To be genuinely shocked by the apparent illiteracy of Andrea Jenkyns?

[sorrynotathome]

Have we really reached the point where it is acceptable for a senior MP to publish a serious (presumably) document that is barely legible?! It's not a text or a tweet or a Mumsnet post for goodness' sake. It reads as though she spoke it into her phone and hoped for the best. If this is what passes for communication nowadays, no wonder people struggle to connect and constantly misunderstand each other.

Can you share some examples?

That letter is 5th Grade class president campaign-level stream-of-consciousness drivel, the sort of poorly thought out and poorly punctuated nonsense you'd expect from a ten year old long on daddy's views and short on grammar and self-awareness and any other qualities you can think of that would appeal to people who are educated and thoughtful.

It should play very well amongst the Tory membership.

That's trickier because we're talking about comments made orally, for example in thw house or on the radio etc., rather than in DfE publications.

Here's one referring to the 2021 results:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14541344/kids-primary-school-without-read-properly/
referencing 200,000 pupils unable to read properly by the end of primary following an interview with MP Robert Halfon, then chair of the Education Committee. He's also a current education minister.

Christian Wakefield, MP, said in parliament, in his role as a member of the Education Committee, when talking about a reported drop in KS2 teacher assessments and the need for educational recovery:
"we need a long-term plan to tackle the attainment gap and falling
literacy rates."

Nothing Andrea Jenkyns does shocks me.

She's a low quality human being.

OK, but that article doesn't refer to illiteracy.

It talks about kids not being able to read and write "properly" and "literacy rates".

If you remember, this conversation is about whether Jenkyns is "illiterate" and whether the government refers to children with poor literacy as "illiterate". She isn't and it doesn't.

Government ministers absolutely have talked and do talk about more children or less children ending primary school being literate based on their KS2 results. Clearly, you only want to accept an official state document saying "Children who don't meet the expected standard at the end of KS2 are illiterate," but you won't get that as references like that are not made on data publication documents. They are made by MPs in interviews and can be more nuanced, e.g. read and write "properly" and "literacy levels". Contextual knowledge makes it clear again though, right?

I also didn't say she was illiterate. I said that if posters wished to use that word, they were welcome to given how loosely government officials have talked about literacy and illiteracy. Either way, the letter still fails to meet the expected standard in writing for 10 and 11 year olds. As a former education minister, that's unforgivable.

I’m embarrassed for her. Can this small group of Tories not see how this makes them look? Absolutely pathetic; with so many terrible things going on in the world.

Badly written plus appalling views, in my opinion

While Andrea Jenkyn's letter is written in an unconventional style, there is little doubt surely as to its meaning? I don't follow her at all, so I don't know if she has ever railed at educational standards: if she has, the grammar is a bit of an own goal. Language evolves all the time, or we'd all be talking in the language of Chaucer ...

She was a Minister for Higher Education in between reshuffles and she writes like she's having a drink fuelled rant on social media.

It must be arrogance, surely? Who doesn't proof read an important letter?

Is she too special for Grammarly?

It’s so, so depressing to read something as poorly written and confused, and silly, as this, and I’d say the same if it had been written by an MP whose views aligned with my own.
Maybe she’d been drinking, but she’d have to have been outside five or six G and Ts or cans of Special Brew for her ability to express herself to have deteriorated so badly.

Again, apart from the Hunt quote, you haven't shared any examples where anyone has accused children of illiteracy but you still have said that Jenkins should be thought of as illiterate:

If children can be told that they are not literate to a sufficient level, i.e. illiterate, then the same standard can and should be applied here.

Saying a child hasn't reached some perceived standard of literacy is absolutely not the same as calling them illiterate. You are twisting the meaning of the word.

@CrashyTime I thought Boris was PM for about six months before the Conservatives won the GE ? It's true that the Conservative party membership chose Truss rather than Sunak, but the less said about her time in power the better ?

Met her through work once, as well as writing drivel she likes shouting at and belittling people. Nearly brought me to tears - I’d done nothing wrong. I really despair that such bullying loons get any power over the rest of us.

Is she hoping for a spot on GBnews when she loses her seat ?

I’m not allowed to make or comment on political or politically based posts on social media under the terms of my employment. Sometimes it makes me sad. This is one of those times.

Isnt it the point that grammatically correct and properly constructed prose reflects logical thought and clarity of argument?

I think the greatness (or not) of Lawrence is subjective... !

This depressed me beyond belief. It's not just the absence of logical thinking (perhaps we have never expected that from politicians) but the lack of rhetorical skill, plausibility, and any distinction between speech and writing.

Bullet points are bullet points. Sometimes a sentence that isn't a sentence needs an exclamation mark. So much easier to be shocked and angry than to justify emotions!

It would have taken her less than a minute to fling that through Grammerly or some Oxbridge SPAD.

Oh, my Darlin, I so agree with you. And that said, take a close look at the USA's (my, I am ashamed to say) House of Congress. Specifically the Republicans, who are almost brawling on the Floor. Elbowing each other in the kidneys in the hallways. Not knowing the difference between "gestapo" and "gazpacho."

Absolutely! But those things are not valued much any more, when you can get cheers and likes by simply flinging incoherent insults and rhetoric.

Minister of Education. Tells everyone all you need to know about the quality of our treasured, and bloody expensive, current Tory MPs. When people like 30pLee, Gullis, Braverman and Patel are allowed into the dressing up box then she stands out as a shining example of educated moderation. A plague upon them all.

Not unreasonable at all. (Going to brag a bit here but it's justified 😁) My daughter is 28 and has just bought her first house with a 25% deposit. She started working for the company she's at when she was 18, and the gorgeous lil baby girl took me out for dinner when she got the job to thank me! 'What for?' says I. 'Because,' says my angel, 'thanks to you annoying the living daylights out of me, Alex and Ro (her brothers) by making us text you in 'proppa talk', it gave me the edge over everyone else'. (Puh, giving me too much credit, she was perfect for that job.) I would get really riled by my growing children using text-speak-abbreviations while messaging me, so if the message wasn't written clearly, using correct grammar and punctuation, I'd simply ignore it. Drove them nuts. Apparently though, her boss actually pointed out several months later that the fact that Teddy could construct a sentence gave her the edge over more qualified applicants. I was horrified. Glad that she got the job, but shocked at the same time.

You OK, hun?