LEAGUE tables are a crude and unsophisticated gauge of public services.

In education the tables have concentrated solely on examination results, failing to take into account mitigating social and economic factors.

They do not compare like with like. Some schools have been branded as failures, when a 'value-added' indicator may well have found them to be among the most successful in the country.

The hospital league tables published this weekend are equally flawed.

Gauging the standards of hospitals solely on death rates is a rather worthless exercise.

The conclusion that a hospital in an economically and socially deprived area will have a higher death rate than a hospital in a prosperous area is self-evident. So too is the notion that a better level of care is achieved in the hospitals with the most doctors on the payroll.

This table serves no useful purpose, other than stigmatise unfairly some hospitals and their staff, and commend undeservedly other hospitals and their staff.

It gives the misleading impression that there is a postcode lottery within the NHS which dictates the standard of care received by patients.

League tables only have a use in the health service if they can identify bad practice and encourage the use of best practice in hospitals. This table does not meet that criteria.

WE can fully understand William Hague's enthusiasm for a televised debate among the party leaders during the election campaign.

Any party leader trailing so far in the opinion polls will clutch at any straw.

While the debate may be an interesting sideshow, there are grave doubts about the worth of such an exercise.

Such debates have been the cornerstone of US presidential campaigns for decade. But as the recent debacle in Florida clearly demonstrated not all electoral practices across the Atlantic are good ones.

The merits of such a debate are far from clear.

Modern elections are already dominated by media presentation, to the detriment of genuine and constructive debate about policies.

There is a question mark over the wisdom of placing too much emphasis on a one-off clash of personalities in front of the TV cameras.