The Robert Kimbell guide to creating shockingly misleading Brexiteer statistics

Robert Kimbell is a Brexit fanatic, Ukipper and Twitter celebrity. He's regularly lauded as an economics expert by the hard right, but in this article I'm going to expose the cynical cherry-picking trick he keeps using to create utterly misleading EU-bad narratives.

A quick browse through Kimbell's Twitter feed reveals his extreme Brexit bias, with links to fanatically right-wing Brexit propaganda sites like Westmonster and Brexit Central strewn amongst links to the pro-Brexit right-wing corporate media (Daily Mail, Express, Telegraph, S*n) and Retweets of numerous hard-Brexit celebrities and commentators.

Kimbell's favourite Twitter trick is to pick a country in the EU that has fallen down the global GDP ranking a little bit since their entry to the EU, and then compare them to a random country from the developing world that has risen slightly in the global GDP ranking over the same period (see screenshots).

Beware of crude GDP figures

Anyone with a bit of basic economic nous understands that relying on crude GDP figures is a surefire way of creating misleading economic narratives.

Take the talk of the so-called Tory "economic recovery" between 2010-2015 that helped them win their unexpected majority at the 2015 General Election.

It is true that the UK's GDP grew a bit between 2010 and 2015, but what the Tories omitted to mention was that nearly all of that economic growth was generated by the rising population caused by Theresa May's all-time record breaking increases in the net immigration rate.

Between 2010 and 2015 our economy was only really growing because of the all-time high levels of immigration, with the amount of economic activity per person (GDP per capita) remaining well below the level it was before the economic crisis.

Reworking the crude GDP con for Brexiteering

Kimbell's approach is that if the Tories could win a General Election by pushing a shockingly misleading crude GDP narrative, he can use the same trick to make the ongoing Brexit shambles look like a fantastic idea.

Thus he's repeatedly used comparisons of crude GDP figures on Twitter to make EU countries look like failures compared to growing economies in the developing world.

I'll go through five examples of him using this trick to show how utterly misleading his little anti-EU propaganda tropes are.

Hungary vs Bangladesh

Since Hungary joined the EU in 2004 it has fallen from 44th to 58th in the global GDP ranking. In the same time Bangladesh has risen from 57th to 46th.

What Kimbell has omitted to mention is that Bangladesh has a population of 163 million people (the 8th most populous country on earth), while Hungary has a population of 9.8 million (the 92nd most populous).

A look at the International Monetary Fund's GDP per capita figures reveal that Hungary is the 45th most prosperous country per person ($27,482), while Bangladesh is 139th ($3,891 per person).

Additionally, since 2004 the GDP per capita in Hungary has increased by over $4,000 per person (more than the entire current GDP per capita of Bangladesh), while GDP per capita in Bangladesh has increased by less than $1,400 per person.

The idea that Bangladesh is now surpassing Hungary thanks to the failure of the EU is based on a crude statistical trick that completely ignores the fact that the population of Bangladesh is over 16 times the size of Hungary, and has in fact grown by over 20 million (double the population of Hungary) since Hungary joined the EU just 13 years ago!

Luxembourg vs Oman

Since 1960 Luxembourg it has fallen from 55th to 76th in the global GDP ranking. In the same time Oman has risen from 97th to 75th.

What Kimbell has omitted to mention is that Oman has a population of 4.6 million people (the 125th most populous country on earth), while Luxembourg has a population of below 600,000 (the 166th most populous).

The question shouldn't be why has Luxemburg fallen behind Oman, but why has it taken Oman so long to catch up given their population is over seven times the size, and the large oil and natural gas reserves they've been exploiting for decades.

The International Monetary Fund's GDP per capita figures reveal that Luxembourg is the 2nd most prosperous country per person ($104,003), while Oman is 21st ($46,698 per person).

Omitting to mention the fact that Oman has a population seven times the size of Luxembourg, the fossil fuel bonanza that has fuelled Oman's climb up the GDP rankings, and the fact that the people of Luxembourg are actually the 2nd most prosperous on earth to create an EU-bad narrative are all indications of the lengths Brexiteers will go to in order to con people into supporting Brexit.

Austria vs Nigeria

Since Austria joined the EU in 1995 it has fallen from 21st to 28th in the global GDP ranking. In the same time Nigeria has risen from 57th to 27th.

Again Kimbell is using the same trick of ignoring population growth, ignoring GDP per capita, and ignoring a huge fossil fuel bonanza going on in the cherry-picked developing nation. Here are some of the stats.

