Lord Gowrie, Mark Simmonds: who had more right to complain?

Ministerial needs

Home Office minister Mark Simmonds resigned, complaining he couldn’t afford to live in London on his junior minister’s salary of £89,435. His resignation echoes that of Lord Gowrie, who resigned as minister for the arts in September 1985 complaining he couldn’t live in London on £33,000 a year. Are ministers better off now than they were then?

— If you uprate Lord Gowrie’s 1985 salary with the Retail Prices Index (which the government now regards as overstating inflation), it would be worth £85,000, less than the sum earned by Simmonds.However, Lord Gowrie’s was a cabinet post and would now carry a salary of £134,565.

— Only when it comes to buying a home are MPs (like everyone else) less well off now than in 1985. While a cabinet minister’s salary has increased by a little over four times, average London property prices (as measured by the Nationwide) have increased by 7.65 times.

Statistical self-harm

The NHS revealed that the number of children treated for self-harm has increased by 70 per cent in two years. How many young people attempt to harm themselves? — One third of girls, one fifth of boys (Anorexia and Bulimia Care) — One in 12 (Young Minds, from Australian study in the Lancet, 2011) — 400 per 100,000 (Study in Clinical Medicine, 2002) — 357 per 100,000 girls; 837 per 100,000 boys (Hospitalisation rate of 11- to 19-year-olds at John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford).

Accidental incest

A Brazilian couple with a six-year-old daughter belatedly discovered that they were half-brother and sister, having been adopted by different families. How likely is it to happen? — Besides children separated at birth, there are those conceived by donated sperm or eggs, who may not know they have siblings. In 1993, for example, 2,134 such children were born in the UK. Each may have up to nine siblings. — Assuming they are most likely to form a relationship with another Briton within five years of their own age, each has a crude probability of around one in 700,000 of inadvertently forming an incestuous relationship. — However, this ignores the phenomenon of ‘genetic sexual attraction’, which holds that siblings brought up apart are likely to find each other especially attractive if they meet as adults.