Gertsamtkunstwerk

Return of Mandy

Mandelson offered top Europe post. We always used to laugh and wonder at what point Mandy would be described as "Disgraced former Lambeth Councillor". Still hasn't happened.

I have always found Mandelson to be courteous, with a reasonably impressive intellect. The media hate him, of course, but I always feel that is how relations between media and politicians should be.

Of course there will be a by-election in Hartlepool. Could we see the first Monkey elected to Parliament?

By chance, yesterday I was drinking out of my "Bring Back Mandy" mug...!

Update: The Monkey is standing!

Arsehole

UKIP MEP in row over working women

"I am here to represent Yorkshire women who always have dinner on the table when you get home. I am going to promote men's rights," he added.

One thing I find slightly frustrating is that rebuttal is always done in terms of 'Equal Opportunites' and 'Rights', which are all well and good, but really have no influence on the doltish thinking of the 'BNP-for-the-middle-classes'.

What is more to the point is that any business should employ the person most likely to bring 'added value'. There is a risk in taking on any employee. Sure, maternity leave is a cost to business. So is sick leave, for those dodgy hearts and alcohol-related stress problems that *all * middle-aged men suffer. And what can be more frustrating than training someone to do the job, only for them to leave for another position?

But bottom line, it is established that organisations that value diversity in their workforce tend to be the most innovative and flexible, and all other things being equal, therefore profitable.

Freedom vs Freedom

As regular readers know, there are areas of government policy that I avoid commenting directly on, for very specific reasons.

As regular readers know I used to be extremely active in politics. I had a reputation, or label, as a Loony Lefty, potentially the kiss of death in Lambeth in the early 1990s. I am not sure how I acquired that label but it was underlined during the 1992 General Election Campaign. Young, enthusiastic, energetic, with time on my hands, I canvassed a great many residents of Streatham constituency. My focus was inevitably on the Labour supporters, or those 'don't knows' who were tending to Labour. I wasn't aiming for any doorstep conversions. Indeed, nowadays, it's known as 'Voter ID'. The message I was receiving from Labour voters and Labour-tending swingers in a target key marginal was crime. Or possibly the fear of crime. On the Estates lining Brixton Hill I later discovered the effect that petty crime and anti-social behaviour, not to mention drugs, were having on the lives of average people. By some bizarre backwards logic I was labelled a Loony Lefty for saying that crime was the number one issue amongst 'traditional Labour Voters'.

This morning I had a surveyor round from the local New Deal for Communities project. He highlighted security weaknesses in my home, and in a few weeks time I will have some new locks and London bars fitted. This is available to anybody in the NDC area. Funded from the Regeneration budget.

Talk to just about anybody round here and they will say that they are sick and tired of trying to lead their ordinary lives, only to be molested and harrassed by the scum. Just coming home at 10pm, I was approached by a scumbag demanding a cigarette. I said no, and hastened my walking. "Suck your blood clot' white whore!" he said. (And unless you know Jamaican, you will have no idea just how rude that is)

Then you get the trendy liberals, living in their gated communities or their smug soulless suburbs who would say that any attempt by the police to make that arsehole's life unpleasant is an infringement of his Civil Liberties. We should be more understanding of people like him. We should be more tolerant of those who mug a man I know, just because he's old and walks with a stick. He's so fed up and frightened of it that after fifty years here, he is returning to the Caribbean..

According to the trendy liberals who have never seen the world from outside their 4x4 People Carriers, any attempts by the police to clamp down on the kids who steal, rob and burgal from the small businesses is a failure to understand their 'challenges'. Or a failure to empathise with Youth Culture. Or something equally vacuous and woolly.

Call me a Loony Lefty, but I'm all for punishing the pimps and kerb-crawlers and the over-18 prostitutes, (and I'm also in a favour of a ban on fireworks outside of licensed displays). I am sick of the mindless thugs who think they have a right to disrupt other people's lives.

