10 Downing Street
LONDON
SW1A 2AA

Wednesday, 4 January 2023

Dear Rishi Sunak,

it must have come as a great surprise to many, and a quick glance through hundreds of social media comments across the board seems to support this, that you suggested people ought to learn more Maths. One of the things which has been more evident of late than any form of education – although there has been plenty of logic, rhetoric and similar displayed – is the very clear and overwhelming understanding of Maths which many people already posses, but which seems to be lacking in the present Conservative and Unionist Party government. There have been countless comments on the absolute failure of your government – in all of its twelve years in power – ability to add things up, to balance the books, even to tell the truth about facts and figures.

The abysmal Track and Trace affair; the promise and lies about paying the NHS £350m a week; the PPE payments scandal; the cash for honours scandal; the total inability to see that trade agreements result in a loss for the country, rather than a material or financial gain; the claim that paying workers, so recently celebrated, will result in higher inflation; the claim that giving bankers a massive tax break will result in more money for others; the continual lies about how much ordinary workers earn.

It is not the ordinary people who need to learn more Maths, they are clearly better at adding up the crimes, the scandals, the true cost of your disastrous government than you are. And I doubt if all of them are in “business”.

If you are really interested in beefing up education in the country, then begin with your own ministers – especially the feeble excuse for an Education Minister, and start investing in education with real, cost-of-living enhanced, inflation-proof payments rather than pathetic distractions and flannel.

Yours sincerely,