Could have fooled me.

That doesn’t sound that bad, really. It’s not like they are completely illiterate – they just have difficulty with complex text. And, obviously, there are 12 million jobs out there which only require the literacy of a 12-year-old.

Straw men erected, paraded and demolished in this article in The Guardian – a response by a bloke off of the telly to these mild observations by someone who works in the field.

And here’s an interesting titbit from a survey published last year, to virtually complete ignoral:
Mother tongue, by Government Office region
UK:English 88%, Other 12%
London (Government Office Region)English 60%, Other 40%

Note that London G.O. Region is all the metropolis, not just melting-pot inner city; and it was a big, professional survey – face-to-face interviews with a weighted sample of 4,916 adults, aged 17 and over, in the UK in the period 7–25 February 2007.

Contrary to malicious rumour, Sun readers are not stoopid. I was in a longish superstore checkout queue the other day during the evening rush hour. The guy ahead of me had a copy of the Sun in his shopping pile on the checkout conveyor. Evidently bored with the waiting, he started to read the newspaper. By the time he got to the head of the queue he had read it so he pushed it aside and didn’t check it out with the rest of his shopping. Smart guy.

I seem to remember the Sun aiming for a reading age of 9 and doubt that Nuts or Zoo are significantly more grammatically convoluted.

Sadly, the praise here is appreciated but is probably undeserved:

“Up to 12 million working UK adults have the literacy skills expected of a primary school child, the Public Accounts Committee says. . . The report says there are up 12 million people holding down jobs with literacy skills and up to 16 million with numeracy skills at the level expected of children leaving primary school.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4642396.stm

“A £2bn scheme to improve basic skills among adults has been called a ‘depressing failure’ by education inspectors.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4506410.stm

In fairness, in that particular speech Gove pretty much did say that this was the plan; I share your scepticism as to whether it’s remotely likely to actually happen (and reserve judgement on Gove’s sincerity – he frankly sets off my PLF-radar like nothing on earth, but it’s at least possible that he has convinced himself that Cameron-era conservatism is not inconsistent with European-style social policy). If it turns out that these nurses actually get paid for, we’ll both owe him an apology.

The subsidised maternity nurse could be incredibly useful for some – lone mothers for example – and yet I somehow don’t see the Tory Party throwing money in their direction. Some cretin would be bound to complain that this was encouraging teenage degenerates to get pregnant. And people like me, with lots of support and a particuar parenting philosophy that I want to follow, quite frankly don’t need or want a stranger coming along and telling me what to do.

This plan of theirs sounds ever-so-lovely, but dig beneath the surface and it’s bollocks.

Point taken about US morons, but it’s less the direct readership than the wider cultural tolerance for overt public cheesy t&a drivel I was reflecting on…

Here’s the thing I notice as an American living the UK: British morons read things (Nuts, Zoo, the Sun, etc etc etc). American morons don’t, ever. Even on a half-hour commute on the train. Ever.

Though it’s certainly debatable, I think this puts Britain one step further away from the collapse into animalism that conservative commentators have been faithfully and incorrectly predicting for time immemorial.