But, sadly, there are no proposals to reintroduce hanging, drawing and quartering for those who allow their mobile phones to ring during the most reflective phrase of Holst's mystic "The Hymn of Jesus". I shall be lobbying my MP on that one...

Stalker jailed

'Britain's worst stalker' jailed

I didn't know he was actually up in court, and I don't claim to have been terrorised, but I did get rather bored with all the emails...

But he's not the bloke who caught me unawares two days before the 1997 Election. There was I, stuffing envelopes in the 'shop' we had rented for the duration. This bloke came in and started ranting about the then Tory government, and went on to say that he had written many letters to Teresa Gorman. When he mentioned that he had written them in green ink, 'so that she will notice them', I realised with horror that all my so-called comrades had escaped to the back of the shop.

When he said it was vital that everybody sends hate mail to Teresa Gorman in green ink, I went and locked myself in the Ladies. (It's amazing how many women can fit in a toilet cubicle when necessary!)

Garbage - or do different rules apply to them?

Mark Lawson has it all wrong on the issue of Charles and Camilla remarrying. Let's ignore the sensitivities of his family. The theological issues are very clear.

The Church of England does not permit the remarriage of divorc&eeacute;s. So, although Charles is, in the eyes of the CofE, a widower, Camilla is a divorcée, and therefore cannot be married in a Church.

The CofE was considering, IIRC, permitting the remarriage of divorcées when it is clear that the new relationship did not contribute to the breakdown of the first - the Church of Scotland already permits this, which is why Princess Anne was able to marru her husband there.

But I think we all agree that the Charles/Camilla relationship contributed to the breakdown of Camilla's marriage. So they can't get married in the CofE.

I don't see a problem with a Civil Ceremony, myself. That could lead to the Disestablisment of the CofE, at which point I shall stop criticising their double standards. Until then, I have every right to call the Church of England a bunch of hypocritical tossers who are happy to break their own rules if people are important or rich enough.

This man needs shooting

Norman Tebbitt says obesity caused by gay rights, especially gay marriage.

Oaf, idiot. Not only he is he a crass bigot, and therefore worthy of shooting, but absolutely illogical. Some of these bigots actually manage to create a false but superficially convincing logic. He can't even do that.

What a shame he survived the Brighton. bomb. Which was probably planted by those famous gay IRA terrorists... Update Wrong, misguided, too busy trying to be too clever making silly jokes about gay IRA terrorists.

PMQs abandoned!

Blair hit during Commons protest

I have absolutely no sympathy for that pressure group, Fathers 4 Justice, and, at risk of sounding pompous and old-fashioned, I actually believe that hurling missiles - however innocuous - at the Prime Minister in the Commons chamber is actually an assault on Democracy.

Blair to stand down?

Now Blair faces 'Loch Fyne accord'

I get irritated with newspaper talk. I imagine Tony Blair will stand down as Party Leader one day, either voluntarily or through force of circumstances.

The newspapers have been writing about the possibility since at least 1999.

I did read somewhere that he had no desire to go on and on and on like Thatch had done.

Political Gert would be reading and attempting to interpret every subtle nuance to work out who had said what to whom.

But where has Political Gert gone? (Answer she has a bagful of Brixton Roses to deliver before 10 June. She has, however, booked a concert for Election Day...)

Apart from Gordon Brown, my tips to take over are David Blunkett, David Milliband, David Lammy or David Beckham.

Vote Labour!

Jim Davidson leaves Britain to escape Blair government.

Weren't Paul Daniels and Andrew Lloyd Webber supposed to be doing the same.

In the name of God, go now.

Nothing will be more pleasing than the manner of your going.

Trim your eyelashes...!

Long eyelashes thwart ID card iris scans - interesting: my sister, nephew and I all have long eyelashes - when he was a baby we were in a shop and a woman said, "Ooh, look at his eyelashes - it's not fair that a boy..." As she turned round to sister and me her voice trailed off.

