Meanwhile, in Rishi Sunak’s head

Also this week: a map of Europe’s built up areas; and I take a trip to Luton Airport, just to show that I can.

It feels like you’re not meant to say this if you write for a living, but: I was actually really good at maths. One of the many awkward moments I remember all too vividly from my teenage years is being awarded some kind of prize, and having to collect it in front of the entire school, while my mates, who thought this was hilarious, cheered. This was embarrassing to me, because I’d already grown my hair and decided to do an English degree, out of the misplaced belief that this would be more likely to impress girls, and long story short this is why I’ve never been a fan of tuition fees, because they assume 17-year-olds are economically rational creatures and seriously, come on. 

Anyway! One of the weird things about maths is that it’s a subject that some people have a natural aptitude for, and if you’re one of them it can be very hard to grasp how it feels not to understand it. I remember, rather earlier in my school career, being deputised to explain something to a friend who was finding it difficult, and I just couldn’t do it: things that made sense to me just didn’t make sense to him, and I didn’t know what to do about that, so we both found the whole experience incredibly frustrating. 

This seems, anecdotally, to be a common experience for maths teachers and their classes alike. 

There aren’t enough of those teachers, of course: those who choose to turn their mathematical aptitude into a career can earn a shedload more money elsewhere, so recruitment would be difficult even if the government wasn’t noisily committed to real terms pay decreases for public sector workers. There are other problems with Rishi Sunak’s demands that everyone learns maths up to the age of 18, too. It’s not that it’s a bad idea exactly – many countries do this, and, all else being equal, better numeracy would be A Good Thing. But it’s not clear how it can be crammed into already crowded timetables, or how it meshes with an education system in which those over 16 choose a small number of subjects. More than that, numeracy, a basic understanding of numbers and percentages and so on, is not the same as full blown maths, with calculus and trigonometry and all that jazz. 

The thing I find most interesting about it, though, is the fact that Rishi Sunak really, really wants to do it – wants to do it more, in fact, than almost anything else. (Honestly, name another policy he’s this personally invested in.) There are other things you could do to sort out our ailing economy – lowering trade barriers with our closest neighbours, and tackling a planning system that makes it damn near impossible to build anything, to name but two – and while they may not be easy to address neither are they obviously harder than “restructuring 16-18 education and plucking thousands of maths teachers out of thin air”. Yet Sunak is exercised about maths, and not about the others. Why? 

I can’t help but think it’s to some extent biographical – the result of a phenomenon I thought of, back in my days as an education journalist, as “it worked for me”-ism. Sunak worked for a bank, and a hedge fund, and the Treasury: of course he thinks maths is important. In the same way, he thinks an inheritance tax cut should be a political priority, even though only 4% of estates pay it and there are nurses struggling to eat. Unlike certain other Prime Ministers we’ve had recently, I don’t think there’s evidence that Sunak is a bad person, exactly. But – like me, failing to explain maths to my friend, a quarter of a century ago – he just can’t see how the world looks different to anyone who isn’t him.

This, at least, would explain the otherwise baffling decision to spend a load of money getting the local electricity grid upgraded so he could stay nice and toasty in his private pool. Food price inflation’s at its highest since 1977, by the way. You don’t need better maths to have noticed that.

Meanwhile, elsewhere

1. Private schools are not, as they like to claim, for the middle classes, but for the ultra rich: illuminating thread courtesy of Sunday Times data journalist Tom Calver.

2. Benefits of Brexit latest: the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, which runs antique trains for tourists across the continent for Agatha Christie lovers and other tourists, is to scrap its British leg. The current delays in crossing the Channel incurred by extra passport checks have made it impossible to guarantee that they can get passengers through Folkestone to Calais by coach in time to meet the onward train. Full report from James Tapper in the Guardian.

Meanwhile, in happier trains news: