More or Less: ElectionWatch

Tim and the team have their calculators at the ready.

Tim Harford and the More or Less team kept a close eye on statistical claims made by all candidates and parties during the election.

We broadcast our analysis on BBC Radio 4's PM and Today programmes throughout the campaign.

Those broadcasts are archived here.

04 MAY 2010: TACTICAL VOTING

An Ipsos Mori poll of marginal seats suggests that a third of voters may yet change their minds about who to vote for.

Tim Harford examines tactical voting on Today .

03 MAY 2010: ELECTION ODDS

Who's more likely to predict the outcome of the General Election correctly - the bookies, or the pollsters?

Tim Harford tells PM why he's keeping a close eye on the odds.

30 APRIL 2010: MANUFACTURING

The health of the UK's manufacturing industry was one of the subjects raised between Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg and David Cameron in their final debate.

How is the sector doing?

Tim Harford speaks to Eddie Mair on PM about the true state of manufacturing.

30 APRIL 2010: FINAL LEADERS' DEBATE

How well did the party leaders outline their policies during last night's prime ministerial debate?

Tim Harford looks back at the highlights with Today presenter James Naughtie.

29 APRIL 2010: DEFICIT SIZE

Questions continue to be asked about how the political parties will manage to keep their promises to cut the deficit.

The widely-accepted figure is £163bn, with the parties proposing various policies over different timescales to reduce that total.

Talking to Eddie Mair on PM , Tim Harford examines what is and isn't included in the UK's deficit and finds that it could be much bigger than we think.

29 APRIL 2010: SPENDING CUTS

The think-tank the IFS has pointed out that most of the spending cuts that will have to be made during the next Parliament have not been specified by Labour, the Conservatives or the Lib Dems.

So what do the parties have to say for themselves?

On Today , Tim Harford takes a close look at their excuses.

27 APRIL 2010: DEFICIT

For PM , Tim Harford scales the deficit to household income.

If the typical household outspent its means like the government's doing, it would be spending more than £26,800 with an income of £20,500.

26 APRIL 2010: PUBLIC SECTOR

David Cameron has said the public sector is too big.

Is it?

Tim Harford gives PM the relevant numbers.

26 APRIL 2010: OPINION POLLS

As the election draws nearer, opinion polls are being used more and more in an attempt to establish how the parties are performing.

On Today Tim Harford and Ben Page, chief executive of pollsters Ipsos Mori, analyse whether opinion polls can predict an election result.

23 APRIL 2010: LABOUR SAVINGS

Tim Harford tells PM how a £1 billion saving proposed by Labour might, in fact, amount to considerably less.

23 APRIL 2010: LEADERS' DEBATE FIGURES

Each of the men in the second Prime Ministerial debate on 22 April 2010 made use of facts and figures when discussing jobs, migration and the EU.

But did they add up?

Tim Harford assesses the numbers with Sarah Montague on Today.

22 APRIL 2010: LEADERS' DEBATE VIEWERS

Ahead of the second Leaders' Debate, Tim Harford tells PM how many people are likely to watch.

14 APRIL 2010: CHARTER SCHOOLS

The Conservatives announced their election manifesto yesterday, pledging to allow parents to set up their own schools.

The same approach has been adopted in the US and Sweden, with mixed results.

On Today Tim Harford and Mike Gibbons, chief executive of the Richard Rose Federation which runs some academies, examine the pros and cons of charter schools.

13 APRIL 2010: UKIP

UKIP is launching its manifesto today, campaigning for the UK to withdraw from the EU.

The party claims that 75% of UK laws are made in Brussels.

Tim Harford analyses UKIP's figures on Today.

12 APRIL 2010: VAT PLANS

The political parties are spelling out - and sometimes not spelling out - what they would do about VAT.

Tim Harford gives PM his analysis of the tax claims made so far in the election campaign.

10 APRIL 2010: MARRIAGE TAX BREAKS

The Conservatives have announced their long-awaited proposals for married couples, pledging to give an annual £150 tax break to married couples and civil partners.

Around four million couples earning under £44,000, where one partner does not use their full personal allowance, would be eligible.

Speaking on Today, Tim Harford examined whether the Tories' proposals add up.

08 APRIL 2010: IMMIGRANT WORKERS

Today's John Humphrys challenged Gordon Brown with an Office for National Statistics figure that claims 97% of new jobs go to foreign-born workers.

The Prime Minister dismissed this as 'simply not the case'.

Immigration minister Phil Woolas then joined the debate by accusing the media of misinterpreting the data.

Tim Harford spoke to Eddie Mair on the PM programme about who got the figures right.

08 APRIL 2010: BIAS

David Cameron must secure a national swing of 6.9 percent from Labour to the Conservatives to win the election with an outright majority, a feat no party has achieved since 1945.

In the general election of 2005 the Conservatives won a quarter of a million more votes than Labour in England, but 92 fewer MPs.

Speaking on the Today programme, Tim Harford and Lord Patten, former chairman of the Conservative Party, examined whether the electoral system is biased against the Tories.

07 APRIL 2010: NATIONAL INSURANCE

The Conservatives have criticised a planned increase in National Insurance saying the extra 1% is "a tax on jobs" that could "stifle the recovery" - and dozens of leading business figures have backed that position.

The government has countered that the extra money raised, some £6bn, is needed to maintain public services.

Tim Harford assessed the numbers in an interview with Eddie Mair on the PM programme.

07 APRIL 2010: DEFICIT

The campaign gets underway with speeches from each of the three main party leaders.

David Cameron appealed to "the great ignored".

But, as Tim Harford explains on Today , the real 'great ignored' is, in fact, a number: the deficit.

30 MARCH 2010: THREE CHANCELLORS

On Monday 29 March, Channel 4 hosted a live debate between Chancellor Alistair Darling and the two men vying for his job, the Conservative George Osborne and Liberal Democrat Vincent Cable.

Mr Osborne said that the UK would spend more on servicing the interest on the national debt next year than on "educating our children". Is that true?

Alistair Darling and Vincent Cable clashed over the apparent failure of state-supported banks to meet targets for lending to small businesses.

Tim Harford discussed the debate with Carolyn Quinn on the PM programme. Sadly, they ran out of time just as Tim was about to reveal whether Mr Cable was as prescient about our current economic condition as he claimed.

READ MORE:

Daily View: Verdicts on chancellors' debate

dot.Rory: The chancellors, Twitter and sentiment analysis

10 MARCH 2010: FREE SCHOOL MEALS

On Monday in the House of Commons Shadow Schools Secretary Michael Gove claimed that of the 80,000 pupils who qualify for free school meals (an indicator of relative poverty), only 45 get to Oxford or Cambridge.

The Secretary of State for Schools Ed Balls said Mr Gove had got his sums wrong.

He had, he said, "attempted to correct the hon. Gentleman on his statistical failings, but he keeps refusing to listen".

Tim Harford refereed the spat with Evan Davis on the Today programme.

8 JANUARY 2010: WIND FARMS

The government has announced that permission has been granted for 6,000 offshore wind turbines to be built in UK waters as part of a £100bn programme.

It is claimed that turbines could generate up to 32 gigawatts of power, a quarter of the UK's electricity needs, and that 70,000 jobs could be created as a result of the investment.

The numbers sound impressive, but as Tim Harford discussed with Eddie Mair on the PM programme, they did not necessarily add up.

READ MORE:

New wind farm zones are announced

Wind farms: Generating power and jobs?