According to a recent survey, British maths teachers come some
way down the international league when it comes to knowledge of
their own subject.
For instance, when asked to calculate the minimum number of sweets
to be taken from a bag containing five varieties to be certain
of having three of the same kind, only 21% of British teachers
got the right answer, compared to 97% of Russians.
Of course, there are those who argue that, with the advent of
calculators, numeracy is unimportant and that, if you have a preference
for treacle toffees, the easy way is to look inside the bag.
But, in addition to its rigorous logic, mathematics is important
in coping with everyday life, especially where statistics peddled
by politicians are concerned.
Unfortunately, it is not only teachers who have difficulties with
hard sums.
Newspaper reporters, who we rely on for the flow of information
that oils the democratic wheels, are also troubled by numbers.
This week under the headline " 'Positive' council spending
last year" (what is negative council spending?) I read that
'positive' was the word used by Leader, Cllr John Davies, to describe
the fact that "The council's outturn monitoring report showed
a net cost of services £162,879,000 compared to a revised
estimate of £163,201,000 with net expenditure on education
of £80,293,000 against the revised estimate of £80,298,000".
Now, to bring in an £80 million budget within £5,000
of target would be a remarkable achievement.
But that isn't what actually happened.
What the monitoring report shows is that net expenditure in the
revised budget was £79.6 million and the outturn £78.5
million - an underspend of £1.1 million.
And, in order to balance the books, an extra £1.1 million
had been transferred from the education budget into reserves.
If there had been an overspend money, could have been transferred
in the other direction.
It always amuses Old Grumpy to hear the Leader congratulating
himself and his party for delivering a balanced budget, when,
clearly, if money can be moved in and out of reserves to compensate
for any surplus/shortfall, a balanced budget is an arithmetical
certainty.
I expect you all got the right answer to the problem about the
sweets, but, just in case any members of the IPG have logged on,
I had better tell you it is 11.
Unusually, last week's Western Telegraph contained several
interesting items to serve as grist for Old Grumpy's mill.
Foremost among them was a letter from the Leader Cllr John Davies
in which he sings the praises of the Independent Political Group.
According to Cllr Davies, the IPG is "a coalition of individuals
who have established a group to allow the county council to be
administered by the majority of the membership of the council.
This clearly reflects the wishes of the voters of our county".
I detect a logical flaw in this argument because the first sentence
is a tautology and the second a non sequitur.
On the basis of Cllr Davies' reasoning, any coalition containing
31, or more, of the 60 members would pass "the wishes of
the voters" test.
And, as there is an almost unlimited number of possible coalitions,
(Labour (5), Tories (5), Plaid (5), Lib Dem (3) + 13 Independents
would be one such) there must be an almost unlimited number of
ways to reflect the wishes of the voters.
In fact, one of the strongest arguments against proportional representation
is that no coalition, unless it is clearly spelled out before
the election, can ever fulfill the wishes of the voters simply
because, when they put their crosses on the ballot paper, they
have no idea which of several possible outcomes they might be
voting for.
For instance, it is perfectly possible that, following the next
general election, the Conservatives will be the largest party,
but without an overall majority.
That raises the possibility of government by a Lib/Lab coalition.
That would fulfill the wishes of the voters test, but not as well
as a Con/Lab coalition.
And why not go the whole hog and have a Con/Lab/Lib/SNP/PC coalition
because "clearly" the voters, collectively, wish for
a one-party state.
The chief difficulty with the Leader's analysis, if it can be
so described, is that people were never told that, if elected,
the "independents" they were being asked to vote for
intended to join the IPG.
Indeed, had this been made clear, I would bet that several of
those whose votes maintain Cllr Davies in power would never have
been elected.
Finally, I would point out that I stood in Hakin on an unashamedly
anti-IPG ticket and won comfortably, despite the party's former
Leader Eric Harries being persuaded out of retirement in an attempt
to unseat me.
The Leader also claims there is nothing unusual in the political
situation in Pembrokeshire because "In nearly all local
authorities in Wales there are groups of independent councillors
who operate no differently to Pembrokeshire."
While this may well be true, I can't think that the fact that
everyone else is doing can ever, of itself, provide ethical justification
for anything.
After all, in 1939 half of Europe (Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal,
Greece and Romania) was under some sort of fascist rule, but few
people outside Oswald Moseley's immediate circle suggested that
we should follow suit.
Cllr Davies says that this situation is not liked by "political
parties and a minority of 'others' ".
The 'others' are the four independent independents who are not
members of his political group.
As one of these, I can't see why I should warrant punctuation
marks just because I happen to own a dictionary.
He goes on to say: "There are more independent-grouped
councillors in Wales than any one political party."
This rather clumsy construction would be much improved if "other"
was substituted for "one".
And, it would be much nearer the truth.
But help is at hand.
