Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Can Polly Toynbee not do basic maths?

Polly Toynbee has written a piece today about antidisestablishmentarianism and says the following about the House of Lords.
Of course [the 26 bishops in the House of Lords] should not be there, when only 16% of people will grace the pews on Christmas Day.
I highlight this line because the argument Polly appears to be making is that the presence of 26 Bishops in the House of Lords is disproportionate when compared to the percentage of people attending Church of England services.

However, as of July 2008 there were 746 peers in the House of Lords, which means that Bishops make up only 2.14% of the entire chamber. So how exactly does Polly's argument based on the proportion of representation stand up? Oh... silly me... it doesn't.

11 comments:

Conand said...

Absolutely right Dizzy. Polly really does know enough to be dangerous.
You also get bonus marks for using the word [antidisestablishmentarianism] in a blog post.
Maybe some other Peers are lay-readers etc, and the Duke of Cornwall is the trainee Head of The Church of England, but real Churchy folk are still underrepresented in this particular regard.

Anonymous said...

Polly Toynbee represents everything that is bad about the sentiment of British politics. Good on you for highlighting what a muppet she is.

Mitch said...

If you just assume polly is wrong you will do fine.When you start agreeing with her go to the doctor.

Lola said...

I love Polly. On those odd occasions when you think you're going mad, up she pops and states something totally bonkers and you realise that, it is, after all, not you that's losing it.

Anonymous said...

Don't want to agree with PMT, but the point is the religious relics, I mean clerics should't be there...and I don't agree with the 16% figure anyway. One in six of the (total) population to attend a C of E service on Friday?!! No chance whatsoever, not since at least the 1820s.

Ben said...

Could this be the former Polly Toynbee, now known as the University of Tuscany?

Anonymous said...

I'm no fan of Toynbee, but I think the point she was actually trying to make was that with Church attendance heading for single figure percentages, maybe the Bishops in the Lords should bugger off an do something constructive for the Anglican church.

It's got nothing to do with maths, relative proportions etc, just the fact that their Church is struggling to connect to the population and yet they'd rather be involved in the political process than spiritual matters.

Which brings us to the scary point; on this matter she's probably right.

Anonymous said...

Toynbee is a raving Narcissist and like all Narcs she has to be the center of attention, so what better way than to attack Christianity at Xmas based on spurious data that collapses upon first examination. ie a straw man argument.
She is no different to a TV evangelist pleading for $10 to be sent to the Church of Bleeding Heart Liberal Marxists from which she has been making a very good living.
She preaches Socialism while exploiting capitalism ie she doesn't live the life she advocates for everyone else and sees no conflict with that. Narcs know the rules but due to their delusions of grandeur believe that they should be above those rules.
Littlejohn on QT had her number and exposed her for the hypocrite she is.
The reams of carefully moderated pseudo intellectual comments on CiF debate her straw man argument but rarely get close to exposing her childish rantings (me, me, me)for what they are. She attacks the religion which is least likely to tell her to STFU due to the tolerance it espouses. It also wisely avoids giving her the notoriety and importance she craves.
She is similar to her feminist sister Greer who couldn't wait to piss on fellow Australian Steve Irwins grave before he was in it just to get the attention she craved.

Anonymous said...

26 as a percentage of 746 ain't 2.14%

dizzy said...

ayr. i have fat fingers. its around 3 somewhere ain't it. c'est la vie

Anonymous said...

It is now beyond doubt that nulabour will have failed to make the HoL democratic before the end of this government, and if they lose the election (please!) then they have lost all future rights to comment on the HoL. This applies to all their apologists such as La Toynbee, too.

Sometimes 'hypocrisy' is just not strong enough a word. And people wonder why some blogs are full of expletives.

Happy New year (we should be so lucky!).