MP'S or Fatcats

[Caley Stan]

A country gets the government it deserves. Everyone berates the spin of Labour (although it was Satchi and Satchi that really began it in Thatcher's day) but so few people actually look into policies. The fact that Labour can win in certain places due to them being left-wing (that was a looooooooooooooooong time ago), or the Tories being good at economics (two recessions, sky-high unemployment and interest rates at over 15%, not to mention more businesses collapsing than ever before) is a damning indictment of the electorate. As Churchill so rightly said:

"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."

What are you saying starchief?

Do think that people in this country are too stupid to decide who should run it?

I would argue that it is in the interests of this system of representative democracy and the oligarchy that towers over it to keep people either completely disengaged from politics and policy or squabbling over which of two centrist parties should govern.

[Canada Bob]

"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."

What are you saying starchief?

Do think that people in this country are too stupid to decide who should run it?

The above {on both sides of the arguement} gave me food for thought, so I had a look around, and found these comments...

International comparisons

* Across Europe around 10% of the population falls into the low skills category; in Britain the figure is over 20%: eight million people are so poor at reading and writing that they cannot cope with the demands of modern life.

# In 2003, the DfES found that 29% of adults - as many as 11 million people - could not calculate the area of a floor, in either square feet or metres. More than 10% were unable to understand the instructions on a packet of seeds. And less than a third of people managed to work out the amount of plastic covering needed to line a pond - even with a calculator, pen and paper.

# Nearly four out of 10 adults in some parts of England cannot read or write properly or do simple sums according to a Basic Skills Agency's report in May 2000. This report came a year after the agency's chairman Sir Claus Moser's report, which described the serious problem of 20% of adults being "functionally illiterate". A reinterpretation of the Moser data put the national average even higher, at 24% - rising to nearly 40% in some areas. On average, 15% have low literacy, 5% have lower literacy and 4% have very low literacy.

# Less than 1% of school leavers and adults can be described as illiterate. Basic literacy skills, however, may be insufficient to meet the demands of many occupations.

# 12 % of young adults said they had problems with reading, writing, spelling or basic maths.

Here's the source for the above comments...

Kinell, how bad can it be... I wonder who this lot voted for...

Edited March 31, 2009 by Canada Bob