Just for the record, I am, in principle, in favour of ID cards but remain concerned about the practical implications, including the cost, the implementation, and the potential for abuse. Speaking entirely in a personal capacity as a former politician, of course...

Back to work

As I approached the office, I realised that there were hordes of press photographers and TV crews awaiting my return. I smiled sweetly at them but they ignored me. Then I realised they were probably waiting for Bev. They had to contend with some down-and-out trying to nick their equipment.

Two hours later and I went out for a fag. They were still hanging around, receiving abuse from a passing bin man.

Council tax protest

There are lots of stories about people protesting council tax rises - Council tax rebel stands in local byelection.

What amazes me is how many of them are pensioners.

It's a shame some of them, who clearly have too much time on their hands, don't scrutinise the finances of their local council (s). They will then discover that the biggest increase in council spending, certainly for all the time I was involved in Local Government at one level or another, was in Social Services. Especially in domicilliary and residential care for Older Persons.

I suppose if they insist on withholding part of their Council Tax, they won't mind if the Councils withhold part of their statutory services - you know, the bumwiping ones provided disproportionately to Pensioners.

What's Tony been up to?

Nothing, actually

All the newspapers seem to be carrying the gossip of PEter Foster, and all of them seem to be pointing out that a) he's a convicted fraudster and b) that he will soon have a book of memoirs to plug - ie the message from all the newspapers is 'don't believe a word of it'. Another subtext is, of course, it is not possible to have friends of the opposite sex - in the end it has to be sexual.

This story in the Sun cracked me up . You know, if I was a bloke, and I was Prime Minister, and I was 'happily married', and I was having an extra-marital affair, I really think that I would use condoms.

Old Labour

Oh heck, am I getting old, or is he? I agree with Denis Healey...! Now Lord Healey says it is time for Blair to make way for Brown.

Actually, it's extraordinary how many politicians from that era are still alive, and healthy. Healey is 86, Callaghan celebrated his 90th a while back, Barbara Castle was 91 when she died a couple of years back. Edward Heath is 87. Add on people like Tony Benn and Margaret Thatcher (who, of course, is increasingly loopy, but when wasn't she?), both 78, and the Queen at 77, and I just wonder whether they are proof of the benefits of an active old age.

I don't know about you, but I have noticed how quickly people go into decline when they retire - except those who deliberately choose a new occupation. Like my mother, after she retired aged 63 she went from middle-aged to elderly in less than a year.

Broadening the curriculum

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority want Children to study atheism at school, which is good. Or, rather

The first shot in the debate will be fired with a controversial report to be published tomorrow calling for RE to be renamed religious, philosophical and moral education and children encouraged to debate such ethical issues as whether it is permissible to express racist views.

I would hope that, if religious schools are allowed to opt out of the parts of the curriculum they don't like, they will not be able to enter their pupils for an RE GCSE.

Arts Council under scrutiny

The Public Accounts Committee has reported that Closed arts centres 'cost �19m' and has also reviewed other major Arts Council-funded capital projects.

I have two observations to make: I would like somebody to explain why a National Centre for Popular Music was deemed to be necessary and worthy. Surely, most popular music is ephemeral and commercial, and if there needs to be a 'national centre' surely it is the role of the market to provide that. The popular music that isn't ephemeral - does it really matter what genre it is?

Secondly

The committee also said the Arts Council did not seem to collect information routinely on the backgrounds of audiences. But information given to the MPs indicated that audiences "remain disproportionately drawn from particular sections of society".

To which I reply, so what? I expect the 'particular sections of society' are mainly middle-class aspirational people. So be it. I'm afraid I know too many people who, for example, on a hot summer or warm autumn/spring Sundayafternoon will take their kid to the pub, and express horror/surprise when Jimmy and I say we are off to a park or common. If these people can't even bother to go to an open space ten minutes walk away should I be over-concerned that they're not going to cultural experiences? Well perhaps a little, but in the end people make their choices. I certainly wouldn't recommend dumbing down in the name of accessibility. In I suppose the logical conclusion is the Queen Symphony. I quite like Queen, and I like many symphonies, but without blindly prejudging something I haven't heard, I can't see how this will in any way improve any aspect of my life.

