Barometer | 20 August 2015

No sex, please

Several friends of the late Sir Edward Heath asserted that he could not be guilty of sexually assaulting children because he was asexual. How many adults do not experience sexual attraction?
— A 2004 study by Anthony F. Bogaert, of Brock University, Ontario, Canada, analysed responses to a British questionnaire ten years earlier. Of 18,000 respondents, 195, or just over 1%, had agreed with the statement ‘I have never felt sexually attracted to anyone at all’.
— A 1983 study by a student at the University of Michigan classified 5% of males and 10% of females as asexual.

Unaccountable spending

Most popular

Matthew Dennison

The cheapening of the Chelsea Flower Show

The EU declined to offer a breakdown of the £86m spent by staff on EU credit cards. What are the most error-strewn and corrupt areas of EU spending, according to the EU Court of Auditors?

	% of spending found irregular in 2013
Regional policy, energy and transport	6.9%
Rural development, energy and transport	6.7%
Research; other internal policies	4.6%
Agriculture — direct support	3.6%
European development funds	3.4%
Employment and social affairs	3.1%
External relations, aid and enlargement	2.6%

Minority report

The World Pipe Band Championships, held in Glasgow, attracted an audience of 40,000. Some other events, thought of as appealing to a minority, which attract surprisingly large audiences:
402,413 attended a weekend of Champ Car racing — an American version of Formula 1 — in Mexico City in 2003.
165,000 attended the Badminton Horse Trials over four days in 2005.

Naming names

The Office for National Statistics published its annual survey of babies’ names. Do the risers and fallers tell us anything about birth rates among socio-economic groups?