According to the Office of National Statistics Hastings has now overtaken Brighton to become the drug death capital of the county.

Now, that doesn’t look too good for the town of my birth.

However, I think it would be good for everyone to know how the Office of National Statistics managed to come up with a conclusion that, to my mind, is completely misleading.

The problem with statistics is that it is a branch of mathematics and often totally divorced from reality and common sense.

For example, there could not have been 9.1 deaths in Hastings over the years 2013 to 2015 because point one of a person cannot die; it has got to be a round number.

Furthermore, the Office of National Statistics computes its figures by comparing the number of deaths per 100,000 population but Hastings only has 92,000 residents, which means that even the figure of nine is too high; common sense would come up with a figure of eight.

Why oh why won’t Government departments ever issue the actual numbers involved; for example town A 40 drug deaths, town B 27 drug deaths and town C 11 drug deaths, instead of statistics that often, as in this case, skew reality?

As far as Sussex is concerned, it could have been that Brighton had more than twice as many deaths as Hastings but, because its population is three times that of the 1066 town, it would come out lower in the “drug deaths league”.

Statistics? Beware of them!

Eric Waters
Lancing