Illiterate Tory Bumpf

[Old Yeller]

Can we trust the Tories to uphold any minimum education or literacy standards?

I give you the following, quoted directly from their Working For Our Community bumpf which has been shoved through letterboxes. Italics are mine.

Dog Fouling ? ?We will reduce dog fouling through early morning patrols by the wardens and more waste bins in estates and local areas.?

?? Just what are ?local areas?? Are not all areas local or does this refer to areas local only to estates?

Recycling ? ?We?ll incentivise recycling through a vouchers scheme which has increased dry curb side recycling by 30% in Windsor?.?

Anyone know what dry curb side recycling is?

Harris Boys Academy ? ?A secondary school is a definite plus for Peckham Rye. We would put as ourselves forward to be Governors?..? This doesn?t bode well for Harris Boys. Perhaps the school might think of running adult literacy classes for prospective Tory councillors.

[Jeremy]

Dry recycling is just the regular stuff that goes into your blue boxes and bags. Paper, card, plastics, tins/cans, etc. I am assuming that "curb side" means that it is picked up from outside your house.

[Old Yeller]

Oh dear Jeremy, not you too.

I think you are referring to dry kerb-side recycling, not curb side recycling!

[Jeremy]

Oh I see... American spelling...

[womanofdulwich]

are we talking dry goods as opposed to brown wet ones..........???

[katie1997]

Old Yeller - I see your main point here but to be honest, can we really say that we haven't noticed similar grammatical and spelling errors in literature from across the whole spectrum of political parties.

Based on the numerous 'bumpf' received to date, I am not yet convinced I would trust any one party to uphold good standards of education or literacy.

[Old Yeller]

Katie 1997, I can honestly say that I have not noticed such basic, or glaring, errors in bumpf from any other party. It was the sheer lack of professionalism that caught my eye, from the punctuation in the first headline...and so on.

The whole thing smacks of ignorance - from its execution through to the cherry-picking and crowing about council(i.e. Tory) achievements, whilst ignoring ownership of the less successful facts for which the Tories are also responsible e.g. the "poor recycling rate" which they now plan to "boost".

I guess they hope that the electorate are ignorant of what's actually been happening in Southwark whilst they've been sharing power here.

[VikkiM]

I'm sure we're all guilty of a few typos and grammatical errors :-$

As an aside I'm fairly sure that Harris Boys already has governors as it's already open (just on a different site). I remember Southwark council recruiting them probably about a year ago now. Though it's possible they will look for more community governors when the school moves to the new site.

Victoria

Peckham Rye Labour

[Old Yeller]

Crikey, how jolly nice of you, Victoria, apologising for your competitors.

Yes, of course we're all guilty of typos and grammatical errors. What is interesting about this particular missive is that it comes not from a primary school pupil project but from a political party that is actually hoping to run our education system.

I would have thought that some very basic professional standards would be in order, you know, just standard stuff e.g. proof-reading before going to press.

Then maybe it's just that I went to school at a time when literacy was important; when spelling, punctuation and grammar were routinely taught and routinely corrected.

[Huguenot]

I think you're being a wee bit picky Old Yeller. Quibbling over technicalities in publicity is pretty much the definition of failing to see the wood for the trees ;-)

[katie1997]

Yet I am inclined to agree with Old Yeller too - those basic, glaring errors show a lack of professionalism that instantly make me reach for the (recycling) bin without further reading. (Estate agents bumpf suffers from much of the same although granted they aren't running the country...)

I believe that the "cherry-picking" and "crowing about achievements" often seen in political party bumpf is common to every party. IMO they all offer Shangri-La and some extra cash - which doesn't materialise after they are elected, of course.

And yes, it was a jolly nice comment from Victoria to acknowledge and recognise that spelling and grammatical errors are common to all, competitors or not.