Austria has a population of 8.8 million (the 96th most populous nation). Nigeria has a population of 193.5 million (the 7th most populous).

A look at the International Monetary Fund's GDP per capita figures reveal that Austria is the 19th most prosperous country per person ($48,005), while Nigeria is 126th ($5,942 per person).

Nigeria has a population over 20 times the size of Austria's, yet they've only just climbed to one place ahead of them in the crude GDP statistics, and the amount of economic activity per person in Nigeria is one eighth of the amount per person in Austria.

In fact, since 1995 the population of Nigeria has grown by 85 million people, so in order to surpass Austria by one place in the crude GDP rankings, Nigeria has had to increase its population by over 9 times the total population of Austria!

In the same period GDP per capita in Austria has grown by over $10,000 per person, an increase of almost double the current total GDP per capita in Nigeria!

The idea that wealthy Austria is somehow being held back by the EU because their economy has fallen one place behind a poverty stricken developing nation country with over 20x the population is exactly the kind of hopelessly delusional drivel that hard-right Brexiters thrive on.

Slovenia vs Angola

When Slovenia joined the EU in 2004 it had the 65th biggest economy, now it's 85th. In the same period Angola has risen from 81st to 63rd.

It's exactly the same trick again.

In 2005 (one year after Slovenia joined the EU) Angola had a population of 16.5 million, now it has a population of 28.4 million (48th in the world). In the same period the population of Slovenia has changed from 2.00 million to 2.06 million (146th).

One country has almost doubled its population in the period, whilst the other has remained almost completely static. Is it any wonder that a country which now has a population eight times the size of the other has edged above them in the crude GDP ranking?

A look at the much more informative GDP per capita rankings paints a very much less misleading picture. According the the IMF, Slovenia are 37th in the world at £32,085 per person, while Angola are 120th at $6,844 per person.

The effort to attack the EU by painting Slovenia as some kind of failing dump and Angola as a thriving success story based solely on crude GDP figures is clearly the work of a person who takes their audience as a pack of absolutely gullible idiots.

Malta vs Zambia

Kimbell asserts that Malta has fallen from 124 to 132 in the crude GDP rankings, while Zambia has climbed from 126 to 107.

Between 2004 and the present the population of Malta has increased slightly from 401,000 to 437,000. In the same period the population of Zambia has increased from 11.4 million to 16.4 million.

In 2004 Zambia had a population over 28 times the size of Malta, and now it has a population over 37 times the size of Malta. It's not a surprise that the Zambian economy is now bigger than the Maltese economy at all. What is surprising is that they were still behind the tiny island of Malta just 13 years ago.

Let's compare the GDP per capita of failing Malta and booming Zambia:

Zambia are 140th in the world with $3,880 in economic activity per person per year. Malta are 28th with $39,834.

Only the most agenda driven fanatic could try to paint wealthy and stable Malta as some kind of failing economic basket case compared to poverty stricken Zambia, which has less than a tenth of the economic activity per person as the former-British colony in the Mediterranean.

Beware of Brexiter statistics

I'm sure most of us remember the disgraceful £350 million for the NHS lies promoted by the Vote Leave mob, but it's still worth remembering that these same dishonest Brexiteers are still out there programming people with warped narratives, cherry-picked statistics, and downright lies in order to con them into continuing to support the hard-right anti-democratic Tory Brexit shambles.

The really sad thing is that the UK education system has failed so spectacularly that huge numbers of people have not been equipped with the critical thinking skills to even see through such crude and manipulative statistical cherry-picking.

What to do about people who have been let down by the education system and left with such weak critical thinking skills that they don't even question such ludicrously cherry-picked stats is a question for another time, but what to do about Robert Kimbell and his ilk is easy: Call them out on their shockingly deceptive idiot fodder whenever we see them spewing it.

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Why we should boycott Starbucks

The reason Starbucks should be boycotted is simple. Starbucks is an aggressive user of tax-dodging scams to avoid paying tax in the UK. The company has used the technique of siphoning all of their profits into subsidiary companies based in Switzerland and Luxembourg to ensure that they paid 0% corporation on sales of over £1 billion, over the last three years.

In 2012 they paid absolutely no corporation tax on sales of over £368 million and they have paid just £8.6 million in tax over the last 14 years, an effective rate of below 1%.

It is absolutely no wonder that they have managed to drive hundreds of small, independent, tax-paying family owned cafes out of business. They have had the massive, unfair advantage of not paying any UK tax on their profits.

The research into Starbucks tax-dodging activities was conducted by Reuters, you can read their full damning report here.