Comment on Lyle's site - ethnic monitoring

Lyle's comments box can only take 1000 characters, which is simply not enough to challenge the complacent, naive view of a perfect little world of employment where everybody gets jobs on merit.

I know I ought to post links, to 'prove' my arguments, but I'm afraid the most important link is to my brain and some fifteen years experience in this area and a wealth of absorbed knowledge.

To make a decision to hire on ethnicity is illegal. However, in general, most large organisations have a situation where higher up the food chain , the higher the proportion of staff are white able-bodied men. There is no evidence that white able bodied men are, in general, more able to do the job than other people. However, irrelevant factors within the recruitment process may indirectly lead to discrimination. Without measuring , you don't know if you're doing things right.

Eg in general, men will apply for a job if they meet 50% of competencies, whereas women tend to apply if they meet >75% or 90%. Also, in general, men tend to volunteer more for management courses than women (I'm hazier on ethnic differences). Again, specifically on gender, an organisation that finds itself with more women at a low level and more men at a higher level may conclude it's the way of the world, or may find that many very able women (usually with children) are held back, for example, by unnecessarily inflexible working patterns.

And it's not about politically correct stereotypes; if used by intelligent people, such data can be used to encourage and maximise the potential of staff to get better productivity and success for the organisation, something that is recognised by organisations such as the CBI.

Or an organisation can carry on appointing a self-perpetuating stereotyped minority and stagnate, because they are failing to tap the potential that is out there.

Yes, marry for love...

Stupid wanker writing on the tax benefits of marriage.

The wording is pretty outrageous:

The problem is that governments, of whichever party, decided many years ago that we should have all taxpayers treated separately for tax purposes.

Hence the principle which existed in the past, that the husband and wife were a single taxable entity, has been systematically dismantled.

This makes me so angry, this sort of attitude which made me very anti-marriage when I was anti-marriage, now that I am engaged, makes me want to push against the smug arrogance of tossers like this. People get married for all sorts of reasons - I've had friends marry because of pregnancy, immigration, desire for an ostentatious 'big day', work, romance, whatever.

Good, people make all sorts of life choices for all sorts of reasons. What I can't stand is when people try to claim a moral superiority because they have made a pragmatic choice.

What this article fails to even address is why there should be any tax-advantage in being married. Surely any tax allowances should be for those supporting children or dependent adults. (Are there any tax allowances for those caring for aged parents?)

Learning through play

Following on from my post the other day about the importance of Early Years Education and non-hothousing I am gratified to find that the Observer has taken up the theme in Laughing matters.

Of course, I have all the smugness of not being a parent (and never will be) but it makes me laugh when I see colleagues etc boasting that their three year olds are going to some nursery that insists on a ridiculous school uniform of tie and boater and actually has them sitting down in rows reciting their times tables. When I express sympathy and profess hope that the child will make up for it in future years they patronise me by saying that I can't understand because I don't have children.

Well, I don't have children, and I'm not the world's most observant person, but I have spent enough time with children to notice how much they learn in informal settings. If I can notice it in other people's children I would have thought that a parent might notice it in their own...

Silly girl

Melanie McDonagh in The Observer | Comment comments that the Hutton report is about games in the boys' playground. I do believe that there are, in general, differences between the way men, in general, and women, in general, 'do' politics. But this is not the analysis. It took me five readings to understand this sentence:

The elements that appeal to the nerdy, detail-obsessed, slightly autistic and testosterone-sensitive personality that is the political male are stamped all over the Hutton affair.

Then I realised: I am a 'nerdy, detail-obsessed, slightly autistic and testosterone-sensitive personality' and I suppose my track record would describe me as a political female. She ruins her crass gender analysis by reference to Rebekah Wade and Tessa Jowell who are both quite capable of playing dirty with the boys. (And my mother described Margaret Beckett on Question Time as a 'patronising bitch'.)

