Lies, damn lies and statistics

ANYONE who had the misfortune to tune into SAFM this morning would have heard Jeremy Cronin droning on about the wonderful achievements of Castro's Cuba and heard him spouting the usual statistics which demonstrate the achievements of communism in that country -- all of which are to do with things like medicine, education, literacy, employment and so on, Conveniently, Cronin left out the fact that everything else in Cuba is a shambles. It reminded Spigot of the wonderful statistics that flowed out of the old German Democratic Republic (East Germany) before the wall people like Cronin erected to keep people in the workers paradise, came tumbling down in 1989. Once that happened, not only did thousands flee the Marxist paradise, it was soon clear that the statistics were a sham. Spigot fervently hopes he may live long enough to see the same thing demonstrated in Cuba once that old colonial-aristocrat-turned-revolutionary, Fidel Castro, finally goes to meet his maker.