Size: It’s a Personal Thing

by Shapol Mohamed

We love to boast about big things like the size of our economy, and politicians love to boast about big cuts and big spendings. But, how would you know something is big or not? How would you know that £300 million or £400 million is a lot? How would you know that 32,000 airstrikes are a lot?

When Tony Blair was campaigning to become Prime Minister he promised that the government would spend £300 million over five years to create a million new childcare places. Any number with an -illion at the end is undoubtedly incomprehensible. However, is £300 million to provide for a million places a big number? From that one million places that will be created, it will mean that each place will get £300. Divide it by five years to find out how much each place gets annually and you are left with £60 per place. In a year, there are 52 weeks and that means each place is worth £1.15 per week. Is it possible to find childcare for £1.15 per week? Maybe in parts of rural Uzbekistan but not in the UK. So, £300 million is not a big number in this case.

Recently, the chancellor Phillip Hammond announced £400 million extra funding for state schools. Again, the number seems unimaginable; you sense the mental fuses blowing at anything about the price of a home. In the UK there are ten million students at state schools that means each child gets a one-off bonus of £40. Therefore, in this case, £400 million pound is not a lot for state schools. Perhaps, if children started dressing as potholes then schools might get more funding because in the budget more money was allocated to potholes than to improve schools.

The UK has also been actively involved in carrying out airstrikes in Iraq and Syria alongside with its allies. In Iraq, 15,000 airstrikes have been carried out and in Syria 17,000 airstrikes have been carried out according to Airwars. The reason why airstrikes are being carried out is to combat ISIS. At its very peak (2014-2016), ISIS had between 20,000 and 25,000 members according to the CIA. So, that means if each airstrike had killed a single ISIS member that would have meant that not a single ISIS member would be left. Unfortunately, they are still left. So, if airstrikes didn’t kill ISIS members who did they kill? The answer is innocent children, innocent mothers, and innocent fathers. According to Airwars, nearly 30,000 innocent civilians have been killed by airstrikes. That is innocent civilians, not ISIS members. I think airstrikes can be good at times but they should not be used in cities where innocent civilians are killed. They should only be used in the battlefields which are mostly desert and not cities. Furthermore, each airstrike costs £500,000. This means that in this case, 32,000 airstrikes are too much and I think the money should be spent elsewhere like our schools.

Almost all numbers, in politics and economics, come with trailing zeros this is simply because politicians try to fool us. We need to throw away the idea of lots of zeros equals big number. Whenever we see a politician coming forward whilst being propped up with “real" numbers and telling us of millions or billions of this or that, spent, cut, lost, down, affected, up, down, improved, added or saved, we just need to stop and ask ‘is this big?’ We need to get personal with the size of the number. The size is the most important aspect and size does matter.