The Beeb Rocks

Update: The blogosphere is wonderful: Tim has got there already:

My pro-Beeb statement is here

Hat tip to the wonderful Bingo who incidentally poses an interesting ethical dilemma on another post.

It seems that the Great British public are having a rare attack of common sense YouGov found that 67 per cent trust BBC news journalists to tell the truth, compared with 31 per cent who trust the Government.

Meanwhile, a big hand of solidarity from this striker goes out to my brethren having a proper strike over the right sort of issue.

I have to say, bringing us out on strike on these two days, of all days, is typical of the utter nitwit posturing Trotskyite so-called leadership of my pathetically inept Trade Union who actually have a message saying Strikes receive massive publicity.

We are a Civil Service Union. You would have thought that someone might have considered that the publication of the Hutton Report might warrant a little more attention than a walkout by a bunch of 'penpushers'. But they're so busy pursuing their own agenda they're incapable of seeing the world around them.

Cunts.

I now put out a call-to-arms to my fellow country people. The BBC is your birthright. Defend it. After the NHS and the scenery it is the singlemost important reason to be proud to be British.

Fight deprivation

In an earlier post, I mentioned my views on top-up fees. As well as attracting a representative of the Socialist Workers Students Society, I also attracted a comment from Simon, who shows he can argue clearly and logically without recourse to banal rhetoric. I'm sorry Sarah but I'm just a bit long in the tooth been there done it still have the t-shirts. Debate is not forwarded by parroting the slogan-of-the-week from Socialist Worker.

However, and Simon please don't take this as a personal attack, what struck me was that the comment contained one or two sweeping assumptions. I do agree that the bar has been raised in terms of entry to jobs, and that a degree is necessary where A Levels used to be sufficient.

But I am a socialist. This means many different things to many different people, but to me it's about recognising that as individuals we prosper when society prospers, and that society cannot prosper when opportunity and decency is denied to members of our society.

I'm afraid I don't live in a society where everybody is ready, willing and able to go to University, if only the funding package were right. I live in a society where one in ten adults is reported to be functionally illiterate; and where children arrive at Primary School unable to eat with a knife and fork, or conduct a simple conversation. Nearly half of sixteen year olds will not get five A*-C at GCSEs. Many are so alienated form the education system that they won't even take them. Many are dropping out of school at fifteen or younger.

Where I live we have gangs of teenagers whose sole raison d'etre is getting their puff and hanging around street corners being intimidating (and, just for the record, skunk doesn't induce feelings of laidbackness in addicts ). There are areas elsewhere where the current generation of teenagers is the third for whom permanent unemployment is the norm.

The reason I believe so passionately in pre-school and Early Years education is not so that the academic will be even better educated and socialised (although it would be a desirable by-product). I have a socialist Utopian dream whereby every child starts nursery at 3 and continues in an Early Years centre until seven, when they will start formal school. I don't believe in the hot-housing of 4-year olds. until the age of 7 they should be learning by play, by discovery, in an environment with a high adult-child ratio. Why is it that the typical adult-child ratio in Reception 1:30 or at best 1:15, yet a University tutorial group may only comprise six students?

My socialist utopian dream seems so simple, and yet I know it is so difficult. Give every child a chance between 3 and 7, and you have a chance of a society where almost every young person and adult feels that they have a role and a purpose. Where they are not hopelessly alienated from the system before they reach double figures. Not just in order to go to a third-rate University to do a meaningless subject, but actually to play a part in society. (The last I heard there were 100,000 vacancies for skilled workers in building and allied trades).

A child that is alienated at 7 is unlikely to opt into the system later on. When I was Chair of Governors I had to exclude a seven year old for violence, from a school that normally welcomed children excluded from elsewhere. It is a thoroughly horrible thing to do, a heart-sinking and eye-opening moment. You try to rationalise that, by being excluded, the child will get special attention, home tuition or a place in a Pupil Referral Unit. But you know with the LEA resources stretched to breaking point it would not be anything remotely like an education. That was eight years ago. I don't know what happened to the child. But I can guess. The inevitable trajectory must be to illiteracy, drugs and criminality.

