This is not a country that has ever been all that comfortable with statistics...
The British are a shockingly innumerate society – this is a subject I’m back in, I was
at a Board Meeting yesterday, on the new Company on institutions to do with numeracy, and when
I wrote the report on “Numeracy and Literacy” for Tony Blair, even I was shocked.
We did all the necessary research, and on numeracy – and this is strictly relevant
to your question – on numeracy, in Europe we were the lowest, apart from Poland.
That links to maths teaching at schools, it links to attitudes to mathematics, and it
links to a curious snobbishness.
I can summarise it, as I’ve often done publicly, in one anecdote.
When I was at Rothschild’s, I brought in to meet the Chairman, Evelyn Rothschild, the
then head of Burma Oil – that doesn’t exist any more – a very big oil company,
as you know, and the Head, I don’t remember his name, the top businessman, and during
the lunch, I brought him in, hoping that he’d become a client of Rothschild’s – he’s
a friend of mine – and in the conversation, for some reason, at some point, I referred
to compound interest, and the Chairman of Burma Oil said, “Oh dear!
I have difficulties even with simple interest”.
Now, what I’ve never forgotten is that he was boasting!
This is a source of pride.
I’m sure he spoke Latin and Greek fluently!
This has always been.
It’s gradually changing, with the emphasis on maths teaching at schools, and literacy
has got a bit better.
But when we did The Moser Report on Literacy and Numeracy 11 years, 12 years ago, for Tony
Blair - well, for really more credit to the blind Education Minister.
Blunkett.
When we did that, and we did all the necessary research, we found that between 30 and 40
per cent of adults, ordinary adults walking the streets, couldn’t do simple interest,
certainly couldn’t measure the size of this carpet – 20x10, whatever.
Many of them couldn’t handle checkout change.
So it is a shocker.
So with that goes a sort of feeling that statistics a bit of a joke.
I mean, in all the years when I was in top jobs, the hundreds of dinners and lunches
I’ve been at, whenever I’ve said to my neighbours, “I’m a statistician”, most
of the time a bit of a giggle.
It’s not serious.
So it is a serious problem, and that’s why it was a wonderful job to do.
So I think it is true that it’s not a subject that goes well in this country – certainly
not in the past