Friday 2 November 2007

Trouble with numbers

It turns out that 'Gerry' Sutcliffe, the 'sports' minister, was less than entirely accurate when he claimed that Chelsea paid John Terry an 'obscene' £150,000 a week and that Manchester United had raised their ticket prices by 13%.

His spokesman said:

The minister accepts that his figures may not have been 100% accurate, but he stands by the wider point that he was making.

Why is that this government has such trouble with numbers? Could it be that its members are really rather dim? Or is it that dishonesty just comes naturally?

Either way, if I had based an argument on what turned out to be false information, I'd think an apology might be in order.

None of which changes the basic point that what Chelsea choose to pay their players and Manchester United to charge for tickets is entirely up to them. It is no business of the government's.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

" Why is that this government has such trouble with numbers? Could it be that its members are really rather dim? Or is it that dishonestly just comes naturally? "

Errrmm ... what makes you think it is either/or?

The Creator said...

Good point.

Stupidity spiced by an instinctive dishonesty about sums them up.

What's interesting is that this has become the default position.

Get it wrong, so lie and .. lie again.

Governments have always spun. But never to this extent. And never combining it with such obvious incompetence.