Conversely I was involved in a conversation with the steel pan teacher. Somebody enquired after a couple of former pupils, who, I gathered, came from a dysfunctional background and were out-of-control. By then, in their late teens, the girl was playing in a top London steel band, the boy was a useful boxer on the local amateur circuit. A conversation with my cousin's husband the other day, who for many years gave up his own time to coach the school teams, and now teaches in a school where every child is a member of an orchestra - they actually have year orchestras - in a state school - reinforces the importance of extra-curricular activities.

Yes, Higher Education is desirable and should be defended , but if I ran the country I would invest in quality education for under 7s, and turn the arts and sport from cindrella to core subjects. The economy suffers if we don't have a highly skilled elite, but the economy suffers when so many resources are needed to clean up failure

Over a period of nine months I audited many schools in an Inner London Borough. One secondary school contained teenage boys that were physically intimidating, and eyed me with suspicion and hostility. I'm sure they would have robbed me if there hadn't been two burly security guards permanently stationed at the front gate (I hovered close to them when I took my smoke break). Another secondary school had taken a zero tolerance approach to violent behaviour, and was showing a record-breaking recovery from Special Measures. This ensured that the majority of children got a decent education; the flipside was that it left the irredeemable to pursue a murderous path through their neighbourhood

Does it matter?

Oh god, this return to Political Gert just isn't working. Of course the Hutton Report is desperately important.

Or is it? I just can't bear to read the detailed analysis, let alone the actual report, of an enquiry into a very narrow and arguably esoteric event. Obviously, the death of David Kelly was sad - for those who knew him it was deeply tragic. But, as far as I can gather from the skim reading I have done, the Hutton enquiry looked specifically at a piece of journalism that was at best, ill-judged, at worst, deeply unprofessional. Not the first time that someone has been deeply unprofessional. And still the world continues to turn.

There has been insufficient analysis of why we even went to war in the first place. Just for the record, I happen to think that Tony in his naive idealistic mode really believed that he was on a mission to rid the world of evil - an admirable quality - but no one had the guts to tell him what us cynical plebs knew instinctively - it was way more complicated than that. I understand and applaud Tony's desire to get rid of Saddam Hussein, whose brutality is without question and deserves no apologia, no relativism, no "yes, buts..."

However, I know, and it frustrates me that my Prime Minister doesn't seem to, that no action takes place in a vacuum. Taken in isolation, getting rid of Saddam was obviously, in itself, a jolly good thing. But in the grown-up world, it has consequences, some of them desperately awful. And I was never convinced that there was sufficient consideration of the consequences.

So the headline turns into Crisis cuts through the BBC

Alastair Campbell had to resign as PM's Official Spoke, because, so the clich� said, "When the spin doctor becomes the story, the spin doctor has to go."

But when the BBC becomes the story, can the BBC resign?

I am terrified at the possible consequences of this. I love the BBC, and I strongly believe that I own it. I feel free to criticise it, because overall, I think it is a wonderful thing. I am frightened by the Murdoch-inspired attacks on it (incidentally, although I detest Murdoch, I do believe that he has a moral duty to constructively criticise the Beeb).

People rage against the philosophical anomaly of the licence fee. It is, in effect, a taxation. It would be impossible to set up a broadcasting corporation to be funded on this basis now. I become frustrated by the 'dumbing down' of television, and the fact that the glories that used to belong on BBC2 or even BBC1 are now on BBC4.

More specifically, I do so passionately believe in the supremacy of BBC News. Time and again, it is the news broadcaster that actually provides thoughtful analysis (I can't watch Sky News for longer than the headlines) ; it's the BBC that keeps up an army of reporters in remote places; it's the BBC that brings the stories that dominate more than just the disposable rolling news agenda.

