Used by some to condemn the government's record, rubbished by others as biased and politically motivated, what is the truth about what the statistics tell us?

Presenter Andrew Dilnot led the investigation, and says we have picked up little of what is most striking about the data, and the real differences for children in Britain. The devil, as so often, is in the detail.

Smaller surveys for individual countries on which the Unicef report was based, show striking differences, for example, in the way children in England think of school and their friends compared with those in Wales and Scotland.

Black market

And we looked at how we measure those things people do not want measured, in the black or shadow economy and found out why Polish plumbers might have caused it to shrink.

Rain

Plus, after a couple of weeks of drizzle or worse, why measuring rainfall is not quite the child's play we might expect, and why it is possible to get the wrong kind of rain.

Presenter: Andrew Dilnot
Producer: Michael Blastland

BBC Radio 4's More or Less was broadcast on Monday, 21 May, 2007 at 1630 BST.

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