Alongside Cllr Davies' letter is the paper's editorial headed:
"Labour hoist by its own petard" which sets out to prove
that, by forming itself into a political group in 1995, Labour
"polarised the council, inevitably leading to the formation
of opposition groups".
It is not easy to see what else Labour could do.
Having stood under the Labour banner, were the party's elected
councillors then supposed to pretend they were independents?
Surely that would simply be a mirror image of the dishonesty of
the IPG, whose members pretend to be independent during the election
campaign and then form a political group once the votes are safely
in the bag.
The writer of the editorial seems to understand the shakiness
of his position because halfway through the fire is turned on
the IPG which is described as "... a farcical 'independent'
cabal or a cabinet of puppets presiding over the last supper of
democracy".
Strong stuff!
The leader concludes: "What a sad state local government
has slumped into: polarised by party politics and overshadowed
by the 'independent' umbrella of the ruling oxymoron party".
What a pity this was written six week after the elections rather
than six weeks before.
As for the 'oxymoron' word, I always prefer 'contradiction in
terms' in case some dictionaryless member of the IPG takes it
as a personal insult and reports me to the Ombudsman for failing
to show respect as required by the Code of Conduct.
Another letter writer to the Telegraph, Richard Shepherd, also
appears to have trouble with numbers.
Mr Shepherd writes extolling the virtues of Ken Rowlands whose
"analytical problem solving skills" he says,
will be an asset to the Cabinet.
I'm afraid this aspect of Cllr Rowlands' skill-set had, hitherto,
eluded me (Misconceived).
As it happens, I bumped into Cllr Rowlands in county hall last
week when, clearly infuriated by what I had written about him
last week (Ken's revenge),
(Ken's reward) he muttered
through clenched teeth that "You should write about policies,
not people".
Unfortunately he shot off towards the Cabinet room before I could
ask which policy he had in mind when he told the Western Telegraph
that Labour leader Sue Perkins was miffed about the defection
of himself and two colleagues to the IPG only because it had cost
her the £8,400 special responsibility allowance that comes
with being the leader of the principal opposition group.
Had he hung around, I might also have asked him for a copy of
the IPG's election manifesto so that I could write about his new
party's policies.
But to return to Mr Shepherd.
He says that, instead of criticising Cllr Rowlands: "The
Labour Party should be asking itself how the number of Labour
county councillors has declined from 40 or so a few years ago
to a handful now."
I don't know where he got this idea from because the most members
Labour ever had was 14, or was it 15, immediately following the
1995 election.
He signs off: "The message of the voters in electing these
rebels is that in local government it is the candidate who counts,
not their politics."
Mr Shepherd should know because, if memory serves me right, he
stood as the official Conservative candidate for Carew at the
1999 election and failed to impress the voters on either count.
It is always wise to avoid the trap of concluding that just
because one event is followed by another the first must be the
cause of the second - the so called propter hoc fallacy.
After all, it might be mere coincidence.
The question is: how many coincidences do you need to suggest
a pattern that might lead to a working hypothesis?
Take the following string of events, for instance.
Ken Rowlands abandons Labour and joins the IPG. The leader appoints
Cllr Rowlands to the Cabinet (£14,000)
Danny Fellows abandons Labour and joins the IPG. Despite being
a new boy, Cllr Fellows is elevated to the chair of a scrutiny
committee (£8,400).
Myles Pepper abandons Plaid Cymru and joins the IPG. Despite being
a new boy, Cllr Pepper becomes vice-chairman of a scrutiny committee
(£4,200)
There are rumours that the Conservatives are trying to persuade
one of their card-carrying members in the IPG to defect in order
to make them the biggest opposition party. The two candidates:
Cllrs Mark Edwards and David Bryan, are promoted to the cabinet
(£14,000) and scrutiny chair (£8,400) respectively.
The game of musical chairs with special responsibility allowances
also has its losers.
As expected, Cllr Peter Stock has been ejected from the Cabinet
- his fall softened with a scrutiny chair (£8,400) and,
in order to make way for the above promotions, Cllr Lyn Davies
has lost his scrutiny chair but, according to reports he has been
found a comfortable, but less lucrative, billet on the National
Park authority (£2,000).
Another to be unseated from a scrutiny chair is Cllr Tom Richards,
but he has now been installed as chairman of planning.
That would have meant a cut in pay from £8,400 to £5,500,
but for one of the constitutional changes brought in by the Leader
at the AGM (Quick change artist)
which put the chairman of planning on the same pay grade as scrutiny
chairmen.
Interestingly, both Cllr Tom Richards, as chairman, and his new
vice chairman, Cllr David Neale, were deeply involved in the abuse
of the procedures of the planning delegation sub-committee (Bending the rules) which
led to a monitoring officer's report indicating that such unsavoury
practices should cease (Clipped
wings).
Ideal candidates, then, for the leadership of this quasi-judicial
committee.