I fear that the days of the BBC in its current form are numbered. And we will never love it as much as we do after its demise.

Revolting studes

I just popped out for lunch. I couldn't quite understand the discreet, but nevertheless, heavy police presence. Until I saw a minibus from UWICSU (University of Wales in Cardiff Student Union), presumably down to protest the top-up fees. A two-ambulance, two-prone-bodies, one motorbike RTA that shut half of Victoria Street didn't help.

People who oppose top-up fees live in a dream world. Universities are under-funded. In a socialist utopia the shortfall would come from general taxation. But the capitalist Press rail against taxation. Anyway, it is patently obvious that an increase in general taxation would be much better spent on pre-school and Early Years education. Perhaps if the young children of woefully inadequate parents can be given a decent education before the age of seven, society will pay a much lower cost of taming the ferile beasts as they approach and pass their teens.

Of course it is worrying to leave University with debt. When I left in 1989, I had to take a commercial loan with a commercial bank, at an annual interest rate of 29%. My monthly payments were about 30% of my net pay. It was incredibly difficult living like that. Hey, I survived. It was a major contribution to me learning about responsibility, negotiating with commercial organisations and growing up.

The middle classes are bleating; stories about the poor suffering are somewhat disingenuous. Perhaps the middle classes want to go back to my era, or to that of my mother's generation, when the only people who went to proper Universities (Manchester for her, Nottingham for me) were an absolute academic elite (okay, an elite who possessed the ability to pass exams and were fortunate enough to have supportive parents).

If 18 year olds are deterred from Higher Education by the prospect of a debt that doesn't need repaying until their earnings reach a decency threshold, perhaps they really aren't sufficiently motivated or mature, or lack the intellectual rigour to benefit from a massive state handout, paid for largely by people who themselves didn't have that opportunity to seize.

Of course, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence of hard cases. But hard cases make bad policy.

Personally, I think that the parents of any sudent under twenty-five should be obliged to pay, up front, an inflation adjusted amount in tuition fees equivalent to what they paid in school fees.

Now shoot me!

Update: Adrian says it so much better...

Dilemma

I'm torn. I don't see any point in striking over pay - it's counter productive: if I strike and lose two days pay, that doesn't magically get redistributed to the colleagues on poverty pay. Besides, as a specialist I have the benefit of a significant pay lead, and being in middle management, I get a fairly decent whack for limited resposibility. I doubt that our majority is particularly convincing and almost certainly on a low turnout. However, I have an in principle problem in crossing picket lines. Besides, I've never been on strike in my life, and may find blogging opportunities from it (or maybe I'll just stay at home and do sod all).

Just not cricket

Desr Sir

I am writing in disgust at the news that the Daily Telegraph 'may back Blair'. Although I am a card carrying Lefty with some damn fine credentials, I do believe that this may signify the end of civilisation as we know it. The very fabric of our society is dependent on the certainty of the Telegraph being Tory, Victoria Beckham making a spectacle of herself, and there being delays on the District Line. I strongly disapprove.

Disgusted, of Brixton.

Is it worrying that I wrote this whilst simultaneously stomping round to the gloriously percussive Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 by Elgar. Oh heck, more memories of my weird childhood - my father thought it would be jolly good to learn the words to this. About the same time that I learnt the words to Adeste Fideles, in Latin. Aged 6. Thank heavens for a weird childhood!

Meanwhile, Johnny Rotten signs up for I'm A Nonentity Get Me Out Of Here. Didn't Tom Lehrer have something to say about satire being dead?

(Oh, and note to Alex Best, being the soon-to-be-ex-wife of the greatest ever footballer does not make you a celebrity. Now, IMO, Johnny Rotten is proper celeb. Am I showing my age there?)

Possibly the first blogpost to manage to combine Victoria Beckham, Jonny Rotten and Tom Lehrer, and the the dodgy wives of two legendary Manchester United footballers...

