The Conservatives have accused the Ministry of Defence of manipulating statistics and underreporting the number of soldiers injured in Afghanistan. There is some dispute as to whether such reports inclued minor ailments, but the main point thrust home by Liam Fox was that the government could not be trusted to provide proper information. They had already declined to do so. The response was interesting:
On the same programme Bob Ainsworth, the Armed Forces minister, hit back. "What possible motive would there be for anyone in Government to hide casualty figures?" he said. "It's complete and utter nonsense to suggest that we do. We are not hiding casualty figures for Afghanistan, Iraq or anywhere else."
He added that the MoD released a comprehensive list on the internet every fortnight of casualty figures for those wounded in action or suffering illnesses.
Doctors would rather do their job than the "bureaucratic nonsense" of recording every time someone suffered a minor injury or illness, he said.
The answer is that the political motives for distorting these figures can be considered: to avoid further accusations that medical infrastructure is inadequate; to avoid further debate on whether the armed forces are ill-supplied or over-stretched; to avoid the possibility of debate on whether Afghanistan is worth the 'price'of a high number of casualties.
When you have form on politicising statistics, people can rightfully question your figures and motives.