividend” from a Whitehall under-spend to pay for the tax break that will see an average family saving £72 a year."

There are about 25 million households in Britain, and since Council Tax is levied on homes, its fair to assume that in this story "families" = "households." But 25 million x £72 = £1.8 billion. Or conversely, £805/25 = £32. What am I missing?

So I think we have one of the following to choose from:

1. My maths or facts are wrong. Always possible, but in this case not so, I hope.
2. In some way families does not equal households. But since family is not clearly defined (my cousins are all part of my family, but we don't all live in the same house) and hence not counted, this would render the stats meaningless. It is fairly well established to use "family" as a synonym for household when writing this kind of story.
   If the goverment are counting me and my sisters as one family to make the saving sound better then they really should be called out on it. 
3. The saving really is in the region of £1.8 billion, and the government is funding it by both the £805 million saving and some other funds (or by borrowing). In which case this looks like an attempt to deceive the amount of "new" money the Government is willing to put to this voter friendly issue.
4. The government are using average to mean something other than the default assumption of "mean" and no journalist has thought to probe deeper. Some households own more than one home and so would benefit twice, but these are far from typical or average. "Average" does cover mean, mode and median, but in common conversation is means "mean." Where the difference is significant this should be explained, and if people expect to save £72 and wind up saving £32, I'd argue that's a significant difference.
   
   1. A variation of the above: there are number behind the numbers that does make sense of this, but no journalist has spotted that 805/25 does not equal 72 and thought to ask.

I think 3 or 4 or a variant is the answer: and at the root this is shoddy journalism. There's a maths problem in plain sight and nobody seems to be asking about it. Or I'm missing something obvious again.