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Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. On the programme:

Last week, Annunziata Rees-Mogg took to X to post a claim about the proportion of sex offences in Dorset that are committed by asylum seekers, writing that 鈥渁sylum seekers make up 0.8% of Dorset鈥檚 population and 44% of alleged sex offenses. So unbelievable I had to check.鈥� We checked too, and the number isn鈥檛 right.

In the last series of More or Less we suggested that nuclear power plant Hinkley C was spending so much on protecting the fish population that it would cost something like 拢250,000 per fish saved. We鈥檝e had to take a look at that one too.

Last year, we looked at a report by the Bible Society based on polling from YouGov. The Quiet Revival suggested that churchgoing was on the rise in the UK, with young men leading the trend. YouGov now have an update on that survey.

How many caterpillars does a blue tit chick eat before it leaves the nest? In a recent nature documentary, Sir David Attenborough said the right number was 20,000. We鈥檙e not so sure.

If you鈥檝e seen a number in the news you think we should take a look at, email the more or Less team: moreorless@bbc.co.uk

CONTRIBUTORS:

Madeleine Sumption, Director of the Migration Observatory at Oxford University
Professor David Voas, Emeritus Professor of Social Science in the UCL Social Research Institute
Annette J盲ckle, Professor of Survey Methodology at the University of Essex and a Deputy Director of the UK Household Longitudinal Study
Dr Malcolm Burgess, Principal Conservation Scientist at the RSPB

CREDITS
Presenter: Tim Harford
Reporter: Lizzy McNeill
Producer: Nathan Gower and Josh McGinn
Series producer: Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown
Sound mix: James Beard
Editor: Richard Vadon