The two which immediately spring to mind, of course, are the PCT behind proposed downgrading of Eastbourne DGH and the Post Office.

Statistical analysis, I was taught at school, should be used as a tool to improve understanding of a situation, not manipulated in some spin exercise to push an unpopular decision through the teeth of the farce that is 'public consultation'.

For the proposed closure of high grade maternity services at the DGH, we are told the move to the Conquest in Hastings is because the birth rate here does not warrant a specialist unit.

Eastbourne is a fast expanding town and the demographic age is continually decreasing, presumably meaning more families and more births.

Add in the huge increase of housing we are supposed to be taking in this area and even more strain will be added to hospital services in the future.

And okay, the Post Office might be in financial trouble, but why axe branches which are profitable and provide a valuable backbone for the elderly and for rural communities?

The problem is of course trying to save money. But I'd know I'd have very little sympathy with that if I ever needed an emergency Caesarean and had to take my chances with heavy traffic on the Marsh Road.

Or if I was elderly, on my own, and faced with a difficult walk to a post office branch two miles away just to collect my pension.

In the case of the DGH, these statistics are also trying to tell us there would be low risk for mums and babies having to be taken by ambulance to Hastings if complications arise during birth, despite many GPs disagreeing.

Those figures would be scant comfort for a bereaved family if the extra journey time before specialist treatment could be given was the difference between life and death.