Tories have been embarrassed over leaving out a decimal point in recent statistics this week.

The Conservative party claimed no less than three times that, of women in deprived areas, “54% are likely to fall pregnant before the age of 18, compared to just 19% in the least deprived areas.” The error was spotted by the Labour party, who noticed that the figures actually showed that 54.32 per 1000 women aged 15-17 years old fell pregnant, leading to a correct 5.4% statistic.

But this seems to be a common error. Searching the web for “decimal point error” leads to some fascinating (and equally concerning) stories, including a Pittsburgh water company who sent out immense bills when a third party contractor forgot the decimal point separating dollars and cents. In 2006, HBoS found a decimal point error in their unit pricing data that had existed for four years and it is thought that Clerical Medical paid out £11.6m in error, while other customers were deprived of £5.6m.

But this is not a recent problem. Winston Churchill’s father, Lord Randolph Churchill, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer, is quoted as saying, “I never could make out what those damned dots meant”.

Interpreting figures is an important skill and, while it is not one needed by everyone, shouldn’t handlers of statistics and data be trained to even this low level of mathematics?