Depending on who you believe, and what is included, the UK national debt is somewhere between £800 billion and £4.8 trillion (which is £4,800 billion).

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that the total debt, excluding bank bail-outs, is £816bn. But this figure doesn’t include the state’s pension liabilities, in a contravention of standard accounting practices. (more…)

Police investigating the Millbank student riot released images of thirteen protesters they want to question — Daily Mail.

Meanwhile a website that offered advice to students involved in the rioting has been closed down. Apparently JustHost.com (slogan: ‘the last hosting plan you’ll ever need’) pulled the site purely on the basis of a letter from an acting detective inspector at the Metropolitan Police — The Guardian.

As the countdown to the 800th anniversary of the sealing the Magna Carta begins, the Guardian's legal affairs correspondent Afua Hirsch talks to justice secretary Kenneth Clarke on its relevance today.

The embedded video isn't working so please click through to see it.

My favourite part of this is what he has to say about New Labour. So true...

Much of the gay world is driven by misleading statistics and misconceptions and rather ‘woolly’ thinking. This suits some people down to the ground.

Facts and figures are exaggerated and misrepresented for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes due to ignorance and silliness or with the best of intentions. Other times deliberately for profit, to get funding or to grab or hold onto control of an event or organisation.

Some do it to present a picture that better suits their upbringing and view of life and because of a desperate urge to ‘fit in’ and be no different.

A few years ago I realised how the organisers of Manchester’s August Bank Holiday event (currently known as Manchester Pride) had consistently misled the public about attendance figures over the years. Particularly the crowd numbers at the Saturday parade. They published vastly-inflated figures that were physically impossible and so did the media.

I began to wonder what else are we being misled about?

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