Starbucks are tax-dodgers, the schemes they have used to avoid paying their fair share of tax are legally allowable, but only because successive Tory and Labour governments alike have created and maintained gaping loopholes in the UK tax code. Any part of an anti-tax-dodging campaign should involve applying pressure on politicians to close the gaping tax-loopholes that companies use to apply a veneer of legal legitimacy to their immoral and anti-competitive practices.

Whatever the legal status of a particular tax-dodging scam, it is immoral to avoid paying tax in a country in which your company generates enormous revenues. Tax-dodging is immoral because it is a clear demonstration that a company is happy to benefit from the taxes other people pay in order to generate their profits, but they refuse to pay taxes themselves. To give a few examples.

Starbucks employees benefited from their education, from access to free healthcare, etc. Without these provisions, Starbucks would have to select their employees from amongst the diseased and illiterate. By avoiding tax, Starbucks are essentially saying that they are happy for others to keep their workers healthy and reasonably educated, but they won't contribute themselves.

The majority of Starbucks customers benefited from taxpayer funded infrastructure to even get there, roads built and maintained at taxpayer expense, the taxpayer subsidised rail network or London underground. By avoiding tax, Starbucks are essentially saying that they are happy for others to fund the infrastructure that contributes to their profit margins, but they won't contribute themselves.

Whenever a crime is committed in a Starbucks, the staff will call a taxpayer funded police force to deal with it. By avoiding tax, Starbucks are essentially saying that they are happy for others to fund the police that protect their property and their employees, but they won't contribute themselves.

Starbucks employees and customers pay tax. By avoiding tax, Starbucks are essentially saying that they are happy for their staff and their customers to pay tax on their part of transactions that occur as part of the Starbucks business, but they won't contribute themselves.

Starbucks should thank UK taxpayers for fact that their employees (often but not always) have basic literacy and numeracy and have been vaccinated against horrific diseases like polio and TB, they should thank the taxpayer that their customers are even able to get to their local Starbucks outlet, they should thank the taxpayer that their stores are protected by the police and fire services and they should thank their own staff and customers for making tax contributions. The best way for Starbucks to recognise the contribution of the taxpayer, is by paying their fair share of tax.

The second key argument against tax dodging a free-market argument. A free and fair market is dependent upon there being a level playing field so that competition can take effect. If one agent utilises anti-competitive practices, the playing field is not fair and the market becomes un-free.

If a state allows loopholes that can be utilised only by large multi-national corporations with a team of specialist tax lawyers and accountants and the ability to set up foreign based shell-companies, they are allowing corporate outlets a vast competitive advantage over small independent businesses. Small businesses that have no choice but to pay the standard rates of taxation. Once a state allows aggressive tax-dodgers this kind of cost advantage, it isn't long before the independents are eradicated from the market by the tax-dodgers. This is bad for the consumer, because they are left with less choice, it is bad for the government because they are left with fewer tax revenues from the sector and it is bad for the sector itself because the agents that have established monopoly or oligopoly positions have lower incentives to increase efficiency because their competition has been eradicated.

I believe I have established both the moral and the economic case to protest against tax-dodgers, but the most important measure of a protest isn't actually whether it is valid, but whether it can be effective.

It has been clearly shown that social media campaigns and boycotts can work, just consider the remarkable effectiveness of the Olympic tax dodge protest.

Since the Reuters investigation was published, their brand reputation has been significantly harmed. YouGov’s BrandIndex (which records brand identity strengths) has shown that Starbucks reputation has fallen from +4.6 to -3.99 in just a week and that their "buzz score", based on how many positive and negative comments customers have heard, has plunged from +0.7 down to a four year low of -13.9.

Sarah Murphy of BrandIndex said: “To say this story has been a disaster for the Starbucks brand would be a bit of an understatement. It’s still too early to say what the long-term impact of this is going to be, but in the current climate we’ve seen the public take a fairly dim view towards accusations of corporate greed".

This is why we must speak out against Starbucks tax-dodging activities and promote a Starbucks boycott. The only way these vast corporate enterprises will be made to listen, is by ensuring that their brand gets the maximum negative publicity, and that they are made to suffer financially. If 100,000s of their customers begin boycotting their stores, then perhaps they will be incentivised to pay their fair share of tax. 
 

See also

The economic case against tax-dodging

The Olympic tax dodge
 
 Tory tax scandals and some new tax proposals
 
George Osborne's 3rd World tax loophole
  

Jimmy Carr vs David Cameron in the tax hypocrisy stakes