Barlow: deliberately misleading?

If there's one thing that gets my goat it's when people deliberately twist facts and figures. Not because they don't understand them, but because they want to use them to prove a point that the figures don't actually prove.

In this weeks 'Express Vic Barlow asks if we can trust anyone anymore. In a typically amusing piece, he notes the bankers fall from grace. Good start so far.

But he later moves onto the salaries of those running the council and compares them to ministers. He knows that it's a ludicrous comparison, but he's safe in the knowledge that none of the cabinet or the execs will dare criticize it for fear of more talk of gravy trains.

I know Barlow knows the difference, but lets spell it out. At all levels of government was have Politicians and Civil Servants. One gets elected and gets paid not a huge amount for the skills they should have and the work that they should do*. The other is a paid employee with no political affiliation, is there to carry out the policies of those elected and is intended to get paid a fair market wage.

So if you'd like to compare our Chief Executive, Erika to someone - don't make it the Prime Minister. The correct comparison for the PM would be Wesley, the leader of the Council. (He's the politician, you see).

You should compare Erika to Gus O'Donnell. He's the Cabinet Secretary and essentially the head of the Civil Service for the National Government.

Vic will then immediately note that Gus gets paid roughly double what Erika does. Or another way, Erika gets paid half.

Does he work twice the amount of hours? Is he twice as clever? Does he produce twice the amount of work?

The Chief Executive of our Council has a tremendous responsibility to ensure that the services which we take for granted in our lives - such as education, rubbish collection and social services - all function correctly. If she's not doing that correctly then lets make a song and dance over it.

Still, it's nice to know we agree on Parking Charges:
http://darrylbeckford.blogspot.com/2009/02/parkingagain.html

* You may feel that's a controversial point - but we really do want the best of the best, don't we?