Would an apology from Labour over the horrendous way it handled its criticism of the revision of some key figures by the National Office of Statistics be enough to make up for the harm done? Hardly. It is about time people within the party itself start seriously questioning the way the leadership is tackling sensitive issues. A move that has backfired so heavily against the party ought to call for much soul searching and circumspection on the part of the leaders.
After a long-running campaign that put into doubt the reliability of the NSO figures, and which eventually led to the resignation of the head, Gordon Cordina, Eurostat, the European statistical agency, officially approved the way the revisions were made.
The agency, to whom the Labour Party sent its technical report, said the revisions were carried out within the regular assessment process of compliance with its statistical practices.
Others were of the same opinion even before Eurostat approved the revisions. But Eurostat's approval shows how wrong Labour was in giving a partisan political slant to a matter that should have first been fully explored within its purely technical parameters. But Labour acts rashly, shoots from the hip and then either makes a U-turn or tries to cover up its errors by burying the controversy they so valiantly stir up.
They have not done this yet in the case of the revision of statistics as the party leader is still insisting on having replies from the government to technical issues raised by the "MLP experts" who have so far remained anonymous. Dr Sant is presumably asking the government to reply to its points because it is the government that assumes responsibility for the NSO. But if Labour is still not satisfied with the NSO's reaction to its criticism, should it not direct its questions to the Office again rather than to the government?
It is manifestly wrong on the part of the MLP to drag the NSO into politics as it clearly did when the party leader spoke of manipulation. Others within his party, including a deputy leader, Charles Mangion, do not appear to share Dr Sant's views on this, but the damage has now been done. Labour would have a lot to answer for if, as it was recently reported, Labour-leaning respondents are increasingly refusing to take part in data collection work done by the NSO. This is the kind of harm this newspaper had in mind when it commented on the subject two weeks ago.
As action of this nature hits at the very heart of the NSO's work, it is the Labour Party's duty now to see how it can reverse the situation. Turning the NSO into a political football, as the party so unwisely did, intentionally or not, when it projected the Office head as a party man simply because he expressed an opinion over EU membership at a PN meeting, and when it used such words as manipulation and tampering, is a big mistake, one that in the long run works also against the interest of the party, that is, if it really wants to get elected.
Labour was well within its rights to ask for an explanation of the revisions made and to continue doing so until it was satisfied that the work was above board.
It had a good point too when it said that figures should have been presented under the old and new methods, at least for a transitional period. It lost the plot when it dragged the Office into politics.