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Jump to navigationJump to searchThe Tiger that Isn't by Michael Blastland and Andrew Dilnot (view source)
Revision as of 09:54, 6 March 2018
, 09:54, 6 March 2018no edit summary
{{infoboxsortinfobox1
|title=The Tiger that Isn't
|sort=Tiger that Isn't
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=184
|publisher=Profile
|date=August 2007
|isbn=978-1861978394
|amazonukcover=<amazonuk>1861978391</amazonuk>|amazonusaznuk=1861978391|aznus=<amazonus>1861978391</amazonus>
}}
Does 40% mean a) one quarter, b) 4 out of 10 or c) 1 in 40?
They're brilliant with figures. I'm less certain about their abilities with words, because there is one point where I think that they're wrong. They suggest that there are politicians whose calculations assume that childcare costs £1.15 a week. They've gone back to a promise made by the government in 1997 to spend an extra £300m over the next five years to create a million new childcare places. They then do the sums and point out that you might be able to get childcare in rural China for £1.15 a week but not in the UK.
Now, I'm no apologist for this government, but I think Blastland and Dilnot are being unfair. I read 'create' as meaning 'to cause to come into being', in much the same way that I would see creating hospital beds as meaning that buildings and equipment would be funded and trained staff made available. I wouldn't see this as meaning that the cost of caring for patients would be covered. Looking back to 1997 I know that many people wanting childcare lamented the fact that they simply couldn't get places and my reading of 'create a million new childcare places' is that the government was tackling this problem. This isn't a charitable interpretation - I really can't read it in any other way and it's born out by a [http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page1716.asp statement] the then Prime Minister made in 2002 when he referred to ''Over £300m invested in childcare since 1997, creating places for more than 900,000 children''. Plus, we're considering a government who have elevated spin to an art form. Why would they be coy about saying that the places were free if that was what was intended?
It might be that the politicians did intend us to think that the childcare would be free and deliberately used language to obfuscate what the money was specifically provided for, and right that it relied on people's general fear of figures to succeed in doing that, but this is not the point which is made in the book. There it implies that the money ''was'' intended to cover the cost of childcare and makes mockery of the fact that a figure which seemed large was obviously inadequate for the purpose. By stating that a sum which was earmarked for one purpose was inadequate to provide for another undermines the argument that governments do such things deliberately to confuse.
{{toptentext|list=Top Ten Books For The Defenders Of Reason}}
{{amazontext|amazon=1861978391}} {{waterstonestextamazonUStext|waterstonesamazon=58172941861978391}}
{{commenthead}}
[[Category:Business and Finance]]
[[Category:Michael Blastland]]
[[Category:Andrew Dilnot]]
{{comment
|name=Magda
|verb=said
|comment= Oh, how very useful.
The degree of in-numeracy is astonishing.
But WHAT ABOUT THE TIGER????
}}
{{comment
|name=Sue
|verb=replied
|comment= Well, the tiger is what happens when people see shapes and shadows moving in the trees. It looks very frightening, but in fact is just shadows on leaves moving in the breeze - nothing frightening at all. The same thing happens with numbers - people see figures presented in such a way that they seem frightening when in fact they're not - The Tiger That Isn't.
}}