The state of education

I'm not one of those voices of doom from the Daily Bigot bemoaning the appalling state of education and saying it's all gone downhill since the *good old days*. The Good Old Days weren't really that golden. People of my Grandad's generation sat in classes of 50 and were never expected to achieve anything academically, being destined for a life of labour in the fields. My Grandad, a highly intelligent man, never got the education his grandchildren took for granted. My fiancé didn't read until he was fourteen - it had never crossed anybody's mind to check whether all pupils were reading and, if not, to give them remedial lessons. The fact he then learnt in a couple of weeks, but simply won't read books today, is an illustration of lost opportunity.

Sparked by Karen's blogging of the The Tay Bridge Disaster I donned my rosy specs to look back fondly at my own education. As I posted the comment I thought about the extreme stimulus to our intellect we received at my fairly ordinary state primary. I say fairly ordinary - it was situated in suburban area, where the majority of people were above the poverty line and relatively aspirational, but it was by no means filled with the offspring of high achievers.

But, after I had posted it, I was struck. The only lessons I remember from Primary School were from one particular teacher, whom we were fortunate enough to be taught by in Junior 1 and Junior 3. Our Reception teacher was also very good as a Reception teacher, but I was only in that class for half a year and was academically advanced and socially backward (I hadn't been to playgroup or nursery and my mother has never been a social mixer, so I struggled to bond with my peers). The more I think about it, there were some pretty poor teachers at the school, and most were mediocre. (I'll give an hon mensh to my Infant 2 teacher, whose lessons I don't remember, but whose enthusiasm for music and her ability to teach it inspired countless hundreds).

So, really, I am judging educational standards in comparison to one exceptionally good teacher who taught me for two out of my 6-and-a-half years at Primary school, who inspired a love of reading and of history, who always pushed me and would never let me coast, and who had the imagination to use varied sources to inspire - when Matchstork Men and Matchstork Cats and Dogs was Number One, she used the song as an introduction to a whole afternoon studying a) Lowry and b) the industrial revolution. She was also a stickler for teaching grammar and spelling. Mrs Hodgkinson, of St Hugh's Primary, Timperley, I salute you.

Scary how one teacher can really make the difference between a good education and an indifferent one.

Sign up for Middle England

I'm not following the Hollinger/Telegraph/Conrad Black saga too closely - Tycoons move in on Telegraph empire - but I do know how extremely important the Telegraph is as a newspaper.

I've been in the Labour Party for just short of twenty years; I have been a 'Guardian Reader' for longer. I rarely read the Telegraph. Except when I do. A couple of years ago someone suggested in the New Statesman that the Telegraph should publish a special Lefties' edition.

I think that over the years, and in general, that the standard of journalism in the Telegraph is of such a high standard that it must be preserved. I rarely agree with its editorial, but it reports news, sport and the Arts to a high standard. Peregrine Worsthorne was ont he radio this morning, stating how important it was that the Telegraph wasn't bought by Richard Desmond. Perry's main objection was Desmond's reputation a s a pornographer; personally, I think that a secondary issue compared to the rumours that when he took over the Express he got rid of most of the journalists.

Is this creeping Middle Age? Save the Daily Telegraph! Save the Daily Telegraph!

Down with the 'Queen'

The Grauniad asks: Does Britain have the world's worst national anthem?

Regular readers will know that this is a lietmotif of this blog - here, here and here.

It's a bit pathetic that three quarters of a million people can take to the streets in a benign display of positive nationalism and not actually have a National Anthem. God help us if Swing Low is adopted, though. It sounds just about tolerable when sung by a gospel choir. Chanted tunelessly by a crowd of varying musical ability it really is quite awful.

Royal baby distracts attention

I was just saying to Jimmy last night as we watched the news, the arrival of Edward's baby will divert attention from Blowjobgate. And lo and behold...Royal baby girl doing 'fine'

If you hear reports tomorrow about a 35-year-old Civil Servant arrested at St George's, just remember, I was doing it for the Blog...