Go compare - a Badger Trust Recipe

In our posting below we queried how on earth the Badger Trust could have come up with such amazing figures on the b. Tuberculosis statistics for cattle breakdowns and slaughter numbers. If you remember, their press release chirped a 39 per cent drop from 2008 to an unknown date, in new herd breakdowns and a 44 per cent drop in cattle slaughtered.
David Williams, Badger Trust chairman said:

".... without any badgers being killed, but with increasingly effective cattle measures, the bTB toll on farm businesses has been declining steadily over the last five years. There has been a 39 per cent fall in new herd incidents since 2008 - from 5,007 to 3,018. Over the same period the number of individual cattle slaughtered was reduced by 44 per cent – from 39,015 to 21,512.

With the help of Bovine TB Information the source of this duplicitous rubbish deliberately misleading press release, is now revealed. The figures were given in Parliamentary briefing papers, are from the Defra website but relate to January - July only in 2012.
Not the full year, which has yet to be published.

The number of cattle compulsorily slaughtered as reactors or direct contacts was 21,512 in January to July 2012, compared to 20,514 in January to July 2011. The number of new herd incidents during the period January to July 2012 was 3,018 compared to 3,021 for January to July 2011.

So dear readers, a Badger Trust recipe for you:
Take the Defra statistics for cattle reactors and breakdowns in the 12 months of 2008.
Leave to stand for three years.
Take the Defra statistics for cattle reactors and breakdown in the 7 months of 2012, to July only.
Switch on the oven calculator.
Enter the 12 month totals for 2008, mix in 7 months of 2012 and calculate a percentage drop.
Go compare and publish.
Simples.

 For the pedantic among our readers, read page 8, section 3:2 on  this link to examine for yourselves the Badger Trust's amazing bit of mathematical gymnastics. The figures were published on October 12th 2012.

 This claim of a drop in TB incidence now appears on Team Badger's website, whose figurehead / underwriter is Dr. Brian May. And Dr. May has a degree in .... what? Hubris? Spin? Deceit? Lies?

 One can safely assume that it is not basic mathematics.