Great British Traditions
I quite like the new addition to the State Opening Of Parliament - the tradition whereby an incoming government commissions a report on inequality and the benefits system from Frank Field and is then horrified at its quality. The Sacking Of The Field has a nice ring to it, it sounds like the sort of thing that's gone on since time immemorial.
Via Chris at Crooked Timber. I must say I like this "A working class version of Mumsnet" idea; it really does indicate to me that I wasn't swindled when I bought those Philip K Dick drugs.
Afterthought: "Poverty is a much more subtle enemy than purely lack of money", apparently. And we are to have a new "index of life chances". Another one to add to the lists of reasons why there are much worse things for economists to be than soulless calculating machines, and to suspect that we might look back on the days when economics regarded market value as the single measure of all things with a degree of nostalgia. Also, clearly another one to put in the category.
God, the working class version of Mumsnet is the policy equivalent of Partridge's Youth hostelling with Chris Eubank, or Monkey Tennis. Cringe.
ReplyDeleteWhat is it that attracts them to him? Also, why hasn't he just crossed the damn floor already, having been a functional Tory for years?
ReplyDeleteI imagine what attracts them is that he's a member of the Labour party with the heart of a Tory. Useful if you're trying to "build consensus".
ReplyDeleteHe also states in the report that children's brains are 80% formed by the age of 3, which is bollocks. I am increasingly of the view that if we wanted to improve public discourse we'd ban all pop-psychology books, as they're mostly filled with dated, or unreliable, info and seem to lead to really dodgy ideas.
If I read one more article about sex differences in the brain I may actually have to hunt down and kill the journalist in question. And as for evo-psych...
F.Scott Fitzgerald: "Let me tell you about the very poor. They are different from you and me."
ReplyDeleteErnest Hemingway: "Yes, they have less money."
Guardian report says he says Labour's target of no child poverty "measured as no one living 60% below the median income." won't be met.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if someone's set him right, but when he claimed this in the Telegrah a few months back, it was because he didn't know the difference between a mean and a median.
I've just checked the text of the report and it's clear that some civil servant with O-Level maths has had a hard time - the mistake about median income isn't there any more but there's still a passage about the "formidable difficulty" experienced by the last government because of rising median income.
ReplyDeleteIf I read one more article about sex differences in the brain I may actually have to hunt down and kill the journalist in question.
ReplyDeleteAh, well, you're only saying that because you're a man. If you were a woman you'd want to bury them in your back garden.
Working Class Mumsnet == The Rest Of The Internet
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