Nowhere else have I encountered the English obsession with house prices, fanned by a barely numerate press. The 'average' price of a home in the UK is now £200,000, which begs the question how teachers, nurses and other essential and poorly paid workers live, especially in the capital. What prompts this on-going irritation is comment in today's Guardian that Bank of England interest rates remain unchanged at 4.5% for the seventh month running. Fine, but then the gloss:
"The service sector expanded at its strongest pace in nearly two years in February, a recent survey showed, while the Halifax house price index jumped 1.4% last month, pointing to a revival in prices."
Leaving aside how you can have a "revival in prices", the change of 1.4% is based on "soft" criteria, and certainly has substantial error margins: it is not a precise measurement. It could be 0% it could be 2%: the permitted range will be known. To thus say the index "jumped" is, to be polite, imaginative and manipulative. I doubt the journalist would see a salary change of 1.4% as a "jump".
We get the same nonsense in reporting government targets, be it for schools, hospitals, reportable crime — the same belief that the numbers are precise. A change of 0.4% in examination pass-rates becomes an inprovement, a change of -0.4% failure.
Time to grow up.
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